Elias Jayne

We welcomed the greatest gift into our lives on Sunday, October 17 at 8:44 pm.

Elias Jayne joined us after a wonderful, long labor. My contractions started very sporadically at 2:00 on Saturday afternoon. I first timed them around 4:30, when they were 12 or so minutes apart. We labored through the night at home, went into the hospital at 11 Sunday morning, and went up to the labor and delivery room later in the afternoon. I spent most of my labor sleeping in between contractions, bouncing on the birthing ball, and relaxing in the jacuzzi. Misty (our ever-encouraging doula) and Aaron were incredibly supportive throughout the whole day. It was a long, hard labor, with various unexpected challenges thrown at us, such as Elias being posterior and having his arm on his head when he came out, being stuck between 9 and 10 cm for nearly three hours, and puking far too many times to count. Thankfully, however, we were able to go through the entire process free of any medication. The whole thing was beautiful - all of our hard work and preparation paid off. The setting for his arrival was perfect; the lights were dimmed, Coldplay's 'Fix You' was playing in the background, and everyone in the room was silent, except for Elias, when he let out his first cry.

My First Ultra

My first ultra-marathon was about what I expected...hard. Running the Bear Chase Race was a blast. The length of the course was 50 kilometers, or around 32 miles. Before starting the race, I didn't really know what to expect. I had trained for about three weeks prior and had never even competed in a running race before, nonetheless a 32 mile race. I've actually never ran over 18 miles at one time until this day. Luckily the weather turned out to be great.

The race started before dawn, so most people were using their headlamps to navigate around. Excited and nervous, I walked around with no one to really talk to except Jenny. I stretched and drank some water. Here's a picture of me prior to the start of the race.



The trail I was running took me through some great single track running, up a couple of small mountains, around a couple of lakes and we had to run through six rivers. Here are a couple of shots of the lake near the starting line and one of the mountains I would be running up (or walking).





The race started and I trotted in the back as we got into single track running. I wasn't out to break any time or win anything; my only goal was to finish, whether that was in four hours or 10 hours. The trail was absolutely gorgeous and well maintained. About 95% was on hard or soft sand, which was great for my knees. Running through the rivers was probably the highlight of the race, other than finishing. They helped cool my body and legs off as the day started to get hot.











Here is another picture of the course. This is about 15 miles in. They had some great shade running through the dense trees.



They had aid stations throughout the whole course where I could get food and drinks, but I was only able to see Jenny twice throughout the race, once at 13 miles and another time at 26 miles. Here are a couple of shots of when I got to see Jenny, eat some gels and shot bloks.





And then I was off again.



And in my final six miles, it got hot. Especially without the shade.







Miles 28 to 32 got pretty tough, but I managed to finish the race in 5 hours 45 minutes. I made it within my goal! I cramped up pretty quickly after the race ended, grabbed a beer and headed to the massage tent.







In the end, I was tired, but so glad I tried and finished the race. Definitely something I plan on doing again. Hopefully I can train longer than three weeks beforehand. Up next, a 50 miler.