Urban (and suburban) Water Parks

Hey, we can’t all live in Seattle, where Puget Sound is ten minutes off the freeway, islands are quick ferry trip away, mountain rivers are accessible after an easy hike, and camping at the seashore is an easy weekend activity. Sorry Midwesterners (oh, and we don’t have mosquitoes either. Not to rub it in). Anyways, if you don’t live on the coast or are too lazy to leave the city you’ve still got some water-based options. Since swimming pools are passé, most cities are creating splash parks, kiddie pools and fountains. Grab your plastic watering toy and head out.

Splash Parks

Avoid if:

• You have small toddlers who don’t like to be splashed or knocked over: Splash parks are a bit rambunctious. My little ones and I tend to find the smallest spout and hang out there, but even that can get over-run pretty quickly.

• You prefer to do your splashing in the morning or evening: Most parks keep afternoon hours, and some have an off period during the middle of the day.
• You have one kid who loves water and another who loves swings: Most splash parks are part of a larger playground. This is part of the appeal for my kiddos – we start at the swings, dig in the sandbox, and then cool off at the splash pad. However one of my kids isn’t old enough to voice her opinion yet so things may be more complicated next summer.

Go if:

• You’ve just bought your kid an arsenal of water guns.
• You are in charge of your children and all of the friends. They’ll be somewhat contained at a splash park and you won’t have to worry about anyone drowning.

Check out:

• Willis Tucker Park: Technically in Snohomish, but it’s north of the valley behind Silver Firs. There is also a sandbox, covered picnic tables, a playground with a rope jungle gym, trails, off leash dog park, playfields, a community center and a farmer’s market on Friday evenings in the summer.
• North Acres: This is a good one for keeping watch over a bunch of kids because the splash park is in a little bowl and parents perch on the grassy hills above, stadium style. This park also has trails and two playgrounds – one for toddlers and one for older kids.

Small fountains

Avoid if:

• You have older children, as these are pretty lame according to the kindergarten and above set.
• You actually want to play in the water as well.

Go if:

• You are headed somewhere else and you don’t want the kids to get totally soaked.

Check out:

• Ballard Commons Park. Lots of cute shops nearby for dinner and ice cream

Wading Pools

Avoid if:

• You have a little one still crawling. The bottom is usually concrete. Plus my little one would have happily crawled in over her head if we let her.

Go if:

• You want to get in the water and cool off too, but you don’t want to wear a bathing suit.
• You like water! I’ve seen toddlers, young kids, and pre-teens all have fun at these little wading pools.

Check out:

• Wallingford Playfield: The pool has a shallow (think 2 inches) and “deep” (less than a foot) end. Playfields and a playground are part of the park.
• Green Lake Wading Pool: By far my favorite place! Tons of grassy areas next to the pool are shady, so it’s great for a picnic on a hot day. It’s also great if you have a tiny baby who can snooze in the shade while the other one plays in the sun.

 

Reasons Why Ragnar is better than a Regular Race

1. You get to run a 200+ mile race without having to run all 200 miles. You and eleven other people assign yourselves three legs and each runner covers around 9-20 miles. The race consists of 36 exchange points where you pass your 80’s style slap-bracelet onto the next runner.

2. You’ll have eleven new best friends. I signed up for my first Ragnar after begging my parent’s neighbor to find a spot for me on her team. She came through and pretty soon I was part of a facebook group of strangers, planning out who was bringing diaper wipes and bananas for our Blaine to Langley trek. On Friday morning I met that group of strangers and we headed north. We were all friends by Bellingham.

3. Running at different times a day. You get to run at…

…sunset…

…sunrise…

…middle of the night…

…and the blazing heat of mid-day.

4. Your team is responsible for you, and you them. There are (practically) no water stations so each van is responsible for keeping their runner hydrated and happy. This meant stopping every few miles and waiting for your runner so you can offer…

…laughs…

…hugs…

…water…

…and photography skills to take that picture at the top of the gnarly hill you just conquered.

5. You need a diverse skill set. It’s not enough to just be a good runner. A successful Ragnar team must have the skills to…

• Decorate the vans.

• Maneuver be-dazzled vans through crowded exchanges.

• Be able to fix car glitches while on the run. When our driver was running we somehow turned all the dome lights on. Despite scouring the owner’s manual we couldn’t get them off. When we met up with him in the middle of his run he barely broke his stride as he reached through the window and turned off the lights, yelling “This is the opposite of support!” as he continued on.
• Read maps (and owner’s manuals) and give directions. U-turns are your friends.
• Analyze and update data. You are constantly calculating pace and mileage to figure out where your van needs to be when.

•  Be a social media pro. Our data plans all felt a little shutter over the weekend. #RagnarPNW

6. You do get to sleep!

7. Side games: These include keeping track of kills (runners you pass) and tagging other cars with magnets featuring your team logo.

8. Running bonding moments

9. After you finish as a team, all your medals fit together. Awww…

 

Hill’s Resort at Priest Lake, ID

It’s gorgeous here.

The view from cabin 108

But the view comes at a cost. For $3,370 you can stare at this view ALLLL week long. My family (aka my parents) forked over the payment and met us at the lake as our Christmas present. It’s the same resort they took my brother and I as kids. As soon as I started having babies I was anxious to take them there as well.

And the weather was perfect, the lake was crystal clear, and we had a great time. But when it was time to re-book for next year I just shook my head at mom. The price is just too astronomical. It is the exact same price that my husband and I paid for out all-inclusive condo (food, drinks AND wedding included) in St. Lucia. For $3,370 I expect things to be perfect. There were a few imperfections:

The beach: We had our own little beach in front of our cabin, complete with a fire pit for roasting s’mores. It was about twenty steps away from our cabin, which was great. However, the staff doesn’t rake the beach regularly so our sand castles were full of little twigs and bottle caps. It wasn’t rare it find a broken piece of glass in the sand. But the main problem with the beach was the infestation of yellow jackets.

The bees. They were EVERYWHERE. After one stung our baby, my husband armed himself with a flip flop and went on a seek-and-destroy mission. He killed about twenty of them, barely making a dent. Hill’s Resort has bee traps every two feet surrounding their lodge and patio, but none on the beaches. They should put some out while raking the sand.

The cabins: On one hand, it was kinda sweet that the cabins were the same ones my family stayed in thirty years ago (GOD, I’M OLD), but maybe replacing the carpets wouldn’t be a terrible thing. Or fixing the drain in the shower, siding on the bathroom walls, replacing window screens…

This place is NOT all-inclusive. It’s simply a cabin rental. Huckleberry daiquiris are not free with the wave of a drink flag. You are lugging all your own food up, and doing all your own cooking and cleaning. There is no maid service. Naturally, I got around this as my parents did most of the cooking and cleaning and my brother mixed the drinks. But still. No maid service?

So will we be going to Priest Lake next year? Absolutely. But instead of paying $3,370 to fix our own burgers and sleep in sandy sheets, we’ll be staying next door at Luby Bay Campground.

 

Running on Family Vacations

I managed to sneak a few runs in last week while my husband, kids and I were visiting our extended family in Oklahoma. Because FAMILY > RUNNING, I was unwilling to sacrifice any family plans in favor of a run, but I still found a bit of time here and there. This was NOT the case last April when we had our wedding/honeymoon/family vacation in St. Lucia.

There are some definite drawbacks to running while on vacation with your family. Here are some perfect excuses to throw your training plan out the car window and take a nap in a hammock instead. In case you are feeling responsible, skip down toward the end.

Suitcase space is at a premium.

Only room for one set of stuff

Nothing forces you to pack light like the knowledge that you’ll be toting children and their car seats through the airport along with your luggage. Southwest might allow two checked bags, but my arms strength doesn’t. When I was packing my one suitcase for St. Lucia, I decided that wedding favors, blue high heels and sequined white dress took precedence over bulky running shoes. So I made the executive decision that I would not be running, which was fine because of my next point:

It’s supposed to be a VACATION

A vacation from work, doing dishes, texting, and yes – running. Since St. Lucia was a very expensive vacation, I made up the rule that if you spend more than $300 a night on a hotel room you should not leave it unless you are doing something really, really fun like eating, drinking, making sandcastles, or saying “I do.” Soaking up every relaxing minute that I could wasn’t being lazy: it was being fiscally responsible.

You won’t have a jogging stroller.

I typically try to assuage my I-should-be-parenting-instead-of-running guilt by throwing the kids in the jogging stroller and taking them along for the ride. This isn’t an option on vacation because if you can’t fit shoes in your luggage allotment, you surely can’t fit a jogging stroller. And pushing a double jogger through a busy airport does not seem like a good solution to this problem.

However…

There will be family members around who are dying to babysit your kids.

Take advantage.

A shake-up of routine can be a good thing.

I never run in the mornings at home, but while we were visiting family, the best time of day was to get the run in during the morning before we headed out for the day’s activities. It turns out I love running the in morning! It was a quiet and cooler time of day, and I didn’t have to spend the rest of my day wondering when/if I could sneak a run in. Plus that satisfaction of completing a good workout stayed with me throughout the whole day. Maybe I’ll start running in the morning once I get back home too. Plus, running in a new location brings new challenges – whether it’s battling the heat in Oklahoma, the hills in Seattle, or the height in Denver.

 

Lake Sammamish Half and the Beginning of a Pipe Dream

“Maybe I can qualify for Boston.”

These six words ran though my head for the first time (okay, the first time I actually believed them) three miles into the Lake Sammamish Half Marathon last March. Guys, I ran FAST. Those first three miles were at 8:15 pace and I didn’t let up much. To qualify for Boston I’d have to run a marathon at 8:12 pace.

After the finish, I took the bus from Issaquah back to Redmond where the race had started. It was naturally filled with people who’d finished around the time I had, and I couldn’t help but notice these people were mostly men. Fast looking ones. My seat-mate amiably asked me if I had any races coming up. He was clearly hoping I’d ask the same question in return because when I did he tried to tuck away a proud smile as he mentioned that he was heading to Boston in April.

Maybe some April I’d be heading to Boston too.

Because here’s the thing: I hadn’t really been training for a fast race. I’d signed up for the half a few months before as a way to force my post-partum self into shape before my beach wedding. I’d vaguely hoped for a sub-two hour half. My training times were a bit on the slow side (which in retrospect were due to the 20-40 pounds of babies that I was schlepping in front of me), so I was mentally unprepared for how physically prepared I was for the race. I ran the first few miles figuring my GPS was off. The next few miles I connected the dots and started thinking about Boston, and the last few miles I just tried to hang on.

So clearly I need to qualify for Boston NOW, while my kiddos are still young enough to cram into a jogging stroller.

Luckily, Runner’s World magazine read my mind. Their July 2015 issue featured a training plan that Alicia Shay (a Run SMART coach) concocted for Meghan G. Loftus’s (the author) Boston qualifier. As with all training plans, I can’t quite keep up. I’m on week three and have missed a workout every week. And I’m headed out of town with my family and without my jogging stroller tomorrow, so things probably won’t improve on the whole schedule-following-front.

But maybe I’ll still qualify for Boston. Or maybe not.

I need to stack up my excuses now so that in September when I run a non-qualifying 3:40 I can look back and point to the reasons why, because maybe I won’t qualify this September. Babies and family and school and writing might throw too many workouts off track, and that’s just fine because I love all those things even more than running. But some day, I’ll qualify for Boston.

 

The Past Two Years, the Best Two Years

It’s been two years since my last blog post. On a totally related note, I met my husband two years ago. As much as I loved blogging, I loved our baseball games, trivia nights, and pancake weekends even more. After those first few falling-in-love months, I figured that I’d return to writing soon. After all, love and blogging go well together. But other things quickly took precedence over blogging, like… 

…this (yes, again!)

and this,

and buying this,

New House

…to make room for these two,

and celebrating everything with a wedding in St. Lucia.

So these two years have been the BEST two years, but they have not been blogged about. I miss how blogging encouraged me to seek out little adventures and take more pictures. I miss having an in-the-moment record of life. I miss writing for me. So I’m back to blogging. I’ll still be running through this world, just now with a double jogging stroller.

 

Steamboat Springs and Beyond: Road Tripping with a Baby

Typically if you have a 2,000 mile road trip ahead of you, I would recommend making it further than 150 mile on day one. Unless you have a baby with you and there happens to be a cute town 150 miles away and you were still packing up your house until three o’clock even though you’d planned on being done by 9am at the latest.

However short that first day was, it set a good precedent for the rest of our Denver-San Francisco-Seattle trip. This wasn’t my first road trip with the baby, so I headed off already armed with my own traveling-solo-with-a-baby tips:

Don’t book ahead: Normally, it’s good to plan stops ahead of time. This allows you to book the best hotels online, search for fun restaurants and activities, and ensure that don’t inadvertently leave twenty hours of driving for the last day. But if you are traveling with an infant, you need some flexibility. Go ahead and make tentative plans (five hours of driving a day worked best for us) but definitely don’t book anything ahead of time. Suppose that the baby falls asleep right before you reach your planned destination for the night – you’re not going to want to waste that precious quiet time by waking up the kid to check into a hotel. Keep your foot on the accelerator and make it to the next town before nap time is over. On the flip side, be prepared to cut the driving short if that scream from the backseat isn’t going to end anytime soon.

When traveling from Denver to San Jose, I hit my intended destination about the half the time, stopping in Steamboat Springs as planned, just outside of Heber City (instead of Salt Lake City), Battle Mountain (past the intended Elko, Nevada), Reno, and then San Jose. After a week-long stop in the Bay Area, I managed to make it to Seattle in two days instead of the planned three to four, stopping for the night in Weed, CA.

Motels, not hotels: Even if you have a limitless budget (as most single parents do, you know), it is still a way better idea to stay in motels rather that hotels. If you stay at a hotel, than getting to your parked car involves traipsing down a hallway, past an office, and maybe even (heaven forbid) up or down an elevator. The genius motel design involves parking your car RIGHT OUTSIDE the door to your room. Even if you try to pack everything you and the baby will need in one bag (see tip below), you will fail at this task and be very happy that the car is right outside. I once had to wake up Aubrey so I could go get my contact solution from my car. Terrible.

In Steamboat Springs I stayed at the lovely Rabbit Ears Motel. It was much nicer than may hotels that I’ve frequented – pricier too, this being Steamboat Springs. Rabbit Ears is perfectly located, right on the edge of downtown, across from Old Town Hot Springs (the motel has discounted tickets, if you plan on going) and next to the river.

One hotel bag: It’s impossible to pack everything you’ll need for the night in one bag. Good luck.
Swimming and Fitness clubs: Stopping at every 24hour Fitness club on route was my best road-tripping discovery. I was worried about staying in shape while traveling because my jogging stroller didn’t fit in my car and even if it had I didn’t really want to take Aubrey out of her car-seat only to strap her into a stroller. So I mapped out all the 24hour fitness clubs and stopped at all of them. Since I pay for the all-month childcare (which is good nationwide), I could pull into a club and workout for two hours while Aubrey crawled around and checked out all the new toys. This was not only my key to staying in shape, but it was a perfect car break for the baby. She’d be ready for her second nap after all that playtime. Just be sure to double check the kid’s club/daycare hours. I stopped at the Salt Lake City club only to discover the daycare was closed Sundays.

Small towns are not known for having nationwide fitness clubs, but often they still have a YMCA or rec center with babysitting available. At Steamboat Springs I spent two hours swimming at the Old Town Hot Springs. I kept Aubrey with me (she loves swimming!), but there is a daycare option there during the daytime.

Picnics, not restaurants: Again, crawling time is important. When you stop to eat at a restaurant your kid is subjected to being strapped into yet another seat. Pack a lunch and bring a big blanket. Most little towns have parks that are a lot nicer than rest areas.

 

Think twice before camping: I had thrown my tent and sleeping bag in the trunk of my car more out of habit with any real plans to use them, but in the Wasatch foothills, I thought I had the perfect time to use them. We were twenty miles outside Heber City and there was no hope of reaching town with my eardrums still intact. Aubrey was DONE. I saw a camping sign with an arrow pointing to Strawberry Reservoir and made a quick left turn.

At first I thought that I had made a good decision. There were tons of families camping nearby. There was a general store selling ice cream and snacks that would work for my dinner. Aubrey loved crawling around in the tent, and nighttime temperatures for the nearby Salt Lake City were in the 60’s. However, temperatures dipped much lower in the mountains. At ten I changed Aubrey into her warmest pajamas, and at eleven I just decided to hold her for the night. Since infants aren’t supposed to sleep with blankets, camping even in slightly cold weather is tough. Also I was kind of cold but I didn’t want to go get an extra blanket in the car for fear of waking up Aubrey. To make matters worse, I felt bad when she woke up in the middle of the night crying because I’m sure all the other campers heard us. That’ll be my last camping experience for the year.

Have AAA roadside assistance: I would never survive without AAA. They’ve given me new batteries, unlocked my car (AAA guy: “What store are you in front of?” Me: “Um…the liquor store.”), and they have come especially in handy the numerous times I’ve needed a new tire. Miraculously, I haven’t needed a new tire in six months (a record!) and the last time one went out I was with two friends, one of whom (Fix-It-Tom) could actually change a tire! However, I usually travel alone, so until the baby learns how to change a tire I’ll keep my AAA membership.

 

Golden – Boulder Hikes

Does this guy look like a hiker or WHAT?

That’s my brother. He should be the one living in Denver. My hikes so far have been limited to mile-long nature walks that could be done whilst several month pregnant: see Table Mountain and Mt. Falcon. I suspect this is why my brother waited until I was sufficiently back in shape before he came to visit.

So within three hours of his landing at DIA, we were making our way up Lookout Mountain in Golden (tip for those prone to altitude sickness: Going from Seattle to Denver to Golden to Lookout Mountain shouldn’t be attempted all in the same afternoon).
Taking the Chimney Gulch Trail up Lookout Mountain is one of those perfect quick hikes: Tons of great city views on one side and mountain/valley views on the other. A good three mile hike, but easy enough to run or bike up it if you are super in shape. People hang-glide off of it, there’s a big “M” on the side of it that lights up at night (M for the Colorado School of Mines), and I could see it from my driveway when I lived in Golden.

To get to Lookout Mountain take Highway 58 from Denver to Golden and turn left onto 6th Ave. Then you’ve got some options. You can drive less than a mile and park right off 6th Ave in this makeshift parking lot…

…or you could keep driving for another minute and then turn right onto 19th street, which winds through a neighborhood and then becomes Lookout Mountain Rd (follow the signs) and park at the trailhead alongside the road, or you could just drive all the way to the top. It’s a switchback-y road that’s not very much fun to drive (unless you like that kind of thing), but it gets you to the top quicker.

The next day we headed out to Eldorado Canyon State Park ($8 daily vehicle pass), which is just off Highway 93 between Golden and Boulder. My brother looked longingly at the rock climbers doting the canyon walls as I heaved the baby backpack on my shoulders and we started exploring.

There are numerous trail options at the State Park from the rim trail (which is stroller friendly) to technical boulder scrambles that lead to sheer rock faces. The hiking and scenery were great, but the best part of this park was definitely marveling at the rock climbers. I vividly remember my difficulties scaling the one and only (very, very small) cliff that I’ve ever faced, so I could only shake my head in amazement at the guys and gals dangling above me. How cool is must be to conquer something as imposing as a canyon wall.

We were there Memorial Day weekend, so the trails were packed, as was the area near the visitor center where huge groups of families and friends were picnicking and barbequing alongside the South Boulder Creek (which looked like a full-blown river after all the snow we had last spring).

The next day we re-traced our route and this time made it all the way to Boulder. We parked the car at Chautaugua Park and set out towards the Flatirons. We walked along Bluebell road which was very boring at first. It starts out as a flat gravel trail between a grassy valley and a housing development. But once it hooked in with the Flatirons loop (briefly) and then the Royal Arch trail things got a lot more mountain-y. About half a mile away from the arch viewpoint there is a natural stopping place to sit on some rocks and eat lunch. I stopped here, opting not to go all the way to the arch because the trail got a little steep and I wasn’t comfortable doing it with a baby on my back.

The Royal Arch trail was cool, but my least favorite of the three hikes. It was just your basic hike. Nice, but nothing to blog about. The trail was super crowded and everyone kept giving my brother dirty looks because I the baby on my back and everyone assumed he was Aubrey’s dad, shirking his fatherly-hiking duties. I had to keep explaining that he was only my brother, shirking his uncle-hiking duties, which is a less grievous offense.
Oh, and there was a snake. It was big.

 

 

Why being a mom has made me a better runner

Yesterday, being Mother’s Day, was a day in which moms point out all the things that they do for which they receive no recognition or monetary compensation. So in the spirit of being fair, today I want to give a little shout out to my seven-month old, who also does a lot of work around here. One of her daily tasks is to turn me into a better runner. Her methods are quite sneaky, yet she prevails. Being a mother HAS made me a better runner. Here’s how:

 

Faster:

Last week I needed to get in a five mile run. I had slacked off the previous two days and it was critical that I complete the five miles THAT DAY. However I got stuck at work later than anticipated and by the time I started the run I realized that I would need to pick my daughter up from the nanny’s in 45 minutes. Cutting the run short (again) was not an option, and neither was picking up the baby late. So I had no choice but to pick up the pace. If I was childless I would have jogged at an easy 11 minute pace, what my high school coach used to call “junk miles.” But instead I ran the five miles at a (slightly) more respectable 9 minute mile pace.

Thanks kid!

Likewise, if I have Aubrey with me in her jogging stroller and she starts fussing a mile away from home, that last mile is going to be a very speedy one because I want to get home before the whining turns into a full on scream.

If you do NOT have a baby, here are some other suggestions to help you run faster:

• Tear a hole in your running pants in your crotch area. This hole will get increasingly larger as you run and you’ll want to get home as quickly as possible to minimize time spent in public.  I discovered this trick at the oh-so-crowded New Orleans Half Marathon.
• Zombie fitness app: I heard this NPR story about “Zombies, RUN!”  It’s a downloadable fitness app wherein you are tasked with accomplishing different necessary jobs in a post-apocalyptic world before the zombies get you.

Stronger:

Being a single mom you have less time to do things. It becomes necessary so combine chores. So last week on my run downtown I had to stop at Tattered Cover to pick up a couple magazines, Office Depot to get a box of golf pencils, and a grocery store to collect a thing of baby formula. With each stop my load got increasingly heavier. These purchases served as running weights for my last two miles. I DO realize that those specific items really don’t weigh that much, so on my next run I’ll need to pick up a gallon of milk and a box of diapers to increase my running-with-weights time. This reminds me of a cross country task wherein we were placed in teams to run to Safeway and buy a watermelon. The winning team was deduced based on some complicated calculations that rewarded you for completing the run quickly and having the heaviest watermelon.

Also: The baby isn’t that heavy yet, but her car seat, stroller, and other paraphernalia are. Lugging her stuff around on a daily basis is good for the biceps and triceps.

Cross-Training:

• Hiking: Now done with a 20 lb. backpack.

Aubrey’s first hike at Red Rocks

• Squats: If Aubrey is fussy, nothing will calm her down faster than when I pick her up and do a quick set of squats. She’s even been known to start crying again when the squats are completed, thus encouraging me to do another set. She particularly likes the move wherein you squat, hold for a few seconds, and then get back up. Perhaps she has a career as a future Body Pump instructor.
• Sit-ups. Nothing is more hilarious to Aubrey than witnessing me do a set of sit-ups. After each sit up she laughs and expectantly waits for me to do another one. It’s like the abs version of peek-a-boo.
• Gym class productivity: I have to admit I used to cheat a little bit at Group Exercise classes at my neighborhood 24hour fitness. I would “stretch” during the planks and roll my eyes apathetically as the instructor chirped that we should triple our warm up weight for the next exercise. I am now proud to say that I cheat no longer. Because an hour long class represents an hour away from Aubrey, I need to make it worth my while. No more skipping reps or skimping on the weight.

Healthy Eating:

Since I’m chopping, steaming, pureeing organic vegetables for Aubrey, I figure that I might as well eat some too. Turns out I like squash. Who knew?!? Not only am I eating more vegetables as side dishes, but I am also throwing her veggie purees in my pasta sauces making them healthier.

Also, I have less time to make cookies.

 

So there you have it, having a baby will totally make you a faster, stronger, healthier runner. I’m fairly confident that Runner’s World Magazine will immediately contact me to write a feature article on this very scientific and well researched training method.

 Happy running people!

 

Hundreds of Races Were Run This Weekend.

Hundreds of races were run this weekend.

When something bad happens, I hope that each of you have ways to make yourself feel better. I heard a radio station playing a Mr. Rogers clip, in which he posthumously advises people to “look for the helpers.” And of course the helpers were numerous on April 15^th. My own advice is to think of all the times when things went right.

After Newtown, I thought about all those good days I’ve had in the classroom. I remember Lupe taking a deep breath and saying “okay, I’m ready to write.” I remember Davontae’s grin when he got his first “A” of the year. I remember Marisa finding a coach roach inside her map of Italy (it was funny, I swear!), and I think about how proud I feel when my students flawlessly execute speeches about African colonialism and the benefits of insourcing.

So all last week, instead of grading papers, I read about upcoming races.  I had a lot of reading material. Every Saturday and Sunday there are races in almost every corner of every state in America. Some were tiny affairs, where the mile signs blew down and even I would have had a chance of winning because there were only ten participants. Some were huge events with Kenyans and extra police and live global coverage.

I’m guess that the runners themselves were an even more diverse set. I’m willing to bet that hundreds of people completed their first 5K this weekend, something they never thought they would do last year when they were 100 pounds heavier, or smoking a pack a day, or recovering from heart surgery. I just KNOW that somewhere, there was a cocky guy in tight shorts, loudly proclaiming that this marathon was just an “easy training day,” since he’s preparing for a 500 mile race in Antarctica or something. Runners ran this weekend to raise money for cancer or lupus or their local elementary school. Runners ran this weekend to stay in shape, to have fun, to train for something bigger, to try for a new PR, or because a friend or spouse roped them into it. Runners ran this weekend to remember Boston. Runners ran this weekend because that’s just what we do.

There were some pretty successful races this weekend.

Yesterday in Tumwater, Washington, participants ran one mile BACKWARDS (9:15 was the winning time) and were treated with a cupcake feast after the “race.”

The oh-so-popular Color Run was held in Baton Rouge on Saturday. Participants are instructed to wear white and they get a “color pack” to throw at the finish. Everyone looks like a two year old that’s just found out about finger painting by the time this “happiest 5K on the planet” is over with.

Salt Lake City Marathoners began their 26.2 miles yesterday by singing Sweet Caroline. At the finish line a group of runners who’d run BOTH the Boston and SLC Marathon posed for a finishers photo in front of a “Remembering Boston” banner that had been signed by thousands.

The “Run 5K 4 CK” race was held in Tallahassee, FL yesterday. “CK” is Camp Kesem, and money was raised so kids that have a parent with cancer can go to summer camp. Runners were doused with water along the route, as race directors supplied water balloons and squirt guns to runners and fans.

Just five days after the Boston Marathon and just 20 miles north of the city, nearly 250 people ran the Colleen Kelly 5K, raising money to fund a Melrose High School scholarship in her name.

Earlier today, 35,000 London Marathoners paused for 30 reflective seconds before fearlessly running their 26.2 miles. The finish line was a happy and safe place. The London Marathon is donating £2 per finisher to a fund set up for victims of the Boston Marathon explosions.

And as I write, my friend Taryn is running up and down valleys and mountains in Eastern Washington, working on the Yakima Skyline Rim 25K today as part of her preparation for the Wasatch 100. Hopefully it’s going well for her!

Happy running everyone. May there be many, MANY more successful Boston Marathons and other races in our futures.