No half marathon for me in two weeks.

Man, I was so excited to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon on February 23.

Then January 7th happened.

Sometime while teaching I got a cold on the first day of school and the cold laid me flat for 10 days but the worst part was that the cough is still with me.  Almost five weeks later and I am only just now getting back into the running part and back into CrossFit.  A week ago I could barely walk across campus without stopping to take resting breaks to catch my breath.

Now I'm getting back into the swing of things and am humbled at how out of shape I am.  Two miles feels so hard and I am really slow.  Before Christmas I could go out and run 8 miles with less than 12 minute mile averages; not even close now.  Running 13.1 miles just isn't going to happen in two weeks.  I was very sad when I made this decision but I'm not trained for it and I want my next half to be an awesome experience; run/walking a four+ hour half marathon was not what I wanted for myself.

But this week and last week I've gone running and gone to the WODs.

Oh, the WODs.  I have missed them so much.  I missed my friends but there are other things.  I missed the way they made they made me feel about myself.  I love defining myself as a runner and as an extreme athlete and CrossFit and races let me do that.  I've said here before that I'll never be content being a casual exerciser.  I need to feel like an athlete and not just that, but as a bat out of hell, oh dear, this stuff is insanely hard but awesome kind of athlete.

Doing what others won't even bother trying is what makes it great.

So yeah, I'm back into things.

Guess what else, I've signed up for another race.  Yes, it's only a 5K, but races keep me committed and you get Girl Scout cookies at the end of this.

11th Day of Christmas

Today is the 11th day of Christmas and I found this on my fiance's blog:

Seeing as I took that picture I think it's okay to put it here.  Besides the ears and the raised the eyebrow, it's the eye patch that really sets Brandon up as an elf with questionable intentions.  

Even looking ridiculous he's still really hot.

Big News!

There are a lot of things that have happened over the past month.  I've done a couple of races, including a Thanksgiving day Turkey Trot where I PRed a 10K with 1:11:41.  I ran a Santa Shuffle in Moultrie with milk, cookies, and Santa at the end.  It was a lot of fun, although mostly filled with people who don't run races.  I defended my prospectus and now I'm all set for dissertation research.  I went to Kentucky where I met my very first nephew, Grant.  All of that is wonderful.  All of it marks my personal, academic, and professional successes, but something happened last night that changed everything.

Really, it changed everything.

Brandon and I got engaged!

He did the whole thing beautifully and I wanted to write it here because I wanted to share it and also because I want to remember it before too much time passes for me and I start to get the details fuzzy.

I came down to Moultrie on Christmasday from Kentucky.  Our family celebrations were a little different this year so the whole family went home on the twenty-fifth and instead of going home with my parents I drove straight to Brandon's apartment.  Brandon took me to the family farm where all of his immediate family was in for the holiday.  We spent the evening eating leftover Christmas dinner and watching holiday movies.  I spent the night at Brandon's apartment and he stayed at his parents' house. 

The next morning I came over and Brandon's mother made the family pancakes for breakfast.  Brandon and I then went and saw what may be the most depressing movie about marriage ever, This is Forty.  We really wanted to like it; I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't.  Brandon dropped me off at his apartment and went to run some errands, I stayed to put on a dress and get ready for a dinner in town.  Brandon told me he wanted to take me on a date since we hadn't seen each other in over a week and because his house was really busy with people.  He also wanted to take me to drive under the Moultrie Christmas lights as they turn them off on the thirty-first and I wouldn't be back before the New Year.  On Thanksgiving night we went to the Christmas tree and lighting ceremony and throughout December we'd driven under them several times.

When he asked me where I wanted to go I picked Mexican, so we went to El Cantador, a local place in the Wal-Mart plaza.  Later when he asked me if I knew what was happening all I could think was 'Chips!  I just got engaged and I ate chips!  No one eats chips right before they get engaged.'

After dinner we drove to the Moultrie downtown center by the courthouse.  I was wearing a dress, gloves, a scarf, and my new coat that I got for Christmas.  I had bare legs so I was freezing in the wind, I mean really, my teeth were actually chattering.  Brandon and I were walking and he started to tell me that he had been praying for us in the car earlier today, while running his errands.  He had been praying for our future and some of the plans we'd been talking about, including marriage.  He then told me that he'd been praying for his wife for years before he met me and that after he met me he started praying for me specifically.  At some point he realized that the wife he'd been praying for and his prayers for me were for the same person. 

Then he got down on one knee and the rest gets a bit blurry but I know he asked me to marry him.  I looked at him and then I bent down and kissed him and looked at him again.  He said that he knew what my answer would be but I took forever to actually answer him.

"Everyday yes.  Everyday yes.  Yes, everyday, always."  Or, really, something almost exactly like that.  I really wanted to say that phrase.  I'd thought about it.  I wanted to say 'everyday yes' because I wanted to tell him that if he asked me again in a week, in seven years, and in twenty three years and so on that my answer would still be the same and that everyday I would make the same decision.   

And so now Brandon and I are engaged.  We will be getting married this summer in June.  We are both overwhelmed with excitement and I am happier then I knew I could be, then I thought I deserved.  This relationship is the answer to many prayers. 

The next six months cannot pass soon enough.

Wine and Dine Recap

Now that I've had a week and a half to think about the Wine and Dine half marathon I'm ready to recap the race.

First, as per usual, I had a really good time.  Races are fun.  As I've said before I enjoy races because the attitudes are infectious; everyone who's there wants to be there.

Jenn and I got into Orlando on Friday night and spent most of Saturday enjoying the expo, lunching with her family, and trying to take naps since the race was a night run.  Overall the race was a lot of fun.  I started strong but like the Disney Princess, it was really frustrating to get around people who were going slower.  I would be running at a good pace behind someone and they would just stop in the middle of the path to walk.  If a runner needs to walk that is fine.  I walk.  But I jog to the side of the path before I stop running so not to get in another runner's way.  That's a consequence of being a huge race, there is just no room to maneuver.

I held up really strongly until mile 8 or so.  After that my legs felt like lead.  I needed more and more walking breaks and started shuffling.  My goal was to finish in under 3 hours, knowing that if I maintained a 13 minute   mile average I could finish in a bit less than 2 hours and 53 minutes.  

I finished in 3 hours and 31 seconds.  So close to my goal.  I know that if I had just taken fewer walking breaks I could have at least met my original goal.  I'm not surprised that my legs struggled after mile 8 though.  I never trained farther than 9 on my longer runs and I only did that once.  In order to get ready for the Disney Princess race I want to adjust my training significantly differently.  More about that later.

Getting ready for the Wine and Dine half marathon!

One of the things that B and other people regularly comment on is just how much stuff that I. and many other runners, take with us on runs.  Now I don't really need all of these things; I just enjoy them.  I like running with music and I like a lot of the information and comfort that some of these things give me.

Here is a list of the things I regularly use on a run, especially anything over six miles:

Brooks Adrenaline Series 12 shoes with two inserts per shoe, one overall insert and one metatarsal insert

Garmin GPS and heart-rate monitor- tells me where I am, how far I've run, calories I've burned, how fast I am going, and other pieces of information I like to see

KT Tape- I use this to tape and support muscles that are injured

Fanny-Pack  Spi-Belt for holding things like keys, IPhone, ID

IPhone- I used my phone to take this picture so my ear-buds are standing-in for this gadget

Bloks- shot blocks are like gel Gatorade.  I eat them for energy if I am running more than 7 miles to replenish salt and sugar

Body-Media- I wear this all day, everyday now.  It keeps track of my sleep, calories burned, and some other pieces of information that I find valuable

Nu-Skin- I put this on places that I already have blisters or am likely to blister on my feet.  It is like a liquid band-aid

Not pictured: my Road-ID.  I forgot this but I always wear it when I run on my isolated paths.  It has my name, my allergies, and my contact information in case something happens to me.

Camel-Bak- if I am on a training run I pack water.  I won't carry any water with me tonight because Disney is very good about lacing the path with water stations.

Also, check out this awesome shirt that I chose, B picked the slogan, and Jenn ironed on the lettering for me to wear tonight for the race!

As this is the Wind and Dine Half Marathon I thought a food related shirt was a great idea.

October Recap

October was a really busy month.  It almost always is for everyone because it is the beginning of the holiday season, anyone on a semester schedule like B and I both are is feeling the crunch as the semester hits its stride, and election season is in full swing.  Everyone I know should be busy right now.

Add to that my training for a half-marathon and that I am finishing and about to turn in my prospectus and I am stuffed to the brim with busy-ness.

One of the really fun things that B and I did was go to a local church and buy some pumpkins to make jack o'lanterns.  I've bought pumpkins from them before to decorate my front steps but I'd never carved a pumpkin before.  We went to the patch and we both wore our most Halloween type shirts.  B wore a Ghostbusters shirt and I wore a Count Chocula one.

This is a picture of me and my pumpkin, I nicknamed him Ted.

That night we watched the straight to DVD Trick'r'Treat.  One of our fall goals was to watch scary movies and this was one that I had not seen and that I could handle.  It was sufficiently creepy and gory but not about torture or demonic possession; movies about those things seem to impact me deeply.

Another fun thing was the Flint RiverQuarium Zombie Obstacle Course 5K.  This race was a really fun race overall.  You ran an out and back course with strategically placed zombies.  All runners wore a belt with two 'life' sashes.  The zombies' goals were to take your life sashes.  When those were gone you were still able to run the race and go through the obstacles.  This is different from other zombie themed races where you either lose your life and become a zombie and attack other runners or you lose your life and the race is over for you.  I will say that the zombie parts were really fun because it was a rush to get chased and sprint around them.  They had to stay in certain areas that were clearly marked; they were not hiding and jumping out at you.  It was fun to sprint around them.  The obstacles, however, were a total let down as I was expecting something more like the Warrior Dash and less like a fifth-grade P.E. class.

This is one of our friends, B, myself, and a random zombie after the race.  Doesn't he just look thrilled to be in our picture?  

Other fun things this month: bonfires on the farm but there aren't any really good pictures of that, Halloween even though I didn't have that many trick or treaters, seeing Argo in theatres, some good training runs for my upcoming race, lazy Sunday afternoons, getting to see my parents after a long time gone, going to the South Georgia Throwdown in Albany and watching my CF friends be awesome, and savoring the good times of fall.

November is going to be great.

A year ago.

Sunday night was the season 3 premiere of The Walking Dead.  B and I decided to watch it together.  We always say that our love for zombie lore and for the love of the show specifically is what started our relationship.

If a year ago you had told me that I'd be watching the season three premiere with my boyfriend at his parents' house in southwest Georgia, after a potluck lunch at a Southern Baptist congregation of about 85 people I would have thought you were seriously confused.


It was a lot of fun.

The above picture is from a very early date when I made sequin headbands and wristbands for bowling in Thomasville.  I now know it was probably me testing him to see how spontaneous and indulgent he was to my whimsy.  He didn't even say boo about it.  I won the second game; he wants a rematch.