Notes on the Marathon and a Blog Award!

I won my first blogging award! Michael Ann from The Big Green Bowl nominated me for the Liebster Award. Liebster is German for beloved. It is a sign of support in the blogging community and is designed to bring recognition to blogs with under 200 followers.

I was very honored to receive this award from Michael Ann. If you haven’t already, you should check out her blog, The Big Green Bowl. She shares a lot of great baking recipes.

 

 

Here are the rules for this award:
1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment at their blog.

3. Post the Award on your blog.

I would like to pass the award on to these five bloggers. Some I have just discovered their blog and some I have been following for quite sometime.

Alpana  at Smart Snacks: Alpana has a lot of great recipes and pictures for snacks and sweets. She recently did a post with some nutella cookies that look amazing!

Alyssa at Mom de Cuisine: Alyssa is a very talented cook and participates in French Fridays with Dorie. This is a group that posts recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table (one of my all time favorite cookbooks) every Friday.

Molly at Hungry, Hungry Runner: Molly cracks me up. She shares stories from her running, great recipes, and product recommendations. I love reading her funny posts and see what she has been cooking.

Erika at The Teenage Taste: Erika is an incredibly talented cook and photographer. Her pictures will floor you and you will love her recipes.

April at Thirty and Thrifty: April shares tips, articles, and recipes that are thrifty. I love that she combines practical how-to’s with current trends and articles.

Marathon Notes

The race has been run. I have completed my third and last marathon. I am done, people. I realized around mile 19 that I had selective amnesia when it came to my other two marathons. Marathons are hard. Really hard. Really, really, really, almost impossibly hard. Did you know that when the Greek messenger ran the first marathon, he died after delivering his message? And yet, we haven’t learned from that.

Here are some things I learned on Sunday:

• I have some AMAZING friends. I begged my best friend Kristen to leave me in the gutter. Save yourself, I pleaded. She stuck by my side for all 26.5 miles (yes, we did run more than 26.2!) and she only rubbed in once that at mile 4, I was starting to plan our next marathon together. “I feel awesome! Let’s do this every year!” Yeah, that didn’t last long.
• Another amazing friend, Dawn, who showed up at Mile 22 and then biked along the route with us until Mile 25. Dawn didn’t have to say a word. Just seeing her pedaling along was enough to keep us going.
• Final amazing friend: Manatee. He ran a 10 miler at 7 and he ran it hard. Like he was in the top 5% against a lot of professional runners AND he had done marathon training with me so he didn’t even train for that distance. After his race, he ran around town with Kristen’s husband to cheer us on AND then drove all 5 hours home and dealt with my low sugar lunacy. He’s a saint.
• Marathons are more mental than physical. My body was done at mile eight but my mind kept me going until the bitter end.
• Bodies are vengeful. My body is thoroughly enjoying tormenting me this week. Not in that I don’t feel well or am sore because I am actually feeling fine (thank you Coach Charlie!), but  I tell my body to do something and it just laughs. My body had a major giggling fit during Master Swim yesterday and at the golf course last night. “You want me to do what?! I’ll show you!”
• The Twin Cities marathon is a runner’s race. Even though the last six miles are horrendously hard, I am still glad I did it. Very well organized, great crowd support, and best finish line organization I have ever seen.
• If you have to skip a meal or two because you’re running, then you’re running way too long. This was actually Manatee’s astute observation as I was sobbing that I couldn’t eat Arby’s curly fries for a post-race meal. “They are just” sob “too” sob “greasy” hiccup sob. Did I mention that Manatee is a saint?
• Kristen and I ran the marathon because for her birthday last year I gave her a bucket list of things we should do together before we die (we have been besties since age 3). I need to start steering her towards the ‘spa days’ and ‘have lunch together.’ I know I put some easy stuff on that list!
• I wish I would have froze meals last week because the last thing I have wanted to do (and I didn’t think I would ever say this) is cook. I just want food to appear magically on my plate.
• I wish I wouldn’t have tried to mess with code on my blog the day after the marathon. Hopefully I will have everything fixed by next week.
• And my final thought: I am really glad I ran the marathon. Yes, it was hard. Yes, it knocked me on my butt afterwards. But you know what? I did it. Kristen and I worked really hard all summer and we ran a marathon together. That’s pretty cool.