A little off course

7 days 11 hours till the Renegade Off-Road Triathlon. So far I'm feeling pretty good about it... well about the run and the bike, I really should have done some swimming. I'm going out there to survive the swim. Last Saturday the race organizers did a pre-ride of the bike course and I found out too late but read the e-mail to say they were doing it again today.

Well, I read the e-mail again last night and found that it's on Sunday but I did find that they posted a map of the course on the web site and since I'm playing guitar for kids in the morning I decided I'd give it a go on my own.



So I set out with a map folded up in my pocket and gave it a go. The first part was pretty familiar, actually it was the run path from the last LA Tri-Express I did 2 years ago but went on past the gate in into the camp grounds. Past there was right near the Brackett airport where it turned up onto a trail up the hill. I swtarted up one trail and pretty quikly figured out I was on the wrong one so I turned and headed down to get back on track. Up the hill it was very washed out and rocky, I got off once to navigate around. Once a the top it was a nice fire road down to a tunnel underpass to cross the paved road. This was about the 3 mile mark, I think it was just up the hill from here that I made a wrong turn.

I now think I was supposed to follow the first trail to the right, I went left and kept climbing and then ended up with a great downhill ride with mile 4 at the bottom. Then it was uphill for a full mile to what I think is the trail I was supposed to be on at mile 5. From there it was a fun, fast downhill to mile 6 where there is another tunnel to cross the pavement.

From there I think I followed the trail pretty well until past mile 8 when I got to the top of the dam. I took a turn and followed a trail across the base of the dam. Once across the dam I realized it was the wrong way and turned around to follow the paved road over the top of the dam. Once across I found the trail that follows the edge of the lake around to the finish.

Overall I made a 7.5 mile loop into 10.25 miles and I think I added in the steepest hill climbs of the day. Next week should be better marked and there will be other people to follow so it should be OK.

March Belt Test

Today was belt test day, well belt promotion, we did our tests during class the last few weeks and today was a celebration and awarding of the belts. With all the students at the school ranging from kids to adults they ran two ceremonies. I chose to go to the early one and celebrate on the mat with Ethan and Junia.

We started out warming up with everyone on the mat. You can see Rog, me and one other mom were the only adults in the early session. Junia, Ethan and Reed are in there too.


Everyone did some kicks.


Then the white belt and Little Ninja Graduates showed off their stuff.

Front fall.


Side fall.


And blocks. Ethan got to be Junia's partner.


Junia's friend Arlie was out there too.


they discussed their hapkido skills.


Then everyone got to break boards.






There was a Kung Fu demonstration by Sifu Lopez and some of the instructors demonstrated parts of their black belt tests. This included the Walters brothers doing some flying kicks and Mr. Zlada demonstrating chair defense. Quite impressive, Ethan was very excited to see his instructors show off.

Then they awarded belts. Master Connard handed them out.


Mr. Birkholz (Uncle Bill) tied on Junia's belt.


After Master Connard handed out the belts we went down the line and were congratulated by all of the instuctors.




Ethan's friend Christopher.

KC's return to racing

Usually this is all about me, this time only indirectly.

My wonderful wife had signed up to run the Inaugural Pasadena 1/2 Marathon back in November but it was canceled due to local fires. Something about smoke in the air and the insurance company that is one of the major sponsors decided they should postpone the race... at 4am the day of the race they made the decision.

Fortunately the race was rescheduled and they have now called it the "Inaugural Redux Pasadena 1/2 Marathon".

The race seems to be cursed, first canceled due to fires now after weeks of sunny weather the only day there was forcas for rain was, of course, Sunday, race day. The rain started early in the morning and by the time the kids and I, along with Wade, Tanja and the boys arrived everything was pretty wet. And dark.

We found a spot about 3/4 mile into the race, right at a corner to watch and sure enough we saw KC come running by. Of course everyone screamed loudly. She's the one in the pink top with "KC" on the back.


From there we took a short cut.... straight line to catch her around mile 3.5. We got there in plenty of time to see her come running up Marengo.


From there we decided to head to just past mile 10 because we weren't sure we could find a spot any closer. We found a spot on the corner of Raymond and Orange Grove. We go there in time to see the first runners coming through, and they were mixed in with the bikes from the Bike Tour.

The first person I saw that I recognized was KC's friend Shannon from work. She ended up finishing as the first woman, I think she's run before.


A bit later we saw the KC coming down the street, catching up to and passing some bikes.


Looking strong for 10 miles done.


After she passed we headed over to the finish line but apparently she had more energy left than we thought ro we were pretty slow. We stood around the finish line watching and waiting and then my phone rang, KC said she had been done for 15 minutes got cold waiting around for us and went to the car.

She came back out to meet us and watch or some friends to finish.

All smiles.


Brenda and Jen finished with the rain pouring down. Of couse Jen went by so fast I didn't see her in time to get a photo.


We went out to breakfast to celebrate.


Here's her stats:

Overall: 368 out of 2974
Women: 80 out of 1654
F 40-44: 13 out of 224
Age/Grade: 61.35% Place: 263
Finish: 1:51:55 Pace: 8:33
Tag Time: 1:51:55
Gun Time: 1:52:26

My Birthday - Free Disneyland

So, my birthday was last week and Disneyland is giving away free entry to everyone on their birthday, what a deal! Junia still has an annual pass that she's not getting much use out of since the rest of the family expired so I took the day off work and had a father daughter birthday at Disneyland.

Before we left the Pasadena area we stopped for coffee, chocolate milk and a bear claw.


The first ride was, as usual the Tram from the parking lot and then Small World. I was pushing for Indian Jones but was out voted one to one.

Junia commented as we walked up, "They are all shiny, did they paint it?" Apparently so, but that doesn't mean they made they fixed the functionality of the ride, we got about 3/4 the way through and the ride stopped. Fortunately the music stopped as well.


Then we went for a little out door driving.


Junia thinks she's a natural driver.


We headed over to the canoes. Junia was a great help paddling around the island.


After a few more rides it was time to head home to have dinner with Ethan and KC, but there was a sign on the way out where Mickey Mouse thanked me for celebrating my birthday at Disneyland.




Junia did a little song on the way to the car.


We got home and went out to dinner as a family. At the Claim Jumper we shared the Brownie Finale.... brownie, ice cream and lots of hot fudge.... yummy.

Stickers

When the paint was dry, a week ago, Ethan and I put decals on our derby cars.


Ethan got flames, lightning bolts, some flags and a few logos.

I got white pinstripes and a few logos.

Pinewood Derby Cars

One of my greatest moments of childhood trauma was the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. I was the kid that had made my car all by myself and when the big race came along my car stopped 1/2 way down the track and had to deal with the embarrassment of walking up to get my stalled car. Here we are 30 years later and I'm the Cub Scout leader helping 6 boys with their cars... pressure.

We had the den over to our place to get started on our cars. There's a lot more pictures and story over at http://tigercubscouts.blogspot.com

I got to help Ethan and the other boys using the band saw.



Then everyone dis some hand sanding. No one seems to like that part.


It took a while to get the shapes cut out on all of the cars so after everyone left Ethan and I worked on his car a bit more.

Beginning with sanding some more.


Then paint. He wanted multi colors and chose black and white. (Is that really multi color?)


The sides got black and after that dried we masked it off so he could paint the top white.


More to come..... after the paint drys.

Thank You God For Little Things

The First Grade classroom 1B poem party was on Friday the 13th but there was nothing scary about it. Every student remembered their poems.

Here's the class. Ethan is in the back row, 4th from the left.


The deal is each student is given a poem to learn. They get about two months and work on it during the day and as homework. Ethan also got some pointers from Miss Kristen his speech therapist. They are given help with some hand motions to go along with it. The beauty thing about it is that this is an activity that they will continue each year which gives all of the students an experience in speaking in front of a crowd, using a microphone and respecting others as they do the same.



Every kid in the class did great! There were poems that were funny and some that were sweet, every kid gave their own little twist to them. No one tried to pull off the Mike Meyers poetry reading from "So, I Married an Axe Murderer" though.


Proud Mom and Dad.


All smiles with Brian.


With his buddies, Ethan, Jason, Brian, Owen.


With his teacher. Mrs. Tcharkutchian (I'm sure that's not spelled correctly.)


Afterward we left school and went to Santa Clarita to play miniature golf at Mountasia.


Of course Junia went along too.


And the reason we drove all the way to Santa Clarita is that there's a Farrel's Ice Cream Parlor at Mountasia.

KC and I split the Oreo Bliss... here's a shot for the Extreme Bootcamp folks.


And Junia with her Clown Sundae.


And the poetry reader with his.