Rocket Scientist Weekend

Fun weekend with the boyfriend! I'm thinking I'm going to call him The Rocket Scientist instead of "the boyfriend" because:

1) He is a rocket scientist (degree in aerospace engineering!)
2) He's working on becoming Dr. Rocket Scientist (in PhD form).
3) It's fun to call him a rocket scientist.

Done and done.

Anyway, The Rocket Scientist landed on Friday night, and the exciting part was that I got to call 911 on the way to the airport! There was a car on fire on the side of the highway...we're talking smoke and GIANT flames and all that jazz. I'm sure eight million people had already called, but you never know so I called them anyway. 911 said that people were already on the way, but I felt like I did my duty in reporting it anyway. For the rest of the evening, we pretty much just hung out and talked and stuff because we're such exciting people. Our conversations tend to be about running (where I talk about whatever I've been reading about lately, and he tells me I spend too much time reading about random running stuff), whatever he is doing in lab (combustion stuff that I don't understand, no matter how often he explains it to me), or what I should do with my life (this has yet to be solved). I'm not really a fan of talking on the phone/online (although I should be with the whole long distance relationship thing, but whatever), so basically we just babble for hours. It works. We went out for ice cream (Oberweis, yum!) and babbled some more until we were old and tired and went to bed at 11. Excellent.

Saturday was an AMAZING day in Chicagoland. It was partly sunny with a high in the 70's! So good, except for running, yikes! We had twelve miles on the docket:

Saturday, April 18
12.11 miles in 1:36:05, avg pace of 7:56

Do not be fooled by the pace on this run...it was killer!! We started off in shorts and tank tops, then we ditched our tops after two miles because it was sooo toasty outside! The sun came out and it was hot! Since it was only twelve miles, we figured we didn't need to put out water, and I had high hopes that the water fountains would be turned on. We hit the first water fountain around mile six, and we were parched! However, the water fountains aren't on yet. My hopes and dreams were shattered, and I almost cried, but of course I had no water in my body to shed a tear. (End drama.) The first six miles of the run weren't too bad, but the last six were not fun. The Rocket Scientist's (so fun to say!) back was hurting him, and so we had multiple stops where he stretched a little while I rubbed his back. We eventually finished, but it was not a good confidence booster as my last double digit run before the marathon!

After rehydrating and enjoying a fantastic lunch, we watched the Cubs beat the Cardinals in extra innings (from my couch, although I thought about getting last minute tickets...). The evening was spent watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall and drinking beer with some friends. Funny movie, if you've never seen it!

This morning was a complete turnaround from yesterday! Rainy and in the 40's. That's what I get for complaining about a hot run, I suppose, but my body is definitely not used to running in anything above 40 degrees! I had a short four miles today, but The Rocket Scientist had six, so I let him wander my neighborhood for a little bit after we did the first four together.

Sunday, April 19
4.01 miles in 31:50, avg pace of 7:56

Same pace as yesterday, but felt MUCH better. Here's to hoping the marathon isn't super warm. We headed over to my place of work for breakfast, which is always fun because everyone wants to say hi to the boy that they always hear about (...they refer to him as the guy who is kidnapping me to New Jersey. Details.), and the food is good! I had some blackberry-banana pancakes, sausage links, and potatoes, while he had a red pepper, green pepper, onion, and Cajun sausage frittata. So good!

We spent the rest of the afternoon reading the newspaper (I LOVE the Sunday paper) and watching cop chases on TV. The weekend went SO fast, and he's back off to New Jersey. We semi-officially decided that I'm going to do the Wisconsin Marathon on May 2, and being the awesome boyfriend that he is, he wants to come watch, so I should see him in a short two weeks! Now I just need to register...and get a hotel...

SO EXCITED for the Boston Marathon tomorrow! I'm going to be watching online until I have to head to work, which should be perfectly timed for me to miss the elites finish. Go Kara! Go Ryan!

Hope everyone had an awesome weekend...which it already sounds like from the blogs I've caught up on!