Last Weekend's Races

Quick recap of last weekend. I ran the Reindeer Run 5k on Friday night in downtown BR. Set a PR of 21:25. Knocked almost 3 minutes off my time from this same race last year. Then Saturday morning, Melissa ran the BR Beach Half Marathon. Her goal was 2:45, and she came in at a blistering 2:27. The sad part was that the kids and I missed it since Emilie had testing for her new school that she will be attending in the fall. Melissa was very sad, but understanding. Sorry we missed it honey!

Tomorrow morning, I am doing a mountain bike race here in Baton Rouge. I gues we should actually just call it an off-road bike race since we all know that there are no mountains anywhere near here. We'll see how it goes, might be kind off slippery and mucky from all the snow and rain.

Let it Snow!

In a rare event for south Louisiana, we had almost 4" of snow at our house on Thursday. It had been 20 years since we had this much snow in Baton Rouge. It was the first time that either of the kids have seen real snow fall from the sky. They saw some fake stuff the other night in Downtown Baton Rouge at the light festival, but that doesn't count. They loved it.

I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to get on the trainer for an hour of biking indoors, woo hoo...When I got up, we had snow flurries, but no accumulation. I woke up Melissa and we decided to wake up just Emilie so she could see it just in case flurries was all we got. I took her outside and she tried to catch some flakes in her mouth and got all excited.

Emmi and I in the flurries

They went back to bed and then I went in the garage and got on the trainer. 45 minutes was all I could take on the trainer, so at 6:30 I headed inside. When I walked in and looked at the backyard, all I could see was white. It was really snowing!! I got Melissa up, we got both the kids up and went outside to play.

The kids and I getting ready for the fun

Emmi's Snow Angel

Our snowman with M&M smile!

Melissa and the kids in the backyard

We made snow angels, snow castles with our sand castle toys, a snowman with an M&M smile and took pictures. After about an hour of that in the front yard, it was time to heat up and eat some breakfast. We cooked pancakes with M&M's cooked in, and made some hot chocolate. The kids loved there marshmallows in their hot chocolate.

We then went in the backyard for some fun. It was 4" of untouched powder. It was great. We rolled in it, hit each other with countless snowballs, made more snow angels and had an all around good time. After I finally went to work at lunch, the kids played for another hour or so in the afternoon. Most of the snow was gone by nightfall, but our snowman held on until this afternoon. He was still half there when I got home today, but some teenagers took care of the rest of him. Hopefully, it won't be another 20 years. I love the snow. Wish I would have had some skis. I could have skied down the 6' hill in our backyard...

Racing Weekend

The wife and I both have races on tap for the weekend. Of course, mine is just a 5k, which is the Reindeer Run. It is Friday night in downtown Baton Rouge. Then Melissa is racing the BR Beach Half Marathon on Saturday morning. It is a single loop course around LSU, the LSU Lakes and some neighborhoods near the lakes. She is going to be running it with two of her friends. She is hoping to go around 2:45, so we'll see.

It will be her first half marathon, actually it will be the first half marathon in the family. I did one as part of the Half Ironman, but that doesn't count apparently. This will be the first straight up half marathon that either of us have ran. I'll be there to cheer her on. Hopefully I can get under 22:00 on Friday night. Not looking good, but we'll see how that goes...

Went down to New Orleans on Sunday with a couple of BRTri guys to ride the bike course that will be used for the New Orleans Half Ironman. The way out was nice, since we had a 12 mph tailwind. Averaged 21.5 mph for the first 25, then we turned around. The now 12 mph headwind sucked. Averaged 15.5 mph on the way back in, for a 18.5 mph overall average. The course is fairly nice. A couple of overpasses right at the start, which results in overpasses right at the end. The roads are surprisingly in great shape for New Orleans. There is a short stretch, 3-5 miles through a rougher neighborhood, but once you get on Chef Mentuer Highway it is nice. Nothing but marsh and open land from miles 12-28. We only went to mile 25, but the last 3 are just as open.

Not to bash on all roadies, but would it kill you guys to be a little friendly to the Tri crowd. Passed 5 or 6 packs of Giro ride roadies. Gave them all waves or the two finger "what's up" salute and got nothing in return. Pass the one tri group that was riding, and at least half of them waved back. Not that my life is over now, but why do roadies have to be so elitist. Just because we have aero bars on our bikes doesn't make us inferior.