15 Months

Another good month, although I'll admit that we've started to see some not-so-pleasant qualities popping up. Not quite temper tantrums, but a 15-month-old's version of one. Ferociously crying, throwing a toy, and being generally unhappy. Thankfully, we've only seen this two or three times, but I'm sure we'll be seeing it some more as we progress further into the toddler stage. 98% of the time he's still the same old happy, inquisitive, sweet boy, though. And getting him to "pose" with Mr Bear proved nearly impossible today!

He's still not walking on his own but gaining more and more confidence in cruising. He's proficent at going up and down the steps, turning around at the top so he can crawl down feet first. He can easily climb down off of the couch or a chair, feet first, as well (which is just what he did before I snapped this picture). He's standing alot. And he loves to walk if he's holding your hands. Maybe those elusive "first steps" will come in the next month.

His vocabulary continues to increase and he's saying about 30 words and signing just as many (some he knows both word and sign, some just one or the other). But despite his growing communication skills, he still just doesn't quite fully understand when I explain that he has to share a toy or that he has to put the book down to go eat dinner, hence the temper tantrums. And hence my inability to explain how mommy needs him to sit with the bear on the couch for just a few seconds to snap a good picture! He did understand that I said "bear," though, signing it to me once he climbed down onto the floor.

And finally, he's been packing on the pounds. I stopped at his doctor's office for a weight check last week and he was just over 23 pounds, which puts him in the 25th-30th percentile. He hovered in the 10th percentile (even dipping down to the negatives for a few months) during his first year, so he's apparently been a very happy eater lately!

Happy 15 Months, my boy!

Over the river and through the woods. . .

. . . to great-grandmother's house we went. When the race was over in Boston we loaded up the rental car and headed to my paternal grandmother's house in Scranton, PA. My parents had flown there, then drove to Boston for the race. I actually found that one-way tickets were cheaper than buying roundtrip between Colorado and Boston so I decided that Hayden and I could ride back to PA with my parents and fly home to Colorado from there. Which gave Hayden's great-grandmother a chance to visit with her little boy.

She was excited about the visit and pulled something special out of the attic just for the occasion--the Hobby Horse that his grandfather used as a child!

Even Grandpa couldn't resist a ride on his old toy after Hayden was done!

Most of you will look at this next photo and see a baby crawling up some steps. I see my son, my son, crawling up steps that I so vividly remember from my childhood trips to Grandma's house. My sister and I would play on the back porch, going up and down those steps down to the yard to play in the big tree or the shed-turned-playhouse or to check out what was growing in the garden. And now my son is right there on those steps. . .

Once he got inside, Hayden went right on doing what he does best these days: being busy. He loves pushing that little car all over the place!

Love you, Grandma! And we're so happy we could come for a visit, even if it was a short one.

On the run

I just got a few photos from my parents, who were cheering from the sidelines last week. And they say that Hayden was even in on the cheering for a while, following his Daddy's cues, hootin' and hollerin'. . . not necessarily at the runners (or me) but he was excited.

So there I went. Oh, and I thought this was kind of cool--the local Boston TV station has video of the finish on their website. It's not the greatest quality, but if you scroll to about 1:20 on the timer you'll see me cross the finish line with a group of other folks. I'm on the far right and as I cross the line you can see my reach my arm across my body(to stop my watch) and then put my hands over my head.

I'm still "resting" and actually fighting a cold, but as soon as these sniffles are gone, I'm eager to hit the pavement again!

Bean Town

I *heart* Boston. It's my favorite "big" city. Right after college Rich lived in Cambridge for 2 years while getting his master's at MIT. The Air Force was nice enough to station me 1,000 miles away in Ohio. So every 2-3 weeks, I'd fly out to spend the weekend with Rich. I think he came to Ohio once or twice, but c'mon, Boston is a much better place to spend a weekend than Dayton!

So I love going back, especially for marathon weekend. The entire city is so proud of the tradition of this race and the streets are lined literally from start-to-finish with fans, handing out orange slices and cups of water, little kids holding out their hands seeking high fives from runners. There's just no other race and no other city like it. The downside of being back for marathon weekend (when you're running the marathon) is that it is very tempting to spend your time cruising the city, checking out the sites. But if you do that, your legs may have a tough time carrying you 26.2 miles come Monday. It's a fine balance to get a taste of the city while resting up for the race.

This year, to make an amazing weekend even more amazing, the US Olympic Committee hosted the Women's Olympic Marathon Trials in Boston the day before the "big" marathon. I couldn't miss seeing 150 of the fastest American marathon women run this fantastic race. An woman running a 2:47 or better marathon (that's 6:25 per mile pace!) was eligible to compete. And the race officials set up a course that consisted of four 6-mile loops (more or less), so we could set up camp and watch the women pass 8 different times. To say that watching this race was inspirational is an understatement. You non-runners will just have to bear with me here. . . it was so exciting to see this race so I'm going to share a bit about it.

The lead pack on the first loop, with Boston in the backdrop.

there they go!

This fast woman, Magdalena Lewy-Boulet took the lead from the start and ran on her own, about 2 minutes ahead of the lead pack for almost the entire race. She averaged 5:58 per mile pace.

She was no match for the fastest American marathoner though. Deena Kastor holds the U.S. record for the marathon, just under 2:20. He closest competitor's best time is nearly 10 minutes slower.

Around mile 23 she broke away from the pack she had been running with and started to chase down Magdalena. She caught her with about a mile or so to go and won by a little over a minute.

Don't feel bad for Magdalena losing the lead, though, it's the top 3 places that matter in this race. They all get to compete in the marathon in Beijing this summer.

It wasn't just the front runners that were inspirational. Joan Benoit Samuelson was running in her 5th Olympic Trials Marathon. She won the gold medal at the inaugural women's olympic marathon in Los Angeles in 1984. And she's still running! At the age of 50, she set a new age-group record, running just under 2:50. Everyone was cheering for her!

The surge of excitement and inspiration I got from watching this race was well worth any fatigue my legs picked up by not parking my butt on the couch. I couldn't miss this once-in-a-lifetime event!

After the race finished, Grandma and Grandpa brought Hayden downtown to meet us for lunch. While I didn't want to walk all over the entire city with him, I did want to share one special little piece of it. . . the Boston Common.

One corner of the Common has a special little tribute to one of my favorite children's books, Make Way For Ducklings.

Kids were swarming the ducks, but Hayden did get a chance to check one out all by himself.

We headed back to the hotel for a nap, then met up with the Clarks for a pre-race pasta dinner. Hayden made himself right at home, crawling straight for the toys. I think he remembered where everything was after our visit a month earlier! Caroline was eager to show off her beautiful princess dress. Thankfully this time she did not insist that Hayden join her in dressing up!

And the best part of all was getting to meet the newest member of the family, sweet William. He's such a wonderful little babe and I wish we could have spent more time there.

Tired

Well, after covering 26.2 miles in 3 hours 5 minutes and 29 seconds, I have to say that I'm tired. Still tired 3 days after running the race! Sure, there's some relief, happiness, disappointment and accomplishment mixed in there, too, but mostly I'm just tired. Well, tired and sore.

I'm relieved that that race is finished and happy that I ran 7 minutes faster than I did in December at the Rocket City Marathon, but the disappointment stems from the fact that I trained for so many months but didn't run nearly as fast as I thought I could. And when you're about 18 miles into the race and you make that realization, it's a bit defeating. All that time and training put in, and then when you know you're not going to do it. . . it's frustrating. The thousands of fans lining the course for the last 6 miles is really what got me to the finish line. That and all the support from you guys!

So, am I ready to kick up my feet and relax for a while? For a few days. . . but I'll admit that as soon as we got home I was started searching for a late summer/early fall marathon to run. I'm hungry for that PR, no matter how tired I am now!

More on our trip and photos are coming soon, I promise. I just need a nap first!

I'm Ready to Run

Well, those 70 degree temps gave way to 8" of snow yesterday evening. That snow, and the snow we've had all winter, is why I've logged countless miles here during Hayden's naptime:

The time has come to cash in all those miles. . . it's racing time!

The Boston Marathon is on Monday and I'm ready for a PR (that's Personal Record, for you non-runner's out there)! Us runners have our own vocabulary and we have turned "PR" into it's very own word, using it like a verb oftentimes. As in, "I PR'ed in that race" or "I was hoping to PR". Yes, we are a strange bunch. But you probably already figured that. . . I mean, who runs 26.2 miles just for fun?

Anyhow, that's my goal: Run a PR. My current PR is 2:56:06, set back in January 2005 at the Disney Marathon. My PR for the Boston course is 2:57:39, set in April 2005 (the last time I ran Boston). We'll see what difference a few years time and a baby can make!

And just to put it all out on the line, you can monitor my progress here. Knowing that so many people might be checking in will be a good motivator! Check out the "finish times and splits for all finishers" link. My bib # is F34. Race Starts at 9:35 a.m. EST on Monday, April 21st. When I pass the 10K, half marathon, 30K, and finally the finish line, an update of my time should be posted. Hey, you can even check on Lance Armstrong's progress. He's running the race that day, too!

Bathtime

I was inspired by Erin to capture some sweet cheeks around here and thought that bathtime would be a great opportunity. My efforts resulted in just about my favorite shots to come out of my camera and some good documentation of the nightly routine. Enjoy!

A New View

It feels like Spring has finally arrived! We had sunshine and warm temperatures over the weekend (and it's going to 77 degrees here today!). Winter didn't leave quietly, though. We had highs in the 30's on Friday and even some snow on Saturday night (after the sunny day). Old Man Winter's last valiant effort was no match for the endless blue skies, though. We took advantage of this change in weather and made a change for Hayden: turned his carseat around. So now he faces forward and has a new, and much better, view from the window. His inaugural ride:

And our destination on this ride? Downtown for a bike ride and some playground time. One of my favorite parts of Colorado Springs is the vast trail network thoughout the city. The Pikes Peak Greenway connects to the Santa Fe Trail and stretches for over 40 miles running North-South. And it intersects with several other trails to take you East or West. And these are major trails, I think of them like the interstate! They're about 6-8 feet wide and either paved or well-groomed gravel. So you can easily pull a bike trailer along them. And many of the East-West connector trails take you to major city parks (Palmer Park, Bear Creek Park, Garden of the Gods) which have miles of their own trails. I think of those like the backroads--narrow single track great for running or mountain biking. With this giant network of trails, you can get almost anywhere on bicycle without ever having to compete with cars on a road. Pretty impressive for a town of around 500,000 people!

So, before my digression, I was getting to the point that we headed down to one of the many parks that dot the Pikes Peak Greenway. One we had never taken Hayden to before. It gave us a fabulous view of that giant 14,000+ foot beauty, Pikes Peak. Which, come to think of it, is another great thing about this city--the views. I often sit in our house staring at the mountains and feel like I'm the only one that can see them. Then I drive somewhere else in town and realize that they're still there. Just about anywhere you go in the whole city has these amazing views.

We had a wonderful Sunday afternoon view and hope that Spring is arriving in your town soon, too!

Florida Recap: More Relatives

I'm almost finished with the Florida trip photos, I think only one more post after this one! On our last full day, we loaded up the car and made a 2 hour drive down the Atlantic coast so Hayden could meet his octogenarian great-grandparents (Rich's paternal grandparents). You can see the love in the smiles. . .

It's not a great photo, but it's the only one I have with the 3 Shertzer men together:

Unfortunately, our visit lasted less than the time it took us to drive down there, but it was more than worth it for Hayden to meet these special relatives.

The day of extended-family wasn't over yet, though. On the way home, we met up with Rich's Aunt Phyl (who lives about an hour from my parents) and his cousins who were down for a Florida Spring Break visit, too.

That pushed the relative/family friend visit counter to 21. Not bad for a 7-day trip!