Birthday weekend ahead!

So......where the hell have I been? Work. Pretty much non-stop for the past two weeks, and if you've read my blog for more than five seconds then you know that's GOTTA suck, in a massively sick, twisted and totally uncomfortable way. But, I survived. At least for now. And I only got into one fight with a rude executive, cursed my bosses about 500 million times, nearly burst into tears about 100 times and went and got one box to pack up all my office belongings. Throw in the British, copier jams at the most inconvenient of times and insanely long meetings where our executive team stuffed their face with trail mix, candy and animal crackers (and I do NOT work at a daycare) and you will understand why I am looking forward to the WEEKEND!!

First let's rewind to last weekend. Last week I also worked a TON of hours and very, VERY narrowly avoided having to go in to work for more torture. (Thank god for laptops.) At any result I was exhausted, and not really looking forward to a hilly 20-miler on Saturday am. The weather forecast was pretty iffy, but the rain was supposed to be gone by the early morning. Wrong. The alarm went off at 6 and it was pouring. I was completely exhausted anyway so I went back to sleep and woke up around 8:30. The rain was starting to slack off, but I knew I just didn't have it in me anyway. I had missed so many weeknight runs that I wanted to run anyway, so Brent and I ran out for a 5.6 mile loop around the neighborhood (from our house past the Titans stadium, down 2nd avenue, back across the pedestrian bridge and home). Our main goal? Sweet 16th bakery, a little neighborhood bakery 3 blocks from us. The rain had stopped and the sun was out FULL on, humidity was nuts. So, the whole time we were telling each other "run to the bakery, run to the bakery". When we were about a block away we starting sprinting hard, racing each other. Only to see their blinds down and a note on the door that they were closed for the Jewish holidays. WTF?????? The owners are NOT Jewish. If they were Jewish, they wouldn't be open ANY Saturday. Basically, they just like to close for a lot of reasons. For Labor Day weekend they were closed all weekend plus Monday AND Tuesday. We were MAD. So, we went home and just ate lunch instead.

That night we went out for our fave, Indian food!! We checked out Cuisine of India's new location in the heart of Vandyland by Pizza Perfect. It was great, I am SO glad they are open again!! They have the best service and food of any Indian joint here in town. Afterwards we went to the nearby Green Hills mall. I don't think I've been to the mall since June. SERIOUSLY. With the house and move we haven't been much of anywhere besides Home Depot!! It was nice to do a little clothes shopping for a change. However I did feel like I was the only person at this mall with non-fake boobs, male or female. (This is our "upscale" mall with Tiffany's, Louis V, etc.).

So then.....it was Sunday. Time for the long run. The kick your butt 20-mile hilly run that became 21 miles because the way the loops "loop" there wasn't a way to park where we needed to and stop right at 20 miles. I usually check out the message board on the marathon website devoted to this race about once a week, and at the end of last week all the chatter was about predicting people's finishing times, and how many people will actually finish. Nice. Then there was also this note from the race director:

"The good news about the course, as we've laid it out, is that the last 2-3 miles are essentially downhill. The bad news is that you hit substantial hills at mile 1.5, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14.5, 17, 19, 22 and 23. I would plan on paying careful attention to make sure that you don't burn out on any of the early hills. Once you are past the hill at mile 14.5 (i.e., the backside of 3 mile hill, headed against traffic, upwards) and go down 3 mile hill, most (but not all) of the serious work is done and you should be able to let loose.

You don't want to take the ups too hard as that will tire you out. You don't want to take the downs too hard as that will blow your quads, knees and back. I would imagine it best to plan on running about 10-15% slower than your standard marathon pace to maintain a normal marathon effort and to account for the hills. For a standard 4 hour marathon, that would mean you will run this at about 4:30. "

We decided it was time to change our race philosophy. We'd been trying to run most of our long runs there before and really been dying out towards the end. Sunday we approached it differently and decided to walk the really steep uphills and run the downhills and flats harder. It felt strange to take a walk break just 2.5 miles into our run, but we walked quickly and really pushed the running portions. All in all I'd say our run was a success. We walked more during the final few miles than I would like to do on race day, but overall we managed an 11:30 pace for the 21 miles including a potty break and swapping out water bottles. We really don't have a time goal for this race other than "finish alive" so we were both pleased and had plenty of energy left when the run was over. Although my pace on the last two weekends of 20-milers was 9:30 this marathon is a total different beast. I think I'd like to shoot for a time goal of 9:30 if I do Memphis in December.

On tap this weekend??? MY BIRTHDAY!! I'll be 29 on Sunday. Our original plan was to run the Twin Cities Marathon, but with the move our training this summer got really messed up and we decided to just save the airfare, etc and try it again some other weekend. The way the last two weeks have been SO stressful I'm even happier we made that decision, as much as I would have loved to be there. BUT, we are running a local 15K on Saturday. The weather has gotten cooler this week and Saturday's forecast is really nice! It's a fairly competitive race so us placing is highly unlikely. With my poor diet and total lack of rest this week I doubt my results will be record setting but I am really excited anyway. This will be the first race we've done since the end of JUNE! Never fear, we're doing a 5K and marathon (half for Brent) in October, a half and full marathon in November, and I'd like to do a marathon in December, but we'll see.

After 3 back to back 20 milers I am very excited about having a 9.2 mile long run this weekend. YEAH!! Have a great weekend and good luck to everyone racing!! Good luck to Rob running the Portland marathon this weekend and to anyone else racing!

Happy Birthday to me and my brother!! (We're not twins, we just happen to have the same birthday!)

Bringing Sexy Back for 20 Miles

Hey guys!!! I hope you all had great weekends! I don't think I've ready any blogs this week but hopefully I can catch up with you guys soon! Work has been crazy, this is our super busy season, so I've been working a lot more overtime than usual this week which totally sucks. It horribly cuts into the limited amount of free time we have for running, working on the house and our regular chores. Ugh. And of course that means no time for keeping up with you guys!!

So, rewind back to last weekend. We had a really nice round of rain come through in the middle of last week and leave us with some great fall weather. Instead of our boring lunch-time runs on the treadmill at the gym we took it outdoors at lunch and were going to run a regular 4-mile routine we had in our old neighborhood (we only work 2 miles away from where we used to live). Well...the sidewalks there are GONE. We don't know why, it looks like they are going to widen the road. I doubt anyone out there will even notice they lost their sidewalks, people in our old suburban neighborhood seemed to be allergic to exercise, a complete opposite to our new neighborhood! So, we pieced together a two miles route and ran it twice. We ran pretty easily, talking about our crappy days and were pretty shocked this easy pace ended up being around 8:45 avg. I love how much easier it is to run when it cools down!!

Of course we were hoping this would continue into our long run for Saturday. Instead of going to the hilly park and practicing the first 20 miles of our November marathon we decided to do 20 flat miles. Brent's longest run ever was 19 miles last winter, so we really thought it would be best to tackle the 1st 20 on the flats. I have an extra week in September that I wasn't sure what to do with anyway, so it didn't throw us off our grand plan. We got up early, were pleased that the weather guy said it wouldn't be sunny until noon, ate some bagels and drove over to Shelby Park. At first I even had chill bumps!! Of course that only lasted for about 3 miles and then the sun was in full force. And then....motivation.....in the form of JT. Justin Timerblake that is. Sexy Back came on my nano and I knew I couldn't stop. I had to bring Sexy Back. For 20 miles. So we kept on plodding on and on, eating sports beans at the right time, waving at the fellow runners, just running comfortably. We finished up the 7.5 mile greenway loop, then running through the golf course area and around the lake before stopping to exchange our bottles for new frozen ones. We headed back to do the 7.5 mile course one more time and not long after we started we split up to run our own paces. I just wanted to be finished as soon as possible because it was stupid hot. I cursed the weather guy a lot, and I promise I will pull him behind me for 20 miles in the sun, in the 80's so that maybe, JUST MAYBE, next time he won't say it will be in the low 70's with clouds. When we started - it was 65 degrees. When we finished - 82 degrees. That's just an incredible swing. I finished in roughly the same time as last week, this week my average was 9:30 per mile. My fastest miles were my final ones, Mile 20 was at an 8:50 pace! 18 & 19 were around 9:11, and the rest were all pretty consistent so I won't bore you with them. I felt stronger on this 20 miler than last week, just because I knew I could do it. This one was much tougher though because of the total sun exposure for such a long period of time. I hung around and stretched it all out and waited for Brent to finish. I gave him lots of cheers and two cyclists who had passed us about a million times told us "Good Job" as we were walking away. Athletes are the best.

So....how did we celebrate?? By getting me a new ride!!! The Expedition was just too damn big. It's just impossible to park, impossible to maneuver around the city and especially downtown, and just plain TOO BIG. So, I am now the proud owner of a bright red used Pontiac Vibe!! It's so cute and MANAGEABLE! It's great fun. We love it!!! We don't have all the "fancy" heated seats, adjustable pedals and memory seats, but we can park it!! And it gets over 30 miles per gallon, basically 3x the gas mileage of the Expedition.

I guess that's all the news around here. I ran on the treadmill tonight since it was pretty much dark when we got home. I watched Dancing with the Stars which is pretty tough to watch while on the dread! Shows like that make me sing and dance all around the house. (I've already been told once tonight by Brent to calm down.) You wanna know who is NOT bringing sexy back to Nashville??? Country singer Sara Evans. GEEZ! Loosen up lady!!! I swear it looked like she was auditioning for the Mickey Mouse club or something. Get dirty girl!!

Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Timmmm-ber

Hey guys!! Guess who is running a super-cute marathon in October????? Well, a lot of you since October holds Chicago, Marine Core, Detroit, Twin Cities and a load of other marathons. BUT, I just finished filling out my app for THIS super cute one, which for some reason Brent finds hilarious. I've got a Wonder Woman stamp on the envelope and off she goes tomorrow. Brent's going to run the half with me, take a break, then come backwards on the course and run the last few miles with me. Total cost for both of our races - $50!!! Can't beat that! The marathon is October 28th, and then Brent and I will both be running the Harpeth Hills marathon together on November 19th. I don't plan to taper for the 4-H marathon, it's more of a long training run for me and it should work well as it has rolling hills. I'd like to do the Team Nashville half (I think it's the following weekend) since it also has rolling hills, and this year I would like to NOT puke at Mile 12. Depending on how those two go I may still do the Memphis Marathon on December 2nd or Huntsville on December 9th. Or I may be totally burnt out on racing and just spend December baking and Christmas shopping.

Today was a very exciting day - we had a tree taken down! Half of it had fallen on our neighbor's house a week after we moved in, and the other half was aimed towards our house and cracking more and more every day. It was QUITE the production of cranes and equipment, totally fascinating. The guys did a great job and nothing got smashed up. Of course Pippin loved watching (from inside!). Here are a few pics! I'm sure the guys LOVED us and our cameras!!

Part 1: Taking the limbs down from in the bucket:









Part 2: The trunk - probably the toughest!! (notice that Pippin is watching from the window!)
















Part 3: The stump - They started grinding it today but broke their grinder so they have to come back tomorrow!

20 down

Hey guys!! First of all, big congrats to Yvonne on the birth of their future runner girl, to Shore Turtle for a great 5K finish, to Redhead Fangirl for her first 5K and to TriSaraTops - our newest Ironman!! I can't imagine competing for 15 hours and all the physical and mental endurance that would take during the BEST of weather conditions, not to mention on a day like they had yesterday in Wisconsin. I am in **awe**.

So, Saturday was my flat 20-miler, my first 20-miler of this training cycle. I really wasn't especially excited about it, and particularly since I'd be running it alone. I picked up a burrito the night before for a carbo load and set the alarm for 6 am. I just wasn't feeling 6 am, so when the alarm went off I reset it for 6:30. Slightly better but still atrocious. I ate a bagel and drove over to Shelby Park. I knew I'd need more water than my 6-bottle belt holds, so I decided to drive over so I could have extras. When I pulled in the lot was full of cars so I was really glad I'd have lots of eye candy, or at least entertainment. Just as my Garmin was trying to figure out where I was I got a text from Brent wishing me luck. Yeah!! Finally Garmin figured out I was a measly 1.5 miles from where I last ran and I was off. Slow and easy to get started, and in the beginning I thought "Nice, there's a little chill in the air!". It had rained the night before so it was still really foggy and the clouds were nice and thick. That didn't last long.... I headed out on the big 7.5 mile out and back loop and saw lots of other runners and walkers, as the morning wore on the cyclists increased and the runners started decreasing. And then the clouds started burning off and the humidity started making an appearance. I really wasn't paying much attention to my pace, I know my flat long runs are going to be very different than the marathon, and there's no way I can run marathon pace on the flats because I would just feel like I was crawling. I just kept a slow and steady pace, comfortable to the point where I would be able to hold a conversation if there was someone to talk to. I saw a few of my splits, and it seemed like they were all around 9:30, which was good but I knew I'd slow down later. I finished the first loop and then headed out around the lake (avoiding two dogs who were about to attack each other) and around past the golf course and up to the main entrance. A training group was packing it up and heading out as I made it back to my car around 12 miles to change out my bottles. I pulled out all new frozen bottles and took a swig of cold water. YEAH! I was pretty sure I'd worked it out to where I could do one more 7.5 loop and be done for the day, so once again I headed back out on the greenway. I was doing really well until around mile 15 when the heat was becoming such a pain. The temperature had gone from 70 degrees to 83 degrees while I was running. WAY too big of a swing! Around mile 15 I saw a tortoise. We see them a lot there (the greenway is next to the river) and last time we even saw a tortoise and a hare! But this time I SWEAR the turtle smiled at me. And then said he was from New Jersey. Ok, I made up the part about New Jersey but I really think the turtle smiled at me. I just kept moving, telling myself it was almost over. And I knew I HAD to keep going because no one was going to rescue me, and I had to make it back to the car one way or another. So I started promising myself all sorts of things-ice cream, pastries, a new car. Then I would tell myself there's NO WAY I can give up during Pretty Vegas - that's a dancin' song. I made it back to my car at 19.5 miles and just did parking lot laps to make it to 20 even. There was no way I was heading away from my massive car and back out into the park!! When I was finished I looked at my splits and nearly passed out!! I've never done a long run that quickly - I can do a half at a much faster pace but there's a huge difference in 13 miles and 20 miles! Here's the stats:

Total Run: 20 miles 3:09:03 avg pace 9:27/mile
Mile 1:9:52
Mile 2:9:28
Mile 3:9:23
Mile 4:9:13
Mile 5:9:12
Mile 6:9:23
Mile 7:9:28
Mile 8:9:23
Mile 9:9:35
Mile 10:9:29
Mile 11:9:44
Mile 12:9:40
Mile 13:9:31
Mile 14:9:34
Mile 15:9:27
Mile 16:9:20
Mile 17:9:17
Mile 18:9:24
Mile 19:9:18
Mile 20:9:11

I am strangely consistent, and I can't believe some of my fastest miles were the last ones. I felt like I was crawling. BUT, I'll take it.

For some strange reason I am dying to run another marathon. I'm thinking about this one in October. It's about 2.5 hours away and looks super cute. All of the townspeople make signs with your name on it and come out and cheer for you!! How cool is that? Anyway, I have a strange fascination with distance. I think it's much more intriguing to me than shorter, faster runs. A half is my fave distance to race. And, since I am not a morning bird I don't think it's always "worth" my time to get up early for a short race!

Anyway, that's it for now! More about the rest of the weekend later!!

Good clean fun

Hey all! No time to post today (Brent's back!!) so I thought I would just post a pic of Pippin we took today. We met B & her dog B at the dog park this afternoon and naturally Pippin felt like rolling in the dirt. Ugh!! Maybe he was just giving Mouse a thumbs up for her great (muddy) race.

Anyway, the weekend is over (boo!) so have a great week everyone! I'll post more about my weekend and the insanely good 20-miler I had yesterday on tomorrow's post. (But, I will go ahead and tell you I ended up with an average pace of 9:27 for a 20-miler in stinking hot temps. HUH?? I have no clue how I ended up doing that!! That's just crazy!)

See ya!!

Not so much about running

Hmmm...I'm not exactly sure where to go with this post. I've had several thoughts running around in my head....so we'll see where it all lands. Even though my blog is primarily about my running, it's really about my life. There's a lot I don't share here, primarily because I've been burned on the ass a few times about things I have said. That's the main reason I've given a lot of thought to moving elsewhere and letting those of you who are kind enough to leave encouraging comments a forwarding address via email or something. The thing is, I don't read your blogs to see what your last split was. I read to see what's going on in your life, rejoice with your improvements, hug you on the bad days, give you advice on your blisters and share in the ultimate joy of a race completed. If you never ran another PR again or completely gave up speedwork but kept sharing the mundane joys of your ordinary day I would be just fine with that. Some of us may seem like workout machines but underneath it all we are normal people (but nowhere near average). All that said here goes.... (and Blogger - you'd better start cooperating and quite erasing my posts!)

Work has been really difficult this week. Not in the usual annoying people work stuff, but because our friend T passed away overnight Wednesday. If you've been reading my blog for a while you might remember me mentioning her, particularly last fall when she was no longer able to work. This wasn't her first battle with cancer. She was only 32 and was a single mom to 2 small kids. Nothing about her life has ever been easy, but I can't even express to you what a positive, uplifting person she was. I know I have never heard her complain about anything and she had plenty of things she could complain about. She was my "pee partner", the only person I know of at work who pees as much as I do. Her medication made her have to go a lot, and my only excuse is a tiny bladder and excessive water intake. I'll never forgot all the laughs we had running into each other in there, and all the conversations I'd share with Brent that began with "Yeah, in the bathroom today T and I were talking about such and such". I know she's in a much better place now, fully healed and watching us with a huge smile, but it still sucks. Cancer is just wrong, and the people it takes are not the people it should take. I know she will still be with us every day, and I know she will be with me during every race I ever run. (She was always so interested in our silly races and would have loved to come and watch us.) Her visitation was this afternoon after work, but it's still surreal and will take a while to comprehend. I really wish Brent could have been here to go with me, it's really hard for him to be so far away because they worked together quite a bit and were very close. I am certainly my own person, and he will be the first to tell you I am headstrong, stubborn and independent but he's my rock and my best friend. Life is a bit sad when he's gone to begin with....and I wasn't sure if I would even be able to make it through this afternoon at all without him. I can't wait to pick him up at the airport tomorrow night.

There's really nothing else inside me to say tonight other than life is short, but we all know that. Enjoy your time here and don't be scared to dream big.

Good luck!!

Good luck wishes to everyone racing this weekend! I can tell race season is starting to pick back up, it must be fall somewhere in the country! Here's the ones I can remember off the top of my head - Jack's got a marathon in Germany, Mouse is running through some dirt and mud in Michigan, Elizabeth is blazing a half, and last but not least AT ALL - TriSaraTops is doing her first Ironman this weekend. I can NOT even imagine the endurance involved in an IM. You are my hero!!! And good luck to anyone who is still planning to Run for the Party (5K) tomorrow night here in Nashville this weekend. I still haven't decided if I'm going to run it this weekend, I've got 20 miles on the schedule for tomorrow morning, and it's going to be a long and lonely 20. Also, the $35 entry fee for a 5K is just ridiculous, plus the race was so horribly, terribly organized. No doubt they've learned from their mistakes, but I may just go and watch.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Table for 1

Hey guys! How's it going? I hope you all had great Labor Day weekends (if you live somewhere in the US!). Nothing beats a 3-day weekend!

Some light storms brought some awesome temps for the end of last week. It was so perfect we took Pippin for a long walk Friday night. We even walked past our mayor's house (we call him our may-bher since he lives so close!) And then....Saturday morning - time for some LSD! In getting ready for this marathon we're alternating hilly and flat weeks now. Doing back to back intense hills would be certain death now that we're in the upper teens and quickly approaching the 20's! We got up early, had a bagel and drove over to Percy Warner. We had memorized the marathon course this time and our plan was to run the first 15.5 miles of the marathon and then turn back around and end up at our car at 17 miles. We found the right parking spot this time (yeah) which was the same spot several high school cross country teams were practicing at. Oh yeah, nothing like a bunch of 17 year olds to make you feel old and out of shape!! We geared up and headed out, and of course a pack of them demolished us straight away. What-ev, the temps were awesome and we were loving it. It was about 10 degrees cooler than the week before and that made SO much difference!! I think our high last weekend was in the low 80's, versus the mid and upper 90's we've had all summer! We easily maneuvered the various turns of the course and were even treated to three large deer watching us from the woods! We were doing great and pacing between 9:20-10:20, which is way below where I really wanted us to be. Around mile 7 one of THE top local runners passed us, and we were even excited about that!! Around mile 10 the hills and our "fast" pace started to take a toll. We run our own pace on the steep inclines, so I was a little ahead of Brent and stopped for a second to take a walk break and drink some Gatorade, so when he caught up he walked too. That's when the run went downhill. I just needed a quick 30 second break, but it seems like once you take a break you just want more. We started running again, but Brent was starting to lose his stamina and would fall back. I'd jog ahead and then jog back, and it was starting to get seriously annoying because we'd made it to mile 13 and were SO close to just being done!! He needed a break at 13 so we ate some sports beans and had a good conversation about consistent training and cross training if you're a little injured. I was feeling really good, but I didn't want to leave Brent behind. In the midst of all this chaos my Garmin suddenly seemed to have no idea where I was, and with all the switchbacks it would sometimes LOSE mileage when it did find me! Everything was so frustrating! We finally made it to the turn around point, and I continued to run ahead and either wait or run back for Brent, until we got to around .5 mile from the car. Then, I just let it fly! And as I got closer to the car I saw the track team still out there training. A huge pack of guys was coming from one side and heading back to where I was going - and I turned it ON. I ran as hard as I could (which, after nearly 17 miles came in around the mid 7:00s) to beat those boys - and I did!!! This week's hilly 17 only took me 4 minutes longer than the week before's super hot flat 17, and I know I could have done much better if I was running miles 13-17 on my own. Saturday I could have totally run the last 9 miles and finished the marathon. Hopefully I really can in November!!

We came home just as our friend B was leaving the dog park with her dog (also B) so they stopped by and Pippin and Bailey ran around the yard and had a nice doggie date. We went out for Indian food Sat night at Sitar and pigged out!! Normally their food and service are good, but they only had their food going for them on Saturday!! We ordered an appetizer we never even got, that of course they tried to charge us for, and naturally didn't even apologize about! Since the appetizer was an 0-1 we decided to pick up some dessert to share instead, so we got a yummy caramel brownie from Panera Bread. We decided to drive through downtown and enjoy the sounds of all the country western bars as we headed home, and get this - we saw a MONKEY. It was sitting on a bench with two people, just people watching. My picture didn't come out very well, but there is a monkey there. (The monkey is on the far left of the bench.) I think Pippin and a monkey would be so cute together!!
We spent a lot of time over the weekend working on the house, and since it was nice outside we spent a ton of time Sunday & Monday on the yard. It looks SO nice now!! We've been playing ball with Pippin in the backyard and he loves it!! We also bought 3 cans of paint (for our bedroom, the kitchen, & the den) so I am not going to be bored this week with Brent gone, just lonely!

We did run again Monday am. We got up at a respectable 7:30 and headed for a downtown run. Our original plan was the 5.5 loop that takes us into downtown via the Woodland St bridge, down 2nd Av and then back via the Shelby Street bridge, but once we made it downtown we decided to run to the War Memorial Plaza. We had noticed it for the first time over the weekend and wanted a better look! It was SO pretty, it's right across the street from the state capital and has several statues honoring the veterans. The architecture is amazing. Our run was supposed to be a recovery run, but making it up to the plaza required running up a massive hill! We already get hills on these runs with the hills in our neighborhood and the bridges over the river, so it really turned into more of a hill training recovery run, which is fine. We took some camera phone pics at the plaza and then headed back home, the run ended up being 5.6 miles, basically the same as the original loop we had planned!


To celebrate all the house stuff we had accomplished we headed downtown Monday night to enjoy a "nice" dinner. The best thing about living near downtown is you can go whenever, and if it sucks you didn't really go out of your way to get there. We snagged a meter for $2 (score!) and walked down to the Old Spaghetti Factory. We don't eat there much, but we thought it would be a nice change. It's in an old factory and is decorated so beautifully. I'm not sure if kids eat free or what, but there are a lot of them there. They're also terrible at predicting how long your wait will be-she told us 10 minutes, but it was closer to 25. Ugh. Our food came quickly, and it was fine. Nothing outstanding but certainly not bad. Our waiter was really nice, and the way they tell you their name on the receipt just totally cracked us up. YOU HAVE BEEN SERVED! HA!!! Afterwards we wandered around 2nd avenue and tried on some fab cowboy gear at the Sun on 2nd store. I think it's SO us.

So that pretty much brings you up to speed with what we've been up to! I just got a pix message from Brent of a slot machine so I take it he arrived safely! Pippin is very confused and keeps walking around looking for his daddy. At least he's eating, when I went to NJ for a 3-day work thing he wouldn't even eat!! It's so strange to be by myself!! I came home, did a 5.25 mile run on the treadmill and fixed a grilled cheese sandwich with Muenster and Colby cheese (and a little Feta sprinkled on, too). I watched Rock Star Supernova which is so much more fun with Brent!! Brent burned me a bunch of CDs to rock out to, and I'm having fun finding the notes he has left behind (hidden) for me. I wonder how many of the ones I left for him he has found in his luggage?? I'm hoping he doesn't find the one I stuck down in his shoe for a while. =) We're so predictable.

Well, I need to give Pippin a bath and then......who knows!!

Have a great night!

Rae

Lonely

My boo just left for his trip to Vegas. =(

We're always together. = (

Good thing I bought a whole box of Skinny Cow ice cream cones last night.

Much fun-caught on film

Much fun is being had by all on this fab 3-day weekend. I am so glad tomorrow is Labor Day. I have no idea what Labor Day is all about except that we get paid and don't have to go to work!! In honor of this day we are going to work super hard on our house all day.

Pictured above is a fun doggie play date from Saturday. (Brent and I had JUST finished our 17 mile hilly long run so excuse the mess that is me!) To me this pic basically just sums up "happiness", "laughter", and "unconditional friendship". The boys (Pippin and Bailey) had fun playing and we had fun sitting on the porch enjoying the AMAZING temps we've had weekend.

More about the weekend to come!!

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Rachel

P.S. Belated good wishes to Cliff who is completing a Half IM sometimes this weekend! Good luck to everyone racing in New Haven tomorrow!! Run hard!