A Marathon Weekend!

Whew, what a weekend… and what a crazy start to the week! If you’re an east-coaster like me, you’re probably snuggled up inside your home, just waiting to see what Sandy’s wrath will bring. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that I have electricity… although, sometimes losing power isn’t so bad. Wherever you are- stay safe and batten down the hatches!

Back to the weekend… it was epic. Yes, I said it.

And I’m very proud of this girl!!

As I’ve mentioned several times recently, I had anxiously been awaiting this past weekend to come for quite a while. In fact, Heather and I started planning for it last July! When we were hanging out and drinking good beer (hey- we also ran a 5k and did some crazy bootcamp workouts that weekend!), Heather told me that her and her hubby Kirk would be coming to DC the last weekend of October to run the Marine Corps Marathon! I immediately blocked off that day on my calendar and told her that I would be down there to meet her at the finish!

And then I had another idea. I knew that our friend Sarah, who lives about 2 hours south of DC also would love to see Heather since she was so close by. I sent her an email last week asking if she was feeling spontaneous and would want to come up and stay at my house Saturday night and then go cheer on Heather and Kirk during the race on Sunday. Sarah happily accepted my offer and arrived in Frederick on Saturday evening. The whole operation was super top secret, because we wanted to surprise Heather (she didn’t know that Sarah was coming!). We did text a photo of us to Calee (with the text wish you were here!).

Sarah and I immediately started talking a mile a minute and laughed at all of our food and kitchen gadget choice similarities. Poor Greg was thinking Oh my god, they’ve cloned my wife… It’s nice to have other foodie friends that think it’s perfectly normal to make strange food combinations, or have a “special” utensils that they like to use to eat certain foods.

I had made the crust and roasted some veggies for beer crust pizza earlier in the day, and put it in the oven (with some Daiya cheese!) right after Sarah’s arrival. Let me just say- I freaking LOVE beer crust pizza. It is the easiest thing in the world to make and tastes SO DAMN GOOD.

We served it up with some salad that had mixed greens, roasted butternut squash, beets, apples and pumpkin seeds with a homemade apple vinaigrette.

After dinner, Sarah and I quickly ran out to but some supplies to make signs for Heather, Kirk and Allie (who was also running!). We got right to work when we got back home.

There was also some flavors of fall dessert served, along with cashew cream (recipe coming tomorrow!!). I think I’ve made this recipe 10 times so far this fall. It’s just so darn good! I actually added a little flour, oats and a few other ingredients into the slow-cooker to make it into a cobbler this time… yum.

With bellies still full of apple-y goodness and signs made, we all eventually turned in for the night.

**

Sunday morning started early, because I had to teach spin class! Sarah eagerly agreed to go with me- and even wanted to get to the gym early to do some Bodypumpin’ (which seems to be a theme with friends coming to stay at my house Saturday nights!) She had never taken a Spinning or Bodypump class before- and I was happy to introduce her to both! Sarah did GREAT- and we were both a hot, sweaty mess afterwards.

We sprinted back home (well, not literally- I drove), showered up, and got on the road to try to get down to DC fast enough to catch Kirk, Heather and Allie on the course! We also whipped up some oatmeal to be eaten in the car.

It takes about 35 minutes to get down to the closest metro station from my house, which is also at the very end of the Red line. From there, it’s another 45 minutes to an hour to get into DC- which depends on a number of factors. On the weekends, the trains don’t run quite as frequently, so it can take even longer. Greg kept tracking Heather, Kirk and Allie on his phone so that we could figure out where to get off the train in hopes to see them running along the course. Unfortunately, it took forever to get down to DC, and by the time we reached Metro center, Kirk had already crossed the finish line (he’s just too darn speedy!). We decided to just go all the way to Rosslyn (which is where the finish line was) to try to just catch them at the end. When we got off the train, it was MAD HOUSE! We quickly made our way over towards the finish line and found a spot to squeeze into in hopes to get a glimpse of Heather (she was about one mile away from the finish at that point!). It was so much fun to cheer the runners on!

I finally spotted Heather, right as she ran by- but was unable to get a photo. After that, we booked it through the massive crowds to try to meet up with her after the finish line, with our signs in tow. Unfortunately, the runners that we made the signs for weren’t actually able to see them during their run- but they did end up serving a really good purpose! While carrying the signs with us as we went to find Heather, we were spotted by her friends Melody and Matt, who walked up to us and asked if we were looking for Heather and Kirk! They figured that if our signs said Heather and Kirk’s names, there was a good chance that we were cheering for the same couple! TOO funny! We all walked over together and texted Heather to look for the signs with her name on them. And then finally, we found her! And a few minutes later, we found Kirk too! These two did an AWESOME job running the marathon!

It’s a good thing Heather sports that tutu during her races- makes it SO easy to find her!

We love our little Heather.

Unfortunately, with all of the craziness, I wasn’t able to find Allie- but she ran one heck of a race, and I’m super proud of her!

After Heather and Kirk got their stuff from the bag check, we tried to get the heck out of Rosslyn and grab some lunch. The line for the metro was insane- so instead, we decided to just walk right across the bridge over to Georgetown. We spotted Pizza Paradisio and Heather immediately said “They have Daiya cheese! And good beer! Let’s go there!” We ordered pumpkin beers and pizza… the perfect meal!

The pizza was really good… but my beer crust pizza was better!

It was so much fun to talk and laugh with everyone- including our new friends Melody and Matt! I wish we all lived on the same street. I soaked up my last few moments with Heather before we had to part ways.

Luckily, we’ll be back in Colorado in a little over two weeks, and will get to see each other then!

Congrats too ALL of the runners who participated in the Marine Corps Marathon yesterday- you should all be very proud of your massive amounts of training, hard work and dedication. You are an inspiration to us all!