ABC's of boston 2011

A. awesomeness
words cant accurately describe the niketown photobooth... that we completely took over, as the store was closing and completely dominated it.

B. bloggers & boston creme pie
i could write on and on and on about my weekend in boston but it would end up sounding much like everyone elses weekend recaps... so just go read theirs! makes my job easier. pictures are still fun to look at though so ill keep putting in a bunch of those. im so happy to have met all of you guys (minus sarah, i know you already in real life) and i cant wait til next year to do it all over again sometime!

sarah, katie, susan, morgan, ally, christy, becky, kim, lauren, jill

i dont like yogurt much and i suck real good at trying new things. but i saw this on the morning of the marathon and figured i would give it a try. and what do ya know, i actually liked it!

C. city sports
long story short i had a lot of time to shop around with a shabby princess at city sports, a fun running store that we dont have in maine. so i took a photo tour.

D. "does this not look like a mussel?!"
mmmmm garlic breath

E. elevators
somehow we ended up in a few elevators this weekend, so we felt the need to take pics... ya know, incase we got stuck and never came out.

one elevator was fun and not sketchy

and then there was the death elevator

F. 5k fun & finish line

BIB NAME AGE M/F CITY ST CTRY CTZ 2769 Sterling, Danielle 30 F South Portland ME USA Official Finish Overall Gender Division 24:48 877 / 4198 262 / 2441 53 / 387

pre race blogger meet up

heres your pic miss shabbyprincess

crossing the finish line of the boston marathon, despite only running the 5k, was incredible.

G. giggle sauce
im convinced my food on sunday night was coated in this stuff

H. helping hands

I. i didnt get a pic of caroline white for a specific reason, but kudos to her for qualifying for the olympics. probably a really shitty experience for her though.

J. joan benoit samuelson
totally awesome and rockin the age group win. yay maine!

K. kara goucher & katie
um yeah... kara is awesome. can you have a baby and 7 months later place 5th in the boston marathon?! maybe you can, but i cant.

and i finally met katie. which was fantastic. we didnt have babies or run a marathon this weekend, but we ate and drank a lot. and thats alright.

aaaand i even "convinced" katie to have a beer with me. before noon.

L. luau
luau ran by us towards the finish line and heard us cheering for him... and promptly turned around, ran back through the crowd of runners to come find us and take pics with us!
(2nd photo stolen from his blog. so sue me. i havent seen a copywrite)

M. map
i barely looked at one, nor was i good at reading them when i saw one on the T, but this one was pretty cool.

N. neon & new balance
lots and lots of neon this weekend

and i won a pair of new balance minimalist sneakers (retailing $100!) at a blogger happy hour! after wearing them walking around all day on sunday and monday, feet fairly sore, i read the tag that came with the shoe regarding breaking them in slowly and not wearing them too much to walk around in. whoops.

O. operation jack
boston marathon goal: sub 3 hours
boston marathon finishing time: 2:57:53
mission accomplished.

P. PICKLES! seriously.... seriously?!

Q. quotes: "girl, you will not buy that sweatshirt for your baby bump"
"yup. shes on my island"
"um alright well were on the wrong train"
"im gonna need more whipped cream"
"so i guess i should tell you, ive never had an espresso before"
"before we leave i will be taking your photo on that toilet"
"were eating dinner at a bowling alley in a parking garage"
"im gonna go buy you a beer but you have a job to do"
"are these real strawberries?"
(on marathon training): "do i have to lift weights on my off days?"... "are you going to stop and lift weights during a marathon? no."
"im gonna have to lose like 5 pounds"... "where are you going to lose 5 pounds? cut off your leg?"

ohhhh this list goes on and on and on....

R. ryan hall & rooftop party
oh yeah, our friend ryan hall finished 4th. word.

S. sox
nothing like 4th row from the back wall of the beachers! thanks for the tickets, sam!

T. t rides

U. UMmmmm.......
boston in and of itself was a
V. VERY
incredible weekend. it was full of
W. WILDLY
incredible friends, family, runners, walkers, spectators, and supporters alike. if youre planning on going to the marathon next year, DO IT!! just make sure you leave plenty of
X. XTRA
time to take everything in and meet all the incredible people out there. everyone has a story, and they are amazing. *(you thought i was going to have to put xylophone here, didnt you!?). alright boston, ill see
Y. YOU
again next year... maybe from the other side of the metal bars? and now its time to catch up on the
Z. ZZZZZZZZZ's 
i lost last weekend.

and finally....

WERE UNDER CONTRACT!

it took a weekend of exhausting phone calls back and forth, a few offers/counter offers/negotiations, but we put in a final offer this morning and the seller accepted!

i think we have 14 days or something to get a building inspector over there, at which point we have to decide an official yes or no. where its a new construction home were hoping there isnt much wrong with it, but i guess you never know.

i really thought this wasnt going to happen, and on my run yesterday where i really needed to try to de-stress, all i could think about was whether we were making the right decision or not. this whole process has been (and im sure will continue to be) very stressful and i want is to feel excited. dont get me wrong, i am excited but its hard when things still feel so up in the air.

but for now, the paper work is getting written up and were almost home owners. EEEEEEK!

great bay half

dear capstone photography,
i know you say its strictly prohibited to use your photos but ive already purchased it. so please dont arrest me.
love, me

this is by far one of the best race photos ive had in a long time, so i needed to share and i couldnt wait until it arrives in the mail (yes, im one of those people that buy the extremely overpriced race photos for my marathons and half marathons. feel free to make fun of me, i dont care).

im flying!

last sunday i ran the great bay half marathon in newmarket, nh. i hadnt planned on running it until about 2 weeks prior since i didnt have my work schedule yet (and i decided i wasnt going to ask for the day off). it all worked out though, and ty even decided to join in the fun and run the simultaneous 5k! we had a bunch of friends join us down there and it made for a great day.

chad, a good friend of ours (check out his blog... http://chadwik66.blogspot.com/) really wanted to beat me, but of course i wasnt going to let that happen! i hadnt wanted to race this half, but if i had to, so be it. chad's sister-in-law, erin, was also running the half, her husband brett, their parents, and ty were doing the 5k. i ended up meeting up with a girlfriend i went to college with (and havent seen since then!) and we all walked to the starting line together. i also saw patti and jim, friends from daily mile and local races. such great people!!

the weather wasnt as warm as it was last year but i definitely over dressed. the race started and i took off, and got to mile 1 at 8:06, much faster than i wanted to start. mile 2 and 3 were consistent with 8:25's, which was more what i wanted. at mile 5 i met up with the 8:30 pacer, jimmy. i checked my watch with his and we were right on with 42:10. miles 3-6 are on a dirt path which was full of frost heaves and pot holes, so it was frustrating to have to constantly look down, but before i knew it we were back on the pavement and i was feeling great. i had already dumped my gloves along the side of the road and i took my outer layer off before mile 4. the wind was pretty strong but it was warming up nicely.

miles 6-8 flew by, despite the hills from hell (i know these hills arent going to even compare to what ive got coming to me in october, but im trying not to think about that just yet). right before mile 10 we turn onto a down and back and ty, brett, kelly, and scott were there to cheer us on. that really pumped me up and i was able to drop off my outer shell which was driving me nuts tied around my waist. 

 speedy mc fast, trying to finish strong

 chad knows im up there, trying to catch up so he can beat me

 erin had the same idea i did, less clothes makes you faster!

the last 3 miles my knees started to get sore but i knew i was on pace to get a pretty good time, so i kept pushing. the pic from the beginning of this post was right before mile 11. lookin good, right? hehe. at right around mile 12 eric ran up next to me and introduced himself. yay! it was fun to chat with him for a minute or so and then it was time for me to really give it all i had. they changed the end of the course last year so that there was a downhill finish, but they still had one last killer hill before that last stretch.

 college friend sarah with her boyfriend/pacer jim

here comes those purple pants!

 im smiling cuz i see two people ahead of me that dont know im coming

(i passed them both right before the finish!)

 chad coming in strong

 wooo hooo erin!
(and me on the left cheering her on)

chad was still able to smile post race despite being crushed by a girl

although i was 55 seconds shy of my half marathon PR, i still got a PR for the course, and its a tough course to do that for sure! 2011 final time: 1:52:18! (past years: 2010- 1:58:15, 2009- 2:01:17, 2008- 1:59:45)
i was super pleased with myself and with all runners out there :) i know i could have run another 13.1 miles but definitely am not in shape yet to have kept up the pace... and even if i could keep my pace i would still be over 4 minutes slow for a BQ. maybe someday, like when im 45.