Blair and Sammy's Excellent Adventure: Cycling, Running, Studying....Oh My!

Well, the Lumppson (Lumpp + Johnson=Lumppson) crew has been very busy the past two weekends.

Last weekend (as in April 25th) Blair and I took part in a Bloomington tradition....the little 500 bike race (aka Little 5 and we did not actually take part the in racing, but more watching). For those who may have seen the movie Breaking Away (which is totally based on the race), well you know the concept. The men ride 200 laps and the women ride 100 laps around a 400 meter track on a single gear Schwinn bicycle...there are 4 members to a team and the start is similar to the Indy 500. There are only two bikes per team, when a teammate needs to switch they either A) start with the other bike and receive a tag from the riding member OR B) completely switch riders (the one rider jumps off at the same time the other rider jumps on). The race is open to any team of undergrads who are able to make it through the qualifying, at least for the men's race. Needless to say, IT IS HUGE!!! The crowd consists of every frat and sorority on campus screaming and cheering for their teams, along with families of other riders and well anyone else for that matter. Both races were awesome with the winner being determined in the last 400 meters! This years winners: In the men's divisions was the Cutters (a local cycling group) in 2:15....second year a row and in the women's division was Pi Beta Phi (a sorority) in 1:05. Thanks to my excellent and awesome friend James, I should have some pics to go along with my somewhat poor explanation soon! (a pic says a thousand words...that I can't even create at the moment!)

This weekend (May 2nd) was the big race....the Mini Marathon to open the 500 festival. Blair and I were praying hard core for no rain, well our prayers were answered. It was BEAUTIFUL running weather....upper 50's-60's with clouds at the start and sunny while crossing the finish line. We both had good races...Blair finished in 1:36.36 and I finished 2:03 (according to my watch) or 2:07 (according to my chip)...the difference is a potty break at mile 3 (it took my 20 minutes to get to the start line, give me a break :)!). Our experience was well....interesting. The race has 35,000 participants, as one can imagine...that is a hell of a lot of participants. Lets just say for two people who enjoy challenging themselves during a race, it was a little difficult. On my end of the deal, it was hard to get into a rhythm due to running around walkers (who some how started before me....I digress) and slower racers for much of my 13.1 miles. All in all, it was a great time with excellent weather and good race course. If it were to be done again.... Blair and I would potentially lie on our sign up sheet so we could get moved up at the start, with the hopes of starting with actual runners.....

FYI: Blair started well ahead of me....they corral the start with the hopes that slower participants are towards the end....like walkers for example, but somehow they get to start before Blair and I.....a little on the annoying side when you are starting a RUNNING race running around people WALKING!

On top of it all, Blair and I are heading into finals week. As we type, Blair is in the kitchen studying for his stats final in which he has to get a 50% or higher to keep his "A".....good luck darling! I do not have finals until the end of the week.....hence the time spent typing and buying clothes off the web (my new favorite thing!). However, I am going to let you all go to start reading a chapter on endocrine disorders for my final on Friday.....the nerd lives on (as my bro Chris would probably say!)

I leave you with a couple pics of Blair and I with our metals and racing shirts from other races we have done over the years. As well as a pic of the Wauz, who made a new friend this past week.....