Life changes quick! Emily and I knew we didn’t want to be in Arizona forever, but having a child really accelerated that decision. After some foiled plans for jobs closer to Michigan we just decided to do it anyways and figure out everything once we were there. We weren’t in any immediate rush but we figured we could start looking. He made that decision around January. So we started having family look at houses for us. Three houses in and our second offer turned out to be the winner and truly we were both thrilled to be moving sooner than we anticipated. We were especially excited to get out before the brutal Arizona summer.
It’s funny because the house we ended buying is one that we looked at really early in our search and decided we didn’t like it and then we moved on after disregarding it. It dropped $20k in price and we came back around on it and decided it was worth a look. After glowing reviews from my parents and brother and sister-in-law we decided to put in offer and they accepted!
On May 2nd, my dad and I hit the road with my dad driving Emily’s car and me driving a 16′ box truck towing a trailer with my truck on it and my motorcycle in the bed of truck. Emily hopped on a plane with my mom and Gideon and then got to the house same day. My dad and I crushed the over 2,000 mile trip in 2.5 days of driving getting to the house on the May 4th. Thanks to my brother we had the entire box truck unloaded that same night!
Emily and I really aggressively unpacked and got everything situated. Some Facebook Marketplace deals were involved including a trip to pick up a 7 foot tall house plant! I have to give a lot of credit to Emily because she had this vision of what our living room could look like before we even stepped foot in the house. We had the couch and a bunch of other furniture bought based on this vision and somehow it all worked out. We also lucked out by having the absolute nicest previous owners. They gave us a bunch of great deals on furniture and a TV they left for us which was super helpful. We were so incredibly blessed through the whole buying and moving in process to have such an amazing family supporting us.
Now after spending close to 6 months in the house it is everything we dreamed it would be. I’ve really enjoyed staring out the big living room windows watching the storms and wind shake the willow tree branches. Also we got to see a bunch of neat wild life from the living room too including multiple deer (some bucks), turkeys, rabbits, and a fox. We love the yard, we love the neighborhood, and we love that it’s ours! God has blessed us so much more than we deserve!
Emily was pregnant and I was about to be on three months of paternity leave. My normal hobby of jiu jitsu was pretty rigid with class times and a commute. Who knows when Emily and the baby will need support or more importantly when the baby will finally sleep and I can get out for a minute? Coincidently a coworker convinced me and another coworker to run the Mesa Marathon. The timing lined up well with the paternity leave and running was as flexible as working out could be. Gideon goes to sleep—I step out on a run and am running as soon as I shut the door.
I started my 18 weeks of training using the Hanson Marathon Method beginner marathon training plan as my guide. Over 18 weeks running six days a week I peaked with a couple 16 mile runs and dialed in my nutrition plan. I ran a marathon 10 years prior when I was 19 and my in-race nutrition plan was something that I really overlooked and it cost me. This time I trained with the energy gels the race was going to provide on race day. I figured out how often I needed them and practiced consuming them while running.
I stayed at one of the coworkers apartments closer to Mesa and we woke up at 3am to get to the race start. They actually bussed us up to the start line which was at the top of a mountain overlooking the valley. The Mesa marathon is about as easy as a marathon can get because the majority of it is downhill. I took advantage and cruised the first 3 miles with I think of those mile splits being under 7 minutes. Then miles 4 and 5 were uphill so I took it easy up those. I settled into an about 7:45/mi split up until mile 13. I had a bit of a bathroom situation, but I was fortunate to be near and aid station with a porta potty. I lost about a minute but I kept my pride. I got back moving and fell in with a goal 3:25 finish time pace group, but up ahead of me I saw an Army buddy.
I saw this Army buddy up on the starting point and talked to him, but he’s a huge jacked guy so I definitely didn’t expect to see him doing that well. We ran with each for a couple miles up until mile 20. After mile 20 I picked up the pace and headed for a strong finish. I had negative splits (faster mile splits than my first 6 miles) for the rest of the race and my last two miles were under 7 minute miles! I ran about the perfect race according to my ability level and exceeded my goal of a 3:30 finish. Instead I finished under 3:20!
I was a complete zombie after hobbled to talk to the coworker who invited me to the race who actually backed out but still came to support us. Then I saw my aunt, uncle, parents, and Emily and Gideon! We went out to IHOP and I ate whatever I wanted after that. It was just a good day. I was happy with my effort and I was blessed to have to many people supporting me. God is good!
Baker to Vegas Law Enforcement Relay
I recognize not many people probably read my blog, but this is the first time I am disclosing that I worked for Border Patrol. I’m only disclosing it now that I have quit and moved back to Michigan to be closer to family. With that said, I might post some interesting stories about my time roaming the desert and climbing mountains. However, since this is a post about running I’m going to talk about the Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay. It’s a 120-mile, 20-stage road race for law enforcement agencies that runs annually (since 1985) from Baker, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada. A bunch of different agencies and departments from LAPD to FBI run in the race and I was part of a Border Patrol team. This year’s race took place on March 28-29th.
I kind of got volun-told to do the race since they didn’t have enough agents, but I was coming off the recent marathon so it wasn’t something I needed a lot of convincing for. The harder part is now balancing outside obligations with being a dad. Instead of going up to Vegas for the weekend like most participants I drove up the same day getting to Vegas at 4:30pm. I was tentatively supposed to run my leg sometimes in the evening if we were running according to our projected paces. I got conned into the longest leg—a 10.7 mile leg. I met up with my running group (3 runners). Since the race goes all the way through the night there are shifts of running groups getting shuttled to the different legs in a van throughout the day and night.
What was supposed to be an evening run turned into running my leg around 2am. It was pretty cool to be running in a light up vest with a follow vehicle behind for support and to see the same for the other 270 teams who competed. As I ran along this desert highway somewhere outside of Vegas you could see the string of runners around every curve of the road and up every hill. It was good motivation to try and catch the flashing lights ahead of you to pass another team, but I ended up getting passed about five times and I passed another five teams myself so I kept us about even with where we had started. I managed to do 10.7 mile leg with a 7:28/mi average pace. I was very happy with that. The last two miles were painful since they were pretty much uphill. My watch said after the fact that it was about 900ft of elevation gain so that was a good pace for that!
Once every runner on our team in my group was done we got back in the van and shuttled back. By the time I got back to the hotel and showered it was about 5:30am. I woke up at 9:30am when one of my teammates on a later leg came back in. I decided to skip the team breakfast after finding out it was $54!! So I drove home arriving around 4pm and got to hang out with Gideon and Emily.
Crazy to think in a 30 hour period I drove 6.5 hours to Vegas, ran 10.7 miles in the middle of the night, slept for 4 hours and then drove the 6.5 hours back. All in all I got to run in this really cool 120 mile relay race with a rich history and go to rub shoulders with over 270 different law enforcement teams including a team from Germany. Heck of an experience! God is good!
How late I am to writing this is probably indicative of what it’s like being a new parent. As I start writing this Gideon is already over 8 months old! I will reference some of my journal entries from around the time of his birth and then will add some general observations and updates since then.
From my journals:
Emily was doing a lot better with the epidural, but those doses only last about 3 hours. She got about 3.5 hours out of it and we were back to throwing up and struggling through every contraction. We were able to re-up the epidural and buy us more time. Ultimately, so much was already taken out of Emily just weathering the contractions before even needing to start the pushing process which could take an unknown amount of time. Emily was losing confidence in her strength to be able to push for long enough especially considering that Gideon was sunny side up which essentially means the wrong side for an easy birth.
With all that in mind Emily started asking about doing a c-section. At first I was a bit skeptical about the approach but as she explained it I recognized how much pain she had already been through and that just making it to full dilation in order to start pushing doesn’t guarantee an easy or a quick birth. So we had a conversation and decided it was for the best. She ended up at 9cm dilated before we decided on c-section. After that decision was made they got Emily prepped and got us into an operating room a little after noon. I was so nervous and worried about it. I knew it would be hard for me to see that happen to her. They got her prepped and then I walked in and sat by her head to comfort her. The doctors were on the other side of the blue surgical divider getting to work. We chatted and I could tell how strong she was being.. It was incredible to do it with a smile. Then we heard his cry for the first time and Emily instantly began crying and I was as close to crying as I’ve been in years… Wow! Our whole lives changed just like that. I got shuffled over to look at him and see him get weighed. I also got to cut his umbilical cord.
Then they gave him to us at Emily’s head to hang out as a family as they got Emily stitched back up, but I could tell Emily was in a ton of pain. She was in a different place mentally just to cope. Eventually they rolled her out with Gideon on her chest. I followed behind and they took us to a bed to do some check up and post c-section stuff. Emily got to breast feed him for the first time and some nurses came in to help. That was sweet to see.
[We made it to our recovery room and pretty much tried to figure out how to be parents to a newborn.] Sleep was intermittent back and forth and Emily did a great job of feeding and comforting him. I was able to get some rest. At some point it turned into tomorrow, but it certainly wasn’t sleep based.
We rolled into our first full day of parenthood. Gideon slept for about 4 hours straight at one point which was so needed by us! We settled in to spend the whole day at the hospital. Gideon got his first bath. Emily got up and walked after the drugs wore off. I ate some cafeteria breakfast and mostly we just hung out while Emily fed him and I wiped him on repeat. There were disruptions with Emily’s meds and both of their readings and measurements. Before dinner we were feeling pretty comfortable and Emily was okay with it so I went for a 5 mile run near the hospital. That was pretty nice to take a breather and clear my mind some. I thought about how much my life has changed and how awesome it is. My biggest fear is that I will be selfish and lack patience. But this is the ultimate test to develop patience. God is good!
At one point she was talking about how in love she was with little Giddy that she even suggested having another one despite throwing up her entire stomach contents and getting cut open just a day prior. Women are crazy! I am so blessed by Emily.
Life since:
This would probably be a completely different version had I written this a week, a month, or even three months after he was born but being this far removed I really get to see how worth it it has all been. God has been so good to us. Gideon has truly been such a blessing. It’s been incredible to watch him grow and learn and it’s a privilege to be his dad.
At the start, he had the personality of a potato and all he does is eat, sleep, and poop. As a new parent you also have no idea what you’re doing. The learning curve is steep, but once you start figuring it out you can relax a little. The first couple of weeks we were on edge the entire time trying to do the right things and keep him alive. It takes a while, but we also figured out the quirks. Early on the “witching hour” was a very common occurrence for us. Gideon would just scream and cry no matter what you did from anywhere between 4-8pm. Emily would go to bed early and I would pace around the house trying to get him to stop crying. Once I figure out this is just what he does during that window of the day it wasn’t so bad, especially during football season. Sunday Night, Monday Night, and Thursday Night Football were spent with me on the couch with Gideon on my chest wailing while watching football. If I was lucky, I would get him to fall asleep and I’d watch the rest of the game with him asleep on my chest so he wouldn’t reawaken during the witching hour and resume his crying. After the game, and past the witching hour window, I would put him down for the night and hop into bed. You just figure it out.
Now at over 8 months old, he is a lot of fun! It’s a complete joy to watch him crawl around the house and explore new things and learn. There is nothing better than tickling him and tossing him in the air and hearing his giggles! When I think of how much he has changed in the past 8 months it’s hard to fathom what he will be like in another 8 months let alone 8 years. All I know is that I have a great wife, who is a wonderful mom, to do it with. I am so excited for what lies ahead! God is good!
