Why I Love and Hate Running

Hospital discharge goal: Run in the Mercedes Half Marathon in February. Today I achieved that goal in spades. I signed up and paid my dues in October thinking, I will have plenty of time to get in shape for this run. Well then life got in the way and needless to say I have not run more than 2 miles since last June. Today I ran 13.1 miles in 2 hours, 57 minutes and 12 seconds. Which is only 6 minutes slower than my half time last year. So why do I run:

- The thrill of running and having complete stranger cheer you on is exhilarating.

- It's fantastic cardio.

- It gives you time to clear your mind and just take in everything around you

- If you run with the group I do, it gives you time to catch up with great friends while being productive.

Why I hate running:

- my feet and knees feel like they might give out from underneath me at any moment.

- Rain, shine, snow and cold. Runners don't care they run in anything.

Today reminded me why I enjoyed getting into running and why I should get back into it.

Mercedes Half Marathoning

What was I thinking? I know what I was thinking. I'm hard headed and determined and thought I'll have no problem getting in some miles between October and February. What I didn't count on was getting sick in December (flu like business... nothing as drastic as a hospital stay.) I also didn't count on Alabama having one of the coldest winters in memorable history. Even as I write this there is snow on the ground and ice on the roads.

So in two days I have to some how muster the strength to travel 13.1 miles by foot. The good news is I roped Jason into it to! :) Well part of it. He agreed to fill in for a relay member who had to back out. So Jason is running the second leg of the relay which is a 10k or 6.2 miles.

We are running for little Alex at the Bell Center. They don't give us any information on our sponsor child, but I believe we will get to meet him on Sunday. Please help us raise money by donating to our race fund....

Right now its supposed to be 30 degrees at race time. Lets hope that temp goes up between now and Sunday.

Engaged!

So I completely meant to come back and finish my post about Christmas, but life has been so crazy. Here's how it happened. On Christmas Eve, we were at Jason's parents house. We had just finished opening presents and had to head back to Frederick to meet my parents to go to church. At one point Jason had said "I didn't make it to Best Buy to get you the big present I had planned on getting you this year." Of course I said it was okay and thought to myself "was he going to get me a Dyson?". So as we are walking out to the car, I'm thinking how would we transport a Dyson home in the Rabbit anyway? It's better he didn't get it for me on MD and we can just go buy it when we get back to AL!

As we're putting all the presents in the car (I'm still thinking about my Dyson, should I get the one with the ball or the one designed for animals?) Jason says "I did have one other little thing for you." I say "Well, you want to wait and I can open it tomorrow with my family?" He said "I'll just give it to you now" and got down on one knee and pulled the box from his jacket pocket. I honestly don't remember what he said after that, there was a will you marry me in there. But I was in complete shock. Of course I said YES and there was hugging and crying involved.

We went back in to tell his parents and then drove to Middletown, with me in stunned silence, to meet my family and tell them the news! At this point it was almost 11pm so we waiting until Christmas day to start calling and letting family know. But we are both so excited!!