soccer game

Today we had our second soccer game (it should have been something like our 5th but we had a lot of cancellations due to weather). The game was not the best to say the least. The ref wasn’t making good calls at all. However, what was really irritation was how upset everyone was getting. They needed to just play the game and just do whatever the ref said. However, this was not how people were acting. There was a lot of swearing and a few yellow cards and near red cards. I hope next game people can keep there tempers under control.

Tempo Run with Fleet Feet

I did a tempo with Beth today. This will be my routine for all my Monday’s for awhile. We work well together. Last week I was pushing the pace and this week she was pulling me. It was really tough. Apparently I was doing my tempo runs as steady state runs so I have to ratchet the pace down a bit and the only way to do this is to run with Beth. I like running with a big group. Beth and I are the only girls but there are probably like 25 guys and when we finish we all wait until the last person is done and then run back to the store together (where they always have snacks for us). It’s a lot of camaraderie which is fun.

Lazy Sunday

Sunday was a lazy day. We went to church where the main point of the sermon was to let God be in control of your life instead of having your own plan and wanting God to bless it. He talked about humanism and legalism. Afterwards, Jeff did some studying while I went swimming and then took a nap and read by the pool. We then met some friends at an ice-cream place and had these monster scoops- we all ordered singles but they came out like triples. Then I went back on the megabus at 5PM. That was pretty much it for the day.

Tim and Holly's Wedding

I got into Ann Arbor last night for a wedding/visit Jeff today. Jeff made breakfast burritos in the morning. We then did some errands (got bike hooks to hang Jeff’s bike, went to pick up wedding gift, went to get a few things at the dollar store and went to get the oil change). Now I should elaborate on this oil change. We went to “Uncle Ed’s Old Change.” This was an experience in itself. The guys were like drill sergeants- commanding Jeff to click this and flip this and push this. It was hilarious. Anyway, quite a production line- we both enjoyed it and left laughing. After that we went home and went for a trail run. It was really cool. We were turning this way and that way, and snaking all through the forest. We were jumping over logs, and hopping over mud, and scurrying over hills. So much fun! After that we went home and changed into our suits and went to Jeff’s apartment pool. It felt nice to cool off in the water. There were a ton of people at the pool. We had brought a couple burgers down to the pool to grill. There were some other people grilling. A couple of the girls were in there fourth year of med school. One of them had a little kid. I keep on meeting these med student girls with like one year olds and I just don’t know how they do it! That must be so busy! Anyway, as usual we only ended up with about 30 minutes to get ready for the wedding. But we made it to the wedding on time (early even : ). The wedding was really neat. It was neat in the fact that it was diverse in many ways. It was diverse in the fact that the best man was African American and one of the grooms men and pastor was Asian and one of the ushers was African. It was diverse in the fact that they had a harp at the beginning and a bagpipe at the end. Also for the wedding meal they had a buffet of Indian food. In addition, Holly and Tim had taken tango dancing lessons and really impressed everyone with their first dance. Also, Holly’s father is a phenomenal dancer. The Father of the Bride dance was a swing dance and very impressive. I danced a lot at this wedding. In fact, Jeff said he couldn’t even get me off the dance floor : ). Now that’s a first.

PS- Jeff should go into peds. He was dancing with all the little girls. I think he might have a crush on a few 3 year old girls. Now should I be jealous? : )

Time Trial

Today was blisteringly hot. However, I still decided to go to the track. We had an inter-squad time trial. There was supposed to be a 5k and 3k but since it was so hot we decided to just have a 3k. We didn’t really warm up because it was so hot. We just stood in the shade and drank Gatorade : ). It was actually really fun to do the 3k. I picked up speed as I went and ran 10:30 exactly. I had forgotten how much I loved racing on the track. I hadn’t raced on the track for over a year (only on the roads). Anyway, this was definitely the hottest I have ever ran in (95 degrees and humid). Afterwards I was joking that this it would not be a very loving thing to give anyone a hug because we were all completely soaked with sweat. I cooled down with Holly and then continued home.

Olympic Day's

Today was Olympic Days in Chicago. There was a free 3 mile fun run (you just had to register online). There was two start locations. One was downtown and one was north of me. I ran to the north one. There they gave us bright orange t-shirts that said “I back the Bid” Then we all ran to North Beach (which is right by my house). I thought it looked cool to see orange shirts coming from both directions (North and Downtown). As I was running I saw three people jump out of a helicopter and parachute down to the beach with big American flags. It was really cool looking. When we got to North beach they gave us a PowerAde, granola bar, and banana. It was pretty warm so I was glad for the liquids. At the beach they had different activities set up. The best was free kayaking. You could take one of the kayaks out and tool around the marked off area. There was also a live band. They also had archery but there was a long line. It was quite the festival.

Today I had a great run with Beth. We met at FF and then jogged to the lake front. We did a 6 mile tempo run on the lakefront. We averaged 6:15’s. It was fun to just turn off our brains and get into a rhythm. We didn’t talk we just focused on being relaxed. It was a ton of fun. We went back to the store and stretched. The Nike marathon group had post workout snacks so we took part in that.

Relaxing Sunday

Today I went to the early service at Church. The sermon was titled “God is not your father.” I thought the sermon was good but it didn’t seem fitting for Fathers Day. I thought it was kind of a sad sermon for Father’s Day. We shouldn’t be focusing on how some fathers fail on the day when we are celebrating fathers. After that I went back and did some scrapbooking. I got to carried away and only got one page done. I was trying to use all magazine paper which turned out to be a challenge. I then went on a long run. I really enjoyed myself. It was a bit cooler today (still warm). I felt really peaceful running with the nice breeze, sunshine, birds chirping, and beautiful view of green grass, blue water, and impressive city architecture in the distance. Later that day I did some browsing through shops. I ended up getting a skirt for 12 dollars that I really like (at least I think- I usually end up returning 80% of the things I buy after I try them on a couple more times when I am home). I got a movie for the night because I was kind of tired. I was really disappointed because the DVD was scratched so I could only watch half of the movie. I tried multiple approaches to see the end of the movie but it was all messed up.

Fun filled Saturday

This was the first time that I have woken up before Jeff. I woke up around 7 and he woke up around 8. I have no idea why I was wide awake because I didn’t get very much sleep the last few nights. Anyway, Jeff cut his hair in the morning while I made breakfast. I made buckwheat pancakes with strawberries and whip cream. Yummy. After breakfast we walked through the farmers market and then continued to Michigan Ave. to look for wedding gifts. We are going to two weddings (one next weekend and one in August). While we were out I got a phone call that our soccer game had been cancelled because of rain the night before. This was too bad because I was looking forward to playing together. Jeff found a shirt for himself and a gift for his dad. After shopping we went back and changed for a run. We took the El North and then ran home because I wanted to show Jeff the bird sanctuary and some of the nice trails and views that were further north. We were really hot when we were done so we stopped at Oak Street Beach and jumped in. I was about up to my belly button and Jeff had just jumped in when this life guard started yelling at us. I couldn’t get Jeff’s attention because he was under water. She came up and said “Do you see anyone else in the water?” I looked around…oops..no. She said that because of the heavy rains there was no swimming because of Ecoli. There were tons of people at the beach but nobody but us were in the water. Haha. Oops! It felt good while it lasted. After that we went back, showered, and had a late lunch. We had barbeque chicken and pineapple sandwiches. After that it was decided that it was too hot to cook dinner. We bummed around alittle bit and Jeff got all of his stuff packed up. We walked to the McCormick’s on Wacker Drive. They said that they didn’t have happy hour on Saturday’s so we turned around and walked all the way back to McCormick’s on Rush. The reason why we didn’t go to this location to start with was that we thought it would be nice to eat outside. Anyway, it was probably a good thing for us to sit inside for awhile since we had gotten a lot of sun. We got the 2 dollar plate of sushi, 2 dollar plate of pita and hummus, and split the 3 dollar huge cheeseburger and fries and we each got a beer. It was fun. I don’t think I would go back though because with the beers and tip it was 20 dollars which is a good deal but nothing was really that good. It was fun to go out though. We went back and had about an hour before Ted was coming to pick Jeff up…OH MAN this was a long post! And probably a boring one! Sorry!

Pizza and wii

Today after work I had people over to play wii and have Giordano’s. Holly and Darrell brought over their wii and set it up. Jennifer and James came from my bible study. Mel and Jenny came from Calvin xc. And then Jeff came later on. We started with getting our vitals taken. We all had normal BMI’s. Then we did one of the basic balance tests. You stand on one leg and then it shows where your center of mass is as a red dot and then it makes a narrower and narrower margin that you have to keep your red dot in. After we were done with that game we played a soccer heading game. I was so bad. I figured it out retrospectively. You really have to move your feet on the board that you are standing on because if you just move your torso it isn’t going to realize you moved. Anyway, I kept getting hit in the head by soccer cleats. Haha. James was a natural at this one. There were so many games I can’t describe them all. The one I thought was the neatest was this board with holes in it that had balls on it. You wanted to get the balls into the holes. It was as if you were standing on a board in space and had to tip it in order to get the balls in the holes without letting them fall off the edge. Darrell was amazing at this. This was also a really funny one to watch. Jenny was the amazing at the shooting game. Who would have thought :) It was really fun. Since Darrell works in my building, before people left, he took us up to the penthouse to take a look. I always wanted to know what it was like up there.
I wish I had some pictures to show from the night but I forgot to take any : (

ABC Jim Gibbons 5k

Tonight after work I did the ABC Jim Gibbons 5k. I bunch of people from work met in the lobby and walked over to Grant Park which is where the race started. The race went really well I felt good at the start so went out fast but then settled into a good pace and ran even 2 and 3 mile splits. Holly and Lisa were working the water station so it was fun to have some friends cheering. I ended up getting first. It is always fun to win (and there ended up being money). At the awards ceremony they called up the top three women. The women who got second said she was from Hong Kong, then Kalina (third) said she was from Poland…then I felt kind of funny saying I was from Chicago : ) Afterwards they videotaped us saying our names and then I was supposed to say something to encourage everyone to come out the next year. I said everything fine except I called the race the Jim Gibbsons instead of the Jim Gibbins! We had to do a retake. After that they gave us bracelets for the VIP tent. There were some sandwiches and salad in the tent. I hung around and enjoyed the summer night and then walked home while talking on the phone with my mom.

Errands MY way : )

Just thought I would give you a glimpse of life without a car. It’s time to do errands. Here was my route. First, scooter home from and change into running clothes, then run to Ritz photo shop to pick up my photos I ordered, then run to Nike Store to get shorts for race the next day, then run to Sports Authority to do a return, then run to TJmax to do a return, then run to Jimmy Johns to pick up the 50 cent day old bread, then run to library to drop off a book, then stop by the grocery to pick up some pop for pizza and wii party Friday…uggg… running with pop is tough. All this in 52 minutes….city life is awesome!

Weights

Soccer was cancelled because it was pouring rain (like the right usage of the phrase ‘raining cats and dogs’) Because our game was cancelled, we got a free day pass to Crunch Fitness. I went over and started to run on a treadmill and then decided to go to a class instead. I went to a lifting class and it was really really hard! It was 60 minutes of all sorts of lifts. I don’t think I will be able to move tomorrow.

Sunday in Mexico

Today I slept like a rock. I woke up at 10AM. I went to church and then had to go into work for a couple hours. It was such nice weather. I went a really nice run. I felt like I was in Mexico because a little ways north of me it is a Hispanic area. There were tons of Mexican families at the beach. People were grilling, venders were pushing there carts…it didn’t at all feel like the US. I didn’t really hear any English. I had fun reading Spanish on the carts. A lot of “helado” carts. The day went by fast because of sleeping in, church, and work- but it was a great day.

Diemer Run and Dinner with Grandparents

I had a very fun day today. Kelly picked me up for the Diemer Run around 7:40. It was raining in the morning but it stopped raining by the time we had to run. There were a lot of alum guys at the race. Kelly, Kristin Haugsma, and I were the only Alum girls though. The current Calvin runners were working the race. The race went out so fast. If I could do it again I would have stuck with Diemer and the beginning. He passed me around 2 miles…I am guessing he ran even splits unlike me. After the race there was a little parade. All the kids were gathering the candy that the floats were throwing out. There was a pretty sweet old fire truck that came by at the end. Awards were very long because the race had Diemer written all over it—aka- wants everyone to be included and feel good and included-- so they game out age group awards to the top 4 in every age group and the top 10 overall male and female, and then the top masters. Everyone that got an award also had there picture taken with Diemer. In addition, if you beat Diemer (or had an equivalent girl time that would beat Diemer) you got a donut. We had to leave after the awards because it was already pretty late and we wanted to swing by Calvin and look at the new construction and take a shower before heading to Kalamazoo. The new field house is monstrous. Both Jeff and I were a little jealous that we never got to use the facility. We arrived in Kalamazoo around 2PM..just an hour late : ) We had a great time visiting with Grandma and Grandpa. They are so great! We had some appetizers and chatted. Grandpa told some stories from when he was in the Navy. He said that he didn’t want to be in the army but he had a bad I eye so he failed the eye test so they marked his chest (HO for holdover). So that night he memorized the eye chart and the next day he told them that he had had a rough night the night before but there was nothing wrong with his eyes and then recited the whole eye chart by memory. I thought this story was funny. Grandma updated us on all the latest. Scott and Cindy had come for dinner the night before. Grandpa is going fishing next week with Uncle Ed in Alaska. Mitch and Lee are living in different places next year (one in the dutch house). Little Eddie is doing great and is as cute as ever. Erika got exercise induced asthma from doing soccer and track so needs to choose one sport. That’s just a bit of the latest. Grandpa made a vegetable garden in there yard. It looks really good. The plants are still small but he is hoping for a big yield. He has tomatoes, peppers, broccoli….I don’t remember what else.
They made burgers for dinner and had ice cream with strawberries for dessert. We ate in the sun on the deck. Jeff left around 6 and I stayed until 9.

Track and Sick Friend

Today I went to the track and did a workout with Lisa. We did an 800 on the track, 10 minute tempo, 800 on track, 10 minute tempo, and finishing with an 800. It was a fun workout. I had done this workout before with Line. It’s called the Pre because he used to do this workout. After the workout I went to the store and bought some orange juice and contact solution for Mel. She is really sick and called me and asked if I could bring her contact solution and OJ. I know how miserable it is to be sick living alone so I was more than willing to do that. In fact, I was really happy that she felt comfortable asking me. Mel is such a giver it is nice to be able to do something for her. I know she would do the same for me!

Soccer Game

At 7:30 PM tonight we had a work soccer game. The field that we played on was one of the worst fields I had played on. It was sand in the middle and long grass on the sides with random dirt mounds. Needless to say it was hard to get good passes in. We ended up loosing 0-3. I didn’t feel like the other team out played us very much but they had some pretty shots. It was kind of funny to me that everyone was so down at the end of the game. I decided that the people I work with are really competitively driven.

New Desk

Today was my first day at work at my new desk. I am pretty pumped about having a window seat. I am on the south side of the building so I get some natural light as well. After work I went to Universal Sole for a run. We ran into all of the people on my Fleet Feet team and I felt kind of bad because I was with Universal Sole and they are rivals (it would be like me running with Hope while at Calvin). I got an email from Beth afterwards telling me the details of when Fleet Feet runs on Monday’s. I didn’t know that the racing team had a practice on Monday. I had thought it was just the public fun run. So, I won’t be going to Universal Sole for awhile. I talked to Fleet Feet and they were not upset with me so everything is good.

Gospel Festival

Today I had a lazy morning. I was irritated that I woke up at 7AM because I went to bed around 2PM. I went to the 11:00 Church service. I stuck around and talked to folks for awhile after church. It was an over cast day but perfect running weather. I enjoyed a nice run along the lake front. Later in the evening I went to the Gospel Festival in Millennium Park with some friends. It was a good time. We were practically the only white people there. At one point the singer said “can I get a Praise God from the south side”…(the crowd replied loudly. Then she said “and a Praise God from the west side?”..(the crowd replied but a bit softer.” Then she said the North side and I was practically the only one who said anything. I guess that Chicago is more segregated than I thought. The crowd had a lot of energy and people were dancing around. It was a fun night. When it started to get darker the atmosphere was cooler because they had orange stage lights and the lights of the city light up the night.

soccer and Red Wings game

This morning I went to the farmer’s market. I didn’t end up buying anything up it was fun to poke around. At 10:30 Marty from my work picked me up for a soccer game. He had a double header today and needed another girl to play. It’s nice to be a rare commodity in the engineering world : ) We won both games and I feel like I played well. Later that night I went over to Paul and Jesse’s house for dinner and to watch the Redwing’s game with Paul, Jesse, Lisa, and Ana. There were a lot of crazy fights. The Wings won and it was a good game. After the game we watched the movie Identity. It was pretty scary but the twist at the end made it totally worth it. I can’t tell you more or I will ruin the movie but I would recommend watching it. I took the train home after that. It was a late night.

Today at work we had our picture taken for the company’s magazine because our mixed gender team won first place at the Corporate Challenge. This is a picture of our team. After work I took the metra to LaGrange. I had never been to LaGrange and it reminded me a lot of East Grand Rapids- A lot of big old houses with wide roads and big trees. There was a 5k out in LaGrange that I ran. The race was fun and I won some prize money which is always nice. Along the coarse a lot of high school bands had set up as the race entertainment. It was cool to have a whole different music selection on each block. After the race they had free pizza and Trader Joes was giving out fruit and other freebees. I had some friends who also did the race so it was fun to sit in the sun after the race. It was one of our first summer nights in Chicago.

National Running Day and Bible Study

Today I had a busy day. After work I went to Universal Sole to celebrate National Running Day. We met there for a 3-5 mile run and then they provided pizza, beer, pop, energy drinks and water. There was this one pesto pizza that I really liked. They also did a raffle for some hats and gift cards. I didn’t win though. I won a $100 gift card to Universal Sole at a race so I bought “The Stick.” (see picture below- used for massaging, feels really good). I had been wanting one of these for a long time but couldn’t get myself to spend 30 dollars on a stick- I just kept thinking I would make one…but really I don’t think I would ever get around to it. Paul and Jesse came to the fun run so I was able to hitch a ride with them to bible study after the party. This was the first week of our study on the book of James. So far I love James. It should be fun to study one book in depth instead of topics like we have been doing. I got home from bible study at 11:20 and went right to bed.

Dance Class

Today was supposed to be my first outdoor soccer game. Unfortunantly it rained all day so they cancelled the game to protect the field from getting messed up. Because they cancelled our soccer game, Chicago Sports gave us a free pass to Crunch Fitness. One of my friends and I decided to go to a dance class at 6:30. I was a little worried about going to the dance class because I am not that good of a dancer but figured I would give it a try. The name of the class "Dance Your Ass Off" It ended up that that is the name of a TV show--I didn't know what. So what the class is is everyone in the class watches the TV show and then in class the instructors teach the dance. Anyway, it was a challenge for me. Too much explaining. I learn by doing so for someone to spend 10 minutes explaining which way you are going to turn and move and slide was not good because by the time she had finished explaining the 10th move I had forgotten the first one! haha- I guess I was not made to be a dancer! It was fun to try something new though.

Sunday in Mexico

Today I slept like a rock. I woke up at 10AM. I went to church and then had to go into work for a couple hours. It was such nice weather. I went a really nice run. I felt like I was in Mexico because a little ways north of me it is a Hispanic area. There were tons of Mexican families at the beach. People were grilling, venders were pushing there carts…it didn’t at all feel like the US. I didn’t really hear any English. I had fun reading Spanish on the carts. A lot of “helado” carts. The day went by fast because of sleeping in, church, and work- but it was a great day.

Sunday in Mexico

Today I slept like a rock. I woke up at 10AM. I went to church and then had to go into work for a couple hours. It was such nice weather. I went a really nice run. I felt like I was in Mexico because a little ways north of me it is a Hispanic area. There were tons of Mexican families at the beach. People were grilling, venders were pushing there carts…it didn’t at all feel like the US. I didn’t really hear any English. I had fun reading Spanish on the carts. A lot of “helado” carts. The day went by fast because of sleeping in, church, and work- but it was a great day.