A beautiful fall weekend in New England

Last weekend, Taylor and I celebrated the wedding of our friends Taylor and Talia in Newport Rhode Island. It was well timed for us to also celebrate our first anniversary about a week early by spending the weekend at a Bed and Breakfast called the Victorian Ladies. Here are some shots of our room, the Alfred. It was really great. The bed was comfortable, the bathroom was nice, and the food was delicious!
We even had a fireplace!
Here we are outside the Inn
We arrived Friday evening, checked into the hotel and went to the Newport Hyatt to toast the soon-to-be newlyweds after their rehearsal dinner. Unfortunately, it's the only photo 1 got of the groom and none of the wedding due to some issues with the camera battery :(

Taylor, the groom (also named Taylor) and one of the groomsman, our friend Dan.

On Saturday morning, we took advantage of the beautiful weather to check out the famous Newport Mansions and the Cliff Walk. Back in the glory days, Newport was the summer getaway of many famous families. They had what they called "summer cottages" on the ocean in Newport. There's a great path that takes you around the island on the ocean side of many of the mansions. We decided to walk some of the cliff walk and then circle back on Bellevue Ave. Here are some good shots:


Taylor with a "cottage"

The grandest "cottage" of them all, this one is called The Breakers and was owned by the Vanderbilt family. It's 70,000 sq. feet and has 65 rooms!

Due to the aforementioned Camera Issues, we didn't get any pictures at all of the wedding (sorry Talia!).

On Sunday morning, we enjoyed our second yummy breakfast (apple cinnamon french toast) before we had to check out of the Victorian Ladies. Coincidentally, last weekend was also the Newport Marathon and Half Marathon, and the finish line was less than a half a mile from the inn. Since we'd just run the Chicago Marathon the week before, we decided to go check it out.

It was really neat because unlike all the marathons I have run, which were really big, this one was pretty small (only about 1,500 marathoners), so we were able to get very close to the finish line. A few former Biggest Loser contestants finished the race, so I guess that was cool. But it was really nice to see and we had a great time checking out the race.

I think the guy in the back is the biggest loser guy:

We went back to the inn and got ready to head back to New York City. On our way out of Newport, we stopped for a quick bite at White Horse Tavern, the oldest tavern in the country.

The beautiful, 270-year-old bar:
Just a little more fall fun for you. While we were in Newport, a couple of friends stayed in our apartment. As part of their thank-you gift, they left us a pumpkin, so we decided to carve it despite lack of space and the appropriate tools. Here are a couple good shots of the "Taylor classic jack-o-lantern that we carved:

As you can see in the photo above, this was going to say "C + T 4 EVA" but I got tired of carving...

Debriefing 10/10/10

Hello there! Ok, my blistered feet and aching legs are finally healed enough to write about the Chicago Marathon. I'm so sorry for the delay!

As you know, Taylor and I headed to Chicago on Thursday, October 7th for the Chicago Marathon. It was a very fun, very tiring weekend, so here goes!

We spend Thursday and Friday nights at our sister-in-law's apartment in Lincoln Square in Chicago. We arrived at around 9pm on Thursday and were really hungry so we headed out to get some dinner and wouldn't you know, the first place we found was a great little Mexican joint called Garcias. Fantastic! The food was delicious and, true to typical Midwestern form, we paid $18 for a MASSIVE amount of food, a fraction of what we would have paid in New York. Sigh....

We were both feeling a little sick Thursday night, so we headed back and hit the sack (well, the air mattress).

On Friday, I spent the morning working remotely and then met up with a couple of Chicago-based co-workers for a delicious lunch at a restaurant called Over Easy in Lincoln Square.

After lunch, I did a little more work and then met Taylor at the Marathon Expo to pick up our race numbers, T-shirts, and any other goodies we might want. Here are a couple of highlights:

Taylor is all ready to go!
Behind the giant 10-10-10 sign:
After we picked up our race paraphernalia, we headed to meet my friend Tracy, her husband Scott, and their new baby, Rachel for dinner. We got some yummy noodles and got to meet the little one before heading back to their apartment for some delicious Fondue. Isn't she just a regular Super Mom??
Baby Rachel :)
Fondue!
We went to bed early again because we still weren't feeling too well. On Saturday, Taylor and I both woke up feeling really sick. Aching bodies, stuffed up heads, you name it. And this all the day before a Marathon, not the best feeling. We took shots of Airborne, plenty of DayQuil and NyQuil, and just prayed that we would feel better.

We were lucky enough to get the entire morning to relax on Saturday before my family arrived at around noon. They had gotten up super early on Saturday and driven the 4 hours to Chicago in time to visit Navy Pier, go on a boat tour, and ride the Ferris Wheel before picking us up at noon. My mom and sister haven't spent much time in Chicago despite living 4 hours away, so they wanted to have some time to see the sights in addition to cheering us on in the marathon.

We headed straight to a famous Chicago style deep dish pizza place called Lou Malnati's with my parents. Taylor and I continued to drink lots of water in an attempt to feel better, but that didn't stop us all from enjoying some yummy pizza :)

After the pizza we headed to check into our Saturday night hotel. I'm so thankful that my parents were able to get us a room using some of the points that my dad has accumulated during his travels for work. The Hotel Indigo in the Gold Coast in Chicago is an absolutely fabulous, affordable hotel in a great location. We walked from there to Michigan Avenue for some sightseeing and it only took about 15 minutes. I didn't do a whole lot of walking around because I wanted to save energy (and health!) for the marathon, so I headed back early to relax with Taylor.

Saturday evening, we went to a bar (and drank water) to watch the Vanderbilt football game and then went to an Italian restaurant not far from our hotel to carbo load before the race.

Our whole crew at dinner:
Whew, sounds like a busy day leading up to a Marathon huh?!?!

Alright, FINALLY we have arrived at Marathon day. Like I said, the hotel we stayed in was great, and one of the best things about it was its proximity to the Start Line of the race. It only took us about 25 minutes to get there from our hotel, so we didn't have to leave until about 6am.

Thankfully, we felt better on Sunday than we had on Saturday. I think I was doing better than Taylor, but he hid it well :) We got up, put on our race clothes, timing chip, race number, and gathered up our breakfast and water bottles before heading out, nervously, for the Marathon.

Before starting the race, we dropped off our bags, used the port-a-potties, and did some stretching. We got in the start corral about 15 minutes before the start of the race and waited nervously. My memories of this time are mainly looking for the pacer (we were hoping to break 4 hours), hugging Taylor and telling him how proud of him I am, and Bruce Springsteen "Born to Run" playing on the loudspeaker.

Before I knew it, the gun went off, the crowd cheered, and off we went! Well, kind of...it actually took about 12 minutes to cross the start line because it was so crowded.

Miles 1 - 4
From the very start, I never felt settled in any one pace for this race. The 4:00 pacer, who should have been running a comfortable 9:09 (9 minute, 9 second) mile, always seemed JUST out of our reach. We also spent the first few miles messing with our GPS watch which, despite it's awesomeness, just couldn't seem to keep it together with all the tall buildings and all the other GPS signals interfering with it.

Miles 1 - 4 were pretty much right on our pace, but it just didn't feel like a pace that I would be able to maintain for 22.2 miles more.

These miles were really nice because they went right through downtown Chicago which gave us plenty to look at and also meant there were tons of crowds out there cheering for us.

At mile 4 was the first time that we saw my parents and Taryn. Here's a good shot of the sign:


Miles 5 - 10
This part of the race heads up through Lincoln Park and along the coast before turning back and heading back toward downtown more inland. At this point, I finally felt a little comfortable in the pace, but the pacer still was getting ahead of us little by little throughout this stretch of the course.

One of the highlights of this portion was around Mile 6. Mind you, we're six miles into the race when we run near a park where there's a fence backed by a line of bushes. And wouldn't you know there are a dozen or so men lining the fence facing the bushes and peeing. I felt awful for the spectators who had clearly told their respective runners where they would be standing and didn't want to abandon ship, else they most definitely would not have been cheering right in front of all of the peeing gentlemen. Sorry, no photo of this.

Miles 11 - 14
We saw my parents and sister right before Mile 11. This time, we stopped to hug them. In fact, I was so concerned with the hugging, I forgot about the photo op:
Stuff like this starts to look completely normal after you've run 12 miles...

After we saw my family, we headed back into downtown Chicago and toward the half marathon mark just on the south side of the river. Shhhh...I stole this nice shot of us with some Chi-town buildings in the background off the marathon web site:
Miles 15 - 18
These were by far the hardest miles of the race. We passed the half marathon mark feeling decent, but then any marathoner will tell you that you realize you have 13.1 miles still left to go and it starts to dawn on you just what you've gotten yourself into. I think the sign I saw about this point says it pretty well: "YOU'VE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!"

Between 15 and 18 is where the heat started to kick up (it topped out at about 85 on race day), crowds died down, and we realized we still have more than 10 miles left to run. It was definitely a struggle and at around mile 15 I realized that I wasn't going to be able to maintain the pace necessary to break 4 hours (again, I'm speaking for myself, not Taylor).

The hardest part about this part of the race was definitely the lack of cheering supper. We were running through a less populated area of Chicago and really didn't have that crowd energy to draw from.


Miles 18 - 23
Around Mile 18/19, we headed into an area of Chicago known as Pilsen, and it's a very lively Mexican neighborhood. I was still feeling pretty crappy, but you can't beat the energy of the crowd to help keep you going through the infamous "Wall."

It was around this point that I realized I would need to walk through the water stops in order to complete the race. Walking is definitely a touchy subject for marathoners. Clearly, it's not something you want to have to do during a race, but sometimes literally all you can think about is taking a break. I walked quite a bit during my first marathon in Nashville. In my second Marathon, I was really proud because my goal was not to walk at all and I had done it. But it's an entirely different scenario when you're running on a hot day with lingering sickness compared to a perfect fall November day in New York City. I am still proud of us for running between the water stops the entire race.

After little Mexico, we passed through Chinatown while looking for my parents (they were supposed to be at Mile 21). Unfortunately, we didn't see them, but we figured they were just lost in the crowd and kept trekking on toward the finish line. Miles 21 and 22 took us through Chinatown and down toward US Cellular field, where the White Sox play baseball. Taylor, miraculously, had the energy at this point to do 2 things I found amazing: 1) go out of his way to high-five the White Sox Mascot and 2) take and eat a donut from a well-meaning but ill-advised spectator. I was absolutely sure he would puke.

Mile 23 - 26.2
At long last, we reach the end! The last few miles of the race took us straight up Michigan Avenue. It was celebratory, painful, exciting, exhilarating, and every other emotion/feeling you can imagine. We had a nice surprise at mile 25 when I suddenly heard three people screaming our names only to see out cheering squad (mom, dad and T) standing there. We totally weren't expecting to see them, but it was just what I needed. Here's a pic of us:
After we saw my family, we knew we were almost there. Miles 26 went by pretty quickly and before I knew it, we could see the turn to the finish line. Little did we know, a nice long hill awaited us just around that corner. Considering how flat the entire course had been, this nice little incline in the last 500 yds was pretty tough! But we made it, turned left, and there was the finish line, tantalizingly close!

The crowd cheered and we could hardly believe it as we crossed the finish line of the 2010 Chicago Marathon in 4 hours 15 minutes and 48 seconds.

And here's a nice shot afterward, we look like we're tipping over!

Oh wait, here's a better one (no proof but still falling over):
After the race, we met up with my family, headed back to our hotel for a quick shower, and made a very important stop for lunch at a delicious Chicago eatery called Choppers (thanks Tracy and Scott for introducing me to this place!).

We rushed home to Perrysburg (a 4 hour drive) and made it just in time to go to my favorite ice cream place, Mr. Freeze, before it closed for the season for some Turtle sundaes. Hey, we earned it!

Preparing for 10/10/10

Wow, I can barely believe that the Chicago Marathon is one week from today! As in, in one week, I'm DONE with the marathon (one way or another!). Crazy!!!

What's that? You didn't realize that Taylor and I are training for a marathon? Actually, that doesn't surprise me, since 1) we haven't been running as much as we should and 2) I haven't really blogged about it at all. But that doesn't change the honest-to-gosh truth that in about 154 hours, we will cross the start line of my third marathon, Taylor's first, with a goal of finishing the race in 4:00 flat.

To start getting pumped for the race, we spent last night watching Spirit of the Marathon, a full-length feature film featuring 6 runners training for the 2005 Chicago Marathon. The runners range from first timers to elite runners with one common theme: INSPIRATION. I don't know what it is about endurance events, but I always get choked up and this movie was no different. I felt like I was going to burst into tears the entire movie. It DEFINITELY got us pumped up for the race!

Everyone keeps saying that the Chicago course is flat and fast, which is good to know since I'm aiming for my best time so far. My first marathon in Nashville was really hard, between the hilly course and the warm weather, and I had to walk a lot of the final 6.2 miles. My finishing time was 4 hours, 26 minutes. The New York City Marathon was a lot better than Nashville. For one, I knew what to expect. On top of that, the weather was perfect and the course is slightly less hilly. I didn't have to walk at all and finished tantalizingly close to 4:00 in 4:07:02. So here we are trying a third time to break 4:00 in Chicago. Taylor has lovingly agreed to run the race with me, even though he could surely do it quite a bit faster despite his more bare-bones training regimen (stinking skinny boys!). We're also going to join the Nike 4:00 pace group in hopes of hitting that elusive mark.

I was encouraged by my run today. I ran 8 miles and my goal was to do them at marathon pace (9 minutes and 11 seconds per mile). However, I felt really good and consistently was running under 9 minute miles. So, I think the biggest challenge on race day is going to be keeping a relaxed pace for the first 10 or so miles to make sure we have something left in the tank come 20! Who would have thought that the challenge would be to make sure we go SLOW enough to beat our time :)

This week will be pretty busy as we prepare for the race, but I will try to update the blog at least once more. In case I don't get to, though, WISH US LUCK and check out the race course here: Course

Emma Summer Lucyk - 6.18.2000 - 9.26.2010

Our beloved family dog, Emma, went to doggy heaven yesterday. It was so sad to see her go but just reminded me of all the great times we had with her.

Like the time I put knit gloves on her paws and made her walk on tile floor. This was the beginning of her phobia of glossy flooring whereby she refused to walk over it unless there were rugs spaced at regular intervals to give her some traction.

You can't really argue that I wasn't Emma's favorite, since I'm the only one that walked her regularly. Here we are cuddling on the floor before I left home last year. I always made sure to say goodbye like it might be the last time because she was getting older...

Ok, maybe Dad is her favorite...


I have no doubt that there was promise of food in order to get this photo.

Here are some photos of her yesterday right before they had to let her go:



She really does look like she's in heaven in this photo.


Miss you, Emma girl!

18 Miles and counting!

Hey there friends. Sorry for the 2 week lapse in posts. I should be more diligent. Just wanted to share with you the fun run that Taylor and I did last weekend. You can see from the map below that we ran the entire perimeter of Manhattan, about 18 miles! We did the run on Friday night, so since it was September 10th, they already had two spotlights out in honor of September 11th. So that was pretty cool.

A perfect Coney Island Friday

Since the summer is winding to a close (blasphemy, I know!), Taylor and I decided to spend Friday night checking another item off of our New York Summer Bucket List. We went out to Coney Island to eat some yummy food, ride the cyclone, and watch the Brooklyn Cyclones (minor league team of the Mets).

Despite some trepidation due to the potential of Hurriane Early to hit on Friday, the weather and experience actually turned out to be perfect. Here are some fun photos!

First things first, Nathan's Hot Dogs! Nathan's is home to the annual (and now infamous) hot-dog-eating contest. We managed to down 2 in just over 15 mintues, do you think we qualify?
After filling our tummies with all 5 food groups (hot dogs: meat; bun: grains; fries: veggie; cheese sauce: dairy and beans: the magical fruit, right? I crack myself up), we headed over to the game. I was pumped because the giveaway for the first 2,500 fans was Brooklyn Cyclones Silly Bandz. I had not yet hopped on the silly bandz-wagon, if you will, so I figured what better time than when they were free! We got there just as the game was starting and even though they hadn't run out yet, the Beach Bums (that's what the cheerleaders for the Cyclones are called....I guess because the stadium is on the beach) were leaving with the remaining bandz just as we arrived. But my loyal husband was kind enough to chase down the retreating jail-bait for some silly bandz, isn't he sweet??

Here are a few of them:
From left to right, a batter, MCU (the stadium name), and this thing, the Coney Island Parachute Jump.

Here are some photos from the game:

Those clouds in the background are Earl...and despite the fact that it never rained, they cancelled the planned fireworks due to high winds. But, we did get a consolation prize: running the bases!! Taylor was so excited when they announced it. I told him we could go if there was anyone else over the age of 12 lined up to do it :) Turns out EVERYONE wanted to run the bases, kids and parents alike. So here are some photos of Taylor's first running of the bases at a baseball game (that he can remember):

The excitement builds as we head toward the field...
Heading for second...
Approaching home plate (sliding was strictly prohibited or he definitely would have done it)...
We scored a run!
And of course, any good run must be followed by...FUNNEL CAKE (we actually had ice cream before this too, full disclosure)...

Garmin + Me = LOVE

As some of you may know, last Saturday was Taylor's 26th birthday. You may also know that we are training for the Chicago Marathon on October 10 (the date is 10/10/10, in case you find that sort of thing interesting). So, Taylor's parents decided to get Taylor a GPS watch by Garmin for his birthday. I have to say, I love this gift as much as, if not more than, Taylor himself does. While I've always fallen into the Tom Tom camp when it comes to vehicular GPS devices, Garmin makes a stellar GPS watch.

The whole idea of the watch is to track your running via satellite, just like the GPS for your car. This allows you to track your distance, route, pace, elevation changes, and many other statistics related to your run. We've tried our watch out a few times and I really love it. Here are just some of the cool features:

• You can program it to ring at specific distance intervals, so ours chimes every quarter mile.
• The watch displays your current pace and (optionally) your average pace for the run. I find this really helpful for both long runs and faster workouts.
• The watch really does track your movements almost to the foot. I have noticed that even when I run on a different side of the street than I did previously, it notices.
• The watch also comes with a wireless hear monitor (which we have yet to use).
  
• You can program the watch to be your "virtual partner." This means that you can tell it ahead of time how fast you want to go for the run, and the watch will keep track of how far ahead or behind you are of you goal pace. Here's a shot of the screen (on a stranger's arm). The little guy on top shows if you are ahead or behind your goal. The bottom tells you by how many feet you are ahead/behind (black means behind, white would mean ahead).
  
• Here's an example of the type of data we can download after our runs. This is from our run today which was Taylor's longest run ever, 16.75 miles! One issue with the Garmin, especially in the city, is that it has trouble loading satellites when it is near tall buildings or trees. That's why our run only shows 16 miles, we didn't get satellite service until about .75 miles into our run.
  
  The run was really fun, we ran all the way from our apartment, up to the George Washington Bridge, and back. So basically you could say we ran to New Jersey and back. Good times!
  

A big thanks to the Smiths for this great gift! Hopefully it will help us hit our goal for 4 hours for the marathon!!

Weekend in Michigan/Ohio - Recap

A couple of weeks ago, Taylor and I headed to Ohio/Michigan to visit my fam, so I thought I'd post a quick recap. It was a VERY busy weekend but we had fun!

Friday
We woke up at about 4am on Friday to get to the airport by 5:15 for our 6:10 flight. My mom picked us up from the airport at about 8am and we went and had brunch with my Grandma Lucyk at Bob Evans (always a fave!). After spending some time with Grandma Lucyk, we headed to Ann Arbor so Taylor could check out their business school. It was a beautiful day and the campus, the business school, and the surrounding area were all really nice. I have to say the highlight of Ann Arbor, though, was when we first drove in to what might be considered the "collegey" part of town and the first thing we see is a guy wearing no shirt with a beard and a hairy chest. He walked out of his front door, stood on his porch and did the best crazy-college-guy-just-waking-up-after-a-bender stretch. All I could think was "we have entered college-ville."

After visiting Michigan, we headed to Toledo just in time to take a quick nap before heading out for dinner to celebrate my birthday with my family. We went to my FAVORITE place in Toledo, an Italian restaurant called Zia's. I'm not sure how great the rest of Zia's food is, but their pizza's are AMAZING. There were 7 of us (Mom, Dad, me, Taylor, Garett, Taryn and her boyfriend Aaron), and we polished off two of their huge meat-lovers pizzas pretty easily. Here are some good photos from dinner.

My birthday present was a charm bracelet from Brighton!
The sibs
Sibs + significant others
The whole fam outside the restaurant on the mighty Maumee River. That's downtown Toledo in the background.

By Friday night we were super tired from being up at 4am so we went to sleep pretty early!

Saturday
Saturday morning, Taylor and I got up and went for a 10 mile run through Perrysburg, Maumee and Toledo. It was a nice day, but I didn't feel that great on the run.

After the run we grabbed lunch at a great little Mediterranean place in dowtown Perrysburg and then headed home to clean up. On Saturday afternoon, we headed up to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Michigan for my cousin's son's first birthday (I think that makes him my second cousin). Ethan was born last August and this was the first time I got to meet him, so that was really nice. I also got to meet my cousin Vicki's (Ethan's Mom's) husband Herschel. And THEN I got to meet my cousin Stacey's boyfriend Pete. The gang was all there!

The party was really a good time and the weather was great. After that, we headed home and spent the evening playing games and just hanging out.

Sunday
On Sunday, we spent the day at our friends the Monroes' cottage on Archer Lake in Michigan. My mom knows how much I miss being able to just go hang out at the lake, so she did a great job arranging for a full day of fun in the sun and on the water. Thanks, Mom!

We got there at around 10am and proceeded to lay in the sun, float on rafts in the lake, kayak, ride waverunners, go out on the boat, you name it! Taylor went tubing and kneeboarding too and he did a great job!

I think one of my favorite parts of the day was when we all piled in the boat and headed over to "the sandbar." On most lakes, the sandbar is the place where all the boats dock so that people can lay out and then jump in the water. Typically there's lots of drinking going on and some of the boats are playing music making it an all-out party. And this was no exception! In fact, they even had a "stage" which was effectively a pontoon boat with a HUGE sound system and they were blasting music! When we first pulled up, Kid Rock was playing which is just TOO funny for those of you who know is song "All Summer Long," which is basically a homage to this very culture in Michigan. We spent some time there tossing a frisbee and watching the drunk people try to dance in knee-deep water, it was awesome! Here's the only photo I could dig up:

We ate dinner shortly after the party and headed home after that, totally pooped but happy!

Monday
On Monday morning, we continued the marathon weekend by getting up at 4am AGAIN in order to make out 6:30 flight back to New York.

Thanks to my family and the Monroes for a great weekend!