The Connection Runners

A Patriotic Post

Patriotic things you won't often find in my possession:

  • A car decal featuring an American eagle superimposed over an American flag
  • Wal-Mart shopping bags
  • Steak
  • A copy of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A."
Don't get me wrong. I do appreciate and love America. But I'm not outwardly patriotic except when it comes to today's post.

And by patriotic, I mean I'm going to show you some stupid cute photos from the Fourth of July and then talk about the Marine Corps Marathon.

Kevin was on vacation all of last week, so we spent a considerable amount of time watching The Wire, eating bad food, and visiting his family on the lake.

We took a nice family photo on his mom's deck where Charlotte was more enthralled by the party going on at the next door neighbor's house.

Here's something patriotic: this dress, gifted to C by my friend Deanna. It almost makes up for the lack of rear-windshield decal.

Since the weather was so warm, we finally got to get ourselves and Charlotte into the lake. The water was warm, yet refreshing, and C took herself out for a spin in a float from Kevin's mom. She tolerated the water quite well, leading me to believe that swim lessons will indeed be in her future. She'll soon surpass me in water-related skills, I'm sure.

Kevin played with Charlotte in the water for probably 30 minutes before it was time to head in for dinner. I think she got a kick out of these sunglasses.

In the week off, we also started work for a backyard patio, but with the intense heat and a kid, we didn't get as far as we'd hoped, so I don't have any photos to show you all quite yet.

Another fun vacation activity? We took a day trip to Frankenmuth, MI (land of the Germans) to dine on Zehnder's notoriously famous chicken dinner with Megan, Ryan and Megan's brother, sister-in-law, and niece. She'll probably post a much better recap of that meal because I'm lame and didn't take a camera in to the restaurant.

With that meal under my belt (barely), I now head into the first week of sixteen of training for the Marine Corps Marathon.

The MCM Facebook page posted this photo today...

... and I couldn't help but get a little giddy and excited about the race. Sure, I need to run about 500 miles before I actually take run those 26.2, but there's something about the first day of training that always makes me happy.

Since this is the first marathon I'll be able to really capture in full on this blog (Detroit 2009 was done before this baby was born, and I just didn't do enough for Kalamazoo last year), I plan on recapping my progress each week. I'll probably come up with a terrible alliterative title for the series, but please don't let that deter you from reading.

Like the Best Body Bootcamp recaps, I'll use each week's recap to discuss something... interesting. Trust me, you'll want to stick around for it. Let's just hope I stick around for all 16 weeks of MCM training, because we all know that I fell off the wagon hard with BBBC.

So we've come to the end of my unpatriotic patriotic post where I didn't say much at all, but summarized some stuff and told you about some stuff I plan to write about in the future.

This is some Pulitzer-prize winning writing right here.

Anyone else heading into training mode this week, last week, or soon? Please commiserate with me and remind me that my giddiness is all due to being in the marathon honeymoon phase.

Who has a cooler Fourth of July story to share?