Medal-ed

Sorry... another post without pictures.... I forgot to take one when I finished, but I figured I would let the results be known.. I'm still alive from my half marathon debut. It took me 2:59:24... which means that I made it within my personal goal by 36 seconds... Woohoo! I mean, I would have liked to be done faster than that, but I'll take it! I ran with Al Roker for about 5 miles. I mean, I didn't run "with", but I definitely ran behind and next to and in front of him for quite a while, and it took me about 3 miles to figure out who the guy was running with an in-shape person and a person on a bicycle. Best news though, I beat him by about 3 minutes. Woohoo!

Next time (if there is one..) I would like to be faster than 2:45... we'll see if that happens. John and I might end up running a 10 mile in November. I hope to get in better shape for that one, and train more than 6 weeks and run more than 5 miles during said training. We'll see how it goes though. :)

Now the countdown begins for our trip to Europe. We have booked hotels, plane tickets, and train tickets... I can't believe we are almost there. I've told my office that if I get any sort of job while on vacation, I will not be returning to my current position.... I don't know that they believe me, but I would do bike tours, I would sell cheese (my friend's sister sells cheese in the Netherlands and she always has delicious cheese when she visits).... I would hmmm.... I don't know my limit... but I love visiting and it's always so hard for me to come home.

We are starting a travel blog for our experience .... I'm trying to get John into blogging so that people don't have to listen to me all the time. :) It will also show our trip and pictures and the likes which will hopefully be good? We'll see how it works out. (Ohhhh... and the blog will be up soon, but it's still in progress so I won't post it just yet...)

We are still looking to find Sheeba a home. We are also looking forward to having a dog-free home. Call that heartless, what have you, but it's been such an eye-opening experience about how UN-ready we are for a dog! She's so wonderful, but she needs a yard... she needs a suburb! All things that we cannot offer. We are hoping that she finds something before we leave so that we can come home to a dog-hair-free zone. (Crossing fingers)

Otherwise we are gearing up for the next couple of weekends. Lifehouse at Ravinia (yes, we are reliving the late 90's and early 00's).... Dubuque, Iowa (every one's favorite vacation spot).... and then the most ridiculously full Labor Day weekend ever.... Fantasy football draft, Guster at Ravinia, Beer Olympics, and a Cubs game... Phew... all to take it easy so that we can get pack and get ready to be gone for 15 days... Yeah, we might be dirty Americans in Europe... I hate laundry........

What have I gotten myself into?

The time has come... one of my "resolutions" is coming to fruition.... My half marathon is SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!! When I signed up back in February, it seemed as though I had ages to train, get ready, get in shape, etc etc etc. Weird how quickly that times passes. My biggest problem is that I may have (okay, I most defnitely did) stopped my training about a month ago... Mainly because I didn't so much get the runners high at 6 miles and from then on motivation was severely lacking. The one thing it did is teach me that if I really want to, I can in fact get up at 6:15 in the morning to go for a run. I didn't think that was possible. It also showed me that if I were to keep at it, I would actually like running again like I did in college. I just have to work a little bit harder so that I'm not out of breath before I even reach the lakefront path (0.75 miles away from my door)... With that in mind (the out of breath part) this Sunday should be interesting as I only need to go approximately 17.5 times that distance to complete the race.

It is the Rock 'N' Roll Half Marathon though, which means that bands will be playing, people will be excited, or at least as excited as they can be with a race that starts at 6:30 in the morning... so I'm really hoping the adrenaline and the excitement of everything will at least get me through the first 5 miles. The good news is that the max time limit for the race is 3.5 hours, which equates out to a 16 minute mile. That means that if I at least run part of it, I will be golden since I usually walk a 15 minute mile so I could probably stop and listen to a band for a few minutes and still at least finish in the time limit (assuming I don't enter a running/exercise induced stupor that requries medical attention).... So that keeps me going.

I started freaking out about 2 days ago since it's just right around the corner. I have about 6 people I know running in the race too, all of which have been diligent in their training.... So I started wondering if I was going to make an ass of myself. I don't particularly like making an ass of myself (although I think I do it with relative frequency - I just don't like to walk in knowing it's going to happen). My freakout caused me to google phrases like "what's the average time for a first timer's half marathon"... "is it embarrassing to finish a half marathon in over 3 hours"... "is it worth running a half marathon in over 3 hours or should I just give up"..... Strangely enough there were actually things that pop up with some of those searches. I came to realize that even the 1 hr 30 min half marathoners were encouraging and saying that you should just go through with it because who else can really say that they ran for 3 hours on a Sunday morning. I guess that makes sense, but I'm still pretty sure I'm going to have a hard time dealing with the feeling of humiliation (warranted or not, I still am feeling it right now).... We'll see how it goes.

So with that, I am calling upon my avid reader(s?) to think of me on Sunday morning and send me thoughts of athleticism and quick feet so that hopefully I can make it through for the medal at the end of the race!

Soon to come - udpates on our European vacation planning (just around the corner!), updates on Sheeba - seriously does anyone know someone in a place somewhere that has a high fence and no other pets that wants a 4 yo dog ? No? Too many disclaimers?......