(Half) Marathon Man

The runners about to head to the starting line. It was just a little chilly.

This spring, Matt signed me up for the Peachtree Road Race. The day after I found out I'd been lottery-issued a race number, I laced up my sneakers and hit the road to start training. Remember? Then there was the actual running of the World's Largest 10k back in July. Well, the oddest thing happened after that race. I just... kept running. Turns out, I kind of like it. It's really good exercise.

But I'm the kind of person that always does better with a goal. I thrive on New Year's Resolutions. I enjoy a good to-do list. So after upping my mileage to seven miles, eight... I started thinking. Would a half marathon be in the realm of possibility for me? Matt signed up for the Atlanta Thanksgiving Day Half Marathon and I casually mentioned to my brother that he should run it too. Then he upped the ante by throwing the challenge right back at me. The idea was already in the back of my mind, but once again, I knew I would need someone next to me pounding the pavement. It's all well and good to say Lukas, Matt and I would run the Half together, but "together" would pretty much only go as far as the starting line, then those two would leave me in the dust.

So I took a leap and put it out on Facebook... anyone want to run a half marathon with me? Lo and behold, I quickly got a reply. It turns out my friend Kelly was looking for a reason to kick up her training. Suddenly it was game on! The long runs slowly increased - nine miles, ten... I got myself some fancy new award-winning running shoes, Matt ordered me some running gloves. The morning I ran 10 miles in 42-degree weather and still felt able to function afterwards, that's when I finally figured this might all actually happen! That week Kelly finished her 10-mile training run and our pace was only five seconds apart. I was hopeful that I wouldn't slow her down too much!

My running buddy. (Thanks for the official photo, Atlanta Track Club!)

Thanksgiving morning, we were up at 4:30. We picked up Kelly and Lukas and headed downtown. It was dark. And cold. Although the cool thing about this race is that as you heat up and discard layers, the race officials collect the old clothing, clean it and donate it all to the Atlanta Mission for the homeless. Anyway, we hung around the portable heaters, waiting for the race to start, trying to keep from freezing. Finally it was time to take our places. Matt headed up front to Wave A. Lukas was just a few steps behind him. And I had taken a leap of faith and signed up for the two hour pace team to get myself into Wave B with Kelly. The music blared, the announcers were pumping us up, the sky was brightening with every minute. I had this crazy moment of anxiety as we started walking towards the starting line. This was it. My knees had been acting up the last two weeks, I hadn't gotten in the runs I'd wanted to, I didn't want to let Kelly down. I had less fear of not finishing (I figured I could make it to the end) and more fear of how I would make it there. It was almost exactly eight months since I first laced up my running shoes back in March.

Moving towards the starting line!

And then we started running. And my muscle memory took over. The familiar songs came through my earbuds, my legs started pumping without me telling them what to do. The miles just started ticking away and my brain just ignored the fact that I'd repeating this motion for two hours. Now and then we'd pass the cheering spectators, little kids holding inspiring signs like "you can do this!" that made me tear up a little - I was oddly emotional during the run. Part of me couldn't believe this was happening while my body just kind of did its thing like it was no big deal. Kelly and I were step in step the whole way, taking on the hills (which were nothing compared the roads I've been training on) and keeping the two hour pace team in sight. When I crossed the 10 mile marker and took one more step I turned to Kelly and announced that I was now officially running more than I ever had before. The familiar music kept pounding in my ears and my legs just kept going.

It was key having a running buddy by my side. Kelly definitely kept up the pace for me and since she showed no inclination of wanting to slow down or take a walk break, I didn't either, something I probably would have done had I been by myself. Using the same music that I'd been training with for the last few months also helped - my legs had a Pavlovian reaction to the tunes. By mile 11 and a half, my knees were starting to hurt and I was just ready to get to the finish line. We hit a patch of dull pavement sparsely populated by spectators and it was time to put down down my head, watch my feet churning over the pavement, and just grit my teeth and go. By mile 12 I was getting texts from people at the finish line. Finally we rounded a corner and saw the end in sight. Kelly took off, determined to get ahead of the two hour pace team. I started drifting left when I got a text from Virginia saying she and Chitra had formed a cheering section for us just across the finish line.

We did it!

And just like that, it was done! Goal accomplished! It was an amazing feeling, coupled with a sweet medal and bragging rights, made all the sweeter for being greeted by so much family at the end. Who would had thought I'd one day run a half marathon. Who would have thought I'd even want to! The official time came in - 13.1 miles in two hours and two seconds. I'll be honest, that was way better than I thought it would be! I'd been telling people my goal was just to get to the finish line. But to do it in two hours... I must really be a runner!

When I showed my students, they were all "You won?!" and I did nothing to change that impression. I DID win!

The cheering squad!

So now that I have my half marathon bling, what do I do now? Keep running? Take a break? Sign up for another race? Kelly wants to train for a full marathon but I'm not sure I'm quite there yet. Perhaps the Triple Peach (10k, 10-Mile, Half-Marathon) next year? Who knows... All I know is, I just keep lacing up those running shoes.

Race Day!

Back in April, when I found out the race entry lottery Matt entered me had indeed yielded me a Peachtree Road Race number, I immediately wished I'd entered the Powerball lottery instead. I kid! I was excited. I haven't run a race since the last Peachtree I ran eight years ago with Matt and my dad. And after watching Matt train so diligently for his half marathon and become quite the runner in the process, I wanted a turn to lace up my own shoes and hit the pavement.

I've slowly been transforming myself into a "runner" of sorts. There was the downloading of the Nike+ Training app, the trip to Big Peach Running to get professionally fitted for the proper shoes, the purchasing of running related accessories like the ear buds and flip belt. There have been runs around the neighborhood (hilly) and runs at the Greenway (beautiful) and runs in the rain. I even managed to squeeze in runs while both girls were in the water at swim practice. I've done squats and more squats to try to fend off runner's knee injuries. I've picked up a random yoga routine here and there and marveled that I was ever able to do this three times a week - yoga is hard!

And all this effort, the work, the knee pain... it was all leading to July 4 and the famed Peachtree Road Race 10k. My knees had been bothering me (I sound like such an old lady) so I hadn't been on anything long than a one mile jaunt around the 'hood for the last two weeks, and I'd only managed two or three of those as it was. The longest distance I'd ever hit was four miles, and every big distance had always led to protesting joints. Hit 5k, take two weeks off to heal. Hit four miles, end up on the coach for ten days, etc. While I knew I could go the distance, I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it without crying into my kneecaps. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I watched the days tick down on the calendar.

On Marta, heading to the expo for our numbers. Game faces on.

                                  

We decided to take Marta to the expo as our dry run. We bought our tickets for the next day as well, which proved to be a wise decision when we saw the lines trying to navigate the ticket machines the next day. The expo was crowded, with offerings from running clothes to "energy" jelly beans. Matt picked up his number in the Wave A booth. It had a few fast, fit looking people lined up. I picked up my number in the Wave W booth. The people in line with me, lets just say they didn't look like the people waiting with Matt. Although I figured they would be good company for me and my knees. We took our numbers, signed the wall and headed home.

The road would prove to be as crowded as the signatures on the wall.

Staking my claim.

It pays to be prepared the night before.

Matt set the alarm for 4:45. That would give us enough time to get up, have our coffee and breakfast (half an English muffin with almond butter, in case you're wondering what an elite athlete like myself eats on race day), get dressed and get to Marta. It was shocking how different the station looked than it had the day before. It was clogged with runners of every shape and size. Families, couples, random dudes, it was packed. Everyone had their race bib on, so it was easy to spot the top runners (seeded, yellow bib, no wave) from my fellow W's. Everyone seemed awake and excited, despite the early hour. We stuffed ourselves into the first train that showed up, packed almost as tightly as we would be in the race later, and took off.

Waiting for the train.

Going up!

Once we spilled out into the sunshine, Matt pretty quickly had to ditch me. His wave was called in one direction, the rest of us were herded in another. We took a picture and then he was off. He would be done running before I even got started! I waited for my friend Sheri, who had graciously agreed to run with me once she found out that I was in need of a friend at the race.

Good luck, Matt!

Things back in Wave W were decidedly less serious than I'm sure they were in Wave A. Back here there were plenty of costumes, tutus, crazy headbands with streamers. It was definitely more of a party atmosphere. Which was good! It helped me relax and realize that ultimately my goal was just to get to the end and no one really cared overly much about technique and form from where we were. Sheri decked me out in shades and beads, which turned out to be so helpful as we ran - the beads kept clicking together and made it easier to keep track of each other. I could always hear Sheri next to me!

My running partner and bling bringer!

We were still hanging out in our staging area when I got the text from Matt that he was already done and hanging out in the Atlanta Track Club members-only tent with his free beer. Jealous! At this point what had dawned as a fairly pleasant morning was rapidly becoming a typical Atlanta summer scorcher. But as we finally starting walking towards the starting line, I got excited that this show was finally on the road.

Passing under the giant flag at the starting line.

Let's get this party started!

The actual running part was part jogging, part dodging the professional walkers all around us, looking for holes in the masses to quick-step through... I probably logged an extra mile just trying to get around people. I one point I turned to Sheri and pointed out that we were pretty much the only people running - everyone else was walking! But that also served to make me feel super accomplished - look at how many people we're passing! While I had warned Sheri that my training had been mainly intervals (run three minutes, walk one), we ended up running three miles straight before taking a potty break. As we told Matt later, the two hours we had to wait before starting meant nature came a'calling in the middle of the race. Had we started when he did, we would have made it to the end without a problem. But we ended up stopping at the perfect time. By the time we made it through the line and were back on the road, we were rested enough to tackle Cardiac Hill. We did make sure to grab water at every opportunity and walk while we drank it so as not to waste a precious drop.

For all my worries that I wouldn't be able to make it, I feel rather proud of myself. I managed to run basically the whole race, minus our water walks. There was enough going on around us, from the guys dressed as space men and the random dude that offered us beer from the rolling cooler he was running with, to the cheering spectators and encouragement along the way, that it carried me along. I texted Matt as we rounded the corner onto 10th Street and knew that the finish line was coming up. We finished strong and headed through the masses to pick up our shirts, snacks, and finally reunited with Matt. I was tired, but more from the 5 a.m. wake-up call than the actual race. The race kind of kills your holiday, but I would definitely do it again. I better get a higher wave though!

The finishers!

Many thanks go out to Matt, for getting me my race number and encouraging me to go out for a job while he watched the girls. Thanks to Sheri for running with me on the big day. Thanks to Virginia and my mom for texting me these last three months to check in on my training progress and my knees. Thanks to Nike+ for all those squats. Thanks to the amazingly organized race and its countless volunteers who run the show. Thanks to America for being born. Thanks everyone!

Adulting

It's one of our favorite traditions that every summer, we take the girls to "Camp Grandma" and "Camp Mimi". The kids get to spend several days bouncing from location to location, spending the night in one place, going to the pool at the other place, meeting up for joint playdates and meals, then splitting off again for one-on-one time with the each set of grandparents. It's fantastic and they look forward to it every year.

As do we.

For while the kids are away, the adults can play. Sometimes we have various house projects we work on, like the time we transformed Violet's room from guest room to "big girl" room to make way for Annie's nursery. Or the time we painted our bedroom. Or was it the dining room? But this summer, without any big projects on the must-do list, we just took the time out to relax.

Sushi. Almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

First up, we went out to sushi. Why waste it on kids who won't appreciate it, right? Although Violet shows signs of being a sushi-lover. There is a delicious sushi place called Mori House not far from where we live and we basically just tell the sushi chefs to hit us with their best shot. We sat at the bar this time and as they crafted this masterpiece I was silently jealous of whoever lucky customer ordered it, until they handed over and I realized that lucky customer was me. The attention to detail, the plating... it tasted as good as it looked.

The next day, we headed up to Chateau Elon, the Georgia winery and resort. We were meeting another couple here for a overnight date-night night-golf event. While the rain ended up cancelling our night golf plans, I wasn't overly broken-hearted about it. We enjoyed the pool, headed over to the winery for a wine tasting, indulged at the buffet dinner, and took a morning nature hike.

Pretty!

My hot date.

Thanks for inviting us, Joyce!

We had some generous pours during this wine tasting.

Scenes from our nature walk the next morning! A beautiful day!

The next day, the plan was to go on a 2.5 hour canoeing adventure with the Chattahoochee Nature Center. Alas, the event got cancelled due to poor water quality (again with the cancelled events! Mother Nature was not playing nicely!) But we rebounded quickly with a trip to the "quiet pool" in our neighborhood. We have lived here eight years and I had never once been to this adults-only saltwater pool. See those trees? Just beyond them lies the family pool, full of yelling, splashing kids. But here, do you see that? Just peace and tranquility. We followed this up with a trip to the movie theater to see Baby Driver. Dumb name, great movie! Go see it! So fun!

Ah, the quiet pool.

Shh. I'm at the quiet pool.

The next day we cooked ourselves a breakfast scramble that featured tomatoes, peppers and basil sourced from our own garden (Mother Nature and I were back on speaking terms) and then headed to the race expo to pick up our Peachtree Road Race numbers. We finished our day with a last dip in the quiet pool and then dinner next door with good friends, before turning in early to get ready for The Race! Ah, adulting. It's so nice.

Field Day!

Can you believe the school year is almost over?! There are only five days to go! That's right, it's the final countdown, the homestretch... we are so deep into survival mode at this point, I actually tried to make Violet drink coffee one morning just to get us to school on time!

While I contemplate survival strategies, enjoy pictures from last week's field day!

It was a beautiful day - overcast enough to keep it cool without the complication of rain.

The force is strong with this one.

Violet was very proud of the fact that the girls won tug-of-war. "Best day of my life!" she reported.

This guy even showed up to help out!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

SunTrust Park

Regardless of your feelings towards the new Braves stadium (Why did they have to move it? Man, traffic is the worst! Who's going to drive all the way over there? The Braves are terrible!) you know we were going to jump at the chance to check things out for ourselves, especially when the tickets came free, fell on our anniversary weekend, and lined up with a babysitting offer. So off we went to the new SunTrust Park!

The park is lovely, truly. It's smaller than the old Turner Field, and it's odd not to see the downtown skyline. But for as nice as the actual stadium is, the surrounding complex is perhaps the real star of the show. There are tons of restaurants built adjacent to the stadium, places you can access without needing a ticket, which means if you don't mind paying extravagantly for parking, you have some pretty cool places to hang out and watch the game. We actually entered the stadium via the Terrapin Taphouse (fun fact - the beer is much cheaper in here than in the actual stadium, as long as you don't mind going through another metal detector - and you can go back and forth as many times as you please). 

We took these fine people along for the ride!

Happy 12 years to this handsome husband of mine!

Egg Drop!

Forsyth County's Finest

A fun (if slightly scary) tradition our first grade has is the annual Egg Drop Contest. Kids design a contraption that they hope will keep their raw egg safe, then we teachers get to drop them from the top of the fire truck ladder. Violet got super into building her egg container... she even made Matt drop it out our second-story window to see if it would survive. But I'll admit, I was a little shocked to see how high up 60 feet really is! First the basket lifted, then extended out with a bit of a jerk and sway... I'm not scared of heights, but nevertheless... The firemen were all wonderful and reassuring. They do this every day! Well, not this exactly... But it did make up for the fact that they wouldn't come rescue Gus out of the tree that one time.

Heading up with Fireman Jeff.

My tiny class down below!

Quite a beautiful view...

Getting ready to make the first drop!

I would yell each student's name before I dropped their egg and all the kids were chanting "drop that egg! Drop that egg!" It was so fun. There were some obvious splats, some promising bounces, and a couple parachutes that gently drifted down. Out of 22 drops, eight of the eggs survived the fall! We had talked a lot beforehand about how to react if your egg broke, or what you could say to someone who's egg didn't make it, and the kids did such a great job being sweet and supportive towards each other. We banned the words "winner" and "loser" from the event and just focused on having fun and being positive. Fortunately there were no tears shed, not even from Violet, whose parachute idea never quite materialized. What a memory we made!

My sweet girl... we ended up with scrambled eggs but still had a great time.

San Francisco - Day 4

On our last day in San Francisco, we needed to find something to do that would allow us to get back to our house (and luggage) in time to make it to the airport for our red-eye. We decided to head back to Golden Gate Park, a spot we noticed our first day while on our double-decker sight-seeing bus.

Golden Gate Park is a long, narrow park in the city with lakes, fields, a science museum, segway tours, you name it. It also has a Japanese Tea Garden, which we stumbled into. It was a delightful little getaway. It reminded me a lot of when Matt and I happened into the United States Botanic Garden while killing time before our tour of the Capital... who knew there could be such tranquility in the middle of the hustle and bustle?

Man, our weather this trip was terrible... all that fog...!

This land is your land, this land is my land...

One last family picture...

After wandering around the Japanese Tea Garden, we swung by the Arboretum because it was "get in free Thursday" - how convenient! Then we caught a bus to the other end of the park, situated right on the Pacific Ocean. We grabbed lunch at an ocean-view table, then headed home to grab our suitcases, say our goodbyes and try to grab whatever sleep we could. What a great trip!

The Arboretum... check out that baby pineapple!

A little beach in my hand.

Couldn't leave without stopping by the Pacific Ocean!

Golden Gate Bridge

Day 3 in San Francisco dawned with the decision to bike across Golden Gate Bridge. We'd stopped and gazed our first day as one of the stops on our tour bus, but Matt and I needed to get up close and personal. A coworker of mine had recommended it and after running a 5K the day before, I figured, why not? We got up early, headed to the waterfront to pick up our bikes and set out.

Confession: I wasn't sure I could still ride a bike. I mean, I knew I could ride a bike, but actually, legitimately pedal my way eight miles from Fisherman's Wharf to the Ferry Pier in Sausalito? But Matt was gung-ho and so we set off with only a brief glance at the map in bike rental shop and a few puffs of the inhaler for me.

The route is a combination of bike paths and road sides. Sometimes we were right there next to the cars. Sometimes we were rolling through a national park. The steepest climb was getting up to bridge level - the hardest part of getting over the bridge was actually just dodging the many pedestrians along the sidewalk. The views were always lovely and once more we had clear blue skies. It wasn't even too cold and windy on the bridge, something we had been warned about. Seriously, we got the best weather on this trip.

Helmets on, ready to roll!

I can still ride a bike!

The beautiful path along Crissy Field...notice the bridge in the distance?

Stopping for a photo opp near the Warming Hut

And the approach!

The view going the other way was just as worth it!

Passing through...

Sausalito

We made it!

So long story not too long, we made it across the Golden Gate Bridge! The eight miles took us about an hour and a half of riding. Once we got into Sausalito, we roamed around until Matt's parents joined us via ferry so we could all enjoy lunch. It's a cute little town to see. We had gourmet burgers at the Napa Valley Burger Co, grabbed ice cream cones and pedaled around the pier area until it was time to board our ferry for the return trip. I was surprised that I wasn't sweaty and exhausted - the breeze and downhills kept things relatively easy. I'd definitely recommend the experience!

Meet me by the elephants...

Cute town.

Ice cream!

Waiting to board the ferry.

Matt quickly became obsessed with his bike and tried to convince me to bike back home, but we had evening plans to meet up with friends in San Mateo and I was worried about making the train...

...so we and the entire rest of the city boarded our bikes onto the ferry for the ride back to San Francisco. How we all remembered which bike belonged to who, I'll never know!

Catching a glimpse of everyone's favorite maximum security island prison on the back!

After we returned our bikes, we hoped on the Muni to the train station, then boarded a commuter train with five minutes to spare for our trek to San Mateo to visit with our old neighborhood pals, the Smiths! It was a relaxing way to end our long day - dinner and friends.