Sweet Sixteen

In case it did not make it onto your calendar, today is our 16th anniversary. I hope you all are celebrating. Do you love old pictures as much as I do?

June 17, 1995. Columbia, MD.

No better way to kick off your anniversary than to kiss your husband goodbye at 6:00 a.m. and head out for a 13 mile run with girlfriend, Joie. Very romantic. She and I made out the whole time.

Seriously, I thought about Ken every minute. Even when I stopped at the porta potty at the Boulder Rez to take a dump and noticed that someone had left a pair of jeans in there. Gross. Who leaves jeans in there and why? Actually, I don’t want to know. They fit perfectly!

I even thought about Ken when I saw this bird. I am not a birdie, but even I could appreciate this long beak. I looked him up and he’s a Long-Billed Dowitcher, which is a type of Sandpiper.

16 years is a long time to be with one person. It is a good think I really like who I married or else this could have gotten very ugly.

People never ask me what the key to a happy marriage is, but if they did I would tell them – choose wisely. The key to a happy marriage occurs way before you get married. Know who the heck you are marrying. If you have any inkling that something is wrong, assume it will become 400% more wrong later on. Love is not enough if someone is mean or irresponsible or a drunkard. Go with your gut. In my opinion, make sure the person:

• Shares your sense of humor, if you have one. This keeps you going on days that are mundane or challenging or happy or annoying.
• Is someone you can be playful with. Poking, wrestling, pinching. It’s all fair game.
• Shares some of your passions/hobbies if you have some. You don’t have to share everything, but if there is something you spend ten hours of week doing, it’s nice to be able to share some of that time together.
• Respects his/her family and friends because then he/she will probably respect you as well.
• Coddles you when you are sick or hurt. This is an indicator of things to come. Empathy = hugely important. I got seriously ill when Ken and I first met with a terrible kidney infection. He brought me popsicles and his favorite sleeping bag and never left my side for three days. That’s when I fell in love with him.
• Cherishes you. As in - you know by the way they look at you when you walk into a room that they love you.
• Is someone you are physically attracted to. Marriage is LONG. At least if you have to look at someone for all of those years, you want to like what you see.

I got home from my long run and saw these, which scored Ken some points. I never get tired of flowers.

How are we celebrating? Getting a new mattress. {insert “breaking in new mattress” jokes}

This sucker has to go.  Sagging and soft and hurts  my back. Yesterday the guy at the furniture place looked up our records and told us we paid $290 for the mattress about seven years ago. God we are cheap bastards. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Tonight I will sleep like a rockstar.

Ever left your jeans in a porta potty? No, I haven’t, but I have thrown away underwear in them at least twice.

What’s your key to a lasting relationship? Going to bed angry and giving each other Dutch Ovens.

What cheap mattress do you sleep on? Our new one is a Simmons Beauty Rest with 800 coils. I think that is a good thing. I am hoping it makes me a better athlete, gives me bigger boobs and gets ride of my wrinkles.

SUAR

PS: We finalized the Shut Up and Run shirts last night. To start, there will be two tech shirts (one for ladies in white, one for men in white/grey). There will also be one everyday “burnout” t-shirt for the ladies. I can’t wait to show you next week when I’ll be taking pre-orders.

Thanks a million to Paul and Kim at Family Fan Club for all of their hard work! They do amazing customized designs for shirts, water bottles, jackets, you name it.

Thanks, Santa

There’s not a lot that I’m scared of.  Hell, I just jumped out of a plane a few weeks ago. But, one thing that makes me really nervous occurred on my way home from Denver today. I was behind this:

Call me irrational, call me an alarmist, but this whole thing makes me very uncomfortable. All the “what ifs” come to mind. What if that skimpy belt holding the porta potty on the truck broke thereby splashing watery brown contents onto me?

Fortunately, minutes after this was taken, the vehicle turned off the road. The driver probably had to use the bathroom. His bathroom. Come to think of it, this would be a great thing to bring along on a road trip. No searching out McDonald’s or rest stops. Just have your kid climb over the seat, out the back window, and into the john. Easy as that.

The good news is I can take pictures while I drive. The other good news is, the mountains look gorgeous today.

Doc update:

Thanks for continuing to ask about the injury and when I can burn the crutches.

I went to see Mr. Sport’s Medicine yesterday. He said two more weeks on the crutches. Damn him. He also said these magical words:

“My Christmas gift to you is that you will be running by January 1st.”

We reviewed the MRI and the area of the stress fracture. Hard to believe this little one inch spot is causing all this commotion. We talked a lot about Boston goals and he agreed that the mission is to get me to the start line healthy and ready/able to run. Better to be a bit undertrained than over trained or injured. I told him a PR was not going to be likely and he assured me few people PR on the Boston course just because it is such a tough course after the first six miles. Injury or not.

Not surprisingly, all of this gave me total piece of mind. I will heal, I will start running and training. I will not put pressure on myself in regards to pace, speed, or number of miles. My goals for Boston are simple: run pain free and complete the race. Then we’ll go from there.

Next week I have a bone scan and blood work to see if we can find out more about why I get these fractures.

Counting the days ‘til the new year (63 to be exact),

SUAR