Ideas into Motion

I don’t generally write about aviation, the airlines, or what it’s like to be a pilot. That’s Mr. Blondie’s thing, not really my area of expertise. The one thing I do know about the airline industry is it’s a volatile one. Airline mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcies, 9/11, etc…..the rug can be ripped out from underneath you at any time. You may sense it coming. Often you’ll have no warning at all. Either way there’s not much you can do to stop it.

That’s one reason I’m determined to make the international race happen this year. Aside from all the personal changes that might take place, who knows what Mr. Blondie’s job status and benefits will look like a year from now. We have no reason to think anything is amiss at his company, but history shows it's only matter of time til it's our turn.

Better use ‘em while we got ‘em.

The conversation in our house went something like this:

Me: So, the Brussels Marathon is on October 7th. That’s a good time of year to travel. It's easier to get to than the Lisbon RnR.

Mr.Blondie: Nods and mumbles acknowledgment while immersed in Words with Friends on his iPhone

Me: I found a really good hotel deal for the weekend too.

Mr.Blondie: Well…pauses and looks up for a minute... I really don’t want you running two marathons so close together.

Me: They have a half marathon option. Sooooo, can I do it?!

Mr. Blondie: Sure, fine with me. Attention back to iphone…..What’s a four letter word that contains a “Z” and “P”?

And there you have it. I’m officially registered.

Has a "big conversation" ever gone easier for you than expected?

North for the Weekend

It was another jam-packed weekend for us, but filled with lots of fun and family time. We got the weekend started early on Friday. While everyone else slept in, I headed out for a long run. Then I roused the troops, and we piled into the car for a drive up to the North Georgia mountains.


Two of our friends were finally getting married after dating for 12 years. There were plenty of jokes about that. It was an intimate affair, so we felt kind of special to be included (Mr. Blondie has known the groom since flight school).

This was our first time visiting any of the wineries in the area, and we were really impressed. Of course was the bride gorgeous, and the scenery was quite beautiful as well. The catering and wine were also terrific.

We spent the night nearby, then met up with some other friends of ours to go hiking the next day. Normally we go to Amicalola or Tallulah Falls, so we decided to try something different. Desoto Falls isn’t quite as impressive in scale, but it was pretty and the walk to the falls was an easy one that Emily could handle.

When we stumbled upon this place just down the road, we had to go in.

For $9.95 per person, you get a pan of river silt to “pan” with. You also get a 5 gallon pail of sand that you sift through with a metal screen to find the raw gemstones mixed in. Not a bad deal for a couple hours of entertainment.

Our other newlywed friends

I wanted to surprise my mom for Mother’s Day. This was going to be a tough one for her since this would be the first without my grandmom. So Mr. Blondie dropped me and Emily off at the airport on the way home from hiking (he had to work the next day), and we caught the last flight of the night to New Jersey.

Emily did remarkably well. I thought she was going to be overtired and really cranky, but she was great. I guess telling her “If you don’t behave, we’ll get right back on the next plane and go home” gave her something to think about :) It’s not a completely idle threat.

My brother and sister-in-law helped facilitate everything by picking us up at the airport. We stayed at their place for the night and then met up with my parents in the morning for brunch. Yep, it was a mushy, tearful scene when we walked in. She was completely surprised, and I was happy I was able to do it.

We spent about 3 hours lingering over brunch, then it was right back to the airport so we could make it home early enough to prepare for the week. Fortunately by the time we made it to the airport we didn't have to wait long for our flight. Emily's new found treasures from the day before provided plenty of entertainment while we waited at the gate and also once on board.

I still need a few days to recover from it, but it was a great weekend. I hope all you had a special Mother's Day as well!

Final Dublin Outakes and Int'l Marathoning?

Dublin was our top choice from the beginning, but in the days leading up to the trip, I started seeing news about the London Marathon which would be taking place that weekend. Of course that sparked my interest, and got me researching what other races might be taking place in Europe.

Alas, we were a day late and a dollar short. If we'd been able to leave one day earlier, we could have gotten to Madrid in time for the Rock n Roll Marathon, or Switzerland for the Zurich Marathon. I'm still kind of bummed over that. (Ok, on my 30 miles a week, it have been sloooow but I'm sure I could have finished. It would have been quite the experience.)

Needless to say, since then I've been mildly totally obsessed with the idea of squeezing in an international race sometime this year. The Lisbon, Portugal RnR on September 30th would work perfectly as a tune up a race before the NYCM. Going back to Brussels for the ING Brussels Marathon on October 10th is also a strong possibility.

Mr. Blondie initially vetoed the idea, as he didn't think it was a good idea for me to run two marathons that close together. However, both those races offer the half option. He's cool with the idea of me running a half. Getting his a-ok is the toughest part:)

In our world, September is still a long way off to be planning a trip, so we'll see how things go in next few months. However when I set my sights on doing a race, I'm not easily deterred.....

If you've traveled internationally for a race, how'd it work out?

And to wrap up the Dublin talk, here are a few more highlight pics (and a few from the bloopers real too).

Sampling a full Irish breakfast

Couldn't suppress my gag reflex enough to take more than one tiny bite of the black and white puddings (those hockey puck type things near the eggs) but couldn't get enough of those scones. Then a bus tour through the city and along the coast to Powerscourt House Botanical Garden. Probably breaking some rules, but it was a cool tree... Pet Cemetery. Not sure what to say about that.

Shopping

Some more wandering about. We walked a lot.

The best Bailey's coffee ever and Smarties cookies to end the day. Who says no to that?

So long Dublin, it was fun!

Tapaigh An Deis

"Seize the Day" in Gaelic.

Melissa and I are both fortunate to be in a phase of our lives where we could take a trip like this. We both have an only child who is old enough to be left in someone else’s care for a few days, our husbands have fairly stable work schedules, our jobs allow us to take a few days off when we want them, we have our health……etc. etc.

All these items are easily subject to change in an instant. And in this Age of Benefits Degradation in just about every industry, the airline could yank our perks at any time. It's not something to take for granted.

We had to do our best to make the most of this opportunity because who knows when the stars will align again.

So after anxiously watching the flight listings all day, we managed to snag the seats we wanted to our top choice destination….Dublin, Ireland!

We ate our faces off, watched movies, and basically got zero sleep chit-chatting on the way over. It was like a teenage girls’ slumber party at 30,000 feet.

Hot fudge sundae at midnight?, Yes, please.

While we were en route, Melissa’s husband did the leg work and found a good hotel deal for us. When we arrived in Dublin, all we had to do was pull up the email on our phones to get the reservation info.

He found a steal of a deal all right. We stayed at The Ashling Hotel, a full amenity hotel in Dublin City Center, for 149 euro! Yes, that was the total for two people, for two nights, and included a full breakfast as well.

Once we knew where we were staying, we boarded the Airlink Bus, which picks you up directly in front of the airport terminal. For 6 euro, it couldn’t have been more convenient. All we had to do was ride the double-decker bus to the very last stop, which put us right in front of our hotel.

It was 10:00 when we arrived, but out rooms wouldn’t be ready until about 3:00. They held our bags for us, so we’d be able to do some sightseeing in the mean time.

Our first stop was the Guinness Storehouse, as it was only a short walk from the hotel. If you’ve ever visited the World of Coke in Atlanta, you can almost compare it to that.

It’s not the actual factory, and teaches you very little about the brewing process. It is more about the history of the owners and the brand, with lots of pictures and memorabilia on display.

9,000 yr lease Arthur Guinness signed for the Brewery location

The best part of the tour was the Gravity Bar on the top floor of the Storehouse, with it’s 360 degree view of Dublin.

We found our second wind to keep going thanks to a tasty pint.

Shockingly, we ended up here for a bite to eat afterwards.
 

 
The scones were irresistible, and we may have consumed about 847 more of them (with jam and butter of course) during the rest of our stay.
 

We made a brief stop back at the hotel to freshen up, and to take a quick (ok, a 4 hour) nap, before heading out again for the night.

It was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel to Temple Bar, the nightlife area of the city. We stumbled across a bunch a "Pub Crawl" groups. We proved our old age by skipping the pub-crawl tours, although we created a mini one for ourselves before turning in for the night.
 

We wanted a relatively early start the nexy day.........

Girls' Overseas Getaway

I met my friend Melissa a couple years ago through an internet message board (pilotwivesclub.com). Isn’t that how everyone meets these days? :)

We instantly clicked, as realized we have much more in common than just our husbands' profession. In the time that we’ve known each other, her entire family has kindly welcomed us into their lives, providing us with a new “home away from home” in Atlanta.

While having Easter dinner at their house a couple weekends ago, the question came up in conversation “Why haven’t you girls taken any getaway-type trips before?” Her husband is a pilot at the same company as Mr.Blondie, so we have the same travel benefits after all.

Well, you don’t need to ask us twice. The next day vacation requests were submitted, childcare was arranged, and we were surfing the internet for possible destinations.

Our travel dates were set, but the destination…not so much. All we knew was that we wanted to go somewhere in Europe. Like previous trips, we’d just pack a bag and make the game time decision of exactly where to go once we were at the airport.

It looked like we’d have more options to Europe if we left out of JFK instead of Atlanta, so we got an early start on Sunday morning and headed up to NY. We ate a nice lunch near Times Square and did some window shopping. We had more than a good laugh or two people watching as we killed some time wandering around NYC.

Thank you Steve Jobs for this life changing device.

All the while, we eagerly kept checking flight loads on our iPhones, as that would ultimately dictate where we’d end up going later that night. We made our way to JFK around 5:00, with our top 3 choices in mind:

1) Dublin
2) Nice, France
3) Madrid

At 9:00 our ride pulled up.

We called our husbands to let them know exactly where we were going, and then we were on our way......
  

Champagne in hand of course. This was the start of a girls' weekend afterall.....



Colors of the Rainbow (ATL Color Run & Easter)

I was fortunate enough to snag a free entry to The Color Run in Atlanta on Easter weekend. Thanks Vanessa! For the low, low price of free how could I pass up the chance to experience the latest trend in adventure racing.

We did the Atlanta encore race. The first Atlanta race was held the week prior at Piedmont Park. It sold out within a couple weeks and had over 10,000 participants, so they added a second one at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

According to the announcer about 5,000 people turned out for this one. 5,000 people seemed like an awful lot, so I can only imagine what it was like with a crowd of 10,000.

I think this is an excellent concept. It was a good mixture of people from all different age groups and ability levels. It think it would have been a blast if Emily were a bit older and we were doing it as a family with Mr. B, or if I was doing it with a bunch of girlfriends.

However, going solo, I have to admit I wasn’t very into it. I wanted to see what it was all about, but I had a bunch of errands and other things to do afterwards. Therefore, tried my best not to get too “colorful”.

Before 

After

Total lameness on my part. I told you so.

Since it’s all about the experience, and not competition, it’s more of a casual walk than a run. To further add to the lameness, I sort of wanted to get through the course quickly so I could move on to other things. At each kilometer was a “color station”, where they had people on either side throwing the color. I avoided the jam-ups, and getting hit directly with color, by breezing through the middle of each one.

The “color” is basically colored corn starch. The organizers say it’s safe and non-toxic, but I still wasn’t keen on the idea of it getting into our eyes and lungs. Even though I cut through the middle, there were huge powder clouds to run through at each color station. I ran with my sunglasses on and pulled the collar of my shirt up over my nose and mouth to limit my ingestion of it.

Emily was safely cocooned in the stroller with the rain cover over top. It worked beautifully to protect her. I had watched some other moms trying to cover up parts of their strollers with trash bags in the starting area. Amateurs :) I heard of lot of “Great idea, why didn’t I think of that?” along the way.

If you don’t get enough color on the course, never fear, there’s a color explosion at the end. I didn’t partake, but it did look quite fun.
popout


How you were supposed to end up looking.....

And for a little bit of irony, after being painted like human easter eggs, later that day we went on a hunt for them.

We left with enough jelly beans to fuel a thousand marathons. Is anyone else still detoxing from Easter candy? Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Is there a unique event or adventure race that's caught your attention recently?

Looks Better on Paper

While contending with the rising temps and lingering pollen last week, I told myself a few short, slow miles was better than nothing. After being parked in an office chair all day, I just needed some time on my feet. I felt like a total sandbagger with my longest run being 6 miles.

In sticking with my New Year’s Resolution, I’ve been good about logging my workouts. When I went back to tally up my miles for the week, I realized things weren’t so bad.

Sunday: 6.32 mi run (50:00, 7:55/mi), 10mins elliptical
Monday: off
Tuesday: 4.61 mi run (35:37, 7:56/mi)
Wednesday: 4.5 mi run (36:30, 8:06/mi)
Thursday: 5.0 mi run (40:46, 8:09/mi)
Friday: 5.11 mi run (40:00, 7:50/mi)
Saturday: Gym treamill workout: 5.2 mi total (30 mins @ 7.0, 1% incline, then 10 mins alternating 30 secs @9.0 and 30 secs @6.7, 5 min cd @ 4.0), 20 mins elliptical

Weekly Total: 30.74 miles run, 30 min elliptical

While 30 miles/week is a pittance for some, that’s actually quite good for me!

I started each run at what felt like a slow and relaxed pace, which led me to naturally pick up speed as the runs progressed. Overall, my average paces ended up being pretty decent, even though I felt like I was taking it easy.

Thanks to the shorter runs, my legs remained fresh. Only one rest day for the week was sufficient.

More importantly, since my week day runs only lasted between 35-45 minutes, it left me with an extra 20-30 minutes to squeeze in extra chores. Folding a few loads of laundry or wiping down the bathrooms doesn’t sound like a lot, but when I let those chores pile up as the week goes on, it ends up being an entire night’s worth of work.

Usually, that’s why I take a second rest day each week. Just to stay on top of housework. It felt so good not having a mound of housework to deal with at the end of the week.

I'll enjoy these short runs while they last. Marathon training official starts in June. I was leaning towards the Hanson Plan, but I’m still surveying my options before I commit to a training program. Since I won’t be able to haphazardly load up on quantity this time around, I want to get the most quality out of my planned miles.

A little light reading arrived this week.

Yes, I still read books printed on paper.

If you've follwed a training plan and really liked it (or not), please tell me about it :)

Do you have any tricks for finding more time in your day? What would you do with an extra 20-30 minutes?