Oh man. I opened my email yesterday and this is what I saw. I’m starting to get really excited for this race, and fall marathon season generally. I will be running this one with my friend Carl (who does not yet have a blog, but is diligently thinking about it). Reagan will be doing the half. I can’t believe that it is less than a month away. We have the Queens half-marathon this weekend, then the next race will be the Hartford Marathon.

I’m getting super excited for the NYC Marathon too. It is such an exciting and motivational event, anyway. But it will be especially cool, this year since we have some friends who will be running it. As if football and the leaves changing weren’t enough reasons to get excited about the fall. I love running.

The Hartford Marathon was a blast. The festivities began when our friend Deanna flew last Thursday night. She wanted to come run her first marathon with Reagan. Friday morning we drove up to visit Piper on our way to Hartford. We woke her up from a nap to play with her. She was a bit grouchy, but I think that she was happy to see Deanna again, hahahah. When we arrived in Hartford, we checked into the hotel, picked up our race packets, ate lunch, etc. Then later in the evening we wandered around Hartford a bit. We ran into some of our friends, who were also in town for the race. It was a lot of fun. Saturday morning, we almost froze to death walking to the starting line. It was very brisk. Once we were able to get in the starting grid it was ok though. I think that the collective body heat of everyone packed together helped a bit. Once we got going, of course, the cool weather felt great. The sun was out the whole time, and it was really a pleasant temperature, until the last few miles, when it started to get a bit warm. Reagan and I were both able to improve our finish times from our last marathon. I was a bit disappointed with my time, but I was happy to have made progress. When we arrived back in NYC, Saturday evening, some of our friends from church hosted a dinner party (which was delicious), for all of the people in our group of friends who had run the race. Here is a link to the rest of the pictures from the race.