A Brand New Life as a Runner

Introducing...

2010-03-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

Introducing:

Quinn Mary Harrish Jordan

aka, Quinn Jordan, The Mighty Quinn and Bean.

Born March 1, 2010
6:21pm (during a beautiful sunset)
6lbs 15oz
20" long

She's perfect and amazingly healthy.

As soon as I get my head on straight, I will upload the race report.
It's a good one. My best race yet ;)

Love, L, J + Q

A Surprise for Bean

2010-02-22T17:28:00.000-08:00

Last week, my boss came into my office with a huge ear-to-ear grin on her face and asked me to come up to the 7th floor with her because the Dean wanted to get my opinion about a mural they wanted to create up there.

Confused, I agreed, but asked her what “mural” she was talking about.

Apparently, she hadn’t thought her lie through enough to come up with an answer in case I had questioned her about it, and after a long pause, just muttered/giggled something about how she wasn’t sure and that I should just come up as soon as possible to talk to him.

As we wandered through the Dean’s suite, I realized that NO ONE was in their office and suspected something may be up.

Sure enough, as we walked into the room, everyone jumped out and yelled “SURPRISE!!!!”

As sure as I calmed down and made sure my water hadn’t broken, I realized everyone was there for a surprise shower for the Bean and I. YAY!

They had a beautiful cake, cupcakes, cookies, flowers and gifts!

Actually, it was for Jeremy too, but he was in a never-ending faculty meeting. Finally, one of the Deans went in there to end it so he could come out and everyone could surprise him too. Then the party was underway.

We got some great gifts, including a huge bag of clothes, a fun crib toy -soother/projector thingy, some other small baby toys and a super-cute diaper cake that our friend Courtenay made for us.

But the best surprise of all was the extremely generous gift that everyone pitched in together to get for us.

The Bob Revolution Jogging Stroller!

Jeremy and I had bought most of the big items on our registry ourselves and only had a jogging stroller left to get, but were planning on waiting a few months after she was born to get it since we didn’t need it right away and needed to save up for it.

While they didn’t get us the actual stroller, they got us a gift card with more than enough money to get it. Way more than we EVER expected anyone to get us. We were completely floored and overwhelmed.

We had such a great time and the whole shower was a wonderful surprise. We are so lucky to work with such an amazing group of people who have embraced us, taken us in since we moved here and been a source of strength through this entire pregnancy, especially in the beginning when we were having such a rough time.

We are so excited at the thought of being able to go out and enjoy the trails in Fairmount park together in the summer and do our runs together as a family when marathon training season comes around again. We can't wait to share our love of running with Bean.

So here is my question to all you running moms out there. I originally thought I would get the Bob Ironman, but after testing out the Revolution and talking to a father at the running store (who had a Baby Jogger and a Bob Ironman) he suggested for us, we may want to go with the Revolution with 16" wheels since we will be doing a lot of walking/running on trails.

Does anyone have on opinion on the Ironman vs the Revolution? Really, it seemed like the only major difference where the wheels and the fact that the Ironman has a fixed front wheel. I am worried about the Ironman's wheels on the trails in the parks around our house, but I obviously want something fast and slick on a flat surface (any help I can get to become faster is always appreciated). Decisions, decisions...

Oh, and here is a pic of me at 37 weeks since I haven't posted one in awhile. Of course, I'll be at 39 weeks on Wednesday. Eek! So close!

Nursery Tour

2010-02-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like a couple of days of being snowed in to make you get some stuff done around the house.

The nursery is finally complete. It's great to be able to walk into the room and finally feel like there is nothing else that needs to be done before she is born. It's a great load off my shoulders.

The funny thing is she probably wont even sleep in there for months since we plan on having her sleep next to our bed for a month or two. But at least I know I don't have to worry about finishing the room once she's here and I have zero time to do it. I love checking things off the list.

As far as the nursery goes, there is no overall look. It's a really small space so I didn't have too much to work with. I am not into themes and can't even settle on a color scheme. I love trees and owls, so it's inspired by that, but the rest is kind of a hodgepodge. I just like collecting things that I think she will enjoy looking at and had fun finding some of my favorite toys packed away from when I was a little girl. I hope she will enjoy some of them as much as I did.

Wall color "Lime Rickey", Sherwin Williams. Crib by Babyletto.

Tree decal by walldecors.

Blanket embroidered with "Bean". :)

My mom made this wall hanging after being inspired by one she saw on etsy.

Switchplate by etsy seller funkychickendesign.

Lyrics to one of my favorite Beatles songs that I laid out in inDesign, had one of my awesome print vendors from work print for me and then framed with an inexpensive Ikea frame.

Blizzard number three outside. Lamp and curtain panels from Ikea.

My grandmother made this heart for me years before she passed away with her and my grandfather's old buttons, pins and cuff links.

My favorite Little People from when I was a little person.

The orange Fisher Price stuffed toy was mine from when I was a baby.

Changing table by Ikea.

The Pink Panther was my FAVORITE stuffed animal when I was a kid.

Elephant Jeremy bought Bean in Amsterdam.

Baby pictures of mommy, daddy and big bro, Dakota.

Details of quilt my mom made for Bean :)

My mom started to knit this when she was pregnant with me, but ran out of yarn with only a small patch to go. When I got pregnant, she found someone to finish it for her with the same yarn she had used 34 years ago.

Beautiful homemade blanket made by Jeremy's cousin, Carey.

My mom made these burp cloths for Jeremy...

...and these for me :)

Fortune I got when I was in my first trimester.

Marathon Training vs. Labor Training

2010-02-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, one of my very best friends ran her first marathon. She trained diligently for over five months for the perfect race experience, only to end up with an injured IT band 4 weeks before the big day. She went to PT every other day in the remaining weeks, did all her stretches and exercises, discussed all her options with her therapist, mentally prepared herself and in the end, decided to just run the full, get out there and see what happened.

What happened was four miles into the 26.2 mile journey, her knee started bothering her and she went from her 9:30-10:00minute/mile pace to a 13:00-14:00 minute/mile pace. She ended up finishing about an hour and half slower than she had trained for all those months and cried pretty much every step of the way.

But when she called me afterwards to tell me about her race, she still had that sound of amazement and joy of someone who just ran her first marathon. Sure, she said she was never going to run another one again (who hasn’t said that after their first marathon?). Sure, she said it was the most painful, strenuous, exhausting thing she could ever imagine doing. But even still, you could tell she was amazed by her will, astounded by her body and proud of her accomplishment and the fact that she didn’t give up, even though it really, really, REALLY sucked. I know in a few months or maybe even weeks, she will have fleeting thoughts of her next big race. She knows she could’ve done it better if the situation were different. She put in all the training and was doing great for weeks. But no matter how much preparation you put into it, you just never know what you’re going to get on race day.

Which reminds me of something my wise husband said to me a few weeks back.

One afternoon, I was sitting there listing off all of the things I wanted and did not want for the delivery of Bean and the endless ways I was going to make sure these things happened. Jeremy just lovingly smiled and then gently reminded me that preparing for labor and delivery (and parenthood for that matter) is like training for a marathon. You can train and prepare all you want for the perfect race experience, but when the big day comes, you only have so much control over what cards you are dealt and you have to be mentally prepared for many different game plans.

How did my husband become so smart all of the sudden?

It really is funny how true this statement is. And all runners/parents can relate to it.

As soon as you sign up for the big race or see that positive pregnancy test, the first thought through your head is:

“What the hell did I just get myself into?”

When that wears off, it’s time to prepare.

First you get a ticker.
(marathon ticker/pregnancy ticker)

Then, you need to figure out what kind of outcome you want.
(run for fun, a new PR/ natural childbirth, epidural, c-section)

What plan do you need to adopt to make sure you meet your goal? (Galloway, Higdon/Lamaze, Bradley, Hyponobirth,)

Then there is the need to read everything you possibly can on the subject.
(Born to Run, Runners World/ What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Ina May’s The Guide to Childbirth).

Not only in print but online.
(Running Lounge, running blogs, running forums, weather.com/the bump, baby blogs, pregnancy forums, babycenter.com)

There is the change of diet.
(Eating healthier to lose weight, finding something that wont upset your stomach on a run, loading up on carbs/eating healthier to gain weight, finding something that wont upset your stomach in the first trimester, loading up on everything for no good reason)

There is endless product comparison and shopping for your new obsession.
(running shoes, running clothes, gels/ strollers, car seats, diaper rash cream)

There are the friends who can relate to you and LOVE to talk about their experiences.
(marathon runners who will tell you how AWESOME it is and how you should follow their training plan, marathon runners who only want to talk about their horrible race experiences and try to scare you/ mothers who will tell you how AWESOME labor and delivery are and how you are dumb if you do it any other way, mothers who only want to talk about how horrible their labor experience was and try to scare you)

And friends who totally cannot relate to you.
(Why would you EVER want to run a marathon? /Are you sure you’re ready to have kids?)

Then, it's time to taper. And the real obsession begins...

This Wednesday, I will be 37 weeks. That's officially full-term. My taper is about to begin.

And no matter how much I've prepared. No matter how perfect I want everything to be, I know I can only obsess so much. Because on that day, it's out of my control. I just need to show up prepared and focused, but with an open mind and ability to trust myself if I need to switch game-plans at the last minute.

No matter how the race unfolds, this time I'm coming home with the best medal yet. A definite PR.

34 Weeks

2010-01-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

I feel bad coming out and saying it, but I think you have all been replaced.

I still read your blogs and am inspired by all your running, but I have to admit, not running for 26 weeks has made it difficult to read about it. Not only because I am extremely jealous, but also because I have just kind of lost interest in it. It's hard to admit, but in a way I am enjoying the mental and physical break. I mean, I hate the fact that I haven't been able to do it for so long and hate that it's going to SUCK when I try to start up again, but in a way, I love that it's just one other thing I don't have to check off my list of things to do.

Especially when I am less than 6 weeks (hopefully) from having my first child and obsessing over all the things that I still have to learn: pain coping during natural childbirth, pros and cons of interventions, breastfeeding, vaccinations, what to do with a baby when she actually gets here, what to pack in a diaper bag, what to pack in a hospital bag, what the numbers on diaper boxes mean (I thought the 1, 2 and 3 were for ages, much to the amusement of my co-working mamas). Go ahead and laugh at me, it's fine.

I'm TOTALLY clueless I tell you and lately it seems, I clueless about EVERYTHING. And no matter how much time I have left, it will never be enough time to learn all the things I feel I still need to learn. I still have about 2-3 books I want to get through and everyday I find a new, fascinating website that provides more information than anyone could ever possibly need to know.

But I have to admit, the one thing that has been taking up most of my time the past few weeks has not been educating myself on pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. It's about something much more important...

NURSERIES!!!

OK, so decorating a nursery is obviously NOT more important than those other things, but when you are deep into the "nesting like a mofo" chapter of your pregnancy, cleaning and organizing the house and getting the nursery all set up and ready (even if it's still 6 weeks before your due date) seems like the ONLY THNG THAT MATTERS RIGHT NOW!!

So, that's what I've been doing the past two weeks. Lots of nesting, decorating, cleaning, shopping ("YES JEREMY, WE NEED TO HAVE A BOX OF DIAPERS AND BABY TYLENOL IN THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW, JUST IN CASE") and obsessing. And in the course of all my googling nurseries online, I have found some pretty amazing blogs out there from super-creative moms and the amazing spaces they have created for their little bundles of joy.

So there you have it. You have been replaced with blogs on nurseries, pregnancy, child-rearing and baby craft projects. Never thought I would be that girl, but I am.

Don't worry though. I'll be back to obsessing over Gu flavors, running shoes, weather.com and 20 milers again in no time. I've already got the Philadelphia Distance Run and Marathon on my radar in the fall. :)

Other than that, things at 34 weeks are good. I'm slowing down, but still feel alright. I'm much more tired and feel like I have grown SO much in the past two weeks. Actually. I know I have since I suddenly gained 3lbs in the past week. This makes for a grand total of 28lbs so far. Not so bad, but the sudden growth spurts do tend to hurt a bit and I'm starting to notice a few more aches and pains.

For example, when I get up any of the 32 times a day I have to walk to the bathroom from my office, I actually have begun to waddle a little because it feels like my pelvic bones have spread apart while I've been sitting there. I can't believe I'm a waddler. People actually laugh at me as I walk by their desks. Sigh.

Thursday night, I had my 34 week appointment and everything was great. Bean is measuring perfectly and her heartbeat is strong. Her noggin is down and her feet are up, already making mama proud. Keep up the good work Bean!

Finally, tomorrow, Jeremy and I have our childbirth class. We signed up for an amazing, one-day intensive Birthworks class at the Maternal Wellness Center that is literally a 5 minute stroll from our house. Very convenient and I love the fact that we do not have to spend 3-8 weeks taking a class. My midwife assured us we will get all the information we need about of the one day, 4.5 hour course as we would the one that spans a few weeks. I'm really looking forward to the class and am excited and nervous in a way to see how J reacts to it.

I'm sure as soon as we leave the class, the obsessing over the nursery will quickly change back to obsessing over birthing. After all the research I have done, I am fully committed to having a natural childbirth, but get many, many, many fleeting thoughts about how difficult and painful it is going to be to push a human out of my body.

Of course. I run marathons. It shouldn't hurt that much, right? ;)

Don't worry. I am fully aware of how that statement is going to come back to bite me in the ass.

32 Weeks and yep, more photos...

2010-01-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

I should just turn this into a photo blog already.

I hope you all had a great holiday and a Happy New Year! Mine was busy, even with a whole week and a half off of work. We did get a couple of days alone while our houseguest left for a few days to see his sister, but then he came back with his girlfriend for over a week, so we were busy hanging out with them. We had a great time, but I have to say, when they left on January 3rd, I was SO happy to have an empty house. We have had house guests or been out of town EVERY weekend since HALLOWEEN!!!! I'm ready to be a loner for a little while.

Jeremy and I did have a nice Christmas eve. We ventured out to Babies R Us because I had a coupon I wanted to use thet expired that day. By the time we got out there, Jeremy informed me we were NOT coming back out there again, so we needed to get as much stuff off of our registry as we could. So the Bean made out like a bandit that day with a new crib mattress, a carseat, a snap-n-go and a Maclaren stroller (with anti-finger chopping kit attached). Once we get the Bob jogger (not for a couple of months), we will be one of those couples with THREE strollers. Never thought I would become that person, but I have.

Christmas day, J and I spent the entire day indoors eating and watching TV alone. It was great. He spoiled me to death (new camera, snow boots, sling for the bean, awesome baby book from etsy.com, a new fuzzy bathrobe, slippers) he's way too good to me.

Posing by the tree.

Making me Christmas breakfast.

Buckeye helping me test out my new sling.

Zero with her Christmas gift.

Two days after Christmas, we met our friends up in NYC for a one night, two day quick trip to the city. It was my first time in the Big Apple, and even though it was one of the coldest, windiest days of the year, we still had a great time. Although I was exhausted by the time we were done.

Our first moments in NYC.

I really need to invest in a maternity coat.

Freezing our butts off in Times Square.

On top of Rockefeller Center.

Central Park.

Empire State.

Of course, there are a million more pictures, but I'll keep it short.

The next few days we just hung out at the house with our friends. I did manage to get a little more of the nursery accomplished, I'll post pictures of that later. Unfortunately, we didn't do anything for New Years eve since we all got sick after running around New York in the cold weather. I've found out that a cold takes a lot longer to get over when you are 8 months pregnant.

Other than that, just back to work, which is starting to take a lot out of me. It's getting to the point where I am looking forward to the 12 weeks of maternity leave almost as much at meeting the Bean. Not quite, but almost. :)

I'm still feeling good. I'm just getting to the point of feeling uncomfortable lately, but it could be a lot worse. I haven't taken any good belly shots for a couple of weeks. Here is my last one from 2 weeks ago.

Hope you are all having a great New Year!!! My only "resolution" right now is to try and update this thing more often.

Recent Fun - Photopolooza

2009-12-22T18:48:00.001-08:00

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind but SO much fun. Between flying to Florida, having a fantastic baby shower, visiting my family and friends, flying back home, going right back to work, having another visitor stay in our house (J's friend), getting ready for the holidays and the "record-breaking blizzard of 09" (for Philly in December anyway) blowing through last weekend, it's been nuts!

Instead of hashing it all out, I figure I will do a photo post. Who has time to read anyway? :)

First off to Florida where my mom threw us a wonderful baby shower/party. I say party because it wasn't your typical shower. There were finger foods, gifts and one quick game, but it was co-ed and there was a LOT of alcohol flowing (not for me, sadly). We had some of my local friends from high school there as well as friends who drove up from Miami and stayed in a hotel. A lot of my mom and dad's friends were there too. The party went well into the night (almost 2am) and fun was had by all. The Bean also made out like a bandit. She is all set in the clothing department, especially the fuzzy pj with footies department. :)

Here I am!

Food!

The goods!

Our one game - "Guess the baby" from baby photos of some of the guests.

Everyone trying to figure out who's who.

My friend Mark and I comparing bellies (with Jeremy's head getting crushed in between).

Giving the answers.

That's my mom in the pink. The best shower host ever!

My reaction after a friend of mine from middle school brought a HORRIBLE picture of the two of us from 1986 - NOT a good year for me. Notice Jeremy trying not to crack up at seeing it.

Lots of cute clothes :)

The beautiful quilt my mom made for Bean. It looks GREAT in the nursery with the green walls too!

Me rolling my eyes at Jeremy getting Ohio State socks. Look how happy he is. :)

I have no idea why, but this is one of my favorite gifts. A Carter's set of Ducky fuzzy jammies with footies. For some reason, it melts my heart. And it's SO soft. I can't wait for her to wear this so I can snuggle her!

Jeremy trying to figure out what a "Boppy" is.

Two of my very best friends from high school, Wendy and Angie.

Our good friends from Miami (and old running buddies) Kevin and Marissa.

Another one of my best friend's from high school, Mark and his beautiful wife Andria. We are the Godparents to their wonderful son, Hamish.

Another one of my favorite running buddies (and best friend) from Miami, Mercy and her hilarious hubby Sergio.

J and I the next morning at the Sunday brunch my mom had at the house for eveveryone.

There's our boy Hamish! And in his new Batman shirt we bought him! :)

Group shot!

My awesome parents.

Later, on our way to go watch the sunset (one of the things I miss most about Florida).

Pelican and Dolphin.

I miss these sunsets...

And less than a week later...back to reality. A snowy afternoon.

My girls settling down for a long, winter's nap.

Snowed in,

That's a lot of snow for a Floridian.

13" on the table.

Jeremy so proud of his new shovel.

Our snow covered house!

I need Santa to bring me some snow boots.

Winter Wonderland.

So jealous of this guy!

My studly shoveler.

Me pretending to shovel (when really I just walked around and took pictures).

Now, it's one more day of work then I'm off for a week and a half!!! While we will have visitors for some of it, we will have a few days alone over Christmas to just sit back and relax. I can't wait to do NOTHING except maybe put together some of the nursery and catch up on some running blogs. :)

Have a GREAT HOLIDAY!

28 Weeks

2009-12-09T20:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my 7th month of pregnancy. Also known as my third trimester.

Today I am officially 28 weeks pregnant. I know I say this often, but I never thought I'd see the day.

This picture was taken last week, but you get the gist. I'm getting HUGE! 20lbs so far and feeling great. She's kicking up a storm and staying pretty drama-free. Just like mommy likes.

Things have been good around here, but super busy. I've been feeling pretty great the past few weeks and not had too many particular problems. Well, I did have one day when my midwife told us to go to the hospital to get a heartbeat check because I hadn't felt the baby move at all. That was a little scary, but of course, when we got there, she was totally fine. We also got to pre-register at the hospital, so I didn't feel too bad.

The only real symptom I have been suffering from, which is actually kind of scary, is low blood sugar. I have had more than one occasion where I have almost passed out on the train in the morning on the way to work. Two times were REALLY close. One of those times was this morning.

Things will be fine one second, then the next, I feel like I can't breathe and before you know it everything goes white and fuzzy. I can't see or hear and feel like I'm going to be sick. I try to lay back and get some blood back to my head, but it's hard when you are stuffed on a train sitting next to someone else.

Sometimes I feel it coming on and can sort of talk myself out of it, but this morning and on one other occasion, it was pretty scary. Afterwards I feel totally out of it and lethargic for the rest of the day. I have been checked out for it and everything was fine. My glucose testing came back normal, so my midwife just thinks is may be pregnancy induced hypotension (low blood pressure) or hypoglycemia. It seems like if I eat peanut butter or protein in the mornings instead of say, cereal, it usually helps. I just need to be careful with the sugar spike too early in the day.

Other than that, we have been busy with work and house guests!

Jeremy's parents were here the week of Thanksgiving and we had a great time with them.

The week before they came, my dad surprised us with buying Bean's crib, which was wonderful. Then, J's parent's surprised us with getting our glider! Gotta love the grandparents :)

One night, I came home from a particularly crappy day at work to see Jeremy and his dad had put it all together for me (and his mom making a delicious dinner). It was a wonderful surprise. And although that's all that's been done up there so far, it's definitely a step in the right direction. It's starting to look like a nursery!

By the way, one of the biggest rackets in the baby furniture business is the fact that cribs don't come with mattresses. I'm sorry, it just seems ridiculous to spend that much money on a bed frame and then have to spend another $100 bucks on a mattress. Ugh.

Other than that, we haven't bought too much else for her. We did go a little crazy in the Gap outlet in Center City on Black Friday when we were walking around. We found some REALLY cute clothes and even Jeremy was running around saying, "Look at this! Look at this!" so we went a little overboard there. I think we are the only people who paid FULL PRICE on BLACK FRIDAY at the Gap OUTLET store. Oh well. The stuff was adorable.

We also got the first gift off our registry yesterday, which was pretty exciting. My friend Angie bought us a swing for a shower gift and it was waiting for me when I came home yesterday. Always love coming home from a long day to presents! :)

And the most exciting thing of all, tomorrow we leave for 5 days for warm, sunny Florida to go visit my parents! We aren't going to be able to make it down there for Christmas this year (the first time in my entire 34 years I will not be home for Christmas...sniff, sniff) so, we decided to go down for a long weekend. Even more exciting though, is that my mom has generously offered to throw us a co-ed baby shower/party while we're there. This is great because while we have some friends in Philly, most of our really good friends are still in Florida. A few of our friends are even driving the 3.5 hours from Miami and staying in a hotel to be there. We are so lucky to have such great friends and family! I can't wait to see them.

As far as running goes...well, not much of that going on. Even J is taking a sabbatical and has taken up Yoga and PT appointments instead. One day, this blog will get back into running. For now, we're just training for a different type of race.

Have a great weekend!

Philly Marathon 09

2009-11-22T18:48:00.000-08:00

A photo race report...

The shirt.

I designed the ad in the inside front cover of the race program this year.

The look of someone who is about the qualify for Boston.

Sorry Bill, by the time I realized it was you, this is all I got.

I love this guy's face.

I see him!!

He ran up and kissed my belly :)

Poor guy.

Joggler

SANTA!!!!

DENISE!!!

Is the guy on the left eating a cheesesteak?!?!

Here he comes!

Too tired to wave.

Too cool for school.

J and his parents.

All in all, it was a great day. The weather was beautiful and it looked like a fantastic day to race. J did great for having a bum leg and just running for fun (4:15). Of course I'm sure he wishes he could have done better, but I think he did amazing. It was his 7th marathon and his 3rd fastest time! I'm so proud!

Congrats to all you runners out there today. I'm glad I got to see so many of you in action. You all looked amazing!

24 Weeks...

2009-11-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

I have been such a bad, bad blogger.

Unfortunately, all my time these days is focused on crib reviews instead of marathon reviews. After spending the last 17 weeks without my good friend running, I feel like I can officially say I have fallen off the wagon.

That’s not to say I can’t wait to get back out there. But for now, it seems like there is so much more to focus on. It doesn’t help that work is crazy-busy and we have either been out of town or had visitors for the past 3 weekends. Then this weekend, J’s parents are coming for a week for Thanksgiving and then we have a friend from Australia coming to stay with us until after the New Year. While I love to see everyone, it doesn’t leave me much time for anything else.

But J is still in the game. This Sunday he will be running (like a lot of you) the Philadelphia Marathon. He was hoping to PR since he wasn’t too thrilled with his performance in DC last month, but since then, his IT band has been all jacked-up. He has been stretching, icing and going to PT three times a week to help, but unfortunately, it looks like this may just be a race to finish. I told him at the half if he’s in pain, he needs to stop, but I know that wont happen. You know how stubborn marathon runners can be.

It should be a beautiful day though. The weather looks like it’s going to be amazing (sunny and 59 degrees) compared to the feels-like 17 degrees of last year. And J’s parents will be out there with me to cheer him on, so that will be fun.

Other than that, it’s just baby-central around here. This week we’ve made it to 24 whole weeks (yay!). That’s 6 months if you are counting. It seems like it’s going by really fast now.

Everything has been going great. The Bean has been kicking up a storm, which is fun. Those little bumps and bubbles that I thought were gas are definitely distinguishable as kicks, rolls and thumps. I love sitting on the couch at night after I eat and watch my stomach move around. It’s so surreal. There is a HUMAN in there!

I also seem to be growing at lightning speed. Every pregnant woman I know is assuring me that I am not even close to where I will be, and I know that, but I have gotten a lot bigger in the past few weeks and it’s staring to get noticeable. Not only in how I look, but how I feel. I get uncomfortable quite easily, so I can only imagine how it’s going to be 16 weeks from now.

The newest symptoms aboard the pregnancy train include total nasal congestion, which makes it even harder to breathe on top of the diminishing lung capacity, and dizziness that comes on suddenly and has caused me to almost pass out on more than one occasion, usually while I riding the train to work in the morning.

I was concerned about the dizziness at first, until I realized how common it was in pregnancy. I have always had a tendency to come close to passing out while giving blood or spending too much time in the sun, so it’s not like this was something new. And after I realized I had been drinking huge glasses of orange juice before leaving the house without much, if anything in my stomach before getting on the train, it all seemed to make sense.

After the 20 week ultrasound when we were told our girl looks absolutely healthy, I was finally able to take a sigh of relief, step back and start to enjoy the ride. All has checked out well at my appointments since then and now everything seems to be going full steam ahead.

My dad ordered us a crib, which is pretty exciting.

It's a babyletto that we found much cheaper at overstock.com with $1 shipping and a 20% off coupon. Woo-hoo! It’s still in the box, but Jeremy’s dad is going to help him put it together while they are visiting next week. Last night, we moved all the office stuff out of the nursery into the guest room to make room for her to move in. For some reason, this made me really happy.

I have also been keeping the sellers on etsy.com in business with all the cute stuff I have been buying and bookmarking for future reference.

Here is the tree decal I ordered from walldecors. It will be in white against the lime green walls.

Here is the new switchplate I ordered from funkychickendesign which I LOVE.

There's more, but I'll spare you...

All the registry stuff is basically set and we are even planning a short trip to Florida in a month for a baby shower/party my mom is throwing for us. I can’t wait to see all our old friends.

It’s just starting to get real to me. It seems like with the holidays, the next few months are going to fly by and before you know it, it will be late February...!

Good luck to all you Philly runners on Sunday! I'll be out there looking for you. I'll probably be around the half point somewhere. Runners, tell me what you're wearing. I'll probably be in a brown hooded Back on My Feet sweatshirt. Not sure if I'm doing a sign this time. We'll see.

Enjoy the weather this year. It's a far cry from last years frozen water stops :) Keep me and the Bean in mind while you're out there. We would LOVE to be running it with you. So jealous! :)

Marine Corps Marathon 2009

2009-10-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

Imagine, a post on a running blog that actually has something to do with running!

Since I have been out of commission as far as running is concerned, I haven't had much to write about but babies. But while I am taking the year off, my better half is still running up a storm.

The past few months, J has been training for the Marine Corps Marathon. This weekend was the big race and we headed out to DC for a weekend of running fun.

While I was a little sad to be going as a spectator and not actually run it, I had a fantastic time cheering everyone on and enjoying the beautiful fall weekend. It was definitely a great race to spectate.

We stayed in the Hyatt Regency (the official race hotel) and other than the paper-thin walls (the people next door to us the first night we were there must have been filming a porno), it was a great hotel. It was right down the street from the Capitol and a perfect location as far as Metro, sightseeing and dining access.

Saturday morning we ate an amazing (but expensive) breakfast buffet at the hotel and then walked to the metro to get to the expo. The expo was similar to pretty much every other expo I have been to. It was very well organized, which was nice. But for some reason, I thought there would be a bigger selection of vendors. It didn't seem as though there was anything new that I haven't seen before. It also got really crowded pretty quickly due to the large number of runners.

They did have great Brooks Marine Corps gear, which Jeremy loaded up on. He got a new hat, long sleeved tech and one of the nicest looking windbreakers I have ever seen from a race. I treated myself to a new hooded sweatshirt from the Back on my Feet booth and we bought the Bean a cute onesie that will motivate me to get back to running as soon as possible unless I want to look like a big, fat liar.

I must run faster than someone's father, right?

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the hotel as it rained the entire afternoon and I was suddenly feeling REALLY pregnant from my giant breakfast buffet. I just needed to lay down for a bit. We watched a lot of college football and then went for a crappy dinner at Gordon Biersch later on. I usually like their food, but for some reason, we both got a bad meal that night. Not a big deal for me, but not fun for someone's last meal before a marathon.

The next morning we woke up to beautiful weather. It had cooled down to the low 50's and the sun was coming out. We took the metro down the the start which ended up being a total clusterf@%k.

Most cities I have run in will usually throw a bone and give runners a free pass on race day (by showing their bibs). Not DC. To ride the metro in DC you have to insert your prepaid card to get into the station and then again to exit the station. This ended up being a nightmare as 30,000 runners were all trying to get off the same train station at once. We got off the train and were crammed shoulder to shoulder with hundred of other people and were not going anywhere. Then, 15 minutes laster another train came to let people off, but half the people couldn't get off the train because there was no were for them to go.

As a person who hates crowds anyway and add to that the fact that I suddenly have been experiencing a serious case of pregnancy-induced claustrophobia, I was not happy. Of course, none of the anxious marathoners around me were either. It was getting ugly fast. Finally, the metro workers realized there was a serious hazard issue on their hands and just opened the gates to let us all out. Phew. The metro issue (which was no better getting back) was really the only problem with this race from what I could see. But of course, that really has nothing to do with the marathon itself.

We got to the start and I wished J a great race and he headed to his corral.I had my course maps and told him where to look for me. I even made him a bright neon green sign so he could see me.

The other side of the sign was for all the other runners, which I have to say, was quite the big hit.

I stood right past the start holding up this sign as the runners ran by and got a ton of laughs as people started on their way. I even had a few other spectators take a picture of it and one girl actually stopped running (at around mile 16), took out her disposable camera and asked the woman next to me to take a picture of us. It was a great feeling to know that I could do something small to help bring a smile to a runner's face as they were about to embark on their marathon journey.

(If you don't get the Chuck Norris reference, please refer to this website.)

Anyway, the rest of the race was great. I watched the start go off and J run by. Then I scurried off from Arlington Cemetery to behind the Lincoln Memorial (around mile 11) to see everyone run by again. I only saw J here as he ran up to me and gave me a kiss before running off into the distance.

I saw him again at mile 16 and he was right on pace to hit his 3:50 target for a PR so I headed back to mile 25 to watch him come in at the finish. But sadly, I watched the 3:50's run by, then the 4:00 pacers and I knew something had happened. In my pregnant state of mind, I of course started overreacting thinking he had dropped dead on the side of the road somewhere. Just as I was about to start sobbing uncontrollably as I wondered how I was ever going to figure out what hospital he was in, I saw him in the distance.

He smiled as I called out to him as if to say, "I'm fine, it just wasn't my day."

After I walked about 2 miles (not kidding) to get to the family meet up area, we finally found each other. His official finish was 4:13:23. His second best time, but 20 minutes off of what he was hoping for. He chalked it up to nerves, early hills and the warm morning sun but said it was a great race with a ton of wonderful crowd support. He also said that even though there were double the amount of runners than the races we normally participate in, he never felt crowded. He said he would love to do it again.

Oh, and the medals are beautiful.

All in all, a great race. No PR for J, but he has his 6th marathon under his belt. Quite a huge accomplishment. Besides, he has a chance to redeem himself in less than a month in Philly. I told him to chalk it up as a great training run. :)

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city a little before enjoying a great dinner at Founding Farmers and calling it a night.

Here are some more pictures from the big day. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

For more pics of the race, take a peek at my flickr album.

Lock up your sons...

2009-10-15T20:06:00.001-07:00

...she's gorgeous.

And perfectly, wonderfully, happily heathy. :)

19 Weeks

2009-10-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of my 19th week of pregnancy.

Overall, Im feeling great. I still haven't had any bleeding or other complications in 5 weeks. At this point, all my nausea is pretty much gone and I have a decent amount of energy.

While I haven't been running or really even working out, I have been pretty active, especially on the weekends. Jeremy and I have spent any free time we have either walking around the city or hosting get-togethers at our new place, which leaves me little time to be lazy. This is good since I sit on my butt all day at work.

For the most part, I feel great walking around, but after a few hours I am spent. It's an odd feeling to have to take a nap after walking around for 2-3 hours when a few months ago I could get up at 5am, run that much, then walk another 4-5 hours in the city and feel fine.

I have also noticed that the steep stairs I have to climb to get up to my train after work have been taking their toll on me. I have never actually counted them, but I would guess there are over 40-50 and they are really steep. I used to be able to race up them to catch my train. Now I have to take each step pretty slowly, then spend about 5 minutes catching my breath when I get to the top.

It's odd how this little creature takes over your entire body.

Eating has been fine. I haven't had any weird cravings or anything like that, although I am loving anything salty (soy sauce, green olives, baby dill pickles, etc). I have been trying to eat well, even if tonight I had a croissant with dill dip and some chips and salsa for dinner. Sigh.

I haven't been overeating at all, which is actually a change from when I am not pregnant. I just get so full so fast. But I need to incorporate more veggies into my diet. I have been really good about eating fruits and salads. But with the colder weather coming in, I am craving soups and comfort foods, not salads.

But as of today, I have only gained 10lbs which is right on schedule for my height/weight, so I'm feeling really good about that.

I had another appointment with my midwife last Monday and all was good. We heard a really strong heartbeat this time which was great. J couldn't be there again because he had class, but he stepped out for a few minutes and called us so he could hear the heartbeat on speakerphone while we were listening on the doppler. My midwife gets a kick out of it every time :)

She also told me to just come in every two weeks for appointments for peace of mind. She said she doesn't care how many times she sees me, if I want to come in for a quick checkup and heartbeat check, I can. I think I am gong to take her up on it. With everything we have been through, there is something reassuring about hearing that "woosh, woosh, woosh" every couple of weeks.

So, tomorrow I will officially be 20 weeks pregnant. I know I say this every week, but I seriously never thought I would get this far.

We actually have our 20 week full anatomy scan on Thursday. Since we haven't had any other genetic testing done this time (besides the five ultrasounds in the first trimester) we are anxiously awaiting this day.

I have actually suddenly been overwhelmed with scary thoughts about losing this baby in the past week. I know this is directly due to this ultrasound which just makes me glad I never did any of the testing earlier. I would have been a wreck the entire pregnancy. No matter what happens now, at least we had a few weeks of stress-free happiness. But I am trying not to be negative since I know that is not going to help or change anything. I'm just staying positive and going in with happy thoughts about seeing Butterbean and hopefully finding out we have a perfectly healthy baby boy or girl.

Yes, as long as the Bean cooperates, we will be finding out the sex. I have no real feelings one way or the other about which one it might be. At first I was thinking girl, but since seeing the Bean on the ultrasounds, I have been slightly leaning towards feeling it's a boy. All my friends and family are split 50/50 with their thoughts. Jeremy and Dakota both said if they "had to chose" they would probably want a girl, which totally shocked me about Dakota. I thought he wanted a brother for sure, so that was a nice surprise.

Every random online quiz or old-wives gender test I have taken have literally come up 50/50 as well, so I guess we will just have to wait and see in a day and a half!!!!

Anyone want to place any bets???

18 Weeks and Counting...

2009-10-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

...better weeks than kids, I suppose.

Things have been good around here. Good and uneventful, just the way I like them nowadays.

I haven't been having any more bleeding or spotting (knock on wood) for about 3.5 weeks. I know it could come back at any time and I still have my moments of panic when I am sure I am suddenly bleeding, only to find out everything is fine. But those moments only happen a few times a week now, instead of a few times an hour, like they did a few weeks ago. I think my paranoia is starting to fade a bit.

It's really no wonder all mothers end up crazy.

But I am finally settling into this whole pregnancy thing and even possibly thinking it may really happen for us this time. I will definitely feel better after our 20 week ultrasound that we have on the 15th. Even though we had five ultrasounds early on, we decided this time to forgo all genetic testing and just take things as they come. I'm terrified of going in because of what they might find, but I'm trying t stay positive and just focus on seeing Butterbean again.

We're also hoping The Bean isn't shy so we can find out the sex. We thought about waiting, but I think for us, finding out the sex will be a great way to help us bond to a pregnancy we have been to wary of attaching ourselves too. Awwww...is The Bean a girl or a boy?!?!? Honestly, I have been going back an forth. Lately, I keep calling it a boy on accident, but my first instinct was a girl. And even though J will never admit it, I think he is secretly hoping for a little girl :)

At this point they could tell me there is a chimpanzee in there. As long as it's healthy, I am totally cool with it.

Speaking of my little monkey, I think (but am not sure) that I may have been feeling it move now for the past week. It started last Thursday as I laid on the couch after dinner. I felt the little "flutter" or "bubble popping" as so many people call it. Actually, it felt exactly like gas, except there was no actual "passing of gas" to go along with it.

I have been feeling it at least once a day since then. Sometimes harder than others. A poke here or a light rumble there. It's like as soon as you realize what you may be feeling it's gone. Just like when you see a shooting star or something. It's still very light and honestly, it could just be gas (unfortunately for everyone else, my most intense pregnancy symptom at this point). Since I have never felt a baby move before and seem to have gas constantly now, I really have no way of knowing. But it does feel just a tiny bit different...I can't really explain why.

Also, the past few days, after some serious round ligament pains that scared the shit out of me, my stomach completely popped out. I have noticed it getting a little bigger over the weeks, but last Saturday I woke up and was like "WOW!" Then Monday I walked by a mirror at work and was even bigger! As you can see in the second picture below, I can't even suck it in anymore without there still being a big bump on the bottom. It's exciting to finally have a visual symbol of this kid inside of me, although most of the time, when I am wearing my everyday clothes, I still just look like I finished off a pizza and a six-pack. Oh well.

Other than baby stuff, things are great. Work is good and keeping me busy, the house is great (we are having our first get together this weekend), I'm feeling great right now and I am LOVING the cool fall weather. Although I have to say, it does make me a little sad not to be out there. It's PREFECT running weather!!! I'm so sad to be missing it and was SO bummed to miss my favorite race last week, the Philly Distance Run.

I even had a dream a few nights ago that there was a 10 mile race by my house and J wasn't around and I kept telling myself that even though I haven't run in ELEVEN weeks now, I could just sign up and run it and be fine. In my dream, I kept running around the parking lot to see how I felt and was like, "Yeah, this is no problem, I feel great. I can sneak in the race and he will never know!"

For some reason, I didn't end up doing it in my dream although I can't remember why. But I do remember that those few moments I was running around the parking lot, felt amazing.

You know you haven't run in forever when you are dreaming about sneaking in road races.

Oh well. I hope you like jogging strollers, Butterbean.

Second Trimester High

2009-09-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had my 16 week appointment with my midwife. Actually, it was more like 15w5d, but who's counting?

Besides me.

Anyway, it was a great visit. I love my midwife SO much. My prenatal care did a complete 180 from when I was pregnant in Miami last year. Then, I was going to an OB in a practice with 5 other doctors. At my first appointment, I showed up all excited for my very first baby-doctor visit, only to be told, quite rudely by the way, that they had lost my appointment and wouldn't be able to see me until the next week. I should have known then to just find another place.

After that, we only had two appointments there before we lost the baby. Both of those times we had to wait at least 45 minutes, if not more, to see our doctor. When we did get in there, we were rushed through blood work, told what we were going to get done (screenings, testing, etc) and handed a pregnancy brochure as we were rushed out the door before we had a chance to ask any of the 500 questions we had.

Weeks later, after the perinatologist at the testing office noticed there was something wrong on the ultrasound we were a wreck while we waited for more testing. At our next regular appointment, we asked our Dr about it and were told, "Yeah, I saw something about that, I'm sure it's nothing, you'll be fine."

A week later, we lost Baby Z. We needed to get genetic testing done on it and the results were sent back to our Doctor's office. We spent almost a month playing phone tag, trying to get someone on the phone who could give us results. When we finally did, I was terrified, mad and beyond frustrated. I vowed, if I ever got pregnant again, I would find someone who treated me like a human being and not just another number on their list of crazy pregnant ladies they have to deal with everyday.

After doing a lot of research, I decided that the midwifery approach was right for me. I knew J would never go for a non-hospital birth and while I greatly admire people who do it, I honestly have no desire to birth in my home. So we made a compromise and found a wonderful midwife who has her own private practice but delivers in a local hospital.

My care with her so far has been amazing. She is compassionate, caring, hilarious and calm. She is also VERY accessible by phone or email. The best is that she is not some totally out there, hippy-dippy midwife, but very down-to-earth and filled with common sense. She is a complete advocate of natural childbirth, but at the same time, knows that sometimes there are things that are out of your control. Therefore, she is completely willing to create a birth plan that includes pain relief if needed without making you feel like some sort of failure to womankind. Midwives aren't for everyone, but for us, it's the perfect balance. We get the medical side if we need it (she works with backup doctors and perinatologists), the advocacy for natural childbirth that I want, and the coddling and reassurance that two terrified, baby-burned parents need from a caregiver.

So, Jeremy is in Amsterdam right now (I know, WITHOUT me! Can you believe it?!?!?) so he had to miss our appointment tonight. He was pretty bummed about not hearing the baby's heartbeat on the doppler (after all we've been through, we live for this moment every couple of weeks). Anyway, he asked me to call him during the appointment so he could hear the heartbeat.

So, here I am, laying on the table. My midwife has the doppler on my stomach and I'm all,

"Hang on, gotta call Amsterdam real quick."

Instead of getting impatient, she was cracking up and playing along. While we had him on speakerphone, she made some comment about it being her "first international consultation."

Love her.

Anyway, everything was great. The heartbeat was fine and if everything goes well, we have our next ultrasound appointment scheduled in a month. I had some more random spotting issues (sorry guys...) a few weeks back that actually lasted two full weeks, but she got us in to hear the heartbeat and said it was to be expected with everything we had been through. It wasn't as scary and gorey as it had been, so I just dealt with it. And after two weeks it stopped. I am happy to say that today it has been one whole week of NO blood!!! Woo-hooo! (Knock on wood). It's been nice to have a somewhat stress-free week for once.

Other that that, I have to say, so far the second tri has been everything people said it would be. My nausea has improved by about 85% and I'm feeling sooooo much better. I still get tired really easily, but compared to how I felt a month ago, I feel like a new woman.

And while I have felt completely bloated for the past 16 weeks, I'm just now actually starting to feel my stomach getting bigger. Normally, if I press on my stomach, it just squishes down. Now, it feels like a small balloon is growing in there. It's very odd. I am proud to say though, that at almost 16 weeks I am still wearing all my normal clothes. However, I know that wont last very long. Getting bigger is a scary thought, but one I am ready for.

That is really the only "complaint" I have right now which I'm not really complaining about. I'll take it any day over the excitement of my first trimester, which included, but was not limited to:

abnormal bleeding
round-the-clock nausea
insatiable need to gag
excessive salivation
constipation
acne
overly sensitive sense to smell (had to change deodorant and laundry detergent to unscented)
food aversions (to everything but Lucky Charms, orange peanut butter crackers, chocolate milk and pickles)
all day dizziness
disgusting taste in my mouth all day and night
total exhaustion
dry skin
gas that had me doubled over in pain

Yes. pregnancy is sexy.

P.S. My pics will be back in about a week. Somehow I exceeded my bandwith. I'm too lazy to repost every picture on here, so I will just wait until my account resets itself.

Home Sweet Home

2009-09-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long...again. After a week or two of no activity I get a couple of FB messages asking if I'm ok (much appreciated). I'm perfectly fine, and so is Butterbean as far as I know. It's been a crazy couple of weeks and I just recently got internet back.

First off, before I forget, I just want to say thank you all so much for all your encouraging words from my last two posts. When I wrote that first post, I wasn't sure if anyone would even come back to read it, since I'd been gone so long. I was shocked to see that an hour after I had published it, I already had 14 comments. Sometimes I can't believe the outpouring of support in the online running community. :) And trust me, with all the stress we have been under for the past few months, it truly means a lot. But I do have some wonderful news to report (finally), which is the reason I have been MIA for the past couple of weeks.

Two weeks ago, Jeremy and I had the pleasure of closing on our very first house!!! YAY!!!!

The process has been a total roller coaster and something we never thought we would see happen, but it finally did and we are beyond thrilled.

We started looking for a place to live in Miami a few years ago. Unfortunately, at the time, the homes we would afford (condos with high association fees) were all ridiculously overpriced. But little did we know, our disappointment was a blessing in disguise. Had we bought one of those condos two years ago, we would have lost SO much money last year.

Then we thought for a few months we were going to move to Sarasota, FL (where my parents live). Jeremy had a job opportunity there and for a couple of months, we looked for houses again. But that job opportunity unexpectedly fell through at the last minute and so did our quest for a home.

Here in Philly, we decided it was a good idea to rent for a year while we tried to figure out where we wanted to live. We knew it was a good time to look again once we heard about the first-time homebuyers credit. We figured out that we would qualify for the full $8,000 and we knew we could get a decent place for almost the same amount we were paying in rent. So we set up a time to go out with our realtor who helped us with our rental (he's the best) in late March to start looking.

But the Sunday we were set to go look with him was the same weekend I had the miscarriage. Jeremy offered to cancel, but since the worse of it was over, I insisted on going (stubborn much?). I needed something to look forward to and focus on besides the baby. So off we went.

We spent the next two months looking at properties with our incredibly patient realtor, Michael Steele (I love saying his name, it sounds like a superhero). In total, we saw over 70 properties. We fell in love with one house, saw it twice, then decided the neighborhood was too far from the city and we wanted to be on a train line. Then we fell for another house with a great backyard, deck and view of the city. We saw it twice, but we realize it needed too much work and the upstairs was too small.

The third house we fell in love with was a total rehab, huge, close to a train line and in a great part of the city we wanted to live in. We didn't totally, LOVE it, but we liked it and were at the point where we figured we would never have that "feeling" everyone talks about when they walk into a place and know "it's the one". We were so sick of looking at that point that we decided we liked it enough to put in an offer. We negotiated back and forth with a shady realtor and seller, but finally settled on a price. We were thrilled.

But on the day of the inspection, I had the strangest feeling I couldn't explain. Everything inside of me was telling me not to get this house. I don't normally get feelings like that, or think much about them, but this one was overwhelming. The inspector found a ton of things wrong with the place. It was nothing that couldn't necessarily be fixed, but it was way too much for us to be comfortable with on our first home and it would have cost a LOT of money. We left the inspection totally confused and scared we were about to make a horrible mistake. As we left the house, we drove by another place that had just come up on the market the week we agreed on the last house. As we drove by it, I remember thinking how cute it was and if we were still looking, I would love to see it. After two days we decided we didn't want to renegotiate and pulled out of the deal.

The next night I broke out in a horrible case of hives. HIVES!!! I have never had hives in my LIFE! I was so stressed out from looking for a house, and the agony of a bad inspection and deciding whether or not to take that bloody house, my body reacted by turning into a giant red, itchy MESS. It was so awful.

So the next week, we dusted ourselves off for another Saturday tour of homes with Michael Steele. We had 7 houses on the list. The cute house was number two.

As soon as we pulled up to the house and stepped out of the car, I knew this was where I wanted to live. It was a gorgeous, 1920's, tudor-style rowhome surrounded by huge mature trees on a wide, beautiful street. It was also four doors away from one of the best running trails in the city.

As soon as we stepped through the arched doorway and entered the home, I had "the feeling". It was the best feeling ever.

While we had to compromise on a few things with this home (mainly square footage), it had a lot of the things we were looking for (a ton of character, huge trees, close to our favorite park and train line, renovated, but not in cheap, shady, flipping the house sort of way). We decided we could size down a bit if the house had everything else we wanted, and this one did. We were in love. The best part is, the sellers were not some shady flippers looking to make a buck, but a nice family who loved the home and planned on being here a long time. The husband is a contractor and carpenter and renovated everything, so it's all done beautifully. It's a great feeling to buy a place and feel confident with the purchase, not scared that the master bathroom is literally going to fall off the back of the house (just one of the many concerns with the last house).

We negotiated back and forth, went through (and paid for, ugh) another inspection, got the house appraised, renegotiated again and after three months of waiting on this house, we FINALLY closed two weeks ago. We have been waiting for this moment for so long, that as I sit here and write this in my very own living room, I still can't believe it. I am at a single moment in my life where I feel totally blessed.

The past few weeks have been spent moving, painting, sewing, unpacking, shopping etc. It's been exhausting and wonderful all at once.

There is so much more I want to write about it, but I'll save it for another post (probably with pics). Until then...

I'll Miss You Running

2009-08-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I have gone for a run.

I honestly can't even remember the last time, but it must have been about 5.5 weeks ago. When I had the bleeding episode at 7 weeks I had to take it easy for awhile. Once I got the approval from my Dr and Midwife to start again (at least a week after no bleeding/spotting at all and to take it EASY) I was so nauseous I could barely make the walk from the train to my office at work, let alone go for a run. Plus, the summer heat was really starting to do a number on me.

So I just decided I wasn't going to worry about it. Some things are more important than running and right now I just needed my rest and try to make it through the first trimester.

So I rested. And on the few cooler days that came around, J and I would go for a walk after work. From our house, to the end of all the bars on Main Street and back, is a nice 2 mile walk. It was surprisingly hard. Not only was I constantly sick and dizzy but I had zero lung capacity left. Most of the time, I am more out of breath walking up the stairs in my house than I have ever been running any distance. It's so odd how quickly your body changes.

But recently, I have been getting restless. The past two weeks I have slowly been starting to feel a little better as far as the nausea goes. I still feel nauseous, but instead of it lasting from 11am-bedtime. It's last from 3-4pm-bedtime. Still sucks, but an improvement nonetheless.

So, I have been thinking about running again. Not a lot, but maybe two or three short runs a week. After coming back to blogland and reading about all your adventures in running, I realized how much I missed it. I hadn't had any bleeding in 6 weeks and got a clean bill of health from my perinatologist, so what was I so scared of? I would keep walking for a few more weeks, and then once it cooled down a bit, start with some slow walk-running again.

Then last Wednesday happened.

I woke up at 5:00am on the first day of my 12th week of pregnancy to a soaking wet bed. In my half-dazed state, I wondered if I had wet the bed. But come on. We have all had the dream where we were going to the bathroom only to wake up just in time to avert a crisis. And I didn't have that dream. As a matter of fact, I had to go.

So I stumbled through the dark bedroom to the bathroom and went. When I stood up, to my horror, I saw a toilet full of bright red blood. Not spotting, not "old blood" as the Drs like to call it, but a crime scene in my toilet (Once again, sorry boys).

Jeremy and I made our way to the ER in complete silence. We knew this was it and we couldn't believe it had taken this long for it to finally happen.

But once again, we sat in the dark ultrasound room to see a happy little baby, swimming around and waving at us. A nice, strong heartbeat. Cervix was closed. Everything was fine.

Tell me why we decided to do this whole parenting thing again?

Long story short, the ER doc (who was an ass) had no idea what was wrong with me. As I laid there he asked,

"So I assume you are here for an ultrasound?"

Like I was some crazy pregnant lady who just wanted to see a picture of my baby.

Um, I dunno doc. I'm here because it looked like someone cut their arm off in my bathroom. YOU tell me what my next steps are.

Ugh.

Also, maybe you could be a little more rough when you are giving me a pelvic exam? I think you could jam that speculum in me a little faster and crank it up a little farther. I don't think the people on MARS can see my cervix.

Anyway, we were relieved, but still terrified. What the hell was happening?

My midwife is a saint and pulled some strings to get us in the next morning to see another perinatologist and get more scans.

Once again, everything was fine. Baby looked great and they couldn't tell exactly where the bleeding was coming from. Since it seems to all come at once, then taper off to spotting before going away (miscarriage is usually the opposite) they think it may be coming from a small area where he said he sees the membrane had lifted up a bit and blood pooled before just releasing. He also said he can't be 100% sure, but as long as the baby is healthy, we are good. I may just be one of those unlucky women who bleed throughout my pregnancy. Scary, yes, but not necessarily a problem for the baby.

He told me to take it easy for a few days and no exercise for a week (anytime I have a bleed like that). Other than that, I can resume normal activity again.

I will say the one good thing about this happening when it did, was that I have been so sick lately that I have done absolutely ZERO exercise in the past week and half before this happened. So i know for a fact that it didn't have anything to do with it. Which is what they have been telling me all along, but now I can believe it.

However, even with all that, I am seriously considering just giving up on the running dream until this troublemaker is born. At this point, I don't know if I will ever be comfortable with it. And I know J will not be cool with it either. We have had so many scares, I just don't think it's worth it. If for nothing more, than just peace of mind.

Looks like I'll be taking up power walking. Maybe I can change my blog to "A Brand New Life as a Totally Stressed Out Mother of a Child Who is Already Sending Me to an Early Grave and Power Walker."

Good Lord, how bored will all of you be after reading about my pregnancy drama and WALKING for 6 more months? I feel for you.

So, you know what FIVE ultrasounds in 12 weeks means, right? MORE baby pics. These were taken at our 12w1d appointment with the peri. After my heart settled back into my chest after the terror of the previous day, we could actually enjoy the pictures. We can start to see some more features here, which is always fun.

Enjoy seeing the kid while you can. After it's born, it will be grounded for at least two months.

The Motherload

2009-08-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

Blogging is sort of like running, or exercising in general. Once you fall off the wagon, it can become pretty hard to get motivated and jump back on again.

There were a million times in the past 4.5 months that I thought about posting again. Lord knows I had plenty to write about. But it was always hard to get started. Mostly because there hasn't been a whole lot of running going on with me since the National Half in March. Its kind of hard to write a running blog when there is sporadic running at best.

Even though I haven't had much to say, I have been keeping up with a lot of you guys. I have seen Denise run her first ultra and Jess have her first baby. I've also seen some of you retire (hello Marcy) and I've kept up with a lot of you on Facebook. After awhile, I realized that even if I wasn't running as much as I wanted to, I missed being here. I wanted to come back.

So, here I am again. Trying to jump back on that horse. Life has been interesting the past few months.

On March 28th, 2009, one week to the day after running the National Half Marathon, I lost another baby. I didn't want to get into the drama of it at the time, I just wanted to unplug and deal with it. Losing two pregnancies in less than two years was of course, more than traumatic and suddenly nothing else seemed to matter. The thought of blogging was overwhelming at best. And sadly, this was one event in my life that running just could not save me from.

The particular circumstances surrounding the loss of this pregnancy were different than the one we lost in Miami. This one was earlier (just shy of nine weeks) and was just a simple miscarriage, which the one in Miami was not. Of course none of this made it any easier. However, once you have lost a pregnancy, a subsequent pregnancy is just spent waiting for the other shoe to drop. I spent those 9 weeks pregnant hopefully optimistic, but secretly waiting for the day something would go wrong. When it finally did, I was devastated and heartbroken, but I wasn't surprised. Sadly, I think this fact made it a little easier to heal.

We had decided to wait to tell anyone we were pregnant until after the end of the first trimester, so when we ended up telling some family and friends we had lost another pregnancy they were shocked. Unfortunately I have learned, when something unexplainable happens to you, and your friends and family do not have a scientific reason for why it happened, their first human response is to give you their reason for why it happened. This usually involves their newfound religious and/or medical expertise. I suppose this is just a knee-jerk reaction to try to "fix" things and make the other person feel better. Unfortunately, most times, it has the opposite effect.

The first time we lost the baby in Miami it was the inevitable "It was God's will." or, "It was for the best.", both infuriating responses by the way which you should never tell a woman who has just lost a pregnancy/baby.

As a matter of fact, while I'm on this little rant, I'll give you all a tip: If a woman (or man) you care about loses a pregnancy or young baby she does not want to hear your reasoning why what happened happened. Especially from people with no medical training or who have not met God personally. All she wants from you, is for you to say you are so sorry, that you will be there for her and to listen to her. That's it. Trust me on this one. I have spoken to many women who have lost pregnancies since this has all happened, and this is one thing we all agree on. Many well-meaning responses from friends and family can come off as incredibly insensitive. (Stepping off soap box).

This time, things were a little different. This time, in my friends and family's eyes, there was one giant, obvious reason for why I lost the pregnancy - running. The first response I got from most of my family and friends was an earful about how I shouldn't have been running while I was pregnant. And that it was no coincidence that I ran a half-marathon and lost the baby the next week.

Nevermind the fact that the pregnancy losses I had were totally unrelated (meaning there was no underlying medical reason from me not to run, which was confirmed by my Dr and midwife. Nevermind that fact that the estimated number of pregnancies that end in miscarriage run anywhere between 20-50%. Nevermind the fact that I was given the go-ahead by both my midwife and Dr to keep running as long as I stayed hydrated, didn't overheat and didn't overdo it, which I listened to religiously. Nevermind the fact that I had been training for a full marathon for months and dropped down to the half to "take it easy" (not because of a bad foot like I told all of you, sorry for the fib). Nevermind the fact that all the people making me feel guilty and essentially blaming me for for killing my baby know nothing about running (or exercising in general), think a half-marathon is the same as running 100 miles, have no medical background and haven't been pregnant in years or ever. Nevermind the fact that some of the women saying this to me had miscarriages of their own and they NEVER run.

And with all of that. And even though my Dr and midwife both told me that the running had nothing to do with anything. That running does not cause miscarriages, that NOTHING you do causes or prevents miscarriage. There is always that little voice in the back of my head that wonders, "what if...?" And with that, I was mad at all of the people who were telling me what I did was wrong. Not because I knew they were right, but because I was letting myself start to believe them a little. And that made me extremely sad.

After a few weeks, I was able to run again, but I had no desire. I was mad at running and barely made it out there. I was tired and empty and angry. It was starting to get warmer and I missed my winter running. I missed daydreaming on my runs about how I was going to be the fit, pregnant runner that other runners marveled at.

All year, I had planned on running my first Broad Street Run. But since I was barely running and had no desire to train, I knew it wouldn't be a good idea. Then, the week before the race, something came over me and I knew I had to go run it. I made Jeremy take me to the expo and we signed up just before it filled up. And even though I had only run about 4 short runs in the two months leading up to the 10 mile race, we ran it in a decent time: 1:26:19/8:33 pace. Thats the best overall pace I have ever run for a race longer than a 5K.

Running that race, was the best thing could have done. I felt wonderful and suddenly remembered why I loved running so much to begin with. Running the Broad Street Run was my first step in healing. Something all the people who had scolded me for running could never and probably would never understand.

Soon, I was back to an easy 3-4 runs a week and an easy 4-6 miles per run. I was feeling great and starting to plan some fall races in my head when life threw another curve ball at me.

This time things have been interesting (like we would expect anything else at this point).

The first few weeks were filled with very, light, easy running and biking. My pace slowed down a lot without me even trying (11 minute miles every time) which was totally fine with me. I wasn't concerned about running as much anymore as I was about staying healthy. But honestly, I didn't have a choice. I was starting to get really tired and sick right from the start.

Then at 6 weeks, I started bleeding again. We chalked it up to another loss and spent the next two days grieving and planning to meet with a genetics counciler. But after the first initial bleed, it turned to spotting (sorry boys) and then went away and came back sporadically. Since this was different than the miscarriage a few months back, we were told to go to the ER. After a 5 hour wait in the emergency room, we got our first glimpse of our tiny, little butter bean and heard the "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh" of it's beating heart over our stunned silence.

We also got a nice view of a subchorionic hemorrhage, a blood clot on the outside of the uterus that was causing the bleeding. Diagnosed with a "threatened miscarriage" we were told to go home, take it easy, and get another ultrasound in week to see if the baby was still alive.

Most people in this situation would be a wreck for the next week. But sadly, J and I are old pros at the bad-diagnosis/waiting game by now. I would be lying if I were to tell you we weren't worried, but somehow, after grieving the loss for two days and then seeing that it was still alive...it was quite a reversal of thinking. It seemed somehow that the roller coaster had come to a stop, and suddenly, I really did feel like some sort of miracle had occurred -as hokey as that sounds. Hokey or not, I felt at peace.

At the eight week ultrasound, Baby was growing and the heartbeat was stronger. The hemorrhage was still there, but not huge. I was told not to lift laundry up and down the stairs or vacuum. Oh no. Not that.

And again, I was told to just to sit and wait. They didn't have an answer to our questions on the fate of this baby. There wasn't anything they could tell me but to take it easy. Which wasn't hard since all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sob about how the room wouldn't stop spinning and everything smelled bad. Oh, the joys of pregnancy.

An old friend (who runs while pregnant and has had a couple of miscarriages herself and a beautiful baby boy) kept feeding me wonderful advice. "It's out of your control. There is nothing you can do to cause or prevent it." With her support and the same support of my midwife, this became my mantra. As scary as that thought is, and I have lived it with worse outcomes, right now everything was fine. Worrying wouldn't change anything.

Before the bleeding, I had barely acknowledged the pregnancy for fear it would be taken away from me. But sitting in the emergency room, when I saw we had been given another chance, I knew we couldn't blow it. This baby deserved all the pomp and circumstance that every new pregnancy gets. I wanted people to be happy for it and to celebrate it was here. Not to hide it in fear. That's not the way we wanted our baby to enter into existence.

So, we spilled the beans early, which a lot of people wondered about considering our history. But it felt good. We told our family and good friends and people at work. We told them our troubles and asked for their support and good thoughts in any form possible and hoped that the power of positive thinking in mass quantities would work in our favor. And people were happy for us. Even if something did happen to this baby, at least we had this moment.

So, here we are. I'm 11 weeks, 2 days today. The thought of "being out of the woods" will never be a concept I can grasp, so we are taking it one day at a time and that's all we can ask for.

We had an 11 week ultrasound two days ago with a outcome I had never experienced in all of the 8 ultrasounds I have had with the three pregnancies - a totally healthy diagnosis. Baby was measuring 2 days ahead and the heartbeat was strong (174). All signs of the hemorrhage were gone, simply reabsorbed back into my body.

As I nervously asked the perinatologist what-if after what-if, he finally said to me,

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you are a perfectly normal, healthy, pregnant woman."

Which I think was the single best thing anyone has ever said to me.

Crap

2009-04-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

I have had a shitty, shitty week.

I'm not going to lay it all out again since I have done that enough on here this past year and I just don't have the energy.

Sorry to be all "whoa is me." We'll be fine, but I do need to unplug for a bit. Right now I just have no motivation for writing blogs/reading blogs/facebook/internet/running/work/life in general...hopefully it will change in a few days.

Congratulations to all of you who raced this past week. Especially all my Ocean Drive homies.

I'll leave you all with the rest of the pictures I promised from DC. Enjoy.

National Half Marathon Report

2009-03-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

*Warning: Long-Winded Race Report Below*

Hi all, sorry for the delay. It's been a busy couple of days.

First off, I need to correct my time from my last post. I think I forgot to shut off my watch so my official chip time was:

1:55:25

Yeah bi%ches!

And since you all are DYING to know J's time, (that aren't on FB and already know) I'll post it here so you don't have to wait in suspense until the bottom of my post:

3:55:04!!!!

For those of you who are keeping track, that is a TWENTY-FIVE minute marathon PR!!!! Who the eff does that?

It just goes to show how sick he was during the Philly Marathon (and how much faster we could have run). No wonder I felt so good after that marathon!

Anyway, it was wonderful, I was sooooooo proud of him. More on that later.

So, we got up early on Friday and headed out to Washington. It was an easy drive, only 3 hours and that includes an early lunch stop at Cracker Barrel.

Yes, we ate at Cracker Barrel the day before our race. Don't laugh, we both had huge PRs. I will now eat Chicken and Dumplings with mashed potatoes and green beans before every race.

We arrived in DC and checked into our hotel around 1pm. This was my first time in DC and I have to say, it was pretty nice. It is much cleaner than I expected. Or, maybe I have just been in Philly too long (I love Philly, don't send me I-love-Philly hate mail, but c'mon, it's dirty). The only thing that I didn't like about DC was the traffic. It was awful and people drive like they do in Miami, really, REALLY bad. Philly may have a ton of traffic, but at least people can drive.

Oh, and what's with all the DIAGONAL streets in DC? Every intersection has like, 6 crosswalks. It's very confusing and deadly.

Once we parked the car, we realized we wold not be driving anywhere again until we left. While the hotel was no where near the race site, it was only a few blocks from the Metro which was super-convenient. We quickly figured out where it was and how it worked and before you knew it, we were at the expo.

The expo was nothing special really. It is still a pretty small race so the vendors were a little disappointing. I did manage to finally pick up a bondi band which I have been meaning to try forever. I also picked up this totally awesome shirt.

While the race never technically went into Virginia, I still had to have it. Mainly because it's funny, but also because the National Half Marathon shirts were soooooooooooooo hideous, I had to make up for it somehow.

WTF color is that? SALMON? It kind of looks pink and kind of looks orange but let me assure you, it is NOT pink and it is NOT orange..."porange?" The full marathon shirts were blue and much cuter. I got salmon. Stupid ankle.

After the expo, we headed back to the room, dropped off our stuff and headed out to dinner (veggie wrap with a baked potato). We were both exhausted for some reason and we headed back to the room right after dinner. Normally, this is where I post a shot of all my gear laid out, but I was so tired that night, that I didn't feel like putting in all the effort. I packed what I could, took a hot shower and quickly feel asleep.

The next morning I woke up feeling pretty good. I got ready, ate my peanut butter and bread (no toaster) and banana, loaded up on water and choked down some horrid hotel coffee. J and I both took turns going to the bathroom about 500 times and then we headed out around 5am.

Look how well my reflective hat works! I have never seen it all lit up before! I actually doubted that it even worked.

The hotel had a shuttle that rode to and from the race, but we decided to skip it and just do the metro again since they opened it up at 5am for the marathon. We got there just as they were opening the gates and we were quickly surrounded by other marathoners. Although the start was on the other side of town from our hotel, it was very convenient to get to.

We got there way too early though and it was freezing out. A chilly 32 degrees and still dark. Even though I knew it was perfect running weather, I wasn't looking forward to standing outside for 2 hours, especially since in my tired state, I forgot to pack a throwaway sweatshirt for the start. Since I had to put my jacket in my bag and check it, I was instantly freezing and we walked around trying to keep warm. We ended up taking about 20 more trips to the port-o-potties as our nerves were tricking us into thinking we had to go. But sadly, I realized towards the end, I was really just hanging out in the port-o-potties to stay warm. Yuck.

Here I am, all reflective again. Look at my gloves!

It wasn't until about 30 minutes before the start that we realized the Armory next to the start was open and runners were hanging out inside to stay warm (duh). So we headed over and hung out in there until right before the race started. Then we made one final trip to their bathroom and walked to the start.

The start was very well organized. The announcements were loud and clear and everyone seemed to line up in their correct corral. We heard the National Anthem and we were off.

I honestly don't remember a lot of details about this race, just random pieces. It seems like the whole thing went by in a total blur. Maybe it's because I ran it so fast. HA! Here are a few highlights of what I do recall:

• There were a TON of half marathoners and only a handful of full marathoners.

• The weather was PERFECT! 33 degrees, sunny and NO wind. It was a day made for PRs.

• The race opened up right away once we crossed the start mat. There was hardly any crowding at the start and it was real easy to find your groove.

• The first 1.5 miles we ran up East Capitol Street toward the Capitol building. The sun was rising up on the building from behind us and it was a blazing orange. After that we ran past the National Mall and the Washington Memorial as they glowed in the morning sun. It was easily four of the most breathtaking miles I had ever run. It was an amazing way to see these beautiful monuments for the first time.

• Around mile 4 my ankle/calf/foot started stiffening. It wasn't incredibly painful but it did make me happy I wasn't running the full. It would feel stiff and "off" the rest of the race.

• After that, it got hilly, especially between miles 4-8. As a matter of fact, I am beginning to think any old marathon can advertise as "flat and fast" nowadays. Who sets the criteria for this? It was not flat. My splits will show you what I mean. They were all over the place.

• The good news is for every uphill, there was a downhill. Mile 8 in particular was very nice, as you will see in my splits.

• There was no music on this course which was weird. It seemed quiet.

• Some mile markers were hard to read (too low to the ground) so I missed them. For those of us recording our splits without a Garmin, that kind of sucks.

• There was hardly any crowd presence. There were at a few designated spots but for the most part it was pretty empty. It didn't bother me for the half as much as it probably would have for the full. That being said, the crowds that were out were great.

• The volunteers were awesome, as usual.

• Most of the last 9 miles of the race were through neighborhoods. I had no idea where I was, but it was pretty nonetheless.

• They were tearing down some random building that we ran by. It was crazy to hear the wrecking ball smash into it while we were running.

• We ran through a couple of small tunnels which made me feel claustrophobic.

• At mile 8 I looked at my watch and freaked out because I realized I wasn't going to hit a sub 2 hour, so I sped up for a mile. When I hit the next mile marker I saw I was at mile 10 and had plenty of time. Woops.

• I never really hit a "wall" at all. I just ran steady the entire time and felt good. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the weather.

• This was the first half- marathon or marathon that I didn't feel like I was going to die the last mile. I finished feeling really strong and felt like I could have run a few more miles (maybe not another 13.1).

• I didn't have to go to the bathroom once during the race and didn't end up going again until after we got back to the hotel.

Here are the splits:

1. 9:22(walk break)
2. 8:29
3. 8:14
4. 9:00 (walk break)
5. 8:45
6. 11:30 (big hill and walk break)
7. 8:00 (downhill)
8. 7:58 (downhill)
9. 9:02 (walk break)
10. 8:08
11. 8:31
12. 9:14 (walk break)
13. 8:13
.01. 53:43

1:55:25 (8:49 pace)

All in all it was a great race. It was definitely perfect weather which I'm sure is what led to so many PR's that day (the first three winners of the men's marathon all beat the course record and the mayor of DC PR'ed by over 10 minutes).

Before the race, I had talked to J about our plans for running. I told him I didn't want to run with him this time because I didn't want to hold him back if I was hurting and I didn't want to have to try an keep up with him. On the other hand, I wanted to PR for my half and since he was running the full and trying to hold back the first half, I didn't want to slow down to stay with him if I felt good.

I was also running my first race (half or full marathon) without taking regular walk breaks. A few months ago (after my tendonitis was already bothering me) I decided to start seeing if I could start phasing them out. It's been working pretty well and I wanted to see how I would run a race doing it, since I have already run 16 miles without them. I made a decision that I would only stop for water and that I would only take about 30 second breaks, or however long I needed to drink. And then about 2-3 times, I would make one of those water stops a full minute.

Jeremy was still doing his walk breaks, but instead of stopping to walk one minute every mile PLUS walk through water, he just planned his water stops into his walk breaks.

In our little experiment, I found that I run exactly the same pace when I take walk breaks as I do when I don't. As J stopped to take his first walk break, I told him I loved him, wished him well and kept running. About 2 miles later he passed me. Then, I passed him at this next walk break, then he passed me about 5 minutes later, etc. This went on the entire race and he ended up right behind me, veering off to finish the full, as I ran across the finish to the half.

All in all, I don't know which is a better plan. But at least I know I can run it both ways and am the same pace. And actually, because of all the hills, the last walk break I took, it was really hard for me to start again. My legs were getting stiff. That made it easier to just keep running.

After the race I got my bag from bag check which was just thrown on a table with about 2000 other bags for you to pick up with NO ONE there to help. That was a huge mistake in my book. Not sure what happened there but I don't like the idea that anyone could grab whatever bag they wanted. Plus, it took me forever to find my black backpack in a sea of black backpacks.

After I changed and ate a bagel, I scoped out a great spot to wait for J and watch all the runners come in.I had a blast cheering everyone on and loved listening to the announcer and Burt Yasso announcing everyone as they came in. They did a fantastic job.

Around 3:50, I started getting a little nervous that maybe Jeremy wouldn't come in under 4. This has happened in the past and it's never easy. I knew he looked strong when I last saw him, but you never know what could happen out there. I was suddenly worried and sad to think of him out on the course all alone.

But soon enough, I saw him come around the bend and make his way towards the finish (it's hard to miss him with his newly-grown hair).

Here's the joyous event caught on tape. I warn you, you might want to turn down your volume. I got a little excited when I saw him.

He did so great and smiled the whole way in. I was soooooo proud of him.

All-in-all it was a great day in DC.

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel (I was freezing from standing in the cold for two hours), took hot showers, ate and then walked around DC for FIVE hours. Yes, you heard right. We didn't mean to, but really wanted to see as much of DC as we could while we were there.

Of course, later that night, we were passed out in bed by 9pm. With visions of PRs dancing in our heads.

National Half Marathon

2009-03-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

1:55:40!!!

9 minute PR!!!

Still waiting for J...

Off to DC

2009-03-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning we wake up early to head to DC. Since the marathon is on a Saturday (odd) the expo is only one day-Friday. Luckily for us, I have Friday's off.

We're all packed up and ready to go. Unfortunately, a certain someone that shall remain nameless, that I may or may not be married to, might be suffering from a bit of "taper madness".

The aforementioned person has a sudden habit of fake-coughing while mumbling about feeling like he's "coming down with something" or "feeling funny" and rushes to find the Thera-Flu.

When I lovingly mentioned to our no-named hypochondriac that he was NOT sick, it was all in his head and he should NOT be taking cold medicine if he is not sick, especially before running a marathon, the reaction may or may not have been something like this:

"YOU DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL INSIDE!!!!"

Oh boy. Calm down buddy. Here, drink this NyQuil too.

Other than that, we're doing fine and we're going to have a great day. I can feel it.

I enjoyed a nice 6.5 mile run last night when I got home from work. The weather was amazing outside (65) and it was sunny the entire run! This makes running much more enjoyable now that I can switch up the routes a bit. No more back and forth, two times to run along a well-lit street.

The weather for Saturday is going to be perfect. 33 and sunny at the start. By the time J rolls in right before 11, it should only have gotten up to about 42. Beautiful!

I can't wait to check this race out. I have a feeling it's going to be a race I will want to do for years to come. It's great to have a big race to train for at this time of the year to keep you active in the winter. And mid-March usually has decent weather for race day (when it's not raining).

My bib number is 7997! I'm really excited about this number! Two lucky number 7's and 2 nines! I love the number 9.

But my favorite number is 5. And guess what my corral is? Ooooh-yeah. Numbah FIVE baby. I'm all set.

So, I have been an awful blogger buddy lately. I just haven't had much time to do a lot of commenting. Next week will be a bit busy too since Sunday when we get back my 14 year old stepson is coming out to stay with us for a few days from California. It's his first trip to Philly and we can't wait to see him, so I will try to be on here as soon as I can with a race report, but I can't make any promises for a few days.

I will however post an official race pic/time with my trusty iphone. :)

Hope you all have a great weekend!!

Ready to take on Washington

2009-03-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to finally get excited about this weekend. While I may not be doing the full 26.2 any longer, I am actually looking forward to a little mini-vacation with J. The race is on Saturday and I'm hoping we can spend at least a little time Sunday wandering around in the morning so I can see a sight or two. And thankfully, since I'm only doing the 13.1, I will be able to walk a bit more pain-free the next day.

Nevermind that J is still running the full. Walking around a few extra miles wont kill him. He's tough like bull.

I got in a few decent runs last week. I have slowed my pace from roughly a 8:45 to a 9:00-9:10mm pace for most of my runs now and am finding that at this pace, I can last longer on my ankle. As a mater of fact, I ran quite steady on all three of my runs this week and my leg felt great. I've been stretching more again too (I got lazy for about a month) and am starting to feel a difference. I need to be careful because sometimes I can feel the stiffness into the entire right leg and I know it's from stronger muscles having to make up for the weaker ones. But I'm slowly taking it easy and making sure I don't get hurt.

I also desperately need a new pair of shoes. I looked up the mileage on mine last night on runstoppable and realized I had over 314 miles on them. And I know I haven't logged every run I have done on the website, like, for example, the PHILADELPHIA MARATHON! That is just one of a few I have been to lazy to map out and log, so I know I have at least 40-50 more miles on them than it's showing.

OK, I'm just going to say this, even though it may sound totally stupid. I wear Asics 2140's and this last pair I had to get in a different color that I normally wear. I swear to you, ever since I got these shoes, (about a month before the Philadelphia Marathon) I started noticing a numbness in my ankle. It happened on one of the first runs I wore them on and has been bothering me ever since. Is there any possible way that a different color of the same shoe could be made a bit differently? DON'T LAUGH! They are the same width, so I know that wasn't the issue.

I told you it was stupid. But I can't explain it. These shoes (white and teal) give me weird pains that the other two pairs of 2140's didn't (white and dark blue). Odd stuff. Maybe it's the way I am lacing them.

Great, now I have to find that issue of Runners World from a few months back about tying your shoes the right way (the article I totally skipped over). Anyway, I'm going to have to run the half in my white and teal, badly-tied, ankle-numbing shoes because I can't afford a new pair until next month.

As far as goals for this HM, they have gone back and forth. I was originally hoping for a sub 2, but I don't want to become too attached to that in case I start to hurt. I do however, have a good feeling about being able to PR (2:04) so that is my second goal. Third goal is just to finish without getting hurt, which, who am I kidding, I will probably be pissed if that's as good as it gets. I know I should be happy with that, but I'm just being honest here.

I think if I keep it consistent and steady I will have an awesome chance to PR and a petty good chance to get a sub 2. It's supposed to be a beautiful day on Saturday for a race (partly cloudy, high of 55). Fingers crossed.

Also, I came across this blog tonight. It's all marathon medals from different races. He doesn't have all of them, but he does have quite a few on there. It's fun to look through.

Monday, 3/9 -off
Tuesday, 3/10 - off
Wednesday, 3/11 - 6.4 miles/57:47 - 9:04 pace
Thursday, 3/12 - off
Friday, 3/13 - off
Saturday, 3/14 - 8.43 miles/1:17:08 - 9:08 pace
Sunday, 3/15 - 7.3 miles/1:05:43 - 8:59 pace

Total Weekly Mileage: 22.11 miles

I Got Nothin....

2009-03-08T18:14:00.001-07:00

I was wondering all day about what I was going to post here tonight, but I seriously got nothin' for you. My life has been dull, dull, dull.

Basically, the same old, same old:

• Work is kicking my butt. I can't wait until April 20th, when this huge project of mine will be OVAH. Reminding myself every day that a lot of people would be happy to have a job right now, so stop complaining.

• Got in four decent runs. Slowing down the pace a bit for my ankle.

• Ankle/foot still bothering me.

• Bought a new pair of running shorts/tights from Target this week. I love them! They may be a bit too warm in July, but for the next few months, they are perfect. I even got to bust them out on THREE runs this weekend.

• J is still kicking butt and taking names. I am so excited for him about this marathon.

• The weather here is wacky. Monday was 8" of snow and a low of 5 degrees. Now, the past three days we have seen the highs from the upper 60's-low 70's. Beautiful and weird, all at the same time.

Here is what it looked like as I walked to the train on Monday.

Here are people frolicking in the spring-like temperatures in Rittenhouse Square yesterday as we wandered the city. They are literally dancing!

I am having a bit of trouble adjusting to running in the warmer temps. While it was nice this weekend to not to run in two pairs of tights, 3-4 long sleeved shirts, a skull cap and gloves, it was still a bit of a shock.

On Wednesday, when it was still cooler, I ran a speedier 6.5 with almost no effort (57:49/8:53 pace). Then on Friday, I went out in 68 degree weather and thought I was going to die. I actually cut my run short to a little over 4 and made up for it the rest of the weekend. All runs this weekend were in the 9:15-9:20 pace range. And felt much more difficult.

I have turned into such a wimp. Two years ago, I was training for my first marathon in Miami from June to October. I was running my 20 milers in record setting high temperatures. Had I known I would be complaining about 66 degrees being too warm, I would have kicked my ass. What can I say? I love running in the cold.

Not the wind, but the cold. :)

Anyway, that's all I got. I hope you homies had a more exciting week than we did around here.

Monday, 3/2 -off
Tuesday, 3/3 - off
Wednesday, 3/4 - 6.5 miles/57:49 - 8:53 pace
Thursday, 3/5 - off
Friday, 3/6 - 4.28 miles/39:58 - 9:20 pace
Saturday, 3/7 - 10.18 miles/1:35:21 - 9:21 pace
Sunday, 3/8 - 7 miles/1:04:46 - 9:15 pace

Total Weekly Mileage: 27.96 miles

Productivity

2009-03-01T06:13:00.000-08:00

I love those weekends where you seem to get everything you need to get done, done. This was one of those weekends. Of course, I don't work on Fridays, but this week I had a huge list of things I needed to do, and luckily, I pretty much got them all taken care of. Here is what I did on my "day off" on Friday:

• Made my dog a grooming appointment.

• Made my myself a grooming appointment for next Friday.

• Had Maintenance come look at and try to fix our water heater (we have to shower in the empty condo next door until the part comes in. Yesterday as I got out of the shower and headed out to leave, the leasing agent walked in with someone he was showing the condo to. HELLO!?!?!? That could have been awkward!)

• Called about consolidating more of my private student loans. Didn't work. Need to try and refinance.

• Walked Zero to the dog groomer and dropped her off for her grooming

• Changed my registration for the National Marathon to the Half Marathon. Thought twice before hitting send.

• Left the dog groomers and ran 5.5 miles in 60 degree temperatures...beautiful out! But I was a bit overdressed.

• Stretched.

•Vacuumed and dusted my house.

• Cleaned the kitchen.

• Hand washed six sweaters.

• Finished ALL our laundry.

• Picked Zero up.

• Went grocery shopping for the week.

• Came home and prepared some chicken for a dish I'm making later in the week.

• Read blogs :)

Yesterday wasn't quite as busy as far as chores go. But we were pretty active all day.

Yesterday was the last 20 mile run of our training before we started to taper. This is another reason why switching to the Half was such a big decision. I mean, I only had ONE more long run to do.

But I have to tell you, knowing all week that I didn't have to do 20 miles, really changed my outlook. I felt relieved and relaxed all week about running. Suddenly it didn't seem so much like a chore and I actually got out for four solid runs this week instead of my usual 2-3. I just let myself take it easy and not worry so much about time so that I could run without letting my foot/ankle flare up. I even did a couple of shorter runs instead of doing my normal 6.5 run. I realized, sometimes it's ok to just run 5 miles after work. This new approach is really helping me realize running doesn't have to be so regimented. My training was turning into a scene from Groundhog Day and I was totally not into it anymore.

So yesterday, Jeremy ran out 3 miles towards Valley Forge and then back for 6, then I met up with him and ran the 14 mile loop around Fairmount Park. The run went better than I expected and I felt pretty good the whole time. My legs felt strong and I wasn't too tired. Around mile 10 I had started to wonder if I had made a serious mistake about switching to the Half. While I was enjoying not running 20, I knew I could have easily done it. It was only ONE more long run...

Then, as if my body was totally in tune with my brain, it let me know why I was smart to cut it back. My foot started to flare up. Every time I bent my big toe to push off, I got a searing pain in the ball of my foot under my big toe, which would then cause pain to shoot through my ankle and eventually make it numb.

THEN, I suddenly got a sharp pain in my LEFT foot, a pain I had never experienced before. This pain was in the inside arch of my foot and felt almost like I had pinched or broken something.

The tendonitis in my right foot, I have learned to run through, but this new pain in my left foot was different. I ran for about 2 minutes and had to stop. I was really scared.

J said it was probably a muscle spasm or a cramp, but I had felt those before, and this was nothing like that. I walked for about two minutes and then slowly started to jog again. After about 2 minutes the pain mysteriously went away and I ran the last mile home.

After that, I realized I had definitely made the right decision about the race. I need to take a little time to let my body heal for sure and if I got out there and at mile 19 ended up injuring myself so badly that I screwed up my time (and J's) and couldn't run for a few months, I would have never forgiven myself. You know how stubborn runners can be. :)

After our run yesterday, we took the train into Center City again for another day of wandering the city and eating. (Dutch pretzels for lunch, red velvet cupcake and hot chocolate for a snack and chicken pot pie and a mac-n-cheese appetizer at Jones for dinner, COMFORT FOOD, anyone?) We ended up walking around for FOUR hours. Needless to say, by the time we walked home from the train last night at 7:30pm, we were totally beat. I passed out at 11pm and slept till almost 9 today to the smell of Jeremy making blueberry muffins. Can you tell by our eating habits we are getting close to a marathon taper? We're insatiable.

Today, I have a few more chores to do and even have some work I brought home with me to get done before tomorrow (ggrrrr). Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Monday, 2/22 - 4.83 miles/43:01 - 8:54 pace
Tuesday, 2/23 - off
Wednesday, 2/24 - off
Thursday, 2/25 - 6.5 miles/59:01 - 9:04 pace
Friday, 2/26 - 7 - 5.54 miles/50:11 - 9:11 pace
Saturday, 2/27 - 13.75/2:06 - 9:10 pace
Sunday, 3/1 - 30 minutes stationary bike/weightlifting

Total Weekly Mileage: 30.62 miles
Total Monthly Mileage - February: 115:32 miles

Decisions, Decisions...

2009-02-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

First of all, I want to thank you all for the kind words on my last post. I'm so glad people enjoyed the story of my friendship with Jackie. Seriously, when I was writing it, I was thinking how no one would read it because it was way too long and had nothing to do with running, so I kind of wrote it for myself. But I'm glad you all did read and and could relate to it on some level. There is nothing better than great friends.

OK, One last picture I took of her and Jack while I was there, I love this one...

So, I spent so much time rambling about my goofy friend that I didn't even mention about how well my last few runs were.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I ran 16 with Jackie while in Sioux Falls. We met up with some of her running buddies early in the morning and it just so happened everyone was doing 16. The weather was great. 15 degrees with NO wind and lots of sun. A little chilly on the way back, but actually, pretty beautiful.

This run was great for a few reasons:

First, it was nice to run someplace completely new. I had no idea where we were or how far we had left, which was a huge help mentally.

Secondly, it was great running with different people, especially girls (Sorry J). And on Valentines Day too!

Third, it was the first time I had ever run that distance without doing walk breaks. A great accomplishment.

Finally, it was by far, the fastest I had ever run 16 miles. (2:23/8:55 pace). It was hard, but totally doable. I felt pretty good.

When I returned home, I eventually got my lazy butt outside a few days later and had another great run on my usual after work route (6.5 miles, 56:23/8:40 pace). My fasted time on that route.

Then this weekend, I had a decent 18 miler with Jeremy. (18.5 miles, 2:48:54/9:08 pace.

Pretty good, huh? I am definitely getting my pace down, which is nice and I am feeling comfortable on my long runs.

Which makes my little announcement here a little odd.

After much deliberation, I have decided to drop out of National Marathon and just do the half.

I know it sounds weird, and trust me, it was a very difficult decision. But I have been going back and forth with this for a few months and I finally made my decision on my 18 miler with Jeremy.

As we were running, Jeremy was feeling and looking great. I was feeling meh. Not bad physically, but mentally, I just haven't been in the game the past couple of months. And sadly, as I was running on Saturday, I just really felt like my heart wasn't in it.

I have been doing all my long runs and doing them well, but I am still having a hard time getting out during the week. My job has been crazy. I literally stare at a computer screen from 9-5 with no break so when I leave, I am a complete zombie. Then I take the train and walk home in the cold. By the time I walk in the door, I do not want to get back out there.

The nights I do go out for a run, it definitely helps me cope with work, but it still hasn't gotten me excited about this marathon. And lets face it, while I have been getting in the long runs, I have been completely lazy about everything else.I have not been cross training at all. I'm only getting in about three days a week of running if I'm lucky. I think my highest mileage for this training has been 34 miles. And while I feel good on the long runs, I never feel like I could keep going after I am done. Not a good sign.

But the real thing that got me seriously considering bowing out is my tendonitis. Since we have been training since July, it hasn't had a chance to properly heal. After every long run it flares up to the point where the nerves in my calf start to feel numb. Do I really want to injure myself for a marathon I am not really into? And not training properly is going to make it worse.

On the flip side, Jeremy is doing awesome! He has been getting in between 45-55 miles a week and been religious about getting in his lifting and abwork. When we were running together on Saturday I realized that this is finally his chance to get the sub-4 that has been eluding him for three years. And if he ran it with me, he would stick with my lazy, non-training ass and miss his chance.

Of course, I know that we could run it separately, I thought of that too. But then my ankle started hurting and I remembered why I should go with the half.

So there you have it. I've made up my mind. It was really hard and I still have a weird lump in my throat about it, but there will always be another marathon, maybe later in the spring. Or, I can just do some smaller races for a few months, let my ankle heal and get my mind back into it for the fall. Some things are just more important than a marathon. At least, that's what I keep having to tell myself...

Someone please, tell me I am not crazy. I need my running homies to make me feel better about this decision.

Lory & Jackie

2009-02-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

I met my best friend Jacqueline back in the days of Big Wheels, Barbie Dolls, Little People and Grease. Back in the day of Rocket Pops, Kick the Can, and bicycles with banana seats. Back and in the day when I was Lory and she was Jackie.

We met on the sidewalk between our two houses in 1980, after her parents moved into the house next to ours in a small suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. I was four and she was five. She was the youngest of four girls and I was the youngest with two older brothers. We were both longing for a partner-in-crime after spending our first five years being tormented and ignored by older siblings. We were instantly inseparable.

Christmas, 1981. I am on the right. Pay no mind to qualude Santa.

Playing in my front yard. I am on top, Jackie is in the grass.

We spent every waking moment together. We would set up intricate neighborhoods of Little People houses and spend hours decorating the tiny homes with miniature furniture. Even at an early age, we took this process very seriously . We would pool our collection of doll furniture into a pile and take turns picking who got what. This was pretty pointless because if one of us picked a piece of furniture that the other wanted, it usually ended in catastrophe, with furniture being flung across a room and someone packing up their stuff and stomping home, vowing never to return. Usually though, we kept it pretty civil.

We would do the same thing with our Barbie dolls. Family members would marvel at the houses we would make out of folded album covers. Since neither of our families had enough money to buy us Barbie dream homes, we had to make due. Jackie would always name her Barbies something like Jennifer, Amber or Tiffany. Usually, we would fight over the same names, probably because they seemed more beautiful and exotic than our own. Lory and Jackie, as we went by in 1980, just seemed a little too vanilla at the time. After spending hours setting up the homes for our dolls, we would have them make out with Ken for a little bit, before moving on in our boredom to something new.

Usually that meant turning on the record player and acting out all the song and dance numbers to Grease. Somehow she would always be Sandy and I was stuck being Danny Zucko, although to this day she blatantly denies it. Sometimes we would fight so much about it that we would storm out of the other's house, and not speak for days. But eventually, we would reconcile, turn Grease back on and practice kissing John Travolta's picture on the album cover. All the while, being innocently oblivious to what the lyric "You are supreme, the chicks'll cream for grease lightning" meant.

My 8th birthday party. I am on the left.

Some party at my parent's house, 1983?

Then, a couple of years later, our parents both got divorced at the same time. What should have been a terribly tragic time for two seven year old girls was made a little easier after both of our mothers rented condos right next to each other in a complex on the other side of town. On the days we were with our mothers, we were still together. We moved our dolls and bikes to the other side of town and picked up where we left off.

But oddly enough, a couple of years after that, both sets of parents reconciled. And for reasons that 9 year olds can't understand, both families decided to move, this time far away. Her family picked up and moved to Rhode Island, and mine moved to Florida. While we wrote a few letters and even visited each other twice, sadly, by the age of 11 we had lost contact. Her parents had split up again and both had moved away. In the days before the internet and Facebook, I had no way of finding her.

I remember lying in bed one night when I was about 12 years old and my mind started to wander to her. I cried knowing that there was no way I was ever going to see my old friend again now that many states separated us and we hadn't spoken for years. I went to sleep knowing she was lost forever.

The summer of 1989 was the year before I started high school. My dad took my brother and I back to Ohio to visit my family for an entire month and I was looking forward to a trip to my favorite amusement park in the world, Cedar Point. It was place where I had spent countless summers as a child, many of them with Jackie and her family,

After getting off a roller coaster with my brother I walked up to my dad who as talking to a familiar face sitting on a bench. It was Jackie's dad. He told us Jackie was there, in the park with some friends. She was visiting him for the summer in Ohio. My heart skipped a beat. Was is really possible that my long-lost friend who I hadn't spoken to in years just happened to be visiting an amusement park in a state where she doesn't live on the same day I was? And how was it that we just happened to see her father in a crowd of thousands of people?

My brother had won me a giant stuffed dog and her dad, ever-the-prankster, decided to hold onto it for us so we would have an excuse to meet up again with them at the end of the night. He told her it belonged to some random girl and they had to wait for her to come pick it up before they could leave. He knew it would annoy her and she would never suspect a thing.

As the park closed, we made our way to the gates and there she was. My old friend, completely changed in her full-blown adolescence, was grumpily sitting with my stuffed dog, waiting for the strange girl to come pick it up so she could go home. I was nervous as I walked up to her, our families watching us with knowing smirks on their faces. Would she even remember who I was? What if she didn't even care?

"Hey, thanks for holding that for me." I said to her as I walked up to the table where she was waiting. She barely looked up at me as she muttered a sarcastic, "ummhmm."

"Aren't you even going to say HI to me?" I said with a laugh, trying to get her to look me in the eye.

It was then she looked up at me and after about four seconds of trying to descramble my hormonal face into the childhood friend she recognized, she screamed out in joy and jumped into my arms.

We had found each other again. Unbelievably, we were reunited.

Our dads arranged for us to spend a few nights with each other on that vacation. We spend the days together laughing, reminiscing, and promising that we would never lose touch again. We picked up right where we had left off.

Like we were never apart, the summer before high school, 1989.

A trip to Wildwood Water Park, 1989

The next four years, we reconnected as pen pals in high school. We never spoke on the phone or visited, but wrote letters to one another obsessively, at least twice a week. We told each other everything. We went through phases together (hers was more punk rock as mine was more heavy metal, stoner girl). We sent each other lyrics to our favorite songs along with mixed tapes (Nine Inch Nails, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Sinead O Conner for her and Metallica, Anthrax and Jane's Addiction for me), we confessed about all our awful boyfriends, stupid things we experimented with and the loss of every childhood innocence we once shared. And although we were completely different, as always, we were exactly the same.

The summer after graduation I went back to Ohio to visit and spent an entire two weeks with her. As always, we picked up right where we had left off and reconnected at a crossroads in our lives, the end of high school and the beginning of college. It was a wonderful two weeks filled with graduation parties, shopping, music, boys and hopes for the future.

Visiting the summer after high school, 1993.

At Hilltop Park, a park by our old house where we would take our Barbies to play.

In college we kept true to our pen pal ways. We wrote each other a letter a week and confessed more of our fading innocence. The boyfriend stories got less naive and more heartfelt and passionate. The music also took at turn to more classic and psychedelic rock. We had fun comparing notes on our college experiences. Once again, completely different but exactly the same.

After a couple of years I graduated with an Associate Degree and went to work in the real world as a bartender. I broke up with my on again-off again boyfriend of 6 years and was unhappy in the situation I was in. Jackie came out of the blue to visit me in Tampa where I was living. At this point, I was 20, she was 21. We went out drinking, played pool and stayed up all hours of the night talking. She told me if I was truly unhappy, and ever wanted to, I could come up to Ohio and stay with her in Athens while she finished school. She would make room for me anytime.

Jackie's visit to Tampa, 1996.

After a few months I came to visit her and fell in love again. I fell in love with the winter, and Ohio and the town of Athens. But most of all I fell in love with her. She was my friend and I wanted to know her as an adult.

On Easter Sunday, when I was 21 years old, I packed up everything I could fit onto my Honda Civic, including my dog Zero, and drove straight through the night up to Ohio to start my new life with my old friend. It was a bold move for a young girl to make and for a million different reasons I was unaware of at the time, it was the best decision I ever made.

Jackie (or Jacqueline, as she now refers to herself) and I got along perfectly. We spent hours laughing while sitting at the kitchen table smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee together. We watched old reruns of Saturday Night Live and would constantly reenact the skits to each other. We would stand at the fridge and write dirty, magnetic poetry on the door as we cackled so loudly, our roommates would leave the house for hours at a time. We would flip through fashion catalogues and run back and forth to each others closets and play dress up. We drank beer and shot pool in High Street bars and grabbed black bean burritos from The Burrito Buggy on the drunken walk home. And of course, we helped each other cope with our ridiculous boyfriends.

Being an adult with her was as easy as it had always been. Just trade the Little People and Barbie Dolls for a pack of Marlboro Lights and a pot of coffee and we were back to where we started.

Halloween in Athens, 1998

Old Man's Cave

Jackie's College Graduation

After she graduated from college, she moved back to Cleveland for a job and I stayed in Columbus with my boyfriend at the time. We went from writing one another to calling on the phone. Eventually, I met Jeremy and started my journey from state to state as he settled into his career, and she moved to Minnesota and eventually Sioux Falls, South Dakota to embark on her career in journalism. Eventually, we both got married, she was my maid-of-honor, then I was her matron, we left our wild and crazy ways behind as we slowly grew up and settled down.

In Columbus, 1998. I remember this night. I left her and went and met Jeremy out at a bar, It was before we were dating and just friends.

With Jackie the day before she left Cleveland for Minnesota, 1999

Jackie's Dad's wedding, 2001

My first visit to South Dakota, 2002. A memorable night of cold medicine and vodka tonics.

My wedding, 2003

Jackie's wedding, 2005

Visiting me in Miami, 2004

Jackie's wedding rehearsal, 2005

The last few years as we both evolved into working women in front of computers all day, we slowly shifted our weekly phone calls to daily emails. Which now has evolved to about 20 emails a day. We also both got into running about the same time, although she started running distance a few years before me. Now instead of comparing our favorite bands, we compare weekly running mileage and our fashion tips are reserved to running attire.

Then last year, I was overjoyed when my long-time friend informed me that she was going to be a mother. We screamed on the phone in excitement as I told her all the wonderful stories I was going to tell her kid about her one day. Sadly, the celebration was short lived, as a few weeks later, I had to call her again, this time to listen to her cry as she recounted the sad details of her miscarriage.

But as fate would have it, the new year started with an amazing coincidence. My friend had gotten pregnant again. I was so happy for her that I could hardly believe it when, I myself was staring at a positive pregnancy test only two weeks later. We were both pregnant with our first children and were going to embark on this crazy journey together.

We spent the next three months in an email frenzy, going back and forth about how the other was feeling, the doctor's appointments and the food we were eating. It was fun to have a pregnant buddy, even more that it was her. I was so excited about our children getting to know each other and the hopes that they would be connected in some way like we were.

But fate has a funny way of working things out and this time it was her consoling me on the phone after I lost my pregnancy after 14 weeks. Of all the raw emotions I was feeling at that time, one that stuck out to me was the sadness that we weren't going to be able to share that bond of our first pregnancy together anymore. Because of the situation behind losing the baby, it was the single worst experience of my life. And after the weeks and months went by, and other people, including Jeremy, began to move on, it was her who would always ask how I was doing, who could relate to my pain and be there for me when it was uncomfortable for everyone else. And as Jeremy and I plan to start a family again, she is there to help with the emotional stuff and let me know that it's OK to still feel sad and scared and that there is still hope. Out of these horrible tragedies we somehow both encountered, we once again, became connected.

So when she asked me a few weeks ago if I would like to come out to Sioux Falls and see her and her new six month old son, Jack, it was my honor. After not seeing each other for over four years, we split the cost of the ticket, and I flew out as soon as I could.

Jackie and Jack, he's named after her father.

After our Sunday recovery run.

There is the leg shot...

Zoolander...

We are so speedy.

And once again, we spent the entire weekend laughing. This time with no cigarettes, but still a few pots of coffee. We talked about motherhood, and ridiculous husbands. We talked marathon training and recipes as we cooked delicious dinners and went on a 16 mile run. We watched Saturday Night Live and still repeated all the good jokes back to each other while giggling uncontrollably, all the time, trying not to wake a sleeping baby.

Going to Sunny South Dakota

2009-02-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

Im sitting on a plane in Minneapolis right now. I'll be visiting my
best friend of 30 years, her hubby and her new baby for the weekend.
We might even squeeze out a 16 mile while I'm there in the 20 degree
temps (philly doesn't look so cold anymore).

Have a great weekend everyone!

Frosty 7 Miler

2009-02-09T21:07:00.001-08:00

Ran a strong 6.5 (57:17/8:48 pace) tonight when I got home from work. All the snow and ice had melted and it made for a relaxing run without having to worry about slipping or twisting an ankle.

As promised, here are the pictures from my snowy 7 mile run last Friday. Looking at these, it's crazy to think it's going to be 65 degrees on Wednesday.

I have a quit a few more but I will show some restraint. And honestly, the pictures don't do it justice. It was the perfect day. The perfect amount of snow, the perfect temperature and the perfect daylight.

Here I am walking across the frozen river to get to the tow path.

The tow path runs through the woods along the Manayunk Canal and the Schuylkill River.

Hello...

You can see why I can't run this route after work in the dark. It's pretty secluded in the woods, with big scary deserted buildings.

This is the cobblestone drive I have to run up between the wooded towpath and the bike path. It's no fun when it's covered in ice. This day wasn't too bad.

The R6 train line.

Almost at the bike path.

Finally...

It's getting deeper.

This first pole is my 3.5 mile turnaround point.

I'm very serious out here. No fun allowed!

Danger!

Back on the towpath.

Aahhh, the red bridge that I took the first picture from. No matter which direction I run, it's always my endpoint. Always a welcome sight.

I hope everyone is out enjoying the spring-like temperatures this week!

Busy Weekend Wrap Up

2009-02-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

This week/weekend has been crazy in good ways and bad. I'll try to fill you in on the good without making it a massive post.

It snowed like crazy here on Tuesday. I had been complaining about the snow so far this year, but I think it was because we had crappy wet snow/ice in the past. Not like the beautiful snowfalls I remember from growing up in Ohio. But this week we got REAL snow, at least 5 inches in one night. The next morning as I walked to work, I was in awe. I forgot how breathtaking a beautiful snowfall could be.

Thursday I came home from work to find a package on my door. Woo-Hoo! It was my prize from Bobbi over at N her shoes! A whole box of Snacktrition treats for me to enjoy!

This was the first time I ever won anything in The Land of Blog, so I was totally excited. Plus, it's food. I mean, let's keep it real. Free food gets me happy people. It don't take much.

Here is a bit about Snacktrition from their website.

Snacktrition is enhanced with key nutrients such as calcium and fiber, which makes good-for-you foods like almonds and cashews better than ever. Made from real fruit and nuts, every bite is bursting with mouthwatering flavor and a crunchy texture that every snacker craves.

Health Baked
What is health-baked you ask? It is simple; we sprinkle our almonds and cashews with the nutrients your body needs like fiber and calcium, oven-roast them and add kosher sea salt to taste. That’s it and the results speak for themselves.

In the box were 5 bag of nuts - Smoked Almonds, Sea Salt Almonds, Sea Salt Cashews, Salt and Pepper Cashews and Fruit and Nut Mix.

Since I had just gotten home from work, I was starving and busted open the smoked almonds right away.

They had a pretty good flavor to them. And I love almonds, so I was a happy camper. Then, being a pepper-kind-of-gal, I was way-excited to try the Salt and Pepper Cashews. YUM! I tore into those, ate a few and was kind of on the fence. You really have to love pepper to like these, which I do, but even for me it was a bit much. Of course, that didn't stop me from eating them. Nope, I'm a trooper that way.

This morning I woke up to find the Fruit and Nut mix bag almost empty (I never opened it) so I suppose Jeremy liked it. I tried a few bites and have to say it was pretty delicious. It had yogurt chips in it, which were damn good.

I have yet to try the last two flavors, but I have put them in my bag to take to my office (hide from J). It will be the prefect snack during my work day to keep me going. Thanks again Bobbi!!! :)

So, I FINALLY got some consistent running in this week. FOUR whole days (instead of my usual lazy-ass two). I still only managed 34 miles for the week, but that's way more than I had been. And I felt pretty decent on all the runs. Not great, but decent. I'll take it.

I sucked it up and went for an evening run in the snow on Wednesday. While there were definitely some icy/snowy parts on the sidewalks that were hard to navigate and slow to get through, it was pretty well lit, so I didn't have any surprises (fall on my ass). I just took my time and let myself enjoy the evening winter wonderland. It was great.

I don't work on Fridays, but I usually don't run Fridays because I don't like running the day before a long run. But since we were cutting back our Saturday long run to 14 this weekend, I decided to grab my camera, leave my watch at home and head out for a slow 7 miler to enjoy the beauty of the snow before it melted. I headed up the bike path towards Valley Forge and was not disappointed with my run. I felt great and got some beautiful pictures. I'll post them in a day or two since this is already becoming a novel of a post.

The 14 on Saturday was pretty good. Cold, but not as frigid as the past few weeks. We kept up about a 9:10 pace. I was tired, but not dead. Just tired enough to be glad we were only doing 14 :)

Afterwards we rode the train to Center City, ate lunch at the Reading Terminal Market and just spent the rest of the day wandering the city. It's a great, free thing to do and we had a really nice time. Oh, then we drank a few cheap beers at McGillin's (oldest pub in Philly).

Ben Franklin

The Comcast Building

The projection screen in the lobby.

They filmed Trading Places on this street.

And a scene here, in Rittenhouse Square.

McGillins! My new favorite bar in Philly.

J's hair is getting out of control.

Finally, CONGRATULATIONS to N.D!!!! She finally had her little baby boy a couple of days ago and I am so very, very happy for her and her hubby. Looks like we have a new future running blogger on our hands. I've been following her blog since she was about 7 weeks along and I don't know what I am going to do with myself now that she is not knocked up anymore. Guess I'll have to get interested in her running :)

Monday, 2/2 - 6.5/57:36 - 8:51 pace
Tuesday, 2/3 - off
Wednesday, 2/4 - 6.5/1:02:42 - 9:38 pace
Thursday, 2/5 - off
Friday, 2/6 - 7 - no watch
Saturday, 2/7 - 13.75/2:06 - 9:10 pace
Sunday, 2/8 - off

Total Weekly Mileage (8 days): 33.75 (RUN)

Happy Groundhog Day!!!

2009-02-02T20:28:00.000-08:00
Now that we live in Pennsylvania, I told Jeremy that one day I want to make the trip out to Punxsutawney to experience the wonder that is Groundhog Day. I know it's really silly, kitschy and odd, but those are the types of experiences that I long for. I would love to randomly bring up in a conversation one day that I have actually been there to witness Groundhog Day firsthand. How cool would that be?

I'll admit, when I was living in Miami, I never paid much attention to Groundhog Day. I mean down there, 6 more weeks of winter meant 6 more weeks of 74 degree temperatures. But now that I live in a place where winter is a real season, I am actually concerned with what this animal has to say about my future.

Of course if I was there today I probably would have kicked Punxsutawney Phill in his fat head. SIX more weeks of winter?!?!?! Stupid rodent.

This is not good for my marathon training.

But, you couldn't tell there was going to be any extra winter today. It was beautiful outside. When I got home from work it was 40 degrees, perfect for my 6.5 mile run (57:36/8:51 pace). I'm happy I made myself get out there, since we are supposed to get snow for the next two days and the temps are supposed to dip down again to the low 20's.

Looks like it's Treadmill City for me this week.

Stupid Groundhog.

A 20 Mile Wake Up Call

2009-02-01T14:32:00.000-08:00
Today was a gorgeous day for a twenty-mile run. The sun was shining, the winds were low and the temperature soared to a balmy 51 degrees. We haven't seen such a beautiful day in many, many weeks.

Too bad we did our 20 mile run yesterday.

22 degrees - Feels like 9 degrees.

This is what was staring back at me from my computer screen as I stood in my running gear, eating my toast with peanut butter and banana. No matter how many times I refreshed the page, the numbers didn't change. No matter how long I dawdled, the temps didn't budge. Finally, I sucked it up and headed out the door with J.

The past week started out well. Monday night after work, I went out for a 6.5 mile run and felt fantastic. I ran the entire thing with no walk breaks and kept a great pace (8:50mm) the whole time. My legs felt strong and I was totally motivated to keep it up.

I took off Tuesday and planned on another run on Wednesday night. But when Wednesday rolled in, so did the snow and freezing rain. Call me a baby, but I don't do anything in freezing rain. Especially, after I have to walk home from the train in it. And of course, instead of sucking it up and using the treadmill in my condo's gym, I just came home, hoping to make it up on Thursday.

But this is what my walk to work looked like on Thursday.

By the time I got home and the temps dropped, the slush turned to ice and made for pretty dangerous nighttime running conditions. I skipped out again. No gym either.

Friday, I cleaned the house and ran errands all day. Plus, I don't usually run before a 20 mile run since I like to keep my legs fresh.

Are we starting to see a pattern here?

Excuses, excuses, excuses...

So, that takes us back to Saturday. I was still feeling pretty confident, even with my lazy week. Although it was very cold and "blustery" as the newscasters and Winnie the Pooh like to call it, I didn't let myself think about it too much. Besides, I had just run a marathon two months ago and sort-of kept my mileage up. How bad could it be?

To make our normal 16 mile run a 20 miler, we had to run two miles out and back on the bike path towards Valley Forge. This stretch is pretty much all trails through the woods and made for an interesting start.

While it was absolutely beautiful with the snow in the woods, I didn't get to enjoy it too much since my eyes were fixed on the ground the entire time to make sure I didn't break my neck. We either used whatever footprints were already created into the icy snow, or we slowly skated across the frozen patches. I watched from behind as Jeremy rolled his ankle on more than one occasion and made the decision that this would be my last towpath run as long as there is ice and snow. P.S. Running up a steep, cobblestone path that is completely covered in ice is no fun whatsoever.

By the time we got back by our house at mile 4 to head out towards the Kelly Drive loop, we were exhausted. Jeremy checked his Garmin and informed me that we had completed the first 4 miles at a 11mm pace.

Wow. OK, I wasn't too worried about time anyway, just want to get in the mileage.

The sidewalks were a little better than the path. There were a lot of random patches of ice we had to look out for, but after the first four miles, they didn't seem as bad. But by the time we crossed the bridge in East Falls where I normally just start getting warmed up, my legs were feeling tight and I was ready to be done. I knew with 13 miles left, it was going to be a long morning.

I tried to block out the negative thoughts, but every step made me realize how my lack of training was killing me and my chances for a good race come March 21st.

To make matters worse, once we rounded the Art Museum, again we were hit with insane, splintering wind gusts blowing off the frozen river. They were so bad when they would hit that they slowed us down to a slow shuffle. I had to run almost an entire mile with my glove-covered hand to the side of my face to block the winds. I felt like my skull was going to crack in half from the pain.

FUN!

I spent the rest of the miles wondering why I run in the first place. By the time we made it back to Manayunk I was spent. I shuffled back up the towpath grumbling obscenities the entire way. The top layer of ice that had made the path slick at the start of our run had turned into a muddy mess three hours later underneath the morning sun. Every painful, sloppy step covered me in more mud. With about 50 yards left to go, the chilling gusts picked up again as I held back frustrated tears. "Come ON!!!" I cried out loud, which was much better than the f-bomb I yelled out when the run was finally over.

So once again, here I am. After a week of training like a moron and blaming everything but myself, I'm vowing to do better next week. These last 20 miles were very sobering. Even though we ended up finishing the run at a 9:50mm pace, and I finished the mileage, jumping up from 16 last week, it was not the way I want to feel come marathon day. And more importantly, I don't want to get hurt again. I can't keep skipping out on my workouts during the week and just hope to get by on my long runs. If I have to go on the old, rickety treadmills in the gym after work, then I will.

I mean it this time people. I'm sick of being a whiny, little bitch every week with my training. Time to toughen up and do this.

Monday, 1/16 - 6.5/57:33 - 8:51 pace
Tuesday, 1/27 - off
Wednesday, 1/28 - off
Thursday, 1/29 - off
Friday, 1/30 - off
Saturday, 1/31 - 19.82/3:15:15 - 9:51 pace
Sunday, 2/1 - 30 min stationary bike/30 min elliptical/stretch

Total Weekly Mileage (8 days): 26.32 (RUN)

Back in the Saddle

2009-01-25T16:53:00.000-08:00
I finally picked up a cheap frame from Target a couple of days ago to frame the poster and medals from the Philadelphia Marathon. I try to pick up the race poster from every race I do (if they have one). Sometimes I frame them, sometimes I don't. But as far as the two full marathons I have done, those deserve a frame. Plus, it's a good way to showcase the medals.

Here is the newest addition to the collection.

It goes with the poster from last years Columbus Marathon.

Here is the shadowbox I made from Jeremy's very first Marathon , Miami/06.

All leftover medals go here. I wish I could say all these are mine, but 65% are J's. The horse is an old medal from when I used to show horses when I was 14 :)

All in all, it looks nice on the landing between the 3rd and 4th floor of our townhouse.

The poster helped get me back into the right frame of mind. HA! FRAME of mind! LOL.

Anyway...it really did help a little. Sometimes, looking at the old medals brings back all the hard work and good memories of past races and gets you inspired to try it again.

So, Thursday after work I dragged my lazy butt outside for a 6.5 mile run up Main Street. The run was good and my legs felt great the whole time. I think my body (and mind) just needed a rest. Between getting sick and random stress at work, I just wasn't feeling it.

I think another problem is sheer boredom. Because of the lack of light when I come home after work, I just have one route I can run (and out and back on Main Street that I run twice for 6.5 miles), there is literally no where else that is safe to run. Sometimes when I am walking home from the train (the same route I have to run) I can't stand the thought of running back up there again. It's just something I have to get over.

So Saturday we had an 18 miler planned, but decided it would be better for me to just try and get out 16. J started a little earlier than me and ran a mile out and back to get an extra two miles in before meeting me at the start. The run felt pretty good for the most part. It was cold and really windy at the end again, but at least I stayed dry this time. The last two miles were really hard, but considering my recent lack of training, it wasn't as bad as I thought. We had planned on keeping it slow with a 9:30 pace, but as usual, we had a hard time keeping our pace in the cooler weather and ended up running a 9:20 pace overall. I guess that's better than the alternative, so overall I was really happy.

Thanks to all of you for all your kind words when I was feeling sorry for myself a few days ago. I'm going to try to catch up with all of you now, but it may take a few days. I know how much you all like to write ;)

After finishing 16 miles, I felt much more confidant about being able to do the marathon. I think I might even be getting a little excited again. It looks like I might need to make some extra room for another poster in my stairwell :)

Time to suck it up and get into some regular workouts routine again though. I'll never be able to run a marathon with these weekly stats:

Monday, 1/19 - off
Tuesday, 1/20 - off
Wednesday, 1/21 - off
Thursday, 1/22 - 6.5/58:38 - 9:01 pace
Friday, 1/23 - off
Saturday, 1/24 - 15.79/2:27:46 - 9:20 pace
Sunday, 1/25 - off

Total Weekly Mileage (8 days): 22.29 (RUN)

P.S. Congratulations to all my old friends in Miami who ran the Miami Marathon and Half Marathon today! I wish we could have been there!

Winter Blahs?

2009-01-21T18:48:00.000-08:00
Doods, there is something seriously wrong with me.

Besides all the normal stuff. I have been totally out of it for the past week.

My fever went away last weekend, but since then I have been exhausted! I haven't run in over a week (not good for someone who is supposed to have a 16-18 mile run on Saturday), I have been super-stressed at work and the cold weather that I normally LOVE to run in, just leaves me wanting to curl on on the couch in my jammies with a bowl of soup. My eyes are REALLY tired and swollen every night when I get home from work and the thought of going in the computer or watching TV makes me cringe.

So, sorry about the lack of posting/commenting. I'll have to pick it up in a few days after I rest. I have ZERO motivation and am just too exhausted when I get home at night to read. I just want to go to bed, which is what I am about to do in a few minutes. Before 10pm!!! Seriously, something is not right.

I have gotten over 8 hours for the past three nights (way more than normal) including all the rest I got last week/weekend when I was sick. But I just can't seem to catch up. This is not sitting well for the Marathon in two months. I essentially have zero training in and most importantly, my heart is so not into it right now. I am seriously thinking about dropping back to the half and just trying to race it (which I think would be a lot of fun actually). We'll see. I think I just need a few more days and a good run under my belt before I make any rash decisions.

So besides being a big, tired, stressed out slob, I do have some good news. I bought a ticket today to go see one of my very best friend's and her 4 month old baby! I have been best friends with Jackie for THIRTY years and I am so excited about meeting her lil peanut. YAY! So I will be leaving in the middle of February for a weekend in warm, sunny Sioux Falls, South Dakota where their winter will kick my winter's ass.

Also, we had a beautiful snowfall a few days ago. We actually got a couple of inches that STUCK! It's been really beautiful. Here is a photo of my running trail. Not while I was running on it though...lazy bones.

Oh yeah, and there was this one guy that became the new President...what was his name?!?! That was pretty awesome too :)

OK, I'm off to sleep for 3 days. I'll catch up with all you nerds later.

Saturday Night Fevah!

2009-01-18T17:46:00.000-08:00
What a difference 2 weeks makes.

Jeremy said something quite poignant after his 16 mile run on Saturday morning.

"You know you're in trouble when the distance of your run is higher than the temperature."

Truer words have never been spoken.

Not that I would know. While J was out there pounding out 16 miles in 9 degree temps (he came home with icicles in his beard), I was sound asleep underneath my down comforter, recovering form a nasty fever I had somehow come down with on Wednesday afternoon.

You always forget how bad fevers are until you actually get one. I was miserable all night Wednesday with achy bones, pounding headache, chills, sweats, lethargy, dizziness, stomach pains, etc. No fun. I apologized to J for not being nicer to him when he had a fever the week before.

I woke up Thursday morning, drenched in sweat and thought the fever had broken, but still in no shape to go to work. I decided to stay in bed and worked from home. Since I didn't actually get much rest (I was stressing trying to meet a deadline, an awful time to miss work), I was still feeling awful Thursday night. The fever came back and I almost passed out when I tried to walk up a flight of stairs. So I stayed home Friday too (and did more work from home). By Friday evening the fever was gone, but I was just very tired. I made the decision to just rest all weekend and pick up where I left off on Monday. Honestly, the super-low temperatures helped me make that decision.

Although I have to say, I'm a little bummed I missed out on Saturday. There is a sick, twisted side of me that loves to get out there in ridiculous conditions just to see how it will effect me (and to feel like a badass when I say I did it). It would have been cool to say I trained for my marathon in 10 degree temperatures. Oh well, there's always next weekend.

Hey all you 2008 Philadelphia Marathon runners! Don't forget to fill out your marathon survey they emailed you this week. Someone I know (who just so happens to be very sexy when there are icicles in his beard) wrote it with a couple of colleagues and is working on doing research with the marathon folks. You'll get $5.00 off your entry fee for next year and if you look close enough you just might see a familiar face on one of the pages :)

And finally, thanks to Bobbi over at N Her Shoes for picking me (along with a few other fine folks) as one of the lucky winners in her snacktrition giveaway! YAY! I love free stuff, especially when it's food :)
Thanks Bobbi!

Tagged

2009-01-13T19:56:00.000-08:00
So, JoyRun tagged me the other day.

At first I was kind of hesitant because this is such a positive post and I honestly didn't think I had many "favorite" things to talk about. But then I figured it was a good way to look at 2008 in a different way. It wasn't all bad.

4 favorite memories from 2008
1. The Philadelphia Marathon
2. My going away party in Miami before I moved.
3. Philadelphia Distance Run
4. Thanksgiving in Philly at the parade, at our friends house in the afternoon and making dinner with just Jeremy at night. It was the prefect day.

4 favorite movies watched in 2008
So, I only saw a handful of movies this year and they all sucked. I am changing this to be TV shows.
1. Project Runway
2. What Not to Wear
3. How I Met Your Mother
4. The Office

4 of my favorite foods in 2008
1. Salad (I am a salad junkie)
2. Soup (Any kind, I am a soup junkie too)
3. Ritas Water Ice "Wild Cherry" (Being new to the area, I am just discovering the wonder that is Rita's.
4. Surf and Turf Tacos from El Vez in Center City.

4 places i loved in 2008
I haven't really gone anywhere this year. But I have loved discovering this beautiful new city.
1. Wissahickon Creek (Philadelphia)
2. Reading Terminal Market
3. Fairmount Park (Philadelphia)
4. Center City (Philadelphia)

4 events i loved in 2008
1. Philadelphia Marathon
2. Philadelphia Distance Run
3. Miami Half Marathon
4. Moving to Philadelphia (Is that an event?)

4 things i liked in 2008
1. Blogging
2. Facebook
3. Etsy.com
4. beer/red wine

4 things i am looking forward to in 2009
1. The National Marathon in DC (March)
2. Growing at my new job
3. Discovering more about our new city
4. New beginnings

4 people I tag
1. Lil Runner & baby
2. D10
3. Beachy
4. Sonia

All in all, not a bad year.

Made myself get out there in the 24 degree temps after work for a 6.5 mile run. So glad I went. I was dry this time, wore my jacket so I was warmer and ended up running my fastest pace for that route which is full of hills (8:55 pace). Woo! Go legs!

Ice, Ice baby...

2009-01-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting on my couch in flannel PJs, a long sleeved t-shirt, hooded sweatshirt, wool socks, fur (faux of course) lined slippers with a blanket wrapped around me, hot tea in my hand and a warm macbook pro on my lap. The sun is out, the heat is on and I'm freaking freezing!

Why you ask? Oh, no reason...just almost died from hypothermia on our 14 mile run this morning!

OK, maybe I am exaggerating just a tad, but it sure felt like it. The sad part is, next weekend, when we run our 16 miler it's going to be about 20 degrees colder. Who's idea was it to sign up for another marathon anyway?

It was supposed to snow here yesterday, but all we got was a light dusting and some rain, nothing too intense. This morning when we headed out, the sun was coming out so I knew it would warm up a bit. I got dressed in my normal cold weather running outfit: tights, long tank, long-sleeved tech shirt, gloves and hat. The run started out OK. It was cold (20's), but it didn't seem that bad. The first mile we ran over some wooden docks and had to really slow down because of the ice. It's normally icy there, so I didn't think to much about it.

Two miles into the run I went to take a drink from one of my water bottles and noticed it was almost empty. The water had been coming out of the bottle as I ran and soaked the whole right side of my lower back, rear end and leg. I was annoyed that I was running out of water so early in the run, but little did I know the damage being soaking wet was going to do to me later on.

As we headed up to Fairmount Park, I was surprised at how desolate it was. Normally, the path around the river is filled with runners, walkers and bikers. Not this morning. Soon I figured out why. The path was covered in ice for miles. Not the kind of ice that you see coming either, but the kind that is sort of melted, so it looks like it's just wet. Then, just as you get brave and start running fast again, you almost bust your ass. It was like running across an ice-skating rink!

I know most of you are reading this and cracking up right now. Most of you are used to these conditions since you deal with it every year. But for this Floridian girl, it's my first experience "running" in ice.

But even with the ice, it really wasn't too cold. That is, until we passed the Art Museum and headed back up Kelly Drive to Manayunk.

We got a nasty 20-30mph headwind the WHOLE. WAY. BACK. Not a slight breeze, but an awful, frigid blast of arctic air blowing off the frozen Schuylkill River into our faces and all over my wet clothes, almost halting us to a stop every 30 seconds.

YAY!

So basically the rest of the run was spent shuffling headfirst into the frozen winds with my legs tightened so I wouldn't do a face-plant. By mile 9 I was done. My hamstrings were burning, my glutes were screaming in agony and my whole body was stinging. I know I am going to be very sore for a few days.

When I got home I tried to stretch, but I couldn't get warm so I headed up to take a hot shower. Now, if this was the type of blog where we show nudie pics I would have loved to show you what my ass looked like when I stripped down. Not the whole thing, only the side that was soaking wet. It was a shade of red you don't normally see in nature. Like I had been beat with a wooden rod for about 2 hours, which is pretty much what my whole body felt like.

Can't wait till next Saturday!

But more than the cold, I am a little nervous about how difficult this distance seemed. I foolishly thought a 14 mile run was no big whoop considering we "just did" a marathon. I have been running 10-12 miles lately with no problem, but today the distance seemed really difficult. Needless to say, I choked down my humble pie and tried to get my head back into the game for this new marathon training. No more 2 days a week running. I need to get the milage back up to where it was. I think this run is what I needed to wake me up and get me respecting the distance again.

Other than that, week's been good. Super busy at work with a huge new project (they even upped me to 30 hrs a week for the next two months, yay!).I got in some ab work and a day of lifting (still sore from that). I took down the Christmas decorations (except the naked tree, it's still sitting there). And now we're watching the Eagles, lounging in our PJs and I'm going to make a huge pot of chili.

Maybe the Chili will finally warm my ass up. Literally.

Here are my stats since I got back from Florida.

Sunday, 1/11 - 10/1:33:11 - 9:09 pace + Abs
Monday, 1/5 - off
Tuesday, 1/6 - off
Wednesday, 1/7 - off
Thursday, 1/8 - 6.5/58:45 - 9:02 pace
Friday, 1/9 - 45 minutes elliptical + lifting + abs
Saturday, 1/10 - 7/1:01:14 - 8:44 pace
Sunday, 1/11 - 13.72/2:08 - 9:19 pace

Total Weekly Mileage (8 days): 30.4 (RUN)

And I thought running in Miami was bad...

2009-01-07T18:50:00.000-08:00
Did any of you happen to catch the documentary Running the Sahara that aired Sunday night on Showtime?

It follows three guys who decide to run across the Sahara desert (duh) to the Red Sea.

On February 20, Charlie, Ray and Kevin touched the Red Sea, just a few hours before sunset. Their quest had lasted 111 days and taken them through 6 countries: Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya, and Egypt. By the team's daily GPS record, they had traveled over 4,300 miles (6,920 kilometers). They fought through injury and extreme fatigue to reach their goal, which changed them forever.

These jokers ran across six countries, everyday for 111 days, about 2 marathons per day, through 130 degree temperatures, sandstorms, injuries, land mine-ridden territories, for no other reason than just to do it.

Pretty amazing stuff. But be warned, it will make you feel like a big baby for ever complaining about 20 (or 80) degree temps, rain, chaffing, yucky Gu, your iPod breaking during your run, a nagging pain in your knee, etc.

Definitely watch it if you see it on.

Also, did anyone happen to catch the great (super-long) article in RW about Back on My Feet this month? Pretty awesome! J just met with Anne yesterday to discuss research work with them. Good stuff. check out the article if you can. (I know most of you running maniacs have already read RW cover to cover this month, lol).

Welcoming 2009 with Open Arms

2009-01-03T20:08:00.000-08:00
So long 2008, you jerkface. I can not begin to tell you how happy I am to see you gone.

While I was driving back to Philadelphia and J and I ran out of things to say to each other (about 5 minutes after we got in the car), I was left with plenty of time to think about 2009.

I was going to do a brief synopsis of the past year on here, but ultimately decided against it. A lot of you already know about how shi%ty 2008 has been for me and it's time I stopped dredging it up all the time. It's a new year. Time to look forward, not backward. While I know that Dick Clark and the stroke of midnight will not magically change the direction of your life, it sure is a good time to refocus and move ahead.

While I don't normally do "resolutions" I have been thinking a lot about things I need to work on. So here it is, my personal inventory for 2009.

Races

So here it is, the big announcement. Last week J and I signed up to run the (drumroll) Suntrust National Marathon in Washington DC on March 21st. It got great reviews, is in a city I have never been in but is very close and is soon enough where we can sort of piggyback off of our Philly training.

J and I have been running pretty regularly since Philly, are feeling healthy and still have a good base. J wants to redeem himself from the "sickness" he endured in Philly and figures while we are still in pretty good shape, we should try it sooner than later. I have to admit, while I had a great time running Philly, there is a little piece of me that is disappointed I didn't run it to my full potential. Now that we are back from vacation, we are going straight into marathon training mode again. It's almost hard for me to imagine.

There is one catch. I am still suffering from a bit of Posterior Tibial Tendinitis. I have had it for about 5 months now and while it didn't bother me too much, it hasn't gone away. And I can feel it flare up a bit, especially after a long run. So while I am signed up for the full, at any point I feel like the tendinitis is getting any worse, I am going to cut back to the half and let J run the full by himself for a PR. I plan to run the full, but if I have to cut back now to keep myself healthy for the future, then I am OK with it.

Then there is the Broad Street Run. It's a race that runs 10 miles down Broad Street and is supposed to be a blast. When we were here last year looking for a place to live, we were staying in a hotel on Broad on the day of the race and watched them all run by. We promised ourselves that day we would run it next year if we moved here.

Finally, Back on My Feet puts on the 20 in 24 Relay in July.

This is Philadelphia’s only 24-hour relay race that takes place around the Schuylkill River Running Loop. The event is created for teams of five that can choose a participation category ranging from 8.4 miles to 33.4 miles per member.

It sounds like a lot of fun. If we can get some local runners to be part of a relay, we may do it. If not we can always participate in the "Glow in the Dark" 8.4 mile loop at midnight or the "Pajama Loop" at 5:30am.

Other than that, I'm not really planning anything yet. If something good comes my way, I'll do it, if not, I'll just run for fun. Hopefully when it warms up a bit, I'll be biking more anyway.

Running

As far as running in general, the only thing I really want to work on is getting in more hill workouts. I live in such a hilly neighborhood that I should really take advantage of it while I'm here. The hills that I have done since moving here have really helped me become a stronger runner so I need to step it up.

Workouts

I definitely need to focus on lifting more this year. While running has gotten me into pretty good shape, my upper-body is a mess, totally out of proportion with my lower body's fitness. I am not worried about losing any more weight (although I wouldn't mind) but I have been this weight before while being about 2-3 sizes smaller from all the weightlifting I was doing. I need to get back to that. I also want to start doing more push-ups. I need to figure out my own "Push-Up Challenge".

Food

J and I eat pretty well for the most part. We don't keep junk food in the house and never eat fast food. We drink tons of water and eat lots of fruits, veggies, etc. But I really need to focus on eating smaller portions. It does no good if you are eating two huge portions of something healthy - you are still just being a pig. This is a major reason I still have problems losing any additional weight and toning up. I also need to stop eating so much of my "danger foods". I ate enough cheese over Christmas to become and honorary citizen of Wisconsin. Also, beer, sweets, candy, hummus ( I can polish off a tub with crackers/chips in two days, easy) all need to be reined in.

Sleep

I really need to try and get to bed a little earlier. I am a total night owl and usually stay up till 1am. Which makes for a very tired girl when I get up for work in the morning. I unnecessarily get only 5-6 hours a night. That's stupid, especially since I LOVE to sleep. (P.S. I'm typing this at 12:40am before an extremely busy first day back at work. Sigh.)

Finance

J and I have decided to really focus on spending less. We don't spend extravagantly now, but we could definitely find ways to cut back, mostly with going out. We know we will not be able to buy a house this year like we had planned but if we work hard, we can get our savings back to where they were a year ago.

Work

I am going to really try to be more confident at work. I know down inside I am talented at what I do, but for some reason I always second-guess myself. I guess it's just hard for me to sometimes process that I am an adult with a career. Sometimes I think people are going to figure out that I shouldn't be there or something. I'm not sure why I am like this, especially when I always get great feedback and recommendations from my employers. This is the year I start actually believing what people tell me about myself. Maybe that should also carry over into other aspects of my life.

Attitude

If I learned anything from the past year, it's that no plans are ever set in stone. In the immortal words of John Lennon,

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans..."

This phrase sums up the last 365 days of my life so well that I think it may be my new motto.

No matter what lists I make and races I decide to do, anything can happen and I need to be OK with that. I got so worked up with everything that I thought was going to happen last year because of "plans" I made at the start of the year, that my whole world was shaken when they didn't happen. Sometimes rightfully so, but other times I just made it worse than it needed to be. I guess everything really does happen for a reason. and 2008 was definitely a life-lesson for me.

Hopefully I learned enough to just sit back and enjoy 2009.

Photo Update Part 2 - Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T13:23:00.000-08:00
Happy New Year everyone!!!

I hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year and is recovering happily surrounded by loved ones.

We're still in Florida but getting ready to head back to the arctic tundra in the morning. It's been a a good trip, but busy and I am ready to get back to the normalcy of everyday life.

Here is the photo-tour of the second half of our trip. I have to warn you people that are freezing your butts off up north, there are quite a few beach shots in here. Don't shoot the messenger...

Just remember, I'll be up there soon enough in my scarf and gloves dealing with the snow and ice just like the rest of you.

But for now, we are wearing shorts :)

These pictures were taken while wandering around after our 9 mile run the other morning.

Drinks and dinner with old friends and a beautiful Florida sunset.

Crazy Auntie Laurie.

I miss these sunsets.

APPLLLLLEEEE!!!

Best friends from high school :)

Just another day at the beach.

This is not snow.

Happy New Year!!!

I promise once I get settled back in I'll get back on the commenting. Until then, enjoy your new year!

Oooh, I almost forgot, I have a future marathon announcement to make :)

Christmas Photo Update

2008-12-29T17:21:00.000-08:00
Well, we arrived safely and have been having a great time back in Florida for the holidays.

We've been super-busy since we've been here visiting with people, enjoying the warm weather and doing other Christmasy stuff. I've been reading over a lot of your posts but I will probably be a comment slacker until after the new year starts. It's hard to blog while on vacation. I have really just wanted to stay as far away from a computer as possible. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Since I know most of you are busy as well, I figured I would just post pics of the holiday festivities, to save you all a bit of time on reading one of my drawn out, long-ass posts :)

Road trip!

Road side pit-stop.

My parent's decorated Christmas wonderland.

My parent's making their special Christmas morning breakfast.

Present time!

A Florida fireplace.

Jeremy got some stuff to keep him warm in Philly.

Someone is sleepy from all the excitement.

Time to eat again! (Those are our famous Christmas potatoes)

My best friend, Lisa from middle school stopped by to say hi. I hadn't seen her since my wedding over 5 years ago.

The best beer store evah!

Welcome to Florida.

This is what it looked like when we started our 12 mile run on Saturday.

Drinking pitchers at the Sports Page and watching the Eagles.

Lunch today at the Hob Nob. Greasy burgers, fried mushrooms and onion rings. Yum!

So, to summarize. We have basically been eating and drinking all week. Oh, with a hot, sweaty run thrown in. We're spending the day at the beach tomorrow (sorry Ted) including another 9 mile run to work off some of this beer and grub.

I hope you all have been having as much fun are we are.

On the Road Again

2008-12-23T18:04:00.000-08:00

Almost in Florida. Spending the night in Savanah, GA. We went from 17
degrees to 58. :)
Hope everyone has safe travels and good times.

I'll be Home for Christmas

2008-12-21T18:34:00.000-08:00
The gifts are wrapped, the house is clean, Zero had a bath, the suitcases are packed...we're ready to go.

Tuesday morning J and I pack up the car, with Zero in tow, and drive to my parent's house in sunny Sarasota, Florida for 10 days of 80 degree temperatures. Woo!

And just in time too. It's been FREEZING here the past few days. Not the good kind of cold where there is a beautiful blanket of snow and an opportunity to go sledding and make snow angels. Just cold with freezing rain, ice, wind, grey and numbness.

(iPhone takes pretty decent pictures.)

While I truly love wintertime, I have to say, it will be nice to be in warmer temperatures for a few days. It's good to have a break in the middle of winter so you don't go crazy. One of the reasons we were OK about moving back to the land of winter is because we knew we would be heading back to Florida for a few vacations a year, Christmas always being one of them. The idea of winter is a little more bearable when you know you will have a sunny vacation smack dab in the middle.

And, of course it will be nice to see my family and crazy-ass friends again too.

I am a little worried about running in the warmer weather though. I have taken a fondness to winter running and I have a feeling it will take a little getting used to running in the heat and humidity again. Funny how quickly the body forgets.

Speaking of running, yesterday I did my longest run since the marathon - 10 extremely chilly miles.

It just so happened to also be the first time I have run with J and the first time I have run along Kelly Drive since the marathon. It was good to be back running with my buddy in my favorite running spot.

Now that he's all healthy again, he sure runs a lot faster. It was hard to keep up with him, but the weather was decent (although very cold) so I decided to push it and see if I could keep up. Although I was pretty tired the entire time and really felt myself pushing it, I managed to keep up the pace to average an 8:40 pace for 10 miles. That is definitely the longest I have been able to keep up that pace, which made me feel pretty good about how my body is reacting to life post-marathon. I do know, however that if the weather had been warmer, I wouldn't have been able to keep up that pace. Running in colder weather makes me feel like I could run forever. Or at least with a little less effort.

The only bad thing about the run was the awful headwind the 5 miles back. The temps were in the 20's and the wind was freezing. When we were done my butt and the back of my legs were completely numb.It was a very odd sensation. When I went to shower, my body was covered in random red marks. Not sure where those came from. I love running in cold weather but I may have to think about investing in some better winter gear. My long sleeved tech shirts and capris may not be as effective in January.

Now that I think about it, maybe a couple of runs in Florida wont be as bad as I think...

I'm taking my laptop, iPhone and cameras with me so I'll be updating, probably mostly with pictures.

I hope all of you have the most wonderful holiday season ever and enjoy the time with your friends and family. Or at least keep yourself from wanting to wring their necks :)

Stay safe, happy and warm. I know I will :)

Happy Holidays!!!

Monday, 12/15 - lazy
Tuesday, 12/16 -lazy
Wednesday, 12/17 - 6.5/59:25 -9:08 pace
Thursday, 12/18 - lazy
Friday, 12/19 - weight lifting/elliptical - 35:00
Saturday, 12/20 - 10/1:27:15 - 8:40 pace
Sunday, 12/21 - lazy

Total Weekly Mileage: 16.5 (RUN) LOSER!
Total Weekly Mileage: 0 (BIKE)

Who has time for blogging?

2008-12-15T16:57:00.000-08:00
Not me. At least that's how I feel lately.

Or running for that matter.

December is always a lot of fun, but it always stresses me out too. There is just so much to do. Which reminds me, thanks to all of you for your kind words after my last post. I was sort of in a funk and didn't even realize it until I posted that. But I'm feeling better now.

I've been keeping busy this past week. No, not with running...silly people...but other fun stuff. Here is the lowdown.

• Busy, busy, busy at work...

• Moved into our new building at work. I now have my very own huge office with my name on the door- first time ever! Still no window, but I'll take what I can get.

• Picked up a fairly simple freelance job and made an extra, quick $150! Woo!

• Started making Christmas cookies last week. We are still debating on whether or not we want to make the rest since all we seem to do it eat them all

• Took care of some Drs appointments (follow ups and checkups) that I have been putting off forever. Glad to get those out of the way.

• I got some Christmas shopping done last week, mainly for J. He's pretty much the only person I am shopping for this year since we are scaling WAY back on the gift-giving. I just have to pick up a couple of small things for my parents and I'll be done.

• Santa came early for me. I got a new iPhone yesterday! My cell phone has been dead for a few weeks now and we decided to just upgrade now. It will come in very handy to sync with all my other mac stuff. I may even brave the mobile blogging like Jess.

• I got to see my brother! I haven't seen him in over two years (since before he went to Iraq last year). He was on a layover in Philly and I drove to the airport and had coffee with him for a few hours. It was so great to see him.

• Drank a little too much this weekend as we had a function on Friday night, then went out with some friends on Saturday night. FYI, it is never a good thing to mix Margaritas, Mojitos and Vodka Tonics in one evening (notice all drinks are plural). I felt like I was doing a world drinking tour and paid for it dearly the next day.

Here we are at the function Friday night. Notice Jeremy's hair. It's his new thing, don't ask...

• Managed to get in two runs this week. I really had hoped on getting in a few more miles, but I have been super-lazy. The runs felt great, but I'm just having trouble getting myself out the door. I'm just not feeling it right now. I was going to go run today, but had zero desire.

Anyone else feeling this funk now that marathon season is over?

To all you crazy folks dealing with all that snow, stay safe out there!

Monday, 12/8 - lazy
Tuesday, 12/9 - 6.5/59:04 - 9:05 pace
Wednesday, 12/10 - lazy
Thursday, 12/11 - lazy
Friday, 12/12 - lazy
Saturday, 12/13 - 7/1:01:14 - 8:44 pace
Sunday, 12/14 - lazy

Total Weekly Mileage: 13.5 (RUN) LOSER!
Total Weekly Mileage: 0 (BIKE)

Shelving the Bah-Humbugs

2008-12-08T12:20:00.000-08:00
So far this year, the Christmas spirit had been eluding me.

I think a combination of post-marathon emotions mixed with strange feelings about everything that has happened in the past year (losing the pregnancy, moving away from almost everyone we know, me changing jobs, not working for three months, losing hours and thinning out our savings...) has made it difficult for me to feel too festive. I guess I had a different idea about what the holidays were going to be this year and I am just now realizing that's not going to happen.

A year ago we had so many plans for the direction of our lives and all the changes that were in store. If you had told me a year later I would be in Philly working part-time, with no new home, no new baby and away from almost everyone I love I would have thought you were nuts. But here we are. Not that I'm complaining (now). It's been one of the hardest years of my life but I can finally sit back and appreciate all that has happened and why.

While we did lose a lot last year (much more than I ever blogged about here), we also gained more than we ever thought. We are finally in a city we truly love, have made a lot of friends, have better jobs that we are much happier with and right now, our friends, family and pets are all healthy and happy. Thank goodness.

Realizing this and knowing that 2009 is a fresh start, I decided to buck up and get into the holiday groove (isn't that a Madonna song...or two...?)

I dragged my tree out of storage and decorated the house. That was a total mission which almost cost me my sanity. After I put all three strands of lights on, then the garland, ribbons and decorations, the TOP two strands of lights blew out. Not the bottom two, but the top two. Which meant I basically had the take everything off and redo the whole thing. Then after I restrung the lights, two of the strands wouldn't plug into each other...let's just say I almost cancelled Christmas. It wasn't pretty. But I MacGyvered the tree with extension cords and all was right with the world again. Christmas was saved!

Then I decorated the rest of the house as well. It came out pretty good.

Zero even has her own ornament.

After the house was all decorated and clean, I definitely felt much better.

Then Saturday morning, Jeremy and I took the train downtown to wander around and enjoy the festive, holiday spirit of the city. We strolled through the Christmas Village to pick up some new ornaments and walked through City Hall to see the big tree.

Then we headed to the Wannamaker Building which is the country's very first department store. It's a beautiful, old building that is now a five-story Macy's. It also houses the world's largest working pipe organ which plays carols every holiday season. I had never been in the building and it was quite impressive.

Afterwards, we walked up to Rittenhouse Square. The park was beautiful in a wintery-sort of way and it was just nice to be able to enjoy the city and the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. It made me appreciate where we were and how far we have come this year after everything we have been through.

That night, when we got home we made hot chocolate and watched through the windows as we got our very first snowfall of the year. Well, snow that stuck anyway.

I woke up on Sunday morning to go for a run, surprised to still see a decent amount of snow on the ground. It was the very first time in my life I have ever run in the snow. While it was a far cry from a blizzard, the snow still covered the trails in the woods and the trees looked beautiful with a light dusting against the blue, sunny sky. I made sure that I ran through any patches of snow on the ground, even if there was dry land next to it, just to say I "ran in snow".

I had a great run too. 8.4 miles - 1:15:24/8:56 pace. It was the happiest I had felt all week. I felt rejuvenated, ready for a new start again.

Today I listened to Christmas carols as I designed, printed, wrote, addressed and mailed all our Christmas cards and tonight I may even make my first batch of cookies!

Looks like running in a winter wonderland can help to cure a Florida girl's holiday blues. Take that Scrooge!

I hope you all are enjoying the upcoming festivities and cherishing all the wonderful accomplishments and happiness in your lives as well. Here's to a wonderful holiday season and a brand new year filled with renewed hope (thank goodness!).

Monday, 12/1 - 3.81 miles/35.12 - 9:14 pace
Tuesday, 12/2 - off
Wednesday, 12/3 - 6.5/1:00:10 - 9:15 pace
Thursday, 12/4 - off
Friday, 12/5 - off
Saturday, 12/6 -off
Sunday, 12/7 - 8.4 miles/1:15:24 - 8:56 pace

Total Weekly Mileage: 18.71 (RUN)
Total Weekly Mileage: 0 (BIKE)

Official Marathon Mumbo-Jumbo

2008-12-03T19:24:00.000-08:00
Here it is. The official time from the Philadelphia Marathon, in all it's bright, shining, yellow glory.

God, am I really 33? Sometimes I forget until I see it in print somewhere. Talk about a buzzkill.

We also got the race pictures back, courtesy of Island Photography. I wasn't overly impressed with any of the photos. They were all just O.K. Actually, I love the one of just Jeremy. He actually looks like he might be having a decent time. Ha, the paparazzi just happened to be there the fraction of a second he smiled in 4 hours and 20 minutes (and 25 seconds).

Apparently I just wave in all my pictures. Like, I'm Miss America or something.

Yeah, I'll buy this next one!

I have never seen my face look like that before, I look like I'm dying! The only thing that is weirder than my face is Mr. Red Shorts in the front of the picture. What's up with that guy?

Of course he is probably looking at his pictures going, "What's up with that chick in the purple shirt behind me? Is she losing control of her bowels or something?"

Hi again.
"Thank you all for coming out to support ME!"

The big finish.

Maybe next time, instead of doing the "parade wave", I'll try to look like I'm actually running in a picture or two.

So right after the marathon, like a lot of you out there, I jumped onto marathonguide to find another race where I could redeem the 10 minutes or so I felt like we lost from Philly. I'm sure a lot of this has to do with the euphoric runners high I was experiencing after the marathon. But a week later it hasn't worn off, so I'm still considering it.

I found two races that peaked my interest, mostly because of their close proximity and the fact that they are only four months away. The first is the Ocean Drive Marathon in New Jersey. It sounds like a beautiful course, but all the reviews I have heard say that it is insanely windy and desolate. Not sure how I feel about that.

The second one is the National Marathon in Washington DC. It seems like a pretty decent race, a nice course, got great reviews and is much smaller than Marine Corps.

You actually have to qualify to run The National Marathon. Wooo-fancy pants! Granted, you only have to have a 5 hour race, but still. It's almost like Boston. Ha, ha!

I thought Jeremy was going to think I was nuts when I mentioned these to him, but he is actually interested. He has to go to the doctor to get his foot looked at (it's been bothering him for a couple of months) but if all is well, he said he wants to train for a new PR. More than likely we will go with The National Marathon. I have never been to DC before, so it would be fun.

In other news, I finally got out for my first two post-marathon runs this week.

Monday, I ran about 3.5 and felt great. I thought, like always, I was running a bit slower, but clocked a 9:15 pace. No aches or pains whatsoever. I felt a little tired after my first hill around mile 2, but other than that, I was fine.

Tonight after work I ventured out onto Main Street for a longer run. As soon as I started running I was instantly grinning from ear to ear. I felt wonderful! It was nice and cold with a clear, dark sky full of stars. Main street was bustling with people and lined with leafless trees covered in twinkling white Christmas lights. My legs felt great and I even charged up a few Manayunk hills.

For some reason I thought this particular route I had mapped out was under 6 miles, but later when I logged it online, it was 6.5. I hadn't planned on running so far, but was glad I did. I felt like a new person when I was done.

I'm hoping this feeling lasts. I haven't had the best of luck in the past when it comes to not getting some sort of odd injury or sickness to keep me sidelined. If this keeps up, I'll be training again in no time.

Watch out Diddy! I'll be sure to wave as I pass you!

Thanksgiving Weekend

2008-11-30T19:12:00.000-08:00
Holy crap do I have a lot of blogs to catch up on. You people keep me busy! :)

First off, thanks for all the wonderful comments on the marathon. I really appreciate all the love.

I let myself take a few days off of all things running related after the marathon, to sort of decompress. I needed to let myself go for a bit to figure out what comes next. And the fact that the week came during a holiday was a blessing in disguise. Who has time to get post-marathon stress disorder when the holiday season is blowing up in your face?

So here is what has been keeping me busy the past few days, in photo form of course.

This little guy is my Godson Hamish.

He came to visit us with my friend Mark from high school and his wife Andria. Here is a picture of the happy family as Hamish enjoys his first Cheesesteak. Look at the kid eyeing that thing!

Yes, Mark is a class-act. Let's hope Hamish gets his mother's manners.

Here are a few more pics of my lil' buddy...cause that's what doting Godmothers do.

Look how happy he is to see us! Haha!

Baby time was fun. It was nice to have a different energy in the house. Even if that energy liked to wake up screaming 4 times a night.

Thanksgiving Day, J and I met up with some friends in Center City to watch the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It was freezing out, but I have to say, I was really impressed by this parade. It was sort of like watching the Macy's Parade in NYC, but much smaller and you could get right up to the front. We had a great time.

You can see more fun parade pictures here.

After the parade, we walked to our friend's home and ate an incredible spread of appetizers and drank Mimosas and Bloody Mary's by a roaring fire while watching football. Then later, J and I headed home where I proceeded to make an awesome Thanksgiving dinner that was very easy and tasted pretty damn good.

It was a wonderful, quiet night at home and it was perfect. :)

But tomorrow marks the end of my "recovery" period. And by recovery I mean sheer laziness. Time to get back out there. J and I already have new plans in the works...

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

The 2008 Philadelphia Marathon

2008-11-23T18:04:00.000-08:00
*Warning, this post is about as long as a marathon. :)

Well, 2 out of 3 aint bad.

• Get a new PR? Check. I PRed by 17 minutes. Final time 4:20:21. I'm still awaiting official chip time.

• Beat Oprah? Check. I beat her time by 9 minutes. Woo!

• Beat Diddy? Well, not this year. I could have, but it just wasn't in the cards on this day. More on this in a bit.

Jeremy had been feeling a bit better, but after the expo his throat started to really bother him. When we went to sleep he was alright, but after about an hour he woke up to a bad cough. A cough which continued throughout the entire night. A cough which made it impossible for either one of us to sleep. I think we both ended up getting about 2-3 hours, total.

We rolled out of bed at 4:45am, With all the excitement of the race I actually wasn't tired at all. We did our usual routine: coffee, water, bathroom, toast with peanut butter, honey and banana, bathroom, recheck our bags 30 times to make sure we had everything, bathroom, then we were off.

As soon as we stepped out the door and I saw ice on the canal in front of our house, I knew we were in trouble. It was about 24 degrees/feels like 17. Ugh.

We got to our car and saw that the windshield was covered in frost. You'd be amazed at how dumbfounded two people who have lived in the south for the past 8 years were to see frost on a windshield. Totally unprepared. Jeremy was out there with a shopping card trying to scrape it and it took us about 10 minutes to figure out how to defrost the window. Haha! We are relearning a few things.

Once we figured out that little snafu, we headed downtown. We quickly found parking and headed to the start. It was absolutely freezing out but we stayed warm the best we could.

We checked our bags into the busses and wandered around a bit. Instead of standing still in one of the mile long port-o-potty lines, we decided to walk across the street to the woods to go old school. I didn't even care that there were no leaves on the trees to cover my bare ass. It was a marathon and I wasn't going to stress and freeze in a long line for 40 minutes.

After we came out of the woods, we were going to go walk around and search for people, but I looked up at him and noticed he still had his glasses on (he doesn't run with them). He began to freak, but we just ran over to the Back On My Feet tent and left them there with them. Crisis averted, but that basically took up any extra time we had before the start.

We lined up in the corral and listened to the race start and realized we were going to be sent off in waves. This is totally fine and actually made the first few miles a lot more manageable with less people on the course. But the thing is, no one seemed to know about it. Everyone, including us, seemed totally confused by this. To make matters worse, we were in the last wave, so we stood in the freezing cold for 20 minutes after the start of the race before we were finally sent off. It kind of sucked.

But finally the Rocky theme sounded and we were on our way. The air was frigid, but after a mile or two to warm up, our fingers and toes finally defrosted and we were feeling fine.

I really have to say, I loved this course. It was so beautiful and took you throughout some of the best places in the city. The first few miles we ran down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway towards City Hall. Right at our first walk break I noticed a man in a big, blue coat swinging a cowbell. Just like he promised, it was ShoreTurtle cheering everyone on! It was great to see him out there.

After that we headed down towards Old City where we passed the Liberty Bell and the National Constitution Center. The sun was starting to shine and there was a lot of crowd support along this area. The race was thinned out nicely due to the wave sendoffs and it wasn't difficult to maneuver around runners at all. We planned on running the first 5 miles at a 10mm pace and then speeding up from there. But of course, we started out a little quickly and after that our splits were all over the place.

The only problem I was having, which has never happened to me in a race before, was I had to pee like a madwoman. The concept of people stopping to use a crowded port-o-potty in a race has always been foreign to me because, well, it's a race. Why take 3-5 minutes off your time? Plus, I have just never had to go that bad once I started. But this was different. Since I wasn't sweating and we stood in the corral for 30 minutes I really had to go. The lines for the port-o-potties were about 10 people deep and I wasn't having that. So every bush we passed I evaluated in my head if it was big enough to cover my booty as I squatted.

Finally, at mile 3 Jeremy told me he had to go and darted behind a bush. That's all I needed to hear and I quickly followed him to take my very first race-time potty break. It only took about a minute and when I was done I felt like I had lost about 20 lbs.

We headed up Chestnut Street, past the Avenue of the Arts and Washington Square. This area was filled with wonderful, supportive crowds and we really felt the love. We were running strong and smiling the whole way. But just as we crossed over the river in West Philly is when things slowly started to change.

In front of Drexel University there was a decent sized hill which wasn't too bad, but afterwards I noticed Jeremy just wasn't talking as much as he was before. With all the training we had done together, I knew when he was starting to fade and I could feel it coming on. It was still pretty early, so I hoped it was a phase and he'd come out of it.

We passed the zoo and went into Fairmount Park. There were way more hills in this area than I thought there was going to be. I felt pretty good on them but I didn't understand why they promote this marathon as flat, some of these hills were pretty intense. Maybe I am just spoiled from living in Florida for so long, but I don't remember Columbus being that hilly either. They also weren't doing anything to help poor Jeremy who was growing more quiet with each passing hill.

We made our way out to MLK Drive which is part of the route that J and I do on our training runs. We were happy to know that for the most part, the rest of the race was on a very familiar route. I mentioned this to Jeremy, trying to break his funk, and he simply replied with a grunt.

Then the poor guy almost broke his neck at a water stop.

At some of the water stops in the shade, the ground would ice over where people dumped their cups. Some of the stops weren't prepared with salt to help this problem and it made it really dangerous. There were people warning us as we came in, but that didn't stop runners from almost busting their ass as they skied through the stops. Luckily we survived.

We passed Waterworks in front of Boathouse Row and ran by the half-marathon finish. Right after that, we ran into our friends Karen and Mark who drove all the way out from South Jersey to come stand out in the freezing cold to cheer us on. It was so great to see them and really gave us a quick confidence boost. Thanks guys!!! Here is a great pic Karen took as we ran by to high-five them.

After that we headed up Kelly Drive but were quickly saddened to realize we were taking a detour up through the park again. We knew a little bit about the park but didn't realize how hilly this part was. There was a serious hill that actually hurt my knees to run down because it was so steep. Did anyone else know about this detour? It wasn't on the course map at all. Stupid hills.

Once we made our way back out around mile 15 we were on Kelly Drive again on our way towards Manayunk. I looked at my watch and realized for the past few miles we had been averaging about a 10 minute mile. Originally our plan had been to speed up at this point. However, every time I tried to go a bit faster, J would pull back. It was typical of our running relationship. On any given run together, one of us will feel fantastic and the other will feel like crap. Today was my day and was totally not his. The poor guy was exhausted from the cold that was still lingering in him.

Finally around mile 16 he told me to go ahead without him. He knew I was feeling great and didn't want to hold me back. I told him I didn't want to leave him, but to be honest with you, I would be lying if I said I didn't consider it. I felt so strong. The weather was perfect, I was warmed up and my legs felt indestructible. I knew I could easily hit 4:15 and if we had been running about a 10 second per mile pace faster throughout the rest of the race, I could have hit 4:10. I said I would run with him to the 20 and we would see how we felt.

We ran into Manayunk which was great. Main Street was packed with people who were handing out pretzels, potato chips, Cliff Shots, brownies, oranges and beer. Lots of beer. I think most of the peeps who were handing it out did more drinking than handing it out, but that's OK. The energy was a great distraction.

Between mile 16 and 20 I thought about what would happen if I did leave J and run for my time. I looked at his face and saw how he was struggling. I may be able to make the time, but I knew if I left him out there he would find an excuse to give up and walk. He slowed down last year to run my first marathon with me in Columbus and he never once thought about leaving me to get a better time when he could have easily gotten a PR. Running with him the past year has made me the stronger runner I am now and I knew I wouldn't have been feeling so great if it hadn't been for him.

I had to repay him. We trained to run together and we had to finish it together.

I rearranged my game plan and focused on coming in at 4:20 instead of 4:15, but to hit it we needed to speed up a bit. I had to find a way to get him to realize he had the strength in him to do it. In other words, I had to nag him into not giving up. Haha.

We headed back out to Kelly Drive for the last 6 miles and I focused all my energy on him. I basically told him all the same things he had told me the year before in Columbus.

"You're strong."

"You trained for this. Don't leave it out there."

"We run this all the time."

"You're doing great."

I must have said that last one 200 times.

Every time I heard his breathing labor, I said it. When I heard other people around us struggling, I ran us away from them so he wouldn't pick up their negative vibes. I told him to just move his legs. I told him to start picking people off. When we got to 23 miles, I reminded him all we had was a 5K. When we got to 24 miles, I told him that 2 miles was nothing and no one complains about a 2 mile run.

And during all of this, I slowly sped up. Hoping he would stick with me and hoping he wouldn't notice.

The most surprising thing out of all of it was how great I still felt. At 25 miles I felt better than I had at any of my previous training runs. I wasn't remotely tired, I was smiling, I had no aches at all and I felt like I still had about a half a tank of gas left. I'm sure a lot of this had to do with the weather and the fact we ran a slower pace than what we trained for. Whatever the reason, I knew that no matter what time we hit, I was going to have my strongest finish of any race ever.

The only exception was mile 26. As we rounded the bend to get to the Art Museum the crowd swelled like crazy. Not only that, but they were crowding onto the route and made it so that you could only fit about 3 people wide. It was the last mile and J and I were trying to book it to come in under 4:20, but we couldn't pass the people who were in front of us. Plus, the crowd was surrounding us and screaming. Their excitement was great, but at the same time made me really nervous and overwhelmed. I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. I had to force myself look down and try to block them out.

The path finally widened up right before we crossed the finish and I grabbed J's arm, who was suddenly sprinting, and pulled him along with me. We crossed the finish and he fell into my arms and thanked me. I was so proud of him for pulling through I was crying. The last 6 miles he really picked up the pace again and finished strong. Not bad for a guy with a cold.

Afterwards, we got a much needed mylar blanket (my first ever) and were handed our medals. We hung them around each others necks and thanked each other for the help and support on another successful marathon together. I was so proud of him for pulling through and honestly proud of myself for not getting so caught up in time that I forgot what was important in running this race with Jeremy.

We grabbed our pretzels, bananas and hot chicken broth (The best thing ever!) from the food tent and met up with all of our cheerleaders that came to see us finish.

Here we are with Karen and Mark.

And here we are the Aubrey, Courtenay and the girls.

Even Rocky was cheering for us!

10:05
9:38
9:38
11:54 (water and potty break)
8:54 (making up for it)
9:17
10:36 (hill)
9:48
9:43
10:19
10:33
9:10 (I got yelled at for running too fast here)
10:04
9:50
10:07
10:13 (he thought this mile was run too fast, until I told him the split)
10:11
10:00
9:41
10:43
9:30
9:48
9:40
9:53
9:58
10:56
The splits were all over the place, but with the walk breaks and walking through water stops we couldn't avoid it.

After the race we went to a greasy spoon for breakfast with Karen and Mark and spent the rest of the day snuggling on the couch to keep warm. It was pretty great.

All in all it was a wonderful (although cold) day for a marathon. The race was fantastic with a few minor things that need to be fixed. I would still highly recommend this race to people. It's a great time to train because the temperatures get nice and cool for your longer runs and the course really takes you through some beautiful and fun parts of the city. It was a great time. I'll definitely do it as often as I can while I live here. I really enjoyed seeing my new home through the eyes of a runner.

And next year Diddy, your ass is mine!

Final Thoughts

2008-11-22T15:12:00.000-08:00
Today we went to the expo to pick up our packets for the marathon. If I wasn't excited before, the expo did it for me. I am super excited now. The expos are always fun.

Here we are at the entrance where they had a makeshift finish line where everyone was having their pictures taken, including us. :)

The expo was pretty good overall. The running shirt they gave out was probably the best race shirt I have ever gotten. It's a little big, but that's ok. I was very happy to see it had our favorite tagline on the front. In past tense of course. :)

The back of it is great too, but I don't have a picture of it. Denise posted one at her place here.

We wandered a bit more and checked out all the booths. I also picked up this magnet from One More Mile, which I have been meaning to get.

We stopped by the Back On My Feet booth and talked to the people there for awhile. They were so nice and appreciative we were raising money for their organization. We also got two running shirts from them. They are going to let us leave our stuff at their tent, so that is another place you may be able to find us tomorrow if you're wandering around.

Speaking of BOMF, I want to take this time to thank my bloggy homies for any voting/donation giving you did for us. You know who you guys are. We are so thankful that you all were so giving of your time and money to help out a great cause. I know they all appreciate it too. Their big CNN dinner is tonight and they find out who the Hero of the Year is. Let's hope all your voting wasn't in vain! You can find out for sure on CNN on Thanksgiving.

After all that, we walked over to the Reading Terminal Market were we lucked out with getting a seat at the counter at Hershel's Deli. J and I split a corned beef sandwich and had some chicken noodle soup. Good thing I need salt tomorrow.

We finally headed home where we bibbed up and packed our bags for tomorrow.

Tonight we will eat, stretch and I will take a hot bath (pre-race ritual). Then I will sit with a heating pad on my legs and read running blogs and try to get some sleep.

I think I am as ready as I can be. We decided on a 9:45 pace for tomorrow which should put us at a 4:15 finish. This time will have us meeting all our goals: a PR, beating Oprah and Diddy. I hope we can keep it up and if for some reason we don't, I will just be grateful for being able to be there after all the shit we have been through this year. I am running this marathon tomorrow for many personal reasons and as a sort-of validation for everything that has happened in the past year. Kind of like,

"Hey life, go ahead and knock me down, but I'll not only get back up, I'll get up and run as far as I can to prove I'm a survivor."

Thanks to all of you guys out there who have been constantly reassuring, positive and wonderful. I can't imagine training for a race anymore without all my bloggy buds.

Good luck to all you runners tomorrow. Whether you are running Philly, another race, a training run or your first run ever. Have a great run! :)

Track us here. Bib numbers 6591 & 6590

The Beautiful Finale

2008-11-21T17:19:00.000-08:00
For some reason today, I am feeling totally at ease.

I woke up this morning feeling well-rested and peaceful. There was a gentle flurry and a light dusting of snow on the ground. It was something these Miami eyes have not seen in over 6 years and I was in love. Even though there was barely any snow and it soon melted, it was beautiful nonetheless. I was instantly happy.

I spent the morning and early afternoon running errands and cleaning the house so I could relax and focus on the marathon for the rest of the weekend. I always feel so much better after my entire house is clean. After all that cleaning, I made time to head out for one final run.

I decided to not worry about mileage and time and simply run up Main Street and back. Since I live in Manayunk, this run takes me on miles 18-22 of the marathon course. The turn around for the marathon in Manayunk (mile 19-20ish) is literally a quarter mile from my house.

This could either be a really good thing, or a very bad thing come gameday.

It's good because I have run it so many times (as well as the remaining miles of the course) that I know exactly where we are and how far we have to go. But it could be bad since we all know that by mile 19 I will be exhausted and knowing my house is so close and EXACTLY how far we still have left to go could backfire on me. I'm hoping that the strong crowd support on this part of the course will help take my mind of it.

Since the temps were so cool when I headed out (36 degrees, feels like 30) I decided to use this short run to test out my final outfit for Sunday, right down to the underwear and earrings. So here it is. This is what I'll be wearing before I check my bag in the morning. When I check my bag, the jacket will go too. If you are wandering around before the race (or after) and see someone who looks like this, come say hello.

During the race, I'll be wearing black capris, a black singlet, and a lavendar long sleeved tech shirt. Also a black earband. Oh and BLUE gloves. Totally does not match, but if you see someone running in a lavender, Easter-egg colored shirt with BLUE non-matching gloves, run up to me and say hi.

Here I am practicing for Sunday. Look how fast I look!

I also made a final decision not to take anything that goes around my waist, which means I have to pin my Gu to my body. Since my singlet is super-long, it covered up the 5 Gu's that were pinned to my waistband and kept them from bouncing. I wore the Gu's on my run to make sure they wouldn't bother me and it was fine. I barely knew they were there and when I need one, I can just rip it off the pin. Brilliant!

It looks weird here, but when I pull down the shirt, you can't even see them.

It was a beautiful afternoon for a run and since I was going short and slow I grabbed my camera as I headed out. I was happy I did so I could capture some pics of my final training run for Philly and also so those of you who are running this weekend could get an idea of what those miles look like during the race.

This is right by my house headed towards Main Street. I jog on the Towpath below by the canal and hit Main right after the big bridge.

Do you see what I see??

This looks like the opening sequence from "The Office".

It was a great run. I ended up running a nice, short 3.35 miles. As far as slow goes...woops. I ran it in 29:35 for a 8:47 pace. But when I was done, I literally felt like I had barely run at all. I was meaning to go at a much slower 9:45 pace, but I really have a hard time when it's so cold out. My body felt great. For the first time in weeks I wasn't feeling lethargic and my legs felt like new, which made me happy with my decision to only run twice this week so my legs could rest. Those 3.35 miles were just the boost of confidence I needed to get my mind back on track for Sunday. Now I can't wait.

Tomorrow we head to the expo around 11am and then to the Reading Market to fill up on Chicken Noodle soup for lunch. Those of you from out of town looking for a place to eat, I highly suggest heading there. You can get there from inside the convention center and they have every kind of food you could possible want.

I'm sure I'll post again tomorrow night after the expo (cause I am in kooky, marathon-mode) but for those of you who don't have computer access tomorrow, J and I will be hanging out before the race by the huge fountain in front of the Art Museum steps (when we aren't in line for a port-o-potty). If any of you are around, wander by and try to find us.

Good luck!!! :)

Philadelphia Marathon Roll Call

2008-11-18T19:33:00.001-08:00
It's getting closer!!! Eek!

Jeremy went to the press conference yesterday for the Philadelphia Marathon. He is doing research for them, so all you runners be sure to fill out the online survey after the marathon, J wrote it. I am also supposed to remind people that the same question is asked three or four different ways on purpose. Apparently marathon runners like to complain about this stuff after filling out the surveys. But it's for a very scientific purpose! I have no idea why, something about the control group and blah, blah, blah...research stuff. So there, just in case you were wondering.

So apparently when Mayor Nutter saw a poster with the marathon's famous tagline hanging at the press conference, he wasn't too happy. He even made some remark about not using the ad agency again next year.

How dumb is that? Yeah, with everything that goes on in this city, that's really what the Mayor needs to be worried about. That the posters may or may not reference the word ASS.

And is this the first time he has seen this? The campaign has been up for months!

Anyway, enough about that. Who's excited about Sunday?!!?! I finally got my bib number yesterday: 6591. Jeremy's is 6590. I'm pretty sure they will have a tracking system on the website.

Jeremy is still feeling pretty crummy, but we are hopeful he will start feeling better soon. And luckily, it has not been passed to me yet. I'm sure I will get sick as a dog as soon as I cross that finish line...

So I can't believe how many bloggers are running Philly this year. I just wanted to do a quick roll call and give a shout out to anyone who is running this weekend.

First, there is Lil Runner who is making a game day decision on doing the full or the half. She is running her very first Philly marathon (or half marathon) for two. Maybe one day, years from now, they can run it again and she can tell tales about the day they ran it together in '08 (and Jr gave her that damn side stitch...that went away at mile 2 of course).

joyRuN is running her very first marathon this Sunday in Philly just days after her birthday. She's been training like mad, running great and I think she's the one person who is suffering from taper madness more than I am right now. She's going to do awesome!

Actually, Denise is suffering from a bit of taper madness as well (posting weather updates and last minute gel changes on her daily posts, anyone?). Ha, I think we all can relate. I just recently started reading her blog, but it's great. She is running really strong and is going to kick butt (asphalt) in her first marathon on Sunday.

Flyers26 is running his training runs so fast lately, I am starting to wonder if he is half-Kenyan. He's also running his first 26.2 on Sunday and I think this guy is going to blow us all away.

Then of course there is Ted, who was on a bit of a hiatus the past couple of weeks (we didn't forget about you!). He claimed in his last post that he was feeling a bit negative lately but I think we all sort of get there a little bit towards the end of training. Don't let that attitude fool you, Ted is a fantastic runner and going to rock this marathon.

Program2000 had to drop down to the half due to an achilles issue (I feel you, I had to do the same thing last January) but he has been feeling good and is ready to go on Sunday. Lets send him and his achilles good, healing vibes... Just think, a half-marathon just means your lucky butt will be able to drink a beer that much faster than the rest of us! Save me one!!!

And in our cheering section, we have ShoreTurtle (who's blog we still love even though he went to Michigan *shudder*). ShoreTurtle is not running on Sunday, but he has run it in the past. He is also thoughtful enough to get his butt out of bed on a freezing Sunday morning to run to various locations along the course and cheer on strangers all day. That's a true runner right there. With my friends and family being so far away, it makes me happy to know there will be at least one person out there cheering for us.

If I forgot anyone, let me know. Also, anyone running Philly (or another race) feel free to leave a bib number so we can track each other. Does everyone have their outfit planned yet? I want to know what I am looking for while I am out there.

And I know that this is a big race, but there has got to be a place where we can meet up. J and I have to go to the expo on Saturday morning/early afternoon and then are grabbing some lunch at the market (right next door). Maybe an expo meet up or possibly an after-the-race-pic on the Art Museum steps or in front of Rocky? Let me know if anyone is in.

Dodging a Bullet

2008-11-16T14:32:00.001-08:00
I woke up Friday morning exhausted and achy. You know that feeling you get right before you get the flu: your legs feel heavy, your head is dizzy and every few minutes you get that wave of achiness that engulfs your insides? That was me.

I literally kept telling myself (out loud) that I wasn't going to get sick. There was no way I was going to let my body do this to me after all the training I have done for this race. It's bad enough I had to drop out of my second marathon in Miami last January due to IT band issues, I wasn't going to let this happen again. With all the disappointments I have faced in the past year, I didn't think I could handle this one.

So I chalked it up to Taper Madness, grabbed my new shoes and went on my 7 mile run.

And a funny thing happened, while I was still pretty lethargic throughout the run, all the other symptoms mysteriously went away. I figured I really was losing my mind.

Then Jeremy came home.

Poor thing. He has been coughing up a lung since Friday. He's really been sick and while he says he is feeling better today and that he thinks it's moving through him pretty fast, I can tell he still feels like crap. I can hear him hacking right now on the floor below me as I type this. I think he will be OK by gameday, but it's still a really sh*tty time to get a cold.

Needless to say, I have been downing this stuff like it's green beer on St Patricks Day.

I'm not taking any chances. The last thing I need is for him to get all better and then I wake up Saturday morning feeling like crap. I already think I started to sort of come down with it, I just don't know why it never manifested itself.

So we skipped our last long run together on Saturday morning so he could rest and I ventured out this morning by myself. It kind of sucked doing our last run of the training by myself, since we started this thing together, but since it was only 8.4 miles, it wasn't a big deal.

The run was OK, but like all the other runs I have had the past 2-3 weeks, I felt very sluggish the entire time. Especially the first 2 miles. I am really going to try to take it easy this week and let myself rest. I think I will do 2 more shorter runs (4-6 miles) and maybe 30 minutes on the elliptical. That will be it. I am also serious about getting plenty of sleep this week which I think is what messed me up so much last week. I'm all out of wack. One night I'll get 5.5 hours and the next I'll get 10. I need to even it out.

Other than that, all is good. Weather.com is showing the weather for Sunday on the 10 day forecast now, so guess who is on weather.com every other 5 minutes? It went from Sunny and 52, to 42 and snow showers. Now it is at a high of 48 and sunny, which I think is pretty perfect. Please don't change mighty weather.com God.

Lastly, I noticed this new Disney movie, Bolt the other day. It seems as though I have seen these characters somewhere before...

Monday, 11/10 - 7 miles/1:04:50 - 9:13
Tuesday, 11/11 - off
Wednesday, 11/12 - off
Thursday, 11/13 - off
Friday, 11/14 - 7 miles/ 1:03:19 - 9:02 pace
Saturday, 11/15 -off
Sunday, 11/16 - 8.4 miles/1:18:10 - 9:15 pace

Total Weekly Mileage: 22.3 (RUN)
Total Weekly Mileage: 0 (BIKE)

When did blogger turn into a dirty old man?

2008-11-12T19:44:00.000-08:00
So last week I was reading one of my very favorite non-running blogs when I happened upon this hilarious post.

I didn't think much about it until I went to comment on Natalie's blog a few days ago and this little beauty popped up.

Um, excuse me? That's what she said?

What is going on with Blogger lately? Do you think this is like when the Disney animators get bored and end up giving animated characters hard-ons on the sly to see if anyone will notice? Crazy computer nerds.

Anyway, this past week has been pretty busy. Jeremy and I did one of our last long runs on Saturday and it was not pretty. We decided to jazz things up a bit by running through Wissahickon Park (the place where all the pretty leaf pictures were taken a few weeks back). I usually love running through this park, but neither one of us were feeling it on Saturday. I think the fact that it's not paved, it's pretty hilly and it was 20 degrees warmer than our last couple of long runs really did us in. We ended up running it at a 10mm pace (12 miles/2:01/10:00 pace) which is the slowest I have run any run in awhile. The sad part is, it felt like we were running waaaaaaay faster than that. We both thought so. Not the motivational run we were hoping for so close to the big day.

So that night we decided to drown our sorrows with some friends from Jersey who drove to our hood and spent the night. We made a ton of food before we went out, then bar-hopped up and down Main Street for a couple of hours. Much like our run earlier in the day, it was not pretty, at least not on Sunday. It was fun though.

Sunday we sat on the couch. All. Day. Nuff said.

Monday I ventured out for another run. I decided to do a 7 miler up the bike path since I don't have as much time to run it as I would like now that it's dark earlier. I headed out for what I thought was going to be an amazing run, but much like the debacle on Saturday, my body just felt heavy and sluggish. It may have been the remaining Absolut that was trying desperately to escape my pores while I was running, but I chalked it up to end-of-training exhaustion. While my pace wasn't bad (7 miles/1:04:50/9:15 pace) I just struggled the whole time. Blah.

Afterwards I walked up to Main Street for a snazzy new hairdo. Haven't had a cut since June and it was desperately needed.

Sorry about my scary stalker-eyes in that last picture...EEK!

The rest of the week has been spent working, which has been getting busier and busier by the day. I really love my new job, but I really wish they would hire me full-time not only for more money, but also because I feel like I could get so much more done and not feel as rushed by working 5 days instead of 3. Oh well. Maybe someday soon.

Here's a picture I took the other day while I was waiting for the train.

I may go for a run tomorrow night on Main again after work, or just wait until Friday and get in another 7 or 8.5. Our last "long run" is this Saturday (8 miles) and since we are going to go pretty easy, I don't mind running two days in a row. Wow, it's so close!!!

Here are my runs from last week since I was too lazy (hungover) this weekend to post.

Monday, 11/03 - 8.4 miles/1:14:53 - 8:52
Tuesday, 11/04 - off
Wednesday, 11/05 - off
Thursday, 11/06 - 6.5 miles/ 60:18 - 9:16 pace
Friday, 11/07 - off
Saturday, 11/08 - 12 miles/2:01 - 10:00 pace.
Sunday, 11/09 - off

Total Weekly Mileage: 26.9 (RUN)
Total Weekly Mileage: 0 (BIKE)

Beat the Celebrity

2008-11-07T16:32:00.000-08:00
It's that time of year again, time to play our favorite game of the tapering season..."Beat the Celebrity!"

Aren't familiar with the game? It starts when bored marathon runners with nothing to fill all the extra time in their lives while tapering, spend infinite hours on the computer googling anything marathon related. They come across all the celebrities/musicians/politicians/models/famous-for-nothings who have run marathons over the years and make mental notes on which ones they would like to beat in their upcoming race.

I've been playing it for weeks now. It's fun to think that while some of these lucky, good-looking rich bastards may have a lot going for them, I may be able to at least beat their marathon time...or not.

Play along with me...and feel free to add some of your own!

Ryan Reynolds, NYC Marathon, 2008 (3:50)

Cute and fast, Ryan also raised over $80,000 for Team Fox while running his first marathon this year. Swoon.

Beth Ostrosky, NYC Marathon 2008 (4:15:39)

I love Howard Stern and I am super happy for him and his new bride. They truly seem happy together and it was even reported that he was tearing up at the finish when he saw her coming in. To melt Howard's heart, you must be something special. But it also kind of annoys me a little that her goal was 5 hours and she came in at 4:15. How do you come in 45 minutes under what you trained for?!!? It makes me feel a little better knowing she raised money for a good cause, Beth raised $300,000 for the North Shore Animal League. I hope to come in around the same time as her.

Oprah Winfrey, Marine Corps Marathon 1994 (4:29:20)

Everyone's favorite woman to beat, Oprah, ran a pretty respectable time back in '94 and brought a renewed interest to the sport of marathon running. It's safe to say that everyone thought, "If she can do it, I sure as hell can." This is definitely one of my main goals this year...to beat Oprah.

Sean Combs (Puff Daddy, Puffy, P Diddy, P-Douchey...whatever), New York City Marathon 2002 (4:14:54)

Everyone's favorite man to beat. As a matter of fact, when he ran this marathon, his main goal was to beat Oprah! He did that and also raised 2 million for education...making it hard to be annoyed by him for only training two months and still running it so fast. If I beat his time, I will have achieved my Goal A and be really happy.

Lance Armstrong, New York City Marathon 2006 (2:59:36) and 2007 (2:46:42)

What would happen if this guy started swimming too? I'm not beating him.

Katie Holmes, NYC Marathon 2007 - (5:29:58)

Katie Holmes and her nipples ran in 2007. Her time may not be the fasted, but in her defense, she was probably just trying to stay away from that loco husband of hers for as long as she could. The leash is off. RUN KATIE, RUN!!!! Oh sorry, it's KATE now.

Mario Lopez, Boston Marathon 2002 (5:41:41)

Mario Lopez and his nipples ran Boston in 2002 for Big Brothers Big Sisters. He blamed his leisurely pace on a gimp ankle and his slow girlfriend who was holding him back. Sure...I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with that 2 ton ego he's carrying around.

Ali Landry, Boston Marathon 2002 (5:41:41)

The aforementioned "slow" girlfriend. I'm sure it's safe to say most people don't care how fast she can run a marathon.

Will Ferrell, NYC Marathon 2001 (5:01:06), Stockholm Marathon 2002 (4:28:02) Boston Marathon 2003 (3:56:12)

I love Will Farrell (who doesn't?). I also love that he runs with his wife. He ran his first two marathons with her before he ran Boston. I also love that he ran Boston while filming Anchorman, hence the Ron Burgundy mustache. Stay classy, Boston.

George W. Bush, Houston Marathon 1993 (3:44:52)

Dubya may be feeling pretty down since the ENTIRE WORLD is celebrating the fact that he will soon be out of a job and the new President-Elect is the complete opposite of him and his policies. But at least he can find comfort in the fact that he's a pretty decent runner (for the worst president of all time). He even ran a 5k in around 20 minutes when he was 55 years old!!! That's pretty speedy (for the worst president of all time).

Sarah Palin, Humpy's Marathon 2005 (3:59:36)

Speaking of the "Worst of all time"...
Sarah Palin ran a pretty impressive time at the 'ol Humpy's Marathon (why does everything with this women have to be so easy? HUMPY'S marathon?!?!?!, come ON!). I wish I could say I will beat her time, but I just don't see it happening this year. Say what you will about this rootenest-tootenest, pit-bull-kissing, hockey player in drag (or whatever she calls herself), but she runs a good marathon (for the worst Vice Presidential nominee of all time...).

Al Gore, Marine Corps Marathon 1997 (4:58:25)

He ran it by putting one carbon footprint in front of another...

John Edwards, Marine Corps Marathon 1983 (3:30:18)

Look how fast John Edwards is! Maybe he got so speedy from running away from his pissed off wife after she found out he was cheating on her every other week. Whatever training plan works.

Kerri Strug, Houston Marathon 1999 (4:12:06), NYC Marathon 2008 (3:56:06)

I think Kerri may have run a couple more marathons than this, including Boston, but these were the only two times I found. Pretty impressive, but what would you expect from someone who can vault on a broken foot and win a gold medal in the Olympics? She's tough.

Brandi Chastain, NYC Marathon 2008, (4:11:07)

This was Brandi's first full marathon and she ran it with Kerri Strug as ambassadors for the ING Run for Something Better, a program that promotes youth fitness.

Shannon Miller, NYC Marathon 2006 (4:17:33)

I read an article about her training and she said she barely trained, didn't really change her eating, blah, blah, blah...Must be nice to be a natural athlete.

Gordon Ramsey, London Marathon, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 (3:46:10/2006)

I know nothing about Gordon Ramsey and I have never once seen an episode of Hell's Kitchen (I worked in the restaurant industry for 10 years and have had my fair share of screaming cooks). But when I saw that he ran four London Marathons all for Tommy's: The Baby Charity, I thought that was pretty cool.

Kim Alexis, New York City Marathon 1992 (3:51:00)

Not just another pretty face, Kim has run 8 marathons (5 NYC, 2 LA and 1 Jacksonville). That's pretty darn impressive as is her PR in 1992. I wont beat her PR, but hopefully I can beat her '06 NYC time of 4:39:04. That's close to my last marathon time. Kim often runs to raise awareness for Team for Kids.

Lisa Ling, Boston Marathon 2002 (4:34:18)

Lisa ran in 2002 and raised $100,000 for the Ali Pierce Endowment Fund, established to support pediatric cancer research in her late cousin's honor. She was always the smartest one on The View.

Jason Bateman, LA Marathon 2001 (4:57:28), 2002 (4:34:17), 2008 (4:35:22)

I've loved Jason since The Hogan Family and Teen Wolf 2. He may not be getting faster, but he's close to my pace. Which makes me love him even more.

Jonny Lee Miller, London Marathon 2008 (3:01:40)

The former husband of Angelina Jolie and talented actor from Trainspotting is supposedly an insanely dedicated runner who often runs marathons for Mencap. I think it's safe to say I wont be coming in anywhere near this time. At least not this year ;)

Meredith Baxter, New York City Marathon 1982 (4:08:30)

Who knew Mrs. Keaton was a marathon runner? And a pretty good one too!

Joan Van Ark, Santa Ana/Orange Marathon 1979 (3:35:00)

Who knew Valerie Ewing was a marathon runner??? And she was fast as hell. One question though...when did she turn into Michael Jackson?!?!

William Baldwin, New York City Marathon 1992 (3:24:29)

Another fast Baldwin brother.

Anthony Edwards, Chicago Marathon 2003 (3:55:40)

Not bad for a former nerd.

Dana Carvey, Ocean to Bay Marathon 1972 (3:04:21)

This totally doesn't surprise me. He has the body of a runner for sure. I think I also read somewhere that his brother is a running coach.

Kyle Petty, Las Vegas Marathon 2005 (4:16) Walt Disney Marathon 2006 (4:42)

Nope, don't know a thing about NASCAR. But I have read that Petty is an avid runner and ran the marathons as a fundraising effort for this family's Victory Junction Gang charity. I may have to start getting into NASCAR.

Freddie Prinze, Jr., Los Angeles Marathon 2006 (5:50:49)

Not sure what happened to Freddie's time here. It seems to me that he could probably do a little better than that.

David Lee Roth, New York City Marathon 1987 (6:04:43)

Maybe he should have "Jumped" through the course instead of running it. Wait, let me put "running" in quotation marks. Maybe if he wasn't posing like this all the time he could get along faster.

I'm sure there are a million more out there. Feel free to send them to me. Which one of these famed runners do you plan on beating in your next marathon?

A New Light

2008-11-04T17:19:00.000-08:00

J and I live in an area of the city that is filled with younger, 20-somethings that either get up early to go to work or like to sleep in after long nights of drinking. Knowing this, we decided to get up as early as we could to vote, figuring that the polls would be busier later in the day. We totally lucked out. We walked up the street to our polling center and voted right away, no lines at all.

The only glitch I can complain about was that my center didn't have any "I Voted" stickers. How was I supposed to get my free Starbucks/Ben & Jerry's scoop without my sticker?!?!?! GAWD, why did I even bother voting?!?!

(Please know I am totally kidding.)

It makes me happy to think that I will live my life knowing I was able to witness and be a part of such a important event in American history. And ultimately, no matter what happens, I am thoroughly enjoying sitting back and watching the last days of President Bush's presidency tick away. Buh-bye Dubya.

OK, no more political talk.

Yesterday I spent the entire day cleaning my house until 4:00pm when I finally decided to take a break and get in a run. My plan was to do a slow 8.4 mile recovery run after my 20 miler on Saturday. It started out great...until I turned around.

I had been running towards the sunset and when I turned to run back with over 4 miles to go, I suddenly realized how dark it had gotten. Not only that, but I was running on the bike path, in the woods, with the last mile REALLY in the woods. AND there was NO ONE out for some reason. I wont lie, It was really freaking me out. I don't mind running in the dark when I am in civilization, but I was in the middle of nowhere and it was getting dark fast!

I ended up picking up the pace and the last two miles I really had to book it. By the time I got to the last mile (deep in the woods) it was really dark and I was having trouble seeing. Not only was I scared of people jumping out and killing me, I was scared of tripping over a rock or root and breaking my own neck. Oh, and don't forget the Blair Witch. I was scared of that bitch too.

So my "recovery run" that was supposed to be a 9:20-9:30mm pace, was really a 8.52mm pace (8.43 miles/1:14:53). I actually felt great running hard at the end but it wasn't worth the panic attack I was having thinking Jason, Michael and Freddy were all chasing me through the dark, scary woods. I wont be making that mistake again.