Another month gone by

OK you may not believe me we but I really do think about writing something on this blog every day.  I want to capture the craziness of our lives right now since it will all be good memories in the future.

So I'm going to catch up by using my iPhone photos to help my memory:

Random cuteness of Deb and Lily's girl, Maggie

End of June Mark had to be away for 4 days in Jacksonville, FL for training for his sales position at ADT.  As with any all commission sales job, we both took a big breath and hoped for the best in the transition period while he got up and running.  Things are a little smoother now but money still seems to continue to flow more out than in with all the projects that must be done in order for us to ever think we can look for a new house.   Last check I think we are over $25k to get everything done and that we do not have :(  And that's not counting us having a life or saving for a down payment on a new place.   Sigh.....often a daily heartache for me searching for options and just not finding any other than attempting to win the lottery.







We both are struggling to get our motivation to really start
training for anything this fall.  We both are way into bad calories and Mt. Dew is often part of our diet to relieve the stress.  The business has been good and we have some exciting stuff potentially rolling out soon but it's taken it's toll on us.  We both have pounds to loose and lots of strength to regain.  I really miss feeling like an athlete and being able to run an "easy" pace that starts with an 8:xx min/mile instead of struggling for low 9's.   We are trying to plug in small races here at there to force ourselves to move again but I think 2014 will be our better year to get back after it.

We had the Pink Courage Walk for Warriors that we helped consult and manage at the end of June.  I think they were hoping for more participants (which seems to be every races problem this year....and I mean everyone, even the "big guys" at Grandma's Marathon, Twin Cities in Motion and Life Time Fitness.   That same weekend we also helped manage a 5K at the Mpls Convention Center for the AHA Expo that was in town.  Fairly simple since it was just for their people and not anyone could sign up.

Spent an afternoon at the State Fairgrounds Orange Jeep at State Fairgrounds reviewing the Skirt Chaser course and running it as well.  We happened to be there the same day as the "Petapalooza" so of course our marketing radars went up and we went cruising for potential organizations and businesses to contact for Fast and the Furry 2014.  We parked near "our Jeep." Or what our Jeep will be when we can ever afford to purchase one and stick our logo on the door.  Just imagine this beauty with "UpTempo Race Management" on the door :)

Finally bought a new grill after loosing our old one after the big dead tree decided to fall for what has to be the final time last fall.   We were going through Home Depot and came across this one for only $200 so we made an impulse buy since it WAS the 4th of July weekend and not having a grill just felt....unAmerican.   Unfortunately we only had my Dodge Charger to haul it home and in the end it took 7 Home Depot associates to figure out out to get it apart and into my trunk.  1 or 2 bolts seemed to be causing most the trouble.   4-5 of those associates spent most of their time standing around trying to say something useful to the 2-3 that were actually trying to get 'er done.

Haven't gotten the road bikes out at all but have had the mountain bikes out a couple times.  We randomly took off on this ride and ended up being gone for a few hours.   This is a shot from the bridges on the Luce Line trail heading west.   Not sure how many miles we put on but I know our bodies weren't real thrilled with that last 7 or so miles.














This is just a cool shot from the rooftop bar at The Cafeteria in Uptown.  Randomly ended up here late one night for a couple drinks and enjoyed the fresh air.   Haven't gotten too many nice nights in MN this summer.

 

We again managed the finish line for the Mpls Tri and think we are getting pretty good with that event.   The Life Time event staff seemed to have a big turnover this year but despite all the new faces, they did extremely well in the face of adversity as Mother Nature decided to flood a good portion of the bike course only hours before the start time.  Two hours delayed start and no long course option anymore but I think it was still a very successful event.

I got to take my kid (Mark) to the candy store
(Eden Prairie Air Expo) and saw some very cool old war planes.  I'm no history buff....at all....but these things were really cool.   We toured a B17, got to see a replica of the Tuskegee Red Tail and a TBM Avenger.  The highlights for me were watching Mark get so excited to see all the planes and watch them fly demos around us.  The other highlight was not spending $2,000 for a ride in the P51 Mustang (Tuskegee Red Tail) or $425 for a spin in the B17 but forking out a more reasonable $170 for about a half hour ride in a bi-plane over the river valley.  That was super cool!   End of the day, one of us remembered we were near Lions Tap so dinner was burgers and fries.  Some of the best in the business if you ask me!

Look I caved again....must have confessed with this picture in a text to Mark that I caved and bought a Mt. Dew.  I think if I remember right he did the same that day.
















Torchlight 5k we managed the Start Line again this year too.
 Pretty simple, just lots to do in a short amount of time since we only have about 15 minutes from the time the road closes to get everything setup and herd the 4,000+ cats (runners) into the corral.   Everything was running very smoothly until all the runners were gone and out running the course and we all realized that this year they gave plastic water bottles at the start line and now they were left ALL over the place in the start area.  Hundreds of water bottles and we had no trash bags or garbage cans so we ended up throwing them all in the back of Brian Mastel's truck and unloading into the garbage later.
We also had a booth space due to a marketing trade at the Torchlight finish area.  Got a good amount of interest in Skirt Chaser there but registrations are not really showing that yet.   We wish we were more like 200 registrations right now but currently we sit around 116 or so.








Last weekend we took off down to Blue Mounds State Park with Sugar in tow for a few days of relaxation, hiking, birding and camping.  I have never been out camping with any of our dogs so it was a lot of fun to be able to curl up with Sugar at night and she seemed to enjoy that too.  Unfortunately both of our hikes ended up much longer than we were anticipating so she was just beat by the end of the weekend.

Got 6 new lifelist birds while we were there too.  American Kestrel, Nighthawk, Western Meadowlark, Orchard Oriole, Blue Grosbeak and the Cedar Waxwing.   We've really gotten into the birding thing lately.  Not sure how much I've mentioned that before but it's really another fun way for us to explore the outdoors. Hoping to be able to travel a bit next year during migration to see some of the action down in Texas.














Skirt Chaser is this Saturday and it's pretty much all-consuming this week.   I'm hoping we have a huge rush to have to deal with on race day but I'm not holding my breath either.  We won't break even this first year so now it's just to minimize the loss.   Excited to have Cities 97 and their afternoon DJ Paul Fletcher on site as our emcee but the big bucks we spent trying out radio ads to advertise the event in late June/early July I don't think really did much for us.

Pray for us..... ;)