Wineglass Marathon Weekend

We are up in NY this weekend for the Wineglass Marathon in Corning, NY. We left Charlotte after work on Thursday and drove to Morgantown, WV for the night before continuing on to Rochester on Friday morning.

Friday night we had dinner with my family at my favorite restaurant, Agatinas! I love this place, and make it a point to have dinner there every time I come home. (I am even getting my wedding meal from Agatinas--our wedding in Rochester, that is.)If you are ever in Rochester, NY, venture over to the west side, in Gates, it is worth the trip!

We made our way down to Corning on Saturday afternoon. It is such a beautiful drive, with all the leaves changing. My parents also came down with us to support us in our races. We quickly made our way through the expo and then looked for a place to eat dinner, was hoping for an early dinner. We saw Allen Strickland and Laura Gray at the restaurant, they had gotten there a little earlier than us, so they avoided the wait. We had close to an hour wait, and then when we got our food, it was pretty disappointing, more of a sports bar restaurant.

We got to our hotel around 8 o'clock and got all our belongings together and ready for the next morning. Early wake up call at 5am, yuck. I dropped Chris off at the start of the full marathon at 7am, and then I headed to my half marathon start. My parents met me there to drive my car to the finish and cheer me on at the start. I was very worried that I wasn't going to be able to finish the half marathon. My left soleus has been cramped up for about three weeks now. This past week it stopped me mid-run during an 8 miler on Wednesday morning. I went to visit Adrienne for a massage that day, and had not ran since. It was pretty bad, hurts to the touch and even an ache when I walk. So, the half marathon would be my first run to test it out. I felt the tightness from the beginning and it never went away, never really got too much worse, but it did not feel good, especially on the uphill portions (luckily there werent' too many of those.)

I was praying that I would just be able to finish the race, didn't matter what my time was, I just wanted to finish and not have to walk to the finish in the cold weather. Thank goodness I made it! I did not get a PR, but I finished. Unofficial time was 1:44:50. As soon as I got through the finish line I saw my parents and made my way to find the medic tent to get some ice. My leg was already swollen. I iced for a bit and then went to look for Chris finishing his race.

Chris did awesome! A huge PR with an unofficial time of 2:36:35! He got 4th place overall and won an engraved wine craft, a bottle of champagne and even some $$! Great day for Chris! Very proud of him!

Chris in the last tenth mile of the race

Chris getting his award, next to the 1984 US Olympic gold medalist, Joan Benoit Samuelson!

We have had a fun filled weekend. Unfortunatly, right now we are watching the end of the Bills game, not a very good ending to the game :(

Productive Weekend!

Everyday and weekend has been a blur lately with all our housework we have had going on. We had another fun-filled weekend of productivity! Luckily, I got my long run of 18 miles out of the way on Thursday morning. Chris and I got up at 5am and he ran 7 miles with me before my friends Amy and Lisa met me for a ten mile run. Then Amy and I continued on for one mile. The weather was perfect and the company could not be beat!

Friday night Chris and I tried to just relax a bit, we had a couple beers at the house and got in our newly emptied, cleaned and filled up-hot tub! It is so nice and peaceful in our backyard. It is so quiet and the backyard lights give it just the right touch. Check out the tranquility...

We got up early on Saturday morning for the Isabella Santos Foundation's 5k for Kid's Cancer.
Chris and I have been raising money for the ISF, we will be running in memory is Isabella, a local girl who passed away recently from a childhood cancer, neuroblastoma. You can check out our fundraising page here. Thank you to everyone who has given, each and every donation means so much, and is so greatly appreciated! Chris won the 5k and set the course record with a time of 16:27. I placed 2nd in my age group with a time of 23:00. I could not tell you if this is a personal best for me, since I very rarely run in 5k's. It was a great event, it was fun seeing everyone from TrySports out there as well! Chris won a free class party at Fly Wheel Charlotte. Stay tuned for the date he chooses, we will use this as another way to raise money for the ISF!

Now, onto our house projects. We have been back and forth to our old townhome, and have almost totally gotten everything out, and cleaned up the place. One more trip. I finally have all my clothes here and can't wait to start organizing my new closet. Ladies, this closet is phenomenol, I hope I can leave some room for Chris...

Today, Sunday, Chris's mom came over to help us paint (it is neverending!) She got to work in our master bathroom. This is a very difficult room to paint, there is also a separate toilet room in the bathroom. The finished product is great, we picked out the color selection from seeing a picture of one of the rooms in Rob and Joy Dietz's house. We love it! Chris also replaced the old gold lighting with a new silver one, picked at the Habitat Restore for just $5 (lightbulbs included!) We are slowing changing all of the gold in the house to silver. Chris hung Levolor wooden plantation blinds above the tub as well.

I had the pleasure of painting the dining room ceiling. This was no fun. I do not think I will ever paint a ceiling again. I did not originally plan on this, but since there was so much blue paint on the ceiling, I wanted to touch it up. I went to Lowes and tried matching the ceiling color up with a new paint, but it was too difficult to match the right color. So, I just decided to paint it all. Phew. I will not do that again, but now it is done.

Last, but not least, one of the new joys of home ownership is trying to figure out why a slug keeps appearing in our dishwasher. I have never heard of this happening to anyone, but it is gross. Twice in three days this has now happened. Yesterday, I ran my dishwasher twice with bleach. Then I ran it again with dishwasher detergent. This morning, no slug. I then put a bowl of beer in the bottom, since slugs are attracted to beer, for some reason. I keep checking, and no slugs have been back. Tonight will be the true test.

I will keep this posted with our new projects, there are many more on our list. Two more bedrooms to paint, more boxes to unpack than we can count, pictures to hang, cleaning to be done, the list goes on!

Loving our new house and neighborhood though, I think we found our perfect spot :)

Welcome to Birkdale!

I have so much information to update on here, I'm not sure where to start.

Chris and I closed on our first home togeter on September 5th. Since then we have been on a whirlwind of moving, house projects, marathon training, work, etc. This is such a difficult time to try and train for our marathon with everything else going on, but we're doing it as best we can. I want to post pics of our current projects we have 'almost' completed. Everything is still a work in progress.

Since we have closed, we have painted our kitchen, dining room, sunroom, and Chris's grandmother was kind enough to paint our office. Here are some before and after pictures. I normally wouldn't want to post these until everything was done and set up. As you can see, there is nothing on the walls yet, there are still boxes around the house, ladders, half of window treatments done, but I figure that if I wait to get everything done, I may not be posting until next year! :)

Dining room before we painted and changed the chandelier, and after...

kitchen before we painted and put new floors in-and a brand new fridge...thanks to my parents for the early wedding present!! (still many boxes and projects around.)

living room before new flooring, and after (with our tv mounted and new blinds)

the sunroom before painting (we still have to finish hanging curtains and bringing in furniture) and after...

I don't have a before picture of the office so I am going to hold off on posting that. We still have much work to do around the house, as you can see. Just wanted to get this posted since many of you have asked to see pictures, especially my family in NY.

More to come...