Marathons, Montreal, and Marriage

The past 2 weeks, since returning to Pittsburgh after my most recent trip to Haiti have been kind of a blur. A blur in which I haven't spent much time at home or sleeping, but have been having a lot of fun.

Marathons/Montreal

So we'll start with Montreal. Back in January I made the resolve to make running in cool places a focus for 2013, and signed up for the Montreal Marathon. Because I had never been there, because it was a fall race, because I love Poutine and everything French and so how could I not love this city?

In a power of persuasion I didn't know I was capable of, I somehow convinced the owners of Franktuary to sign up with me. None of them had completed a half or full marathon before. Somehow, despite them running a restaurant, and my failing at any real training program due to working at said restaurant and traveling back and forth to Haiti once a month, we decided it was still a good idea to go and try, and run this race and see what happens. The majority of us, myself included, having decided that the half was enough of a challenge, planned to stop at the 21 k mark.

It was cold and rainy and we started the race on the bridge, which felt like being at home, and was miserable. Our coral finally got to cross the start line, and I took off, quickly losing my friends in the crowd, determined to get myself warm and to end this race as soon as possible.  It took a couple of miles, but then I hit my stride, and a fast one (for me) at that, which carried me all the way through till mile 11 when I had to walk a couple of blocks due to a charlie-horse, and then ran the rest of the way home.  I did not complete the full marathon as planned, but I did manage a PR on the half, shaving a full 7 minutes of my best half marathon time, and making a sub-2 hour marathon seem less like a distant dream and more like a real possibility if I put some focus on it.

Everyone finished the race - Tim finished the full - and that night we all hobbled out to a great restaurant where we ate our weight in moules et frites, and toasted to running farther and faster than we ever had.

Starting line bridge, new PR, Prosecco.

Montreal was a great town, and I was reminded of how much I love exploring a new city. Megan and I did some thrifting at some great vintage stores on Saint-Laurent boulevard, we ate poutine every day, and ordered pastries in french fresh from the boulangerie in the morning.  

Marriage

Last weekend, one of my closest friends and former poly-house roommates got married, which is one of the most grown-up sentences I've ever typed on this blog.  Kurt is one of the most genuine, kind, and fun people I have the privilege to know and to celebrate the fact that he's chosen to spend his life with a woman who is as kind and genuine and fun was a joy.

Everything was beautiful, the bride was gorgeous, the food was delicious, and we all camped out after the reception. Then, woke the next morning to waffles and mimosas in the barn, which quite frankly is my dream come true.  We also had a roommate reunion, and it's so good to see and spend time with that group - my first chosen family - and see us grow up and into ourselves and hear about the adventures everyone is on. Also, I had the best dates ever. Chris and Alyssa, let's just go to all the weddings together.

The mother-son butterfly kisses dance and the best wedding dates ever.

The highlight though, was that 6 years ago, while living together, we made the bet that the first in the group to get married would have to dance to butterfly kisses at their wedding for the mother/son or father/daughter dance. I didn't really expect that I'd be the first married out of this group, but can I just tell you what a relief it is to know it's not me? IT'S A HUGE RELIEF! Kurt - a true gentleman - lived up to the bet, and it was the best mother/son dance I've ever seen.

It's been a couple weeks of feeling pretty lucky to know some pretty cool people.

The Running Buddy

I'm training for a half marathon in May. I once attempted training for a full marathon during my junior year of college. Turns out a college lifestyle isn't exactly conducive to marathon training. After 6 months, one sprained ankle, 2 pairs of sneakers, countless blisters, and a minor nervous breakdown, I decided that running for 26.2 miles wasn't going to happen at this point in my life, so I put it on the back burner and went back to my standard 3-4 mile runs a couple times a week. Until now.

A full marathon still seems rather daunting, so I'm easing into it with the half. And this time things are different. I've found myself a running buddy. Running Buddy ensures that I get out of bed on Saturdays to go for a long run. Running Buddy texts messages me during the week asking how the training's going. Running Buddy won't let me slack. It's great.

We had a noontime run scheduled for today, which I was nervous about because I had been out of town for the past week, and so it had been that long since I had even seen my sneakers. Making me even more nervous was the fact that I was out last night celebrating a friends birthday where I may as well have bought stock in Yellow Tail, and woke up this morning at 11 am still intoxicated.

Under any other circumstances, I would've stayed in bed, BUT Running Buddy was expecting me, so I laced up my sneakers, and tried to think sober thoughts.

Drunk running is hard y'all. Your balance is off, and you can't find your rhythm, and your thoughts are all drunk, so it's not even like your working through any of your issues or anything. During the 10 minute jog to Running Buddy's house I was all, "Well this is terrible, and I'm just going to have to go home, because there's no way I'll last another 10 minutes."

Then Running Buddy comes down the street.
"I'm hungover." He says. "I was going to bring a barfbag."
"Ha!" I reply. "I'm still drunk. We are in great shape. This will be interesting."

So we took off. And after a couple of minutes I started to sober up, and he started to feel less hungover, and we had a great run. Running with someone makes you keep up the pace, it adds a level of competition that pushes you just a little harder than you push yourself. And it provides distracting conversation. As nice as running is for self analyzation, there are days when that much time with just you and your thoughts can be maddening. Conversation makes running an enjoyable experience.

So, if we can have a good run while drunk and hungover, I have every confidence that we will work our way up to 13.1 miles over the next 6 months. I'm actually looking forward to it.