We traveled down to Florida this past week to visit some of our family. The trip was a lot of fun and we were able to spend a lot of quality time together. Since the drive is so long we try our best to make an adventure out of the trip. This meant stopping off on the way down in Murfreesburo, TN and staying the night. In an effort to keep my Ironman training going I went for a ride and it was amazing. The only exception was the screeching tires of a car that decided that they couldn’t make it around me at the last minute. I guess it was a decent test of my reflexes as I went bombing off onto the road construction area unscathed.

One of the highlights of each trip is visiting St. Augustine. The city is a lot of fun to tour and the beaches are beautiful. This was Amelia’s second trip to the beach and she was able to get around pretty well. We were able to take one of my favorite pictures of her; which is the one above.

During our trip back we stopped off in Boone, North Carolina for a couple of nights. Boone and surrounding areas are beautiful and part of the “High Country”. The roads are perfect for cycling and Angie and I were both able to get in good rides. This picture was taken while during my ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway and gives you an idea of the beauty of this area.

Overall we were happy to be home and sleeping in our own beds but we’re looking forward to going back!

It was a cool and rainy morning for the 29^th Running of the River Bank Run in Grand Rapids. This is a special race for a lot of reasons and the biggest is the number of times we have been able to experience these races with my Dad. My Dad has finished 25 consecutive River Bank Runs!!! Since they only have these runs once per year it’s pretty easy math to figure-out that is 25 years running [pun intended]. I go out of my way to ask people how many they have done and I’ll admit it’s because I have a loaded story waiting in line for them. I have completed 6 in a row now and I enjoy them more every year. This year I was able to pull off a PR in a time of 1 hour 54 minutes which is a pace of about 7 minutes 24 seconds per mile and a nice improvement over my time from last year of 1 hour 58 minutes. All of my training seems to be paying off with my 3^rd PR in as many races.

This past Saturday we headed down for the 25^th running of the Borgess Half Marathon. The run is known as a fairly challenging and also as being great preparation for the Fifth Third River Bank Run. My Dad and Dan have both had great races afterward so off we went.

We arrived and pulled-out the camera to take a few pictures and for being amateur photographers we made a rookie mistake and brought a camera with a dead battery. We moved-on bundled Amelia into the comforts of her Chariot and headed to the race start.

I started the race pretty conservatively considering the fact that the first few miles are mostly downhill. The first part of the race took us through the small city until we ran into a very nice park around mile 4. Mile 7 as I heard all about was where the hills began. The first hill was the worst at about a half-mile long and fairly steep. All of my runs pushing Amelia uphill paid off and I ran well and was back up to speed quickly once we crested. Miles 8 through 10 carried us around a small lake and more park settings. At mile 12 I knew I had a chance to go under 1:35 [a pre race goal] but I was going to have to hustle! My final mile was a sub 7:00 which made me very happy. A quick sprint to the finish with waves and cheers from my GIRLS and I was home with a PR of 1:34.17. Good for 72^nd place overall out of 840 and 12^th place in my age group. Great race and one more sign that all of the training is putting me where I need to be for LAKE PLACID!