Marathon! and family visit too :)

2 weeks ago, I ran my 5th full marathon. Mom and Matthew made the trip out for the weekend to enjoy the beautiful AZ weather and see me run. They flew on Thursday night and on Friday, Matthew came to school with me to do a presentation on food chemistry to our honors chemistry classes at North Canyon. He did great and the kids loved him! We went out to lunch at America's Taco Shop, then headed to the race expo to pick up my goodie bags and race number. Friday night was the American Cancer Society team dinner in Tempe which was great. It really put into perspective why I ran the race and how many people will benefit from the money Team DetermiNation raised. Saturday, we drove out to Apache Junction and did some light hiking/sightseeing in Lost Dutchman State Park. We got some lunch at Dilly Deli and then came home to watch football. Keeper made me an awesome pasta dinner on Saturday night :)

The race went well overall. I raised $1,725.00 for the American Cancer Society as part of Team DetermiNation and I had a huge marathon PR of about 32 minutes. The last marathon I had run was in 2008 in San Diego, before I started coaching and running with high school kids...needless to say I guess all the training paid off. It was pretty to cool to be running my 5th marathon on the 5th anniversary of the first one I ran...and it was the same race! It feels like forever when I flew out here (in 2006) with Jen & Andrew and we stayed with the Bronders in Tempe for race weekend. The course was pretty much the same and it was neat to know exactly where I was at all times. Keeper got up early with me on race morning so we could head downtown for my charity team's pre-race "warm zone". A local Mexican restaurant had donated their "space" to us on race morning. It was awesome to have a meeting place, breakfast (NOT Mexican food, normal running food), and most importantly, CLEAN, FLUSHABLE TOILETS to use pre-race. No lines for port-a-potties that had run of toilet paper (and smelled)!!! At 7am, the marathon runners marched down to the start as a big group and I jumped in my corral. The first 6 miles were nice, I was just getting into the groove...I saw some coaches from my group a little after mile 5, and then I saw Mom, Matthew, and Keeper right around the 10k mark of the course. The race ran literally a half a block from our condo. The next few miles were nice as I ran through my "hood" and down through the Biltmore area and across Camelback Rd to Scottsdale. I saw another ACS coach around mile 14 and I was feeling great. I was doing pretty well until mile 20 ish. I saw my coach at mile 20.5 and I thought I could hang on to my pace for the rest of the race....but marathons are not exactly like that. After awhile, EVERYTHING starts to hurt and you just resort to putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to cramp up. You dump packets of salt on your tongue because you feel your calf muscles spasm-ing. You feet hurt and you feel a blister squish and pop around mile 23 (gross!). I did have to slow down the last 5 miles but nothing cramped up completely and I still finished at a decent time. I was SO GLAD to be done. After a painful walk back to the car and a shower at home, I happily consumed my favorite post-marathon meal: a giant burger, fries, and a beer. Mission accomplished.

December...in a nutshell

Sorry for not posting in...a month. Here goes...

In early December I ran my 8th half marathon as part of my marathon training. I ran the Fiesta Bowl 1/2 Marathon in Scottsdale and had a great race. I PR'd by about 7 minutes. I also did my 2nd 20 mile training run. Training was going so well that I did not take it easy after my hard race. I , instead, thought it would be good for my beat-up, 30-yr-old body to keep running (faster than I should have) the following week with my 16 & 17 yr old cross country runners. Needless to say, I was forced to take a few weeks easy and skip some long runs to nurse a sore hamstring. I think the rest was much needed, as the marathon training was, really, taking over my life. I got back in the yoga studio and have been adding more rest/cross training days...things I should have been doing all along. Oh well. Live & learn.

Our 4th East Coast Xmas Trip was a welcome distraction from intense marathon training. I flew into BWI on Monday, the 20th of December. My college friend was kind of enough to pick me up from the airport and drive me up to York. After a nap (that red-eye was rough), I drove up to the Tillinghammers' house to spend a few days with my nephews. The boys are doing great and are so much fun. We caravan-ed back to York on Wednesday night so that Mom and I could get up early on Thursday and drive back down to Baltimore to pick up Keeper. It was good to spend a few days at my parents' with everyone. Blake was especially into xmas lights this year and we had a fun car ride looking for blow-up Snoopy displays. Christmas Eve was spent doing the traditional "fancy" dinner with my parents, sisters & significant others, then church, then up to Grandma & Pap's for the late night feast with Aunts/Uncles/Cousins. It was really fun. On Xmas day everyone came to York to visit us and it was good seeing everyone.

Keeper and I woke up VERY early on the 26th to drive up to Connecticut. There was a blizzard on the way and we wanted to beat the storm (which we did). We saw the house in Milford, CT for the first time and it is beautiful. I loved being right across the street from the water.We also got to meet our nephew, Oscar, for the first time. What a cutie. The blizzard hit and we happily stayed inside to drink wine, play board games, and watch football. We didn't get hit that bad on the coast and were able to drive up to Boston on Tuesday, the 28th to visit our niece and nephews. On Wednesday, we drove around some surrounding towns and then headed down to Brooklyn. We were completely surprised at the lack of plowing 3 days after the snowstorm. Corbin's street (and several surrounding ones) hadn't been touched. We luckily found a street parking spot...right in front of the projects. We had fun seeing friends & family for dinner & drinks in Brooklyn.

By Thursday morning we were pretty exhausted from all the traveling so we decided to just head back to my parents'. We got there in late afternoon and spent a quiet evening playing Office Clue with Joy & Adam (VERY fun version of Clue--I highly recommend). New Year's Eve was spent at my parents' doing the now traditional Chinese take-out and steamed shrimp. We did make it past midnight this year and we did make up to Grandma & Pap's the next day for pork & sauerkrout. My flight left BWI on Saturday night and went back alone, as I had school on Monday and Keeper spent the week back in Connecticut visiting with doctors. He also got to go to the Jets-Bills game with his dad, which was really fun for him.

Although the weather was much milder this year compared to last year, I was still glad to back to Phoenix. Winter is the best here!