Running, Camping and Salsa

It's been a packed few days, lots to catch up on and LOTS of pictures :)

Rochester 5K
This summer I've been training for a 5K (3.1 miles) race to run with my brother. Earlier in the summer I made the commitment to run on a regular basis and be ready for this race by the end of August. Well the day finally came. I didn't quite train as much as I wanted to but I definitely came a long way. 4 months ago I wasn't able to even run 2 minutes without getting completely out of breath and now I ran over 30 non-stop :) I am proud of this accomplishment and am considering new milestones in the future. My brother, my friend Suzanne and I all ran the race and we all did great. I met all three of my goals: to not walk the entire time, to get a time in between 30-35 min and to not be in last place. My brother did really well and got 12th place! Not sure if I'm in love with running but it leaves you feeling amazing afterwards! Here are our stats and some pics (keep in mind this is my first race ever):

Summary of the Race
number of finishers:137
number of females:77
number of males:60
average time:00:28:14

Matt McCasland
bib number: 982
age: 22
gender: M
location: Madison, WI
overall place: 12 out of 137
division place: 1 out of 4
gender place: 8 out of 60
time: 21:10
pace: 6:49
gun time : 21:12

Jennifer Elder
bib number: 914
age: 26
gender: F
location: Stewartville, MN
overall place: 104 out of 137
division place: 10 out of 17
gender place: 51 out of 77
time: 31:43
pace: 10:13
gun time : 31:46

My dad showed up out of nowhere and took these pics








Camping
After the race we went camping with my sister's family in Cannon Falls. We had a great time hanging out, playing games, fishing and playing on the playground. Unfortunately the beach was closed so we couldn't swim. Perfect weather though :)

Matt and Ryan playing baseball (shocker)






I know, I'm inconsistent with my framing








Scott got this great pic of Ryan!


Old Friends and Salsa
Sunday I went on a long walk with my oldest friend in Minnesota...by oldest I mean I've been friends with her longer than anyone else since we moved here. That probably means I've been friends with her longer than anyone in my entire life! Crazy, I never thought of that until now. I've been friends with Jessie Newell since 5th grade! We've been through lots together, even lived together in college and realized we don't do well as roommates but do very well as friends. She's just so great, we went on a walk around Stewartville and caught up on everything that's going on in our lives. I'm so glad we still keep in contact and am already looking forward to the next time we can get together again.

Monday night we went over to Eric and Leah's for salsa night with our small group from church. It was such a fun night and a long night too...we were there until about 11:30pm. Our whole group made spicy salsa, black bean salsa and peach salsa. Yummmm! Thanks to my dad who provided us with most of the tomatoes, we will be providing you with three jars of salsa tomorrow :)

A beautiful display of all the fresh ingredients


Shirley and Leah


Mikayla and Jane