By the way...

I don't recommend it...  running 2 races in 7 days.  I've done it twice now, and both times I would have to say, not the best plan.  And yet, I've done it twice now, so I'm obviously not that bright...

JSRCC: Episode II... or is that Episode V?

Community College part Deux:  The Western Campus

When we last saw our college student she was burned out on Karate and Morte D'Arthur, stressing over final exams and an 18 page paper on the Black Plague.  We pick up her story in Goochland County at the Western Campus of JSR, in the middle of no where.  Thank Goddess she drove the JEEP last night, the entire parking lot was one big gun rack consisting of about 50 beat up mud encrusted FORD pickup trucks, 4 JEEP Wranglers, and some more SUVs of various AMERICAN MADE variety.  Yee Haw! 

Last night I had class.  Annoyingly, it's a class I do not need to take, but I have to take in order to fill some stupid requirement for the college.  The class is "how to succeed in college".  I have a 4.0 GPA.  I don't think this class applies to me.  Now that I've run a half marathon in 2:06:38, *note how I snuck that in there, I don't know that I need advice on how to succeed at anything.  If I want to know how to do something, I use this really crazy technique to find out about it.  I (and this is the important word) read about it.  Yea.  I know, crazy talk.  Shhh.

On any given day I'm reading psychology books about raising 2 year olds, boosting the self esteem of a bullied middle aged child (6-11), Spider Man comic (so I can hold an "intelligent" conversation with my son), a novel of either no value or excellent caliber, a book club book, and at least one text book on something.  *no wonder I don't get anything done around here! 

After attending class last night though, I've concluded that the problem is the all the college students I know at "my school", except a few fellow adult - middle aged nursing student cohorts, are all out to do ONE thing.  They are ALL out to get an A, and they are all out to do it without reading a word.  Yea, so really, those two things go together like.... Lemon and Milk.  Oil and Water.  Ginny and Diets.

But, one thing I will say is that, this promises to be an, er, interesting semester.  Last night I  was in class with about 9 auto mechanic students in the tech division, 2 Gen Ed students, 1 dental student, 1 L.P.N. and 3 fellow nursing students.  There are supposedly 29 students in the class.  But, obviously some people signed up for the class and either forgot we had class starting mid way through the semester, or, signed up for the class and decided not to bother with it.

I didn't meet one of the nursing students though, because he was caught on a runway in Chicago O'Hare and so... his Mom came to class for him to take notes.  I'm going to miss her.  She's a nurse at Henrico Dr's, and very sensible, and I was relieved to hear some of the things that came out of her mouth.  For one thing, after speaking to her, I feel a lot more secure in the choices I am making.  A perfect stranger put me at ease.  I bet she's great at her job.  We exchanged information about the classes that her son has already taken and the classes I've already taken.  *I did not recommend British Lit as a great Lit Class, but did point out that Brit Lit is a decent class to take online.  And I highly recommend my Psy Prof, online, etc. because that is the easiest class in the history of college the way this prof presents it.

Well, except for the class I'm taking now.

Oh, and except for Karate....

Shamrock'd

I PR'd today at Shamrock.  It kicked a**.  Love that race, loved the moment, it was more fun that I imagined... it was... honestly, as much fun as my first 5K.  The complete story is on the Run Like a Mother blog, but I forgot to add one detail, and it belonged here anyway...

"Not one step of anyone's mile was walked."

Shamrock ON...

I read on a blog about a woman who dedicated each mile of her marathon to a different person.  She knew she would have to keep running, because at the end of the race she didn’t want to have to say that she walked anyone’s mile.  I have decided to do that for the Shamrock Half marathon...  I thought it would be hard to find the 13.1 people, but as I typed this, I realized that the hard thing was to narrow it down to only 13 people!  So, for 9 minutes 54 seconds, this is your mile...

Mile #1 is for... Emily G.  Because I’ll likely be running a little too fast for myself, all caught up in the moment.

Mile #2 is for...  Courtney H.  Because she’s the voice of reason who would say something very frank and very true about not running too fast for myself.

Mile #3 is for...  Bridget- because she’s my 3rd child and a “little terror”, which is likely what I’ll be feeling as I realize I have 10 miles to go.

Mile #4 is for...  Courtney M.  Because when you run the last 12 of someone’s 20 and they still kick your a**, you tend to think of them while you’re running.

Mile #5 is for...  Nicole.  Because she makes it look so easy & because by now I might have realized that I’m once again running in Virginia Beach, our home turf.

Mile #6 is for... Fay.  Because I finished my first 6 miles with Fay and I will always remember it.

Mile #7 is for... Gregory.  Because the last 7 years have flown by too fast to think about, hopefully I'll feel that way about the first 7 miles.

Mile #8 is for... Rachel.  Because about 6 months ago she gave me some sensible racing advice and for some reason mile 8 is where I always think of it.

Mile #9 is for Carla.  Because she drives me... I mean literally drives me to the races I need to run to train effectively, and makes me laugh while we’re getting there.

Mile #10 is for Colleen.  Because I’ve been a stay at home mom for rounding on 10 years now and never before being a mom would I have imagined I could run 10 miles.

Mile #11 is for SpeeDee, Pam and Linda.  Because it’s nice to have a "secret" cheering squad.

Mile #12 is for Katie C.  Because we were supposed to run the last one together and it was around mile #12 that I was really really lonely for her.

Mile #13 is for Tonia.  Because Thursdays are my favorite day of the week.

Mile #13.1 is for me.

The nicest sweater I own

Today I picked up my favorite sweater off Bridget's floor.  I wondered why it was in there anyway, but no worries, not a big deal, I'll just toss in in the wash...  What's this?  GUM?  Wintermint gum...  stuck to my favorite sweater on B's floor.  Fab.  I'm thrilled.  Somebody effin pinch me.

It's like... it sets the tone for the whole day.

The ELITE Athlete

The ELITE Athlete... vs. ME

I was reading this site about how to fuel the running body into an elite machine.  About how I should be fueling the body after the long runs (2+hours) with a 1:4 protein/carb beverage, about how I should be eating egg whites instead of eggs, almonds instead of peanut butter, and so on and so forth, so that in essence I should be eating 60% of these really pure carbohydrates and some %age of healthy fat and some %age of healthy LEAN protein... basically a High Carb, Lean Protein, Low Fat diet of pure and organic foods, eaten raw when applicable, etc and so forth.  

Sure, I do that, don't I?  Maybe not.  I re-opened my food diary and wrote it all down for a day.  It reads a bit like Bridget Jones's adaptation to the scarsdale diet...  you know the bit where she says something along the lines of "today's diet called for 1 piece of unbuttered wheat toast.... all out of bread and no time to nick some from the store, so I had a snicker's bar instead..."  

In conclusion, I've been fueling my body like a girlscout these last few weeks.  High Carb, High Fat, Low Protein diet full of cookies, peanut butter, bananas, graham crackers and ... um, water.  RIGHT- that I do right.  Bananas and Water are on track.  All other foods *and I am nearly being literal about that, are "wrong".  

A realization of my life.

Ok, I had a flashback the other day to the third grade.  I remember we were talking about genetics and how you couldn't change certain things about your life... like, people's belly buttons are either innies or outies, and some people have cute dimples and some people don't.  And I remember as we sat there I wished, oh how I wished, that I could have dimples so I could be cute.  If only if only I could have dimples.

Flash Forward 23 years to about 2 months ago when I realized that I have a dimple.  Nothing like going your whole life wishing for something that you already have, is there?  So... what else do I already have that I don't know about?  Perhaps it's time to take stock of my life.

Running Dreams... er, nightmares?

Last night *for real, I'll let you know when I'm dreaming....  Ok, last night H and I were having a talk about Shamrock & planning, and he doesn't want to go.  He made about 6847 excuses and reasons as to why, but the bottom line is that he is not interested in my running.  At all.  In fact, when asked POINT BLANK if he was proud of my accomplishments, at all, he said, "I never said that.  I always just walk away if asked about it."  Oh.  Wow.  So not only is he NOT interested in my running, he's really REALLY not supportive at this point.  You know, if I was F'in doing DRUGS I think he would have had more positive words to say about that....  My argument for doing so much running is, "Anything worth doing is worth doing well", and the only way to get better, faster, or heck, even do this sport is to RUN.  I'm getting off track.  Clearly, I'm still a little pissed about our little conversation.

So, at this point, I get up and go to bed.  To say that I'm in a good state of mind for sleep would be a greatly inaccurate statement.  I was in the "opposite of sleep state of mind", but I went to bed anyway.  I wrote in my journal for a few minutes, thinking that it would be good to vent a little before sleep.  Well, yea, that didn't actually work.... a little back story- I did NOT run monument last year, but I did run the RockNRoll half which is almost as big as Monument.  And ever since my 12 mile long run on Saturday my ankle's been hurting at night.

So in my dream I'm in my corral at the Monument 10K.  I am surrounded in a crush of 30,000 people.  About ever minute or so, my corral moves forward.  My ankle is hurting, and I keep questioning if my shoes are tied.  They are.  And suddenly, I realize that I'm not wearing a bra, all I'm wearing is a fitted tank top that I wear to bed.  So I freak out and hop out of the corral to run and buy one.  *because they're that easy to find?  And I can't get one at the vendor, so I buy a Katie Holmes style bra top to go under my pajama shirt.  Hop back in line... then I ran into a tall handsome man, who turns out to be the last serious bf I had b/f my current H.  *another aside, v/ bad break-up there, not any real life regret over him...  But in the dream, we start talking about how things are going, and how much we've missed each other, and when did he move to Richmond, how long has he been running, etc.  So, in the crush of people we get separated and now I can see the start line.  We've moved up again, and suddenly I have to pee.  I mean, really pee.  And I know there are potties on the other side of the start line, but I won't get my PR if I stop.  But I know that after 3 kids I'm not going to make it a whole 10K in my condition... so what do I do?  Get out of my corral and pee, except the people won't let me out for some reason... and the race is going to start, the people are moving forward in running mass... and...

I woke up before I made it to the start line.  So.  Now we know I'm crazy.