Running Wish List

1. Garmin 405. I never thought I would get to a point where I would want such a complicated gadget to wear. However, now that I have been running such far distances, I am curious to know the actual results of my run. For example, I sometimes run just based on time (45 minutes) and would like to know how far I actually went. The Garmin also calculates calories burned (Will is afraid I would become too obsessed with this function), changes in elevation (for all those dang hills or for hiking), distance, and pace (to see if I am actually going as fast I think I am).

That is about it. Well, besides wishing to finish the marathon.

(If you do not think this is much of a list, take a minute to look up how hefty the price tag is, it ain't pretty.)

20 Miles

Well, it turns out that 40 degrees and rainy is the perfect forecast for running 20 miles. Other than stopping a few times for bathroom breaks/stretching, I ran the whole way. The dramatic, crying, anti-runner, did not make her appearance either. I felt really encouraged that I might actually be able to finish this marathon. I am even able to walk down our front porch steps without gripping the hand rail for dear life.

We made some taquitos, guacamole, and queso for our after run meal. So I am pretty much not worried whether I replenished my salt levels.

We are headed off to our bible study we are in with two other married couples. We are currently reading the book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. It focuses on the woman's desire to be loved unconditionally and the man's desire to be respected unconditionally. When these two desires are not met, then arguments often ensue. I have only read the first three chapters, but I feel most of our arguments stem from this concept.

Oh, and Will just sent me this article. Browse through the pictures if you get a chance.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/27/china.dyeing.dogs.pandas/index.html?hpt=C2

Ha, Seriously?? Those poor dogs. Little do the Chinese know that our dog came pre-painted just like a panda.

Things I Produced...

1. I bought another package of size 7 knitting needles. I somehow managed to lose one from my other set. I guess buying needles does not count as me producing anything, but it aides me in my ability to produce something. My summer scarf has now turned into my fall scarf.

2. I baked a pie. A blueberry, blackberry, strawberry pie, to be exact. I pretty much used all ingredients I already had in the kitchen. Except for corn starch, but who really has corn starch. We invited Erin, Will's sister, over to eat some with us. Now we only have half a pie left.

3. I created a collage of sorts on our wall. I used nails, beading wire (for necklaces and such), and itty bitty clothes pins. I have already re-arranged the pictures three times since the picture was taken, but you get the idea.

4. I made this headband. I cut a bow-like shape out of a piece of fabric, tied it in a knot, and sewed the ends of the bow to the headband.*

We are off to bed now. It is going to be 40 and raining during our run tomorrow. There might be a vote in the morning as to whether or not this run actually occurs.

*(Edit: This was not my actual idea, I was inspired to make the headband from this blog here,
http://yellowsongbird.blogspot.com/) *

Six Things on Saturday

1. Aspen has been quite the early riser since we got back from D.C. She has been waking us up between 6:30 and 7:00 every morning. And by "waking us up," I mean, whining and staring at me until I open my eyes. Once my eyes open, its all over. So I get up, feed her, and crawl back into bed. I am usually unable to go back to sleep at this point because her eating/slurping noises keep me up. Today, Will counted that she took 158 drinks of water. Seriously Aspen, 158 slurps?

2. Following up with number one, we were up pretty early this morning. So we rewarded our alarm clock and took her to breakfast.

3. I ran 10 sets of 800 meters yesterday. That is two times around the track at a 7:30 mile pace, ten times. This marathon training is getting pretty old. I would seriously consider backing out, but our moms just decided to fly into Denver and watch us run. I am really excited about this, but also nervous that our moms might witness one of my hysterical crying fits when I do not want to run anymore.

4. I spent over an hour yesterday watching these amazing wedding videos. I can not even begin to imagine how much a video like this would cost, but they are beautiful. This one is by far my favorite, http://vimeo.com/12991473.

5. After watching all of these people I will never know exchange wedding vows, I decided to find ours. When we first got married, I had wanted to frame them. (I think I might do that today...) As I sat and watched these strangers exchange their vows, I wondered if they truly realized how precious those words are. Unfortunately, I am all too familiar with how easily it is to completely ignore the promises I made on January 9, 2009. I am thankful to have found the vows again and hopefully be more aware of the significance of this whole marriage thing.

I, Stephanie, take you, William, to be my wedded husband to have

and to hold from this day forward for better or for worse in
sickness and in health for richer or for poorer to love and to
cherish till death does us part or until the Lord comes according
to God’s holy ordinance and thus I pledge to you my faithfulness
and love.

6. I really wish I had a detailed fall wardrobe. We keep receiving these clothing magazines that have adorable fall clothes with not so adorable price tags. For example, Robert Redford has now started a women clothing company. Well, I just want to tell Robert, "stop sending me your stinkin' magazine because no matter how much I might want that super cute outfit the middle aged model is wearing on your cover, I will never be able to pay $600 for the getup."


Another twenty miles tomorrow, woohoo!

That is all.

Visiting the Sergeant

We had an absolutely fabulous time visiting with my brother in Washington D.C. This was our first time to visit him and we really liked spending so much time together. It was hard to leave knowing that might be the last time we see each other for a year or so. Why is it that by the time I am finally able to get along with my family we have to live thousands of miles apart? Hopefully, some day we will all be in the same state at least.

Here is a brief recap of our time in the capital.

We went to see the cute soldier ride in his last funeral service.

We (mostly me) played with some horses.

Toured the tourist attractions and rode on the subway.

We went swimming, ate watermelon, played tennis, wore matching clothes, and witnessed my brother cooking.

We then went bowling. Apparently, my bowling form is quite humorous, it kept the boys laughing for far too long.

I miss him already! It is frustrating that the fun times always go by so fast. I am so proud of you little brother and thankful we can have such a wonderful time together.

Our summer is pretty much over. We have been running around a lot and now we must sit and wait for that dreaded season. I was just offered a volleyball coaching job for junior high today. I am really excited about it because I get to do something I care about. It is only for about seven weeks, so the job hunt is not officially over. I hoping to substitute teach also.

Twenty Miles In The Lone Star State

I flew into Houston this weekend to "take care" of my dad after he had he is heart surgery. I am not sure bringing him two Cokes to drink counts as taking care of someone. Even though I sat through three days of a never-ending golf tournament, I really enjoyed being there. It was nice to be able to just sit there with my dad and not have any place I had to go (well, except for the 20 miles I had to run).

I decided I would break the run up between the morning and night. My lovely Aunt offered to pick me up at 6:45 am on Sunday and drop me off at Meyer Park for two hours. I was hoping to run 13 in the morning, but the humidity over took me. I was literally wringing out my clothes at the thirty minute mark. It was a lot harder to breath at sea level than at the 5,000 feet I am at now. I then ran 8.5 miles on the treadmill at my grandmother's house. Thank you Kardashian sisters (there were back to back episodes on E!) for distracting me while I was pouring sweat and chafing on my thighs. I am still not positive if it is beneficial to split up the long runs, but I lived through running in the August heat in Texas. Will and I are going to have some adjustments to do when we move back.

You can not really see the sweat, but my shirt is soaked entirely.

I also had lunch with Claire while I was in Houston. We ate at El Gallo, a place where we ate many meals in high school. We ended up sitting and talking for three hours, it was wonderful. It is such a relief to be able to sit and have a free-flowing conversation with someone who knows me and we can just pick up where we left off. Friendships are really important. Meeting with Claire, made me long for the day that we can be back in a place where we have friends who truly know us.

We are off to D.C. in the morning to see my little bro bro. I am super excited to see him. We are going to play tennis, go swimming, do all the touristy stuff, and see him ride one last time at Arlington Cemetery.

that time our mother's met their grand-dog

My mom sent me the copy of all the pictures she took while she was here in Beautiful Bozeman. I made a quick collage of our memories. And, yes, our mother's did decide to wear matching outfits one day.

Adirondack Chairs

Will has a dream of building our own furniture. Unfortunately, due to our lack of garage and tools and time he has not made much progress. So when we saw kits to build Adirondack chairs in our local Ace Hardware, we knew this was his chance to display his manliness and build us some furniture. We spent yesterday picking out a color (pomegranate red) and painting our first coat. We thought that the red would be a good contrast to the snow that is looming in the near future. Hopefully, I will have a picture to show of the completed chairs when I get back from Texas this weekend.

As you can see, Aspen was quite the helper.

I mentioned we shop at our local Ace Hardware. The more I go in, the more reasons I find to like the store. It is within walking distance of our house, they are incredibly helpful, dogs are allowed (and offered treats), and they carry teal kitchen paraphernalia.

Well, I have some sprints to do because I chose not to wake up at 6 this morning and some more painting. I am headed to Houston in the morning.

A Reason to Run

Margherita Pizza from The Co-Op (Bozeman's version of whole-foods) and hand me down beer from a friend that just moved across the country.

Banana Vanilla Milkshake and Munchies

A Hilly 18 Miles = A Not So Happy Stephanie

I really do not enjoy blogging with out having pictures to show, but I figured an update is an update.

Our moms were here for the weekend and it was fabulous. We did a lot of "mom" things (ha, poor William...) The Sweet Pea Festival was this past weekend and they had lots of various, artsy forms of entertainment. We went to the arts and crafts show, viewed the flower arrangement contest, ate some chocolate covered frozen bananas, saw a dance team (from Houston) perform, and of course had lots of mom-bought meals. It was really wonderful to have our moms together. I am pretty sure they stayed up all night talking (they stayed in a hotel together three blocks from our house). I never knew that I would have wanted my two moms to get along before I got married, but I am really thankful that they do. So because of the fun we were having with them in town, the long run got pushed back to Monday.

I have off work for the next two weeks while the family I nanny for is out of town, pretty awesome. Which is why I had all day to run, and run all day is exactly what I did.

I am pretty much discouraged right now because of how badly our long runs have gone. The pattern seems to be every other week our long runs are just awful.

12 Miles = terrible, first three miles up hill, second three miles downhill (then reverse because we turned around at six miles)

13 Miles = pretty good, mostly flat or downhill

16 Miles = not my favorite, lots more hills than expected

17 Miles = stayed pretty strong through out the run, mostly flat

18 Miles = hills, lots and lots of hills

So I am thinking the pattern has more to do with the amount of hills than the week. Today, we ran nine miles and then turned around, but the last three miles of the first nine were ALL uphill. I had not realized it at the time, but we had quite a lot of hills going back also. After running up for so very long, I just wanted to throw my hands up in the air and say "I quit, I hate you stinkin' hills." I am pretty sure I did just that. We had five miles left. Two and half up hill and two and half down hill. I could not get my body to move up those hills. We ended up walking way too much the last nine miles. Its embarrassing and I feel defeated.

I get discouraged fairly easily, especially when it feels like I am not getting better. Will is an amazing encourager and is constantly telling me I am doing great. He feels he always has to be the strong one since I cry so easily during the runs (not my best trait). He struggled through our run today also because he has been sick for a week.

I know that running this far is hard for others to really understand, I am not sure I understand either. I want this training for the marathon to be more than just running. Setting a goal to run a marathon is definitely about more than just running. If I just wanted to run, I would run five miles. During each long run, I get to feel my mind reach a place that refuses everything; running, walking, talking, thinking, feeling. It is strange and indescribably. I would like to be able to push past that point, but right now I let it overtake me. I think that is the point of me running a marathon, to be stronger in every sense.

Sorry for the ramblings about running. It is pretty much the only think I have to work towards right now in my life. Well, that, and being a better wife.

On a brighter note, I just scheduled a $35 massage for tomorrow morning. A little reward for my failure of a run.

Seventeen

Well, it turns out that running seventeen miles is equally un-fun as running sixteen is. I only started crying the last fifteen minutes this time versus the last forty-five. I should probably work on that, since they say marathon running is about being mentally strong. It would be just lovely if I started throwing my crying-tantrum during the actual race.

Here is a brief collage of how I recover after my self-induced torture sessions.

From Top Left:

1. This is how I feel about running for three-ish hours.

2. This is the beginning of my "summer" scarf. I am hoping I can finish it before summer is over which is, oh, in a month. :(

3. An action shot of me knitting. It turns out training for a marathon takes over your life. Meaning, I better not do anything too active on Friday night or Saturday because I have a long run on Sunday. So knitting seems to be the only productive, un-strenuous activity I could come up with. Plus, I have not knitted in ions.

4. I gave myself my first official pedicure. I soaked my feet in bubbles, clipped those toe nails, tried to scrub off the aftermath of running for three hours, buffed, and painted. I used this super cool polish kit my dad bought me for Christmas (the one that is sold at the kiosks at the mall, the one where the sellers grab your hand and say, "let me see, I shine for you." Turns out it works).

5. There is no fifth picture. If I had thought about it, I would have taken a picture of the cajun, catfish poboy I inhaled earlier this afternoon.