Arvada Runapalooza and the Amende wedding

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Before at the starting line
As I mentioned before, we celebrated little Landon's birthday early with a family party. The day of his birthday, I woke up bright and early and Austin drove me to the Arvada APEX rec center for the start of a half marathon. I have never done a half marathon. My philosophy has always been that if I can run a distance for a training run, then I don't want to pay for it.
Right before at the line!
And we're off...
Weellllll... I ran almost every day except Sundays in Korea, and started looking for races to work toward. I don't have the discipline to train for a marathon when I don't know exactly when the marathon would be, and I don't want to put excess miles on my joints for nothing. So, a half marathon seemed like a great option. Worried about the effect of the altitude, I made the goal for myself of under 2 hours. I had gone faster than this on all of the half marathon splits of my marathons, so I knew I could do it. The hills were tough with the altitude. I had trouble getting enough air after training on the relatively flat, and sea level running trails of Seoul. It was nice to not have to push Landon in front of me. With a few miles left, I realized that I could possibly break 1hr, 50 minutes so I went as fast as I could the last few downhill miles and barely missed it- 1:50.09 was my official time. 10th in my age group, 37th overall for men and women. It was a small, but fun race and Austin and Landon made it out on the trail to cheer me on!


After eating snacks with Lando
Landon loved seeing Auntie Em!
Landon liked the sound Grandma's shoes made on the wood floor

After the race, we went right up to Loveland, CO to help set up for Austin's cousin's wedding. Marybeth and Bruce came to stay with us in Chicago for a weekend a few years ago so it was nice to be able to help out a bit and see them get married while we were in CO. The wedding was at a beautiful venue and everyone had a great time!

Bridesmaids
The ceremony was held outside. Austin and I had spent some time out there helping so Landon was a little bored of the area already. He spent the time before the ceremony began running through the slightly muddy planters with his truck, then spent time during the ceremony standing on my legs with his muddy feet. That was a drag. As we watched everyone come down the aisle, Landon and his little buddies (Austin's cousin's kids... so I'm not sure what relation they are to Landon) shared snacks. Unfortunately, that didn't last long enough and Landon started making noise. Grandma came to the rescue and held him for the duration of the ceremony.


Little blond boys

Little blond boys eating fruit snacks

Our family

Umpa Jim!







The reception included dinner, touching toasts, delicious cake and dancing! It was a fun reception, and even more fun after Landon fell asleep in his stroller. All the food was yummy and we met some cool people there. It was also great to see all of Austin's extended family that we had not seen for a few years.

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