Chicago Marathon - October 13th

As mentioned, we got really far behind on the blog - but we're hoping to catch up eventually!  Katie did a few posts of more recent happenings with Brady, who is getting really close to his 2nd birthday.  Maybe that's a good goal - get caught up by the time Brady turns 2.  We'll see.

Last summer, I (Charlie) spent a lot of the warmer months training for the Chicago Marathon.  I had run 2 marathons previously, but the last one had literally been over 7 years ago (the 2007 Cincy Flying Pig Marathon).  I didn't know if I'd ever run a marathon again, so it was a fairly daunting task.  I joined a group called Team in Training (TNT).  I raised nearly $1,500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society - thanks to everyone who contributed!

The night before the marathon, TNT had a pre-marathon dinner with the standard past type fare.  I got my carb loading out of the way and also got to play with Brady as he was learning to walk.  He was still in the midst of the "knee-walking" phase at this point, but he was now to the point that he could walk with you holding one of his hands.

The dinner itself was very inspiring.  There was a slide show and a number of cancer survivors spoke to get us pumped up for the big day the next morning.

I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and got all my stuff ready for the run, then took a cab downtown.  Even at 5:45 when I got down there, it was already very crowded downtown.  Being a part of a group like TNT has its benefits for an event like this - they had a spot allocated at a downtown hotel.  The weather was pretty close to ideal for the marathon - but at 5:45, it was still pretty cold.  It was also nice to be able to leave a bag of extra clothes there and not have to worry about finding it later.  We took a group picture and around 6:30 I left to go out to the starting line.

I had a long sleeve shirt on and a bunch of "gu" packets for energy.  I had an old long sleeve shirt on to keep warm that I discarded right after we started.  It was actually an old Winking Lizard shirt from back in my Columbus days!  I won it from drinking a certain number of different craft beers over a few months at the bar back in 2005 - so trading it in for a much more healthy endeavor seemed appropriate.

As I mentioned the weather was close to perfect - a little chilly at the start, and it never got too warm during the run.  I started off at a very conservative pace.  My goal was to run under 10 minute miles, and I started out much slower than that - my first 5k was at about 10:30 pace.  It's extremely crowded early on, and I was sure to get a water or gatorade at each chance - I think they had 18-20 water stations throughout the course.

The race was really fun.  Around 45,000 people ran, which dwarfs the 5-8,000 that ran the Cincinnati and Columbus marathons I'd done previously.  It's literally crowded the whole time.  Even at mile 20, you're practically shoulder to shoulder.  In some ways this is frustrating - I had to do a little more zigging and zagging!  But it's also great for energy, and I needed that.  I didn't stop the whole run, though I really had to fight it around mile numbers 23 and 24.

Katie and Brady went downtown to watch the race with Brady's buddy Eli and parents Rachel and Pete.  Rachel is tall - so that was helpful as I was able to spot them from the crowd.  They were right at the halfway point, and I stopped over to give Brady a quick hug.  He seemed fairly confused with the whole endeavor!

Ultimately, I finished in under 4:20, 4 hours 18 minutes to be exact.  That's about 9:52 per mile, so I was pretty happy with that!  It was a great experience, and worth being sore for the next few days!

Happy Mother's Day

Two weekends ago was Mother's day and I (Katie is writing this one) had a fabulous weekend, the weather was gorgeous and above all I had lots of quality time with my favorite boys.  Sunday morning we all woke up and went to breakfast at one of our favorites here in Chicago, the Southport Grocery and Café.  We got there extra early trying to beat the rush, but this place is so popular that there is even a 45 min wait at 8:30 in the morning.  We brought some snacks for Brady and he enjoyed walking up and down the sidewalks and climbing on the benches.  The food was delicious as always and towards the end Brady was getting restless so Charlie took him outside to walk around while Katie finished up.  This apparently was all part of "the plan" though, because when Katie went outside to meet the restless toddler and daddy, Brady was walking towards me with a big bouquet of flowers.  I wish we could have gotten a picture of it, but believe me it was too cute for words, he was so proud of himself carrying this big bouquet of flowers and was running right towards me giggling and smiling ear to ear.  After our big breakfast, the three of us went to the Lincoln Park Zoo.  This was actually our 2nd annual Lincoln park zoo on Mother's Day and this year was even more fun with Brady pointing at all the animals and making his newly learned animal noises and running up and down the sidewalks.  He knows that cows go "moo", ducks go "quack", birds go "tweet", the polar bear goes "rooaaaarrr"  and when in doubt every other animal goes "roooaaarrr" as well.   We tried to get some pictures, but this kid was so excited and didn't want to stand still very long.  It was such a nice afternoon and after words, we all went home and took a nap.

Becoming a mother has been the best part of my life so far.  It seems like each day I love him more and more.  I am so appreciative to have such a happy and healthy little boy, an awesome and supportive husband who helps out so much with the baby chores, the best and most supportive grand-parents who have helped us so much and the best most ferocious watch dog any one could ask for. 

Here are the only pictures that we could get from the running toddler and since we couldn't get many pictures, here are some older pictures of Brady and his two wonderful grandmothers.

And since we couldn't get many pictures with the running toddler, here are some older pictures of Brady and Manny (that's what his "mommy" sounds like) and his two wonderful grandmas.