Olympic Marathon Trials and the Houston Half Marathon and Marathon

    Well the Guard team provided us with another awesome opportunity yet again!  We were lucky enough to travel down to Houston, Texas and watch the Olympic Marathon Trials and then we ran our race the next day.  They were kind enough to put us in a hotel right next to the Houston Galleria (squeal). That mall is pretty much everything I could ask for.Anyway...on to our journey.
    We started our journey on Thursday night and of course there was a snowstorm in Chicago where our connecting flight was. Luckily we only had a short delay and made it to our hotel around 1am Friday morning.
 I was super excited to see that our hotel had a pair of swans living in it! Kind of odd but it was super cute to see them everyday.

On Friday, the coordinator of the Guard team asked Dan to accompany him to a meeting with a bunch of race officials to help brief the team of  their duties.  They got to escort the elite athletes and help form a finish cute to separate the female and male runners...what a cool experience! We went to the expo and for an awesome oyster happy hour date at Danton's. The had raw oysters for 75 cents and they were huge!!!! Afterward we headed to the hotel happy hour and chatted it up with the other members of the team. We all hit the hay early because they had to report down to the race early in the morning. I amused myself until the start of the race by waiting in a super long Starbucks line.  Then it was time for the fun! Please pardon the awful pictures.  There was so many people it was hard to not have faces or heads in my shots.

Here are the guys starting to line up. Michael Wardian (in white hat) World Champ Silver Medalist 100k

 Michael ran the trials on Saturday and ran the regular Marathon on Sunday with two amazing times!

all lined up!

and they are off!

they came around again after a 2.2 mile loop

<3

here come the ladies!

our friend and fellow Guard Team member Emily qualified for the trials at the Marine Corp Marathon

 She is awesome and we were happy to be able to cheer her on!! The race started with the men, then the women started 15 minutes later. There was a 2.2 mile lap then three 8 mile laps so you got to see the runner many times which was great. It was really exhilarating to be there. Ok I'm sure you all do not want to see a million blurry pictures from the runners other laps sooo here is the end lol.  I missed Meb but I did catch Dan's bf Ryan Hall coming in second place!

Ryan Hall

shortly after that Emily came through and had 1 more lap to go

After that I changed my position because I knew Dan would be standing somewhere along the finish route.   I found him and was super excited (like he was winning the race or something lol)

he actually looked thrilled most of the time

here you can kinda see what their purpose was

he cheered for every runner that came passed!

I actually came across a picture of Dan on another blog I read. We had to be standing 20 feet away from each other. you can catch his better side over at Marathon Sweetheart haha

Kara Goucher coming in for third place

Team Picture

all done :)- Dan sacrificed part of his nip for a PR!

Myself and Dan with Josh Cox- American Record Holder 50k

the medals were very cool- I especially liked Dan's

 All in all we had a great time down in Houston.  Dan came out of the race with a @:52:50- a new PR for him.  He hopes to get into the 2:40s when we return to the Lincoln Marathon in May (where he must qualify yearly for the Guard Team). As for my race...it was weird. It just kind of happened. I didn't feel good, I didn't feel bad, I just was there..on the upside I was pretty pleased with my race outfit ha! That night we went out and seriously gorged ourselves at Truluck's. Everything was so delicious but I guess Dan's stomach couldn't handle all that rich food after the marathon because around 10pm he started puking until about 5am, so that was a blast.  This meant I had to listen to him puke all night since we were in a hotel room.  Luckily he felt better enough to catch our flight the next day (and run 4 miles- weirdo!)

A week later its back to reality and snow boooo. We do not have any exciting races coming up though I will be running a 15 mile race in a few weeks with Dan and Emily (different Emily than above). This will be the farthest Emily and I have ever ran so that is kind of a milestone! I have also convinced Emily to do Marine Corps Marathon with me in the fall. This will be our first full marathon!!!  Lets hope we get in! Anyone doing any races in the near future or want to do Marine Corps?


I am on a break from Grad School right now and I have been cooking and baking up a storm so I will actually have posts for you all to enjoy more frequently :)   I made this for dinner tonight and it was pretty amazeballs.  Hope everyone had a good weekend!