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Posts tagged ‘Thomas’

Meet me Monday: Keep it all in perspective

I’m allowed to diverge from running every once in awhile on this blog. After all, it’s kind of about all aspects of my life, but mainly focusing on running.

Yesterday, after a morning five-mile run and a long blog post about staying warm and keeping safe, I ditched my Nike Equalons and running capris and put on a satin blue dress, nylons and patent black leather shoes. I put in contacts and did my makeup. All of these thing are incredibly rare for me.

I “got pretty” because my husband and I were heading to San Francisco for a three-hour dinner/dance cruise aboard the Hornblower California. I had booked the cruise as a Christmas present for Thomas. It was to celebrate our 10-year anniversary of being together.

We have a different wedding anniversary. But we’ve continued to celebrate our “other” anniversary for the past four times it’s come up. I consider it our real “anniversary.”

It was an amazing night. We arrived to spectacular views of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

We boarded and were seated at our private table. I’d upgraded us to a “celebration package” with a bottle of champagne, two beautiful blue commemorative champagne flutes and a couple boxes of truffles.

We had a beautiful four-course meal. Both of us had chicken.

We spent some time on the decks to take in views of Angel Island and the Golden Gate Bridge. We ate dessert as we passed under the Bay Bridge before heading back to port.

Except it was the “ort of San Francisco” on Saturday night when we cruised.

We had an amazing time.

But, it also served to remind me that there is much more to life than running. There is more than marathon training. There is more than cross training. I wanted to lose the weight partially for my husband. He deserved a slimmer wife. But he never cared either way.

He’s stayed by my side for 10 years, through thick and thin. I’ve only been running for two years.

He takes me to most of my races. He’s there at the finish line. He doesn’t see my failures if I don’t make it all the way on a long training run. He rejoices in my successful moments.

He helps me stay balanced. He keeps everything in perspective. He’s good like that. And, for one night we enjoyed dinner without thinking about the calories or how it would effect my morning run. I’m not even bother that I decided not to run at all today. He had a good time. We had a good time. Sometimes that’s more important than a run.

Meet me Monday: My husband

It’s cheesy, yes, but my husband is my biggest fan. He doesn’t care that I’m not a ridiculously fast runner. He doesn’t care that I rarely, if ever, place. And he rarely complains about waking up early to take me to a race.

In fact, he often takes me and my friends to races and then finds something to do for the 3+ hours we are waiting in corrals, running the race and then finding our way back to where we need to be.

When I woke up with my head spinning and feeling faint on Sunday morning, he tried to encourage me to go run. But ultimately he comforted me when I decided I didn’t have my third half marathon for the month in me. My body was battered. My legs were tired. I have bruises all over my back and shins from rolling and massage. I’m generally just beat up lately.

And yesterday, after I was bummed because I didn’t run and I didn’t get my miles in, he cheered me up at a concert we had planned to go to for more than a month beforehand. By the way, Mumford & Sons, Eddie Vedder, Beck, Carlos Santana, Foo Fighters and Tony Bennett topped off with Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds makes for just about the best concert ever. Sound too good to be true? That’s the Bridge School Benefit.

My husband is good at being a “runner’s husband.” He brings me my bag (even if it’s bright pink/red) and a change of clothes at the end of a race. He lets me have my moment with my medal. He even doesn’t laugh at me for wearing it all day long on the couch when I get home.

And he embraces my cheesy moments. When I got my first personalized bib at the San Francisco Marathon’s 2nd Half Marathon in July, he thought it was cute that I was so excited. It’s still my only personalized bib to date and really, come on, that’s pretty special.

He doesn’t care that at the end of a race I smell horrible or that I’m slightly cranky if I don’t get some sort of food pronto. He’s embraced this whole running thing better than I could have ever expected.

He didn’t marry a runner. I kind of morphed into one after we got married.

He gets excited about it because I do. And that’s pretty awesome. Especially because there’s nothing better than someone you lovely waiting for you at the finish line.