Long runs, short trips

In case I haven't mentioned, Ben and I signed up to run the Medtronic TC 10-Mile in October. The 10-Mile is part of TC Marathon weekend and is easily one of the most popular races in the state. It's really tough to get an entry, but luckily there are a couple of 'qualifying' races over the summer which buy you an automatic entry. Not that you have to get a certain qualifying time, you just have to run the race and you receive a link to register for the 10 Mile. One such race was the brand new TC Urban Dash, a 5-ish mile urban scavenger hunt in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis. Ben and I ran The Urban Dash two weeks ago and it was a ton of fun! I would probably run it again even if it didn't result in a 10-mile entry.

Anywho, training for the 10-mile has been...interesting. As you are probably aware, I definitely do not consider myself a "runner." I'm a yogi who sometimes runs, but running has never been my main bag. I know cardio is good for me and I generally feel better when I'm running regularly but I know I won't do it without motivation, hence why I sign up for races. For training, I've been doing two shorter runs (3-6 miles) during the week and a longer run (6-9 miles) on the weekends. My training plan also instructs me to do 'cross-training' three times a week, and I'm sure Hal Higdon understands that for me, cross-training = yoga. Sorry, no intervals or tempo runs here...I am doing this for fun, not for speed ;)

This morning I did a six mile run around Lake Calhoun before work. Normally I hate exercising in the morning but it's been super hot and humid here, so I wanted to get my run in as early as possible to beat the heat. I have a 3-miler scheduled on Thursday and an eight mile run on Saturday. It is supposed to be balls-hot on Saturday...eesh.

In other news, we spent this last weekend in Montana celebrating the nuptuals of our dear friends Krista and Paul! Krista is one of Ben's best friends from childhood through high school and she was a Groomswoman in our wedding so now it was Ben's turn to be a Bridesman in hers!

Enjoying beer and s'mores with Paul and Krista in Glacier, Summer 2012

Some of the fantastic wedding decor

As always, it was great to be back in Montana and the wedding was lovely! It was held at Krista's parents ranch in Hall, Montana which is barely a town. Literally blink and you will miss it. We all stayed in nearby Phillipsburg, in a cottage with several other members of the wedding party (also HS friends of Ben's). Paul is from Manchester, UK and a number of his friends from Britain made the trip out. We had a fun time introducing them to the delights of Montana dive bars.

The ceremony was gorgeous, and we had perfect weather - that is until a massive storm blew through right after dinner. It was more a wind-storm than a rainstorm, and it completely came out of nowhere but we quickly realized that we needed to get all food and breakables inside ASAP. 

As I was rescuing some items from under the dinner tent, a HUUUGE gust of wind came through, and I turned around and quickly realized that the tent was coming un-grounded and was about to fly away over my head. It felt like it was happening in slow motion. I just kind of stood frozen to the ground with my drink in one hand and a teapot on the other, but at NO POINT did it occur to me to put either of those things down and run for it?!? I mean, it was homemade limoncello. Come on. There is no way I was abandoning homemade limoncello to a sad death by tent-pole.

Luckly, the pole and tent missed me (and probably 3 or 4 others who were also under the tent) and slammed into the fence behind us. We all yelled that we were fine, and then proceeded to run into the garage with our drinks and china in tow.

The rest of the night was a total blast. We danced, drank, and ate a lot of cupcakes. Or maybe that was just me...I seriously ate about 4 of them, but I couldn't help myself...the red velvet ones were amaaazing. Plus, gotta get all those calories back in my system somehow, after I burn them all off running ;)

Sadly, we had to fly out the next day because a) I burned most of my PTO on England/Scotland, and b) Ben had to be back for inservice on Monday so...womp womp. Our trip came to an end.

Old barn near our cottage in P-Burg

Krista's family decorated the entire ranch - it was amazing!

Literary table decor - now you know why we're all friends ;)

Ben looking dashing as a Bridesman

The lovely couple

Bride's side

Post-ceremony wagon ride!

The aftermath of the storm....

Hope you're all having a great week! Things are generally good here. It's been a rough week at work so I made a cake in an attempt to compensate. I will now proceed to eat my third slice.

Goodnight!

EHRMAGERD

So, it occurred to me that I haven't posted in almost two weeks, and that the last time I did was not the happiest post ever.  Needless to say I'm still here, still definitely wanting to write.

Actually, the main reason I haven't been posting is that I have been on vacation in Montana!  Sweet, sweet vacation...I haven't taken a whole week off from work since our honeymoon, almost exactly one year ago, so this was much needed.

It was glorious.  I ate awesome food, read a shit ton of fiction (1,972 pages actually), hiked 38 miles over 5 days, saw two black bears and three mountain goats, and remembered why life is awesome.  There's nothing like the mountains and fresh air to put the world in perspective.

I OWN YOU, mountains.
Just kidding, you cannot own the earth...haven't you people ever seen Disney's Pocahontas??

I have a number of recipes to share, but some of them just don't result in pretty photos and some of them are very summerish, and summer is almost over.  So instead, here's a brief recap of what I've been doing other than tromping through the wilderness and not checking my email.

Being a baby-carrying bridesmaid in Alex and Karl's wedding

Love :)

Celebrating this little nugget's 24th birthday...

...with Tequila!!

Speaking of Julianna, she is moving to Chicago on Friday :(  Wah wah wah... I can't believe she's moving away, and this time the move is somewhat permanent since her degree will take at least 5 years, and who knows where she'll end up afterwards.  But, while this means she probably won't be calling me up to ask if she can pop by and use my shower anytime soon (yes, this actually does happen with some regularity), it also means lots of Chicago road trips!  That can only be a good thing right?

OK...well it's been a long and weird day.  I'm off to yoga and then to make myself some dinner... I'll post more photos from Montana as soon as I can combine the ones from our camera with my dad's photos... huzzah.

Happy Monday?

I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats

Well, this is not a post I expected to be writing anytime soon.  We lost our Maggie on Monday :(  You will probably remember Maggie from such episodes as cat-sitting at my parents' house, and being generally ridiculous.



A few weeks ago she started precipitously dropping weight, which was initially attributed to hyperthyroid.  Then about a week and a half ago she completely stopped eating and drinking and was having visible acid reflux.  The vet who was going to treat her for hyperthyroid started to suspect GI lymphoma and all of her tests came back supporting that diagnosis.

There is no cure for gastric lymphoma, and the steroid medication that was supposed to make her comfortable enough to eat and drink normally again was making absolutely no difference.  My mom and sister were feeding her heavy cream and water through a syringe to keep her as nourished and hydrated as possible but it just got harder and harder.  The only treatment option left was chemo, but that would not have helped her discomfort.  Any time we tried to give her would have been time spent in pain and that did not seem fair.

My mom called me on Monday late morning to tell me they were taking her into the vet at 3pm.  I wish I could show you my work calendar for the day, because it was essentially a slew of back-to-back half hour and hour meetings, ending abruptly at 2:30.  If there was ever a sign that I needed to be somewhere at a certain time, that was it.

Letting go of Maggie was honestly one of the more difficult/emotional/intense experiences of my life.  I know there are probably people out there thinking "whatever, it's just a cat"...but trust me, I have lost pets before and this time is different.  I think of all pets as my family members, but Maggie was really and truly a member of the family.  There was just something really special about her.  Plus it was so sudden and unexpected... just really hard.

If it's OK I want to share some of my favorite memories of Maggie:

• The day we brought her home, she promptly managed to fall down the stairs.  I think that pretty much sums it up.
• Maggie always wanted to sit in a chair at dinner. Not on the table, not on the floor next to your chair - in a chair, like a person.  Sometimes this meant creeping on someone else's chair such as my dad.



Exhibit A - Maggie stealthily creeping up on his left

• She loved drinking  beer.  Obviously beer consumption was not allowed for Mags, but that didn't stop her from trying to steal a sip every once in a while.
  
  

  

  Exhibit B -it's Bell's so at least she had good taste?

• She really enjoyed staring at people while they slept.  Sometimes this meant sitting on the nightstand and just watching over you, but sometimes it meant that you woke up to find her on your stomach, staring down at you and kneading you forcefully with her (declawed!) front paws.
• Sometimes instead of staring creepily at you, she would actually sleep with you.  Her favorite spot was curled around your neck, regardless of if you were lying down or sitting up.  This occasionally made breathing difficult.
• When I brought her to my grad school apartment to cat-sit for the first time, she hid under my bed for two straight days, unable to comprehend that she was in a different space.  She emerged looking frazzled and totally covered in dust.
• Maggie was a frequent surprise guest in Skype conversations. Whether it was me Skyping my Ben while he was in Ohio, my parents Skyping me when I was in Turkey, or all of us talking to Julianna while she was in Australia, she always had a way of popping in.

There are tons more, and I'm sure they will keep popping into my head.  I hope Maggie knows how loved she was, and how much we miss her.



On a happier note, today is a day of beginnings, too: my friend Alex is getting married!  Alex was in my wedding last summer - we have been partners-in-crime for years and years, and continue to kick ass in Competitive Charades on a regular basis.

Alex is next to me on my right

I love her soon-to-be-husband Karl, they are such a perfect fit and I couldn't be happier for both of them!  On a related note, I should probably hop in the shower and get ready to report for bridesmaid duty.  Hope you are all having a happy and safe weekend.

One Year

Exactly 367 days ago (it was a leap year, plus I'm a day late anyways), this happened:

Murried

I subsequently became the luckiest woman on the planet.  One of my friends at work told me that the first year of marriage is supposedly the hardest.  All I can say is, if that's true we are going to have a pretty damn amazing life.  This past year has been wonderful.

To celebrate one year of being legally bound - during which we both started new jobs, acquired two pets, and moved across the city - we returned to the scene of the crime (aka our wedding reception) for dinner in downtown St. Paul.  We ate and drank at the Saint Paul Grill, which is located in the Saint Paul Hotel where we, our families and bridal party spent the night after the wedding.  After dinner we took a stroll through Rice Park and past the James J Hill Reference Library, and then headed home for cupcakes from our vendor Cup-Cake.  It was a lovely, romantic and fun evening.

Anyway, I'm in the sort of mood where I'd rather just live my life than write about it, so I'll let the photos do the talking for now.

Fargo, eh?

This past weekend, after an extremely brutal bootcamp workout, Ben and I drove up to Fargo for our friend Sonja's wedding!  Sonja, better known as Sunny, has been a good friend of mine since Freshman year of college.  The first time I met her husband, Brad, was at my wedding last year, where Sunny caught the boquet...rather forcefully I might add.  A week later she and Brad were engaged!  Apparently he had already bought the ring by the time my wedding rolled around but I'm still taking credit for the whole thing.

Anyways...bootcamp on Saturday was BRU-TAL.  Brutal.  First we did a 10-minute warm up jog.  Not bad.  The rest of the workout involved sprinting up hills, doing burpies up hills, doing squat lunges up hills, side-shuffles up hills...you get the idea.  And just when I thought the worst was over, we had 20 minutes of suicides on the football field - not ordinary suicides mind you, but suicides with an "activity" interspersed at every turnaround point.  Ten jump squats, ten squat lunges, ten burpees, ten tricep dips, etc.  The burpees were the worst by far.  After bootcamp mercifully ended I was totally beat, sweaty and covered in dirt.  Perfect for a 4-hour car ride.

When we arrived in Fargo we were greeted by the lovely Linz who hosted us in her room for a bit while we waited until our room was ready for check-in.  After I'd showered and made myself presentable we all headed over to the church!  The ceremony was just lovely, the bride was gorgeous, and I especially loved Linz's musical performance...any chance to hear that girl sing :)



Linz is PUMPED




Happy times :)



Sonja and Brad - hitched!

After the ceremony we zipped over to the reception at the Plains Art Museum - a beautiful venue just a short walk from the hotel.  Linz, Ben and I had declared earlier in the day that we would be "those people" at the wedding...what that means, I'm still not sure but it definitely involved some ridiculous photos.

Reception!

TABLE 8 BEST TABLE EVER

Good try....

Shmeeeeee

Yep

....yep

The delicious dinner was of course followed by dancing!

And then the best after party ever.  We are probably the classiest people in the world.  Probably.

Tea time?  Maybe...?

Sending angry photos to friends who were not present

Luvvvvv

Well that's all I got for today!  Peace out.