Sunday, June 28, 2009

The Grand Finale!

Here is a link you can click and see me and Davis cross the finish line! Our bib numbers were 17274 and 17275.

Also Davis wanted everyone to know that we ran 568 miles since we started our training in January! That's a lot of miles on our Nikes.

Here is another link of pictures. Check out Davis's jump at the finish!

Good Luck Charm

I forgot to tell you about my wonderful good luck charm. Jenny, my employer, (AKA Viv's mom) gave Davis and I a good luck charm(card) for the marathon.

Davis is big into Magic: The Gathering (which is a nerdy card game for all of you non-geeks of the world) and it just so happens that John, Jenny's husband, use to work for this card company soo..... for his good luck they gave him a really old card that would give him energy in the game (or energy for the run).

For me they had a special or maybe you would say limited edition card made. It is of a great soccer player that is only 16 months old! She is a cutie!

This was a very appreciated gesture. It was so sweet of them to think of us and I am so pleased to be working for them and with Vivian.


26.2

Yesterday was the BIG day! Yes, that's right Davis and I did it.....we successfully completed 26.2 miles of running! It was probably one of the toughest things I have ever done and neither one of us currently feels like we will ever do it again!

We woke up at 4 AM to start the carb loading process. By 5:30 we were out of the house and on our way downtown to the bus pick-up zone. IT WAS CRAZY! There were so many people, the line was literally wrapped around Nordstrom (a city block). They had buses galore! We finally hopped on a bus at 6:30 (the cut-off time for buses was suppose to be 6 and there were still people behind us in line). It was the inaugural Rock n Roll marathon in Seattle so I am sure they learned a lot from this year's event (like hire/rent more buses)! It was a sold out event of 25,000 runners!

We actually arrived at the starting line on time only because our AWESOME bus driver drives like me and passed all the backed up traffic only to cut some other bus driver off right before the exit. We seriously passed 20 other buses that were probably loaded 30 minutes before ours and it was GREAT! As our driver made his maneuver in front of another driver to get us to the start line on time the whole bus clapped for him!

After arriving we had to check our bag so that we could pick-up our things at the finish line and then we proceeded to eat some more carbs before starting!

The official gun went off at 7:02 AM, but there were something like 32 waves of people that they let go in about 2 min intervals. We were in wave 25 so we didn't officially start our journey until 7:45 AM

It was a lot of fun at the beginning...everyone was excited to be there. We were in the shade for the first 9 miles of the race which was awesome and there were a lot of people on the side of the road cheering us on, but coming on mile marker 10 we crossed the Washington bridge and out came the sun and no by-standers to cheer (a very depressing point of the marathon). Then we ran through downtown for maybe a mile around the 14 mile marker and again there were lots of people (motivating)! Then we hopped on Highway 99 heading North and ran for another 4 miles, then looped around and headed South on 99 (this was the worst part of the run because 1. it was the HOTTEST part of the run 2. we were in the SUN 3. there was NO crowd because we were on bridges 4. this included miles 15-25 with at least 3 hills)

Our goal when we first started training was to finish, then it became to finish in 5 hours, and my personal goal was to not walk. I did not walk at all during my training and I felt this would be a very easy accomplishment. So in trying to accomplish my goal of not walking I left Davis behind somewhere around mile marker 15. In training we hardly ever ran together because I was faster than him, but we had decided to run the marathon together or at least finish together. So at mile 23 I started walking to allow Davis to catch up so that we could finish together and cross the line together. I decided that it wouldn't have been worth the training if we didn't get to feel that accomplishment together and weren't able to see each other finish! and it was definitely worth the wait! We had an awesome finish all by ourselves. They called out our names and although no one else there knew who we were......we knew that we had made it! We had successfully completed one of MY goals in life!

Yes, my husband only ran the marathon with me because he didn't want his wife to out do him!

After we crossed the line, we were handed bottled water, medals, bananas, oranges, bagels, ice for our joints, and a photographer was there to take our picture TOGETHER!

All in all it was a great day that we will never forget and we will always be able to say "We ran a marathon once"!

A funny story for the day.....I have decided that running that long in the sun can make a person delirious. After the run they handed you these garbage bag like things that you wrap around you to help maintain your body temperature. Well I put mine around me and tied it around me neck and then you walk like 20 feet and there is a photographer wanting to take your picture. I didn't want this bag wrap around me in the picture (then you couldn't have seen my awesome medal) so I told the photographer to hold a minute and he said "you have a cape?" and I responded with "yeah, I am a magician", "now you see (and as I tore it off), now you don't!"

Needless to say, Davis and the photographer thought this was pretty funny! Davis brought it up later and I had almost forgotten that it even happened (it was almost like being intoxicated, although I would have no idea what that is like)!

the route
at 5:00
the line in front of us for the buses
the line behind us
our awesome driver
the crowd at the start
lots of banana peels
post race

Some race stats:
  • There were 5,602 marathon finishers
  • Davis was 4,307 overall
  • He was 2,182 in men out of 2,543
  • He was 339 in his division out of 377
  • I was 4,308 overall (that's right somehow he was ranked above me even though our times were the exact time....I wonder if they broke out the camera and watched that slow-mo)
  • I was 2,126 out of 3,059 women
  • I placed 178 in my division out of 237
  • Our overall time was 5:23:18

There should be a finish line video soon and I will post a link to it because our finish was AWESOME!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Only about 10 months late...

Hey guys, its Davis. Cindy usually keeps the blog up-to-date, but today I figured that I would finally get around to blogging about the video I made of our drive across the country. I know that was a really long time ago (last July, almost a year ago now!), but it took me forever to get around to finalizing it and putting it on YouTube.

We managed to take about 2300 pictures over the entire drive and I put those together to form a time-lapse video of it. Its pretty neat because you can really see how the landscape changes from state to state during the drive. So, without making you wait any longer, here is the video:

Edit: So after look at what the blog post looks like when its published, it looks like the YouTube is having trouble displaying it correctly for some reason. I deleted the video from the blog post and just added a direct link to the video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6qZRYvox4

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

My first sewing project.....a success!

My very first sewing project was a pair of shorts because I only brought like 3 pairs of shorts from home and it has been HOT here!

They turned out wonderfully if I do say so myself!
my logo

back
front

Now I am starting a quilt for our second anniversary present to ourselves!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Marathon Count Down!!!!!

t minus 4 days = our first (and possibly last) marathon!

We were just informed that anyone can view a live feed of the finish line via the internet......this means that you in Tennessee can watch Davis and I as we cross the finish line in Qwest stadium in Seattle! Get excited!

You can click here and scroll down to the forth advertisement like box on the right hand side of the page/screen. It says something about viewing live.....you should be able to click there on Saturday and watch.

The race starts at 7AM pacific time.....that is 10AM eastern
Davis and I are planning on finishing together and we think it will take us roughly 5 hours......so that means that you should plan on watching around the 3PM eastern time.

We are excited that we do get to share the HUGE event in our lives with you guys. I have been a little down that my mom and Gregory aren't getting to come. Since Greg just had knee surgery they had to postpone their visit, but they were planning on being here. (Don't feel bad Greg, I would have much rather you had the knee surgery!)

I hope you all enjoy!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Summer Solstice

This weekend was the Solstice Festival in Fremont. There is always a kick-off parade that begins with naked/painted bike riders so of course Davis and I had to go see what all the talk was about and..... it was awesome!

Being in Seattle....the parade rules are no motorized vehicles (save the planet)! It was very interesting and the parade was around 1.5 hours long (the longest parade I have ever seen)! We rode our bikes over to Fremont which is about 3 miles from downtown because we knew traffic would be ridiculous and it was. There were tons of people and I mean tons! Even children....it was a family event in Seattle. This would never happen in Tennessee, not to mention no one would take their kids even if it was allowed.

It was a very enjoyable time and there is sooo much to do at all of the festivals! I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but there is a festival every weekend of the summer in Seattle.
kick-off with the parade
Batman & Catwoman
me & Dave enjoying the views
a painted bumblebee
Charlie is in the pink hat and the painted girls are his angels
intense art and bikes
pirate
yes, he was riding a unicycle and juggling
more intense bikes

Wolverine

Scooters
a taste of the event (I tried to keep the pictures tasteful)
this is the start of the parade
yes, this guy is in bubble wrap

dresses made entirely of paper and boxeswilderness woman trying to hide from her wilderness man
a crazy bicycle contraption
there were lots of stilts

These next pictures would only happen on the west coast....
I thought this was a neat float thingy.....but apparently (I learned from Davis) this is the flying spaghetti monster which is making fun of religion
this float has marijuana leafs all over it with peace symbols and a guy with a George Bush mask
these people were wearing clothes made entirely from plastic bags and bottle.....it was a save the earth float
American flags w/ peace symbols

Happy Father's Day!

Today is a special day for many and we like to wish all father's a great day!

Happy Father's Day......
Dwayne - Hope you have a wonderful day!
Dad - You are the best and I miss you so very much! Same Same
Gregory - I couldn't have asked for a better stepfather to raise me through my teenage years & so on! Thank you so much for all you have done!



Also today is my wonderful and beautiful nephews 2nd birthday! I miss being able to see them whenever I want and I know that they have continued to change on a daily basis since I have been gone.





I love them and miss them tons and I will get to see them daily one day!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

New Stuff

There is so much........

Below are some updated pictures of Belle and some videos of the kids playing together.
Beast & their new monkey toy
Belle in a bandanna
Belle trying to sit on Beast
Belle laying on the scale
Belle on the computer
She loves the base on the fan
pawing at a ball
mom & dad were cleaning so she laid in all the toys on the couch
the kids laying together
Beast in his favorite spot between the couch and the kitchen counter (& yes this is how he sleeps)


This is a video of the dogs playing and Belle growing. The video starts when she was 8 weeks and goes until present day (she is now 11 weeks)!



This video is of a guy who is always performing somewhere in Seattle. His name is 5 Gallons of Funk and he plays 5 gallon buckets. He is amazing and Davis and I love hearing him!

I finally have a sewing machine of my own!!!!! I am so excited for my birthday I bought myself a sewing machine of which my parents help pay for. I haven't sewed much since high school and it is because I couldn't tote my mom's 1960 singer in a table around with me. I am SUPER excited to start sewing my clothes again! Thank you so much Mom, Greg, Dad, & Barb! I couldn't have better parents!