My lovely friend Katie got me the above hanger to hang my wedding dress on. I love it, and it’s so beautiful, but I have to admit seeing my soon-to-be last name like that still kind of freaks me out a bit.

I actually went back and forth on whether I was going to change my name or not. For awhile I thought I wouldn’t, and then I thought maybe I’d change it personally but keep my current last name professionally, and finally I decided “go big or go home” if I’m going to change my name I might as well just change it! Hyphenation isn’t for me and neither is juggling two different last names depending on whether I’m in personal-mode or professional-mode.

Also, over the past 14 months of being engaged, something has shifted in the way I think about relationships and specifically my relationship. To me, marriage is so much more than just saying “I do” and some vows in front of family and friends. It really signifies a partnership and a team. Something like changing my name that didn’t seem that important 14 months ago has suddenly became very important to me because I want to go through the rest of my life with the same last name as my husband and the same last name as my (eventual, one day, far-in-the-future) children. I feel like it’s just another sign of our partnership and unified front. This is just my opinion of course, I’m not saying if you chose not to change your name you don’t view your husband/wife as a partner

At the same time, my current name is not “just a name” to me. It’s something I’ve had my entire life. It’s mine. It was my name when I graduated high school, university, received my first byline and more. So while I am excited for this next step in my life with my new name I am also a little sad to be letting my old name go.

So that’s kind of where I am on the changing name thing. I’m doing it. I’m excited to share the same name as my soon-to-be husband but I’m also a little sad to let go of a piece of me and my past.

Questions of the day: For the ladies, did you change your name or will you when you get married? For the men, did your wife? Did you want her to or did you care? 

OK, here is the recap of our weekend away when we FINALLY visited our wedding venue and met with our wedding planner almost exactly a year after booking it!!!! This is a wordy post, be warned

Friday

Friday morning we dropped Chloe off at the kennel bright and early at 7:30 AM and got on the road to the coast, which is approximately a four hour drive. We were about 30 minutes out of town when I literally gasped out loud and screamed “the hockey tickets!!!” So back to Kamloops we went… I bought these tickets back in September and paid a pretty penny for them. SO GLAD I remembered before we were further out, or worse, already in Vancouver!

Anyways, since we got an early start we still made our 1:20 PM ferry over to the coast despite the delay. Once we got across the ferry it was about a 45-minute drive up the coast to our venue! A beautiful drive along the ocean I might add:

We started at our wedding planners where we saw a mock set-up of our tables for the reception and met with the bakers who will be doing our cupcakes for the dessert table. Both meetings went great and I am so excited about the decorations we’ll have at the reception and the delicious desserts for our dessert table!

Then it was time for the long awaited venue visit! You guys, it was stunning. Eric and I were both so pleased. It was just as amazing and gorgeous as we’d imagined it would be.

The approximate area where we will be doing our first look:

The view from our upgraded honeymoon cabin that night:

We met with the wedding manager at the resort and talked some logistical things, met with our JP and talked some more logistical things and took a tour of the resort. It felt good to get some decisions solidified and every single person we met was fantastic!

After saying “see you in 3 months” to our wedding planner we headed back to the cabin to freshen up and then up to the resort restaurant for an amazing dinner. Since we are doing a buffet we weren’t able to try the exact things that are going to be on our menu but we did get a chance to see just how delicious the food is there!

We had a few glasses of wine and enjoyed watching the sun set over the exact spot we’ll be getting married in a few short months. It was a fabulous night!

Saturday:

After a very restful sleep in our cabin with the sound of waves crashing against the rocks to lull us to sleep we went up to the resort for breakfast. Again, the food didn’t disappoint! I had eggs benedict with smoked salmon and Eric had crab cakes eggs benedict.

We got a tour of one of their amazing tenthouse suites before getting on the road back to Vancouver. I admit I was a little sad to leave and can’t wait to go back in three months for the wedding!

We checked into our hotel in Vancouver and headed downtown for some shopping before the Canucks game. Unfortunately it was POURING rain and walking around outside was not the most enjoyable thing so we actually ended up at the arena and hour early and enjoyed a few drinks before the game started. And we visited one of the team stores so Eric could purchase some Canucks apparel!

We had so much fun at the game despite the extremely obnoxious and drunk guy beside us who felt the need to repeatedly tell us he was from Washington but had been a Canucks fan his whole life and then would apologize for being soooo drunk every five minutes. After the first period I told him maybe he should eat something and when we came back from getting more drinks and using the washroom he was eating a hot dog and calmed down a lot for the rest of the game. Thank god!

The Canucks won in overtime, by the way! We had SO much fun at the game!

Sunday:

As I mentioned yesterday I woke up tired and a bit hungover on Sunday morning. Luckily Britt was a trooper and met me for a run anyways and I did get to run the gorgeous seawall in Vancouver and preview the last 12ish km of the marathon course which was really fun. Even though I felt like crap it did get me pumped up for the marathon!

After getting back to the hotel on Sunday Eric and I went for breakfast and got on the road just after 11 am. I saw several people posting photos on Facebook of SNOW in Kamloops (Mother Nature’s April Fools joke?) so Eric and I decided to take the back way home from Vancouver. Further and not a freeway, but also a lot lower elevation and better road conditions.

The drive was GORGEOUS and the roads were completely bare but it took us a full 6 hours to get home from Vancouver (it usually takes about 4 – 4.5) so we were home later in the evening than we originally planned. I was exhausted Sunday night and planted myself on the couch where I stayed until Game of Thrones came on and then went straight to bed at 9 PM!

***

And that was our weekend! Insanely busy but also very enjoyable. I love getting away with Eric. We always have so much fun together and I always miss him a little bit that first Monday back to work after we take a vacation together and spend a few full days together.

It was SO great to finally see our wedding venue in person. I can’t wait to be back there saying “I do” in just over three months!!

Question of the day: How was your weekend? What did you do?

Training so far:

• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 1
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 2
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 3
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 4
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 5
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 6
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 7
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 8
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 9
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 10
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 11
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 12

***

Well, after several great weeks – and great long runs – in a row, I think I was due for a bad week and week 13 was certainly it. The only way I can possibly describe this week is tired. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. It was an exhausting week all around and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t feel totally drained honestly. I’m actually almost embarrassed to share this week because it was SO bad for training. But it is what it is. Onwards and upwards!

Oh and I ran 125.2 miles (201.5 km) in March!

Monday – 75 minute yang / yin yoga class

The exhaustion started Monday morning after my 20-miler. I woke up with plans to spin out my legs on the bike but I literally could not drag myself out of bed. I did manage to drag myself to a 75-minute yoga class that night that was half moksha flow and half yin yoga. It felt great to stretch out my muscles in yoga and my legs felt surprisingly good considering I’d just ran on them for 3.5 hours the day before!

Tuesday – REST

Big plans of going for a run on Tuesday morning but I once again couldn’t get myself out of bed. I had a massage after work which felt amazing and then went for dinner with two college girlfriends.

Wednesday – 6-mile hill workout

7 x 600 m hill workout. Omg. What a dramatic morning this was for me. First off, I had to work until 8:30 PM on Wednesday night so I wasn’t going to work until 10 am. That would give me plenty of time to knock off my 10 x 600 m hill workout. I was out the door by 6:30 AM for it.

Honestly, this workout was hard. Every single hill was a struggle and I remember thinking I was going to blog about how mentally tough this workout was for me. I came riding down from hill #7 thinking how I only had three more to go and discovered my jacket and water bottle were gone.

These are the same hills I always run with my group and always leave my jacket and water bottle in the same spot. Apparently since it was the morning maybe someone thought it had been left there? I dunno. I went into the school to ask around and no-one knew anything. At this point I’d spent about 20 minutes looking for it and was tired, defeated and didn’t really want to do a single ‘nother hill repeat so home I went. Eric ended up finding my stuff at the lost and found later that day so obviously it was just someone trying to be helpful, which I appreciate, but a note to everyone – if you ever find a sweaty jacket on the ground and a full water bottle please don’t touch it! It is most likely a runners and it will seriously disrupt their workout.

/end rant.

6.0 miles / 1:04:56 / 10:50 pace
9.65 km / 6:43 pace

Thursday – 5-mile run

Three miles on the road by myself followed by two in the trails with Chloe. I felt OK during my road miles but as soon as I hit the trails I felt super fatigued and my legs were heavy. Probably from the hills the day before.

5.0 miles / 51:51 / 10:23 pace
8.0 km / 6:27 pace

Friday – REST

Didn’t really have any other options this day since we were super busy driving all morning and then had a bunch of wedding appointments in the afternoon (more on that in tomorrow’s recap).

Saturday – REST

Eric and I did walk about 3 – 4 km around Vancouver on Saturday but I’m pretty sure the six drinks I had at the hockey game far outweighed that… We did have a super fun night though! (also more on that tomorrow). This day was also too busy to really fit a workout in.

Sunday – 9.1 mile / 14.6 km run

I woke up exhausted and hungover on Sunday morning to rain and major winds in Vancouver. I had been looking forward to running 24ish km on the marathon route with Britt but was not so excited about it after waking up to that weather. Luckily, Britt was a trooper despite being pretty sick with a chest cold and met me in the lobby of my hotel (a 45 minute drive for her!!) bright and early at 7 am and we were off.

We decided to run the seawall portion of our route first and see how we both felt. She was sick and I was exhausted and the wind was blowing hard but we pushed through and chatted the whole way about everything from wedding planning to health to running. After doing the seawall and getting back to the hotel in about 15K (9.1 miles) we both decided we were done. Despite the gorgeous scenery and the weather clearing up a lot near the end I have not felt that exhausted on a long run in a long time.

I’d reached my breaking point apparently.

However, I was very happy to have the chance to preview the last 12ish km of the marathon course. It’s going to be a tough one. While the seawall is absolutely gorgeous it is also deceiving, and a bit lonely. Every time you turn a corner you feel like you should almost be done but you’re not!  It makes for a very long 10ish km and I’m glad I had the chance to run it, and mentally prepare myself for that before race day.

9.1 miles / 1:41:03 / 11:07 pace
14.6 km / 6:54 pace

Training Tally:

Miles/Km ran last week: 20.1 miles / 32 km

Training-to-date mileage: 336.4 miles / 540.75

Yoga: 75 minutes

Strength Training: 0 minutes

Cycling/Spinning: 0 minutes

Thoughts:

Last night I had the evening and the house to myself and managed to get some downtime in which was really good for me. I think last week was hard for me because I had a HUGE week the week before and my body was ready for taper. Well, now I’ve had a mini taper and it’s time to buck up for two more weeks before real taper is here. This marathon training cycle has gone extremely well for me but bad weeks and bad runs are to be expected when training for a big event like this.

I should also add that I’m extremely proud of myself for having a great time on Saturday night despite the looming long run the next day. Last marathon training cycle I never would have done that but this cycle I remembered what I’d told myself right from the very beginning – life comes first. I bought the tickets for the hockey game back in September as a Christmas present for Eric and it was a much-needed weekend away for both of us. In the end, those kinds of things are more important than this race and I’m happy to have found a better balance this time around.

However, I do plan to clean up my eating and mostly cut out the drinking for the next five weeks until race day

Question of the day: How do you bounce back from a tough training week?