Just Jana: November 2010

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Santa, Meet Cade

The Great Bend newspaper said that Santa would be in his little house at the courthouse square from 5-8pm for pictures on Friday. I must have become far too Johnson-countified because I thought we surely needed to be there early to beat the huge crowd of people who would also want to meet Santa. I thought surely there would be a long enough line to last from 5 all the way to 8. It's Santa, people. I was tiffed when we didn't get away as early as expected and we arrived at 5:05...to find this.

Santa was just arriving...and there was no huge line. Not even a small line actually. We were the only ones.
Santa, meet Cade

Ah, Great Bend. We saw Santa, ran a few errands, had a sit-down dinner at a restaurant and still made it back to my parents house by about 6:15. Amazing. I've apparently completely forgotten my roots!

It was an enjoyable few days with the fam. Four generations...do we look related?

Cade cheered on the OSU Cowboys wearing his new shirt from G-Mom. He was into the new toys at my parents house. New to him only...most were actually MaKenzie's toys!

Cade enjoyed his time with Nathan...

And these couch potatoes too. :)

Reading with G-Mom

Bath time was a little different too! We didn't expect the Bumbo seat to FLOAT! Yikes!

My Thanksgiving pics look a little different this year...no pictures of the actual meal or anything Thanksgiving-y...just Cade. :) Are you surprised?

Up Close with the Cats

Matt and I were able to take in the KSU v. Gonzaga game at the Sprint Center last week. I was excited to see the cats play in KC, however our seats (although they were free) were SO far away I was losing interest quickly. Don't know if that means I'm ADD or just a brat. So when the early game ended (Duke v. Marquette) Matt had the great idea to head down (from the rafters) to the lobby to see if we could use the tickets of some people leaving to get closer. Why not? The first people we asked was a super-nice Duke couple on their way out. They gladly gave us their tickets since they weren't planning to stay for the late game. Not only did the first people we asked say yes...but their seats were awesome! Right behind the basket near the KSU bench, behind the cheerleaders and beside the band. We were right in the action. This small move (up about 300 rows) made for a MUCH more exciting evening! They won big and were still fun to watch.

The view from our new and improved seats!

Tip-off

Frank is always entertaining to watch!

What a fun date night! And we only had to pay to park...and for snacks...couldn't pass up a pretzel. :)

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Marathon of a Weekend!

I'm no longer a "one hit wonder" as I've now completed two half-marathons. Do two halves equal a whole? Um, no. Prior to this race I was contemplating entering the Olathe Marathon in April for the whole marathon instead of the half...all I could think about during this race was 'heck no!' to that idea. We'll see. This race was pretty much just to prove to myself that I still had it in me. Training was much more difficult this time around as it seems like with motherhood comes a lot of guilt. I'd feel guilty about making Cade go with me on runs, I'd feel guilty missing out on precious evening time with Matt and Cade when I was running, and I'd feel guilty if I skipped out on running. I'm having a tough time balancing things I need to do "for me" and feeling selfish when I take time for me. I estimate that I did about 1/3 of the scheduled runs so I really didn't know what to expect come race day.

Preparing for the Tulsa Half Marathon...we stayed at my aunt and uncle's house in Tulsa and had a great weekend with them! I thought it might be really cold as it was November 21st, but at race start time it was 67 degrees! Needless to say, I did not need my fancy headband or new running gloves.

Matt filling out the emergency contact info on the back of my race bib in case they found me along the side of the road somewhere (which actually isn't funny as a 27- year-old man DIED at mile 10 of the half marathon).

Uncle David and I heading to the race. He and his family were such troopers to let us stay with them, cheer me on at the race, and cart us around all weekend.

Start line...I'm way back...in group B

But there was still confetti flying when I ran through

I'm in the dark green tank top on the far right edge. You can see my back. I like to start out fast. I know I'll slow down if I need to but I know I'll NEVER speed up so I might as well start fast. It's a theory that works for me...but I did feel like I got passed the whole race.

Matt and the Roberts family drove around from place to place to cheer me on. This is about mile 6. I love this pic because my leg looks freakishly skinny. Don't worry, it's an optical illusion. :)

This race was much harder and much less fun than my first half marathon 2 years ago. Could be the lack of training or could be that I wasn't as enamored with race day as last time. This course had lots of little hills and it was pretty windy. Temperature was great. I remember feeling like I could've started walking before reaching mile 2 even. I knew I couldn't let myself do that or I'd end up walking the whole thing pretty much. It was my goal to at least run the first 8 miles and then re-evaluate. It was hard. I ran pretty slow. But I ran. At mile 8 I told myself I could make it to mile 10. At mile 10 I told myself I could run the whole thing. Again, it was slow. But I did run the whole thing. I remember seeing my watch tick past my first half marathon time at about mile 11. I kicked in at the end when I saw the sign that said 300M left.

I crossed the finish line feeling like I did the best I possibly could have done. Which is pretty much all I could ask for. I felt good that I'd done it. RELIEVED that it was over. No more training...no more guilt. Official time: 2:15:21, averaged 10:23 miles, 22 minutes slower than my last race

Get out of my way sports bra girl...

Thanks for the support!

Cade, you might be running next to me the next time I do a race. :)

Later that afternoon, we took some family pics in a beautiful park that was on the race course. Thank you so much Aunt Pam for being our photographer! We had to wake Cade up for the session...