Hi!

I am still hammering away in the pool, I haven't missed a day since I've been in North Dakota. Today I went to the Turtle Mountains along the U.S. - Canadian border, and swam in Strawberry lake. It was nice, the water was really cloudy because it rained hard all night, but I never saw another person. I did see some Moose tracks. I also ran about 2 miles, on some old overgrown forest roads, and made an illegal entry in to Canada. That was kind of fun. I've been testing out my ITB by putting in some really short gentle runs, but I still don't think its ready to go. I can't believe how bad this stupid injury is crushing me down. Sooo Frustrating.... I get 2 days off for Labor day next weekend, enough time to get deep in to Montana, but since serious running isn't much of an option I have my wetsuit and will be looking for a nice glacier fed lake to swim in .


I wonder if they would really arrest me for this??

Minot.....

I have been in Minot, ND for a little over a week, and its looking like I will probably be here for a couple of months. Not thrilled, but at least there is a decent YMCA here in town that I have been able to swim at every night after work. I am getting in some pretty intense workouts and I am pretty happy that I should have a couple of months to start working on my swimming again. Hopefully the next place I end up will have a masters team and I will be in good enough shape to join it. I still haven't ran a step since the marathon. I am trying to heal my injuries once and for all, I think I'm gonna give it another month before I start slowly easing back in to running. I played Disk Golf in the Montana Badlands on Sunday. That was pretty neat. I am hoping to do an open water swimming race on Memorial day in Glacier National park in Montana. I have to try and get enough time off work to be able to make the drive though. I will probably sign up and hope for the best. With my job it always comes down to not knowing if I can go until like the night before.

Grand Island "trail" Marathon

This was a nice run. It was by no means a trail marathon, like they advertised. But the nice flat shaded two tracks made this fairly painless until it was over. Considering the handful of runs that I have done over the last 3 months, my goal was to finish in under 6 hours and not hurt myself. the time goal was easy, but the ITB flared up pretty bad afterwards. I guess the toll will be another couple of months of no running. I will probably take up knitting or something that my body can handle I suppose.
Heath did an awesome job. He wore a wonderful full body spandex outfit and wore a camelback on top of it. I saw him once on an out and back and he was happily in second place at that point.

Jason, Nick and Heath made this trip a lot of fun. I loved swimming in Lake Superior. I need to spend a lot more time there.

Not sure what happened with my map. Begin and end should be at the same spot. I think the distance is accurate though.

07-16-2011 Run

Happy to get in another little jog in what is the fittest city in the country..

Here is a link

Thats one of the things I love most about this place. There are always a ton of other people outside doing something. If I go running when it is 10 below zero, I know there will be other people out there with me. I love being surrounded by miles of bike trails, running trails, ski trails, lakes, rivers, all of it.. I love Minneapolis, but I really don't like the Midwest. I'll be sad when I move, but I know I will be a lot happier in the Pacific North West.

Finally. 6-26-2011

Finally got my first day off in over a month of 14 hour days. All the hard work has paid off because as of yesterday, all of the pipe is in the ground. I started working on this project in January 2008 trying to figure out how we were going to route it the 675 miles from Wyoming to California. Several accidental deaths, Four billion dollars, and Three and a half years later, the pipe is in the ground. There is still a lot of testing and clean up work to do before it is operational, but that is coming along quickly. I honestly never thought I would see this day.

Now apparently I am pushed along to another much smaller project in North Dakota. I'm not sure when I will be going, but sometime within the next few weeks is the best guess. The worst part about that is that the only town in the area is Minot, which if you have seen the news would know that it is currently under water. We are trying to figure out how we are going to live there and right now the discussion seems to be leaning towards building a camp because the already limited housing is obviously even more scarce now. It's only supposed to last 3 months, so I guess I can handle that. I'm kind of looking forward to being in the wide open prairie lands for awhile. As long as I'm outta there before the winter hits than everything is good.

Got my first pain free run of over 3 miles in since May 10th last night. I think I am good to start building back up now, I'm nervous and excited about that. I'm really hoping it goes well.

Here are some pics from the last couple of weeks.

Here is the last convoy of pipe being delivered on a nice rainy foggy typical Oregon morning.

One thing that I'm not gonna miss is hauling my awkward equipment up mountains to set it up.

This is one of the last stretches of pipe, strung out waiting to get welded together.

After the pipe is buried, one of the last things we do is place pipeline markers over it. This is one of the final stretches just as it turns South to California. Thats Shasta in the background. After we set the markers, the ground gets seeded with native plants, so in a year or two it will look a lot nicer hopefully.

And this of course is the California/Oregon state line. The end of the line for now. There is a big receiver station that has been built that other pipelines are going to tap in to.

05-22-2011 Update.

I haven't really been running since my last post. I have tried three times and each time got less than 2 miles before my illiotital band shut me down. Its a simple case of not running on hills for almost 2 months and then all of a sudden climbing them all day at work again and running on them after work.. I'm trying to let it rest for awhile. I'm guessing another couple weeks. A little disappointing considering that I live right next door to a mountain full of single track running trails. Obviously things could be a lot worse.

I did get the day off, so I took advantage of it and did a fast hard hike at Castle Crags over near Mt. Shasta. My goal was to summit Castle Dome, looking at the map it looks like I still had a half mile or so to go but it was freaking straight up. There were sheer vertical cliffs everywhere. I thought I was into the real cool area, but if you look at the aerial, you will see that I just merely got to the edge of the insanity. This was a really cool place, much like the rest of Northern California and Oregon.





My goal upon leaving my truck this morning was to go up there.... But after catching a glimpse, I quickly realized that it was way beyond my ability. I guess thats why I everyone that I passed on the trail was carrying rope and other rock climbing gear...

05-10-2011 Trail Run

Gorgeous night. It was snowing yesterday. Today I was wearing short sleeves.