Minnesotans seem to love Paul Bunyan. We love the tall tales of how the giant logger's footprints created our 10,000 lakes and how Babe's tale formed our rivers. Our family especially loves visiting Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd, MN. It is the home a large Paul Bunyan statue that can even greet you by name. Missee and I grew up going to Paul Bunyan Land every year. Along with the statue, they have some amusement park rides that appeal to a younger child age group. Missee and I especially enjoyed the boats. I love how every seat has a steering wheel! :) Fast forward about 30 years and my own two children (and their cousins) also loved the boats. The fun never goes out of style! With my fondness for Paul Bunyan, I was so excited to open the birthday gift from Missee. She found a Paul Bunyan and Babe running shirt for me. How cute! May we run with the courage, strength, and determination of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox!
Happy Running! -Stephanie ps. If you didn't see Missee's post yesterday about National Sibling's Day... make sure to check it out. What a beautiful tribute to siblings! Care to Comment? Have you ever visited Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd? If so, what was your favorite ride or attraction?
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Today is National Siblings Day and any blog with "sisters" in the title certainly should celebrate. Stephanie and I are only 15 months apart in age, so we grew up almost like twins since we were so close in age and at a small school, one grade apart was negligible. We knew most of the kids a couple grades above and behind us in school and even a little further out than that if they were siblings of friends or on a common sport team. As kids, we did pretty much everything together, but also had our own interests. I spent a lot more time running as a teenager while Stephanie was a very good volleyball player. For a number of years, we even answered to one another's names! Now that our own kids are all getting a little older, Stephanie and I have been able to reconnect with more fun things together again. When we visit our parents (aka "the farm"), we are able to take off on runs, shopping, movies or work on crafts guilt-free since none of the cousins require the hands-on care they needed as toddlers. In fact, when they arrive at the farm, most of the kids wonder when the adults will leave. We have yet to figure out what Grandma and Grandpa do with these kids when we leave, but they are all anxious for us to get lost :-) I believe they are mostly playing board games, exploring outdoors and eating fun snacks, but they just like it that their parents are not around to distract Grandma and Grandpa from the fun. Stephanie and I went to the farm to attend a funeral a while back on a weeknight, so we left all the kids and husbands at home. It was probably the first time in many years we went out for pizza just the four of us. I made sure to take a photo of Stephanie with our Mom and Dad to send back to the kids to make them a little jealous. Notice that she is sitting in the middle! I think having a great sibling helped me mother three children who are a total of four and a half years apart. My husband and I feel fortunate that our kids genuinely care for and enjoy one another. I'm sure they have had their share of arguments, but overall get along great. The boys even shared a bedroom until B left for college. Here they are on Christmas getting ready for breakfast of gluten free pancakes: These siblings are also bonded by running. The boys are both distance runners and now that they are a little older, like to run some of their miles together. They were teammates when D was in junior high and B was in high school, but not quite yet compatible running buddies until D was more full-grown. Their sister is a thrower, so track is a strong common interest. It was so convenient for us the one year that all three of them had the same track schedule! Here we are a number of years ago...this family photo was too funny for us not to purchase. Every group needs a comedian: Happy National Siblings Day to you! If you don't have any biological siblings, your running friends might be the next best thing. If you have siblings who like to run, hopefully you can coordinate a time to run with them sometime this spring. How about joining a race all together? Happy running! Missee
What a fun and busy weekend! My children were in the middle school musical on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We were blessed with family and friends who came to support our children. My sister-in-law who was visiting us this weekend is training for a half marathon. She had a ten mile run on her training plan for Saturday. I decided to run some miles with her before meeting up with my running partner, M, for an hour run. When my run was complete, I ended up running about 12.5 miles total. That was farther than I had planned to go, but it I had a great time! This photo was taken after about 5 miles of running. We stopped at home for a drink of water. I hope you were able to get out for a run, walk, etc this weekend. On Saturday, it ended up reaching a warm 81 degrees in our city. I almost turned on the air conditioning. Take a look at tomorrow's weather forecast... From a high of 81 to a high of 43 in just a few short days. Wow! Spring in Minnesota brings a variety of weather conditions. We may see some snowflakes, but it won't stay for long.
Happy Running! -Stephanie Last week, I had blogged about the hoops I was jumping through to get to a gigantic track meet for my college kids a moderate distance from home and still fit in my own running program. Well...this weekend might be even busier! We started out with a high school meet last night with our youngest running the 4x800 relay and the 3200m run for a total of 10 laps of racing. He looked very strong. His times were not exciting to him, but plenty good for early season. I wouldn't advise getting in D's path when he's racing :-) He followed up that busy night with an 8 mile training run at 8:00am followed by his first week of Trap Shooting practice at 10:00. I packed him a hearty lunch to tide him over til he gets home. My running friend needed to get going early this morning to get her son to his activities, so we were done running around 6:30 this morning...that's early for a Saturday! This week's run called for 2 hours running with 2 periods of 2 miles at race pace. I'll admit, at that early hour, race pace miles were VERY tough to come by. We made a reasonable effort, but I was definitely feeling it. I am currently 2 weeks until race day and looking forward to tapering down from the long and difficult workouts toward the race. When I got home, I spent some time with the foam roller to loosen up my muscles. Now I'm about warmed up and ready to go for yet another track meet this morning. Today's meet is only 20 minutes from home and both of our college kids are participating. Charlie is coming along; he loves being outdoors and he attracts a lot of attention from college kids who miss their own pets. He's kind of a therapy dog in that way, but he'd probably argue the pleasure is all his.
Next week is Holy Week and Easter. I'm very glad for a couple of shorter weeks of work and the chance to spend some time with family. At the beginning of Lent, I heard someone speaking on the radio of making this a "Resurrection-Style" Lent, where we should aim to lift one another up with compliments and encouragement rather than negativity or doubt. I love that sentiment and hope that everyone is finding their running program to be uplifting heading into the Easter season. Happy running! Missee Today was my daughter's first track meet. She ran hurdles and an 800m. The hurdles made me the most nervous. I'm happy to report that all went well. It was a fun night! Track meets are great for spectators. There seems to be an event for everyone. We watched some long jump, triple jump, pole vault, and lots of running. I enjoy the variety of events and being outdoors in the crisp spring air. Happy Running! Stephanie
April Fool's Day has just passed. I don't consider myself gullible, but I do completely enjoy some of the April Fool's pranks that showed up on the internet last week. The City of Ely always has a good one and this year was no exception: I have never used Uber, but I think I would really enjoy taking a "Canoeber" while in the Ely area! I also saw two different running related April Fool's pranks. The first was an email from Brook's Running advertising running shoes for dogs...having a little bit of a soft spot for Charlie, I promptly opened it. The final one was a Facebook post from Hal Higdon, a running coach that has a lot of marathon training plans available online. He was reporting that the Boston Marathon was departing from the current qualifying standards. As someone who once made the qualifying standard in my age group, I was very interested. I even have and wear a running jacket proudly advertising "Boston Qualifier." However, it went on that for the 2018 race, only BU (Boston Unqualifiers) would be allowed into the race. He also offered a training plan that would include 2-3 runs per week with nothing over 10 miles and skipping one run a week would be totally ok. I wish I was as clever as the folks who not only thought up these April Fool's pranks, made jokes that were done in a completely fun spirit and got their graphics and posts ready in time. I look forward to what they will come up with next year :-) Today is a special day....Stephanie's birthday! Happy Birthday to you! My husband found this mug for you to help you enjoy your hot chocolate and donuts on your special day. Happy running and watch out for the April Fools! Missee Care to Comment?
What is the best April Fool's prank you have seen or been a part of? Saturday's run was almost perfect. The sun was out, the temp was about 35 degrees, no wind, and I had plenty of sleep on Friday night. The only thing missing was my running partner. She wasn't able to join me, so I was running solo. :( When I run solo, I usually run as fast as I can. My running goal stops being the enjoyment of a long run and becomes completing the run as quickly as possible. I ended up running 7 miles in 1:00.09 with an average of 8:34 minutes per mile. Now that it is April, it is time to get serious about protecting our skin from the damaging rays of the sun. After many youthful years of tanning, I have sun damage to my skin. I also deal with a skin condition that causes dark patches on my face. I now wear sun block EVERY DAY, winter, spring, summer, and fall. These are my favorite sunblocks to use while running. The Neutrogena Sport Face is the product I wear every day. I try to apply sunblock at least 20 minutes prior to running. In the sweatier months, I also use a sunblock stick. It seems to stay in place. I have even kept one of these sunblock sticks in my pocket for easy reapplication. On my run I took a few photos of the beautiful rural Minnesota scenery. On one of my favorite bike paths, I could see something pinkish purple ahead, in the center of the path. Is it a critter? To be safe, I went into the grass to avoid this potentially dangerous creature. Better safe than sorry! After I passed it, I had to chuckle. Here is the critter... I guess it wasn't a real critter after all. :) Today is our mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom/Grandma! Happy Running! -Stephanie
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AuthorMissee and Stephanie are two Minnesota sisters and moms who love to run. We are not experts in running, parenting or anything else, but we do have years of experiences that may be helpful or entertaining to others. Archives
May 2020
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