A little run, a little Tim, and a lot of love!

On Saturday morning Tom ran the half marathon. I opted out of it this year and just ran the 5 K. Tom finished with a better time than last year, 1:51 or something. And I finished the 5 K in 29 minutes. That might sound not very fast to most of you, but for me it's a great feeling averaging less than 10 minutes for a mile. Maybe I'll do the half next year. Maybe not. I don't know! Here are some pics! All these pics taken from my phone. Even though I'm not in any running photos - I swear I ran.

Chuck finishing with another ridiculous time

Tom about to cross the finish line. Talk about an action shot!

My aunt finishing her first half marathon

Dean is like, 13 miles is really no big deal at all

On May 20th, Tom and I will celebrate being married for five years. Can you believe it?! I know five years seems like nothing compared to our parents, or even our grandparents - but hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?

When thinking about how we should spend our five year anniversary, I had a fantastic idea. I wanted to take care of all the planning. So many times, Tom surprises me with little gifts. Adding something fun and exciting to our house. Buying me a special something just because. Tom is definitely the spender in our family. He has to force me not to buy all Target brand clothing. I like to go shopping with him because he's the type of person who is like, just buy it Molly! Where I'm as cheap as can be (thanks Dad). haha. Anyways back to our anniversary plans. My plan was to keep EVERYTHING a surprise. I wasn't even going to tell Tom the date that we were celebrating. This is huge for me because I have a really hard time containing my excitement about things. Well that and I have absolutely no patience what so ever.

A few months back I had heard on the radio that Tim McGraw was coming to St. Paul. I then saw that the date was May 14th. This is when the lightbulb went off in my head to take the reigns and to plan our celebration. So I bought two tickets, coordinated with my mom to watch the boys and I was going to keep everything hush hush. Easy enough right? Wrong! A few weeks later Tom got an email from his aunt saying they wanted to celebrate his dad and grandpa's birthdays on May 14th. Tom forwarded me the email and told me to mark our calendar. Shoot! So unfortunately, I was not able to keep the date a surprise. I couldn't tell Tom that we couldn't go to his dad and grandpa's birthday party without a reason. So I just told Tom, sorry we can't go to that - this is the night we are celebrating our anniversary.  At this time I still thought it would be easy to keep everything a surprise. Wrong again. Fricken K102 radio announced every five minutes that Tim McGraw was coming to concert on May 14th. I knew Tom listened to that station and I knew he would eventually put two and two together. And on Thursday night, he broke the news to me, he knew we were going to the concert. The good news was that he was still excited. The even better news was that he didn't know where we were staying over night or where we were eating dinner.

I ended up booking us a room at the St. Paul hotel and making dinner reservations at The St. Paul Grill. We LOVED this hotel. Neither one of us is very familiar with St. Paul. Since we grew up in a Northwest Suburb, we are more familiar with Minneapolis. But let me tell you - I love St. Paul. It's gorgeous! 

Not the best shot of the hotel - I was in the car. ha

Beautiful chandeliers throughout the hotel 

Bedding decor 

View from our room

View from our room

After getting settled into the hotel and freshening up, it was time for dinner and the concert! Dinner was fantastic. We had bread and bruschetta for starters. Beer cheese soup. Tom had the New York Strip and I had the lobster. Split some potatoes. And finished it up with our favorite dessert ever, creme brulee. We were both hurting we were so full. We had to do 2 laps around the Excel center before we sat in our seats because we thought we were going to explode. 

So excited!

Celebrating Five Years!

Tim McGraw was everything we hoped he'd be, and more! Our seats were incredible. They ended up making a second stage in the very center of the floor. And since we were in the 6th row on the first level, we could almost smell him!  He came out from the top of a section and walked down the stairs. That was so neat to watch! I wish I could have touched him.

The Band Perry

Luke Bryan

Waiting for Timmy

Can you see his black cowboy hat?

Hello, lover

And here is a little video I took, for the other Tim McGraw lovers out there! The sound is muffled for the first 5 seconds because my fingers were over the speakers!

We had a wonderful, wonderful weekend! 

Half Marathon Day!

It really didn't start to hit me that I was running a half marathon until Friday night when I picked up my number. I tried to go to bed at a descent hour, but I slept like crap. I kept thinking about the run and anticipating what it was going to be like. Tom and I woke up around 6:10 and ate some peanut butter toast and had some coffee. Tom's mom came here around 6:45 AM to watch the boys (they were still sleeping) and we were out the door. I had my iPod ready to go with all of my new songs and rearranged playlist (thank God for Justin Bieber, haha). So we got there and met up with Kelly, Chuck, Amy, and my parents. My biggest fear of the entire race was that I was going to start out too fast and get burnt out by mile 5. So I made sure that I was at the back of the crowd. And I kid you not, I was one of the last people out of the MGSH stadium. But honestly, I didn't care. I didn't care about my time. I wanted to finish without stopping. And that, my friends, is what I did! I ran the entire time, and I actually ENJOYED it! I definitely have NO desire to ever run a full marathon ever in my life, but I could totally do another half. The training was the worst part of the whole thing, but it definitely paid off.  I'm so happy that we all decided to do it and that we ALL finished and felt great about it. Kel, next year it's YOUR turn (Amy took Kel's spot because she is expecting baby #3 this November - and yes, it was her that pushed me to actually sign us all up for this race)!!! :-) You can imagine how I felt when she told me 2 weeks into the training that she wasn't running it anymore. haha. It's ok, I forgave her. And I just have to say, for anyone out there who is debating on running a half marathon...DO IT. Seriously, DO IT. You have no excuse. I was training when Finn wasn't even 3 months and he was still getting up 2-3 times a night, not to mention I was chasing a toddler all day long. I'm not trying to be like "oh look at me" I'm just trying to get the point across that you can totally do it if you put your mind to it. We all have our obstacles and our excuses as to why we don't have the time to train, but if it's something you really want to do - you can make time for it. I promise.  Oh and it helps to have someone push you a little bit like Tom did for me. Because before we had our double jogger, I had to run right when Tom would get home from work. Well then there's my mom. She didn't even fricken train and finished! She was ahead of me the entire race until mile 10. So you could try it her way too, although she probably wouldn't recommend that. Tom finished the race in under 2 hours. What a show off. And Chuck was really trying to outdo everyone, finishing at about 1:45 or something ridiculous. It was a great day. Perfect weather. It's something I can check off my bucket list. Not that I have a bucket list or anything. Or do I?

Double Jogging Stroller

We finally got our double jogging stroller!!! My old boss, David, definitely had the hook up. His boyfriend works at HAYNEEDLE (an online shopping store, you've got to check it out). And he said I could use his discount for double strollers. How could we say no to that? So we got a sa-weet deal on one. It arrived in the mail this weekend and I just had to text David a picture of the boys in it to say thanks once again. He then told me that they ripped up my check in the mail and it's our baby gift from them. I wanted to cry! What an awesome, awesome gift. I used it for the first time today, I went a little over 3 miles. Wow, what a workout! Jack and Finn seem to love it though! PS - I ran 10.5 miles on Saturday and yeah, I don't ever want to do that again. haha. I'm dead serious.

Half Marathon Training

I figured since I am into my 5th week of training I would write a little update. I am half way done with training and the big day is on May 22. This past Saturday I ran 8 miles. That sounds unbelievable to me. But honestly, it wasn't that hard. I think the way that I have been training has really paid off. I have an awesome training schedule that I have followed to a T, well minus a few things. The schedule wants me to run M-W-TH and a long run on Saturday. I've found my long runs are easier when I have two days off instead of just one, so I've been skipping the Thursday run. Throughout the training, I never go more than 6 miles during the week - and that is only one time. Usually it's 3, 4 or 5.  So that is also nice. And let me say this - I run SLOW! I am consistently running about 10 min miles. Even when I do my 3 mile run, I still average 10 min miles. But honestly, I don't push myself to go faster on my shorter runs and hopefully this will work towards my advantage on the race day so I don't start out too fast. The first 2 miles are hard because I'm not into a groove yet and then I hit a wall around 5 miles and I'm predicting I will hit another one around 9 or 10 miles.  I am also pretty proud of myself because I have ran the entire time during all of my runs. At first I wanted to stop a ton, especially when starting the 4 and 5 milers, but I didn't let myself. Once I stop, I get out of the groove and can't get back in it. So now on my really long runs, it's not even an option for me to stop.  If I can keep my training up, I would love to finish the half marathon without stopping. I'm not getting my hopes up, but it's definitely something to shoot for. We'll see how my 10 mile run goes this weekend! 

Denial

de·ni·al


An assertion that something said, believed, alleged, etc., is false


I am in denial that I am running a half marathon in a little over 10 weeks. My training begins Monday, ready or not. 

Running Music

I need to add about a bazillion songs to my iPod to make it through this half marathon. Please give me some suggestions!!!!

Monday Ramblings

We had a very busy weekend, but it was a fun one filled with hanging out with friends, hockey games, making new friends, birthday parties and baby showers! Unfortunately the Wayzata hockey season is over. I'm glad to have my husband back, but it would have been fun to see that team go to state, they had a great season.

I bit the bullet and am slowly starting my half marathon training. Friday and Sunday I ran 4 miles. I am surprised I made it the whole way without stopping. When I finished, I was like crap - that is only 1/3 of what I need to get to. Start panicing now. Sunday's run was definitely worse. I love running outside though, and this weather has been great. There is something about the sun and melting snow that makes everything so much better. Thank God February is over. Anyway, I need to keep running throughout the weeks until the actual training training starts. I am still a little unsure of how I'm going to have the time to run. I wish it was like 60 degrees and sunny every day and that I had a double jogging stroller. That would be golden. Although I'm sure if that was the case, I'd still have an excuse for not running.

Finn is now 2 months old. I am so glad he is out of that newborn stage, ugh i hate that. I sound like a bad mom when I say that - but it's true. He's sleeping great at night, gets up once or twice and goes right back down. I am thinking he's got a little bit of acid reflux. He's still fussy during the day and he spits up like it's no one's business. We go to the dr on Friday so I will voice my concerns then. He's also swaddled up like a burrito about 90% of the day. Whatever works, right? Right!