The Boulder Boulder and a Fist Full of Quarters

I love summer…..I mean I REALLY love summer, and the older I get the more I love it. Summer means longer days, warm weather, and various Saturday activities with Hannah. Summer also means that I can go running or biking on my way to and from work.

For those of you that don’t know I have an hour and 15 minute commute to and from work. In the winter, the drive starts to grate on me, but in summer I actually love it. The drive is up and down the “Front Range” with hundreds of great trails for mountain biking or trail running. Lately my schedule has been:

Monday – Run in the morning and Bike during lunch
Tuesday – Swim in the morning and stretch during lunch
Wednesday - Run in the morning and Bike during lunch
Thursday - Swim in the morning and stretch during lunch
Friday – Long trail run in the morning
Saturday – Long bike ride

It sounds like a lot and two years a go I would have thought the same thing, but now I wish I had more time to exercise. It’s satisfying and mentally relaxing……anyway.

On Memorial Day Hannah and I ran the Boulder Boulder with some friends of ours. The race is 10k (6.3 miles) and goes through the city of Boulder. The neat thing about the race is that it’s the 2nd largest foot race in America and the 4th largest in the world. This year over 50 thousand people participated. There are bands on every corner, people dressed up in gorilla suits, and general craziness. The ending is in the Colorado University stadium, with thousands of people watching so you feel like your in the Olympics. It’s great.

I ran a 9 minute miles, which for a runner is poor. I wanted to do an 8:30 mile but I’m happy with it. Actually the last three miles were 8:30, but the fist three were slow. I’ve been doing speed work all month, so hopefully I can do 8:00 minute miles for Xterra Buffalo Creek.

Last Saturday was pretty fun. I wanted to get up at 6:30 and do my home work (I hate school) but I slept through my alarm and woke up at 7:30. I had just enough time eat, wash my face, get dressed, and head out the door for our ward service project which is cleaning up a mile section of road buy our house. We’ve done the “adopt a road” thing, so we do a clean up once a quarter. I usually do the same section and it’s funny because on one particular corner I always find tons of banana peels. I can just picture some guy eating his morning banana and chucking the peel out in the same place every morning.

That afternoon Hannah and I went on our favorite bike ride, but the highlight of the day was watching the much anticipated movie “The King of Kong – A Fist Full of Quarters” (You have to check out the link). I wanted to see it at the theater, but it never came to Denver, and was thrilled to find it on TV. The movie is a documentary about the raining Donkey Kong video game champ, and his arch nemesis who is trying to beat his 20 year high score record. I give it two thumbs up, five stars, and a big heck yeah. I can’t even begin to describe it, but I’ll give you two of my favorite quotes:

1. The contender is driving from Seattle WA to Tampa FL for a Donkey Kong shoot out with the current champ. The winner of the contest will be in Guinness book of world records. The contender’s 5 year old daughter asks her father why he cares so much about getting in the book, he gives an answer, and she says, “yeah, I’ll bet a lot of people ruin their lives trying to get in that book.” ……out of the mouth of babes…the moment was priceless.

2. This quote was said by a person who holds the current world record for playing “centipede”….with his feet. “Well, you don’t see a lot of DDG’s in here (speaking of the arcade)….DDG stands for drop dead gorgeous if you didn’t know.” I think that pretty much sums it up.

Well that’s all I’ve got.

And now your moment of ZEN……we love cows.

This thing weighted over 2k pounds....