Needing an update

Marty told me he wanted me to update my blog, which I found to be a funny request since he lives with me and should know everything that's going on. But here goes.

When we last talked, we had just gotten back from the Dominican Republic.  That Sunday I did my longest run (14 miles) in preparation for the half marathon I have next weekend and it went all right.  I negative split it and although my paces were not stellar, they were not horrible. I was still thinking breaking 1:30 would be doable. Fast forward to the next day and my *hip* was really bothering me.  After some self assessment I determined that it's really my glute medius - a very common weak muscle in runners/triathletes.  I now see a pattern that when I go over 12 miles at harder paces I end up with issues. It's just not a correlation I totally realized because I hardly ever run that long.  So I've been dealing with this ever since; missing runs here and there and overall seeing my goal times disappearing and adjusting my outlook to have a fun weekend (which it will be, the posse going to the race is all fun).  My plan is to get through this as best as possible, then take a short time off from running to allow it to rest before I focus in on specific exercises to get that muscle stronger and able to endure longer distances without weakening.

Gaal, party of 3, ran in one of the local Turkey Trot's although if you search you won't find us in any of the results. Marty had originally signed up for the Skinny Turkey half marathon but after his foot injury asked to be switched to the 5K. For whatever reason, he wasn't switched and because of the timing of the two races he didn't want to cross the line since it would look like he had a super awesome half marathon time.  We got to the race with not a whole lot of time to spare and as we're in line to pick up our packets Marty asked, "You registered for this, right?"  I looked at him and gave a very eloquent, "Uhhhhhhh.....I thought you registered me?" Fail. So because my hip was being obnoxious and I didn't have a whole lot of time to get back to the car for my checkbook, I just ran with Marty and Logan, went ahead a little for some short tempo, and stopped before the finish line.

I will be asleep in 3...2...

That afternoon we headed on over to our friends house for orphan Thanksgiving which has become a tradition.  Logan looooooved Thanksgiving dinner.

He's also cuter than Jesse Thomas.

All right, everybody be cool, this is a robbery!

Double points for knowing the movie quote above (googling doesn't count). 

Here are some more recent pictures of the little guy in no particular order. He is loving Tassie now, handing her toys and trying to play ball with her (in the house, of course).

In our backyard

Gimme that ball

Come on, gimme!!

This place has so much stuff!

Here's a tiny leaf for you, mom

Think I'll take a break

Spider monkey (where are my Twilight fans?!)

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Dominican Republic

One of our very good friends from Orlando, Dan, got married last Thursday in the Dominican Republic. In a tribute to how awesome he is (and his wife), this destination wedding had 100 people at it. Grandma flew up to watch Logan for us and Marty and I flew to Punta Cana by way of Atlanta early Wednesday morning.

Happy New Year 2006! This guy is off the market, ladies.

Punta Cana, as far away from Haiti as possible

This was the first time Marty and I had ever stayed in an all-inclusive resort, and it did not disappoint. It didn't hurt that a bunch of our friends had flown down to eat, drink and be merry through the weekend. There was this little bothersome feeling I had deep down about the juxtaposition of being in 'paradise' in a 3rd world country developing country (apparently 3rd world is not a word that is used anymore. who knew.) And then to also know that Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the entire world was right next door. I tried not to let this bother me too much as I got my pina colada's at the swim up bar.

It was seriously a good time. I did very little running/working out. We did do 20min of water aerobics one day which was led by a pretty ripped Dominican named James Bond. Marty also won a swimming contest where he traveled across the pool the furthest distance underwater before coming up for air. This earned him the nickname of "Greg Louganis" from one confused vacationer, while another person tried to decide if he was even going to try since the "Merman" already won.

All you can eat; all you can drink

Not a bad place for a wedding

All the single ladies, all the single ladies

Dan sweating it out waiting for his bride

I'm sure it's a good idea to stand in my speedo next to this beautiful wedding

Da Gaal's

Dancing to their first song, it was not Gangnam Style as someone had guessed

Ed & Andi, we hung out with these fellow NC'ers a lot

Fire dancers

"You have no idea how good the wind feels on my chest." You're right, I don't, Pat

Our group started early and ended late at the pool bar on Friday. I'm in the green tube.

We had a great time down there and it was nice to have a mini vacation away - although we really did miss Logan a whole lot. No more traveling for us until St. Pete tri camp at the end of February.

We got home really late on Saturday (actually Sunday) and I was the last one up in the morning. Logan was at the bottom of the stairs with grandma and when I said, "Hi Logan," he whipped around and exclaimed, "Mama!!" Heart. Melt.  He had been saying those sounds recently but I really couldn't determine that they were at me - so this was the first real intentional mama I had gotten :)

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Walking Problems

The problem with walking when you're a baby is you fall down a lot. And you brake your fall with your face. Case in point:

He tripped at daycare and landed on the side of a little bookshelf. I'd say we are averaging 1 accident report a week right now. We went to the nearest Urgent Care and they glued and taped him up.

I'm just wondering if the scar is going to cause him to look like Vanilla Ice when his eyebrows come in.


Yo, VIP! Let's kick it!

 In other news, I got a new Ipod! My original Ipod (to be clear, this was actually 'Our' Ipod, but I totally appropriated it. Kind of like I did with the Kindle. I am the youngest, whaddya want.) was 7 years old, totally full and finally bit the dust a couple of weeks ago. It was really annoying to have to delete songs off when I wanted a new song. Anyways, I received a brand new one in the mail, with a note that read: "I am not always not listening. love Marty" And it wasn't even my birthday!

In other, other news, I ran a 10K yesterday morning that was part of the Raleigh City Oaks Marathon and 1/2 Marathon. As expected, I felt not all that great after coming off of whatever the heck I had last week. But, I did go much faster than I was really expecting, particularly considering the course was up and down and up and down. Actually, the first 2 miles were mostly down so those splits were fast and easy, then the ups killed me and I'm pretty sure each mile got slower and slower which is very atypical with how I usually race. Since all the fast people do the 1/2 or full (there is some $$), I ended up winning the 10K. They start all races together and I certainly felt weird 'winning' since there were several girls ahead of me -- running much further than I was!  Bottom line, I have some serious cramming to do if I want to feel good during the Kiawah 1/2 marathon. Because right now I am not strong at all.

But it was a fun morning - I got some good Kari time, which I haven't had very much of recently, and we knew a bunch of people from the group we often do our track workouts with who were all running.

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