Jeremy's Marathon

I'm so proud of my husband! He ran his first (possibly only) marathon this past weekend in Dallas and Quinn and I got to be a part of the action!

First, I have to say this is a huge accomplishment for Jeremy. What started out as a New Year's resolution to run 500 miles over the course of the year, turned into full marathon training. PLUS, he did all this in the first year of our baby's life. There were nights when Quinn would be up a lot and Jeremy would get up w/ her at 3am, get her back to sleep and then just stay up to run before going to work. CRAZY! I don't know how he did it, but I'm so proud and I hope Quinn has the discipline, perseverance and determination that Jeremy does. What an awesome example to set for our daughter! 

We headed to Dallas Saturday morning and stopped in Waco to eat lunch with Auntie Em. Quinn hates riding in the car right now. She just learned to walk so she just wants to be down on the ground getting into things or held by mama. Luckily she slept on the way to Waco and then somehow entertained herself w/ a book from Waco to Dallas. 

In Dallas we went straight to the registration and expo to get Jeremy's bib, t-shirt and whatnot. He was part of Team VW because he had responded to a Tweet they sent out early on, so he got a sweet free shirt, gym bag and some other swag.

After the expo, we headed to the hotel (The Adolphus) to check in. This is a great hotel except for our valet experience (which I'll cover later). It reminded me of the Driskill in Austin.

The Christmas tree at the Adolphus.

Since it was about 3pm and Quinn was getting antsy, we decided to head to the galleria to walk around and keep Q busy for a few hours. I honestly haven't been in a mall of any type in a long time, so this was kind of fun. There is a beautiful, huge Christmas tree in the middle of the ice skating rink and lots of festive decor everywhere. Quinn loved the tree, but she enjoyed the kids play area more. I never thought I would be okay with Quinn climbing all over those nasty, germy foam animals, but at some point I decided it's better to get over it and let her have fun. She was in heaven. She loved looking at all the crazy older kids and climbing all over the animals.

I feel like Quinn is looking at her hands thinking "I don't even want to know how many germs I'm touching."

After about 20 minutes of play time, we had to sort of drag Quinn away so we could eat and get back to the hotel for bed time. She was so tired and ended up having a meltdown at dinner. We scarfed our food down and boxed up what we thought we could eat later. We became those parents with the screaming child. Luckily, we have enough sense to get out of the situation rather than just sit there with our screaming child. Yes, I am passing judgment on those people. :)

I think we created a monster because Quinn goes to sleep very well in her dark, quiet room, but being in the same hotel room with us was a problem. She would not go to sleep. She kept popping up and looking over the edge of the pack-n-play and it was hard not to laugh at her. Sweet, funny girl. We finally turned all the lights off at about 8:30pm and she eventually went to sleep while we laid in bed playing on our phones in the dark. That night was rough. Quinn woke up a lot whining and Jeremy and I tossed and turned.

Little Miss Priss not sleeping.

Somehow we all woke up at around 6:30a.m. on Sunday morning and got going. Jeremy headed down to the starting line and Q and I got dressed to meet up w/ my friend Anne who was our Dallas chauffeur for the day. I honestly do not know what I would have done w/out Anne. Tons of roads were closed off and I would have been completely lost!

Quinn and Jeremy were way to happy to be up at 6:30a.m.

Since our hotel was in the middle of the course, I had to drag Quinn, her stroller, diaper bag and car seat in downtown Dallas to get to a road where Anne could drive. Needless to say, I felt like a supermom. On the way to meet Anne, I stopped at the starting line to hear the gun go off and see the runners start. I knew there was no way we would see Jeremy in the crowd of 25,000 people with loud music and confetti everywhere. I always get emotional at the beginning of races and I was getting emotional wishing we could see him. I actually said a little prayer that God would just send him our way and OH MY GOSH right after that, Jeremy appeared right by the fence where we were. I started jumping up and down like a little girl and Quinn was so excited to see him. Of course I cried! I was so excited to see him right before he started just to let him know his girls were there to cheer him on!

I can't believe we saw J out of the 25,000 runners!

Anne picked us up and we headed to the neighborhood close to White Rock Lake. We ate some breakfast tacos, stopped by Albertson's for poster board and markers and went to the course to see if we could find Jeremy. We got there just in time to see him run by right before mile 12. He looked great and he was excited to see his girls. 

Then, we headed back downtown to get a good place at the finish line. Luckily, Little Miss Priss fell asleep on the way back downtown so we let her sleep in the car for about an hour before we braved the crowds at the Dallas Convention Center. It was actually nice to spend some time catching up with Anne in a quiet car.

The Convention Center finish line area was CRAZY! They had all sorts of walkways blocked off, streets closed, etc. We spent quite a while trying to figure out how to cross the street and finally made it across to the marathon finisher's side. We waited for about 30 minutes and finally saw Jeremy coming around the corner. He looked so tired, but he was actually still running and I was so proud!! Later he told me he almost lost it when he saw his girls at the end.

(I must say, traipsing around Dallas w/ an active, tired 1-yr. old might be just as exhausting as running a marathon. Quinn was killing me! :) J/K. I would much rather deal w/ her than run for four hours straight! But, I think she will be staying w/ Nannie Mae next time we do something like that.)

We met up w/ Jeremy in the Convention Center after the race and got out of the crowd pretty quickly so we could get food for our marathoner. We got back to the hotel, packed up and were on our way out when the valet pulled our car up with a HUGE ding in the side. I couldn't believe it. After a long morning, we had to wait around for another 30 minutes w/ a hungry tired baby and a starving runner so they could write an official report. We have yet to hear back from them, but I'm hoping they do the right thing and pay for our car repairs, $26/day valet service and our room.

Quinn got to wear Daddy's medal!

We had a great weekend! Jeremy checked something huge off his bucket list and Quinn and I got to be his #1 fans. Way to go Jeremy...we love you so much!