Justin and Kristin

5 Years

Every year a new adventure. Looking forward to all the more to come!

Happy Anniversary to my "as perfect as humanly possible" husband!!! :)

If you told me I was crazy, I.....

would DEFINITELY agree.

After 5 months of training the day finally arrived.

The Top Of Utah MARATHON.

Some of you might understand the amount of dedication and hard work it requires to prepare yourself for a marathon. At our last Half Marathon our finishing time was right on track for us making our marathon time goal (somewhere just under 4 hours), and even maybe put me close to qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

However, the day after our half marathon I found out I was PREGNANT, and everything changed.

My father, the OBGyn HIGHLY discouraged me from running it. My brother-in-law, the OBGyn, somewhat discouraged me from running it. My OBGyn in Boston definitely didn't encourage me to run it.

I went back and forth. Should I? Shouldn't I? I kept up with the training cutting WAY back on the intensity, and missed my 20 mile run. Training pregnant/tired, pushing two kids in a stroller by myself was quite a challenge......not to mention, feeling morning sickness 24 hours a day!

We decided to go for it, but to just take it WAY easy. Now my goal was just hopefully to finish, and hopefully before they stopped giving finishing medals away (7-8 hours). We thought it would be nice though to finish before the volunteers/aid stations left (6 hours).

The first 14 miles were down a beautiful canyon, where the fall colors were starting to change. We saw two Moose. Nice and cool with the wind at our back. It was very enjoyable. This is just after mile 14 when spectators could finally come and cheer for us!

I think this was about mile 21. Still feeling pretty good, but it was getting mighty hot - somewhere in the mid 80's.

My OBGYN(s) said that staying hydrated was the most important. I'd have to say I succeeded at that since I had to stop for a pee break every 2 miles.....no exaggeration!!!

I know it looks like we are walking...but we actually are jogging. Let's not mention though, that we're jogging so slow that a speed walker passed us at mile 3, never to be seen again!

About 1 1/2 miles left. Still feeling ok.

We did it! Under 6 hours! Actually I think the hardest part was forcing myself to hold back the entire race. Especially those last few miles, I wanted to just bolt! I had quite a bit left in me! Being 11 weeks pregnant though, I wanted to keep my heart rate under 80% MHR.

Still laughing and smiling. That's a good sign. And see, we weren't even the last to finish! Good sport Justin, ran the entire thing with me (at like 60% of his MHR). He said this was "OUR race." I think he just wanted to make sure he was there to force me to not push it. Good man.

Let's not even get into our stats this time. They were horrible. Maybe next time I can do better! I think it's a pretty safe bet. Not running for two should hopefully make a difference! 

FYI: I went with my dad for an ultra sound after the race....and everything with the baby still looks good. PHEW!!

we're only HALF crazy

In the midst of our marathon training we thought it would be "smart" to run a half marathon as kind of a "test" of our preparation.....Yeah....like I said....we're only HALF crazy. So we ran the Provo River Half Marathon this past weekend. 

Here are the bullet points of information in case you are curious about how it went...

Why is it so dark? Because we had to be there by 4:45 in the morning so we could take a shuttle to the beginning of the race!! We froze our butts off for over an hour and a half before the race finally started.

A beautiful race....if we could even concentrate on anything else besides not passing out.

There were over 1200 women runners and about 600 men.

Oh my HECK! Can anyone tell me why so many "gosh darn" women in Utah County want to run this half marathon?

We actually felt a lot better during this race then the half marathon we ran in Raleigh just less than 4 months ago.

Maybe the lack of 99% humidity had a little bit to do with it. 

Ok our training hopefully had a little bit to do with it to. I mean look at us! We're ripped!!!

...but around mile 3 I did start feeling a little inkling of pain on the outside of my left foot.

By mile 6 I knew I was in trouble as it then started to feel like 

SHARDS OF GLASS

rubbing into my foot!!

The last 7 miles were a mental war with the pain. Here is the blister. You can't really see it but man it hurt.

(FYI the tape on those two toes is where I lost my toenails about a week prior to the race. Isn't running fun?!)

Notice the shorts I chose to wear.....had to show my true colors while in Utah County!! :)

Though we had set our expectations low (considering training was interrupted by a 2 week illness just preceding the race) we still beat our last half marathon time by more than 7 minutes!

We ran this one in 1 hour 45 min (8 minute miles!!)....better than we needed to do to prove to ourselves that we're right on track for our marathon in a month!

According to Justin's spreadsheet I placed in the top 9% of my age group and he placed in the top 33% (his best yet!)

That's good right?

I think we established that this was the first race that Justin actually could have ran faster than me. Poop on me.....  :(

Ah well. We still did well. We can't walk today still, but it's a small price to pay!! hee hee!!!

Everybody's Favorite

The other day was Justin's birthday. I don't think I can ever give him a birthday celebration to match the awesome ones he has planned for me in the past, but I hope it was still a great day for him. For part of the day I wanted to take pictures of him with the girls. Justin has many amazing qualities, but one of his best is what an incredible dad he is. Anyone who knows him and has seen him with our kids knows that he stands heads and shoulders above any other dad out there (sorry, I know some of you might have good husbands too, but it's true! He's way better than yours! ;) hee heee). Ok and he's way better than me too!! So as a tribute to him a few days after his birthday Happy Birthday Justin and "Daddy," we love you and you're certainly are everybody's favorite.

 

4 years

Four years ago Justin and I got married. So much has happened in the past four years it kind of seems like it should be more than that, but also it seems just like yesterday. With a wedding last week and a wedding coming up this week marriage has definitely been on my mind and I just remember what a perfect day October 5, 2004 was. I think it goes down as one of the days in my life I would live over and over if I could. The word that best describes my marriage is "friendship." We are great friends and truly want to spend every possible second together (oh don't you all roll your eyes at me -- it's true so deal with the cheesiness of it and move on! :) )

The best reason to be back in NC.....

Now that we've returned to NC we've been adjusting back to the time difference, the humidity, the lack of income, and no family close by....however there is one reason we're so glad to be back....We get to see Justin all of the time. He's only in class two days a week for like 4 hours and one night for like 3. I'm not sure if I ever want him to graduate. He'll have to leave us every day for work then. We'll enjoy the time we have with him home now.

I'm sure we'll look back and see this year as our best year in so many ways, because despite living in a small little apartment and having no expendable income to do REALLY fun things, it is the time together that we spend that makes life so wonderful. I know that may sound cliche, or cheesy or whatever, but it really is true. Just the afternoons hanging out in the house, not even really doing anything but being together, are what I thrive on.

"Hole-y" War

A "Hole-y" War has been raging at the Marshall home for quite some time. For some weird reason Justin has the hardest time throwing away socks, even after they have virtually disintegrated into nothing. I tease him often about throwing his socks away, and have recently even started confiscating them while he's not looking. When he finally noticed I was disposing of these hole-y socks he was shocked that I could waste a perfectly good, completely functional sock. So as a peace offering I got him a whole new pack of fresh, white, intact socks. Still though he continues to hold on to these "hole-y" socks. Now the war has spread to new territory. The other day I noticed a huge hole in not only one, but two armpits of a t-shirt! When I mentioned it, he seemed un-phased. I was about to suggest/demand that he needed to throw this shirt out too when I made a silly, yet profound realization.......I am grateful for a husband who holds on to things despite them being worn out, and perhaps a little less than whole or perfect. See I've been noticing lately, all the "holes" in me; realizing how imperfect I am, how worn out and even a little under-functioning I am. I'm grateful that Justin hasn't "disposed" of me, or given up on me in spite of my many weaknesses. I'm grateful for a husband who does a perfect job of overlooking my many "holes" and focuses only on all the purpose I can still fulfill and the things that are still intact.

Then last week, Justin was so proud. He walked into the kitchen with a hole-y sock, and said, "Look!" as he threw it in the garbage! Oh no! What have I done? I made him take the sock back out of the garbage. I don't know if I can bring myself to let him throw it out now, knowing what it "signifies." Should I be grateful he's now caught the vision and is letting the old, hole-y socks go? I guess it will be ok as long as his new discovered ability doesn't spill over to me. I need more time to sew on patches.