PF Chang's Part Deux

One thing that made it easier to leave family on the east coast after the Christmas visits was knowing that J & A would be coming out in less than a week. We picked them up at the airport on Friday, January 11th a good two hours later than expected. After we fed them a late night dinner prepared by Chef Keeper, we all went to bed.

Saturday morning we hit up a farmer's market at Road Runner Park and bought wild-caught salmon, salsa, jelly, etc. Then we checked out REI's sale (unimpressed, we left with only some GU and Clif Shots). We headed downtown to the Convention Center for the Race Expo. A and I got our race numbers, chips, t-shirts/goody bags and decided the Expo was mayhem and opted to eat lunch instead of shop. We went down to Tempe to Keeper and I's favorite lunch spot: Dilly Deli (thank you Bronders, for introducing this place to me exactly 2 years ago, the day before my debut marathon!) After lunch, J and I claimed the couch and passed out (picture to come later) before moving the nap party to my room. It is nice to have someone to be lazy with!

Sunday morning: Race Day!!! A and I were up early, eating breakfast and getting dressed (i e finding nasty, old long-sleeve t-shirts to throw away after the race started) . Keeper drove us down to the start village and we saw the marathoners take off. I can't tell you how great it felt to "only" be running the 1/2. We wandered around and found water and bagels, stood in line for nasty port-o-pots and jumped in our start corral. We ran the first 5k together then I realized A's pace was a little too much for me and I decided to slow down and lost him in the masses. It was really cool to run the race as a citizen of Phoenix, because I knew exactly where I was at all points during the race. I thought my 8:30+ pace for the first five miles might be a bit too ambitious, so I slowed to around 9:00 miles the next 5 miles and, feeling great at mile 10 (a first!), I decided to push it the last 5k. My last two splits were exactly 8:30s. I finished strong with a PR (I hadn't PR'd in almost 3 years!!!) of 1:56:14. This was a full 6 minutes faster than the 1/2 marathon I ran at the end of October....feels great! I met up with the fam at the "Y" section of the "Family Reunion Area" and found out A had finished 4 minutes in front of me. Great Race! We happily sucked our popsicles and headed to the car, passing by mile 25 of the marathon to cheer on the finishers. After showers and ice baths (which although torturous, help tremendously) we headed to Pei Wei for a post-race feast. Once again, J and I passed out on the couch after being well-fed and the rest of the day was spent lounging. J & A left Monday morning and it really was a great visit, although much too short. I was hoping the snowstorm back east would've been a little bigger and they could be "stuck" here for an extra day. No luck. We are already planning a March rendezvous, place: TBA.

Holiday Travels

I'm back out west now, after 2 weeks on the east coast. I guess Keeper and I are going to have to deal with holiday travel absolutely sucking ass the next few years... because we don't have much of a choice in the meantime. We left for Baltimore on Saturday, December 22nd. Our 10am flight from Phoenix to Chicago didn't end up leaving until well past noon (fog in Chicago). We got to Chicago and learned our flight to Baltimore had been canceled and there wasn't another one until Sunday morning. We refused to accept this and tried other airports in the PA vicinity and got on a flight to Philly that was supposed to leave around 8:30pm. It should be noted that BWI is only an hour from my parents' house and Philly is a two hour trip. Nice. We finally left Chicago at 11:30pm. That put us in Philly, sans luggage (of course) at well after 2am. Thanks to Mom and Andrew for trekking out there in the middle of the night for us. After sleeping in on Sunday, Keeper and I made a trip to TJ Maxx for some underwear and shirts to hold us over until our luggage arrived. It finally made it at 5:30am Christmas Eve morning.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family. Andrew and I did a 12 mile run mid-morning and then we had a huge dinner with my family. We went to church and then headed up to my grandparents' house for late night snacks and visiting with my aunt, uncle and cousin. Christmas Day was spent at my parents' house. After a morning run with Mom and Joy, both Mom and Dad's families came over at various times throughout the day and we really did get to see everyone. Yay!!

On Wednesday Keeper and I flew into West Palm Beach to spend a few days with Dad and Cookie. Although I was glad to get back to warm weather, I really wasn't expecting the mid-80s with high humidity. I guess we are just spoiled now, but both times I ran in Florida SUCKED because I wasn't used to humidity! Keeper played some golf Thursday morning and we went out to dinner Thursday night at City Place. Friday the two of us rented a car to drive out to the gulf side of Florida to see Keeper's mom, grandparents, and aunt and uncle for a day. We somehow lucked out with the rental car and ended up with a black Pontiac Solstice convertible and it was really fun to drive. We spent all of 24 hours in the Tampa area and then headed back to the east coast. On Sunday, I played my first 9 holes of golf. I had fun and it was a positive experience overall (especially since I was allowed to tee off numerous times on the fairway and we only kept my score for 2 holes).

On New Year's Eve we drove to down to the Everglades for a 2 hour tram ride to see some birds and gators. It was a really great time despite our way-too-chatty tour guide. She kept promising to "be quiet for a few minutes and let us view on our own...." but that never happened. Oh well. I want to go back again next year and rent bikes to ride. We had dinner outside of Miami and then headed back to Palm Beach Gardens for a heated game of Trivia and watching the ball drop on TV.

On Tuesday I was supposed to have a direct flight from PBI back to BWI. It shouldn't be much of a surprise to learn that AirTran oversold the flight and I got bumped, leaving me with a much later flight out of PBI and a connection in Atlanta. My plans to see family at my grandparents' house on New Year's Day were shot. Keeper's flight to Tampa got delayed, he then missed his connection and finally got back to Phoenix much later than expected. I did get some compensation for my troubles and those 2 free tickets will certainly come in handy this summer/fall. I spent Wednesday to Saturday back in York with my family. I did some tax-free clothes shopping with my sisters (yay, PA!) on Wednesday, and spent some time with Pappy, Grandma, and Grandmom on Thursday and Friday. It was nice to have a few days at home playing with Cooper (see right) and spending time with my little sister who was home on college break and my parents. We got up at the butt crack of dawn (well middle of the night) so that I could make my 6am flight out of BWI on Saturday morning and now I am back to the land of 60 degree weather with no humidity. School started back up for me today as well as soccer practice in the mud...we have 7 games left of our season and I'd like to pull a few more wins out.

Long Overdue Post #1: Thanksgiving

I am aware that it has been more than 2 months since our last post, but all I can say is....soccer season started. Keeper has been busy with school (and doing great!) and I have been coaching; some weeks both varsity and jv, as the head coach's wife just had their first baby on December 12th. I am having a lot of fun with the girls and as usual, soccer season makes my teaching experience in general more fun.


We only had Thursday and Friday off from school for Thanksgiving so we opted not to travel. On Thanksgiving, I ran a 10 mile Turkey Trot out in Peoria. The race took place at the baseball spring training facility where the Mariners and Padres play. The picture to the right is of "Spike", the mascot for the 2008 Super Bowl. I thought it was pretty neat that he graced us with his presence. The picture to the left is of me finishing the race on the field. It wasn't a very exciting course (out and back) but I really like the 10 mile distance and any run on a holiday where much pigging out will follow the race is fine with me. We didn't actually do much else on T-day after the race because our guest wasn't getting in town until Friday.

K's mom flew on Friday and we went out to lunch and then relaxed the rest of the day. Our Thanksgiving feast took place on Saturday and Keeper did an excellent job with the cooking (with a little guidance from Mom). Gayle and I did some shopping while Keeper slaved away in the kitchen.... my kind of holiday! Sunday we took Gayle to the Desert Botanical Gardens. We decided to get a yearly membership so any of you who come out to visit can expect a trip there since a) it's a really cool place and b) we now have tons of guest passes.
We enjoyed the gardens again, and Gayle's visit in general. It was my first Thanksgiving not spent with my family and my grandparents' house and that was very hard for me. It was nice to see some family.