Tale of Three Cities

WOW - what a weekend! It is really Sunday night already? Bummer......

Where do I start? Friday C finally had the snow day he'd been wishing for! Luckily J works from home so it doesn't cause too many problems, and this is what they did in the afternoon:

That's C going backwards on the little "ramp". The kid is fearless.

Here are all the kids. J and C went with some friends of ours from the gym. C's on the ground in the back - but how cute is the little one in front??? Such a ham.

Friday night the weather was just as great (hint the sarcasm) so we stayed in and baked cookies. These m&m cookies are from this site. Her baking is A-mazing, and these cookies are the guys' favorite!

Cute, no?? :)

Saturday was pretty uneventful. C had his last basketball game in the morning so J and I headed to the gym afterwards. I had a pretty bad cold so we ended up lifting for about 10 minutes and then took our lazy butts home. I just wasn't feeling it, and I wanted to be 100% for my 12 miler today. Again, Cleveland was blessing us with a ton of snow so our dinner plans got nixed. We ordered takeout from Melt, and found out they were taping an episode of Man vs. Food there at that exact time!! J tried to get some pictures when he picked up the food, but it was pretty crowded and he couldn't get close enough. It was still exciting, as I just referenced that show in this post.

I got to bed later than I wanted last night (after midnight!!) so when the pup woke up at 7:30 this morning I was less than thrilled, to say the least. But I sucked it up and got up to let both devils, I mean dogs, out. I decided to just stay up and try to get my run done earlier than later. I was out the door by 9:30 this morning (I am NOT a morning runner!!). The first 3 miles were rough, as my stomach was a little queasy, maybe from the late night? Maybe from the grilled cheese? Whatever it was it passed and I really enjoyed miles 4 to 8. I took these pics with my iphone around mile 8.5:

This is a view of downtown Cleveland from an area real close to Edgewater Park. Normally you have full visability! The weather is just ridic here. Everyone was out plowing when I was running:

This guy actually drove past me on another street about a mile later and honked his horn! You know you're on a "long run" when you run past 3 different city Welcome Signs!

While I was on my "picture break", I ate 3 of these PowerBar Energy Gel Blasts:

They were actually pretty good! I'm still experimenting with snacks, but I think the Sports Beans are my favorite so far.

I ended up finishing the 12 miles in 1:53:40 - a 9:28 average pace. I was hoping to be a little faster, but I'll take it considering the snow and slush I was running in. My miles were all pretty consistent between 9:11 and 9:35 - even towards the end. My toes got really cold towards the end and I noticed my shoes were brown from the slush on the toes. Well, when I took my shoes off after I got home this is what I saw:

No wonder they were cold, the slush leaked through my shoes!!!

12 miles done! Not bad.

Almost halfway there!

What a marathon post (ha!)! I gotta jet. My 2 boys are busy playing - I think they may need me to mediate: