10 years

It was about 8:30 pm on April 30, 2002 when I got the call. After endless chemo treatments, radiation, and doctor visits, Kerri had passed away.

Kerri and I met through our church youth group. She was always someone you could depend on to give you a laugh if you needed one. Her faith, even at 18 was something I still admire to this day. She was an awesome basketball player and a great friend.

I remember the day before Kerri's first appointment. She has been playing basketball and thought she has just tweaked her shoulder. However this particular Sunday she was never pus about her appt because basketball had been over for a few weeks and she was still have shoulder pain. That next day is when she got the news that she had Osteosarcoma- bone cancer.

To this day, St. Jude's has a special place in my heart. For my non-catholic friends, St Jude is the patron saint of hopeless cases. St Jude's Hospital is where Kerri had all of her treatments. While she was one of the older patients there, she was an inspiration to so many. I can't watch the St Jude's specials or telethons without thinking about Kerri, and normally without crying.

One of the reasons I wanted to get married at St Jude's Catholic church was because of Kerri. Yes, it was Robert's church growing up but I have always loved that it is St Jude's.

I cannot believe it's been 10 years since Kerri died. But I am so incredibly thankful that I was able to know her for as long as I did.

Just say no...

I despise Valentine's Day.  Robert and I have a strict policy that we don't celebrate this holiday.  In my opinion if you love someone you should tell them everyday and not because hallmark/dove/ftd florist tells you to.  If you want to do something special, do it any other day because that shows me you really care.  The first year that Robert and I were dating and this holiday rolled around I told him of my hate for it and that I don't celebrate the holiday.  He thought it was a trick so he cooked me dinner, under my protest.  

Call me a scrooge of this holiday, but I can't stand it!  Am I alone in this one?

Good bye 2011

Like every year, you have to take the good with the bad.  It just so happens that our bad has to do with Robert's employment status.  We are both hoping that 2012 is a better year!

The Good:
- Auburn winning the National Championship
- Running 2 half marathons
- Week spent at St Simons Island
- Spending Thanksgiving with the in-laws
- Spending Christmas with my family
- Getting to see both my brother and sister in law (although separately)who live in WA
- Celebrating 1 year of marriage
- Births of 2 babies to some of our good friends

The Bad:
- Robert being offered 3 jobs, taking the 1 he liked the most only to find out a week later the position has been put on hold as they review the department
- Following up on the other 2 offers to find out they have already moved on 
- 18 months of unemployment, and counting
- Deaths of Robert's grandmother and good friend from growing up

Yes, Robert got 3 job offers in December and he was really excited about them.  2 involved more of a learning curve and travel and 1 was similar to what he was doing in his previous job.  He choose the one that was similar to his previous job and submitted his paperwork for a background check the week before Christmas.  Last week he found out that they brought in analysts to see if the department was running efficiently and that all hiring was on hold until further notice.  Hopefully they are running efficiently, but at this point it's 50/50.  
 

1/2 Marathon in Review- 2 months late

I had actually written this post the week after completing the race, but apparently never posted- better late than never, right?  

I completed my second 1/2 marathon on Thanksgiving morning!  While I was hoping to do 2:05 or better, I did have PR by almost 2 minutes from my last run.

Carb loading:  Wednesday night Robert and I decided to go eat Mexican food instead of the "typical" pasta meal.  I figured I should be ok if I stuck to chicken tacos and didn't go crazy on the salsa, and of course passed on the beer!  My meal choice worked out well-I've read that you shouldn't eat anything you haven't done a long run on before.  With our frequent trips to Taxco and my running schedule lately, I was fairly certain I should be fine.

Morning meal:  Like my last 1/2, my pre-race meal was 2 pieces of bread with peanut butter and half of a powerade zero.  I started hydrating on Monday, making sure to drink as much water or powerade zero as possible-but I also knew I needed to drink something before.  There is a fine balance with this because if I drank too much it was going to require a potty break, and I really didn't want to add time waiting in a line on the course.

Pre-race:  The race started just outside of Turner Field, so I had Robert drop me off as close as possible and then I made my way to my corral.  Since it was a tad chilly to actually stand in the cold, Robert dropped me off and then went to work out, and came back in time to see me near the finish line.  It was about 40 degrees when the first wave started at 7:30 but it turned out to be ideal running weather.

Course:  If you are familiar with Atlanta at all, you know that it is deceivingly hilly.  We did a loop through the city, going past the CNN center over to Northside Drive, through Atlantic Station, over to Piedmont Park, then up and down Juniper (more on that later), near the MLK memorial, past Oakland Cemetery, and then around the Capital Building, back to Turner Field.  The first quarter of a mile was up hill, but I ended up not minding as much when I was running down that hill at the finish.  I was actually on pace to do 2:05 or better up until mile 9, which is around the time of Juniper.  It was a lot of rolling hills until the end.  This is also where my back started hurting.  My back hurt a little in the 1/2 back in March, but I was either able to work past it or it went away.  This time around, it came and only got worse.  I was so close to walking at a few points, but I knew I had already slowed down so much that if I walked I would risk not getting a PR.

I told Robert he was at the perfect location on the course.  He was about a quarter of a mile from the finish line, at the top of a hill and right before the downhill portion to the finish line.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to find him, but he was like a light at the end of a tunnel.  I ran over towards him so he could take a picture (my Mom's request), and then picked up the pace until the finish.

There weren't nearly as many people out on the course this time around, which wasn't surprising since it was Thanksgiving morning.  But I was able to get a good chuckle out of one of the signs someone had around Atlantic Station, it was "Worst Parade Ever."

After the race Robert and I headed home to relax for a few hours before heading up to my in-laws house for Thanksgiving.  Overall it was a good day, and it totally made the huge plate of food I ate for dinner worth it (though I was proud I didn't go back for seconds).

It's Official...

I've signed up for the Atlanta Half Marathon!

And I also will not consider myself a dedicated runner.  I'm sure you've all heard about a certain aliment that runners suffer from time to time during their runs.  Last Monday I was 1 mile into my 10 mile run when it hit me.  I decided that I would just turn around because there was a porta potty at the beginning of the trial I was on.  Well I get about 10 ft when I realize that I wouldn't make it 1 mile and starting looking around for a plan b.  Thankfully this particular run I was doing in the middle of the woods, and there just happened to be an opening.  Yeah, not my proudest moment-but I those remaining 9 miles was the best run I've had in a long time!

I was supposed to do a 15k yesterday, but woke up with horrible hip pain and ended up only doing a 10k.  My hip has been popping a lot lately, so I don't know if I've tweaked something or if it was from sleeping on an air mattress all weekend.  It's still hurting, so I'm going to take tonight off and rest a little more.  The last thing I want to do is hurt myself and not be able to do this 1/2.   

Earning my Turkey

I decided that I'm going to run another half marathon!  (Ok, I really decided at the end of August, just haven't shared it.)  The Atlanta Track Club has a 1/2 marathon on Thanksgiving morning.  Since Robert and I will be in Atlanta this year for Thanksgiving, and the Iron Bowl isn't until Saturday, I thought this would be the perfect race to run in.  I'm already in week 6 of training, with 6 more weeks to go!

Up until about February of this year I never kept track of my times.  I knew in general how long it was taking me to run, but that was going off the time I walked out the door and the time I walked back in-meaning it didn't take into consideration the 5-10 minutes I would spend stretching and getting downstairs.  It didn't really bother me too much because I also wasn't running for time, I was just running because I like how I feel after running and getting some sort of physical activity in 5 days a week.  But lately I've been wanting to know my time, and try to improve. 

After my first half I joined Daily Mile.  I really like this website because I have a log of all my runs, times, and paces since March.  It gives you a report of your week's progress and lets you know how many miles you've run (I've logged 411.23 miles since March 21).  I've always known that in the summer more time was added on to my mile- Jeff Galloway says 20% increase when the temperature is above 80.  But I wanted to know how much (to put it in perspective, in March/April I had between a 8:50-9:20 pace...in late May-August I had between a 9:45-10:30 pace).  So, if you are a runner-just starting out or at it for awhile- I highly recommend this site! (and add me)

I'll keep you posted on my progress and any goal times I set for myself.  I would love to set another PR with this half-I ran my first half in 2:09:09.  But I want to evaluate it all when the time gets closer, though I am eyeing a 2:05 time- that's a pace of 9:34...

Closet Drama

Football season is in full swing, which means Robert and I are out of town for almost everyone home game during the season.  We weren't planning on going to the Florida Atlantic game, but then I found out the Velcro Pygmies is going to be playing at the Supper Club that night!  The icing on the cake is that it is a 6:00 kickoff-which may be bad because that means a full day of tailgating followed by a late night out! 

But when we aren't at Auburn, we've been dealing with our closet.  Oh our closet!  Let me give you some history first.  Back in July, while Robert was in California, I spent all weekend cleaning our closet and bedroom.  It's been a wreck for the last few months as we have been fixing issues so I got it looking nice and organized, as seen here:

 
Well, a few weeks ago, the morning of one of Robert's interviews, he walks into our closet looking like this:

He sends it to me, with a text message "my suit is under there"  Miraculously nothing of importance broke, just some of the plastic containers.  And his suit was ok after he was able to dig it out.  But it was a pain for a good week while we tried to decide what to do in there.

So on Labor Day, we decided that it would be a day of labor-and the closet would be tackled and complete.  So off to Home Depot we went for the supplies we would need.  We came home and had 3/4 of Robert's clothes hanging back up (and even finally getting rid of some in the process), when we hear a thud in the closet and walk into this...

Well darn... (ok, other words were used.  by me).  Ok, I sugar coated the process of getting it back up- it may or may not have involved a throwing fit by me after another shelf collapsed on me (just into the closet of course).  Yes, I over reacted, but I couldn't help it.  I had spent so much time on this closet that I just wanted it to go away. 

So now, after making sure studs even existed in the wall-which I've marked but we're still not 100% sold on how "studly" they are- Robert is attempting #2 of closet redo.  Who knew this would be so difficult? 

I'll be sure to post pictures when we have it done...hopefully by the weekend...