2:00:43

My heart was pounding, mind racing, and stomach churning, I was engulfed in a mixture of emotions; excitement/nervousness/anxiousness/with some slight thoughts of misery. I went to bed early, but woke up WAY too early too. There's nothing more annoying than waking up hours before you need to and not being able to fall back to sleep! My mind kept questioning whether or not I'd actually be able to run the entire 13.1 miles. As if my nightmares weren't enough to disprove my abilities, for an entire hour and a half before my alarm was supposed to go off, I laid in bed worrying myself sick.

By the time 6:30 rolled around, Andrea and I were already in the city, sitting in her car, waiting for the start of the race (yes, she's a trooper and woke up early on a Saturday morning to come cheer on her little sister). By 7 a.m. I think the sun was just coming up and the weather was a crisp 36 degrees. I was frozen for the first mile of my run and thawed out somewhere between mile 4 and 5. I thought mile 11 was never going to end, but my tired legs kept going, and eventually carried me across the finish line at 2:05:23...with adjusted time that meant I finished in two hours flat!

This picture doesn't do justice to the massive 8000 participants who ran in the National Marathon

I have a smile here (I'm on the left hand side in the black shorts), but does that smile last for 13 miles?

Yes, yes it does!
Two hours later! In my head I was sprinting my heart out to the finish line, somehow the video doesn't quite capture that.


Turning my chip in so I can get my actual time
There is nothing more attractive than a sweaty picture.

The end! Happy running day to us all!!!

"Nightmares"

I just woke up from a much needed three hour nap. Now that church has been moved from 1 p.m. to 9 a.m., sleeping in on Sunday's is no longer an option. Instead, I get to enjoy the beauty of Sunday naps once again.

However, today's nap was anything but beautiful. A three hour nap can definitely be considered a beautiful thing, but the whole part about waking up from a treacherous dream...the second of it's kind, not so beautiful.

I'm worried these dreams are trying to speak to me, and steer me away from something awful that might ensue. That, or I'm over dramatic and am thinking WAY too much about this half marathon that's coming up on Saturday. Let's be honest, at this point, I just want it to be over.

Explaining dreams is usually a difficult task, since most details don't make sense to anyone but yourself. So, without going into too many confusing details about my first "nightmare", the take home message was this: Liz (who I'm running the marathon with) backed out, causing many more "over dramatic" actions to take place. I remember waking up from the dream with my heart pounding because I was so mad, it was all too real.

Today's nightmare concluded with me not getting to run the race because I didn't pick up my bib and race chip in time. After running around like a basket case, trying to find the mysterious room where I would check in and get my bib, (which, for a majority of the dream was impossible to find) I got there too late. I would be running no half marathon.

I woke up slightly relieved, slightly annoyed, and slightly scared out of my witts for Saturday's race. But in all honesty I'm starting to get more excited. A half marathon really isn't that bad...and hey, at least it's not a full...at least not yet!

Bring It On

In 10 days I'm about to do something I said I'd never do. I'm convinced that that has become a major trend in my life, doing things I either say I'll never do, or that I don't want to do.

Examples:
I said I'd never go to BYU-Idaho, but somehow managed to spend two of my undergraduate years there.
Told myself I'd never purchase an American made car...I drive a Focus.
I said I'd never graduate from college...lo and behold, I have a diploma, with a BS in Health Science.
I said I'd never move to the east coast, "it's just not my style." I'm now a month and a half shy from having lived in DC for an entire year!
I said I'd never miss Utah...OK, so I miss PARTS of Utah!
Every day I say I don't want to go back to work...I rather be a beach bum. Yet sure enough, I find myself at my desk every morning with no beach in sight.
I said I'd never run a half marathon. Quite frankly I see no enjoyment in running 13.1 miles. Yet, in 10 days I'll be doing just that, running a half marathon.
I told myself I'd never be able to run 11 miles after work today. I ran 13. And it was purely unintentional.

Am I completely sore and feeling like an old lady right now? Yes and yes!
Gee, I can't wait for next Saturday.
Running a half marathon has never sounded so...blah would be the first word to describe it, followed by exciting, thrilling, brutal, painful, long, tedious, and fun all at once.

I guess the moral of the story is this: never believe me when I tell you I'll never do something. It appears that I'm pretty much a liar when it comes to, "I'll never" statements.

Efficiency

I complain about public transportation. I don't like it. In fact, I slightly despise placing my dependency on someone else to get me from point A to point B. Some say public transportation is convenient, I'd like to call their bluff on that. I live five minutes from DC, yet it still takes me a good 45 minutes to get into the city. Please tell me where the "convenience" is in that?

I hate being sucked into the awkward silence of the morning commute. On the other hand, I hate overhearing a strangers conversation on my way home, unless it's an interesting one, and that's rarely the case. I hate when it's not on time. I hate when I'm not on time and miss the bus/metro. But I hate even more that I'm so good at knowing the exact minute I need to walk out of work to catch the metro at the exact moment it's arriving. I just hate being so good some days, making my commute nearly flawless. It's inevitable that that's not supposed to happen with public transportation.

I hate being crammed into the metro. I hate when people won't make room for me. I hate that people have such a fear of their personal space being violated. I hate when people push and shove to get to the front of the line. And I really hate that I have to revolve my time around the metro, instead of the metro revolving it's time around me.

On the bright side, because there's always a bright side, I do love having a personal chauffeur. I love that a majority of the time I can blame being late to work on something other than myself. I love that after a long day of work, I can close my eyes and not worry about paying attention to the road. I love that most mornings I can ride into work with friends. But most of all, I love that it allows for efficiency such as this:

Most days I am the awkward silence who becomes oblivious to everything around me, and that's just the way I like it while I'm doing something I simply hate.

The Update

You may recall last weeks visit to the doctor...foot in fact wasn't broken/fractured, and my working out was all wrong. Well, today's visit put all of my curious questions at ease.

Most doctors tell me I'm a hypochondriac with all of my questions. I beg to differ.
Me: "Make sure you check for diabetes...most of my Mom's side of the family has it."
"It might be a good idea to do a RBC, I've been known to have anemia."
"Could you also check my TSH and T4 levels? I think I might have hypothyroidism, my body seems to be doing funny things lately."
"And while you're at it could you also check my WBC to make sure I'm free of any diseases, my platelets, monocytes, neutrophils, protein, and lipids, creatinine/serum, chloride, calcium, and hemoglobin levels as well? I want to make sure my kidney's and liver are functioning properly. "
Doctor: "Is there anything else you'd like me to check, although I think that about covers it?"
Me: {I've been tempted to say, "Yes, in fact, could you actually just give me a full body CT scan, just to make sure I don't have any tumors, broken bones, or blood clots anywhere? You know, just to be sure?" But I usually bite my tongue and say, with an uncertain grin on my face} "No, that's all for now, thank you." I may be stubborn, but I rather have everything checked in one visit, instead of multiple.
Doctor: {Gives me a quirky smile, and proceeds with the exam.}

Well, today's visit attested to the fact that I'm indeed 100% healthy. My doctor turned and looked at me, after going through my lab results and said, "I'm the last person you need to be seeing right now. You're WBC is far lower than needs be. You're more than 100% healthy, and everything else is in perfect range." I don't have diabetes, no sign of anemia, and my thyroid levels couldn't be more on target of being in the healthy range. The last doctor couldn't figure out which prescription I needed to be on because (he claimed) my levels were never steady. Go figure!

As for the working out: Today's "theory" (which I still believe wholeheartedly changes on a daily basis) says that INTENSE interval training is the best way to go. My doctor suggested running at an easy pace for a few minutes, then upping the speed to as fast as I could go for about 30-60 seconds, leaving me as out of breath as I could possibly be, returning to a steady and slow pace for a minute or two, and then repeating the cycle for about 20 minutes. I followed doctor's orders tonight at the gym. We'll see if any results follow. I could get into more nitty gritty details, but I'll spear you all from anymore health talk...how boring, right? Or in my eyes, totally fascinating. We all have a nerd in us somewhere! :)

Oh, and don't forget, eat more of these:


Not these:

I was also told I need to start eating all organic from here on out. I think my life just transitioned from expensive to out of control in a matter of seconds!