Today I registered for my first half marathon!!!

(Another long one... sorry guys!)

First of all... the big news! I am officially registered for the my first Half Marathon!!!! I am sooooooo freaking excited! It will be on December 1st! When I told my mom, she was so happy for me that she told me she'd pay for my registration as a birthday gift (YAY for Mom!), and according to a friend of mine, I am one of those crazy running people! I'll take that!

Okay, I will attempt to stop jumping up and down from excitement and update my blog.

I'll start off by saying congratulations to Chris and Kyle for completing their own half marathons today!

It's interesting how different I feel about running compared to when I started. Back in January, I would gladly have welcomed a weekend away and told myself, "I'm going out of town, guess I can't run this weekend. Oh well." Today however, when I make plans to go out of town, I am immediately trying to reschedule my runs so I can fit in the miles I want for the week.

For example, my roommate went out of town this weekend. Knowing that we wouldn't be able to do our long run on Sunday, we decided to run it Saturday morning before she left. I am also going out of town next weekend to visit some friends. I am really excited about this trip, but I know that there is no way I'm running 10 miles while I'm there. So this next week's schedule is being rearranged so that my long run is Thursday (10 miles), and then when I get back Sunday night I'm going to do a 6 mile run. The roommate committed to the Sunday run, but said she didn't want to do the Thursday one. Lucky for me I know this amazing person named Joe who is going to run with me. I'm sure that I'll be slowing him down, but I appreciate that he is going to keep me company. And while I'm at it, I must again thank him for "creating a monster" who is addicted to running! He is also one of the main contributors towards my future triathlete goal, and his excitement about my signing up for swimming lessons just made me all the more excited to do it! He also mentioned the half-marathon to me on Saturday... between that and my friend Chris running in one today I decided that I just had to sign up today! So THANK YOU JOE AND CHRIS!!!!

And just as Amy and Tom so beautifully put into words... A great big THANK YOU to all of my fellow bloggers who keep me inspired and motivated! I appreciate all of your support!

Saturday's long run...
We decided to do our run on campus, thinking that the tailgaters for the football game wouldn't be an issue so early in the morning. In all honesty, the tailgaters were not the problem (and I did get to laugh at those who were already drunk at 7am), it was the cops that annoyed me... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We started at 6:30 am. Right on time. By mile 2 I could already hear my roommate breathing very hard. Hmmm... this wasn't good.  Around mile 2.5 we stopped because I was pretty sure she was having an asthma attack (she doesn't have asthma that I'm aware of, but she definitely was not breathing correctly!). I was freaked out! After she caught her breath, she said she just wanted to walk for a bit and didn't want to go home. We walked to mile 3 (and hit mile 3 around 35 minutes) then she said she was good to run again, just slowly. By the time we hit the 4.5 mile mark, the cops were all over the place getting ready for the mass of tailgaters that they were expecting. That was when one of them told us we had to run on the sidewalk and not the road. First of all, there was hardly anyone driving on the road! And we have run this same route (right past the sheriff's office mind you) for weeks now! No one has said a thing until now! Second, he clearly ate too many donuts and had no idea how much the sidewalk makes my hip hurt. Grrrr!!! So then I was grumpy and in my head was thinking of how much I disliked this fat motorcycle cop, and how it was going to be his fault if I didn't finish my 10 miles because of a sore hip, and why didn't he just go eat donuts and leave me alone! (note: I am not a hater of cops... I interned with some really great ones, and I even know a few people who are planning on going into the police academy... I just did not like that particular cop.) Then all of the sudden, at about 5.5 miles, a hawk flew right into the tree that was just ahead of us. Wow.... That was just what I needed to forget about the cop and get back to positive thinking.  We hit mile 7 a little before an 1:30, which is when I went ahead and the roommate stopped. My hip was definitely sore, but I finished the 10 miles in just under 2 hours. I am not happy with the overall time, but I know that I can do better.

Later in the day I went to the football game and had a blast! We may have lost and gotten drenched, but tailgating was a blast and the game was a great one!

Today I went to a "sports outreach", which was a lot of fun. There were soccer players, skateboarders (it reminded me of the video below and made me laugh), and I got a copy of "How to be Like Women Athletes of Influence" written by the Vice President of the Orlando Magic team, Pat Williams and sportswriter Dana Pennett O'Neal. Pat Williams even autographed the book for me. The book looks really good and contains interviews with 32 female athletes.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful weekend!