I Love My Life

It's Friday and the-gang-minus-one-plus-two are heading to Quartz Creek to camp for the weekend. This trip marks the inaugural voyage of the '66 Clark Cortez motorhome we recently purchased (on a whim). Teg is staying in town and working and barbecuing (minus-one) and we have my niece and nephew from California with us (plus-two).

This is the man who happily bought the '66 Clark Cortez with me.

It's older than we are. And the interior is the color of his shirt. Nick and I are a perfect match. I don't know anyone else who loves orange and green as much as I do.

That's our shed/playhouse. Told you we love green. The paint color prompted my dad to say, "I just don't get you."

Personally, I think my mother is to blame since my baby crib and dresser were avocado green with orange flowers.

Anyhoodle, we are off to camp in our retro motorhome with the Pacemaker, SuperCool and kids. They are part of the added bonus of training for our first marathon; we have made some great new friends. I am planning to run up at the campground, we have a 50 minute run scheduled for tomorrow. We'll see how that goes...

Operation Chubby Bubby Phase 2

With less than eight weeks to go until the Humpy's Half Marathon, I put together a potential training schedule.

Ouch. I am sweating just thinking about it.

The schedule might be aggressive (I would love your comments on this), but I have three goals for this segment of my training:

1. Improve my speed. I would like to finish under 2:30. Don't laugh. To all my non-runner friends, trust me, this is slow. Speed walkers will (and have) beat me.

2. Lose 10 more pounds. To my runner friends and coaches, yes, I know, training is not time to lose weight, but this is a journey from chubby-bubby to athlete, remember?

3. To not run into another dead baby T-Rex.

At least, that's what I thought it was in the dark. In Hawaii. Delirious from a 10 mile run in the heat and humidity. In the dark. Did I mention it was dark?

The Longest Three Miles

How is it that three miles can feel SO hard, so long, so UPHILL, so are-you-kidding-me-with-this-huffing-and-puffing, and so darn sweaty when the first 15 miles of a marathon seemed so easy?

We ran 29 minutes last night, 2.9 miles. My feet had swollen two sizes by the time we were done. And somehow, I managed to sweat away every last bit of hydration I have taken in since the marathon.

H-Bomb ran with us. He actually ran ahead of us, behind us, around us, up hills next to us, further than us, and still managed to beat us to the end. It's good to be 14.

He just told me he wants to do a marathon with me next year. He wants to qualify for Boston. It almost brought a tear to my eye, but I had no body fluid left.

I think he can qualify for Boston if he sticks to his training. Even if he wants to qualify just for the trip.

I love my son.

Damage Assessment

The good news is that we feel much better than we anticipated after our first marathon.

The bad news is that further inspection of my Fred-Flintstone-Feet revealed another grey toenail this morning.

No, it is not a fungus. It is the result of my freakishly-fat-feet pounding into the toe of my running shoes for 26 miles.

My left foot took the beating on the tank trails:

It doesn't look too bad, but that second toenail is just floating on a blister right now.

My right foot looks pretty good:

The purple toenail is from a training run.

My feet are nothing compared to the Pacemaker's foot. She has a purple blister the size of a small lime.

Ouch.

Pedicure, anyone?

26.2

We did it. We actually did it. We ran 26.2 miles. I promise to tell you all about it right after I soak my feet in ice, examine my blisters, ponder the toenail that is peeling off, exchange back rubs with Nick, recover from marathon brain and cuss the tank trails one more time.

In the meanwhile...here are a few highlights thanks to our friends along the trail:

Our friends Dena and Bill met us at mile 17.8 and refilled our water bottles:


It was an amazingly joyous feeling to see friends nearly 18 miles into our run, especially after the dreaded eight miles of tank trails.

At mile 21, we came around a corner to find another friend (and amazing photographer), Teresa.

Our friend Gia and her two girls were just around the corner at mile 21.2 with encouraging words.

We had a gaggle of good friends and family at the finish line, and the sight of all of their familiar faces meant more than I can express right now.

Thank you to all of our friends and family for your support, your donations, and your feigned interest in our nine millionth discussion of running, training, and marathons.

Anonymous

I have no idea who you are, but thank you for the $1000.00 donation to LLS for the marathon.

Wow.

For once (just once) in my life, I am speechless.

Keeping it Light

The big race is just three days away and I am more than a little nervous. Right now I am seriously questioning the wisdom of having shared our plans with everyone we know. On the up side, it is very motivating to know that several hundred people know what we are doing this coming Saturday. If we had kept this a secret, it might be tempting to just sleep in and forget the whole thing.

The kids helped keep things light with Tortilla-Tuesday.

From Kids

Obviously, the apples did not fall far from the trees.

Bad, Bad Girl

Ohhh I owe you a couple posts. Will write soon. Promise. Promise-Serious. Promise-Serious-Evan-Pinky-Swear.

Here are the highlights:

May 23 we did our longest run yet! I made it 17.5 miles, Nick did 19. He ran further than I did because he was the knight in shining armour and doubled back to warn our fellow teammates of the mother bear and two cubs on Campbell Airstrip Road.

On May 31 I ran 11.2 miles (we are now tapering down to rest our bodies for the race)BY MYSELF at a 9:50 pace. This is amazing because: I normally run very slow when I am alone AND because last November I ran a measly 5k with a pace over 14:30. (Actual athletes may insert laughter here).

Anyhoodle, details soon:) Every sweaty one of them.