San Antonio Rock 'n Roll

It's getting close to Thanksgiving week. Looking back on 2010, we have a LOT to be thankful for. First and foremost, the continued growth of our healthy and happy baby girl. Followed closely by our own health.

Yesterday, Mark and I participated in the San Antonio half marathon. Mark's first and my second. Somehow, between work, Mia, house and our social calendars, we were able to squeeze in sufficient training to run a half marathon this year. Yeah, we're proud. But we also know how blessed we are. 2 healthy parents make it a lot easier to schedule runs. 2 strong incomes make it possible to have TIME to run.

We were also fortunate enough to have a set of grandparents step up when the first set became incapable of watching Mia for the weekend. Making our half marathon weekend like a mini getaway.

"Elvis" rocking it out at the Expo

Excited to be running a half one more time!

Enjoying a little getaway. This is at the Alamo compound. 10 steps from our hotel front door

My dedicated running partner. Without Leslie, I would probably never run before 7AM

Smiling and not sore since we haven't started yet

YEAH! I did it! Shaved off almost 19 minutes from my first time.

2 hours after the first one finished, Spartans finally gather for a group picture. Not because anyone was slow... we couldn't find Mark!

So happy to have done a distance race with my husband. Looking forward to another year of tackling challenges and making new memories.

Chuy's Hot to Trot 5K

What a beautiful weekend we had... an excellent one for Mother's day weekend!

Saturday we got up early early. Mark had flag football, but more importantly, Mia/Stoli/I had our Chuy's Hot to Trot 5K to get ready for! This was Mia's first race and my first one since having her. Fortunately for us, Nanny Michele and her family were also registered. Which meant Mia was actually going with Michele and Kurt. Stoli & I were taking Jasmine.

Here are the happy girls with Chuy

Jazzi is looking at her Mommy while Mia is looking at me =)

Jazzi and her friend Layla finishing their 1K... this was right before the big spill =(

Mile 1

Today it's suppose to snow. It was also the first day since about Memorial Day that I've attempted a run. Mia had been fed. Mark was at home from work. Our housekeeper had stopped by to provide additional backup for Mark. I felt pretty confident. It was a sloooow first mile, but Stoli encouraged me. We ended up doing 2 miles! We're doing good... only 11 more miles to go to get back on track =)

Feb. 15, 2009 2:24:43

My first half marathon. So this is how it all went down.

Leading up to the weekend of the race, I had been struggling with tight IT bands, knee pains and shin splints. Nothing terribly dream-dashing, but enough to be annoying. I laid off of the running as prescribed, did extra yoga and ice baths. On Friday evening, my family made it into town and the festivities had officially started.

Saturday morning, Mark headed off to football and I got up early to make sure I could get to bed early that night. Mom & I did another session of yoga while Dad stood behind us and imitated. Tommy & Steph were sound asleep until about 10. Finally we load up the car with 5 people, 2 dogs and 2 bikes. We head down to the Trail and realize that it's alot colder out than we had anticipated! Tommy & Steph had planned on riding, but with the cold, wind, traffic and hills, that didn't work out so well. They came back after about 15 minutes. Mom & Dad had planned on playing fetch with the dogs at Auditorium Shores until I got done, but that also was slightly thwarted. I say slightly because Stoli took himself swimming anyways =) As for me, I ran over to the Palmer Events center for the race expo and scored some sweet shorts for race day.

After lunch, we made it home and found Mark working away on my pasta dinner. Pesto pasta with rotisserie chicken and grilled shrimp. mmmmmm good! Mark's parents came over bearing my favorite pea salad and a surprise dessert. Minus the nerves, it was a great evening. In spite of myself, I was completely exhausted by 8pm, which was probably a blessing in disguise.

I woke the next morning at 3:45AM. Time to start the routine. Within 15 minutes, I had cleaned up and started my breakfast. By 4:15, I was on the sofa enjoying my peanut butter toast with bananas. 4:30, I was all body glided up and dressed. But still hadn't heard anything from Tommy & Steph's room. 4:35, start getting the car ready to leave by 4:45... oh, here come the sleeping beauties! I think they must've slept in their clothes because they got ready in about 3 minutes. OK, so it's 4:55, but anyways, we are headed out! I call Emily & Leslie on the way. It's about 5:20 when I finally talk to Leslie. She's at home putting on her tattoo. Priorities. =)

By 5:45am, we are all 3 gathered. The family is determining where their stations are. At 6:15, Tommy & Steph leave to start their hike to mile 2. About 6:30, Mark, the boys, and my parents head to the bridge to stake their spots for the start of the race and us girls head to our pace marker. We got in another bathroom break and our now much more relaxed than the day before. It's all good. We've made it here after 6 months of training. So happy. Like Mom said, we're already winners.

Here are some of the pre-race pics:

I think we finally hit the starting line around 7:10. So excited to be moving forward. Within a minute, we see our families all gathered together on the bridge. They said they could feel every step that the runners took. There were alot of runners. It was so energizing to see them out there cheering us on. Next time we see them, we will have run 6 miles! Scary.

The pack heading down S. Congress:

Some of the characters running:

We head into South Austin. I've never run this way before. I saw on the map that we will go past Oltorf, down by St. Edwards and almost to Ben White before we turn back around. All I know was that in college that distance on I-35 took about 40 minutes in rush hour traffic, so if I could run it in 30 minutes (almost 3 miles), I'd be doing pretty damn good.

At mile 2, I spotted Tommy & Steph up on a ledge. I saw them before they saw us since I was 1 of thousands. But they started jumping up and down and screaming and you would've thought it was the last 2 miles and not the first =). But that gave us the distraction we needed. To be quite honest, those first 6 miles passed rather quickly. I chatted with Leslie the entire time. She was probably annoyed with me, but I had to keep up the banter or my body would start noticing the pain I was putting it through. At mile 6, we were back downtown and greeted by our families. That was a great revival. It lasted us about a mile before fatigue started to set in. We slowed down a little and stopped for a drink or two. After that, it was much easier. We made it out to Lake Austin and I'm telling you, it seemed much much longer the last 2 times that I ran that. But that day, it flew by. Sure enough, we were getting close to Hula Hut which meant Mark's parents would be there any second to cheer us on. We found them exactly where they were suppose to be... mile 9.5. Mark's mom wins the award for the best cheerleader on the entire route. After that, it was all down hill. We found Mark at mile 11 where he helped us through the toughest part of the course... the HILL. At close to mile 12, he took off in a different direction for the finish line. He got there seconds before I did to see me finish.

What an amazing feeling to see that finish line. I was hooked. I was ready to do it again. Maybe not today, but maybe tomorrow. Surely that was the adrenaline speaking =) I saw all of my family as I crossed the finish line, but it would be 20-30 minutes before I would make it over to them.

We finished the festivities at Hula Hut... my favorite place for good eats. I think I'll have to come back another day when I actually had an appetite.

9 and Counting

I did it. 9 miles. Farthest in my life. Just wanted to tell you that I'm proud of me =)

Thanksgiving Whirl Wind

We started Thanksgiving early this year. Usually we do the Neubauer Thanksgiving the weekend before Thanksgiving day. Go back to work for a few days before we head down to Houston for the Trans Thanksgiving. This year, we decided to mush it all together!

We left for Salado on Friday 12/19. What a cute little town. Not as picturesque as Fredericksburg, but almost as much to do. We stayed at the Stagecoach Inn which is nicely situated by Main Street and has a great restaurant. However, next time we stay overnight there, I think a better option would be one of the smaller bed and breakfasts in the area.

Here's Stoli & Mark. Stoli went on vacation with us and Salado loved him. They invited him into most of the stores and I don't know how many people on the street eventually knew his name. He's a good vacation pup.




We tried to stay good through the Thanksgiving holidays. But it certainly wasn't easy. I kept to my scheduled 8 mile run on Saturday while in Salado. When we got to Clear Lake, I did my training runs on Monday & Tuesday. Then we did the Turkey Trot on Thursday. It was so stinkin' hot on Thursday. But we managed ok. Here's us with the Turkey. Stoli's a little skeptical. Especially when the Turkey started talking to him. =)



















The rest of the time was spent visiting family and friends. We got to visit Bakkhus, the Kouloumoundras family restaurant. And we had a bridal shower for Cathy. It was an ornament theme and she was so cute. Her friends really searched high and low for the perfect ones from them for her.

















Oh! I forgot to mention that while we were in town, Cathy got to get a practice run in on her wedding hair. Her hair is so fine and getting so long, it really looks good anyway you fix it. One of Adam's cousins is a Visible Change hair stylist and she'll be doing all our hair for the wedding. It is her *gift* to Cathy & Adam. Now isn't THAT something! She fixed Cathy's hair up and then when it was time to go to dinner, Cathy took it down and pinned it back. I almost prefer that soft messy hairstyle to the more formal up-do. What do you think?

November 2008: A Month Long Love Affair

It's been a little while since I last wrote. It's been really really busy times.

College football is in full gear. My beloved Longhorns were #1 for 3 weeks. Fell to #4 and are now back up to #3. I'm happy with that position. We've enjoyed our first season with season tickets with tickets to the Arkansas, Missouri and OK State games. We're ready to renew for next year!

The running thing continues to astonish me. I am now up to 7 miles. If you had told me 6 months ago that I could do 7 miles, I would've asked you if you meant to walk? To drive??? Certainly not to run. But yes, I have finally reached the half-way point of my training for the half marathon and have avoided any serious injuries. The cold season is just around the corner so I hope to learn very soon that I love running in cold weather. Otherwise, it will be a rough finish to the training.

November is Jenni & Cade's wedding month! Yahoo! I realized last week, that not only is it their wedding, but also Jenni's bachelorette party (which Lauren & I just finished hostessing). Their wedding which includes these crazy cupcakes that I talked Jenni into believing that I could handle. And also Cathy's wedding shower, which I volunteered to host. In addition to that, we have 2 Thanksgivings to celebrate! Really? Do I need any more reasons and excuses to be thankful for my rapidly growing family???

I will be sad when it's all over. Because to be honest, this party stuff is really what I enjoy stressing over. Work. Eh. It just gets in the way.

MTN

Parents, Twins and Everything in Between

This weekend, we stayed in town. Wow. But we had company. Yay!

We started on Friday evening with a visit from our favorite 4-year old twins, Tim & Peter and their parents. It was alot of fun. Stoli enjoyed chasing after them since they never stopped moving. And I relived my "freeze tag" days. I must say, I'm a stellar Freeze Tagger when it comes to 4-year olds. Then Mom, Dad, Tommy, Diesel & Rocky joined in on the fun. Tommy commentated a game of Smash Brothers between the twins while the rest of us enjoyed catching up. It was a good evening, but I had to get to bed early! So did Amber.

The next morning was early. 4 miles. Nice jog. I was really proud of myself. I finished in just under 40 min which meant a less than 10-min mile average. A personal best for me.

Saturday afternoon, we headed to campus. After a shopping extravaganza at the Co-op, we finally headed over to the tailgate zone. Tommy's company hosted a nice little party where we found ourselves with some food, lots of drinks and good company. Just before the game, Rose & David joined us and the boys & Rose headed over to the stadium.

Meanwhile, Mom & I headed over to the Pecan Street Festival! It was such a nice evening for a stroll around downtown Austin. We left the campus area and headed up, right through the capitol building. We stopped there for a quick cleanup and kept right on trucking. Gelato, hot sauce, crafts, jewelry galore! Finally, a break at the Driskill bar for some refreshments and to catch up on the games. By that time, the guys were pretty much done watching the lashing that Texas gave to Rice.

I love weekends that we get to stay in town. Austin's a cool cool place. We were just missing Cathy, Adam & Steph and the weekend would've been complete. Oh well. This coming weekend, they will all be together at Michael & Heather's wedding and we'll be missing.

13.1

What is the significance of those 3 small numbers? Add the word miles to the end and it might have a little more meaning.

Coincidentally, is represents the distance between my home and my office. However, come February 2009, it will be the distance that I hope to complete in 1 run! 13.1 miles or 21 kilometers is a half marathon.

Yes, I have officially begun my training for a half marathon and could not be more excited to have a definitive goal in my life once again. For those that know me, running has never been my thing. But in the last few years, it's started to grow on me. Or maybe I've gotten worse at everything else so now it seems that I'm getting better at running.

Regardless, this will be my goal for the next six months. I don't think I'll complete it without alot of support. That's where you come in!

See ya at the finish line! God help me... ;-)