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Have I mentioned that my wife has become a marathon-running machine? Not only did she do the More Magazine/Fitness Magazine Half Marathon back in April, last weekend she and her friend Laura did another one: The Superhero Half Marathon and Relay in Morris County, New Jersey! Benefitting Meals on Wheels and the American Cancer Society, participants of the race were encouraged to dress up as superheroes, either established characters or one of their own making. Here’s Alexa as her own superhero, the Poison Dart (note the homemade frog symbol):

There are a bunch of fun pictures of the race itself and other costumes at Flickr! (Also, it was announced that they had created a new Guinness world record of most superheroes in one place with nearly 1,700 superheroes on site! Woohoo!)

Now Alexa is taking a much-needed break from marathons and resting up for the next one in October: the Divas Half Marathon in Long Island!

Alexa ran 13.1 miles this morning in the More Magazine + Fitness Magazine Women’s Half Marathon in Central Park! It was her very first half marathon, and I couldn’t be prouder!

We spent Saturday in a pre-race sign-making arts and crafts session.

This is Alexa all suited up for the race at oh-God-early-o’clock this morning. You can’t see the clock on the microwave behind her, but its numbers would make no rational sense anyway. THAT’S HOW EARLY IT WAS!

Here I am cheering Alexa on with one of the more popular signs we made. Lots of passing runners gave it the thumbs-up, laughed, and/or told me it was great. Some even stopped to take pictures. I’m glad I could give people a few smiles during that grueling final stretch.

After the race, Alexa received a medal! Here she is Hulking out with her friend and coworker Laura, who ran the race with her.

It was a great day, and Alexa was amazing! She won’t admit it, but I think she’s totally hooked on races now. I’m certainly hooked on cheering for her!

More of my pictures from the big race can be seen here.

Last weekend, Alexa and I went to Syracuse University’s Palitz Gallery, housed in an oh-my-God beautiful building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, to take in their current exhibit: Orange Pulp: The Pulp Magazine and Contemporary Culture. Though it was a delightful exhibit, it was disappointingly small, fitting entirely into a tiny, single-room gallery, mostly because it showcased only 61 works, the great majority of which were digest-sized magazines.

Also on display were some gorgeous oil paintings for pulp book covers by Norman Saunders. This one reminds me a lot of the paintings Glen Orbik did for the Gabriel Hunt series I wrote for:

An unexpected treasure was this copy of the issue of Astounding Stories that features H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”:

And my favorite exhibit piece of all, this certificate of payment to H.P. Lovecraft for “At the Mountains of Madness.” He was paid a whopping $350. Alas, some things never change!

The exhibit runs through April, so if you’re in the NYC area, I highly recommend checking it out. Admission is free! In the meantime, here are more pictures from my visit to tide you over.