The Graduate

My Farfar ("father's father" in Danish) and me after my graduation

Since I last updated this blog quite a lot has happened. Perhaps most notably is that I am a college graduate now. I earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics with a final GPA of 3.48. I think I’m going to round up to 3.5. That’s legit, right?

I have taken my semiannual pilgrimage back home to Simi Valley where I will spend the summer training, eating my Mom’s delicious food, sleeping on my super comfortable bed, seeing best friends and working an internship three days a week. Sounds like the life, doesn’t it?

Today I had my first race since the Lasse Viren 20k I did back in December and will have a race report on that tomorrow!

“Only a fifth of what you normally do”

A month ago today I had surgery to remove Plica in my left knee. I am happy to say that I am now swimming, biking and running with some consistency. I have been doing a lot of rehab, nearly everyday since the day after my surgery, and I have to thank our team trainer Cherise for all of her help. She has so many athletes to care for and she always finds time to help me with exercises, ultrasound, and reassuring me that I’ll be back out there soon while I watch my teammates run workouts on the track.

Earlier this week I told Tim Freriks (Nicknamed “Rube” because he is our lone ranger freshman. You should hear his jokes.) that I was hoping to run about 20 to 25 miles this week. He responded with a chuckle and, “That’s like what? Only a fifth of what you normally do?” While my mileage is much lower right now, I am simply happy to be out there again, improving everyday, and not worrying about if/when my knee will hurt again. As of now I am still very glad that I decided to get the surgery. I have an appointment to see the doctor on Thursday so I should have a better idea of how my recovery is coming along.

One of the views from one of my favorite runs

Since my last post I have been home for Spring break, back to school for 4 days, then home again to see my great aunt and uncle from Denmark. It is always nice spending time at home, especially this time of year when the hills of Simi Valley are all green. The little running I was able to do was truly a pleasure. I am so glad that I already have the perspective to realize “how good we had it” running as a youth and in high school. I feel like I have written this countless times over the last year on this blog: those trails are rich with memories.

Going home has a new perk this semester: Tina. My girlfriend Tina graduated from NAU in December, graduating with a double major in just 3.5 years. What a stud. Unfortunately this means that she isn’t in Flagstaff anymore. Long distance relationships aren’t my idea of fun, but this is just a passing thing.

Speaking of graduation, I have just over a month left of my undergraduate career! What’s even more exciting is that last weekend I received an acceptance letter to NAU’s Master of Engineering program. I still have at least an entire year of eligibility left and doing grad school seemed like the best way to make the most of my time here in Flagstaff.

Now that I am running more I should have more material. In the coming days I am hoping to have a good idea of what my goals will be for the next 6 months or so. (It’s crazy to think that cross country nationals were 5 months ago.)

Happy Spring!

Aztec Invitational

Leading the 2009 Aztec Invitational

I have been looking forward to posting my race report of the Aztec Invitational all week. School was quite busy last week, with three tests on top of the usual load, and I couldn’t justify spending time updating this blog when there was other work to be done.

Last weekend’s Aztec Invitational was the first time I led a cross country race alone since the Woodbridge Invitational in 2002, my freshman year of high school. I ended up winning and it still stands as the last cross country race I have won.

The race started out exactly as Coach Heins wanted it to, fairly conservative with NAU packing it up in the 10-20 spots. University of San Francisco had seven or eight runners leading the charge through one mile, with Junior Eric Lynch, freshman Tim Freriks and myself following close behind. The course is rather hilly, and shortly after the mile marker, an extremely steep hill kicks up towards the heavens. Lynch swore “that hill is definitely over 45°.” As I predicted the day before as we jogged the course, several runners found it necessary to make a move up the hill. Maybe us Lumberjacks are a little conservative when it comes to hills because we are used to reaching a point of no return level of oxygen debt when making moves up hills in Flagstaff at 7,000 feet… Nevertheless, the USF runners quickly paid for their efforts.

At the top of the hill, we meandered our way through a dog park, of all things, and a few more inclines before reaching the 2 mile mark. Around this point, NAU took over in a dominating fashion with Tim, sophomore Diego Estrada, and juniors Ahmed Osman and Jordan Chipangama taking over the lead pack. After a fast downhill half mile, the course kicked up again with a short, steep uphill with Jordan moving to the lead. I followed his move and closed the gap. Jordan seemed content to let someone else lead, and just like that, there I was in the lead.

Pretty quickly I realized that this was the first time in a long time that I had led a cross country race. Might as well roll with it, right? So I continued on, passing a large group of spectators (where I specifically heard my Mom with a very excited voice), back through the dog park and down that very steep hill. Shortly after reaching the bottom, Jordan came by with some words of encouragement, but I was unable to keep up. Ahmed and Diego came by me within the next mile, and I ended up finishing the 8km course in 25:41 in fourth.

I was really amazed that I was actually slower than a year ago on this course — 9 seconds slower. There was no doubt better competition last year. Add that to a very conservative first two miles and I guess that leaves me with a slower time than last year.

Nonetheless, I still finished really excited about the race, especially since we scored an almost-perfect-16. Leading the race, even for just a short kilometer or so, re-lit a little flame inside of me. Why not stick my nose in it and go for it?

Shout outs need to go out to the middle distance guys (“MD Crew”) for really stepping it up. Sophomore Darius Terry finished 6th overall and 5th on the team. Just a few seconds behind him were sophomore Joe Withers and junior (and roommate) Kam Holbrook. They suffer through the beatdowns in long runs and workouts all fall from the longer distance guys. I know they were happy to be putting the hurt on the other guys for a change.

In a week NAU will be competing at the Cowboy Jamboree at Oklahoma State in Stillwater, Ok. Last year we finished 2nd to a very strong Oklahoma State team. This year they are even stronger, with rankings of 1st and 2nd from Letsrun.com and the national poll. This will be our team’s first test of the season, even though team leader David McNeill may opt to miss the meet for a couple more weeks of solid training.

Results | Recap on NAUAthletics.com | Photos

Long Weekend

I have a new sister: Gina Pedersen. My brother’s wedding was a ton of fun! It was a really long weekend and I am glad to be back home getting the training in.

I swam Thursday morning before we drove up to Davis. After dinner, my brother had an Ultimate Frisbee game on campus and I was able to get in 5 miles or so before his game.

After a nice 10-miler around Davis Friday morning, we went to Cache Creek Casino in Brooks. Pretty cool little casino. Lots of 3,000 slot machines (boring) and over 100 tables (more on that later). In the afternoon we went to the rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner at R.H. Phillips Winery. Great food and wine (I’m more of a beer guy, but I had a nice glass of chardonnay).

My family in front of some vineyards

Saturday was the big day. My brother was to get married and I was to give a best man speech in front of 160 people. Oh shit.

As I said, the wedding was great. Beautiful setting at Taber Ranch. I gave my speech without too many screw ups (I accidentally threw in a line saying Gina was my brother’s “first wife.” Not good.). Food, dancing, cake, mingling with friends and family, and of course booze made it a great event.

Gina, Andrew, Me, and the rest of the groomsmen

Me and Hudson... Cerveza Mas Fina!

When the festivities were over, most people returned to the hotel to do some gambling! Friday night I had my biggest winnings ever of $125. Saturday was more of the same as I left the hotel $263 richer by Sunday. Blackjack is where it is at. Maybe I should have played a little more Sunday morning because I was hot?

About an hours drive Sunday morning put us in beautiful Napa. There I was able to get in an hour bike ride at sunset (yes, I brought my bike to my brother’s wedding) and about 6.5 miles on the treadmill.

We went to a total of four wineries between Sunday and Monday. Two were really beautiful with great wine (Mondavi and Rubicon), one was beautiful with mediocre wine (Castillo di Amorosa), and one was just a tasting room with pretty good wine (Hill Family Estates). My parents have done the Napa thing a couple times now and have drank a lot more wine than I have so they offered some advice. I have started to acquire a taste for wines… I don’t have to be the only one drinking beer at nice restaurants anymore.

Me and Tina at Castillo di Amorosa

Monday I ran 10 in the morning. Tuesday I ran 5 in the morning. Biked about an hour and ran ~2 miles in the late afternoon after we got back home.