Subaru B9 Tribeca

So after test driving the Nissan Murano, Toyota Highlander, and the Subaru Tribeca we have decided to make a purchase! And the winner it....the Subaru Tribeca! Dave made it all official today. The dealership is actually giving us a good price, so we didn't have to spend hours haggling back and forth. They also offered him more for his trade in then the Toyota dealership did. So in a few days we will be the proud owners of a dark gray 5 passenger Tribeca. It comes fully loaded with leather seats, dual climate control, IPOD connection, heated seats, navigation system, and more. We also added on XM satellite radio, automatic starer, and a ski rack. The Subaru has a great AWD system, perfect for those mountain ski trips after a recent snow storm. No more cables!!! Yeah! :) This also means we can now take our winter weekend trip to Yosemite and not have to worry about snow!

The Results Are In....

I just had to post this. I'm so proud and happy!!! The results of the Nike Run are posted. I placed 30th in my age group out of 1436! I also placed 80th out of all females (4226 total)!!! I also placed 461st out of 7535! You may be asking what do all these numbers mean.
Well basically here's the summary:
Age Group: Top 2 %!
All Females: Top 2%!
Everyone (male and female): Top 6%!

Wow am I happy about that!! Imagine what I could do with some hard core training!!!





http://www.active.com/results/display_html.cfm?results_file=1312271_20060925105319.htm

Nike Run Hit Remix 2006 Success!

So today was the day, and I have to say I'm pretty happy. I did better then I thought I would. Dave and I both participated in the Nike Run Hit Remix today. The weather was warmer than I like. I prefer temps in the 50's and 60's for running. (Race time temp was probably about 70). This was a 5 mile race through LA (near USC). Nike brings out bands every year that perform as you run. This years theme was more of 1990's rap music. They had Young MC, Coolio, Vanilla Ice, and De La Soul performing. Debbie Gibson was also there and sang some older songs as the race started. It was quite amusing to hear some of those old songs again. Anyway there were 10,000 people entered in the race and we all wore the same Nike Dri Fit Shirt. I started the first mile at 7:50 pace, my second mile was oh way to fast at abut 7:10 pace! Overall I averaged about a 7:40 pace for the entire race. Accoriding to my stopwatch my final time was 38:21!!! I'm very happy with this since all I wanted was to be at or under 8 minutes! Go me! Dave also did very well. He did not train at all and managed to average about a 12 minute mile pace. I was happy that he was able to sustain that pace for 5 miles! I'm so proud of him.

Relay For Life

Every year my department at work participates in Relay for Life. So next weekend I will be participating in the relay. Last year Dave and I did this and we got rained on and I got sick. But the weather looks nicer this year so it should be a lot of fun. I will be running around the track and using this as part of my half marathon training.

Anyway, if you are not familiar with this, Relay for Life benefits the American Cancer Society. It's a 24 hour event in which people run/walk around a track. The American Cancer Society helps people in the community that have been diagnosed with cancer. If you would like to donate to the ACS please go to webpage and make a donation.

Thanks

Michele

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=171407&lis=0&kntae171407=014A8D9652844056A394820466ABF06B&supId=141119863

Run Forest Run

So, I started to increase my mileage this past weekend. I ran just under 6 miles. But I'm realizing I have a long way to go. Thankfully the half marathon is not until January. I just ordered new shoes today. This was the most I've spent on shoes so far. I ordered the Mizuno Creation 7. I really hope they help me since I suffer from major shin splint pain. If anyone has any cure or wonderful advice on shin splints I'd love to hear from you. I have tried everything in the book and nothing helps at all. Currently I'm exercising 6 days a week. Of course this isn't all running., it's strength training, cardio at the gym, and running. I plan to increase my mileage by a half mile every week since I have plenty of time. Hopefully this will help me reduce any injuries.

This weekend is the Nike Run Hit Remix in LA. Both Dave and I are participating. This race should let me know how I'm doing right now. If my time comes in under 40 minutes, then I'm doing pretty well. Last year I was on a 7:45 pace. I doubt I'll be that fast this year.

Other than the race Dave and I are planning on staying home this weekend. We still have lots of house stuff to catch up on. We will be heading out on our vacation to Northern Cali in about 4 weeks. I can't wait. We have reserved this little cottage in Napa for 2 nights. The cottage looks so cute. It has a king bed, sofa, flat screen TV, breakfast nook, fireplace, patio, and an outdoor fireplace. We can't wait to sit outside in front of the outdoor fireplace and drink our bottle of champagne from Temecula. Dave and I have started this tradition. Every year around our anniversary we buy a bottle of champagne and keep it for the following year. We then drink the champagne on our anniversary the next year. This all started when we had one to many bottle given to us on our Honeymoon. We didn't have time to drink it and we brought it back with us. The bottle did not get drank until our anniversary last year. Then on our way back from San Diego we stopped in Temecula at a winery and bout another bottle there. It's a neat little tradition. that I hope we carry on for years to come.

Let The Training Begin

So the people that know me pretty well know that I exercise quite a bit. It’s pretty much a way of life for me. I started this routine a few years ago, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I honestly love it whether its running, biking, swimming, or going to the gym. I consider my exercise time my time. Well, I’ve decided two things in the last few weeks.

• Start riding my bike so I can actively participate in Duatholon’s
• Begin training for another Half Marathon I will be running in the Orange County Half Marathon in January.

I’m excited because this time I’m going to be smarter. I’m going to use the few months I have to train and not push it like I did last year. Hopefully I can beat my time from the Santa Clarita Half Marathon. My time last year was 1 hour 47 minutes. I would love to get my pace down to 8:00 minutes exactly which would be 1 hour 45 minutes. So my training starts now. I will be running in the 5 mile Nike Run Hit Remix on the 24th. The following weekend I will be running on the track for Relay for Life. There are a bunch of 5K and 10K's coming up in the fall and I plan to run a bunch of them. I just hope my shins can survive another Half Marathon. I certainly don’t want a repeat of last year’s painful injury. In order to really keep my times up I think I’m going to combine road time with gym time. Hopefully this will keep the injury subsided since the elliptical is pretty low impact. But it should allow for me to keep pushing my cardio capabilities at the same time. Keep posted and I’ll let you all know how my training is progressing.

California

After returning from Florida this weekend I can’t help but think about how much I love the state of CA. So Dave and I have officially lived in California for about 2 years now. Well, it’s been 2 year and 2 months for me and about 22 months for Dave. I can honestly say California is great! I never imagined I would love it so much. While lviing in Floriada I was constantly unhappy. I not only didn't like my jobs but I also felt like I was stranded on some island and I couldn't get off. My attitude has completely changed over the last couple of years and I'm so much happier. It is amazing how many things there are to do here. Between the various cities, the national parks, the beaches, the wildlife, and skiing. I knew while living in florida that I needed more than a sandbar and the beach. But wow, I never imagined I would get to do some of the things I’ve done. I’ve skied in some gorgeous powder, I’ve hiked to the top of rock formations in the sierras, I’ve seen elephant seals in the wild, I’ve kayaked next to harbor seals, I’ve tasted some of the best wine in the country, and I’ve stood on the rocky shores of the pacific ocean looking for whales, sea otters, and sea lions. I can’t imagine having never lived this life. I guess what you don’t have you never miss, but I’m so glad I’ve had the opportunity to live somewhere that would make me happier and fit in with my active personality. These are all adventures that I can share with my kids one day and hope to instill some adventure and curiosity in them as well. In the last few years I’ve determined I have an adventurous personality. I can't sit back and do the same old activities every weekend. I seek out the fun and adventurous things to do nearby. I love to go do things unusual that not a lot of other people have done before. I love the sense of accomplishment of achieiving these things. That is one of the reasons why I run. I love to get better with each race that I run and I am competitive at heart. California has so much to offer me that I'm amazed everytime I think about it. I love it here and I can’t imagine not being able to have these things to my disposal ever again.

Here's a new CA goal of mine: Hike to the summit of Mount Whitney. Hopefully next year.

Hopping on the Blog Bandwagon/Labor Day Weekend

So I figured I’ll go ahead and jump on this blogging band wagon. (Although the term “Blog” really bothers me for some reason.). You know those words that just grate on you…this is one of them for me. Ah, oh well.

So I figure this will be easier to keep people posted on the happenings of the Schanker’s rather than updating my SmugMug site every week. Instead you can just check this as we are constantly busy and traveling around the CA area.

Last weekend was truly amazing. Dave and I camped at Sequoia National Park at the Lodgepole campground. I really like Sequoia because it’s not as crowded as Yosemite, you still have the wonderful Sierra’s, and you get the really big Sequoia Trees! Since we were here last year we decided to skip all the touristy things and hit the trails. On Saturday we did a small hike to the top of Little Baldy. It was a nice clear blue sky day. So we could see well into the Sierras and the rocky peaks. We then returned to camp and cooked a wonderful dinner on the grill, made our campfire, and had brownies and wine for desert. We bought this bottle of CA wine on the way up and it was so good!!!! So Saturday morning we woke up, cooked a hearty breakfast of pancakes and turkey sausage, and headed out to the Lakes Trailhead. Wow, this trail was amazing and better than I ever expected. The views of the Sierras were almost constant. We reached this part called the Watchtower. It’s a bunch of rocks sticking out over Topakah Valley. I felt like I was on top of the world.



Then we continued on to the first alpine lake. What an amazing place. This lake was nestled in the mountains with views all around. It was so calm and peaceful. We were now about 9200 feet in elevation and close to the tree line. At Heather Lake we ate lunch, relaxed, and took photos. Then we continued on to the next set of lakes. These were just as nice as Heather Lake. Emerald Lake was almost a bit hidden and we almost missed it. But wow when we found the lake, it was a gorgeous site to see! Now we were only about 1000 feet from the top of one of the peaks. It looked so easy to get to too and I so wanted to climb to the top, but I didn’t want to leave Dave. After relaxing here we decided to head back down. At the very end of the trail I had a bit of an accident. The runner in me decided it would be a good idea to jog the rest of the way. Then I hit a rock and did a faceplant. Ah, whatever the trip up to the top was so worth it. The Sierras have to be my favorite place to visit in all of California. Upon returning to the campsite, Dave and I grabbed a beer from the cooler and headed to the river to stick our feet in the ice cold water. This was one of my favorite moments of the entire weekend. Check out our photos at http://www.schanker.smugmug.com/gallery/1814082.