Weekend in DC

You may have already read my marathon update, now here is an update of everything else. Emili and I flew to DC on Friday night and stayed with Emili's friend from college, Renee. I had met Renee before and she is a sweetheart. Friday we stayed up later than my normal bedtime and probably went to bed around 1am.

Saturday morning we slept in (10am!) and then headed to lunch and met up with another one of Emili's friends from Augusta. After lunch we headed over to the race expo to pick up our bib number and see everything they had there. They had a ton of running clothes, running food, etc, and some really cool "Marine Corp Marathon" clothing items that were way too expensive. I didn't buy anything but it was neat to see everything. After the expo we relaxed at Renee's apartment until we went to meet up with some of my family for dinner. I have an aunt, uncle and 3 cousins that live in Reston, VA so we met up with my aunt, uncle and one cousin for dinner that night in the city - so fun! I hadn't seen them since my wedding so it was so great to see them and I'm sad I forgot to take a picture with them :(

Saturday night we got our things ready for the morning and went to bed pretty early. For a Sunday recap, see previous post. One thing I forgot to mention was the Marines that were everywhere for the race. They were all of the volunteers: water, cleanup, hand out medals, etc. It was so cool to see them all serving that way. Also, Emili and I wore our names on our shirts and people would shout out our names and cheer us on which was really cool! Sunday after the race Renee made us a delicious lasagna dinner with some veggies. So in case she reads this, thank you thank you!! She was an amazing hostess.

I knew I would forget some things in my marathon post, also forgot to mention race day weather. It was chilly in the morning but in the low 60s throughout the race and so beautiful, blue skies! We even got a little sun burned.

Monday morning we woke up and headed out for a massage!! It was fantastic :) Followed by lunch at Cosi (yum!) and a tiny bit of shopping. Then it was back to Renee's apartment to gather our things and head to the airport. Emili and I had the same flight back to Atlanta and then she caught another flight to Minneapolis after having dinner with Matt and I. It was a perfect weekend!

Now I can get back to a routine of not running, haha. Time to keep up our house and get things done around here. This weekend is of course Halloween. I think I am going to be Julia Child. I'll have to post some pictures next week :) What are you going to be for Halloween?

Marathon recap

Although it felt like it would never come, our marathon has now come and gone. After 18 weeks of training I was ready for it to be over with and very excited at the same time. [Note 18 weeks of training = 15 weeks ending with a 20 mile run and then running 2 or 3 times in the next 3 weeks after that before the race.. oops] One concern I had the whole time was that my knee(s) wouldn't hold up through 26.2 miles (yes it's 26.2.. I had someone ask me if it was 7?? haha). Want to know how my knees did? Here is a recap for you from what I remember correctly:

5:30am - wake up, it's race day!

6:20am - out the door to walk to the metro

6:45am - walk out of the metro right in front of the Pentagon and walk 1 mile to starting area

7:20am - drop off bag and wait in line for porta-potties

8:00am - cannons go off and the race has started!

8:20am - Emili and I finally cross the start line

Miles 1-8: running (on the roads) through beautiful forests / trees all changing colors. Also, scenery is dotted by men and women *ahem* relieving themselves on the side of the road into the forests. I guess they didn't want to wait in the lines. Emili and I are running 4 minutes, walking 1 minute, over and over. We also started by Arlington Cemetery.

Miles 8-10: Running past Georgetown University and through Georgetown - it was so cute! Still going.. been through a few water stops and eaten a few things.

Mile 11: We found Renee, our awesome cheerleader!! Took a picture with her and her sign (see facebook profile pic). Running by Potomac and Jefferson memorial.

Miles 12-15: Running through Hains Point. Everything is flat from here on out (although the hills before weren't bad at all). We made 13.1 miles in under 3 hours (I think we might finish in under 6!)

Miles 15 - 20: Running around the Mall. We pass Washington Monument, White House, the Capital, etc. We have to "beat the bridge" and get to mile 20 by 1:15pm in order to be allowed to finish the race. It's probably about 12:30 so we're fine. We find Renee's roommate Meryl who walks with us for about a mile and then we find Renee again right before the bridge.

Mile 20: We "beat the bridge"! Now, we have been going slower.. Emili has been power walking while I jog slowly.. on and off. by mile 20, my knees are done.

Miles 20-26.2: Walking. Slowly. The whole time. (along with everyone around us, haha).

Mile 26: Almost there!

Mile 26.1999: Ok time to pretend to jog again because you are 10 feet from the finish line

Mile 26.2: Done!! Done!! we did it!! Oh and our time was 6:29. So much for finishing in under 6 hours, blame that on my knees which were in so much pain.

It was an amazing experience and I'm so glad I did it. I will never do it again thanks to my knees but it was awesome. A fantastic way to 'celebrate' me and Emili's 20 years of friendship. I may do a half marathon sometime though.. :) And Emili ran after having been 'diagnosed' with bronchitis last week so way to go Emili!

You can check out some pictures here. No laughing - you didn't run a marathon. It was great how many photographers they had out there!

Marathon update again

How has my training been going? Well, after my 20 miles, I didn't run for 9 days until today! oops. I took a few days off for my legs to heal and then "blame it on the rain" didn't run for a few more. I ran 4 miles today which went ok but I took Molly with me and that always makes the run more difficult.

In other news, I wanted to let you know that you can track me while I run my marathon! Aren't you excited? I tracked Emili when she did her first marathon (and maybe her second, I can't remember) and it was really cool to know how far she had gone throughout the day. First you go here and sign up. You can receive email notifications or text messages. It will take Emili and I about 6 hours to run the marathon so if it starts at 8am (I don't even know.. probably 8) then we will finish around 2pm.

In non-marathon related news, anyone watching Biggest Loser? Did you see how they did not vote Tracey off tonight? What the heck! This is one of my least favorite seasons so far.. hopefully it will get better.

A few pictures

Having trouble getting these in a decent order so here they are anyway:

These are the lamps and mirror I am going to spray paint for our house. And Molly checking things out. (I'll post After pictures whenever I actually do this)

Our new light fixture in our front room! We took down the ceiling fan that didn't work and barely gave off any light and put this one up. I love it!

View from the top of the Strand theatre in Marietta Square, we went exploring tonight

Little M sleeping in the sunlight

A few of my coworkers and I after our Ekiden relay race in Piedmont Park

Finally we have guest bedding!

Randomness

It's been a while so I guess this might get lengthy! Stick with it if you wish :) So you know how they say that dogs and children are a lot alike? I've thought Molly has been pretty easy so far until one incident last week. We woke up in the middle of the night, around 3am, to Molly crying so Matt went to check out the situation since she had been having an upset stomach. The next thing I know Matt is getting me up to come help him because Molly has made a "mess" .. all over the crate.. on our wall.. on the carpet.. keep in mind she was in the crate the whole time. So Matt gave her a bath at 3am while I tied a shirt around my nose so I could breath and went to work. I don't think I'll mind it as much when it's my child.. that was a lot of work for a dog but it had to be done so oh well.

I don't really know how to transition out of that story. How about, speaking of cleaning the sheets Molly sleeps on, I finally got bedding for our guest room!! And thanks to Ikea, it is not the one I originally wanted. After 6 months, Ikea is still out of that bedding. So I picked a different one finally and made the bed all pretty. I will post some pictures soon. Speaking of new things..

I got my new car! Thanks to my sister for letting us drive her Jetta around for the last month, we now have two cars again. On Saturday I got a 2009 silver Honda Fit and it is so cute :) I feel like it is very 'me.' Pictures to come. Speaking of me..

I ran 20 miles yesterday. Yes, 20. That was the big week for marathon training and it ramps down quickly now until the marathon which is less than 3 weeks away!! I tried a run/walk method and ended up finishing the 20 miles in 4 hours 13 minutes which was fast for me and I enjoyed every minute of it! I am in pain now (and yesterday afterwards) but that will go away.. I'll just take a few days off to recuperate. Speaking of not running for a few days..

This week John, Stephanie, Arabelle and Parker are coming into town! We haven't met our niece Arabelle yet so we are looking forward to that (she is almost 3 months) and Molly hasn't met her dog cousin Parker so that should be fun to watch! We keep wanting to socialize her with lots of dogs but haven't made it to the dog park yet. Speaking of traveling..

I was in Augusta this weekend to get my car and my mom has sold her house! She and my sister will be moving into my grandmother's old house where she grew up. It's super cute but small so that will make Christmas fun and cozy when we're all there. Speaking of seasonal times of the year..

The HoneyCrisp apples are in the stores!! You MUST try them. I know they are way more expensive than other apples. I paid $2.99/lb today for 5 huge apples which cost me I think $9.39. And it will be worth every cent. I am so looking forward to eating one tomorrow. They are seasonal in the fall down here and not in every store but I located them in the Publix by me today. Go buy them - trust me!! Speaking of me liking to eat apples straight from the cold refrigerator..

It's 67 in our house! Quite chilly for me but we'll try to keep the heat off as long as possible. Not that I would turn the heat up much more than that, but just to take off the edge.

I guess this wasn't as long as I thought, just turned out more of a long train of thought, with no pictures :)

Marathon update

I realized I haven't updated on my progress on the marathon in a while. I believe we are five weeks away from marathon day. My running has been going well and I have been doing probably about 75% of the runs that I had originally planned. My current distances are something like 5 miles on Tuesdays and 9 on Wednesday. Then I am supposed to run 5 on Thursday but can never seem to motivate myself to run on Thursdays so that is usually the 25% that I skip. The farthest I have gone so far is 16 miles, although I was supposed to go 18 this past Saturday. I ran the 16 with Emili (who I am running the actual marathon with) when she was in town over Labor Day weekend. It was so great having her there running it with me to see how it will be on the actual day and I think we both motivated each other. We also run at the same [slow] speed which is perfect. Our time for the 16 was 3 hours 40 minutes.

I didn't run the 18 miles on Saturday due to all this rain, but I did run 9 miles in the rain last Wednesday so I'd know what it's like to run in the rain, as it's always a possibility that it will rain on marathon day. I am taking Friday off of work in hopes that it won't rain and I can get in a long run since I have another activity on Saturday keeping me from running Saturday.

Actually since the 16, the farthest I've run is 9.5 so hopefully I'll be ready for my 20 mile run in 2 weeks :-/ Once you get going though it's pretty easy to just keep going. As long as my knee holds out!! I am still glad I'm doing this and still enjoying it but I'm ready for it to be over with so I can have my time back. I want to work on my house!

In other small news, I saw Julie and Julia last night and it was an absolute must-see!! I laughed so hard all the way through. I'll update on other things soon I hope..

Have a great week!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world"

This past weekend was very fun and quite a flashback, as well as very touching. Friday night the Virginia Tech band, 300+ Hokies, travelled to Augusta, GA to play their show at my high school as a tribute to my friend Ryan who was killed in the Virginia Tech massacre. Our stadium was overflowing with love for Ryan and with too many people to fit. Before the game, the Hokies, my high school band, and our opponent's band all took the field to play the Star Spangled Banner. Then during halftime my high school band (which my sister is part of) played part of their show followed by the Virginia Tech band's performance, including the "Hokie Pokey"!

I also got to see a few old faces from high school as well as my high school band director. It felt really surreal to have everyone in that space together, especially to celebrate Ryan. "Be the change you wish to see in the world" encompasses everything Ryan stood for. I have some pictures down below of the evening.

On Saturday, Matt and I went to test drive a Honda Fit in replacement of my poor car. We have word from insurance that it is totaled but are still waiting on the final call. And waiting to find out how much they are going to give us for it. We are planning on getting a used Honda Fit. I *love* them!

Yesterday I got to spend the day with my bff Emili and we ran 16 miles!! It was really fun to have her here since we have been training separately for the marathon. I can't believe the marathon is almost here.. less than 2 months. Emili and I have been friends for 20 years so it's a pretty cool thing to do for our 20th anniversary ;-) And sadly we didn't take any pictures together this weekend, what's up with that?

Here are some pictures from the football game:

VT & Lakeside on the field for the Star Spangled Banner

My sister Erin in the band! Can you see her smiling at the camera in the middle?Lakeside & VT together, Lakeside is the dark corner and VT is all the whiteMy mom with a VT freshman band member. Everyone was so nice!

Lakeside band halftime showVT band halftime show. They're huge!

VT doing the Hokie Pokey. I wish I had taken a video. See the huge sousaphone section?