Racing day, it's racing day,
Racing day, it's racing day!
It's not sausage casing day,
Today's the day we race.
~ from Born to Play by The Backyardigans

For us, it was more like racing weekend! On Thursday, after dropping off Benjamin with Grandma Chris and Grandpa Ed who graciously watched him for us, Mike and I began our busy racing weekend. As I mentioned before, I had volunteered to be a part of the Ragnar Relay Race as a SWAT team member, which means that I managed a major exchange of the race. I had to be in Modena, Wisconsin, which was a tiny town in the middle of the Wisconsin side of the river.

View Modena Town Hall in a larger map
I got there at about 8am, met with my volunteers, receive instructions from other SWAT team people and began setting up the exchange. It had rained my whole drive out there, so we were all afraid of the possible weather, but it turned out to be a great day. Dark clouds would roll overhead, but they'd break up before getting to us. It was sunny on and off all day, but apparently more sunny than I thought because I came home with an unexpected, horrible sunburn. The whole day was a lot of work, but so much fun. Basically my job was to make sure everything was running smoothly, that the volunteers were doing their jobs, and that the runners were staying safe. I was there late into the night, my feet hurt, I was sunburned, tired and sore - but I'd gladly do it again!

As I was just getting to sleep (or so it seemed), Mike was waking up to get himself out to the Rochester Half Marathon, a big race here in town. He was using the race as part of his training for the Twin Cities Marathon. Luckily it was a gorgeous day and he had a good run. Later in the day we were able to enjoy lunch before heading out to Red Wing to pick up Benjamin from Mom and Dad. On Sunday we took the time to recuperate from our vacation, catch up on housework and just relax.

We have just one week before Benjamin starts orientation at his new school. We are all nervous and excited. This weekend all three of us will be experiencing a Minnesota tradition by attending the State Fair. Benjamin hasn't been there since he was small enough to ride along on Mike's back. It should be interesting!

I feel like I've been neglecting my blogging duties lately. I guess it has been one of those times where living life becomes more important than writing about it. Also, work has been busy for me, so my usual blogging time slot has been filled up with effort put toward planning a research symposium. But I won't bore you with details about my job.

What have we been up to lately? Well, last weekend - not much. Friday was Winona and Saturday I drove up to the Cities solo for a girls night dinner to celebrate sister-in-law, Jen's birthday. I came home late Saturday night so that I could have the whole day on Sunday at home. We read the paper outside on the deck in our beautiful unsummer-like weather and then went out for a tasty Mexican meal for an outdoor lunch. It was a lovely day. Wednesday night we drove up to the Cities again to surprise everyone gathered at Mike's parents house for Jen's actual birthday. Benjamin hadn't seen his grandparents or cousins in a very long time and since they weren't going to be coming down here anytime soon, we decided to go up to them.

Mike joined a swim club this week. They have open swimming with coaches available to members every weekday morning from 5:30am-7:30am at a local outdoor pool. He's been getting some tips in order to more efficiently swim in his next triathlon on August 8th. He has also started his Twin Cities Marathon training with his weekend long runs. Benjamin and I are volunteering as a waterstop for the run this Saturday. Hopefully the weather is nice. We always enjoy seeing the runners early in the morning.

Speaking of volunteering, I took an interesting position recently. I am now a member of the Great River Ragnar Relay SWAT team as a Major Exchange Manager for the race on August 21st. I am going to manage a large group of volunteers at an exchange in Modena, Wisconsin (pretty much the middle of nowhere). Mike has done this relay race for the past 2 years, but couldn't get a large enough group of runners to run it this year. A call came out by email for people that were able to do more than your average volunteer and since I worked at an exchange for last year's race, I decided to see if they would take me. I'm told that this could involve traveling to the other relay races across the country, which happen in sweet places like Washington State, Utah, Vegas, LA, Florida, etc, etc. Who knows if that will happen, but at least I get a free race entry and an official Ragnar jacket, shirt and hat. I'm all for the swag!

We are still working on planning our trip to Colorado. We've had to move it around a bit due to some scheduling conflicts, but at this point it looks like we'll be going August 12-19. I've been on the hunt to find some reasonable (i.e. CHEAP) lodging and it hasn't been easy. Traveling with Benjamin means that we ideally want to stay somewhere that has a closed off room with a bed so that when he goes to sleep, we can stay up and not disturb him. One bedroom places usually come with a kitchen, which we don't need, but with the kitchen comes a bigger price. Sooo, we'll see. We will be driving there (because we like torture) and will split up the drive to Colorado with one night in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Mike and I made this same trip in September 2004, which is nice because we kind of know what to expect. It is 8 hours to Rapid City, SD from Rochester and then 6 hours to Estes Park, CO from there. We will have to stop along the way though with requisite visits to the Mitchell Corn Palace, the Bad Lands and Wall-Drug, of course. I am personally very excited to stop again at the Sonic in Cheyenne, WY. Those of us in Rochester are forced to watch Sonic commercials on our local tv stations without a Sonic restaurant anywhere close to us. Those delicious shakes topped with mountains of whipped cream get me everytime! Mostly though I am SO looking forward to mountain views. There is just something so romantic about the Rocky Mountains. We can't wait to share that with Benjamin.

It is Friday and we have yet another relaxing weekend at home ahead of us. How'd we get to be so lucky?!?

The above title is actually the slogan for this year's Ragnar Relay Series, but I feel as though it actually was the catchphrase for our most recent weekend adventures! A whole bunch of hard work and preparation finally came to a finish as Mike departed for the relay race start line early Friday morning with half of his team. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Ragnar, it is a relay race which is run from LaCrosse, Wisconsin to Minneapolis, Minnesota by 180 teams of 12 runners. There are 36 legs of the 205 mile race which are each between 2 and 9 miles long. Each runner completes 3 legs over the course of anywhere around 30 hours. The teams are split into 2 vans which make exchanges every 6th leg. Mike was the team captain this year for Lost in Pace, his team which was comprised of friends/members of the Rochester Track Club. Mike was in van #1 and was runner #5. The race began for his team at around 9:30am on Friday and they finished at around 3:00pm on Saturday. They slept in high school gyms, friends/family houses, and in the van. The entire race is one big crazy event and everyone had a great time.

While Mike and his team members were all running on Friday, Benjamin and I drove up to spend the day with Jen, AJ and John. The boys had so much fun playing together! Then we met Grandma Chris and Grandpa Ed for dinner and so that I could drop Benjamin off with them for the weekend. I headed back to the east side of the cities to stay with Cindy and Bert so that I could get up at 2am to volunteer for the race (each team has to provide 3 volunteers to staff the race). It was an awesome experience to be up so early and cheer on the teams in the semi-darkness. I later met up with Mike and his team near the finish line so that I could watch them all finish the race together. The weather was spectacular! It was so exciting to see all of them receive their medals.

After the team finished, we all went to Longfellow Grill to enjoy their stories and some food. We had another race and an early morning wake up on Sunday, so we both headed to bed early Saturday night to prepare.

Sunday morning we drove out to the Great Minnesota Get Together with Jennifer and Bert for the Milk Run, a 5k race that begins and ends at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. I know what you're thinking - Mike ran and drove 205 miles over the course of 2 days without much sleep and he woke up Sunday morning and ran MORE?!?!? Yep! He's crazy! The Milk Run was really fun and we were lucky enough to have another beautiful day for the run. We spent a few hours after the race exploring the fair and eating some tasty foods. Later that day we drove out to Mound for a BBQ at my parents house for most of the Schmitt clan. It was so nice to have everyone together. Since we knew that we would be having a late night on Sunday, we decided to stay over one more night. Mike worked remotely on Monday so we could have a relaxing day. We actually stayed the whole day so we could meet Mom and Dad after work and spend some time on their new boat. Summer is ending too quickly and we didn't want to miss out on our first time on the boat. It was a gorgeous night and we had a great time. Mom even caught nearly a 5 lb fish! She was so excited!

We are still recovering from the weekend, but wouldn't have it any other way. It was a busy one, but full of great times spent running, with friends and family and having fun! Next up: a Labor Day weekend getaway for Mommy and Daddy!

As you can see from our flickr photos, Mike's relay race went splendidly. He ran in a team for the Great River Ragnar Relay Race. Mike and the other 11 people on his team ran a total of 198 miles from Lacrosse, WI to St. Paul, MN in just under 34 hours. Just to give you an idea of how grueling this was, Mike ran UP A BLUFF for 7.1 miles at 2:30 AM in the DARK! Very impressive! He compared it to adventure racing and said that he had a blast doing it.

Mike isn't the only Schmitt who ran in a race last weekend. I raced in the MN State Fair Milk Run 5k race on Sunday. Fortunately it was a gorgeous day! The course was much hillier than I had anticipated, but I had an awesome time and ran a great race. My return to the racing world (the last race I ran was back in Sept 2003) has inspired me to keep running and I cannot wait for my next race!

We spent a few hours wandering around the state fair after the race was over while Benjamin was able to hang out with his Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt. Here is a classic Benjamin story: At dinner that night we were trying to teach him Grandma and Grandpa's first names. First, we told him that Grandpa's name is Bert. He said "Grandpa Bert!" just fine. Then we asked him what Grandma's name is and he responded immediately with, "GRANDMA ERNIE!" We got quite a laugh out of that one! I think that now Cindy will forever be known as Grandma Ernie to Benjamin! :-)

Speaking of Bert and Ernie...I took Benjamin to see Sesame Street Live Friday night while Mike was doing his relay race. I went down to the Civic Center to pick up tickets Friday afternoon and thanks to a cancellation, I was able to get FRONT ROW, DEAD CENTER seats for us! It was awesome!! The characters danced right in front of us and even came by and said Hi to Benjamin. He just loved it and is still talking about seeing Elmo!