Hills, friends, and finishing strong: the 2012 Arbutus 5K

I just returned from a morning run with my husband-to-be. Now, I'm spending my remaining pre-work hours on my favorite post-vacation hobby: Catching Up On Life. My "catching up on life" to-do list includes blogging about several recent events. First up: my most recent race!

The Arbutus running crew!

 On Saturday, Andrew and I ran the 3rd annual Arbutus 5K Spring Fling, organized by my original running buddy, Val. The first running of this race, back in 2010, was the subject of my first-ever blog post about a race. Since then, both the race and Val's crew of running buddies has grown (see above). In 2010, just Val and I ran this race together. This year, we had a whole pack!

What has not changed about this race is the challenging course. Even though it is "just a 5K," the combo of hills and sun had me thinking "when will this be over?" by about the 1.5-mile mark. Last year, I got a jolt of inspiration around mile 2 when I caught up with a usually-faster running buddy. This year, I was on my own and I had a tough time staying motivated. I actually walked for a few seconds on an uphill- something I haven't done in a 5K in years. I finished in 29:06, which was nowhere near a PR, but still under 30 minutes. Lately, my 5K mantra is "Just finish under 30."

Andrew did much better. Having heard my war stories about the sun and the hills, he was anxious about this race. Still, he finished nearly 2 minutes faster than his first 5K! He also made his first finish line sprint. While we were in London, we went for a run in beautiful Hyde Park. During that run, I gave a mini-lecture about finishing strong: "When you can see the finish line, go all out." I'm pretty sure he was exhausted by the time we finished that run, but he surprised me by sprinting as soon as he could see the park gates. Then, he did it again in the race! It was awesome to see him zipping across the finish line.

In Hyde Park, London. 

I can't wait to see who joins our pack for next year's race!

The marriage plot.

I'm home! I am also now free to share one of the worst-kept secrets of 2012: I'm engaged!

Moments after the official engagement; months after the unofficial one. 

I met my fiancee, Andrew, just about 8 months ago after a brief exchange of dating site emails. By our second date, I had decided that he would be a good person for someone to marry. By about 2 months in, I had decided that he would be a good person for me to marry. Around that time, I told some of my friends "Whether he knows it yet or not, I'm going to marry this guy." At about 3 months, we had a conversation and I learned that he was thinking the same things about me. By New Year's Eve, we were making plans: engagement sometime in 2012, wedding sometime in 2013.

Then, in late January, our plans got accelerated. Andrew had to move and his original plan was to find a place in DC. He would live there for a year, and then move in with me in Annapolis after our marriage. Andrew spent a few weeks touring DC apartments that were almost comically bad (ex: washer/dryer in the bedroom!). One night, he came to visit me in Annapolis and shared his tales of apartment woe. Then, over dinner at a local pizza joint, he raised an idea: instead of moving to DC, he would move to Annapolis. I considered his idea and raised another: if he moved to Annapolis, we could move up our schedule and get married by the end of the year. We both calmly agreed that these were good plans.

For the next few weeks, I waited for one of us to freak out and change our minds. I even had a few mini-freakouts myself when I started paging through wedding magazines at the store. Every time we talked about it, though, we grew more and more certain that our plan was a good one. Pretty soon, we started leaking the idea to close friends and select family members. We expected somebody to say "but you two barely know each other!" Instead, we got the opposite. Everyone seemed to say some variation of "Its obvious you two should get married, so why wait?"

Then came a watershed moment. One night, I spent some time online looking at wedding dresses, trying to get myself used to the idea of a wedding and to convince myself I could find a nice dress without spending a million dollars. One of the first sites I visited was Bhldn, which is Anthropologie's wedding line. (I love Anthropologie more than anyone should love a store.) Lo and behold, the very dress I was imagining for myself appeared on the screen. And it was well within my financial means. I called Andrew and said "This is crazy- we're not even engaged and I think I found my wedding dress. Should I buy it?" I expected him to tell me to slow down. Instead, he said "You should. This is going to happen." I still waited nearly a week, but finally I took the plunge.

Once I ordered the dress, the floodgates opened. Andrew and I got more involved in planning and we told more and more people. By the time he moved to Annapolis, both of our families and many of our friends were in on our plans. Several had seen my dress and heard our potential date. Pretty soon, our forthcoming engagement was the worst-kept secret in the DC metro area.

All this time, we knew we were going to London in April. We had scheduled the trip back in December, when Andrew's brother mentioned that he had to go there for work. It would be my first trip abroad and our first vacation together- the perfect time for a proposal! So, the next step was choosing  a ring. Fortunately, my grandmother had already chosen one for me:

This ring belonged to my paternal grandmother, Cleo, who died in 2001. The upper stone, a green diamond, comes from a necklace given to her by her second husband. Sometime in the late 70's or early 80's, after her husband died, my grandmother was working in her yard wearing that necklace. All of a sudden, the stone fell out and landed in a thick patch of ivy. Grandma Cleo spent hours on her hands and knees searching, and eventually she found it! After that, she didn't want to put the stone back in the necklace for fear it would fall out again. She gave it to my mother, along with her engagement ring, and asked Mom to get a ring made. This was the result. As soon as it was made, Grandma told my mom that she wanted me to have it one day. I've always loved it, and couldn't imagine a more perfect engagement ring. So, a few weeks before our trip, Andrew snuck over to my parents' house to ask for the ring and their blessing. They were happy to give him both!

In the weeks leading up to the trip, I had a lot of fun trying to guess Andrew's big proposal plan. The only thing I was pretty certain about was the timing. We were getting to London on Thursday; his brother would arrive Friday. I assumed he would plan the proposal for the time we were alone, and probably do it pretty early in that time so that we could both relax and enjoy our time together.

Sure enough, as soon as we had settled into our hotel on Thursday and taken a much-needed nap, Andrew put on some of his nicer clothes and said we were going for a walk. First, he took me to the chapel and home of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church. This wasn't the proposal site, but I was still excited:

We kept walking and I learned that our ultimate destination was St. Paul's cathedral, designed by Christopher Wren. Wren also "designed" (long story) a building at Andrew's college, W&M. That little detail told me St. Paul's would be the place.

My first glimpse of St. Paul's in the distance. 

When we arrived at St. Paul's, we wandered around for awhile, and then Andrew steered us up toward the dome. As soon as we reached the stairs, I knew this would be the spot, and I got a little nervous. Along with the nerves, I was still a little nauseous from jet lag and it was HOT inside the cathedral. We started climbing the 300+ tightly spiraling stairs and things got unpleasant pretty fast. By the time we reached the first gallery in the dome, I had to stop and sit down. We were both nauseous and dizzy. I assumed that Andrew planned to propose at the top of the done (another 200 or so steps up), so I did my best to rally. After about 10 minutes in the first gallery, I told him I thought I could keep going up.

As we got up to head for the stairs, Andrew pointed to a sign that said "The Whispering Gallery," and said "I wonder why they call it that?" He stopped a tour guide and asked. She explained that the dome is a perfect circle and, if you whisper into one part of the wall, you can hear it anywhere else in the dome. Andrew said he wanted to try it and sent me about 30 ft away. We both put our faces up against the wall and Andrew whispered "Can you hear me?" Sure enough, I could hear him as clearly as if he were whispering right in my ear. When I said "Yes, I can hear you," he responded "Alicia Brooks, will you marry me?" 

At the whispering wall. 

I was so surprised! I ran over and grabbed the ring from him, put it on, and said "Does this mean we don't have to climb any more stairs?" 

After that, we weren't sure what to do with ourselves. We went outside and took pictures (including the first one in this post), went to the St. Paul's gift shop and dropped a small fortune on souvenirs, and then went and toasted ourselves in a little cafe/bar: 

We had a lovely time, but it still didn't feel quite right. We were both missing our friends and family. So, despite the fact that it was past dinnertime and we were both starving, we went back to our hotel and got online. We made Skype calls to our families and did the thing which really makes an engagement official in these modern times: announced it on Facebook.

Within minutes, both our accounts had BLOWN UP. Literally, we had so many notifications that our computers kept freezing! The outpouring of love from every little corner of our lives was overwhelming. So were the requests for the full story of the engagement. And now, internet friends, you have it. Thank you so much for being such an important part of my life. I can't wait to share our wedding plans with you and all of our future adventures! 

The end of Lent and the beginning of vacation!

For those who don't know, this past Sunday was Easter, aka: the end of Lent. So, naturally, the question on everyone's mind is "How did you do with your Lenten resolutions?" Here is the final report:

On resolution #1, exercise every day, I did okay. I did not succeed in working out every day, but I made 30 out of 40 days. This was a major improvement over the beginning of the year. In January and February, I had several weeks where I only worked out 3 times (which is below average for me). Once Lent started, I never went below 4 times, I got to 5 times twice, and I worked out all 7 days one week. Even better, I got back in the pool and started swimming again- something I had been putting off for months. I am happy to report that my return to swimming is going better than I expected and I'm grateful to this resolution for pushing me back to it.

On resolution #2, track my food every day, I did better. I am a pretty typical long-time Weight Watchers member in that I know tracking is a key to reaching my goals, but I have a hard time staying motivated to do it. Tracking is something I had been really slacking on for several months, and my numbers on the scale showed it. Fortunately, this goal turned out to be a real motivation boost. My WW data only goes back 4 weeks, but I know that I tracked for 23 of the past 28 days. I didn't see a huge result on the scale, but I feel like I've made tracking a habit again and that can only lead to good things.

All in all, I feel pretty good about this Lent. From the start of my new job in December until Lent started, I felt like I was slipping out of my healthy habits. Now, I feel like I have some traction again. Just in time, too, because Andrew and I are going on vacation! We are off to London for 1 week, where I will try my hardest to match my worst vacation habit (overeating) with my best vacation habit (I like working out in new places). I'll let you know how it goes!

The next level.

This morning, I did my 3rd running of the Annapolis Striders' Cherry Pit 10-miler. I went in with fairly low expectations, which is typical for this race. Cherry Pit comes about a month after the B&A Half-Marathon. After spending the winter in half-marathon training, I tend to do almost no running between these two races. This year was a little different, since I ran the Rock 'n' Roll DC half two weeks ago. Still, one run- even a big one- hardly counts as "training." My only goal going into this race was to beat last year's time: 1:47:31.

I've been a little sick the past few days, so I started out the race feeling pretty lousy. In the second mile, I caught up with a couple friends from last summer's marathon training group, Mary and Meghan. They took my mind off things for a couple miles, but I found myself struggling to maintain their pace and fell back. A mile or so later, I looked to my left and realized I was running next to another training buddy, Mike. We wound up sticking together for the rest of the race, and even caught up to Mary and Meghan.

Cherry Pit is not an easy race (read: HILLS), but having good company made it much easier. At mile 9, I looked at my watch, saw 1:31, and realized that I was on pace to beat last year's time by several minutes. I mentioned this to Mike and he said "I think you and I lucked out running into each other." He was right! I finished the race in 1:41:53, a new PR and almost 6 minutes faster than last year.

When I got home, I got another happy surprise. I plugged my Nike+ watch into my computer and learned that I had earned a new level in their running software. Nike+ assigns levels based on your mileage, and the levels get exponentially farther apart as you go along. They are:


Yellow (0-49km, 0-30mi)
Orange (50-249km, 31-154mi)
Green (250-999km, 155-620mi)
Blue (1,000-2,499km, 621-1,552mi)
Purple (2,500-4,999km, 1553-3,106mi)
Black (over 5,000km or 3,107mi)

As of today, I am now on purple! That's over 1500 miles run since I started with Nike+ in 2007, with the bulk of those miles in the last 3 years. The levels aren't good for anything other than bragging rights, but I'll take it!