Kate and Colin'd

It was SO much darn fun havin' Kate and Colin visit us; they were great guests and are lots of fun to be around. I have never seen anyone who could nerd out with Christian so well, it was pretty awesome. Lets just say there was a lot of talk about fonts and awesome topics like that during the trip.
This was Colin and Kate's first time to the East Coast, so we had to make sure they fell in love with it and wanted to come back. We took them to Salem, which is always a fun place to visit this time of year. Berkeley was MAJORLY freaked out by many of the people who dressed up there, but he found a lot of comfort being in his stroller, which worked out for everyone involved.

Instead of driving to Salem, we decided to take the Commuter Rail into town, which turned out to be a lot of fun and way better than dealing with traffic. These boys are too funny when they get together!

We had a great tour on the Salem trolley and learned a lot of history about the town. Salem is a beautiful city and has a lot of neat history besides the witch trials.
The house below is the house where the movie HOCUS POCUS was filmed, which just happens to be my FAVORITE Halloween movie of all time.

Who knew that Salem was so beautiful?

Everyone also got to visit the Peabody Essex Museum while I walked Berke around the ocean so he could nap (which worked like a charm!) They loved seeing the cool art. We also ate yummy Italian food in the North End and had cannolis from Mikes Pastry. There was also exploring of Downtown Boston, the MFA and lots of late night laughs.
It was so good to have them visit.
Berke especially LOVED playing with his "friends" and could not get enough of "the guy" and Kate. There were great to play with him nonstop and give him lots of attention.
Tonight he said, "I want to play with my friends again."

Hartford 1/2 Marathon

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to run a marathon. I thought it would be the perfect time as I was in the best shape I have ever been in. What I didn't calculate was the amount of time it would take to train for such an event. Working 40 hours, being a mother, wife and friend didn't leave enough time for the intense training a marathon requires. I started becoming way too stressed because I had already signed up for the Hartford, CT Marathon and I didn't want to lose out on my registration fee. During one of my runs, I realized the marathon training was not doable in my current situation and that I would switch my registration to the Hartford 1/2 Marathon instead.
I have decided that since I ran the Boston Run to Remember 1/2 Marathon and the Hartford 1/2 Marathon this year that technically counts as a full Marathon right? Thus I have met my goal.

Anyhooo, when we were in Utah this summer, we were visiting with Christian's college buddy, Colin and his wife Kate. They passively stated they would love to come out; maybe if there was a race they could come for a visit. They didn't know that I had a race ready for them to run; what I didn't expect is that they would actually come out and visit us.

Colin and Kate took a red eye to Boston from Salt Lake and arrive early Friday morning. We left around noon and headed to Hartford, CT. We decided to take McDuff with us this weekend as he is always getting left behind. Christian failed to read the hotel policy about pets and how there is an extra charge of $200. We are VERY lucky that we have good friends, the Hammonds who live in Hartford, and wonderfully took our dog for the night so we could avoid the extra cost.

We carbo loaded Friday night and then woke up and headed to the race. When we walked out of the hotel we were greeted by this gorgeous sunrise.

We drove to downtown Hartford where our friend Kim had a parking spot at her work all ready for us, which was beyond awesome, as the parking was a nightmare! It was great that the entire Hammond Family came out to cheer me on and help Christian with the dog and the boy. Their kids feel in love with Mr. McDuff and we were so happy he was in such good hands.
Here is my cute family before the race.

This is my 3rd Half Marathon and instead of training for endurance, this time I trained to increase my speed. I have never been a fast runner and run a 10:45-11:00 minute mile. As I trained I was able to maintain a speed of about 10:30 minute during my long runs. My goal was to beat my previous 1/2 marathon time of 2 hours 18 minutes. I was so nervous on race day, I always get race day nerves. This was my first 1/2 running by myself, without my gal Kelly.
I started running and the adrenalin kicked in; I was monitoring my speed on my Nike GPS watch and I was making good time. I knew this would be my last 1/2 marathon for a while and I wanted all my training to be worth it. I ran my little heart out; my ipod was filled with a pumpin' new play list and I was pushing myself hard. The race course was absolutely beautiful and the entire town came out to cheer us on. I felt like it was a little mini Boston Marathon with the amount of people cheering. As we ran through neighborhoods, everyone was out with their cow bells and signs cheering us on. My favorite sign read, "Status Update: Kicking Ass!"
I really started getting tired around mile 8, my legs were feeling the speed I was pushing on them; this is when the mental game kicked in for me and I had to talk myself through the rest of the race. I was so proud that I did not stop once during the race. At mile 12 I felt like dying and wasn't sure I could maintain a fast pace and at that point told my body it could slow down and just finish, but my legs just didn't want to slow down because ahead I could see my friends the Hammonds and my sweet family cheering me on. Seeing them gave me the energy to push through to the very end. I was so happy when I crossed the finish line, 13.1 miles completed! My official time 2:07:30 which was a 9:44 minute mile. HOLY CRAP! I was SO proud of myself and still cannot believe I ran that fast for that distance. I only finished 5 minutes behind Colin, which made me feel like a total Rock Star.

Here are our good friends the Hammonds. They were so stickin' awesome to take care of our dog, get us an awesome parking spot and cheer me on. We even got to go to lunch with them after we showered and got to spend a little quality time with them. We are so lucky to have such cool friends, we owe them big time.

We ate a delicious lunch and walked through the little town where the Hammonds live (so cute). We went to this cute fountain to take a group picture. Kim told me how here littlest girl fell into the fountain last year in the fall and it was a bit traumatic. Fastforward 5 minutes and we are all gathering around the fountain when BAM! Berkeley has pushed their youngest daughter into the fountain as she was in his "space." The poor thing was terrified, I felt so bad!! Notice the large puddle of water next to me, yep, that is where it all went down. Clearly Berkeley feels bad.
So here we are with Colin and Kate in Hartford.

Here are all three of the Hartford 1/2 Marathon finishers (the ones that drove in our car anyway).
We were all pretty sore and exhausted but loved the run. I would totally do this run again and recommend it for any first timers.