I guess it has been a while since we traveled into the wilderness of northern Minnesota and Canada. We had a great trip. We saw a moose and its calf. We saw a northern saw-whet owl and several deer. Of course we saw lots of loons and eagles. It was a lot of fun to relax and enjoy the outdoors!
It was a crazy day. Temperatures began over 70 degrees and crept up from there. At the beginning of the race the race officials gave us a black flag signifying the worse conditions and warned us to drink a lot of water. Sandi and I ran the first block together before I set out to run a personal record. The heat would keep us from even finishing as the officials cancelled the race after 3.5 hours. I had made it to mile 21 and Sandi was around mile 18. They let us walk/run all but a 3 mile loop if we proceeded at our own risk. It was a fun but disappointing day since we had trained for over 4 months to get ready for the day and then we couldn
The weather this time of year can be crazy. Yesterday it was raining, then snowing, then sleeting, then snowing again. It was a wintry mess. Driving around town was difficult. Today it was 52 at noon and the streets were bare again with water running everywhere. In other news, Sandi and I get to help teach at an evangelism rally in Fargo, ND. Finally, after staying in Bemidji for the past month or so we will be traveling the next two weekends. The first one we’re headed down to Brainerd to visit family for my birthday and the following week we will travel to Dawson to see Sandi’s hometown for the first time. It should be fun!
It’s that time of year. When the secular world and the spiritual world collide. We’re celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sandi and I are enjoying our first Christmas together. We’ll be visiting both sides of the family as we travel around Minnesota. We recently had a student take some pictures of us for some publicity and I had some fun fixing them up taking snow flakes off our clothing. Merry Christmas!
We’ll, it has been a little bit too long since I updated the page. A lot has happened since Sandi and I got married. For example, four weeks after our honeymoon we left for Russia and spent a month sharing our lives with 27 Russian students and 10 other Americans. You can find some of the pictures in the gallery.
There have been a lot of changes this fall in my life. Most of them have been good. I now work full time with InterVarsity. I have been playing basketball on Monday and Friday, but I still can’t seem to shoot real well. I started looking at houses in Duluth. While looking at them has been fun, realizing that I can’t afford them is dissapointing. I guess I continue the renting game for a while longer. In InterVarsity we’ve had a lot of exciting things happen this fall, including a new believer. God has been good.
Kirk Nordgren called me up saturday to see if I wanted to go backpacking on the north shore. Of course I did. We packed our things up, drove up the north shore to silver bay and started hiking. We hiked in 3.4 miles to Bear Lake and stayed overnight. It was fun and beautiful to listen to nature, without the buzzing of the city world. Besides that, I had a blast working on my photography skills.
“This last weekend, I ventured into the wilderness on the north shore. A group from church headed out friday night for an overnight hiking trip on the superior hiking trail. We hiked in about 2 miles to find out the camp site we planned on using was already taken. So we hiked another mile to find another site to setup camp. By that time it was already dark out, but we had plenty of flashlights and headlampts, so we had fun setting up some unfamiliar tents in the dark. After that we made smores and sat around the campfire. There is something fun about being in the outdoors away from the hustle and bustle of life. And, it provided me another opportunity to take a bunch of photos and put them up in my photo album: http://www.asker.net/gallery/superiorhike“
“My first marathon was a ton of fun! I joined the 3:30 pace team at the beginning of the race and ran with them to the half marathon marker. At that point I decided I was feeling good and I wanted to run under 3:30 so I started to pull away. I began by picking people off one by one, passing them methodically through mile 18. At mile 18 I knew I was within range of running a 3:20 because I had passed several members of the 3:20 pace team. Unfortunately I also knew I was getting tired, but I thought I could hang on and just keep going. I tucked in behind a guy and ran with him for a mile. At mile 19 I started to feel the tiredness coming on and I decided to walk through the water station. I picked it up and ran the next mile to 20 and was at my target pace of 8 minutes per mile. With 10k to go (or 6.2 miles) my body started to shutdown. my feet were starting to kill me and my legs weren’t functioning like my mind wanted them to anymore. From that point on in it became a mental game for me, continually convincing myself that I could keep running. In mile 22, I was passed by the 3:30 pace team and I knew that I wasn’t going to finish under 3:30, but I kept on going. Finally, with about 1.5 miles left I looked down at my watch and it said 3:30 at that point I knew I was going to finish under my secondary goal of 4 hours and I began to shuffle run the rest of the way in… finishing in 3:42:41, not bad! Almost exactly Half way in between my “”super-goal”" of 3:30 and my I want to make sure I run it faster than 4 hours. What a fun day!”
“It’s official. I registered for Grandmas Marathon to be run June 19, 2004 in Duluth MN. I began my training a few weeks ago and am now on a semi-strict training schedule. Wow, it feels good to be on schedule again for my running. Even in the short month that I have begun training I have already noticed a significant increase in my fitness level as I am now comfortably running 7:00 minute miles. Even in my first “”long”" run of 6 miles I was able to maintain a 7:45 mile. I must not be that far out of shape. My official program started last week and if you want to know where I’m at, just check it out at this web site http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/Mar00novice.htm at the recommendation of the site and other sources, people who have not previously run a marathon, like me, should start with the novice schedule. So here we go on a fun filled adventure to 26.2 miles (or about 3.5-4 hours[that's my goal] of running!)”