Girls rule and Boys drool

Alixa has been working super hard to lose pregnancy weight and get into great shape over the past year. So early this summer she decided that she wanted to run a half marathon with some of her friends and Jarom said that he would do it with her. You may or may not recall that Jarom did a half two years ago with his brother Nate. It didn’t go very well. So this time he decided to shed about 230 pounds and see if he could break 2 hours. It became clear very early in their training that this was not going to be a challenging goal for Alixa. Her target was more like 1:45. She did an amazing job with her training, working out diligently most every morning. Jarom’s training did not go nearly as well, and at age 33 he is admittedly in the worst physical condition of his life. One of the perks of being a stay-at-home mom is that Lix has a standing appointment at the gym every day, whereas it is a little tougher for Jarom to make the time to get there as regularly. Also, Jarom is lazier than Alixa.

 The kids took a day off to feed the goats and pick pumpkins

The race started early Saturday morning, so Lix and Jarom left the kids with Mimi and booked a hotel room downtown near the race start. That way they didn’t have to get up an extra 45 minutes early and they could come back and shower and take a short nap before driving home after the race. Alixa spent the hour before the race using the bathroom about 50 times. I’m not sure it helped, because she still had to stop mid race to go again. Other than that pit stop that cost her a minute or so, the race went very well for Alixa and she cruised into the finish line at 1:48. Then the long wait began for her husband. Jarom came in 8 minutes behind her at 1:56. That time was better than he expected given his training and condition, and was a PR by nearly 30 minutes. Now that he has a respectable time on his resume he will likely not do any more of these half marathons. On the flip side, Alixa enjoyed her training and will probably continue to do these until she gets below the 90 minute mark, because she’s borderline insane. But we are all very proud of her.

 Pictures from the finish line. Looks like Jarom got tired and fell asleep.
Fast people take selfies with their medal

After the race they walked back to their hotel room and slept for a couple of hours. It was amazing. They hit up five guys on the way home for a greasy post race meal that hit the spot. In their absence Bo scored 4 goals in his final soccer game of the season, and self-reported that he also stopped them from scoring 3 times. We’ve tried to explain to both him and Jenna that defense is just as important as offense, so he’s started keeping track of that as well. 

Then the whole crew took off to a fall party about an hour north on a farm with some friends. There was a four-wheeler to ride, which Jenna and Bo loved. There were frisbees to throw and tractors to play on, a hay-less hay ride, a nice potluck dinner, pumpkins to carve, kickball to play, and nice people to chat with. It was a really great evening. Bo stepped on a fireant nest and it was about 90 degrees, but other than that it was a great time. And in an interesting twist the friend who invited us up to her family’s place also happens to be the half-sister of the lunatic who got stake basketball cancelled here in Frisco. And he brought his buddy from the game a few years ago. You can read about it here.