Zombie Run

Last weekend Kari and I participated in the Zombie run here in Anchorage. Kari ran the 1/2 marathon with her friend and co-worker Kathy. Kari hadn't really put in the training for this one like the other one she did, but she had experience on her side this time. The course was kind of a killer because it had a major hill the whole last mile. Her race started at 10am and ran from goose lake to kincaid park. Kari was about 15min slower this race but it was a lot harder, colder, and she wasn't as prepared so really she did tons better.

I ran the 50k with my friend Mike. I was tricked into this one. I share an office with Mike and one day we were working and he asks "hey Jared, what's your date of birth?" so I tell him, then after a few moments I say hey why'd you want my DOB, and he say's "I just entered you to be my partner in a 50k in 10weeks. What happened is that his original partner got hurt and couldn't run and for this run you have to run with a partner for the first 1/2 marathon (safety concerns for the dark and animals). Ok...so i started training.

The run was nice and the first part was exceptionally slow. Mike had a plan to run for 25 min then walk for 5. This ended up putting our pace just under 10min per mile. After I reached mile 18 with Mike and I realized I only had a half marathon left so I opened up and averaged around 7min pace the rest of the way and 6:45 pace the last 5 miles. Needless to say I was able to finish really strong, passed a bunch of people on the hills and dropped a couple of 6min miles around mile 29 and 30. It sure felt good to be able to run that distance and feel that great at the end. I took 6th place time of 4hrs 30 min... I think I should run a marathon for time sometime soon, I'd like to see if I could get under 3:20 and closer to 3:10 (which is my Boston Qualification time)

anyhow laters.

Kenai

At 3:45pm yesterday our life completely changed. Kenai, the daughter of Mike and Mary's dog Mocha made a journey from Wenatchee Washington to Anchorage Alaska. The original plan was for her to accompany me home after my trip to WA last week, however that just didn't happen because she got sick. Now when I say sick I mean really sick that had super bad diarrhea and vomiting. Kenai ended up staying the night at the vet to figure out if she had Parvo.

Anyhow we decided that we wanted to get her up hear so we shipped her up her cargo with a lot of help from Mike, Mary, and Mom...thanks. Because Mom and Mary were going over to Seattle already taking Kenai wasn't a huge inconvenience. She traveled fine in the car and great on the plane.

So have you ever started something that you think to yourself, "what did I do" well that was what Kari and I were thinking last night when we couldn't figure out how to get her to pee or poop in a place other than the carpet. Good thing she is super cute because otherwise I might have dropped her off at the shelter. I think Kari got about 2 hours of sleep last night, and I got about 4. Today she (or we) did a lot better, she only had one real accident and has been a major cuddle bug all day!

She is a great addition to our family.

Pumpkin

We carved some pumpkins tonight, watched some scary simpsons episodes and ate carmel apples.

Vienna sausage

Two weeks ago, I think it was a Wednesday Mike called me to tell that they (Mike, Jeff, and Dad) were going hunting to Dugout Mountain or as Jeff puts it "Skunkout" on the following Friday. I asked why I wasn't invited...we'll you do live in Alaska Jared so you weren't really considered for a weekend hunt. Throwing caution, obligations, and work aside I booked a ticket for the next day (thanks Kari). After we (now this is important WE) booked the ticket we both realized that we'd be spending our 9th anniversary apart...oops. So off to Washington I flew leaving 19 degree winter-like weather to beautiful fall.
I stayed the first night with Jeff and Ruth, went for a nice 10 mile run the next morning and then Jeff and I took off for Wenatchee to meet up with Mike. Now I must diverge here for a moment, for years Parrish hunting trips were synonymous with Jethro (which is the name of the pop-up camper). Jethro however had an accident in Montana and really wasn't fit for another hunt, so Mike did some sleuthing through Craigslist and found Jethro's twin brother aka Jethro II. Now Jethro II wasn't really in the best condition, but it was workable, so Mike worked hard to resurrect this "new" Jethro to life.
Once we got Jethro II ready to go we drove a couple of hours north and hung a right and as always we set up camp in the dark, but it didn’t matter cause all the Parrish men were together on Dugout! Although we didn’t get anything we saw some deer and had a great time being together on a hunt in a place that has history for us. Jeff (the meal planner) decided to bring all the best food for lunches which consisted of Vienna sausage, Kipper Snacks and Smoked oysters…wow it doesn’t get any better than that. I can’t wait until next year!

Hawaii

Yep I knew I'd slack at this and now I have to do some "catch-up". So to start I'll give a short re-cap on our trip to Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. About 9 months ago I submited an abstract to the International Child Abuse and Neglect Conference which was accepted for a 20 min. oral presentation. This year the conference was held in the USA(occurs about once every 5 years), so it was feasable to go...and it didn't hurt that it was in Hawaii. My travel was sponsered by the state and we got a killer deal on a ticket for Kari, so we decided to extend the trip beyond the 4 days of the conference to hang at the beach, play with the Alsops and our friend Rachael. First the conference was great, and I made a lot of contacts that will hopefully "pay-off". Second the surf was up and the weather was well...sunny in fact a got a sun burn to prove it, you'd think I'd know better after having lived there!