For years I have wanted to do a triathlon. So, this year on July 1st, my mama and I finally did one! I figured it might be our first and last one, but we were going to have fun. With the triathlon there was a duathlon and a 5K run. My papa was doing the 5K. We all started out together running. I knew running would be my strong point, so my strategy was to do my best in it and just try to survive the rest of the race. That went as planned. I set a PR in the 5K. And then I was totally out of breath. I was tired and ready to stop. But, no, now I had to bike 13 miles. The first 10 miles seemed all up-hill with the wind in my face. I was passed by a lot of people. But finally I made a turn and the wind was at my back. Hooray! I finished. Now all that was left was the 300 meter pool swim. I took it easy and just went for a nice, slow swim. I'm not a great swimmer. It was a challenge to swim straight across the pool without swerving into the other lanes. And since I was so tired, it was hard to pay attention. I almost collided a couple times with other swimmers who weren't paying attention either. But I had fun and didn't drink too much water. After awhile I was done. We enjoyed watching mama finish her swim. Then it was time for granola bars and medals! I won my age group. I know it sounds great, but actually I was the only one in it. Papa got a medal in the 5K too! We all had fun. Thank you to the Reinbeck Running Makes Cents Organizers! And thanks Charity for taking the pictures!
2 Comments
This next "dream come true" is literally a dream come true--a nightmare come true. We go to a lot of races, and one thing I've noticed about them is they all start precisely on time. So what happens when you show up late? That is what I found out at this year's Sturgis Falls Half Marathon! The race started at 7:00. I thought it was to start at 7:30. So, I was walking a few blocks away with my sister when we heard a gun go off.
"That must have been the start of the race," my sister said casually. "No, it couldn't be," I replied. As we drew closer, I realized it was. By the time I was ready, the last walkers were disappearing beyond the horizon. A sinking feeling came into my stomach. I adjusted my race number and set my watch. Then I started. I had 194 runners in front of me. A little before the first mile, I started catching some runners. That made me feel better. Soon I found this was actually fun! I was especially happy when I caught up with my parents. Only one runner passed me (after I passed him) the whole race. All the runners in front of me were a real inspiration. I set a PR on my first 10K: 46:28. The race went by quickly. I finished with my watch reading 1:39:39, and with the official time of 1:44:20. I was in about 33rd place, and 3rd in my age group. So the nightmare had about the best ending possible. I hope I never, ever do this again, but it was an interesting experience. It is a bad idea to be late in any case, but it is an especially bad idea to be late to a race. :) My whole life I've loved pancakes. And my whole life I've wondered what the International House of Pancakes is like. Whether I'm at home, McDonalds, or a Mexican restaurant, you can usually find me with a stack of pancakes. One day, coming home, my parents asked my sister to pick out a restaurant she wanted to stop at. There was Culvers, McDonalds, a tenderloin place, or an IHOP among the choices. When I saw the IHOP I grinned with excitement. Without giving my sister (who doesn't especially like pancakes) a chance to say a word, I announced I wanted to go to IHOP! So IHOP it was. After studying the menus for about 10 minutes, we all came to our conclusions of what to order. There was far much more than pancakes to choose from. One could even get a cheese burger with fries and onion rings. My family all found something they liked. I ordered this stack of double blueberry pancakes (600 calories). There were four flavors of syrup to choose from: old fashioned, butter pecan, blueberry, and strawberry. I think old fashioned was my favorite. The pancakes were wonderful. The waiters and waitresses gave very helpful service with a smile. I enjoyed my visit, and I hope my family did too...so we can go again sometime!
I have now reached the grand old age of 16. To celebrate I am starting a series here on the blog of 16 dreams that come true for me this year! Number one has to be what I did for my birthday: run 16 miles. Friday, the ninth, I had the privilege of spending the day with Bethany, the editor of the Clarksville Star and the Butler Country Tribune Journal. Yes, Bethany--my sister! I got to sort through photos and type out the traffic violations report. It was so fun to see who had been speeding and who had "forgotten" to wear their seat belts in the previous week! In addition to this, we put on a lot of miles on the road. Here we are at the tiniest church in Iowa! It is located in the charming town of Bristow. The church's caretaker, Sally, was very hospitable. After giving us some history on the church, she invited us inside her home to see "a few" of her teddy bears. She has a collection of almost 2,000! Everything was literally covered with teddy bears! They were so cute! In the afternoon it was time for a spelling bee! My last spelling bee I came in last place. So I figured I couldn't go wrong today. Things couldn't turn out any worse from last time! The words for us in the high school division ranged from cornucopia to memorabilia. None of us were good spellers. We just took turns getting word after word wrong. It was kind of funny! Finally, though, I somehow won. The adults had it just as hard, and Bethany ended up taking first in that division! Below are the first and second place adults along with the retired teacher who gave out the spelling bee words. We later covered a kiddie parade and took pictures of the carnival and the musicians. Here we snapped a photo of me with the Lone Ranger, Silver, and Tonto. Wait...I didn't know the Lone Ranger had a beard...or that Tonto wore flip flops?! But, oh well. It was an interesting day!
April 29th was the day of the Drake Road Races in Des Moines! My mama and I were doing the 1/2 marathon and Bethany was doing the 5K. We arrived about an hour before race time, and began to warm up. It was a cool morning, and it was cloudy. I was very glad it wasn't raining. At 7:30, we 857 half-marathoners crowded around the starting line. We listened to a man sing the National Anthem. Then a shot rang through the air. The race had started. I was far enough back that it took a few moments for the crowd around me to begin flowing along. This was the largest race I'd ever ran in. I was wearing my new Garmin watch, and my goal was to have around an 8-minute pace, at least for the first few miles. With so many runners, the first 3 miles went by quickly. The regular road traffic was controlled by police officers, and every other mile, helpful volunteers had water stations set up. At first, there was a lot of downhill. But what goes down must come up again. Around mile five, that began to happen. In all the excitement I guess I had taken off too fast, and now I was enervated. I was about ready to start walking, but I figured I'd try to hang in there awhile longer. The good point of a race with so many participants, there's always someone you're passing, or in my case, always someone who is passing me. I enjoyed the live music along the route. One man was out with his guitar; there was a whole group of musicians, and also there was a little girl with her cello. It made me smile to see all the friendly faces out watching the race. Slowly, but surely I made it to mile 10, and then had an extra burst of energy. There was only a 5K left. At last I found myself taking the final turn, where on the horizon lay the finish line. Oh, what a pleasant sight! The runners behind me were encouraged too, and I soon was passed five or six more times. With the last block, I decided I could manage a sprint after all, and I finished with a time of 1:45:03. I greeted my siblings who were there just to watch today. And we watched our mom finish. She met her goal of beating two hours. Bethany had enjoyed the 5K too. I learned the winning time for it was 15:12. And the winner of the 1/2 marathon was 1:08:56. All I can say is, wow! Then we went and enjoyed delicious chocolate chip cookies and fruit too. There was more music from two musicians and then the award ceremony. There were very neat prizes. Overall, I thought it was an excellent race. There were nice t-shirts, plus all finishers received a medal! It was fun, and I hope we can go again next year. Here is the video my siblings filmed! Last week I decided I'd like to do a food post here on the blog. I found a recipe for some chocolate cookies, and got started. They were fun to make, and looked so yummy! But the moment I tried to remove them from the cookie sheet, I knew I had a problem. The pretty- looking cookies completely fell apart. And they turned out to be so hard that my family had second thoughts on attempting to eat them. They might have to pay a visit to our dear dentist afterward. "Why is it that everything turns out great, until I bring my camera out?" I thought. But not one to easily give up, the food blog-post-idea still lingered in my mind. When my mom suggested we make a streusel rhubarb dessert, I grabbed the camera. This recipe was tried and true, and I didn't see how we could go wrong. And...it turned out spectacularly. So here is the recipe! First of all, prepare the CRUST: 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar 1/3 cup cold butter Mix the flour and confectioners' sugar. Then cut in butter until crumbly. Press into a greased 9-inch baking dish. Bake at 350 F. for 15-18 minutes or until light brown around the edges. Time to make the TOPPING: ¾ cup all-purpose flour ½ cup sugar ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/3 cup cold butter Toss together the flour, sugar, and cinnamon, and cut in butter until crumbly. Now sprinkle over the filling. Bake at 350 F. for 45-50 minutes, or until rhubarb is bubbly. Servings: 12 Total prep and bake time: 1 hour 15 minutes Time to enjoy! The dessert is excellent served simply plain...or with a glass of milk...or with ice cream...or whipped cream! For a family like us with a huge rhubarb patch, this is the perfect dessert to enjoy all year long, especially in the spring. It's easy to make and I definitely would recommend giving it a try!
I am enjoying spring immensely this year. With the trees coming to life, the flowers blooming, and warmth in the air, I can't help but find myself in an ebullient mood. I can be outside running in a t-shirt again. And I can be out in the dirt again, helping my parents plant broccoli, spinach, celery, lettuce, radishes, beets, bok choy, and all that great stuff. It is such a beautiful time of year. And really we have so much to be happy about.
God is good to us. Even in the bad times, we should be able to find something to be thankful for. Think of Job. Everything went wrong for him. But in the end, God blessed him with twice as much as before. If we never have problems, we never grow. But every difficult situation we survive, we will know how to handle it better the next time. In school, I would be happy if my teacher gave me all the easy math problems that I know how to do. But, no, I would never learn anything then. Instead, she gives me hard ones that I have no clue how to figure out, so that I can learn by them. Remember, our God has everything in control. He will work out everything for our good. We should rejoice on the sunny days, and on the rainy days too. Remember, April showers bring May flowers. The Bible commands us to Rejoice evermore. According to Answers.com the word rejoice is found in the Bible 184 times. Just think about it. God wants us to be happy. Think of the beautiful world He put us in. Think of all He does for us. And besides, smiling is good for a person. Smiles use from 5 to 53 facial muscles. Studies show that facial exercises can improve and maintain skin and muscle tone. Smiling is a good exercise. Smiling can boost your immune system too--it relieves stress, and helps you to relax. So, smile away friends, and enjoy your spring. This is kind of late to do a post about my 15th birthday. Yes, I know, it was more than nine months ago. But I finally put together a video about it. I recently got my own YouTube channel, so I figured I would share it with you. Here it is: Now, does anyone want to join me for my 16th birthday?! I'm already excited about it! Have a marvelous afternoon! Saturday morning, March 4, Papa, Mama, Bethany, and I packed our bags, bid farewell to Charity and Daniel, and took off towards Cedar Rapids. We enjoyed the beautiful sunrise, and arrived at our first destination--Iowa's Physicians Clinic--around 8:00. No, none of us broke any bones...there was to be a chess tournament held there! We dropped Bethany off, and the rest of us headed to a town called Garrison. We hadn't printed off any directions from Google Maps. Being less than 30 miles away, surely we could just look for the skyscrapers of the town. But, no, we didn't see any! So, my mother handed me an old-fashioned paper map, and told me I was in charge of getting us out of Cedar Rapids. Well, in 20 minutes, I had us out of Cedar Rapids alright--unto a gravel road in the middle of nowhere! But, to make a long story short, we did eventually get there. There were no skyscrapers...that's why we hadn't seen any. There was no thriving business community. There was no hotel. There was actually only a population of 360. What brought us to this town anyway? At first glance this town had nothing in it! Well, there was a library and a post office. And there was the Old Creamery Nature Trail. And that's what we were looking for! Today was the day for the Freezin' for a Reason 10K trail run hosted by Vinton's Pizza Hut! The race started at 10 A.M. I had told myself not to take off too fast. But with all the excitement, I couldn't resist. I took off along side first place--another girl! Soon, of course, I was left behind. Then the first man passed me. I tried to keep up with him, but that didn't last long either. Then the next runner passed me, and then the next. There were only 17 of us--I couldn't let anyone else catch me! It was windy, but a nice day otherwise. I kept running, keeping an eye on my watch. I finally finished with a time of 50:59. I had come in fifth. The girl in first place had ended up winning the whole race, beating the first man by over 8 minutes! My papa came in sixth (51:22), and my mama, came in tenth (54:16). We all were happy. Then it was time for the best part: the post-race breakfast. It was perfect--Pizza Hut's pizza, homemade cookies, candy bars, chocolate milk and bananas! The run, the food, and the people were amazing. And it was for a great cause--to fight world hunger. I hope to return next year, and I would highly recommend it to all of you other runners out there. Save the date: March 3, 2018! Before long we were on our way to Cedar Rapids. I didn't give any directions to my parents this time, and we made it back quickly. I enjoyed playing in the final three rounds of the reserve section of the chess tournament. I won my games, though they all were very close. Bethany was playing in the Open (the section for the more advanced players) which lasted two whole days. So, after a long day, we retired to our hotel room at the DoubleTree by Hilton. Soon we were drifting to sleep. The next morning, one by one, we slowly started waking up. "Do you want to go for a run this morning?" my mother asked me. "Only if you do," I sleepily replied. "I do only if you do," she replied. Neither of us really wanted to, but we did anyway. We jogged out of our hotel into the streets of Cedar Rapids. The cool air was refreshing. It felt wonderful. After a 30 minute jog, we were back. We were greeted by Papa and Bethany, who had also come out to enjoy the beautiful morning. When it was time to go back to our hotel room, Mama got the idea to take the stairs instead of the elevator. And we did--we climbed all 16 stories of the Hilton. It was exhausting, but the view from the windows was rewarding. We cleaned up, and took Bethany back for her third round at the Cedar Rapids Leather Jackets chess tournament. The rest of us got some rest and relaxation in, spending the whole morning in our cozy hotel room. Checking out, we were handed our free DoubleTree by Hilton complementary chocolate chip cookies. They were still warm, and were simply delicious.
Everything was wonderful. We went back to the chess tournament. Bethany played her last game. While waiting, I played a game with another player just for fun. Soon it was time to head back to our home. We were glad to return to country life, and see our dog, cats, and, of course, Charity and Daniel again! We had an awesome weekend. God is good! Make sure to check out what Bethany thought of our trip at todaylibertyordeath.blogspot.com!
|
Howdy! This page is filled with the adventures of the youngest one in the Carson Clan!Archives
November 2021
Categories |