The Rock N Roll 1/2 Marathon & Grandparents Weekend

What a way to kick off the New Year! My parents arrived on the 15th for a nice long weekend away from the Missouri cold and a good healthy dose of sunshine. Of course, their primary reason for the visit was to see (and spoil) Nolan, whom they hadn't seen since October. My how their littlest grandson has changed in a few short months.

The other purpose of their visit was for the 1/2 Marathon that Dad and I signed up to run.

Earlier this year, Amy and I decided to sign up for the P.F. Chang's Rock N Roll 1/2 Marathon as way to hold ourselves accountable to losing our baby weight. Around the same time that we made this commitment, my Dad had surgery that forced him to not exercise for 6 weeks (much like having a baby). So, we all decided to run the 1/2 marathon together...there were 9 of us in total: Dad, me, Amy, Andrew, Evelyn, Emily, Ken, Angie and James. Quite an accomplishment when you note that we had 3 people over 50 running, 4 mothers running and each one of the 9 people are extremely busy every day and had to creatively find time to fit in the training runs leading up to the big day. I won't pretend that we had a glorious finish time, or that we loved every single minute of it, but we finished and are proud of that. Dad even wants to run it again next year and commit to doing it in 9 and 1/2 minute miles...quite ambitious if you ask me!

So the day started out quite early. Amy came to the house and dropped of Anabelle with my mom and Brian (thank you so much you guys for taking the kiddos for the day so we could do this!). Then we headed down to the fire station to pick Andrew up from shift. We arrived in Tempe around 6:30am and had plenty of time to catch the shuttle to the starting line.

(Dad and I on the shuttle bus to the start line...it's still dark outside!)

Here is Amy and I at the start line, just 5 years after we ran our first 1/2 marathon together. She's the best running partner I could ever ask for and even thought ahead this year and supplied us with "throw-away" sweaters to keep us warm for the first couple of miles. Aren't they gorgeous:)

(Dad and I at the start line - adrenaline pumping and ready to go!)(What kept us running for 13.1 miles...our family at the finish!)

And a huge THANK YOU to my Mom - the person who taught me all I know about multi-tasking. Here she is taking care of Nolan and Anabelle so that Amy and I could run this race together. She always did love having a ton of kiddo's around, so she is loving this!

The entire group (minus James & Angie)

And last but not least, my favorite little dude and I at the finish line. As you can see, Nolan is more interested in my medal than in me. It was so great to see him at the finish line with Brian and reminds me why I signed up for this race in the first place - to stay healthy and active for my boys, so that we can live a long life together!