Buffalo Run 2013 - Race Recap

 Understatement of the year!! Note the dude being pinned up against the chain-link fence!

On Saturday, Jeremy and I headed out to Antelope Island for the Buffalo Run 25k (me) and 50k (Jeremy). This is a race we've both run before and really enjoy.  I know I can't lead with a picture like the one above and not launch directly into an explanation, so here goes.  Yes, that really happened, and yes, the guy is alright.  The photo was taken on Friday, just before the start of the 100-mile race.  The start line for these races is about 100 yards away from this point.  You start by running up the dirt road and then flip a U-turn through the hole in the fence just past the buffalo.  As the story goes, it was a few minutes before the start of the 100-mile race and these guys noticed that a buffalo (the primary inhabitants of Antelope Island) was roaming in the general path that the 100-milers were about to take.  Now, this wouldn't be the first time racers on the island have encountered buffalo, in fact, it's pretty common.  Nonetheless, the dude on the left apparently decided to try to convince the buffalo to move.  Needless to say, the buffalo was none-too-pleased, charged the guy, pinned him up against the fence, snorted a couple times, then dropped him and walked away.  I interpret this as the buffalo saying "I'm a giant-ass buffalo, I'll do what I want... don't piss me off".  Sort of a warning shot.  The good news is that the guy was OK, although I'm sure he soiled his pants and was probably CRAZY sore the next day.

Our races were far less eventful than this!  First and foremost, we got super lucky on the weather.  The forecast for Saturday called for snow and cold temps, but it turned out to be a lovely (although brisk) sunny day.  It was 27 and windy when we got to the island, but it warmed up nicely as the sun came up over the mountains.

The 50k pack lining up!

(Jeremy is in there somewhere)

I will admit, I was pretty nervous about this one.  I had taken my now far-too-typical approach of not running enough in preparation for the race (I swear I'm going to break that streak for the next one).  Poor preparation, coupled with the fact that Jeremy had taken me out on a ridiculous training run the weekend prior - trashing my quads - and that I spent Thursday and Friday helping move our lab to a new building on campus, and I was going into the race more fatigued that I would have liked.  I don't know if it was my low expectations or what, but I had a really great race!  I went out conservatively and power-hiked the long hill at the start (it usually takes me a couple miles to really warm up anyhow, plus I hate hills).  Aside from the major hills on the course, I'm happy to say that I ran almost everything else.  On what I believe is the worst hill of the course, a relatively short, but stupid steep climb up to the first aid station, I was joined by a super cool gentleman.  He was probably in his 70s and this was his first ever trail race.  He was having a blast, even on that torturous hill, and was incredibly inspiring to chat with.  I wish I had noted his race number, because I would love to look him up and see when he finished - I'm certain he finished.

Photo credit: Jeremy Gleason

View to the NE from the top of the crazy climb to the Elephant Head aid station

I particularly enjoyed the ~2 mile downhill around mile 6.  I had forgotten how good it feels to fly down single-track.  I swear I must have passed 30 people on this section... I guess most folks just aren't comfortable letting loose on the downhill.  To me, that was the best part of the race!

 Self-portrait with a distant herd of buffalo,

near the bottom of the super-fun downhill

I had to pop in my tunes around mile 11 (I rarely run with music), but it was exactly what I needed to get in the groove and get to the finish.  I ended up taking 5 minutes or so off my time from last year.  To me, that's a win!  Plus, I won one of fabulous door prizes at the finish line - new sunglasses from Smith Optics - SCORE!

Modeling my new shades the day after the race

Best of all, I recovered like I champ.  I wasn't nearly as sore as I expected.  In fact, I felt so good yesterday that I wanted to go run (although I forced myself to take a 2nd day of rest).  All in all, it was a great race.  Here's hoping the next one is even better :)

It tastes better when you earn it!!!

Brain Cake and Burning Quads

It's been a busy week here in Salt Lake City!  Last Thursday, my labmate (and good friend) Melissa defended her Ph.D. thesis.  She is now officially part of the Ph.D. club!! Here she is emerging from her defense meeting...

 

It's a little blurry, but I love it!

Our fabulous mentor, Kristen, threw a party in Melissa's honor on Friday evening.  In discussing the party preparations, I somehow managed to get myself nominated to make a brain cake for the occasion. Given my limited artistic abilities, I immediately "volunteered" Jeremy to assist me in this task. Being the fabulous husband that he is, Jeremy rearranged his work schedule so that he could be home Friday afternoon to tackle the brain cake with me.  We decided to go with a red velvet cake and homemade cream cheese frosting.  I documented the cake building process so I could shamelessly brag about his talents on my blog. 

Step 1: Flatten the bottom cake to allow the top cake to sit somewhat level

 Step 2: Carve a brain shape

 Step 3: Add a layer of crumb-coat frosting

Aside from baking the cakes, I was relatively useless until this point.  Right about here, Jeremy turned to me for "scientific consulting" regarding the placement of the "squiggles" (aka. gyri/sulci).  I must say, while not 100% anatomically accurate, the finished product was quite impressive! 

 

 Tada!!

We realized that the brain cake wasn't going to be large enough to feed a giant crowd, so we also threw together a sheet cake to feed the masses.  Jeremy's artistic abilities were put to the test when I asked him to try and draw a neuron and a rat in icing, but he prevailed!

Almost too cool to eat.

The party was lovely, and I think Melissa enjoyed finally getting to relax after months of stress leading up to her defense. A great time was had by all!

 

Kristen roasting/toasting Melissa.

 Melissa, showing off her Super Woman gift bag :)

The lab!!  

I love this photo because not a single one of us is looking at the

 camera or doing what we're supposed to.  Classic Keefe Lab!

The weather was lovely last week and on Saturday I let Jeremy convince me to go on a crazy trail run with him.  I haven't been doing nearly enough training for the 25k that I'm signed up for this weekend, so I thought it would be good for my psyche to get out and do 9-10 miles last weekend. What I didn't consider is that my husband is insane, and runs hills that most people wouldn't want to hike.  We took off from our house, and headed up to the towers in the foothills behind Ensign Peak. We went all the way to the upper towers (a trip I'd only been on once before).  On the way up, Jeremy started putting crazy ideas in my head about taking the pipeline trail down into City Creek rather than going back the way we had originally planned.  "It's fun", he told me.  "You've never done pipeline", he said... "You can cross it off your list of trails to run before we move".  Somehow I let myself fall prey to this logic.  Next thing I know, we're headed down a mile of SCREAMING downhill.  The kind of downhill that you run because it's impossible to walk. The kind of downhill where it's everything you can do to stay in control and not fall tumbling to the bottom. He was right, it was fun, but man did I pay for it.  My quads were burning for the next 3 days.  Today, Wednesday, I can finally go down stairs without wincing.  Why do I let him talk me into this madness?!  On the bright side, it was a gorgeous spring day and I had a blast running the trails with my two favorite creatures!!

 Ruby the trail dog, posing for the camera

 Look, Mom! I found the world's smallest patch of snow to roll in!!

 View of downtown

 Self-portrait at the lower towers

 Heading down towards Pipeline from the upper towers.  Found some more snow!

 Nothing like cooling off in a knee-deep snow patch on a 70+ degree spring day!

 The beginning of the dreaded Pipeline Trail

Notice how it just drops off and disappears?!

 Jeremy, slaloming through the scrub oak on Pipeline

 City Creek - Much less snowy than it was on Groundhog Day!!

Ruby-girl post run: Stick a fork in her... she's done!

Jeremy's birthday party

This past Saturday evening we had the (extended) neighborhood crew over to celebrate Jeremy's birthday.  Curtis made quite possibly his best dessert creation to date and we all over-indulged.  It was a great night with good friends and reminded us how much we're going to miss this crazy bunch when we move this summer.  Here are are few photos from the evening.

Mmm, cake!!!

Really, you're going to sing?

 Hope it was a good wish : )

 

Let's carve this sucker!

 

 

Ruby getting love from Uncle Dave

Happy Friday!

Neither Jeremy nor I felt like cooking breakfast this morning, so we decided to each grab something on our way into work.  When I approached the counter to pay for my bagel and coffee, the woman working the register winked at me, said "He already covered it", and gestured towards the man who had been in front of me in line.  As I went to fill my coffee cup, I thanked him and he just smiled and turned for the door.  Thank you, sir, for making my morning, and for reminding me that there are still people who do nice things, not for the recognition, but because it feels good.  Happy Friday!! Spread the love this weekend, y'all :)

Cheers, kind sir. Cheers.

31?! No, that can't be right!

Yesterday was Jeremy's birthday.  He's now 31 years old, which seems impossible because that would make me almost 31... yikes!  We had a quiet little celebration at home last night, but I think we should gather up the neighbors this weekend to toast him properly.  I wanted to post a few of my favorite photos from last night. Happy birthday, Mister! I love you : )

 Who doesn't love presents?

 We opened one of our "Christmas wines" from Jeremy's folks...

 ... and it was good!!!

 

Poor guy had to grill his own steak for dinner, but he didn't seem too torn up about it!

 

Wow, that's a lot of candles!!

 Got them all in one shot!

Birthday smile : )

Despite snowstorms and GLACIERS, spring is in the air!

3-7-13: This post has been corrected after much harassment from Mr. Neurosquid.

It has been quite a week here!  February went out with a bang. Last weekend we had one of the best little snowstorms we've had in quite a while.  I think we got about a foot that Saturday.  It snowed the WHOLE day, making it the perfect day to sneak over to our friends' house next door and cozy up playing board games.  It was great to have a quiet Saturday afternoon with friends!

Video taken right at the beginning of the storm

On Sunday, my friend/former labmate, Steve O'Dell, flew in for a quick visit.  He stayed with us for a couple days while he met with folks at the U and gave a seminar on campus.  O'Dell is a smart guy and showed up with dog treats in his pocket to bribe Ruby into accepting him.  Ruby asked me to publicly let him know that he's welcome back any time :)  It was fun having a visitor, and it made the week go quickly!

All of snow from the weekend storm, on top of the ridiculous amount of snow we had already received this winter, created quite the iceberg glacier on our north facing roof.  We'd been watching the iceberg glacier slowly creep over the past couple weeks, and we were pretty certain our rain gutters were doomed.  On Friday, our suspicions became a reality - an ~8 foot section of the iceberg glacier released from the roof, ripping the rain gutter down with it and crushing my beloved pink flamingo!!  I got home from work to find Jeremy out front on the phone with our landlord.  An ~6 foot section of iceberg glacier still remained (directly over our front door), and our landlord gave Jeremy the go ahead to try to knock the rest of it down to avoid a future, more catastrophic slide.  As he prepared for battle, I (the worrying wife) made him go up in the loft to find his hardhat.  Safety first, kids! 

Jeremy - protective gear in place and ready for battle

It had been sunny and relatively warm on Friday, so we figured it was a good time to try to coax the remaining ice chunk into releasing its grip on our roof.  If a picture is worth 1000 words, a video is even better, right? You can see for yourself how this all went down.

 Jeremy v. roof iceberg glacier - March 1, 2013

The weather on Saturday proved to be even nicer than the day before.  Jeremy took advantage by heading out to Antelope Island for a crazy long training run.  Ruby and I took advantage by joining my friend/current labmate, Melissa, and her dog, Leia, for a run in City Creek.  By the time we reached the Capitol, I had already peeled off a layer, and spent the remainder of the run enjoying the feeling of warm sunshine on my arms and shoulders.  I can't believe I was running in a tank top exactly one week after that crazy snow storm.  That's spring in Utah for ya!

 Ruby and Leia - two water-loving peas in a pod!

 Happy as pie.

Gotta hydrate, Mom.

We spent the day yesterday running errands, doing laundry, and lounging around the house.  It was a nice lazy Sunday.  I realized part way through the day that it was the first weekend in probably 8+ years that I didn't have any lab-related work that I should have been doing instead.  Guilt-free relaxation is a beautiful thing! I even put on my Suzie-homemaker apron and busted out some homemade chicken parm.  My half-Italian (nay, Sicilian) husband seemed to enjoy it, which is saying something!

Delizioso!

All in all, it was a pretty good week. Having a friend in town through a little wrench in our normal workout schedule, so it's back to the grind this week. Time to burn off last night's dinner :)