Happy Monday! Hope you all had a great weekend. I have been nonstop busy and am finally getting a chance to catch you up on my little life. (Sitting in traffic while commuting on a bus to work = new blog post opportunity!)

So Thursday I was just about to prepare dinner for me and the boyfriend when I got a text that said his train was delayed and he would be 40 minutes late. I quickly suggested driving to his house so that I could have dinner ready when he made it home and he wouldn’t have to first drive the half hour to my house. He loved the idea. So I tossed my shrimp, spinach, pasta and the doodle into the car and off we went.

Over the bridge and through the woods to Mr. SOTSS’ house we go

Timing was perfect. I fed the dogs and let his dog chester out in the yard and got to work whipping up dinner. I felt so domestic. 🙂 Mr SOTSS walked in the door and set the table and next thing you knew we were enjoying the meal. I love my bright ideas. 🙂 

this is what was happening while I was cooking dinner.

Friday I waited all day for the windshield replacement guy to come. He was so backlogged that he said he wouldn’t be able to start until 7:30 pm. It was drizzling and my garage is not big enough to maneuver around so we agreed to meet at an underpass under the highway. I felt a little weird about it so I took Duncan for safety precautions.

new windshield being installed

It was a little too noisy under the highway for this doodle’s taste

It all worked out well and then I came home to bake a couple of cakes for the weekend. I had two family functions to attend on the boyfriend’s side of the family and our responsibility was to bring dessert. Even more domesticity here!

Lemon Blueberry Yogurt cake and rum cake

Saturday I did some freelance work in the morning and then headed out to family function number one with the lemon blueberry yogurt cake. I didn’t master the glaze very well. Oh well. It still tasted delicious. 

Sunday morning Mr. SOTSS and I both took advantage of the last long on-course training run that the New Jersey Marathon offers. I wanted to try out some new socks I bought to make sure they’d be ok for the marathon. (more on that later) but more than anything I wanted to see how it felt to run that far having missed so much training. I knew mentally I’d need to conquer this if I planned on doing the 26.2 come April 26th! I drove down separately and started with the 7am group so I could try and complete the 16 miles before 10:15am and Mr. SOTSS started with the 8am group to get in 11 miles (he runs 2-3 minutes per mile faster than me).

Parked the car just in time for the sunrise

7am and ready to hop run

We got to see each other when he was at mile 4 and I was at mile 7 which was nice. 🙂 A quick kiss and hug and then we parted ways. I bumped into Allison, the woman I met while running the marathon last year.  

Allison…the woman who talked my ear off during last year’s race and helped me get through a good chunk of the race!

And then I met another runner named Darren. He wasn’t sure of the course so he asked if we could run together. I was fine with it at first since it helped pass the miles but he was a bit faster than me. I knew 10 minute miles were not sustainable so at mile 9 when we stoped at a water stop, i bid him farewell. There were lots of other runners for him to tag along with so I knew he would be ok. My body definitely started to break down by about mile 11 or 12 and those socks that I was testing out?

everything will make an appearance on 4/26 except the socks

#FAIL! I ended up with blisters on both pinky toes. So I’ve decided not to wear them on race day. My ankles were bothering me too. The knee however held up great. The only time it felt uncomfortable was when I would start back up after stopping at the water stops (these were self serve stops so I had to open a jug of water and fill my water bottle). But it always quickly recovered.

At mile 13 I reached the boardwalk and ran the last 3 miles on it. I saw Mr. SOTSS on the beach with Chester (killing time while he waited for me to finish) and they came up to say a quick hello.

Best sight ever!

I told him I’d be done running in about 30 minutes so he went to Dunkin Donuts and got us egg sandwiches and coffee and sat down on a bench waiting for me. I stopped running when I reached the bench and my watch said 16.04! Perfect. We sat on the bench and enjoyed the ocean view (it was 58 degrees and sunny too!) and chowed down. My run was manageable but definitely not effortless. I slowed down a lot at the end. I’m definitely not concerned about my finish time at the marathon. I just.want.to.finish!

16 miles….done

By the time we finished eating our sandwiches it was 10:30am. I needed to get home and showered so we could make our way to family function number 2 and bring cake # 2, the rum cake.

Today my ankles feel ok. The left one is tight so I’m going to focus on stretching and rolling a whole lot the next few days. It’s hard to believe that the marathon is just 20 days from today.

I’m getting excited! I could visualize my family on the course as I ran yesterday. I know how important it will be this year when I see them just past mile 16. Since my training only got me to 16 it’ll propel me into the final frontier….the last 10 miles….and then I’ll see them at mile 22 when I’m really pushing. I’m also excited that the half and the full start at the same time this year so that Mr. SOTSS and I can hang in the corrals together and give each other some last minute support before we start running.

So how was your weekend? Did it involve running? wearing bunny ears? cake?

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