3/21-4/9
I'll have to think hard to remember all the things that have happened over the last few weeks. So here it is:
I finished up my last week of teaching Boot Camp, so now I'll have more time to devote to running, biking, and other miscellaneous activities, such as disc golf, ultimate frisbee, soccer, football, basketball, and spending time with friends and the youth from church. I really need to get on my bike more to get my legs ready for the 700 miles I'm doing in Turkey in about a month and a half. Also have a lot of tough running races coming up this summer (I have a race planned of at least 1/2 marathon distance planned for every weekend from the time I get back from Turkey in mid June through mid August). The Rez Runners training program is going great! We are up to about 10 or so members that join us, plus several others who can't come but do the workouts on their own. It's a really great thing seeing all these people getting active and enjoying the outdoors and fellowship! We got a special permit to shoot some wild game to serve at our Diabetic meals so my bosses and I went hunting one day. The only deer we saw were when we were off the Rez, but we did have fun driving in the snow and getting seriously stuck a couple times. We took a second trip out another day and this time there were 5 of us. We saw a coyote, got stuck some more and completely covered in mud trying to push the vehicle out, and then finally saw some deer. For this hunting trip I had on my camo jacket, snow boots, bandana, huntin' face paint (made from mud I found on the ground), and had my bosses 337 rifle in hand. I was the first to spot the deer grazing on the top of the hill. The 3 deer froze when they saw us but were not afraid because they knew it wasn't hunting season. They were probably pretty shocked when they heard the loud BOOM and saw their friend start to gush blood. After the first shot the jumped a little and the one I had aimed at disappeared so I thought I had missed. So, I prepped the gun and shot the next one, this time sending it flailing as it rolled down the hill towards us before it finally skidded to a stop. I was victorious in my first deer kill! We walked up the hill and checked out my excellent shot right near the heart. Then I continued to the top of the hill to check on my first shot. Sure enough the other deer was lying there with legs twitching as it bled ferociously from the death shot through the neck. We cut the deer’s neck to put it out of pain and then gutted the two deer (my first time for that as well). So, by now I was covered in mud and blood, which made for an interesting conversation with the other employees at the clinic as I walked through. The processing place we took the deer to was over an hour away and was a scary looking house out in the middle of the boonies. There were three of us in the car, but were a bit scared we might get processed along with the deer. Inside the little shop the walls were covered in antlers and racks from various animals and there were large bloody unidentifiable carcasses and slabs of meat hanging around.
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The last weekend in March brought forth some nice weather with temps up in the 40s. Saturday I went running all around town and then played some disc golf with Heidi. Next we went to the local high school to watch their “Grand March” for prom. This is where all the couples walk out on to the gym floor (where prom is) and as their names are announced everyone in the stands takes lots of pictures of them. After a couple hours of this their prom finally starts. Sunday I went to church, ate lunch with Heidi’s family, and spent the afternoon playing ultimate Frisbee, football, soccer, duck duck goose, and other games with some of the kids from the church.
The next week included lots of running and some rock climbing. On Thursday April 1 I ran about 6 miles during my workout time at work, then after work I ran a warm-up mile to the start of a fun-run fundraiser for a cross-country kid from the Rez. First I ran the one-mile race and won it (and for the next two weeks people kept telling me they saw my picture from this race in the local newspaper). Then I decided to run the one-mile course again while I waited for the 3-mile race to start. After winning the 3-mile race I went back and run another couple miles to cool down and look for other runners who apparently got lost. The next day I woke up early and ran about 8 miles towards work until Heidi picked me up and took me the rest of the way (she works at the clinic too). During our running club I ran another 5 or so miles. Saturday was fairly warm with a strong 40 mph wind. I rode my bike 17 miles out to Emily’s farm and after a couple refreshing smoothies, some blueberries, and some raw coconut cream I was ready for a run! Emily rode her bike while I ran as we headed off toward the beautiful Bear Paw Mountains. The strong wind made the run pretty tiring and I even got hit in the leg by some speedy sage-brush. We ended up going a total of 12.5 miles. When we got back Heidi came over and enjoyed a delicious family dinner. Easter Sunday I woke up early and went for about a 5 mile run with lots of sprints. After church I spent the afternoon with Emily’s family at her grandparent’s house doing an Easter Egg Hunt and eating lunch since I didn’t have any family to spend the holiday with. Our church had an Easter Service out at the Rez that afternoon and I rode in a limo (driven by a guy from church) out there with several of the kids and other people from church. It was my first time riding in a limo.
Wed. of the next week I drove to Missoula, MT for a Cardiovascular Summit Conference. This town is the cold northern mountain town version of Austin, TX. People ride bikes EVERYWHERE there. And 90% of them have some kind of rack with bags or a basket on them. There are lots of different kinds of bikes and some crazy custom ones. It’s a very eclectic town, lots of hippies, homeless people, organic healthy people, runners, triathletes, community gardens, rivers, beautiful mountains, and the University of Montana, which is the school that beat SFA this year in football playoffs. They are REALLY good and have won nationals several times. My first morning there I took a self guided tour around the campus, talked them into letting look around their Rec Center, and hiked/ran up a mountain behind the campus that has a giant 300 ft. M on the side. Then I met up with some community gardeners who took my boss and me around town to look at gardens, the health food store, and the local co-op. A doctorate of nutrition professor there (who is helping us start the community garden at Rocky Boy and get a grant) met up with us as well at the gardens. She is an incredibly helpful and friendly lady, and very smart. The next couple days I spent at the conference during the day and went running at night. Saturday morning I met up with the local running club at the only running store in town and went on a nice 10-mile trail run. Then I ran on over to the University and watched a friend do a triathlon there. This was the first race I have ever watched. It really made me antsy to jump in the pool and start going. I headed back home after the race and drove through some spectacular scenery, past big horned sheep grazing on the side of a mountain, by deer and antelope on the side of the road, and even some turkey. Sunday I played disc golf with Heidi, Emily, and Emily’s sister in Havre, and we met up with a guy from the church as well.
The week of the 12th consisted of more running, doing a cooking class at the Rez where we taught them how to cook spaghetti squash with venison, baked sweet potato fries, garlicky green beans, and roasted asparagus….delicious! Wed we had a huge snowstorm hit the Rez. We got about 3 feet of snow in one day and the clinic had to close down early because we lost electricity. Thursday was just as bad but we stayed open and I even taught a Diabetes Class and cooked lunch for about 10 people. Saturday I biked out to Emily’s farm again and then we played ultimate Frisbee with a big group of people back in town. It made my entire week! I had been craving some good ultimate. After that Emily, Heidi, and I went geocaching around town in the dark. Good stuff. Sunday after church we went geocaching again and walked all over town looking for the coordinates.



4/19-4/25

Although the ground at the Rez was still slightly wet, we were finally able to get a spot of land for our community garden and have it roto-tilled. We had a couple other places picked out that we liked and had even staked one out the week prior so they would know where to till it, but we had to change spots last minute. It looked small at first compared to our other spots, but turned out to be the perfect size and location. It’s about 100 by 100 ft. Tuesday we had a master gardener come and lead a gardening workshop. She taught us the basics of gardening and we spent about 4 hours grooming the ground and planting seeds. With 15 of us working hard we got about ¼ of the plot ready for growing. After work on Wed. Emily picked Heidi and I up at the Rez and we drove to Great Falls. We hung out, went to the health food store, ate, and then they dropped me off at the hotel. Early Thurs. morning I got on the plane and headed to Nashville, via Denver. On the plane ride to Denver I sat next to a nice lady who works at the Mayo Clinic and is also a runner. My plane from Denver to Nashville was full of runners for the marathon, including a guy who works for Pearl Izumi. I also met a lady who is an RD, CDE in Washington and works with Diabetics there. She was running the half-marathon.
When I finally arrived in Nashville I was picked up by two Ride:Wellers, Deb Go and Erin Morris. Erin is from Nashville so she dropped Deb and I off at the hotel and headed to work. We waited for the rest of the Ride:Well gang at the hotel. About an hour later they started trickling in…and the party was on!!! There were 11 of us from the ’09 tour and we met up with two from the ’08 tour. We dropped off our luggage in our rooms and headed to the race expo, where we picked up our race bibs, took some great pictures, got some free socks and a free shirt from the Pearl Izumi guy, did some yoga, and talked with my friend Tara Stiles, the yoga master. After the expo we walked around the town and ate some dinner. Friday we had a nice breakfast on the outside patio together and relaxed at the hotel that morning while a couple people finished up some homework. After a quick trip back to the expo to pick up another race packet, we went to the park to relax and throw around the Frisbee. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get some good sleep before the race.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early at 4 am, ate breakfast, and headed to the race. Cody, Drew, Lisa Rudzik, Bethany, and I did some warming up together, hit up the port-a-potties, and then split off into our corrals. I was in the first corral and they ended up starting my corral 15 minutes early at 6:45 am because severe storms and tornados were expected to come in later in the morning. Throughout the entire race my calves were tight and sore. I ended up running the first half about 5 minutes slower than I wanted because I got distracted talking with a guy. So, the second half I just decided to go all out and ended up running it about 10 minutes faster than the first half and was passing tons of people, which is always fun. Despite the calf pain I ended up setting a new personal record of 3:03:30 and beat the rain. After I finished I immediately headed over to the 20-mile mark to wait for Cody and run the rest with him. Well, pretty soon the freezing rain started pouring and officials decided to shut the marathon course short and make them finish with only 21 miles. After standing there for about 45 minutes I figured Cody must have already passed so I walked toward the finish line. After waiting there for a while with my cape wrapped around me to stay warm, I decided to find some shelter to get out of the cold rain. So after I walked all over the place looking for the rest of the team, I huddled under a small overhang and waited. After a couple long hours Drew finally found me. I went with him to where Lisa was and then we finally got ahold of the rest of the gang. They were all under a huge pavilion looking warm and eating lots of food. I was still soaking wet, freezing, and starving, but at least I found my friends. Cody had survived the race after sneaking past the barricades to finish the marathon. We piled in the cars and headed to the hotel for showers. After getting warm and clean we went to Erin Morris’ parent’s house for a wonderful lunch. We ended up sitting on the back porch and talking for the next 6 hours as we watched the rain come down and waited for the tornados to come that we were being warned about. Luckily, the tornados never came and we had a great relaxing evening talking, eating, and playing games.
Sunday we went to Erin’s gigantic beautiful church out in the country. After lunch we said our goodbyes as everyone except Deb, Erin, and I left to drive back home. The three of us went walking around Nashville and then headed to the park for a couple hours where we geocached, flew a kite, played on a spring loaded see-saw, and watched little kids play. We then headed back to Erin’s house to help make dinner.
4/26-5/1 (My Birthday!!!!!)
Monday morning Deb and Erin took me to the airport. Deb left later that afternoon. After leaving Nashville I caught a plane in Denver and landed in Albuquerque, NM. On the plane to Denver I sat next to the same guy I sat next to when I flew from Denver to Nashville last Thurs. Crazy!!! He was a nice fellow from a small town near Great Falls, MT. Stayed at a hotel in Alb with a sweet workout room, pool, and hot tub. The conference I was attending for Indian Health Services was held at our hotel. Had a nice week attending lectures on Diabetes and other health topics, meeting people from all over the country, running around scenic Alb, and spending a lot of time in the weight room and pool. It was a nice relaxing week.
When I arrived back in Great Falls, MT Emily picked me up at the airport and we went to a local health store/café where we ate lunch with her friend Shannon. I had a delicious portabella salad with a bowl of yummy African sweet potato soup. Shannon lives in Great Falls and is kind of a rock star around the area. She is a news anchor for the morning show of the local news station. She even does some traveling to do on-site shows! After lunch the three of us went to see Ryan’s Dam which has a really cool bridge going to an island (that was, unfortunately, closed till Mother’s Day). We took a bunch of sweet pictures, climbed on things, sang songs and danced to the sweet tunes of High School Musical, climbed up a semi-cliff, and threw rocks in the river. It was great fun! Then I dropped Emily and Shannon off and drove two hours back to my pad in Havre.


Saturday, May 1 was my 27th birthday so I enjoyed sleeping in a bit with intermittent birthday texts and phone calls. After breakfast I decided to celebrate my 27 years of life by doing 27 sets of: 10 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 27 body-weight squats, 27 crunches, 10 dumbbell curls on each arm with 20 pound dumbbells, and 10 single-arm kettlebell swings on each arm with a 50 pound kettlebell. I also drank 27 glasses of water. Emily and Heidi came over that night to make me dinner. They sprang through my door singing and cheering and wearing Happy Birthday cone hats, bound and determined to make this the best birthday ever. They also had in hand a poster they made for me that had pictures of all our adventures together the last three months with reasons for why they think I’m cool and let me hang out with them. It was spectacular! They also made me a really cool book for all my races this summer.Each race has a mix cd for the drive to the race, a note to read the morning of the race, a page to write my thoughts about the race, and a page for pictures.There were even a few maps of the races.Such a wonderful present from such wonderful friends!While they made me dinner we listed to HSM songs and Matt Kearney, which they downloaded just for the night! For dinner we had raw coconut kale tacos with a kale leaf as the taco shell stuffed with homemade salsa, fresh coconut chunks, guacamole, and macadamia nut mock cheese. We also had organic steak and baked sweet potato fries. For dessert we had healthy pumpkin pie made with almond meal/coconut crust, raw honey, and organic pumpkin filling. After dinner we watched HSM 2 while I finished my workout. I finished the night by praying for 27+ people. It was the best birthday I have had in a looooong time.

