Advice

Remember this post?  Maybe you do, since it was only two blog posts ago.  But then again, it was over a month ago.

I went for a run outside this past Saturday and looked at the timer on my watch.  It still read 51:14.  Do you remember what that time was?  It was from my last race, as mentioned above.  I hadn't run outside in over a month.  That's pathetic.

So now I'm trying to plan my next race.  I'm seriously considering the Denver Rock & Roll Marathon:  seriously considering whether I want to do another full marathon or just the half.  But remember that I hadn't run outside in over a month, which really means that I haven't run over 3 miles at a time in over a month.  Lazy pants= me. (And I will surely be out of shape for the Bix @ six run next week!)

Thoughts on whether I should do another full or a half?  I won't have Jake with me this time for training, but he could always ride his bike while I ran?  I also have a friend running the full and a friend running the half.

What do you think??  Should I be crazy yet again??

Lost

Drama, drama, drama.

I have been having a rough week with remembering things.  The teenager that I am paired up with for camp has a hard time remembering things (obviously), and I'm not really that good at on my own (ok, I'm horrible).  I need to be able to remind him of things so that we don't have random accidents (whether that be bathroom, sunburn, missed medications, etc.).  We have had a few mishaps along the way, but not too bad.

Then yesterday I lost my sunglasses at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  I'm pretty sure I know where I left them- and I went back but they weren't there.  That stunk.

Then today we had problems remembering a water bottle.  Then I found out that the kid I am supposed to be with from 3-5p who hasn't been at camp yet was there today, so I was with her today.  She was physically VERY exhausting.  She's a tough kid- but I think I am really going to learn a lot from her (even though she doesn't have any words except sign language for "more.")  I was drained.

Once the day was over I realized that I had lost my cell phone.  I traced my steps, but wasn't able to find it.  I was afraid I had left it somewhere in Boulder and I really didn't want to have to drive back there.

I was so sick of losing things and being tired (I've been working quite a bit between the two jobs), and about lost it.  We came home and I decided I needed a break and was going to stay home from life group.  Then Jake's phone rang... and it was my phone!  Hurray.  We met the person who found my phone, came home with eggrolls and ate macaroni for dinner.  It was fantastic.  We also watched Tangled which I had been very excited to watch since obtaining the movie.   :)

Then tonight I looked on the 3point5 website (a heavily discounted website for retail workers) and found out that the UA sunglasses I had been wanting were finally replenished on the website.  NEW sunglasses for me!  Hurray.  I will definitely not be taking these new ones around with me daily because they are way too nice and expensive to lose at camp.

I think I'm going to go to bed pretty soon too.  I'm pooped.  And I'm sick of losing things.

Bolder Boulder

I haven't blogged in a really long time.  In over two months, in fact.  Oh well.

So today I ran the Boulder Boulder.  It is a fascinating race.  I've never run a 10k before and it weirded me out with all the different ages of people.  There are over 50,000 that participated in it this year, so when you are searching for results you have to look up a specific age and gender if you are just browsing.

I decided to look up 10 year old girls.  There was one girl that beat me.  I felt a little embarrassed by that, but then I looked at 10 year old boys.  You've got to be kidding me.  The fastest 10 year old boy finished 88th overall.  That's 88th out of over 50,000 people.  He ran it at a 5:47 min/mile pace.  That's seriously incredible.  That kid is going to have a cross-country scholarship when he gets to be college age...sheesh.

Anyway, it was a fun day.  I smashed my goal time of finishing in 54 min; finished in 51:14.  Boom baby.  Maybe I should train a bit better for the next race and I could keep doing even better.  Anyway, during a time when I feel very chaotic not knowing where I'm going to be in 6 months and where I will be working next week, it felt good to be able to control my final race time.  Very good.

Here I am pleased with my time. :)

Old farts

It's also Jake's birthday today.  I find him to be the sweetest, most caring, incredible, fun to be around, makes you feel like the coolest person in the world, most funny goofball of a man I have ever met.  I knew very shortly after I met him that I wanted to marry him, and I was SO right about that.

I love you, sweetheart.  These past 8 years of knowing you have been absolutely wonderful! (And now that we're married, we can kiss anytime we want!!!)

:)

Happy birthday, Jake!

Rare finds

We have this friend in our life group that is currently in Israel.  Before he left, he offered to let us use his car while he was gone so that it would make our lives more convenient and Jake wouldn't have to get up at 3:30 am yesterday to take me to work.  It was incredibly sweet of him, and we took him up on it.

In addition, this friend is a teacher at a Christian middle school where a common gift they give him is gift cards.  Except, our friend doesn't really use them.  Seriously.  He joked about how many gift cards he had one time, and we didn't really believe he had very many.

Except... when we went to pick up the car, he told us that all his gift cards were in the car and we are free to use them.  What a sweetheart!  We checked them out... he has over $160 worth of gift cards that we would consider using (there are even more than that).  We obviously won't use them all, but we have definitely taken advantage of the Wendy's gift card, and will probably take advantage of the Starbucks cards he has too (we're pretty sure he doesn't drink coffee, and Jake found out on the website that his Wendy's cards were over 3 years old).

Gift cards are precious treasures.  Our friend is also quite the guy!

Processing

Jake and I just got up from a nap.  A LONG nap.  A 2 hr 45 min nap.  It was only supposed to be 1 hr 45 min (which is, in fact, still long).  But we needed it.  Or at least I know I did.  I have been exhausted lately, and I'm pretty sure that I will be especially exhausted after this week.

Tomorrow I work 7-3, which is fairly normal but I have been closing on Mondays for a while so it is a bit weird.  I was told that I can't leave on Monday until I have a particular project done because Tuesday is.... duh duh duh.... inventory day!  Bah.  I'm really hoping that we have a light day on Monday because I really want to hunker down and just get it all ready.  On Tuesday I work from 4:30am-2pm.  I also think I take my "lunch" at 8:30 in the morning, which kind of cracks me up.  Oh, retail...

Then Wednesday is Jake's birthday and I actually close for work instead.  So we'll be going to Red Robin for lunch instead, and then I'll have to head to work.  I just realized that Thursday is going to be fabulous because I finally don't have any doctor appointments.  Sleeping in- haven't done it in so long!  I also have a long run that day and life group, but those are fun things.  Friday is my normal early shift, then having some friends over for dinner, and Saturday another early shift.

I also just realized that this is my most intense, but last, week of significant training for the half marathon.  I've been struggling lately because I keep cutting my runs short or skipping them altogether because I don't have enough time or energy.  I'm pretty sure I won't ever do this training program again if and when I do another race of some kind.  I did, however, put a tank top on for my run yesterday.  It's been in the 70s for the past few days and I LOVE it.  Jake and I are nervous that April will be fun of tons of snow since it hasn't at all come yet this month, but we'll see.

Ok, enough of all of that.  I think that post was mostly for my own processing, so thanks for listening anyway.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Rachel!

p.s.

It's really weird to try to kiss when you both have a half numb face.  You should try it if you ever get the chance.