We had a brief glimpse of fall weather last week. It was really nice and reminded me of the time period when Laela and I started dating. We just celebrated two anniversaries over the weekend. Our 16th wedding anniversary was last Friday and the 19th anniversary of our first date was on Sunday. (Yes, of course they are that close together for a reason). We celebrated on Friday by doing the same thing that we've done for the past eighteen years; we have dinner at the Clarmont. The night that I proposed to Laela, we dined at the Clarmont and we went to see "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" at the Ohio Theater as part of their summer classic movie series. Unfortunately this year the Ohio Theater had a production of Wicked going on and I did not have the foresight to either A) order tickets or B) make our dinner reservations at a time conducive to attending the production. Instead, after dinner we travelled East on Broad Street to Franklin Park and took an evening stroll around the grounds. In my haste to get the evening underway, I had not warned Laela beforehand that that was my plan so her footwear was not chosen accordingly. There weren't any movies going on that we wanted to see, so we made our way home and finished watching the Cincinnati Reds put the finishing touches on a 7-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs. Miranda was out of the house, so it was nice to be able to just relax on the sofa watching the game with no commitments or plans. It was the perfect way to spend the evening.
On Saturday I picked Miranda up from her friend's house and my mother came up to visit from Cincinnati. It was a restful, uneventful day. We went out to lunch at Skyline, had subs for dinner, and watched the Reds game. Unfortunately, after the Reds game my mother and I got sucked into watching Remember the Titans. She had the will power to tear herself away from it at 11:00. Me, not so much and stayed up until 12:30 watching it. Ordinarily that wouldn't be an issue but Sunday morning I needed to be up at the crack of dawn because I was participating in the Spirit of Columbus Half-Marathon.
2010 was the third annual running of the Spirit of Columbus Half-Marathon and Relay. It is also the third year I have participated. In 2008, when I started running I had set my goal as being able to run the SoC. In 2009, the SoC dove-tailed nicely with my training for the Columbus Marathon which was being held in October. This year though was a little different. I knew that I wouldn't be able to run the whole thing, so I set my mind on at least participating as a walker. I also enlisted some of my friends to be renegade participants and walk with me for a few miles each. To that end, my mother walked from mile marker one to mile marker three with me, my friend Sarah Cofer walked from mile four to mile five with me, my friends Adam Swickard and Dan Michalec walked from mile marker seven until the finish line. Kristi Hittepole doubled back after completing the entire half-marathon as a runner and met me at mile marker 11 and of course Laela and Miranda met me at mile 12.5 and we finished the race as team Speed Walrus rollin' six deep. I'm really grateful for all of the support that everyone gave me. Those last two miles were tough. I did finish as one of the last ten participants but I finished it nonetheless. It was very bittersweet because I have a feeling that is the last half-marathon that I'll be participating in. Who knows though. Fortune favors the brave, right? Maybe I'll be foolhardy and strong enough to do something else, but we'll just take it one day at a time.
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