Our alarm went off at 6am this morning, and we were up and out the door, heading to the kennel to drop off the dogs, and then full speed ahead to Washington, DC!

We had a really fun drive – an absolutely beautiful time of year to drive through the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia.  The pictures do zero justice, but the trees were seriously like a rainbow of colors.  I must have said, “Casey look at the TREES!” no less than 20 times in 6 hours.  

I drove the first four hours, and needed a quick Wendy’s stop for hot caffeine.  After a very scary bathroom break at a country road BP, we decided any and all breaks from now on would be at restaurants instead of gas stations.

When we stopped to switch drivers, we ended up at a McDonald’s and we were both hungry for lunch.  After looking over the nutrition brochure (buried around the corner from the counter), I settled on the fruit and yogurt parfait.  Casey saw that the vanilla ice cream cone was only 150 calories, and went for that.  When our order arrived, the “parfait” I was handed was basically a dixie cup of congealed fruit swimming in syrup, in a cup the size of my cell phone.  It was laughable.  I ate two bites of yogurt and threw the “fruit” away, and majorly regretted not having an ice cream cone of my own!  No wonder people don’t try to eat healthy fast food.

When we got to DC, we were totally surprised to see that the road leading us to our hotel was actually the marathon starting corral!  We literally drove through the starting line to get to the hotel – so cool!  Excuse the blurry photo – I was in motion…

When we moved to Charlotte, we ended up making several trips down to try to find housing, visit schools, etc.  Each time we stayed in a Hyatt near the airport, since we figured we knew where it was, and it had a good rate.   Somewhere along the way I realized that Hyatt had a rewards program, so I signed up and had all of our visits credited – might as well, right?  Casey always makes fun of me and calls me grandma when I try to get points for things, or use coupons.  But guess what grandma did this time?

I managed to get us a $250 city view 9th floor hotel room at the super swanky Hyatt in Arlington, where the finish line is literally AT the door of our hotel for…

FREE!  We are seriously steps away from the finish party and marathon meet up area, which will save us soooo much hassle tomorrow!  I somehow racked up a lot of points, and was able to get our entire DC stay for no charge.   I don’t know why I have so many freaking points – when we checked in the concierge looked at our reservation and asked me if I worked for Hyatt hotels – so weird.  I’m not asking questions though – I’ll take it.  Check out our fancy room!

Once we were all checked in, we headed out the expo.  I wanted to take a bunch of pictures of all the finish line stuff outside our hotel, but it was pouring rain:(  There are a lot of disabled veterans staying in our hotel, and all the super fancy hand bikes were stationed outside – very cool to finally see in person. 

The expo was pretty good, and Casey was a good sport and posed for lots of embarrassing photos.  It always feels weird to me to be at an expo for a race I’m not running – I feel like a fraud.  But that didn’t stop me from taking my share of yummy samples…

I had a delicious Odwalla drink (chocolate something?) and there were all sorts of fun things to sample from the Clif family.  They have a new Shot Rok product that is a peanut butter protein ball that tastes like pure candy – yum!

After the expo, my good friend Blake picked us up and the three of us headed out to dinner!  We ate a cute Italian place called Trattoria Luna, and I got yummy eggplant penne.  I definitely ate as if I was running the marathon – ugh.

We were back at the hotel nice and early to rest up for the big day tomorrow!  When we got back to our room, look what Casey discovered…

The Art Institute of DC was right out our window, and it was a big lit up fishbowl at night.  Check out the top right window – a culinary lab class!  We watched the students baking and working for a few minutes, and then decided that we were creepy and closed the blinds.

Time to unpack all the marathon loot!  Casey stocked up on shot blocks, body glide, and drink tablets, and got all his gear together for tomorrow morning.

While Casey tried to figure out how to get his timing chip attached to his shoe, I played on the computer and snacked on a power bar for dessert (my pasta was gooey, but not filling).  I also went through Casey’s bag o’ goodies…

There was lots of junky paper and flyers, but he did get this really cool patch.  What does one do with a patch?  We don’t know, but we still thought it was cool.  He also got what was described as the “highly coveted mock neck competitors shirt.”

I think it’s cool, but he wasn’t so sure about the embroidery, and he felt like a phony wannabe marine.  Anyways, look at what I bought for me at the expo…

RUNNERS SLEEVES!  I have been threatening to get these for a while, and they were only $10 at the expo!  They are supposed to keep you warm and improve circulation when you run, without all the bulkiness of wearing lots of layers when you run.  Plus, Kara Goucher wears them, and let’s be honest – that’s really why I want them.  Love me some Goucher.

Tomorrow, we are getting up at 5am, and I’m going to take the train to the start with Casey, to keep him calm and distracted, and then head back to the hotel to meet up with Blake so we can get our cheer on.  By this time tomorrow, we’ll be back in Charlotte, and Casey will have fun his fifth marathon! 

I am so so sooo excited for tomorrow.  I promise a race recap and lots of pictures as soon as we get back.  When you get up tomorrow, think happy thoughts for Casey and the 40,000 other runners running 26.2 through DC!  And now, it’s bedtime for this cheerleader…

So believe it or not, since I’ve started culinary school I have actually been cooking lots of yummy food at home.  I have taken lots of foodie pictures, but they never seem to find their way onto the blog – until today!  Here are a few snippets of the successful dishes coming out of my kitchen (no need to feature the gross ones, of which there are also plenty)…

A few weeks ago I got a surprise package in the mail from a good family friend, Debbie.  Imagine the pure joy (and squealing) that occurred when I opened it to find a fabulous collection of new kitchen tools and cookbooks!  Debbie is an amazing cook herself, and she thoughtfully sent a package of all her favorite cooking tools, along with a collection of all her favorite recipes.  The fun new gadgets included a fancy garlic press, pretty wooden salad tongs, kitchen shears, spatulas, and something I had never seen before – a tomato knife!  I was instantly intrigued, and made sure to get fresh tomatoes at Earth Fare the next time I was out shopping.

How did I ever live without this?  Seriously, go get a tomato knife right now.  Never again will I squish my tomato all over the cutting board – this thing is a miracle tool!  In addition to the fabulous tools and her personal recipes, she also sent me my new favorite cookbook – Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone!  It’s my first purely vegetarian cookbook, and I have already used it countless times in just a few short weeks.  So in order to make use of the tomato knife and cookbook, I set out to make homemade tomato sauce.

I simmered tomatoes, onions, garlic, and various spices together for a loooooong time until it all broke down and came together.  While the sauce cooked, I baked a spaghetti squash in the oven to make Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti – a great low calorie pasta alternative.  If you haven’t tried this you should.  It seriously feels just like eating spaghetti, without the crazy high calories of regular pasta.  Plus you can eat like three times as much as you could if it was “real” pasta.  I made a half whole grain pasta, half squash mixture for Casey, and all squash for me!

Speaking of squash, I’ve been on a fall vegetable kick (as most of us have).  I’m so excited to have all these fun veggies back in the produce section, and am pretty much cooking them every night.  So next up was another old favorite – acorn squash!  I cut two acorn squash in half and roasted them for 30 minutes.  Then I pulled them out and added honey crisp apples (mmmmm), sprinkled them with cinnamon, and finished them off with a bib blob of sugar-free maple syrup.  Baked them for another 20-25 minutes until they came out like this…delicious!  (Please excuse the terrible photos, a new camera is on my Christmas list!)

Spaghetti, check.  Acorn, check.  Must be butternut time!  I have to give credit where it is due – this next meal was inspired by one of Meghann’s meals, and I believe she got the idea from Heather.  Around the blog-o-sphere it goes…
I decided to give tempeh another go round.  We had tried it a few times before and weren’t sure about the nuttiness, but I’m not one to give up on food very easily.  On one side of the stove, I browned a block of tempeh and a block of tofu.  On the other side, I browned some onions, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash.

 
While those cooked, I made some brown rice in the rice cooker, and a side of homemade slaw.  For my healthy coleslaw, I made the dressing with greek yogurt, mustard, a bit of honey, and some splenda (don’t judge – I can’t quit it).  And while all of this took place, Casey watched and kept me company from behind his laptop!

Once everything on the stovetop was browned and ready to go, I put it all together and gave it a good sized glob of barbecue sauce, mmmmmmm…

The final barbecue goodness, and the whole plate together.  I opted for just a small bit of rice so that I could justify more BBQ deliciousness.  Thank you Meghann – I will definitely be making this one again! 

 
Tomorrow, I will share another fun recipe and meal, and the story of how I got my fabulous shiitake mushroom stump!  For now, I’m off to make dinner – spaghetti squash, if you must know…

This morning is very bittersweet.  Right now I should be running the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco, but I’m not.  I have tried to blog about it several times, and never knew quite what to say.

There are actually a number of reasons why this marathon didn’t happen.  The first one?  Finding time for training.  When I signed up to run 26.2 in October, I was living a completely different life in Cincinnati.  I had no idea that come October I’d be a full-time student living in North Carolina – crazy.  When I was working, I was able to devote 100% of my free time to running, working out, planning runs, etc.  Now that I am in school, even when class is over, I am constantly going – homework, errands, cleaning, etc.  – just trying to keep all the balls in the air.  I’m doing my best to just find the time to blog!  (Kath, Meghann, Caitlin – I don’t know how you guys do it!)  Training went really well until we moved, and then pretty much took a nosedive.

Reason number two – running in Charlotte sucks.  There, I said it.  Casey and I are both really unhappy with where we live (and are considering moving again, ugh).  Our house is nice, but the neighborhood is waaay out in the ‘burbs, and there are no sidewalks or good places to run.  It’s very isolating, and I feel very…trapped.  I want to run, but I just don’t know where to go.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but seriously – I either run out of sidewalks and the street is too busy to run in, or I hit dead ends everywhere I turn.  As a result, most of my runs are five miles or less – not exactly great for marathon training.

Number three – flights.  I hit a huge wall trying to find a flight back from San Francisco on Sunday that would get me to Charlotte before my 7am class on Monday morning.  There is a dead zone for flights on the west coast in the afternoon, since there is nowhere to land on the east coast in the middle of the night.  I literally could not find a flight that would leave Sunday afternoon and get back Sunday night – they were all too early or too late, or too expensive.  Speaking of expensive, the final nail in the marathon coffin was the dogs’ little emergency vet incident a few weeks ago, that ended with a $1,600 vet bill.  Goodbye San Francisco…

Finally, and perhaps one of the bigger factors…  When you move away from friends, family, home – your perspective on a lot of things changes.  I don’t really want to travel anymore just to travel – I want to see people!  It was hard for me to imagine spending $1,000 to travel to San Fran for a marathon, when I wouldn’t have had time to actually explore the city, and I wouldn’t have seen anyone I knew.  For the same price, I could fly my entire family here for Christmas!  Now that we live in NC, our time and travel money is limited, so I want to make sure it is well spent.  And the best way to spend both time and money is with the people you love, right?

So that is my very long explanation for why I am not crossing the finish line for my Tiffany necklace right now.  I wont lie – I’m really sad about it.  And regardless of the circumstances, I’m still pretty disapp0inted in myself.  I am a lot of things, but I am not a quitter.  So for that reason, I will share my next endeavor…

THUNDER ROAD!  The Charlotte Thunder Road Marathon is December 12th, right here in good ole’ Charlotte.  I made my training schedule yesterday – I have eight weeks.  Yes, eight weeks.  I knooow marathon training is typically 18 weeks, but I’m still in good shape, and I’ve been running a lot recently, so I think I can do it.  Will I beat my PR from the Flying Pig?  Ummm maybe if pigs fly.  But that doesn’t matter.  This isn’t about pace or time, this is about me – re-learning how to be a part of the sport that I love, on sidewalks that feel very very far away from home.

I will run 26.2 miles in the city I am doing my best to learn, and I will have Casey cheering for me on the sidelines, and I will make myself proud by refocusing today’s failure, and turning it into December’s success. 

Next weekend, we’re heading to Washington, DC where Casey will run the Marine Corps Marathon with Team LUNGevity.  He’s sort of in the same boat as me – undertrained, unsure, and nervous.  But he is in amazing shape, and we both know that he can do it.  I know that watching him run side by side with the marines, through a city as inspiring as DC, will be the perfect motivation as I kick off my training.  I promise to take lots and lots of pictures!

And one final marathon thought, a HUGE congratulations to my college cutie pie (sorority) grand-little Amelia, who ran her first marathon this morning in Columbus, Ohio!  I just got the Twitter update that she finished in 4:39:56 – way to go Meems!  I am so proud of you:)  I promise to make you proud in December!