Tag: Molly

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Crazy sweeps the competition!

If you go back and look at “Crazy” posts in the last few years, you’ll see a handful of entries about how my little brother Justin and Team WEDALI have kicked some major adventure racing ass. Well, they can’t accomplish much more than they have in the last two weeks:

In 2012, WEDALI became the first team to win both the USARA National and the Checkpoint Tracker Championships.

(Admittedly, this is only Checkpoint Tracker’s third championship race, but given that WEDALI won it last year and this year, that’s pretty damn impressive.)

So pretty much all I can say at this point is… wow. And congratulations to Justin, his wife Molly and all of Team WEDALI!

Just for fun, here’s a video of the team crossing the finish line this morning (and I’m proud to say that yes, that’s my little brother dropping his bike and cackling wildly… I can’t imagine why people might think we’re related).

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I only care about certain weddings

The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Commoner Kate is not one of them.

Conversely, my little brother Justin married Molly Moilanen on this date three years ago. I talked to him on the phone earlier tonight and he was happy to report, “We made it over the two-year hump, so we should be good for another forty, fifty years.” I hope so for their sakes. Happy anniversary, guys.

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Interesting proportions

My family has trouble getting together. Lots of schedule conflicts, people running in circles… probably not that much different than other families, really, but we still like to meet at a restaurant to celebrate birthdays, although it’s usually for more than one of us at a time because of said schedule conflicts. My birthday was October 19th and my party ended up scheduled to be in November. We picked a time and place to meet and had everything all planned out. Unfortunately, the snowstorm that hit the cities that afternoon didn’t care about our plans. So much for my birthday party.

I mention all that because Justin and Molly got back from the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge last weekend and we still haven’t partied for my sake. We all met at Brent and Gail’s today to party for Santa’s sake, but not mine. However, Justin followed through with his offer to buy my birthday present while in Abu Dhabi and it’s pretty sweet.

There are two gifts and one is… I’m assuming it’s sweet, given that it’s a small bag of Arabian Delights brand “Chocodates”. Description on the front of the bag: “choco-date with almond”. My favorite part, though, is how the back of the bag lists protein, carbohydrate, fat and “energy” (in kilocalories and kilojoules).

The second gift is thoroughly awesome. It’s a polyester long sleeve “Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge” shirt (logo on the upper left part of the chest). Across the back reads “Abu Dhabi” and the right shoulder has “Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority” printed on it in both English and Arabic. I started wearing the shirt as soon as I opened up the wrapping even though the tags were still hanging down at the bottom.

I finally cut the tags off when I got home tonight and took a closer look. It’s a Salomon-brand shirt made in Cambodia and sold in Abu Dhabi, which helps explain why the little “Warranty & Glossary” booklet has two small pages of information written in 28 different languages: English starts on page 2 and a southeastern Asian language ends on 59.

There’s also a tag that lists the size, etc. Not out of the ordinary—it describes the shirt as black and made in Cambodia—but it also says “T-SHIRT (SHORT SLEEVE) L”. That’s right, short sleeve. Out of all the shirts I own, this is one of the few that can reach my wrists when my arms are fully extended, so if this is “short sleeve”, I can only imagine what a long sleeve shirt made by these people would look like.

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Crazy is crazy fast

I know, I need to write another blog entry about what I’ve been doing recently, but this story is way cooler. If you look back at this entry, you’ll note that my little brother Justin is a bad-ass adventure racer. And when I say “bad-ass”, I mean “crazy good.”

He and WEDALI do really well in races across the country to earn points—he and his teammates have been racking up lots of frequent flier miles—the points at races sanctioned by United States Adventure Racing Association accumulate until (hopefully) qualifying the team for the final race of the year. I think they finished fourth for total number of points, so last weekend was USARA Nationals.

Here’s a little blurb from the front page on the website:

“About The Race

“The USARA Adventure Race National Championship is the “Heart & Soul” of Adventure Racing in the United States. Co-ed teams of 3 compete in 45 USARA regional qualifying events across the U.S. for a chance to battle it out for the title of USARA Adventure Race National Champion.

“Teams are required to navigate a series of checkpoints using only a map and compass to guide them while transitioning between several disciplines such as: Trail Running/Trekking, Mountain Biking, Paddling and Orienteering.

“These teams will have to push the boundaries of human endurance and teamwork just to finish. Winning will require extreme willpower, mastery of all disciplines, and a little luck.”

But here’s the most important page on the website: the final results. That’s right, WEDALI didn’t think fifth at Primal Quest last year would be enough of a legacy. They had to go ahead and WIN Nationals this year. Daaaaaamn…

So to Justin, his wife Molly and their teammate Erl, congratulations. Lots and lots of congratulations. I got to see a picture of the trophies they received—individual and a team trophy—and lemme tell ya, whoever keeps the big one will need to reinforce the mantle above the fireplace. Big trophy for a big accomplishment.

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I now pronounce you…

This weekend was pretty crazy and definitely busy. There was a pizza party with games, hiking, dancing, brunch, soccer (I scored my fourth goal in almost four years!) and spending a bunch of quality time with friends and family. Oh yeah, and there was a wedding, too.

April 26th will now and forever commemorate the marriage between my little brother Justin Bakken and Molly Moilanen. Congratulations, guys. Love you both.