Her chubby cheeks photograph larger than they really are, though her face and barely existent cone head do look more like she's three weeks old rather than a three days. I never saw the rest of her since since she was swaddled, though apparently her body looks like a legitimate newborn. Nose like mama. Upper lip like papa. Temper like a Comrie (the nurses tried to blame the temper on Tim since he's red headed -- hah!). Farts like a Buckholz. Lower lip and jaw quiver competitive with hummingbirds. Likes the world through squinty eyes.
All in all, eight pounds of wonderfulness.
I joked before leaving for KC that friends should batten the hatches, get the duct tape ready and start storing water. No storms were predicted for the trip, but that never stopped Mother Nature before. Since blizzard, earthquake and hurricane were already checked off the list, I figured a winter tornado or an Australia-sized comet or an alien invasion was next.
Turned out to be the year of the tusami. Sic erat scriptum.
Saturday night we went to a mexican restaurant. Good food, good times. The waitress was spot on with her duties and knew the menu inside and out, though had absolutely not a clue as to beer and was prone to letter swaps in the same way I am. Mom: "What do you have on tap?" Waitress: "Biller Light, Mud Light... oh, wait, um..." Nothing of our order got mixed up, so it was forgivable. But it did set a tone of humorous clumsiness for the evening.
We talked of baby Gabby, of life as new parents, of news with each of us. Mom asked if a woman a few tables away would qualify as the so-called Jersey Girl look she has read about but not seen in person. I gave an adapted version of my redneck vs. hillbilly vs. hick vs. white trash lecture, though tailored to Jersey Girl vs. white trash. (One day I hope to make a Venn diagram of my redneck vs. hillbilly vs. hick vs. white trash lecture, having been inspired by the Nerd Venn Diagram that rectifies the differences between nerd vs. geek vs. dweeb vs. dork. But that's a different conversation for a different day.)
Then our waitress returned the credit card receipt for my dad to sign. Dad reached across the table diagonally only to send a midwest-sized glass of ice water across the table. I witnessed the entire event without blinking an eye. The glass was full to something just shy of a liter, and the flood-turned-waterfall went straight for my mom's lap. Mom froze and her eyes got big. Sam, at Mom's right, started leaning away with an "Oh snap, look at 'er go!" look on his face. Dad grabbed and uprighted the glass, though by then all the water was well on its way. Kristin watched on from the far side of the booth with a half smile hidden by a cupped hand in surprise. I yelled "Mom! Move!" So she did -- and she started shoveling the ice and water towards Sam like a luau gone Red Cross disaster relief, delicate flick of the wrists and all. Needless to say, the luau was not very effective for water redirection or for swimming. Sam, with one butt cheek still lofted, now opted for his one eyebrow look of "Whaaa?" I yelled "Mom! Get up! GET. UP." She grabbed her purse and coat and fought her way out of the booth to standing.
Half a beat passed before we all crumbled into laughter. Ten full minutes of beat red faces (and we are German and Irish -- we can turn RED), crying, and hickuping in attempt to actually breathe. Lots of reenacting. The hostesses and other waiters kept peering over to make sure none of us blew a blood vessel and needed an ambulance. I continued to spontaneously burst out into laughter on the drive home. Usually this is met with eye rolling; this time it got everyone laughing again.
Back home we -- and by "we" I mean everyone excluding Mom -- pondered how to refer to that evening in the future. "The year of the flood?" "The year of the waterfall?" "Tsunami?" Mom started to chime in at that one, "The tusami..." I cut her off, "Tusami?!? That fits perfectly with the luau method." So ensued another reenactment, and another round of gut busting laughter.
Gabriella Marie, you've got yourself one helluva family over here.
My brother - now a father (Photo thanks to my mama.)
My older brother and his wife had their first kid today -- Gabriella Marie, 8 lbs. 7 oz. and 20 inches long.
I was allowed to keep my phone on me today to check for updates. I have not stopped bouncing since this morning once I heard that things were in full swing. I also don't think I've ever before been this excited about someone else's baby. (Cue the scene in Dave when he plays with the hydraulic arms. "I once caught a fish... thiiiis biiiiig.") Picked up a handful of fresh film to use this weekend for my whirlwind visit to meet the young Gabsterness. Or Gabgab. Or Little Fire Ball.
I swoon, and I have not even seen her in person yet. Soon.
Everyone needs to dust off their anti-snow dance moves to makes sure that I can get back in time for work on Monday. Why there is always some form of an east coast storm when I fly to Kansas City I do not know, nor will I ever know. December 2010 was the NYC blizzard delaying my return. August 2011 was the Virginia earthquake (which shook downtown NYC) on during the flight out and the NYC hurricane delaying my return. Whatever it is that snuck its way into the weekend forecast -- which was, until this evening, reported as sunny and clear through the middle of next week *ahem*... I've got the evil eye on you. Watch out.
Realized I never posted the rest of the photos from August's race. They are a mix of photos from race photographers who keep clicking so long as they see a bib number in front of them and also from my Dad's phone. You can see the progression from 6am dark to 11am sun, fresh race clothes to sweat patterns to fully saturated, calm stride to make-it-work-and-not-be-painful-slog, calm face to oh-thank-goodness-it's-over relief.
6am start.
Rounding the first corner (50 feet into the race).
Ran the first few miles with this guy. We both started out ahead of our desired pace. He managed to hold his pace better through the end.
It's always fun to move between inadvertent running partners in long races.
Miss Blue went on to take 1st woman. Obviously I started too fast if I was in range of her for the first 6 miles....
Somewhere around mile 15, where I didn't see any other runners for 30+ minute stretches. Thankfully the course was well marked with officials at various corners, or else I'd have thought I were running off through Kansas somewhere.
At the bottom of Hospital Hill. I didn't study the route that much, so didn't know it was coming (or that it had such a known name until talking to folks after the race). This was at mile 28. The moment I rounded the corner I immediately started walking. One mile at an average 10% grade. Um, yeaaah. No way I was running that one.
The one photo that managed to catch my bloated belly. Increasing temps nearing (or into) the 90s, only GU electrolyte products, no food, a monthly cycle due at any time (sorry fellas, its a regular issue for female racers)... not a good mix on for the belly.
Still trudging up Hospital Hill. This was moments before my Dad called out "It's all downhill from here!" Ears too saturated to hear the comment, thankfully.
Is that a smile with only a couple miles to go? I forget if I was trying to look calmer than I felt. P.S. That seemingly bulging vastus medialis of my left quadriceps? Swollen and overworked, nothing else. I also credit side lighting.
Now that is a smile. Specifically "Oooohhhh thank you thank you thank you" before madly searching for oranges and watermelon.
Yup, sums up how I felt at that point. Glad. To. Be. DONE.
Dunno what's going on here. Some sort of post-race stumble that wasn't nearly as coordinated as this makes it seem. Maybe it took me 20 feet to actually stop? I'd believe that, since my quads were refusing eccentric work by then.
Somehow still able to run after 31 miles, with the finish line 50 feet away.
[This was meant to be posted two days ago, but internet problems and travel got in the way. So it goes. Back home now, having attended only one day's worth of classes this week thanks to hurricane Irene flight snafus, spending time with my energetic kitties (who seem ridiculously small after spending time with other, normal and/or big cats in KC), finally getting my apartment put together, and getting back to normal life.]
Lo! Ultra marathon #2 is in the bag, and I even came out of it with a photo that makes me look like a runner! Nice work, Dad. It's probably because the finish line was about 50 feet away and I was desperate to sink into an ice bath and drink a soda.
I'm very satisfied with my time and performance: 31-ish miles in 4hr 44min 36sec, which was good enough to finish as the 4th woman and 21st overall. Went through 5 or so bottles of Gu Brew, 6 or 7 gels, wrung out my shirt 11 times, minimal inner thigh chafing, no alien toenail aggravation, and only one very small blister at the end of my left 4th toe that I didn't notice until the next day. I also finished by 10:45 in the morning; after 9 a.m. was hot enough, and I was glad to be done that much before noon. I couldn't imagine still being on the course once afternoon sun angled in for full frying effect. After the race I immediately consumed half an orange from the bins just across the finish (why wasn't this food available mid-race?!?), a bottle of Pepsi while submerged in belly deep ice water, and quarter of a watermelon once plopped into the shade not far from the Gore-Tex tent ice bath. I wasn't able to speak much until I got half way through the watermelon. Big thanks to my family for bringing that and the Pepsi for me. Odd the things you need after such an endeavor...
Turned out that a few elites showed for the event, with Michael Wardian heading up the 50k race at 3:02:34. Wardian cheered on the rest of us runners for our 6:00 a.m. start, with his own race starting at 6:30 to add the challenge of catching everyone. Second place overall was over 36 minutes later, meaning Wardian passed us everyone and still crossed the finish line 6 minutes before the next guy. He passed me while I was heading east along the Missouri River towards the new 71 Hwy bridge, somewhere around the half marathon point, his 5:52 per mile zoooooom looking effortless as compared to my 8-ish min/mile pace alternating with walking stints for a 9:08 per mile average. Especially because I was starting to feel the effects of running the first hour much faster than planned....
The route included turns at what seemed like every third corner. I saw a handful of KC that was familiar, but mostly I saw tons of areas that are off the beaten path or were simply unknown to me. My memory of KC's hills was correct, though I was surprised at how unrelenting they felt as I progressed farther through the course. The hills just kept going. Every once in a while a cop would remark that the course was relatively flat for the next while. I'd breath a sigh of relief and trod on ahead, only to find a nice downhill that inevitably leads to a corresponding uphill. I stopped listening to non-runner's interpretations of what was to follow, because by mile 20 the non-visible uphills felt enormous. Here I am at mile 28, coinciding with the bottom of Hospital Hill. Granted everything burned at this point, but the 10% grade over the course of a mile was not easy. I started my walk immediately after turning off Grand Street:
At the very end saying "It's all downhill from here, heh heh" was my Dad. I warned my brothers the night before that any comments of "only 27 more miles to go!" are, in fact, not funny despite what it seems to the spectator, and that I'd veer off course long enough to bob them in the heads if they pulled anything like that in the early miles. Dad says he had already walked up and back down the hill to see what it was like so he sympathized, though it's probably better off that I didn't hear him at that point.
In no particular order I remember running up and down various hills in the Plaza, running down a red brick road into Roanoke Park (I haaate running on brick, so was glad when this half mile stretch was done), along Brookside, past the Liberty Memorial, seeing Bartle Hall and the Sprint Center, running through waterfront park towards the 71 Hwy bridge, a very long traverse of the roads in Kessler Park, a lot of Gladstone Boulevard (wherever that is), many many many many neighborhoods that I can't begin to remember, running along the center of downtown roads that had 4 lanes in each direction but no cars (told ya, the cops were awesome!), past Crown Center and Hospital Hill, and then a blur of absent surrounds as I watched the street numbers grow from 38th Street to the finish at 47th Street. Somewhere in that last blur was the KC Art Institute and the contemporary museum, because that's when I knew that the finish was finally around the corner.
Full credit is due to the hundreds of cops and handful of volunteers who directed traffic. They were absolutely wonderful. Never was my passage through an intersection or traverse along a street in need of consideration other than placing one foot in front of the other. I never even needed to pause, as they held traffic when I still had a good 10 seconds of hobbling to go before enter the intersection. Quite different from the street rat traffic game one gets used to in NYC. The difference is that most races will close off streets for so many hours on race day. Since this was a long race but with comparatively small number of entrants, it didn't make sense to close of streets completely with the likely large gaps that would develop between runners. Considering that they (hopefully) did this for all 100+ entrants of the 50k as well as for all the marathoners and marathon relay-ers, they deserve a huge amount of recognition. I thanked as many as I could, and those times I couldn't speak I tried to wave and smile.
What made the greatest impact on the race was the lack of food. I've never heard of an ultra marathon that doesn't at least serve cheap white bread peanut butter sandwiches and bananas. I wonder if paying for the traffic control took loads out of the race budget. Aide stations were spaced every 2 to 3 miles apart, and most were only stocked with water and electrolyte fluids. Other than fluids, every other aid station had a small collection of gels. Usually anything past 2 hours and I need food. The thought of 5 hours without any sustenance made me nervous, all the more reason to walk more hills than planned. I force fed myself gels every 30 to 45 minutes, and by the end they were becoming hard to get down. My digestion came to a relative halt and my stomach felt bloated, but I still managed to come in under my 5 hour goal.
Three days later, Tuesday, I managed a 36 minute jog/run that for now seems to have helped my quadriceps rigormortis. It also occurred to me today that I have now completed two ultra marathons, which makes me feel much more legitimate in terms of kicking off my endurance escapades. Very satisfying in the classic endurance way -- a process of feeling absolutely stoked pre-race, then mid-race hating your supposedly good "judgement" that got you here, and once a half mile from the finish line the exhilaration returns and you can't wait to sign up for the next one. I do look forward to the NYC Marathon in just over two months time, though I also look forward to future races on trail instead of big, wide, paved roads.
