![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/erin-and-matt-photo.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOn Monday, Erin and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary!<\/p>\n
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I’d love to tell you that the reason there was no blog post yesterday is because we snuck off for a spontaneous mid-week getaway to a bed and breakfast to pamper ourselves and celebrate.\u00a0 The reality is that there was a server issue that kept the blog down for most of the day, and still it doesn’t seem to be working quite right.\u00a0 Almost as romantic.<\/p>\n
Monday wasn’t really the ideal day for an anniversary.\u00a0 We both had long days at school\/work, and neither of us would get home until seven o’clock.\u00a0 As I was driving home, I tried to think of something to make for dinner that would be just a little bit special.<\/p>\n
On both our honeymoon and our first anniversary, Erin and I shared a bottle of our favorite wine, Brunello di Montalcino, and we had kind of hoped to make it a tradition.\u00a0 But with Erin being pregnant, that wasn’t going to happen this year.\u00a0 Not because I couldn’t bear to drink it without Erin, but because Brunello is way too damn expensive to open and not finish!<\/p>\n
So no Brunello this year.\u00a0 And no Champagne either.\u00a0 Unless…<\/p>\n
![\"Close](\"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/asparagus-risotto.jpg\")
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Champagne risotto!\u00a0 I remembered a Giada de Laurentiis recipe I had used for New Years once.\u00a0 Perfect!\u00a0 Easy and a little bit special.\u00a0 The alcohol would cook off since it goes into the pan early.\u00a0 Since Erin wouldn’t be drinking any Champagne, I couldn’t justify opening a full bottle, so I pulled out the little commemorative bottle I got at the Wineglass Marathon!\u00a0 (Enjoy the photo with the autumn trees reflected in the glass…that’s as artistic as this mathematician gets.)<\/p>\n
![\"Commemorative](\"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/wineglass-marathon-champagne-photo.jpg\")
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So I whipped up the Champagne risotto — well, New York sparkling wine risotto — with asparagus.\u00a0 (And realized that risotto would seem a lot more special if I didn’t cook it all the time.)<\/p>\n
While I was doing that, Erin made us a little salad.<\/p>\n
![\"Close](\"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/anniversary-salad-photo.jpg\")
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Top it all off with some strawberry sorbetto and some Q.T., and I’d say we made the best of the little time we had together on our second anniversary.<\/p>\n
Wedding anniversaries don’t have much to do with running and fitness.\u00a0 But it is neat for me to look back at how far we’ve come in just two years.\u00a0 At the time we got married, neither Erin nor I was doing any kind of physical activity.\u00a0 I had run the Shamrock marathon in March, but when my foot was hurting in the days after the race I discovered a small stress fracture.\u00a0 I took a few weeks off, and just like that, a few weeks became seven months.<\/p>\n
But in late December of that year, about two months after the wedding, Erin and I started running together.\u00a0 Nothing hard, just some nice runs around the neighborhood.\u00a0 As New Year’s approached, we thought we’d try to keep it going by resolving to train for a half marathon.\u00a0 Together.<\/p>\n
In April we ran the Charlottesville half marathon, after doing every single training run together.\u00a0 And from there, we both trained harder and more consistently than we ever had, in order to get in shape for the Baltimore marathon.\u00a0 Three months after that, we ran the Disney marathon.\u00a0 Then Erin got a roadbike, we went vegetarian, I started blogging about it all, and finally I ran Wineglass and qualified for Boston.<\/p>\n
Moral: you can change a lot in two years, especially when you have the right person there to change along with you.\u00a0 And this isn’t even counting the baby that’s on the way!<\/p>\n