bugsii

I got a new Runner’s World today.  I got excited.  I always get excited.  But, here’s the thing.  I still have an issue and a half waiting for my under my nightstand.  In the “old days” I would read an entire Runner’s World front to back, literally every word, in a few hours.  Dan would tell me to put it down because he knew that I was always disappointed when I finished and had to wait another whole month.  Oh, how times have changed.  I still love Runner’s World, but even the books by my bed are school related.  When I read my magazine, I’m usually just thinking that I should be reading something else.  It’s tragic, I know.  Maybe I’ll try to relax a bit tonight and catch up on my back issues.

Yesterday the big snowstorm descended on Columbus.  We were supposed to get 8 or 9 inches, but downtown only ended up getting about 4.  I decided that this meant it was safe enough for me to drive to the rec, so I did.  But, I forgot about that cleaning off the car business, which was a workout in itself.  I couldn’t get the very top of the car, so I left the neighborhood with 4 inches of snow on my roof, in addition to really wet gloves.  I hate that.  The streets were pretty clear and there were lots of parking spaces at the rec, so that was nice.  And, on the way home I saw a snowman Brutus!  The face was carved perfectly and it even had flexing arms.  I was going to turn around and take a picture, but I’m trying to make my car a “no phone zone” like Oprah told me to.  My apologies.  Also on the way home, that 4 inches of snow that was on my roof loosened up enough that when I stopped at a red light, it all slid onto my windshield.  Awesome.  No worries though, the windshield wipers did the trick.

I did schoolwork all afternoon until it was time to go out to dinner for Ben’s birthday part two.  We went to Gameworks at Easton.  Gameworks has this deal where if you eat a 1.25 lb burger, then you get a free $10 game card.  You have to eat the WHOLE burger and the side.  Everyone tried the challenge (but me), and though there was some grimacing and deep breathing (well, except for Matt), everyone finished and received their prize.  Here we all are, ridonculous burgers in hand.

That's a lot of meat!

After that, we played some games… while trying to keep down those big burgers.

Look at that face!

This is a familar scene... from Tokyo to Columbus.

And, now we’re back at Ben’s house watching some UFC.  Happy Birthday, Ben!

Last night I got ten hours of sleep.  A ridiculous amount if you ask me.  When I get that much sleep, I always seem to remember my crazy dreams and last night I had another dream about being late for Marcy’s wedding (even though it’s over).  This time, all the bathrooms in the house were in use, so I went outside to find a bathroom and got lost at a carnival.  By the time I found someone to drive me back to the church, the clock said 9:88 and I had no idea what that meant, but the wedding in my dream was at 10, so I was afraid I missed it.  Yeah, I know, bizarre.  I woke up all nervous and glad that it was just a dream.

Last night it snowed, so this afternoon, I took a lovely run in the snow.  It was still snowing a bit, but it had also warmed up, so it was more of a slushy run.  My feet were all wet by the end and that hot shower felt great.  I love snowy runs.

Dan had to run some “errands” today, so I stayed home and did laundry while I slowly packed for Cincinnati.  I think it took me about four hours to pack, which must be a record.  The problem was that as I packed I was both doing laundry and watching episodes of 30 days on hulu.  It’s a really great show and I highly recommend it.  It’s by the guy that did Supersize Me.  When Dan got home, he also slowly packed and then we headed down to Cincinnati.  I’m looking forward to a relaxing week with family.  Uncle Ray gets in Monday night!

If you knew my dad at all, you knew that every winter he wore this ridiculous 20-year-old Kent State stocking cap, with a large, even more ridiculous fuzzy ball on top.  He wore it to all of my games and field trips in school.  He wore it to church.  He wore it everywhere, all winter.  “It’s warm,” he said.  For the race, since I was dedicating it to my dad, I wanted to wear this hat.  Alas, the hat is missing, lost in the shuffle.  So, I decided to get my own version.

Ridiculous Ohio State Hat

This hat was nice and warm, but after about a mile it was a little too warm.  I kept it on the whole race though, and I liked it.  I thought I might get a few “Go Bucks!”, but I fear I was far from Buckeye country.  I only got one “O-H!” and that was at mile 5.  I thought Buckeye fans were everywhere.

Dan and I got downtown around 7, about an hour before race time.  We snuck into to the Holiday Inn’s lobby to stay warm.  At about 7:45, we headed out to line up.  It was in the low 30s and sunny, very nice weather for a winter marathon.  The race started in waves, so as each corral left, I slowly walked forward, waving goodbye to Dan.  We headed out downhill and by mile 2, the Mississippi River was in full view.  It’s pretty huge and there were even steamboats out!  I think I might have spotted Huck Finn!  Then, we headed back uphill toward Beale Street where there are a bunch of Blues cafes and a statue of Elvis (the whole area also smelled like fried food!).  Mile 3 brought us back close to the start and I got to wave to Dan one more time before we headed away from downtown.  At mile 5, we reached St. Jude.  There was a big balloon archway, kids and families everywhere and signs that said “Thank you!”  I fought back tears.  Eventually I just had to keep my eyes on the asphalt.  It was too overwhelming.  I felt my dad with me then, so proud.  He always wanted to go visit the hospital and here I was, having raised well over my $500 goal, running a marathon right through the hospital grounds.  He would have loved to have been right there with me. He was in a way, but I also wished he could have really been there.  He would have been bawling like a baby.  That was my dad.  He had a big heart.  After St. Jude, we headed out through a nice neighborhood to a nice park and then back downtown.  I felt really good and I finished with a PR (personal record)!  My fastest half marathon before this was a 2:12 and today I ran in 1:56!  I even felt like I could have kept going!  It was such a great race!

After the race, I peeled off my sweaty hat, and we headed back to the hotel for quick showers.  Then, we needed to get some Memphis Barbecue!  Dan found a place called Corky’s, which claimed that they had the best BBQ in Memphis.  Dan got some good ribs (according to him) and I was very happy with a delicious baked potato, corn on the cob, and a salad.  They also had good rolls that were covered with butter on the outside and served with some more butter on the side.  The south is not the land of the health nut, that’s for sure.

After our yummy lunch, we had plans to visit Graceland.  I don’t know what I expected, but it was way better than I thought.  It was pretty cool to see Elvis’ house preserved perfectly since the 1970s.  I’ve never seen so many mirrors in a house in all my life.  And, since it’s Christmas time, it was all decked out with original decorations (white trees and tinsel and everything!).  Dan got some really good pictures of the estate (and of the marathon) and you can see them if you click on “piictures” above!

After Graceland, we got on the rode and drove halfway home, so we would have a shorter trip tomorrow.  So, here I sit in Elizabethtown, KY.  Dan’s watching some UFC and I’m going to bed.  That PR wiped me out!  What a great day in Memphis!

This morning, Dan and I got up early to head to Memphis for my half marathon.  It was a nine hour trip and Dan drove the whole way.  He let me get some work done revising an article, emailing and finishing Twilight.  We stopped a few times to eat and take bathroom breaks, but we made pretty good time.  The tiger-striped dinosaur in Kentucky was the highlight of the trip.  At some point we also stopped in the middle-of-nowhere Tennessee for an emergency bathroom break.  The only two things at this exit were a gas station and a pinball museum.  The pinball museum was a glorified trailer with shoe polish on the windows and the gas station had an outhouse!  An outhouse!  “I can hold it a little longer,” I told Dan.

When we finally  arrived in Memphis, one of the first things we saw was St. Jude’s!  It’s a huge complex of buildings right off of the highway and it made my heart flutter a little to see it.  It made my fund raising a little more real.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

A few exits later, we were downtown parking in a church parking lot and walking over to the expo to pick up my race packet.  I love race expos.  Everyone is all a buzz and excited for the race.  This one seemed especially exciting as it was for such a good cause.  At the expo I bought some St. Jude gloves (I forgot mine) and a mug (I’m a sucker for a souvenir mug).  Then, Dan and I headed back to our hotel to order pizza and relax.  This sounds like a simple task, but if you could have heard Dan try to order pizza, you would have been rolling on the floor laughing.  It was one of the most difficult conversations I have ever heard.  I’m not sure, I think it was Dan’s yankee accent, but the guy must have asked him to repeat himself about toppings SIX times.  I’m not exaggerating.  It was hilarious.  And then his name, his nice, simple name… This is what I heard: “Dan.”  “D-A-N.”  “Yeah, a D.”  “As in delta.”  “Delta.”  “D as in delta, A, N, Dan.”  And can you even imagine what happened with Angelone?!?  Holy cow, it was a nightmare.  A really hilarious nightmare. 

But, I’ve recovered from my laughing fit and am tucked in bed with my Runner’s World and hot herbal tea (free in the lobby!).  Tomorrow’s going to be a great day!

I got the super secret, super elite Google Wave invite from my former boss the other day (Thanks, Eric!), but I had to wait until today to try it out since I was busy finishing up my exams.  I’m not really sure how I feel about it yet, but I know I need more contacts (which is sort of impossible because of the whole “invite” business).  Google Wave is supposed to be the next generation of email and I guess it works more like a chat/conversation (?).  I tried to start a “wave” with Dan and Eric (my only contacts) so that I could figure out how it works a little better, but later I asked Dan if he got my wave and he didn’t because it doesn’t email him (which I guess would be beside the point).  He had to go to his wave account to see my wave.  Hmm.  I don’t know about this.

It reminds me of the day way back in ‘94 when we got AOL and my dad was all excited about my having a screen name and he showed me how chat worked.  And I was all excited and signed into chat and… had no one to talk to.  I imagined that it would be really cool, if my friends also had computers and AOL, but not that many people did at that point.  I mean, imagine Facebook with only a few friends.  Not fun.  Eventually wave will be opened up to everyone (gmail started with the same invite deal), but I’m not convinced it will replace email.  We’ll see.

Sometimes I think about all these new technologies and I wonder what my dad would have said about them, geek that he was.  Wikis, blogs, twitter, facebook, skype, Garmins, iPhones, google wave… man alive, he would have loved this stuff.  Although he liked to be surprisingly grouchy about some things (like cell phones… after he got in a fight with the Motorola people because they wouldn’t give him unlimited minutes for $20 a month).  On a side note, I’m headed to Memphis tomorrow for the St. Jude’s Half Marathon, in honor of the old grouch!  If you still want to donate you can do so here:

https://waystohelp.stjude.org/sjVPortal/public/displayUserPage.do?userId=315633&programId=401&eventId=55854

This morning, as I walked to work in the 30 something degree weather, I kicked around quite a few used gel packs.  This weekend, while I was at the wedding, thousands of people were running the Columbus Marathon.  When I got to work, my coworker who lives near the course in German Village told me how cool it was to watch all of the runners go by.  I’m looking very forward to my St. Jude’s Marathon coming up on December 5.  I’m officially on week 12 of the 18 week training.

If you are still thinking about donating to my cause.  Here’s the link:

https://waystohelp.stjude.org/sjVPortal/public/displayUserPage.do?userId=315633&programId=401&eventId=55854

Muchas gracias!

Today marks the beginning of my second week of half marathon training.  It seems like most of the people that want to do the half marathon are first timers and want to walk so I found a schedule just for walkers at this link:

http://www.marathonwalking.com/schedule_ez_half.html

It’s also only for fourteen weeks, which means that you can wait to start for 3 weeks or you can just build some base miles until then (by repeating the first week three extra times).

If you want to run/walk, I also found a program.  Run/walkers usually run for a few minutes, walk for a few mintes and alternate for the whole race.  Here’s a link to that schedule:

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:Jg_tBHylKWkJ:www.cannonballrunrace.com/trainingplans/halfmarathonrunwalk.pdf+walk-run+half+marathon&hl=en&gl=us

That one’s only a ten week program, so if you’re a beginner, you might want to build a base in the next 7 weeks rather than waiting.  You can just repeat the first three weeks twice or something like that.

That’s all for now, happy running!

Last night I got over-involved in trying to find hotels in Japan and I ended up being up until past midnight and too tired to blog.  Not much was going on though really.  Work was work and then we picked up Dan’s parents from the airport.  They were more than impressed with my new owie.  And Dan got a cool new lens for our camera so he took a neat picture of it.

Check out that depth of field!

Act I

I got to sleep in today, which doesn’t happen that often.  The thing is, when I sleep in, I remember my dreams a lot more often.  My dream last night?  I went on a date with Barack Obama.  I’m not kidding.  From what I can remember, he was quite a gentlemen and when he talked about universal healthcare… just dreamy.  But seriously, what kind of nerd dreams about the president of the United States?  I am so lame.  However, I do think he’s the most attractive president at least since JFK.  Right?  I just hope that tonight I don’t have any dreams about Dennis Kucinich (shudder).

Act II

It was a beautiful day.  A little cloudy and breezy, perfect running weather.  It was also the first run on my new schedule to prepare for the Memphis Half Marathon.  So, what do I do?  I trip and fall and really mess up my elbow.  It was toward the end of my run and I was hot, tired, and I just so happened to come across an uneven sidewalk.  Not a good combination.  I have scrapes on my hands, elbow, hip and knee.  Remember when you were a kid and you fell all the time and it was no big deal?  When you become a big lumbering adult, you fall a lot less often and when you do it’s so much worse.  You can’t just stand up and brush yourself off.  When I fell and saw my bloody elbow I thought I was going to pass out or throw up… twice.  I had to stop and put my head between my legs.  And I’m thinking, really?  I just got scraped up.  I held it together though until Dan got home, then I cried like a little girl.  He bandaged me up and said, “Running sure is a tough sport.”  Yeah, yeah.

Act III

For dinner tonight, Dan and I went out to eat with some ODE buddies.  My boss’s last day is Friday, so it was sort of a going away dinner and I’m sad because he’s a pretty cool boss.  We met at a coworker’s house in German Village.  She lives with her daughter and her daughter is an artist.  They had cool art all over the house, but I was a little startled when I saw this in the backyard:

Plaster statue

Scary, huh?  But, good too.  It made me want to get some paint and be creative.  Anyway, then we walked from her house to Lindey’s.  It was a really cute place with good food.  I heart German Village.