the mowrer family: who fartlek'd?, butterfly gala-ing, lottie sue at ballet & driving

sunday was the covenant health knoxville marathon/half marathon/5K. it was a great morning! here is a list of all of the people i know that ran some type of race (listed in order of mileage)...

megan did the full marathon!
amy d., amy m., kelly j., lisa h. (finished 4th in her age group with a time of 1:56, her PR - yee haw!!!), shahin h., brittney f. and ashlee h. (finished at 1:37 - yeah, you heard me. goodNESS girl!) all did the half marathon!
amy h. (finished 10th in her age group - yee haw again!!!), lisa b. (finished 3rd in her age group, her PR as well - and another yee haw!!!), lauren r. and moi did the 5K!

here i am with my home girls, amy h. and lisa b.

that is a lot of people and i am sure i left someone off (my apologies).

matt, amy and i made signs for the girls - i must say they are pretty awesome.

here we are creating beautiful art

amy and i finished up the signs friday night. matt drew the caricatures of the girls for us, i cannot draw to save my life but luckily i have a resident ar-teest at my disposal.

here's a close-up of them for you...

when i mentioned that they are the most awesome signs EVER, i really think that is true. i googled and googled for signs to see what others made, and none of them were cool like this. amy and i are way proud. we wrote on the back of them as well. messages that read...

run now. brag later.
you are my hero.
you're kind of a big deal...

then we made another big sign and it was my favorite, here is the front and back...

it's true, got a hand cramp

not me
(you may not know what this means, but if you do a half marathon
or a full one then you do - so click here to learn more)

everybody really loved the "i got up early" sign (and the fartlek one) one except for one guy. he was kinda mad about it and i chalk it up to him having a bad run and not understanding what sarcasm is...oh well.

one marathon runner actually stopped and took our picture with her phone. and lots of other runners smiled, laughed, gave thumbs up or thanked us for being there and giving support. they were on mile 11 AND going up a hill, but mustered a way to communicate.

tommy came down and met us as well and we saw our poster subjects run by at mile 11. i had so much fun yelling for the runners, i love it.

here are photos i stole off of facebook of our medal finishers...

amy d. and amy m. so very happy and proud

amy with her sign (front)

the back of amy's (she IS a big deal, really)

and while i am at it, here's a blurb from fleet feet's most recent newsletter. amy h. is famous!!!

amy running through times square

and i am glad to report that running and i are back together. we took a break over the holidays and we are just now getting reacquainted with each other. but i am signed up for two half marathons (chicago and disney) this fall so now i really have to do it. which is fine by me, i love it.

here is my race bib from sunday...

this 5K was the first one i did last year with a time of 47:24

(an improvement but 4 minutes off my PR (39 minutes) but that

was last fall at the height of my running) - i will get faster

i just now scanned this one it, this is the PR race - amy and i ran from her house to the race then BACK to her house. i think i did so well because i was warmed up. it always takes me a mile until i get into the groove.

the above-mentioned PR

and this is the bib from our knoxventure race, the one we did with the smiths that was SO MUCH FUN. here is a link to my blog post on the adventure if you are so incline but you can also check out megan's (hers is better)...

remember - we played smart, not dumb

last weekend we attended the butterfly gala with the gang and had a great time. everyone got dolled UP. kate commented that is was so nice not to be wearing sweatpants on a saturday night. word, i say.

if you don't know what the butterfly fund is, i took this from the website or you can click here to go directly there:

The families of Emily Barger and Maddie Harrill established the Butterfly Fund at the East Tennessee Foundation in memory of their daughters. Both of these beautiful little girls were diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of childhood cancer, in 2007. Sadly, both of these girls passed away just weeks apart during the summer of 2008.

The Butterfly Fund supports research, treatment and services dedicated to the defeat of childhood cancers. Here are the facts about childhood cancer and why the Butterfly Fund continues its work.

we really had a great time, it was a packed event! there was a silent auction and i went a little crazy. i was bidding all over the place and didn't even think about what would happen if i won all of them. matt brought up that very good point and i laid off a few. hee. anywho, here are some shots of the night.

the gang

and think photo CRACKS me up (sorry, jp but jo is the one that pointed it out).

hahahahahaha

blake and jojo

the palmers with me photobombing (matt, that was for you)

how cute are we???

kate (love her dress) and rick

a proper shot of the palmers

a blurry shot of the hussars (oops, my bad)

me and tabby

me and abby h.

russell b. and moi

then it got a little crazier...

jp rocking the butterfly collar

yes, jo is doing the water sprinkler dance move

her are a few photos of lottie sue in ballet last week.

warming up

lennox, chloe and a lottie sue

that's levitation, holmes

front and center with miss abbey

ok, now to the random part of the post...

i LOVE this dress. i want it badly. but it is $$$.$$.

you can buy it here

see how cute it is on a person? cute and presidential.

my girl crush has a book out - i am 17 in line at the library to read it (here's another review)
one of the funniest running bloggers has an article up on athleta (they have great active wear clothes) - this is her blog: shut up & run!
here's a peek at will ferrell on the office
if you are excited about the hunger games movie you can click here to see who was cast as gale and peeta
here is a link to some unofficial smithsonian ads, but here is one of them

get lost with 20 stunning maps of your favorite fictional sci-fi lands
the times on white fish: broiled, sauteed, roasted and poached
and speaking of food, this is a photo of matt's homemade salsa - it is to die for (soooo delicious)

yummers

i leave you with a few photos of the kids from friday night. we have one of those jeep things and will got in it then drove off like it was nothing. lottie sue doesn't know how to steer yet, really. will loved it and aside from one accident that involved matt pulling the jeep OFF of lottie, the night went well.