Ahhh, home!

Well, yesterday's run was a total breeze! Especially when we compare it to last year's Day 1. Part of the reason was probably the weather-- yesterday was cool and gorgeous, which just makes it about 1,000 times easier to keep running. But we're also in better shape. There was only one little snafu-- the bathroom on the route was locked up. (Sometimes when you're running, you GOTTA go. I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about.) Fortunately, no major issues other than that-- no one had to resort to using the woods, no one tripped and fell, and our biggest obstacle was a really big stretch of sidewalk that the resident geese have clearly been using as a toilet. (Probably because the bathroom is locked.)

So here's how our training program works:
It's eighteen weeks long, and we have one "long" run each week. That's our Saturday run. I like Saturday because then you have the whole weekend to recover if it was particularly brutal. Also, when you do it on Sunday, you just spend all day Saturday dreading it, and it sort of ruins your weekend.
Then we have three shorter runs-- most weeks they are six, eight and six miles, respectively.
We have two rest days, and ours are Thursday and Sunday, making Sunday the one morning I week that I don't set an alarm.
And then the day before the long run, we do a shorter run-- usually about 4 miles, done easily and slowly to get your muscles limbered up. This is also the run that is the most likely to get skipped.

The long runs get progressively longer each week, but about every 3rd week is a "step-down" week, to keep your body in shape but also give it a break. The short runs are also going to be shorter these weeks.

So this is our schedule for this week:
Saturday: 10 miles (done!)
Sunday: rest
Monday: 6 miles
Tuesday: 8 miles
Wednesday: 6 miles
Thursday: rest
Friday: 4 miles

And then next Saturday is a 12 mile run, and other than that the schedule is identical. The following Saturday will be a six mile run, and that week will also be accordingly shorter because that's our first step-down week.

Enough business talk. Yesterday after the run, we packed up our cars and headed down to Virginia. Mike stopped in Quantico for a graduation party-- his roommate at USNA did an exchange program at Air Force last semester, so in return, Mike's room had an Air Force cadet living with them. Jason was a really awesome guy, and something cool about him is that, rather than going into the Air Force, he REALLY wants to cross-commission into the Marine Corps. This is possible to do, but apparently very difficult. So he went to Officer Candidate School in Quantico this summer, graduated yesterday, and Mike stopped in to congratulate him. I continued to head on down to Richmond, where I have placed a deposit an all-too-expensive bridal gown. I got sized for it and chose the color yesterday, and the official order will be placed on Tuesday! But I got to try it on again and I still LOVE it! Even mom liked it this time. (Haha last time she wasn't convinced that it was the dress for me.)

I think that since our wedding is still 11 months away, and since we made all of the biggest decisions regarding it when it was still between 18 and 16 months away, she keeps thinking that we're going to change our minds about all of this stuff that we've already put down hefty deposits for, but that's not how I roll... once a decision has been made, it's pretty rare that I waver. UNTIL that decision is made, I am a horrible, flaky, wavery person. So far I haven't come to regret a single decision, and ESPECIALLY not the dress. Although I do wish I could have gotten a better price on it. But as my friend Heather says, "It's a wedding dress. It's SUPPOSED to be too expensive." And I guess there is some truth to that-- you're in this thing for about seven hours. Even if you get lucky and buy, say, an $600 dollar dress... plus another few hundred dollars worth of alterations... you're spending more than $100 an hour for your dress. That's ridiculous, because I won't even buy a $100 dress that I know I would wear all the time. But I've spent WAY more than $100 an hour to wear a wedding gown. The wedding industry is a pretty stupid money-sucking machine. But so far, this is my one indulgence because everything else I'm paying for isn't really for me-- it's for bridesmaids, or the guests, or whatever. (Not to mention that all of those purchases have come in within my budget!) And since the wedding dress is the thing that I looked forward to most, even when I was a little girl (okay, maybe also the cake! When I was five my birthday cake was a shocking-pink 3 layer wedding cake... no joke!) I figured, whatever... buy the one you love even if it's more than you originally planned on spending.

But still! Ridiculous, and I got suckered, just like all those stupid women shopping at Kleinfeld's on Say Yes to the Dress. I hate that show just because of brides like me who bother to even try dresses on when they're outside the budget, and then fall in love with them.

After the dress fitting, Mom and I went to Crate and Barrel, Macy's, and Bed, Bath & Beyond to register for gifts. Mom has been BEGGING me to let her come with me to do this, ever since I got engaged. Since I have no idea how many plates married people need, or how many forks are suitable, I was more than happy to indulge her. I would have had no idea what I was doing if she hadn't been there to help, and I probably would have registered for hammock, which I don't need, and forgotten to get pots and pans, which I DO need... But the BB&B people were AWESOME! They sent a person around the store with me-- which meant that I didn't get to use the stun-gun myself there, but she also made a lot of good recommendations and was very very helpful and wonderful and awesome. So thanks to Lisa from the BB&B in Richmond! You were a huge help, even though I know you'll never in a million years see this blog!

Anyways, after registering, I drove the rest of the way home to Williamsburg, where a delicious dinner was waiting for me. I love it here, with the badly behaved cats and fully stocked fridge. :)

Okay, I'm going to go and enjoy the fourth today, and I hope you all do the same!

And so it begins...

Marathon training officially begins today! And what am I doing instead of running? ...Blogging. Brilliant.

Mike is super pissed that I got him up this early, but we have to be on the road to Williamsburg by ten, so we gotta start running early in the AM to beat the heat and get ready for our trip. I'm officially on vacation for the rest of the week-- my boss actually had to sit me down and have a talk with me about how I shouldn't check email while I'm away, blah blah. I get it, I shouldn't work on vacation. But I'll seriously get about 80 emails a day while I'm out, so I'd honestly much rather sort through them once a day than sort through hundreds of them when I return! But other than that, I am a FREE woman! Huzzah! I'm spending the week at home at my parent's house, doing a lot of wedding planning stuff. My mom has been telling me since Mike and I got engaged how important this week is, so when I asked her a few days ago what sort of things she had in mind, she mentioned that she'd "really like to go blueberry picking." Alright, Mom, but I thought we had SO much to do for the wedding! (In the interest of full disclosure, I have honestly no idea how to plan a wedding or what it is that we are supposed to do. Fortunately she sent me a very detailed email yesterday about hunting for invitations, make-up artist, etc.)

Okay, we're off to run. I sort of ran out of body glide, so hopefully the blisters don't come out in full force-- I already got a weensy one yesterday. I'm long overdue for new running shoes, so that's another project for this week. We will keep you posted on the success of our run today!

And the winner is...

I didn't even know that there was a committee designated to determine which Marathon Finisher metal is the coolest, but apparently there is. And they chose... drumroll please... The Marine Corps Marathon finisher metal!!

http://www.marinemarathon.com/Assets/Press+Releases/MCM+MEDAL+RANKS+BEST+IN+US.pdf

How cool is that? Mike and I actually each OWN one of those. In the interest of full disclosure, though, I thought it was pretty wonky-looking.

Team Hoyt

I just came across this story in an article about Father's Day (Happy Dad's Day on Sunday, to all you fathers out there!) and I thought it was so completely inspiring:

Have you guys ever heard of Team Hoyt? It's a father-son team who participate in marathons, triathlons, and the like. Only here's the thing... the father is pushing the son in his wheelchair. He is pretty severely disabled, but running is their thing.

Here's their website:
http://www.teamhoyt.com/

How cool is that?

I wouldn't necessarily say that it's easier to run with a purpose, but it does give you a little more incentive to keep going. I'm sure Dick Hoyt feels a little more emotion behind his training, because since I too am running for a purpose this year, I feel like it's really important to keep that in the back of my mind whenever I train... this marathon isn't just for me. It's for Jonny. When it's more than just personal pride, or being able to keep wearing my skinny jeans, or adding another medal to my collection, it means a lot more. So for everybody out there who is training for something bigger than yourself, kudos and good luck!

Since I'm awake so early...

I figured I'd write an update. This week I realized that marathon training starts on July 3, not July 10 as I had previously thought...Whoops! We're doing an 18 week intermediate training program, with middle-length runs on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, a short run Friday, and a long run Saturday. Depending on the week, the length of each of these runs will vary. I won't bore you with all the details just yet.

But, since I realized I have one less week to prepare to completely alter my life, I figured I'd better really be sure I am ready. Since the first run is ten miles, and I want to make sure that that doesn't absolutely destroy the rest of my day (because I'll be getting fitted for a wedding gown and then heading to my parents for a week the afternoon of July 3!), I ran 12 miles yesterday. It went really well and I felt pretty good after it. And then I went over to my brother's new house (they closed the deal on Friday) and helped his wife Katie move in. (Tony was conveniently stuck taking an exam for his MBA program, lucky guy.) Since it's a 4 story row home in Baltimore, there are LOTS of stairs. And broken air conditioning on the top two floors... so I was pretty sapped by the end of the day. But I'm starting to feel good about the first few weeks of marathon training, because I was obviously more than merely functional following such a long run.

I remember last year, during the first 12 mile run I was just a mess for the rest of the day, but by the 16 mile run I was fine. Even for the 21 mile run I managed to walk over to a Navy football game, and cheer my heart out (Okay, I didn't cheer my heart out. I don't care about football.) and then go out for a late dinner. So I'm hoping that this year, none of the runs make me feel like the rest of the day is a complete waste of life.

In other news, Mike is in San Diego and says its beautiful and he loves it and I'm really jealous because here in Maryland it is 90 degrees and steamy humid. Also, he got to see the pandas at the zoo yesterday, and they are my favorite favorite animal and I'm SO jealous. I told him not to return to Maryland unless he's bringing me a real panda as a birthday gift (6 days until I'm 24!). No stuffed animals because I have about 14 stuffed pandas in my parents' attic.

My friend Christina (I've mentioned her here before; she's awesome) and I have been chatting about the NAG message boards. A girl on there recently asked for advice for coping with the distance between herself and her boyfriend. We were both a little amused that we didn't really have anything to add to the discussion because we just kind of don't care when Mike and Solomon are not around! Maybe we're used to not spending time with them. Or maybe we've finally come to the realization that they'll return eventually, so in the meantime we do our own thing. I don't know. I guess since this is a way of life for us, it's good that we don't really care that they're gone. But let me tell you, I sure do wish Christina were around more often! She was telling me how when Mike and Sol were in "Plebe summer," which is the 6 week intense military indoctrination at the Naval Academy, she would tell her friends that she was in a fight with Solomon. (I did the same thing!) It's astounding, because for those six weeks, our only method of communication was snail mail... how can you really be in a fight with someone you haven't spoken to in a month?! It's phenomenal how much drama we were able to create in our heads back then. We're grown-ups with jobs now, so I guess we just don't have time for that, and therefore do not miss our fiances. Maybe we've just come to terms with the fact that sometimes, all you're going to get that day is a 2 minute phone call saying the pandas were cute and he's on the hunt for margaritas and spectacular Mexican food and so he can't really talk today (poor guy, out there serving his country!) and you just have to be okay with the fact that you're going to be a Navy wife and these are the decisions you have collectively made. Okay, so I'd be a LITTLE more sympathetic to the limited talk time if he were, say, in the Gulf of Aden monitoring pirate activity... then I'd be like, "Hang up the phone! Go protect your ship!" than I am when he's just touring one of America's sweetest cities, but to be fair, I was pretty busy yesterday too, and I ignored a couple of his phone calls while I was helping assemble tables. And that's kind of the way I like it-- I am used to seeing him on the weekends because we're lucky enough to live near one another for the time being, but when I can't, I really like having lots of other plans to keep me entertained.

Although I do really think that if Mike were here right now, he'd probably make me some breakfast. So I miss that.

A wee update

This has been a busy week! My roommate got engaged (congratulations, Melissa and Brian!!) I had a little pity party/girls night out on Saturday (completely unrelated to my roommate getting engaged), I went to the beach, I went to lunch with my friend Stephanie (what up!) and I also sent Mike off on a west coast surface training cruise. I've heard from him a little bit and it sounds like he's having a blast. He was in Portland for the Rose Festival, which I guess is just like a big party in honor of the Navy. And now he's on his way to San Diego, which will be probably a four day trip during which I expect to hear from him not at all, so we'll have a lot to fill each other in on when we do touch base again. I'm curious to see how he's maintaining cardiovascular fitness on a teeny tiny ship-- he said that he's been PTing, but I don't know specifically what he means by that. I, however, took a good eight mile run this morning, and it was wonderful because it was in the 50s this morning. The past couple of days have been absolutely miserable and humid and nasty out, so I'm so excited for this weather shift! I know that summer is here and this little cool spell is a fluke, but I'm really enjoying it!

Navy Life Lessons; ed. 1

Never wash a pen in the same load of laundry as your summer whites. Bleach can only do so much to repair the damage.