I think I’ll remember my own LIFE

First things first…little O is doing much better (and for all you skimmers out there…little O is Oscar).  He’s on some meds and eating annoying stinky food, but other than that he’s almost back to normal.  So that’s a relief.  They’re still not sure what exactly was wrong with him, but they did eliminate a lot of more serious problems, so that’s good.

Anyways, we went down to Delaware on Wed night to have dinner with J and JP and Oscar was still not feeling great…but he was much better than before.  We woke up Thursday morning and he was a totally different dog.  He had so much energy and just wanted lots of food and was bouncing around all over the place tempting me to strangle him (after hugging him in relief for feeling better finally).

My mom and dad showed up and they went downtown with J and I to do the 5k. The weather was bizarre.  We walked out J’s front door and contemplating taking off our layers because we were worried it was going to be way too hot.  Then, we get downtown and it was freezing! Dad even committed the ultimate race faux pas and WORE his race shirt before finishing the race.

He didn’t care about the wrongness involved…he just wanted more layers.  The race was a lot bigger than we thought it would be.  There was probably about 2000 runners/walkers there.  The race itself was very non-competitive.  They didn’t even give timing chips or anything to the people. 

However, there were some hardcore runners in shorts and tanktops and then the runners in about 50 layers.  Then, there was the group that was super bizarre.  All but one of them were dressed as reindeer and the last person was santa clause.  They actually were all connected on a harness type thing with jingle bells and they ran the entire race that way.  My dad exhibited his phenomenal photographic skills by almost missing them as they ran by (and it’s kind of blurry).  But you can at least get an idea of what they looked like.

I had decided that morning to just walk it with my family rather than running it (hi I’m lazy) so we just lined up at the back of pack (didn’t want to get in the way of the runners actually running it).  We started walking and the course was really pretty.  We walked through parts of the business downtown area, but then we walked along the river and that was a really nice area. 

About halfway through, I got really bored with walking and decided to run the rest of the way.  (woohoo…all of a mile).  Also…3.1 miles seems to take forever when you’re just walking it.

Even with walking the majority of the way, I felt good after the race and was totally ready for turkey and mashed potatoes and some stuffing (beer was also a welcomed part of my meal). 

My uncle cooked Thanksgiving dinner almost entirely on his own and it was FANTASTIC.  Seriously…I think it was the best Thanksgiving meal we’ve had in a long time.  I’m ready to drool just thinking about it . 

Anyways, I’m getting ready to head back to Virginia in a few hours.  Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!

So…this vacation has been kind of crazy.

I realized on Saturday night that I’m a moron and forgot to send in my car payment for the month.  Blah!  And of course all my payment information was at home still so I had no idea where to send the money or even how much to send.  It was a big pain in the ass.  All I can say is IDIOT! 

Then, last night I was getting my stuff together to head down to Delaware to hang out with J and then run the 5k on Thursday morning (Yay entire family doing the 5k except L who apparently hates us :-P).  But Oscar went psycho.  It was awful.  He was pacing the floor whimpering in pain trying to get to his stomach and whimpering even more.  Then he started throwing up this white foamy stuff.  I freaked out because he was totally showing symptoms of bloat and the internet was warning me that every second counts in a case of bloat…except I had no idea where any of the emergency vets were in this area and all of places I called were closed.  Argh.

I finally found the emergency one and called to see what I should do.  Then my dad was awesome and drove us out there (even though he really doesn’t like my dog in the first place).  Oscar started throwing up normally but wouldn’t stop.  It just kept coming.  It was awful. 

He got blood work and X-rays done and he had raised levels of white blood cells and something else that could indicate pancreatitis and was severly dehydrated.  They sent him home after giving him some drugs to make him stop throwing up, an antibiotic of some sort and lots of fluid under his skin (hehe camel lump).  But now I have to take him to a normal vet today.  I finally found a vet that could see him at 3 today, so no more hanging out with J today. 

Instead I plan to go down sometime around dinner and eat with her there and then run in the morning.  :-)  (Assuming Oscar is ok that is). 

Anyways, it’s been a rough past couple of days.  I’m so ready for running tomorrow.

So have a safe and happy Thanksgiving everyone!  If anyone is doing a turkey trot have fun!  I’ll be having fun on mine :-).

I am super duper excited that today is Friday and my week is over and my holiday has begun! I spent all week at this ridiculous training session that went from 8 in the morning until about 11 at night every day.  Talk about information overload and just a completely exhausting work load. 

But…I got through it, met lots of fun people, and now I can go on vacation!  (If you can call going home again a vacation).

Unfortunately, I’ve done nothing but work all week and there has been no running done since Tuesday and I have nothing to talk about…so I’m getting dressed and heading out to go running…but first here is a super cute pic of L wearing the hat and scarf I made her a few weeks ago :-).

Super cute

Anyways, off running.  Have a lovely weekend!

Mondays are rough.  I never really LIKED Mondays before…but now that I have to be at work early, I really dislike them. 

Anyways, I’ve been doing and saying stupid things all day. 

I was talking to my boss about the race and joking about how ridiculously slow I was.  (Which by the way…I was so ridiculously slow the person who won the half marathon finished his 13.1 miles in LESS time than it took me to run 4.96 miles).  That’s pretty damn slow.  Unfortunately…apparently my boss was really ridiculously slow as well.  Except even more ridiculously slow than I was and he was happy with his time. 

Sigh.  Yay insulting your managers!

Then, I had a one on one scheduled with my director.  I purposely scheduled this meeting to discuss a problem I was having.  However, I solved the problem this morning and no longer needed the meeting.  But it was too late to cancel it.  So I basically was wasting 45 minutes of my director’s time for no reason

Again…yay pissing off your bosses!

We won’t even get into the stupid mistakes I made at work today.  Blah!

At the end of the day, I decided I really wanted pizza from this AMAZING pizza place I used to go to all the time for lunch but haven’t been able to since going to the MC.  So…I stopped on my way home and bought a small cheese pizza.  And proceeded to DROP the box before even making it outside!  Luckily the box stayed close but the cheese totally shifted to the one side of the pizza. 

I fixed the cheese as best as I could and kept on going. 

Then driving home took FOREVER and the pizza box fell AGAIN except I couldn’t do anything about it while driving.  So now my pizza is cold and the cheese is all in one big blob not even ON the pizza anymore.  Sigh. 

I’m still eating this pizza and it had better be the best damn pizza EVER!

Anyways, no running today and I’m still working out how to work in at least 2-3 runs the rest of this week.  I will run tomorrow, but then Wed-Fri I have a work seminar thing that goes from 8AM-10PM (if not later).  I’m trying to decide if I’ll be able to force myself to wake up at 5 one day to run then. 

Then the following week I’m back in New Jersey for the holidays…and we all see how well the running went last time I was home. 

Blah…I really need to work on my motivation or will power or something here. 

Anyways, have a lovely week!

The race was interesting.  I’m glad I did it, even if I didn’t do as well as I wanted. 

Before getting sick, I had planned on a time of 60 minutes (average of 12min/mile).  Shut up I’m SLOW!  However, after feeling the humidity and the trouble I was having breathing even before the race started I made a more realistic goal of 15min/mile (while still hoping for the 12min/mile) which I knew i could do as long as I didn’t walk the whole thing (yeah…I walk slow too shut up). 

i was a little disappointed in the weather and timing of this race, but this race totally renewed my faith in the kindness of people (after all the jerks I see in the park, it was a nice change). 

Pre-Race
I guess my pre-race started Friday night as we went to pick up our packets in the pouring rain.  We finally managed to find the right building (we forgot the directions and didn’t really know where the heck we were) and go inside to get our stuff. 

They were handing out these megaphone/horn things.  I wanted to snatch them out of EVERY kid’s hands and make them STOP!  They were so obnoxiously loud and annoying sounding.  The cowbells and clappers were fine…but these things were horrible. 

I got my number and t-shirt (which is an awesome technical shirt…woohoo).  As I was leaving I ran into my manager and talked to him for a few minutes.  Apparently he was running as well. 

We went to the Galaxy Diner which always makes me think of Jersey and got the worst pre-race dinner ever…but it was so yummy!  I got some amazing french toast and disco fries (cheese fries with gravy).  I admit…it was a weird combination of food…but I couldn’t figure out if I wanted breakfast or dinner…so I got both.  I also convinced A to try the fries and she was AMAZED at how DELICIOUS they are.  Seriously…they were awesome.  I wish more places around here served them. 

This morning I was up around 5:15 to get ready.  I apparently was also smoking crack or something this morning because I was a mess.  I made sure I put on Body Glide since it was supposed to be wet and I didn’t want to have any random chafing issues.  As I was dressing I realized I forgot to put on the body glide under my bra strap so I picked up the bottle and put it all over.  I put it down and realized I had just put deoderant all over my bra strap…not body glide.  Whatever, it should do the same thing right?

Well…apparently I also forgot to actually put deoderant on UNDER MY ARMS!  Who does this????  Especially since I’m so paranoid about smelling bad…how could I forget to put on deoderant when I’m going to run 5 miles???  Oy. 

However, on a positive note…I DID manage to take a pre-race poop which I’m pretty sure is a FIRST for me.  Awesomeness.  (Also…I’m sure you all wanted to know that). 

Traffic was a NIGHTMARE and even with leaving an hour early (I only live about 10 minutes away)…we JUST made it to the starting line about 5 minutes before the race start and we still had to pee.  I managed to pee and make it to my corral right as they started the race.  Perfect timing.

Actual Race
I promised myself I was going to run at least the first 3 miles before walking (if I needed to) but I totally failed. 

I started out so well.  Probably my best race start ever.  Usually I start out WAY too fast and burn out by the first mile marker.  This time I picked a mark that looked like they were running a similar pace to me and stayed a few feet behind them for the first mile. 

I passed my original pacer and started speeding up a little bit while still keeping a very comfortable pace.  I was doing great until about mile 1.5 when my lungs started spasming or something.  I had to go off to the side of the course and hack up a part of my lung.  It was horrible.  I was seriously gagging and coughing and was a mess. 

But…this is where the people were so nice.  THREE different people stopped their race to come and make sure I was ok (Seriously, most people wouldn’t have done that).  One person even sent a medic to me.  I kept telling them I was fine and just needed a minute.  The medics kept trying to get me to go back but I really wanted to finish the run so I just said no thanks and started again.  However, I was still coughing a lot so I was forced to walk for about half a mile or so. 

When I got to the drink station I forced myself to start running again, but it didn’t feel as smooth as before.  The breathing was hard (but doable) and my stride was all off from the walking.  I managed to run for about another mile before the same thing happened again.  I had to stop just past mile 3 and finish coughing up the rest of my lung.  (AGAIN…people stopped to make sure I was ok and I was just amazed at how nice they all were).

I ended up having to walk for close to a mile before feeling like I could run again. 

I ran the last .96 mile and even managed a sprint into the finish (um…the slight downhill probably helped with that sprint).  I finished with an average pace of 14:10 (or something like that) which was pretty damn slow…but still faster than the 15:00 I was expecting. 

Overall I’m glad I did the run.  I’m not glad I was so slow…but I’m glad I finished. 

We went for a post-race breakfast of the most delicious bacon ever and some good french toast (sadly not as good as last night…but still good)

All in all…I have to admit it was a pretty good way to spend a Saturday morning. 

It’s never a good sign when your the nurse from medical department at work tells you it sounds like you have black lung disease.  It’s even worse, when she doesn’t know you and tells you this b/c she could hear you all the way from her office and was concerned. 

Whatever. 

I’m still running tomorrow.  Yay smart S! 

I’m on my way to pick up my race packet from the expo in about 20 minutes, and meeting up with some friends for a pre-race dinner.  And if you any of you lazy people had bothered to run the Richmond marathon, half-marathon, or 8K (look at all the choices you had!!!) you could have joined us for dinner and listened to me hack my way through the meal. 

I’m all about helping people with their portion control.

Anyways, tomorrow’s forcast is looking to be in the mid 50’s with storms off and on throughout the day.  I’m hoping the cool, wet weather will help me breathe and help prevent random lung spasms as I run.  If not…I know I can at least walk it with little effort.  It’s only 4.96 miles (thank goodness I didn’t sign up for the half). 

My plan is run the race at 7AM, be home by 8:30 and back in bed by 9AM. 

Sweetness. 

So, enjoy the weekend, drink lots of beer, and take it easy! 

Oy…this cold is kicking my ass.  Normally when I get a cold…I feel like shit for a day or two…and then I’m just kind of annoyingly stuffy.  I’ve been feeling super sick since Friday now.  I’m actually starting to get concerned I won’t even be able to run at all on Saturday.  Sigh. 

I still have a low grade fever, I ache everywhere, and my head is still throbbing.  Make it stop!

Feeling like this has caused me to postpone my running for at least another day.  Yay no running for two weeks before my race.  Awesome game plan!

I’m just so frustrated with myself.  I feel like I’ve spent the entire fall sick.  I never get sick this often…but now it seems like I’m never actually well.  Grr.

Anyways, it’s 4:30 and I have plans to go to bed.  Sigh…I’m such a dork. 

Hope you’re having a lovely week!

So…did you  miss me?

I’ve been busy since Thursday.  I hung out with L and her kids on Friday.  Then I hung out with the other L later in the day and she asked me to be her maid of honor which is exciting and slightly stressful at the same time since she lives in NEW JERSEY and I live in VIRGINIA.  Not the easiest way to plan showers and other things like that, but I’m still happy she asked me.  Then, after hanging out with L, I drove down to DE and hung out with J and JP.  But…they’re kind of boring so I didn’t really do a lot there that night.  (hehe…love you J)

Then, Saturday, I woke up at 6 to take Oscar out and to go for a quick run before spending all day painting J’s house.  And I fell down the stairs.  Literally.  I missed the last few steps and landed directly on my knee.  And I was loud!  And I sat at the bottom of the stairs, kind of dazed, looking up waiting for someone to come see if I was alright.  But nobody came.  The only “things” that noticed I wasn’t moving were Oscar and Nellie.  And Nellie just looked at me like I was retarded and Oscar just started nudging me along so I would let him outside. So…I dragged my ass up and went on along.

However, my knee STILL hurts.  It’s weird.  There’s no bruising or swelling…but seriously…every time I bend my knee a sharp shooting pain goes through it.  So not a fan. 

After falling the down the stairs and hurting my knee I decided NOT to run.  Instead I went back to bed and woke up an hour or so later and went and helped J and JP paint their new house.  I’m still not sure why I’m such a klutz.  While painting, I managed to fall into a freshly primed wall and got the ass of my pants and the bottom of my shirt white.  While painting the ceiling, the sponge part of the roller was working it’s way off the actual roller and dripped paint all down the side of my face and in my hair.  It also just sprayed white paint all over my face.  I looked like I had a bunch of white freckles.  I did a bunch of other stupid things…but those were the main stupid ones. 

I ended up feeling horribly sick that night (super stuffy nose and sore throat).  I assumed it was just bad allergies (I’m super allergic to Nellie), but I’m still feeling that way now…so I’m thinking maybe it’s actually a cold. 

Yesterday, I planned to go running, but I ended up getting this horrible migraine from the sinus pressure that I got home from work around 5:30 and went into my room, turned off the lights, and layed in bed until 5 this morning.  I was miserable. 

I feel slightly better today, but I’m so stuffed up it’s ridiculous.  I am having such issues breathing.  I felt exhausted just walking from my car to the front gate of work. 

This is not boding too well for my lovely 8K I have this Saturday.  I’m going to run an easy 3 mile run tomorrow…and then just rest up for Saturday.  I guess we’ll see how that goes.  I just hope my knee holds up!  I figured if I still feel this shitty on Saturday, I’ll probably just walk the race with K and A. 

Anyways, sucks that vacation is over already…I apparently need another one just to recover from the end of this one!

I love vacation.  I love waking up early in the morning and knowing I have no reason to be up and I can just go right back to sleep.  I love that I can just take Oscar outside for his walk…and then go curl up in a ball on the couch under the covers again.  I even don’t mind when my mom comes downstairs and wants to watch tv or read the paper while I’m still sleeping…because I know I can just take a nap later in the day. 

Vacation is a wonderful thing.  I wish I could take it more often.

Driving home on Tuesday wasn’t even that bad.  I woke up early to go vote…and felt horrible and decided to just go later.  Best decision ever.  I took Oscar to the vet for his yearly vaccinations and check-up and drove over to the voting place.  I was figuring it would be a slight wait but hopefully everyone would be at work so not too long a line.  It was 10:12 when I walked into vote and 10:14 when I got back inside the car.  Seriously.  TWO MINUTES.  A bunch of my friends had to wait TWO HOURS and I got done in two minutes.  Fantastic.

I’ve been pretty lazy since I’ve been home.  I got breakfast with my sister and dad and then hung out with L yesterday and even baby-sat for her.  My nephews are the cutest ever. 

Today I went back up to New Brunswick and got my hair cut.  I walked in and told my hairdresser to just do whatever she wanted because I was just sick of my hair and wanted it off my head.  I ended up cutting off about 8″…not quite enough to donate (you need 10″)…but any shorter and I’d hate it.  My head feels SO much lighter…and I look so much like L now.  And since L is pretty…I guess that means I look pretty too :-P. 

Anyways, I’m dreading returning to work on Monday.  At least I still have a few more days home and then I’ll be back on vacation in about two weeks.  I’ll try and last until then. 

Also…still haven’t gone running since Tuesday.  Need to work on that.  Lazy ass.  Hopefully tomorrow. 

So…yay vacation!!!!

I went running tonight since I probably won’t get a chance to go tomorrow between taking Oscar to the vet, voting, and driving back to Jersey…so at least that’s taken care of.

I’m hoping someone will yell at me at least once this week and force me to go running (I don’t really do well when I’m out of town…I tend to slack off big time on the running). 

Anyways, I’m busy packing tonight for my hopefully early trip out tomorrow morning. 

And don’t forget to vote tomorrow!!!! 

I can’t wait for this to be OVER WITH!