freedom...

My baby is growing up! I've finally got him weaned, this is the first time in 4 years I have not been pregnant or breastfeeding and it feels wonderful! I can't believe Grant will be a year old next month! I'm going to miss this stage...of his life I mean...

13.1

I survived! I ran my first half marathon on Saturday- the Air Force Marathon in Dayton, OH. I had not trained very well for it (the furthest I'd run was 7 miles) because our treadmill got flooded out and then I came down with mono so I only had 6 weeks to train. I was planning to walk most of it but was worried about how hot and humid it was going to be.

We stayed with our good friends from law school, the Toronto's. Our boys love playing with their boys and they were kind enough to watch them while we ran. I was secretly hoping Joann would go into labor so I'd have a good excuse to get out of the race..but no such luck ;)

The night before I got about 2 hours of sleep. Joshua was up all night crying because he wasn't in his own bed and Grant woke up around 12:30 in so much pain from his top two teeth coming in. I finally got to sleep from about 2:00-4:30 when Anthony woke me up to get ready. He was doing the full marathon and wanted to be there plenty early. I walked him to his course and then went back to the car and caught another hour or so of sleep (admist the sound of b-52's flying overhead). He hurt his foot a few weeks earlier and I had been complaining about having to run alone, so he was kind enough to run really slow and meet up with me when our tracks merged at my mile 9 (if I made it that far ;)

My original goal was to finish in 3 1/2 hours. I thought based on my training I'd be lucky to finish in 4. I started out better than I expected considering the lack of sleep, and finished 5 miles in just over an hour. I was able to maintain a steady pace and didn't feel tired at all. I started to get hot spots on the pads of my feet so had to stop and put on moleskin, my feet were fine the rest of the run. The weather was absolutely perfect, it wasn't humid at all and there was a nice breeze, I didn't sweat at all.

I got to mile 9 expecting to have some GU's to replenish my electrolytes but all they had were orange slices. Anthony called me and I was ahead of him so I waited for about 10 minutes at mile 9 and he met up with me. By the time we reached mile 11 my calves were really starting to cramp up and there were no other replenishments. Wish I'd brought my own and I would have been able to run the whole way. I stopped and walked for a good mile, mile and a half. Finally the cramping eased up and we ran most of the last mile. I was surprised that I finished in 3:17 especially since I ended up walking quite a bit of the last part (and felt a bit bad that I made Anthony run his slowest marathon ever, but I was grateful not to be alone). I succumbed to the ice bath ritual when we got back to our friends house, it was torture for the first few seconds but after your body goes numb it feels pretty good. It wasn't quite as cold as the ocean in NH but pretty close.

 

So I guess I've passed the runner's initiation. After taking a few ibuprofen I hardly felt sore at all the next day. All in all it wasn't as hard as I expected it to be and if I'd brought my own electrolyte replacement and gotten more than a few hours of sleep I think I would have been able to get in under 3 hours. In fact, in some sick way I kind of enjoyed the pain... We're doing Disney World in January so I've got a few months to train up for my next one...

Chattanooga, TN

We spent a fabulous weekend in Chattanooga. We started out at the Incline Railway. The boys had been looking forward to riding the train. I was surprised how steep it actually was, pretty amazing. The views from Lookout Mountain are breathtaking. You can see for miles.

From there we walked over through the Military Park and learned about the civil war battles that took place there. It's amazing they were able to scale up that mountain with all their gear- it's pretty much straight up and rocky. It is such a beautiful area. We got the boys union & confederate hats so they can reinact civil war battles with their pop guns ;)

Next we went to Ruby Falls. Again, I was not prepared for how awesome it would be. We didn't read much about it before we went, just figured it would be another waterfall. Not only did we go down 160 feet on the elevator to the entrance of the cave and then walked for about 30 minutes through the cave to get to the waterfall. The story about the discovery is really amazing. The falls are quite impressive- located 1,120 ft below the surface.

The next day we were supposed to meet friends and tour Rock City together, unfortunately one of their kids got sick so we went alone (sorry we didn't get to see you guys!) Rock City is beautiful. We have driven by the signs probably half a dozen times but never stopped before. It was well worth it. You can see seven states from the top and the rock formations throughout the park are spectacular.  We watched a show about birds of prey and got to see hawks, owls, vultures and an eagle up close. They have a crazy swinging bridge which I had to build up the courage to walk across, a little underground mother goose village with dioramas of all the major fairy tales and little gnomes swinging all over the place. The weather was absolutely perfect and the park was so beautiful. We ate lunch at the top of the rock where a bluegrass band played and sang, they were truly authentic- I've never seen or heard anything quite like it. It was such a fun place. Then we drove around downtown Chattanooga, saw the riverfront. There was a hill at the riverfront park and they were doing something I've never seen done before- sliding down the hill on cardboard boxes. I've seen ice blocking, skimming and sledding, but never cardboarding... Lastly we saw the historic Chattanooga  Choo Choo. The boys enjoyed seeing another train and are already asking to go back to "chagganooga".