Half Marathon recap: lessons in humility

First of all...I DID IT! I survived and I made it across the finish line! We're in full move transition, moving day is October 1, so stay tuned for pictures!!!

Race report:

The course: AMAZING. It was 55 and SUNNY when we got to the start and that is my PERFECT weather for running! Half was on winding roads in the country in East Hampton, some was on a dirt road in a beautiful trail, and the other half lined a beach.

My race: UGH, if there ever a lesson in humility, this was it! As of Friday night before the race, I was NOT running. I was exhausted, sick, coughing and blowing my nose. I went to bed at 8:30 after a WONDERFUL meal cooked for us by Alyssa's wonderful mommy. I told Laurie that if I still felt the same way in the morning, this would not be happening. I woke up the next day rejuvinated and alive! I felt better than I had in a week. Sleep is a miracle worker. Why was this race such a lesson in humility? Well, I was slow. REALLY slow. But Brian had made me promise to come back in one peace, so I had to keep that promise. I started with Laurie but quickly lost her because, well, she's fast! (Her time was 145:49...CRAZY runner!). I missed the Mile 1 marker, and right before I saw the mile 2 marker I thought "I can not do this." But when I saw the mile 2 marker, the countdown began. If I could get to mile 9, I could finish. 7 more miles. My first three miles were 10 minute miles, including stopping at every water station and drinking/walking for 30 seconds. By the time I hit 5 miles, my time was about 1:01, still decent with all my water slugging!!! After mile 6-7, I started to fall into a SLOW rhythm, but it's where I needed to be. I made a few friends along the way; one liked my shirt and we discussed the red dress run. Another was named Carrie, who I met with her friends around mile 6, and then again around mile 10. She and I chatted for a mile or so; she had flown in from Hong Kong the night before to do this! Around 11, I met Wendy. I'm honestly considering doing a "missed connection" on Craigslist for Wendy! She lives 8 blocks from my new apartment, super funny, and I gave her one of my cough drops! She had been sick too, I didn't feel so alone. I lost her in the middle of mile 12 though; I felt nauseous and almost threw up! My lesson in humility took place as I was passed by every. single. person. I usually can do a bit of passing, but seriously, I got passed by everyone. EVERYONE. I was so sad, but I prayed the whole time for Laurie, my husband, my family, anything that came to mind to distract me. I kept repeating these verses:

-I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
- I submit my body to the plans of God (I think that's a verse...)
- I have the mind of Christ.
- No weapon formed against me will prosper.
- I am beautifully and wonderfully made.

And then, in mile 13, this was my mantra: YOU ARE INVINCIBLE. And the famous "Remember the Titans" line, "Fourth quarter...fourth quarter....fourth quarter...." Yes people, I needed extra oomph to finish this race!

Mile 13-13.1: I rounded the corner to the sound of cow bells, cheers, and race commentators on loud speakers. I saw people everywhere cheering me on. I saw the clock click onto 2:28. NO WAY I was having a 2-3-0 in my finish time! So I sprinted. I mean SPRINTED. 2:29:44! At the end I ran passed my new friend Marie, whose husband Steven was running in his first half! To add to the lesson in humility: I started dry heaving at the end of the race. Badly. Thankfully there was nothing in my tummy to throw up, but a few people stopped to see if I was ok...embarrassing...yes I got over it.

I got some post race goodies and split like a banana! We returned to NYC around 4ish after regrouping at my friend Alyssa's AMAZING Hamptons home. Pictures of the kitchen will be shown.

Final thoughts: This race was HARD. I was passed over. and over. and over. I had trained, but this flu/cold/sinus infection almost got the best of me. I am a runner. I ran a half marathon. I am a runner. My legs are sore. I am a runner. I will do this race again. I am a runner.

AND THE YANKEES CLINCHED THE DIVISION! WAHOO!

Half Marathon...less than 48 hours away!

This is a picture of me at my first half marathon in April! It has been that long since I've run 13.1 miles...SHAME! Race report to come soon....here I come Hamptons Half Marathon!

Here are my hopes:

1. That I beat the marathoners!

2. That I don't get sick

3. I'm not coughing up flem (sp?)

4. Blisters will be minimal

5. I don't get discouraged

6. 2:15

Brian has made me promise not to over do it...I haven't run in over two weeks because of stresses in life/sickness (I think I may have had the flu...swine flu anyone?!), and I'm still not 100%...perhaps 90%. So I've made various promises to walk if I feel sick, and there is no shame in resting. I'm leaving directly from work tomorrow with my friend Alyssa, who is GRACIOUSLY hosting us with her mom at their house in South Hampton! Her mommy is a GREAT cook and is preparing us a FABULOUS prerace meal! Yummy!

Wish me luck! GAH I'm so excited to get back out there!

Serving Saturdays...

So here's a quote from one of Bri's tables today (I had no entertaining stories)

Guest: "We'll have bbq wings and jerk wings."

Brian: "Ok."

Guest: "Aren't you going to write this down?" (With a LOT of attitude)

Brian: Pretty sure I've got it.

Word of advice: When ordering, even if it's complicated, don't mess with your server. Chances are we know what we're doing, or we can fix it if we make a mistake! ;-)

P.S. The wings came out without any trouble.

100th post! Giveaway winner! I'm alive! Big News!

Wow this is going to be a great post! Ha, it's bigger than I thought it would be...a few weeks AFTER the original deadline! First of all, congratulations to Melissa W, winner of the giveaway! I put all the names in a hat, for lack of a better system (I know some of you other bloggers had some site or something but I kept forgetting to look it up on your past posts!) and my New York City friend won! Melissa, your prize is coming!!!

So here's some big news...

WE'RE MOVING! Currently Brian and I live in a studio, which is subsidized by the school he works for. However, due to strange but true circumstances, Brian was laid off from his teaching job. Therefore, we lose our apartment...October 1. We found this out right before the Thursday deadline of the giveaway, hence the craziness of my life up until now! First of all, Brian began working full time at the restaurant we've kept as a part time job, completely a blessing and he's happy to have a break from the regular grind for now. Then we began apartment searching, which we started and ended the day we found out we had to move (Thanks, God!), then I began teaching and night school (3 classes), thus my absence from blogging! I've also been absent from running. I will now go through each of my distractions:

APARTMENT SEARCH: We found a great place. It's in Astoria, just 25 blocks from where we live now. Top (third) floor of an individual apartment building. The owner is a dentist, who has her office on the entire first floor, her family's apartment on the second floor, and two apartments on the third floor. We got the bigger of the two, a one bedroom with a balcony, nice size living room and open kitchen. Lots of windows and sunlight! I really like the area, it's halfway between where Brian and I each used to live, so we're very familiar with area. It's way more "city" than where we live now, which is more like a neighborhood. We're also looking for a dog to adopt...stay tuned!

SCHOOL: I don't really like to blog about my job because people can look me up, but everything is going well. I'm currently testing all the kindergarteners with my AMAZING ESL TEAM, basically to see if these new little kiddies speak enough English to not need ESL services. LOTS of official paperwork. We've probably killed a forest x2.

COLLEGE: AGH it's ok. Mulicultural Education, Theories of Second Language Acquisition, and Developing Your Thesis Question. Yes that's 3 classes, 8 credits total. YUCK! Multicultural class is actually turning out to be good, Theories is AWFUL, and Thesis Question is stupid. But this means I will be DONE this Spring! All I will have is the "Executing Thesis" class next semester!!! That's AMAZING! My master's degree completed in May...I'm so close it's RIDICULOUS! That's the only thing that's keeping me going right now.

...and my absence from running. No bold title here. My 1/2 marathon is next weekend, and I have run in 2 weeks. Ugh. I'm nervous to say the least. I ran a little here and there but nothing of substance. And now I have a cold. TRIPLE UGH. Thankfully I have the cold now and not next weekend. Brian has made me promise to take it easy and to not aim for time...and I've agreed to it. This is going to kill me, because it's in the Hamptons, and I know my friend Laurie is going to do an AMAZING job, but training in the summer was NOT for me. The heat negatively affected me numerous times.

So, that's all for now. I've been thinking a lot about blogging, but never got around to it. I will be doing a couple of different things, including Tales from the Subway Tuesdays (Anyone watch The Soup? Tales from Home Shopping???), and Serving Saturdays (Table stories when I wait tables...). I figured I needed to get some sort of consistency and use my HILARIOUS NYC moments to entertain the masses.

99th post!

YES! It's true! Giveaway time is upon us. I will write more about the past few weeks below, but first things first: GIVEAWAY RULES AND PRIZES! Get ready for...

THE ENDLESS SUMMER GIVEAWAY!

Note: This picture is only a graphic, has nothing to do with the giveaway! ;-)

Included in this giveaway are some of my favorite things; a good movie, good recipes and good wine! Now, if you don't prefer wine/alcohol, included will be recipes that you can COOK with the wine, therefore burning off alcohol etc (See I think of EVERYTHING!). Here is what you have have to do to get entries and BONUS (duh duh dunnn) entries:

1 Entry: Comment on my blog


2 Entries: Become part of my little army; also known as a Follower


3 Entries: Go to my friend's AWESOME gift basket blog and comment: http://gift-a-cupcake.blogspot.com/


4 Entries: Become a Follower on gift-a-cupcake!



Now, you will need to inform me about your entries etc...please leave a comment telling me what you did, aka followed my blog, gift-a-cupcake's blog, etc! This contest will run until midnight on Thursday, 9/1/09! GOOD LUCK!

Now on to bloggy things...

I've been all over the place this summer. Connecticut, Rochester, Virginia, Catskills, (Brian climbed Mt. Washington in NH! SO PROUD!), so much going on and so little time! This has been a nice long summer; however, my running is not so nice. Notice how I haven't blogged? Half of it is from being en route somewhere and not having time to blog, and the other half is being EXTREMELY discouraged. The heat got to me on my long run. Twice. I was supposed to do 9 miles and only did 8. I was supposed to do 11 miles and only did 10. My speedwork is non existent. My times are HORRIBLE. I HAVE A HALF MARATHON ON SEPTEMBER 26!!! I also begin work September 8, and I start my three class (Yes, THREE CLASSES) grad school night schedule next week. I need to get committed and get committed FAST (Literally and figuratively). So here are my commitments thus far:

- Healthy diet. Traveling was NOT condusive to this. Brian and I are going on a healthy diet. According to the USDA I should be on a 1500 calorie diet, which I've been doing for 3 days. It's easy to stick with because there's so many online tools to check calories and meal ideas. Why the sudden interest? Runner's Diet Mistakes (A MUST READ!) showed me that I was guilty of at least 3 nutritional no-no's.

- New Gym membership. I'm joining a national gym I think (Planet Fitness) which I can go to even when I travel. Therefore, when I go to Connecticut and feel lazy, I will have no excuse if it's raining or cold!

- No potato chips. EEK I know! I eat chips and salsa so much, it's just not cool. I'll do pita bread or baked pita chips, but I'm stearing clear for now.

- Drinking more tea and less coffee.

- LIMITED dairy. (Just enough for calcium)

- After half marathon is over, more cross training and better running. I want to just be better. I'm sick of 11 minute miles...yes, you read this right...11 minute miles :-/

- Sticking to working out in the midst of my classes. I will be going to school two nights a week: 1 class Wednesdays till 7:30 and two classes back to back Thursdays till 9:10. This is going to be hard, but I'm aiming for 4 workout days in the week.

That's all for now. School begins again soon. EEK! And the child running around in Panera is reminding me of how insane these said children can be. However, I love them still!!!

HAPPY BLOGGING! DO THE GIVEAWAY! I'll even give hints about the movie....