Saturday, September 12, 2009

26.2 Miles!

Tomorrow is a big day for me. Marathon day!
While running yesterday for the last time before the actual race on Sunday, I was thinking how excited and nervous about this whole marathon thing I really am. I have those butterflies in my stomach I used to have when a big swim meet was coming up back in the days. I pretty much have been an "athlete" my entire life, swimming a ridiculous amount miles, lifting, running, and doing everything else we did at 5:30 am before others were even awake. But I truly believe that a continuous 26.2 mile run will be the hardest physical experience I will ever go through. Amy reminded me yesterday that while running the marathon will be very hard, she gave BIRTH, and that is in a whole other level of difficulty! So around mile 20, when I will be feeling exhausted, and will want to just stop running, sit down and cry, I'll make sure to remember January 2nd 2009, when Amy was going to a very long 12 hour labor.....the SuperUltraIronman if you will. That should help me keep going.
Next week I will be letting you know how it goes.......have a good one.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

I see you..........

Good Morning everyone!

Friday, August 7, 2009

Do you know how hard it was to......

...take this picture?

Well let me tell you....Gone is the time where we would put Claire in a chair, couch, floor and she would sit there, smile, and pose for the picture. Here are a FEW of the attempts to take the picture:


And then there is this little movie I made of Amy "wrestling" with Claire to sit still! LOL...She is so silly!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

Claire found her new favorite show on TV! She really does not watch TV at all (yet), but when the MM Clubhouse comes in the mornings, she loves it! In the picture below, she is not sleeping, she is actually watching TV (What a frigging cutie!). She is by far, hands down, the cutest daughter I have ever had!


Friday, July 31, 2009

The baby girl and me!

Amy is going to Chi-town this weekend for a friend's bachelorette party.......so it's the baby girl and me all alone! What's in the agenda? Pool day with uncle Gangl, movie night, walk in the park......looking forward to it!




Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Claire's Photo Shoot!

This past weekend we went to our friend's parents house (Thanks D!) to celebrate the 4th of July. Derek and Heather recently got a new camera so they found a nice little target to practice those lenses on.........here are the results...





Sunday, June 28, 2009

Brazil 3 x 2 USA

Yes, the Brazilian boys did a great job today coming back from 0x2 and winning the Confederation Cup of soccer. But better yet, this was an awesome opportunity for Claire to learn who the best soccer team/country is, Brazil! To celebrate, she wore my 1988 soccer jersey!




Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Where is Waldo?

Amy took some very cute pictures of the baby girl.....here are a couple of them...

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

5 months (and 15 days)!

Claire turned 5 months a couple of weeks ago, but I've been too busy to post anything here. Here are a couple of pictures of the traditional "I am X months old today!" sign. As you can see, she now has a good grasp of the paper and it is not as easy to take these pictures anymore! Father's day is coming up, and I am looking forward to see what is coming my way.







Tuesday, June 2, 2009

HA!

I really like this picture because it captures Claire's personality!
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

"I Pity the Fool!"

Have you seen this guy?
B.A. Baracus from "The A-Team" (Esquadrao Classe-A)
.
Or this guy?

Clubber Lang on Rocky III
.
Or even this guy?







Mr. T throwing the first pitch at the Cubs game on Monday
.
then you've definitely seen this guy!
Dan and Mr. T at Giordano's on Tuesday!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

3 years!!!!!!!!!

That is over 1000 days of nothing but the best a guy could ask for. If I had to go back to that day and relive the past three years, I wouldn't have changed ANYTHING because I would be afraid to change the lives we live today. Happy anniversary tweets!
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Friday, May 15, 2009

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Feeding Time!

Claire got the green light from her doctor to start eating "solid" food. A very nutritious mixture of rice cereal and breast milk brought out the best facial expressions from her....

Confused


I am not sure about this!


Ok, ok....I like it

Sunday, May 10, 2009

4 months old!

This is about a week old....Go Claire!
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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

It takes more than one try...

Amy and I have had a bunch of friends and family members saying that Claire is SO photogenic and she is always smiley. Well, she is, but let me tell you a little secret. It takes more than one shot! Let me explain.
.
First try

Second try
There!
First try
Got it!

Ops!

Not yet

Finally!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The medal ceremony ;)

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copyright of runphotos.com

Monday, April 20, 2009

Half Marathon, check!

As I mentioned on my last post, the Go! St. Louis Half and Full Marathon races took place in downtown St. Louis this last weekend. I had trained over 3 months for this event ("the half"), prepared myself for everything I thought I would face on race day, bought the right pair of shoes, shirt, shorts, ipod nano, armband, and there I was, in the middle of 17 thousand other runners just waiting for the gun to go off. The atmosphere would have been perfect if it wasn't for one small detail....it was raining! But I was not about to let one "small" detail (I thought) soak my goal, so here you go:

Mile 1: I had to make sure I did not go out too fast otherwise I would pay for it later. 7:45, perfect! I was at a conversational pace observing the views of downtown. Rain still coming down.

Mile 2: More of the same....same pace, more rain, dodging puddles!

Mile 3: At this part of the course, we went around the Budweiser brewery and the smell of hops and barley was in clearly in the air. I missed the mile marker but I'm assuming I kept up the same pace.

Miles 4-6: Not much going on. I was feeling strong besides having to go up a couple of small hills. The half-way mark was getting close.

Mile 7: I took my head phones off and scanned the spectators. This is what I saw:

.

Amy and Claire cheering me on! Claire was wearing her runners "bib"!

Mile 8: Energized by my personal cheerleaders, I probably had my best mile. Under 7:30! However, this is also the mile where I realized a couple of things: 1) I REALLY needed to go to the bathroom...I had been holding since mile 1 (so much for staying hydrated and drinking lots of water prior to the race). 2) The rain was not letting up and my shoes were now soaked and heavy. I started to feel blisters forming on both my my feet, and I still had another 5 miles to go.


Mile 9: Bathroom break. That's right, I stopped at a conveniently positioned porter-party next to the course path. This added about 45 seconds to my time, gave me some much needed relief, and officially made me an amateur runner.

Mile 10: At this point I had realized that this was the farthest I had ever ran before. I did not have much left to go, but I was starting to feel the race on my back. My feet hurt. Rain still coming down.

Mile 11-13: These were kindda of a blur. I don't remember much of them except that I just wanted to get to the finish line. I knew my pace had slowed down but I was still on target to make it under my goal of 1:45.

Finish: A quick sprint to cross the finish line.....official time.....1:44:32, success! Under the rained I started to make my way back to my car. I finished in 558th place out of 8533 half-marathoners. Not bad for a first timer! A special thanks to Amy, Kelly and Claire for coming to watch me!

Here are a few pictures taken by Kelly.



Claire giving me some pointers before the race



About half-way through the race.



Her "bib" says "daddy's future running buddy"

The end!