A celebration of a halves...

Yes, today Dylan turned 18 months (one and a half!).  Hooray!  And today I ran my very first Half Marathon.  In celebration, we had this for dinner:

Yes, chocolate cake.  No joke.  This is what we ate for dinner.  It was delicious.  The boys were thrilled and I was happy  as can be.  It was lovely.

But for the record, we had some raw veggies and ranch for an 'appetizer'...

And the tomatoes came straight from our garden.  Yummy!
 
I can not believe Dylan is a year and a half.  Crazy.  I know I say this every birthday, but it seems like just last week we were rushing to the hospital with our impatient baby boy (aka our  'Freeway' baby).  He is just as impatient now, especially when he wants milk, he is a milk addict.  Seriously.  And food addict too.  He finishes his meal, asked to get down, then climbs up on Connor's seat and finishes Connor's food.  Too funny.  He has some of the funniest and most serious looks.  Here are a couple recent pictures of our little man:

Loving the chocolate cake!

Lovely bruise on his head.  He is all boy.  And he is eating a gummy fish.

So cute.

So serious.

We love you Dylan!  You are so sweet & such a joy each and every day.

And onto the half marathon...
I ran in the Heels & Hills  half marathon today.  Dare I say it was fun?!?  But it really was.  Who knew I could enjoy 13.2 miles of running ;-)  Certainly not me!  But I did.  I finished with a time of 2 hours and 8 minutes.  I was very pleased with that time.  Here are the stats:  I averaged 9:50 miles.  (Which is a bit off since I ran the first 7 miles considerably slower than I ran the last 6, which I realize is odd, but I didn't want to burn out before the finish line.)  I came in #11 in my age group, and #155 overall.  Not sure how many people total in the race, but there seemed like quite a lot ;-) 

Pre-race photo in the dark...

 

Note: my bright green bib not only stood out, it had my name on it & it said in big bold letters, "First Half Marathon".  LOL.  Way to call me out ;-)  It was pretty funny.

Not sure if the link will work or not, but click here to see the photos from Sport Photo.  Some are pretty funny.  You may have to search.  Event date 9-26-2010, my bib # 426

And an after race photo...

Yes, we went to eat.  Mexican food.  YUM.

And I couldn't pass up a margarita...

After all, I did earn it.  Well, actually I earned two.  Ha!

It was a fun-filled day.  I am tired.  My legs hurt.  But it was well worth it.  I am so glad I decided to be crazy and run a half marathon.  And even more excited that I finished the race!

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Early Morning Run

Somehow I agreed to run at 5am this morning!  What was I thinking?!? I had to set my alarm for 4:30am!!!  Lesley & Robin (who are two very experienced long distance runners) met here at my house just before 5am and we set off for our 4 mile run.  It was 70 degrees!  Can't beat that!  I would even say it was a cool 70 degrees.  Amazing!  We felt great once we came upon 4 miles, so decided to do another mile.  (I should add that this was an easy day for them...they agreed to run a little slower with me...how nice!)  I was amazed that I was able to comfortably talk through all 5 miles.  Huge confidence booster!  And did I mention, it was fun?!?  Well, as fun as 5am can be!

In fact, I was amazed enough that I went crazy and signed up for the Heels & Hills Half Marathon.  That is 13.1 miles.  Yikes!  That is preciously 10 miles further than I have ever ran in a race before!  And did I mention that it is in 30 days???  30 days to train and up my mileage big time! 

With a jam packed September (two Cougar football games...woohoo!) it is sure to be a great month, but it is sure to fly by! 

Can't wait! Wish me luck, I will need all the luck I can get...

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