Happy Holidays Everyone!

2010 Marine Corps Marathon

We returned to the real Washington again this year for the 2010 Marine Corps Marathon.

One of the best parts was being in a place where there are seasons! Look at the beautiful fall colors from the airplane.

We made a stop at the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. So much fun!

We got up around 2:30am Pacific Time to get to the race, but seeing D.C. in the early hours was beautiful.

Start Line



Some Wisconsin fans proving: 1. We're everywhere. 2. We just can't help ourselves.



Running through Georgetown

Michael finished his first marathon...officially making us a power couple! (The jackets help.)

2010 Nike Womens Marathon

Nikki and her friend Janine travelled to San Francisco, CA for the 2010 Nike Womens Marathon. (While we had a great time, neither of us endorses this marathon....really, do a different one.....)

It's always fun to play with candy corn on the airplane!

The Bay Area from the air.

Nike spent most of their money on the expo...not so much on race planning/oganization. But the expo was AWESOME.

NikeTown San Francisco was transformed for the marathon. They sold only marathon merchandise and shoes for the whole weekend.

NWM had only four start corrals, about 5000 people per corral. (By comparison, Rock n Roll Seattle had 35 start corrals, reducing the number of people in each corral to 1000.) The first half of the race was more like playing Frogger than running a marathon.

Running by the Golden Gate Bridge was awesome.

The hills, temperature drops and pouring rain were not so awesome.

The chocolate mile was a fun idea, but not too many folks love eating chocolate at mile 21. We stashed ours in Janine's backpack for later.

The wet, sloppy finish line....which was out of space blankets, finisher shirts and finisher necklaces. Race director=Fail. (We've STILL not received our promised finisher necklaces a month and a half later.)

But, we both finished and had tons of fun!

The best part of the day was the nice warm bus back to our hotel!

Nevada Tour 2010

After Michael's return home, we spent a week in Nevada and California on a much-needed vacation.

We started in Las Vegas for a long weekend, and got to witness Wisconsin's thrashing of UNLV.

Then we headed on a long drive up to Lake Tahoe, and stopped in Death Valley along the way.


Michael found us a waterfall in the middle of Death Valley!

Lake Tahoe included lots of hiking...
...and mountain biking.

Then, we finished with a weekend in Reno for Tailhook 2010.

RunRunRun

This fall's theme is RUNNING at the Craig household! With Michael training for his first marathon on October 31st, and Nikki set to do numbers four and five in October, it seems like all we do is work, sleep and run...

In July we did the Seattle Great Urban Race, which is sort of like the TV show 'The Amazing Race' but just a few hours long and all in one city.

Challenges included things like finding a dog's paw to shake, holding a cockroach, building a pizza box while holding hands, etc. And of course, you had to FIND the places to complete these challenges first.

I know you're all wondering...where's Terese?!?!? Don't worry, Terese was there with team-mate Dawn, who you'll remember from Rainier to Ruston.

Both Nikki and Michael ran the Bellingham Bay Half-Marathon as a cold and wet training run in September. Nikki completed her 4th half-marathon within the same 30 seconds on the clock, proving she really only has ONE pace.

Welcome Home Michael!

Michael's 2010 deployment came to a sweet end

at 4:00pm on Monday, July 2010 when the VAQ-140 Patiots returned to NAS Whidbey Island.

Welcome Home Michael!

Komo4 News Video: click here.

The clocks merge...

If you've been watching the clocks on this blog, you've noticed that the 'Nikki' and 'Michael' clocks are slowly but surely moving towards the same time!

Below, from left: Michael, CDR Scott Farr (CO of VAQ-140) and LT Josh Witte on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Eisenhower as it transits the Suez Canal, in the best direction.

(Forgive Michael's pimp hat, his haircut is far too horrible for public view.)

Below: Michael, and his pimp hat, in a stadium in Italy. He's not so great at explaining pictures, so your guess is as good as mine about where this was taken.

2010 Rock n Roll Seattle Marathon

Nikki finished her first full marathon of 2010, the Rock n Roll Seattle Marathon. She beat last year's time by 21 minutes!

Since Nikki doesn't do anything without Terese anymore, of course they ran it together. This is at the start line.

Finally finished! We rocked!

One wave of 35 starting. There were 27,000 runners this year.

Rainier to Ruston Trail Relay

Nikki and three of her friends...Terese, Janine and Dawn ran the Rainier to Ruston race last weekend. Rainier to Ruston is a 51 mile trail relay from Mt. Rainier to Tacoma, WA. It was very fun!

You can check out the website here: www.rainiertoruston.com

At the start, Mt. Rainier:

The front of our team vehicle. Our team was Benz and the Beanstalks...because Dawn is regular sized, and Nikki, Terese and Janine are all freakishly tall.

Nikki running in downtown Tacoma:

Finished with my legs:

At the finish line, Ruston Way in Tacoma: