My first 5k

After getting my feet wet (with mixed results) with a 3.5 mile run in June, I decided (at the urging of Courtney) to try another race. On Saturday, I ran my first 5k.

It was right here in town, so it's not like I needed to go out of my way. It wasn't a huge race, just 128 people finished, but I think I ended up liking that about it. I had three goals going in:

1. finish without walking
2. run 10 minute miles or better
3. beat at least 10 people (I really didn't want to be last)

I finished without walking and ran a 31:09 (slightly slower than 10 minute miles, but close enough for my tastes).

I came in last in my age group (20-29). I was 10 out of 10. The #9 guy beat me by more than 2.5 minutes. Though really, I was also the old man of the group. I beat a 31 yr old guy by about 10 seconds and I beat a 30 yr old guy by more than a minute in the next age group up.

There was a really old guy who looked like he could barely walk, but he stayed just ahead of me the entire race. I was kind of demoralized that I could never catch him. He was 74. Actually, all three guys that were 70+ beat me. I came in 55 of 67 guys though, so I did beat >10 guys.

I would have come in 30 of 61 women. I would have been 6 of 15 in the women's group of my age. So combined, I came in like 15th of 24 people in my age group. Sure, I only beat women, but that's not all that bad.

Overall, I came in 84 of 128. I beat 44 people. I'm okay with that for my first 5k. In fact, I am so okay with that, that I think I am going to try to run a couple more this fall. Though we'll see how that goes.

Mike

6 month pictures

As promised, we were able to get some the pictures that we had professionally taken up on the website. These are soft copies that they gave us to preview, not the pictures that we bought scanned, so they have the stupid logo thing over them to make you buy from them rather than printing, but this was a lot easier and good enough quality. I didn't put all of them up. To see some of the better ones, you'll have to stop by the house. We can't show you everything or else no one will ever come to visit!

Jacob's half birthday

Yesterday was Jacob's half birthday. Six months has just flown by and been some of the happiest of our lives. Coincidentally, he is also up to six teeth. This fact impressed the doctor yesterday during his routine visit for some shots. She said that she couldn't ever remember seeing a baby with that many teeth at this age. I guess that's a good thing? He's up to 22 pounds now, which keeps him in the 95th percentile. He's in the 75th percentile for height, down slightly from his last visit.

To celebrate his half birthday, I picked up some cupcakes on my way home from work. For half a year, he got half a cupcake, of which we allowed him to eat about a finger full. He seemed to really enjoy it....not eating it so much, but playing with it definitely. As you can see from the picture at left, he's also been eating Cheerios. He had a few from Courtney's bowl over the weekend, and yesterday we caught him picking them up and eating them all on his own. Very exciting stuff.

After our little "party," Courtney left for the gym and Jacob and I had ourselves a little "guys tonight in." I can't understand how this baby is so happy all the time. Sure, he has his moments, but they seem to be becoming fewer and farther in between. Instead, he fills his day with playing and laughing (he's been laughing for a few weeks now. He started giggling a couple months ago. The laughs started right around the time we discovered him to be extremely ticklish) and flirting with women (he loves to smile at women when we are out) and smiling and just being a really happy baby. Between him and Porter (fast becoming one of Jacob's best friends), it's hard to get too upset about anything anymore when you are surrounded by a baby and dog thrilled to be around you every waking moment. So we had a great time playing and laughing last night....just the guys. Then he went right to sleep when I put him down without crying at all. Such a great baby. Could Courtney and I really be responsible for this?

Last weekend, our family came into town for Jacob's baptism. He also got his first haircut and his "6 month pictures" taken. I've posted pics from some of these events on the website, but we still need to get our hands on some of the better pics from the baptism and perhaps scan and post some of the professional photos we got...that might take some time, but I'll be sure to let everyone know when those are up.

Mike

We're back!

Needless to say, we've had some issues with the WordPress blog. After switching formats earlier this year, things didn't exactly go as planned and now no one seems to be able to tell us where our old blog went. It just disappeared and no one wants to take responsibility. It looks like we are never going to find it, which is disappointing to us, but we can't let this slow us down any longer.

If you've been following the pictures on the website, we've been up to an awful lot over the past few months. We'll try to come up with some form of update for everyone ASAP. Going forward, be sure to check back here often as your new way to keep up with all the goings on for Team Swierczek.

Mike

PS- Sorry to keep switching up the blog on everyone.