A Brick Or Treat 4th Birthday

For Liam's 4th birthday, we went to Legoland's Brick Or Treat. The excitement!!

Brick Or Treating is Legoland's Halloween event during the month of October. Kids go "brick or treating" at either candy stations or brick stations (they get lego pieces) throughout the park. Brick Or Treat requires special Brick Or Treat tickets, which grants admission into the park after normal operating hours, 4pm til 9pm. We actually didn't go brick or treating because the lines are crazy long and we didn't want to spend the whole evening waiting in lines. Instead we took advantage of the time to roam the park and ride the rides.

Kiddos in their costumes. Emilia is Princess Aurora, and Liam is the Amazing Spider man.

Legoland.. the place for everyone to be a kid (aka Ryan!).

Liam needs to use his Spidey senses to direct us to the next activity.

Most. Fun. Night. Ever!

Boat ride (aka unoffical bumper boats).

And, we couldn't leave without the kids earning their Lego driving license at the Junior Driving School.

We were a little worried that Liam couldn't drive, but after a few minutes of figuring things out, he was the most in controlled driver lapping everyone that had crashed.

End of the night, we stayed til the park closed. Emilia was ready to find her way home.

Super fun for the whole family! It was a kick seeing the kids experience centripetal force and momentum fun for the first time on these kind of amusement park rides. Also turned out to be a good break and family time from October's hectic, crazy schedules (hence the no blog updates lately).

2015 Spartan Sprint : Hellmecula 2.0 Continued...

The day after the Beast, I went back to run the Sprint (~5 miles) with a co-worker that is new to the Spartan races. Took my camera this time to help document her first Spartan experience!

We spent months discussing back and forth on gear and techniques for the obstacles, so it was really fun re-experiencing the first-time Spartan jitters through her. I think sheer fun is the best way to describe it.

Stopped to capture the scenic view of the race course/venue.

Sled drag.

Sandbag carry. Have to carry a weighted sandbag up and down the hill.

See the line of people on the hill? You carry the sandbag up the hill (right of the photo), around the peak of the hill, and then back down (left of the photo).

Very crowded and slippery mud pits and hills. The Sprint races tend to be more overcrowded.. lines for the obstacles, hard to run fast or pass people, esp on the steep, narrow trails. Not the best for racing for time, but definitely more so about team work and having fun on the obstacles.

A-Frame wall climb in the background.

One of my favorite obstacles cause it's easy for rock climbers, the Z-Wall traverse.

Bucket brigade. Same idea as the sandbag carry --> up and down a hill.

Spear throw. Even though Ryan has this obstacle in our yard for me to practice on, it doesn't matter. I fail this obstacle, every single time. I am 0-5.



Another failed obstacle.. the rig. I was so close, but the 2nd day of racing and my arms had no mo' strength.



At least I got the rope climb.



Nailed the fire jump pose like a boss!

2015 Spartan Beast : Hellmecula 2.0

Ryan and I ran the Spartan Beast (13 miles, 30 obstacles) again recently. Harsh conditions again this year, and the race was informally dubbed as Hellmecula 2.0. This was our make-up run from last year's cancellation race. Both of us had started to get back into training mode mid-June, but work, kids, schedules, and unexpectedness of life hindered consistent training. So even with sporadic training, we were able to manage completing another Spartan Beast, in 90+ degree temps.

I am super proud of Ryan on his finish! He placed top 3% overall out of 3,402 racers, top 5% out of all 2,243 male racers, and 6th place for his age group. I can just imagine how he would do if he REALLY trained for this race.

I did not prepare well for this race, with ~two weeks of consistent training after taking most of August rehabbing a rotator cuff injury. I went into this race with low endurance and strength and fully expected to place poorly in all categories. So, all in all, I'm happy with my results, placing in the 25% for women and 28% for my age group, but 50% for overall.

I was planning to retire from doing Spartan races, but I feel I can do better, so maybe one more Beast before I retire. I did back-to-back races again this time, running the Sprint (5 miles) on Sunday for fun with a co-worker. This weekend completed my first Spartan Trifecta for 2015.

The kids unfortunately did not get to run the kids race again because they got sick! So.. looks like our family is not quite yet done with Spartan. We'll have one more hoorah!!

Pre-race photo at entrance to the start line.

Post-race photo at the finish line.

Sandbag carry up and down a hill.

Barb wire crawl.

Fire jump finish!

Oh Liam!

While Emilia got away with jumping down an entire flight of stairs without any injuries, Liam is the opposite. Non-dramatic, Liam tumbled awkwardly onto his elbow while throwing a tantrum in bed. His fall was no more than 2-3 feet onto a soft cushioned mattress.

With an acute fracture of the elbow, Liam will be in a cast for the next 4 weeks. Poor buddy. He is not happy.

On top of that, all of us (except Ryan of course) have been sick for the past 4 days with low-grade fever and cold symptoms. Sigh!