All about Washington: A photo essay

It's been a while since we got back from the nation’s capital and I haven't even told you anything about it. Because of the insane week which followed the trip, it seems like an eternity ago that J and I ran a marathon. But, the trip was---as you would imagine a vacation with a toddler while completing a marathon and starting your third trimester to be, ---rather exhausting.

However, I haven’t been to D.C. since I was in high school, and I was anxious to get away from the heat of Southern California in the fall, and have a taste of cooler weather.

We spent the first day doing the typical touristy things. First, a trip through the White House and the Capitol:

 

I took approximately one million pictures of the Washington Monument, apparently I have a love for it as evident from reviewing my camera flashcard. 

We had dinner with an old family friend (hi Jeanne & Eric!) out in Virginia and dined on goat cheese lasagna, salad and a delicious bottle of red wine (or maybe two bottles…) What is not pictured here is my inability to buy a metro pass for the subway system. Between J and I we have five degrees, and it still took us nearly 20 minutes to buy a pass to go six stops on the blue line.

With 26.2 miles looming the next morning, we tried to keep our walking to a bare minimum on Saturday, which was encouraged by the rain/sleet/hail deluge nearly the entire day. We did in fact make it to the marathon expo:

Clearly, this picture illustrates that we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into. After a failed naptime attempt, we hit up the International Spy Museum in true James Bond fashion. That night we carbo-loaded, remembered the loved ones we were running for, and tried to sleep.

Sunday, the dreaded day. This was J’s first marathon, and the first marathon I have run in which I did not throw up. I have an unfortunate habit of losing the contents of my stomach on marathon and half-marathon courses across California, this is unpleasant enough without having to do it after running for multiple hours in front of perfect strangers – so of course this was something of a concern. While the marathon started at 8am, and promised to be a beautiful sunny 60 degrees, the 5:30am wake-up call and two mile walk in 27 degree darkness to the start very nearly killed us.

In fact, the beanies that we are wearing were picked up off the side of the road, that’s how desperately cold we were. The fact that we don’t currently have head lice is something I’m grateful for this upcoming thanksgiving.

Six hours eighteen minutes and twenty-six point two miles later we crossed over the finish line. Well, I finished seven seconds before J – a fact that he reminds me of daily. I think he just let me win, it was good for my pregnant ego.

I’m sure there is much more that I want to tell you about our trip to Washington, including the 14-inches of snow at Shenandoah National Park, and the fact the our little family was one of eighteen staying at the lodge due to the freak fall nor’easter, but I can’t remember much of it now, probably because 90% of what we did was eat, endlessly analyze our marathon performance and discuss which body parts were currently sore.

I didn’t even take too many pictures, well besides the Washington Monument and my little angel, who started experimenting with the “terrible two” stage three months early:

So, instead of boring you with more pictures, I will end with this one, which his kind of the best one anyway:

Running a marathon! A surefire way to look really unattractive!

I know, right? Screw all those adorable baby pictures and wedding photos, this one’s the framer.