Possibly what I did this weekend. I bit off way more than I could chew.
I have talked about how I've been trying to run and train for the marathon, and I've been doing it over time so that I can get used to it. Since Dan has been here, I haven't been as good as maybe I should have been when it comes to running. I have slacked off a few days, but I haven't let myself get down about it. Every day I've skipped, we've been doing an intensely physical activity outside. We went rock-climbing twice, we took VERY long walks, we canoed huge portions of a river. So I haven't gotten too much running in. However, when we were planning our weekend, I mentioned that I really wanted to go back to Asheville. We loved it in the winter, had so much fun, and both of us talked about going back in the spring. Dan found out that there was a race in Asheville on Saturday, and we decided to get a hotel room on the Friday night before the race.
When we went to dinner on Friday night, Dan and I had agreed that he was going to do the ten-miler, and I was going to do the 5k. I've never done ten miles before, and this race was supposedly really hilly. After a glass of wine, though, I decided that I would be mad if I did a measly 5K and he did ten miles. So I said I would do the ten miler, and we both agreed that we didn't care about our times.
Saturday morning proved to be a difficult morning. I woke up not feeling well, and I will spare the details. Put it this way: the person who emailed me (and will remain nameless) to suggest Immodium before a race? Yes, they are correct. I took one, and during the race I was fine, but I was NOT fine until about a half hour before. My running partner did not feel well either. We got bagels and coffee, though, and we got on the road. We registered for the race all of ten minutes before the start time, and we finally started running at 9 am.
Let me tell you: when I heard of the course as "hilly", they WERE NOT KIDDING. The first FIVE MILES was a SOLID CLIMB. The second was a steady descent. This sounds great, but don't tell that to my joints. It HURTS to run downhill for a long time. I really did HORRIBLY in the race. I didn't finish last and it was a really small field to begin with, but I was CLOSE to last. I mean REALLY close. But I finished. All ten miles. Roughly a 3500 foot climb, up and then down. I noticed that the race was sponsored by the local hospital and wanted to voluntarily check in and have my feet amputated.
All in all, however, we had a great time once the race was done. We went to the outdoor sports festival and quickly left once we realized that we could not find any non-vegetarian food. Hey, it is Asheville, hippies are everywhere. We had a rather large post-race meal downtown, and then felt no guilt when we drank lots of beer at a couples baby shower we were invited to in Charlotte last night.
So yes, I bit off more than I could chew at the race. Still made it through (with a few walking periods) but I'm hurting a lot today. Taking today and monday off, then it's back to my 2 mile run on Tuesday. Ugh, I am not looking forward to that at ALL.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
I'M NOT DEAD, I SWEAR
Melissa emailed me today asking me why I've been so quiet on the blog...eh, I don't know. Don't really have any big news, but then again, I didn't before, right? Don't have much time, but then again, I don't have kids and I didn't have time before. So the real answer is just...I suck. Sorry.
Memorial Day was lots of fun. Dan and I went back to my hometown for a camping trip with a good friend of mine from high school. We all got a slow start on Saturday and about 12 people total took a nice slow canoe trip down the James River. We took Colonel Mustard, who, for the record, is NOT a good swimmer. If you throw him in the water, he sounds a bit like a bowling ball being thrown in a lake. He swam, but only to keep himself from drowning. He did NOT like that. Guess I'll have to introduce him to the water again soon so he's not so scared of it, or at least buy him a life jacket. We camped out at an island in Appomattox County (where, you might have heard, is "where our nation became whole again" - the surrender of the Civil War...and yes, it really hasn't changed much since then) and then got another WAY slow start and canoed another 10 miles or so to the edge of the James River State Park. I'm glad we didn't go any further down the river - Dan got a sunburn, we were out of non-alcoholic drinks, and east of Appomattox county, the trash starts to pile up in the river. I had a lot of fun, but I was struck by the fact that I never really did things like that too much when I lived in Lynchburg. I went camping once or twice, went rock-climbing a few times, went to camps in the boondocks, and played at Panther Falls once or twice in high school, but I don't really think I appreciated it as much as I should have. I definitely think that moving to bigger cities on rivers (Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia) have made me SO aware of how disgusting they can get when people don't treat them properly. Everyone on the trip was saying how beautiful the James was, but that when you get even a little bit further downriver, it's just gross. Anyway, we had a lot of fun, and hopefully I'll get some pictures sent to me to post. I took my camera, but chickened out from bringing it on board the canoe - now I want one of those water-proof point-and-shoots.
In other news, I've been reading a really interesting book. If you'd like to know about the place I grew up, pick it up. I heard about this a little while back and thought (like a lot of native Lynchburgers) "why didn't I think of THAT?!?" - an average guy decided to transfer to Liberty University for a semester and write about the experience in one of the world's - admittedly - most DIFFERENT universities. I often tell people about Liberty and my hometown and people are almost disbelieving at how crazy that place is - a 45 page code of moral conduct, reprimands for not making your bed in your dorm, being able to be kicked out of school for drinking LEGALLY - this backs it up. It really has made me think about growing up there and how happy I am that I never bought into it in lockstep the way a lot of people have. Don't get me wrong - I don't think for one second that people who go to Liberty don't know what they're getting into, but it scares me to read some of the stuff in the book. Things like the fact that Liberty steadfastly demands teaching a Young-Earth model of Creation, which is adament in the assumption of the world being less than ten thousand years old. I don't mean to stir up evolution vs creation here - I believe both of the theories have room for each other. But to say that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with man, that carbon-dating was made up by atheist scientists? Yeah. It also bothered me to see women still regarded as all-but second-class citizens, who are taught to recoil at the sight of the word 'feminist' and to consider their first job in this world as submission to their husband. If you want to use that model for your marriage, by all means, do so. But I consider it a completely different matter when it is taught as the only correct school of thought in a University (sic) that receives federal funds. At any rate, I happened to pick the book up in Lynchburg across the street from LU, and even though it wasn't on Liberty property, the fact that I could only buy it by requesting it from behind the counter was not lost on me - especially on the weekend LU announced that their chapter of the Young Democrats was thrown off campus because they lent support to pro-choice candidates. It made me think a lot about what they've done to my hometown, and quite frankly, I'm running out of good things to say about them. You know when you've gotten to the end of your rope with an old friend? The one who has never made you feel like you've known them all that well, the one who continually hurts you when you stick up for them? Yeah, that's about how I feel. I'm continually saddened to see that the Liberty / Thomas Road Baptist Church / Old Time Gospel Hour / whatever sideshow has hijacked the meaning and name of institutions and ideas that I used to actually enjoy - namely, the Republican Party, Lynchburg, and for that matter, Christianity in general. I hate that they've invoked the name of God to parade their moral high horse and have imposed the idea that if someone doesn't agree with them, they're against God. I've got news for you, Jerry Falwell Jr: Martin Luther's 95 theses still stand. It's not between a person and a Church, a person and a Megachurch, a person and a University, or even a person and a Moral (sic) Majority (sic). It's between a person and God. And by the way: Church. State. Separate. Get it?
OK. Off my soapbox now. This is the book - The Unlikely Disciple, by Kevin Roose. For a guy of all of maybe 22, he's a great writer and seems to have accomplished a task that not many native Lyncburgers ever could - writing a fair and balanced (um, not in the FoxNews way, though) account of the nation's Holiest-than-Thouest school.
Hope you all had a great weekend, and nope, sorry...no word on the job yet.
Memorial Day was lots of fun. Dan and I went back to my hometown for a camping trip with a good friend of mine from high school. We all got a slow start on Saturday and about 12 people total took a nice slow canoe trip down the James River. We took Colonel Mustard, who, for the record, is NOT a good swimmer. If you throw him in the water, he sounds a bit like a bowling ball being thrown in a lake. He swam, but only to keep himself from drowning. He did NOT like that. Guess I'll have to introduce him to the water again soon so he's not so scared of it, or at least buy him a life jacket. We camped out at an island in Appomattox County (where, you might have heard, is "where our nation became whole again" - the surrender of the Civil War...and yes, it really hasn't changed much since then) and then got another WAY slow start and canoed another 10 miles or so to the edge of the James River State Park. I'm glad we didn't go any further down the river - Dan got a sunburn, we were out of non-alcoholic drinks, and east of Appomattox county, the trash starts to pile up in the river. I had a lot of fun, but I was struck by the fact that I never really did things like that too much when I lived in Lynchburg. I went camping once or twice, went rock-climbing a few times, went to camps in the boondocks, and played at Panther Falls once or twice in high school, but I don't really think I appreciated it as much as I should have. I definitely think that moving to bigger cities on rivers (Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia) have made me SO aware of how disgusting they can get when people don't treat them properly. Everyone on the trip was saying how beautiful the James was, but that when you get even a little bit further downriver, it's just gross. Anyway, we had a lot of fun, and hopefully I'll get some pictures sent to me to post. I took my camera, but chickened out from bringing it on board the canoe - now I want one of those water-proof point-and-shoots.
In other news, I've been reading a really interesting book. If you'd like to know about the place I grew up, pick it up. I heard about this a little while back and thought (like a lot of native Lynchburgers) "why didn't I think of THAT?!?" - an average guy decided to transfer to Liberty University for a semester and write about the experience in one of the world's - admittedly - most DIFFERENT universities. I often tell people about Liberty and my hometown and people are almost disbelieving at how crazy that place is - a 45 page code of moral conduct, reprimands for not making your bed in your dorm, being able to be kicked out of school for drinking LEGALLY - this backs it up. It really has made me think about growing up there and how happy I am that I never bought into it in lockstep the way a lot of people have. Don't get me wrong - I don't think for one second that people who go to Liberty don't know what they're getting into, but it scares me to read some of the stuff in the book. Things like the fact that Liberty steadfastly demands teaching a Young-Earth model of Creation, which is adament in the assumption of the world being less than ten thousand years old. I don't mean to stir up evolution vs creation here - I believe both of the theories have room for each other. But to say that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with man, that carbon-dating was made up by atheist scientists? Yeah. It also bothered me to see women still regarded as all-but second-class citizens, who are taught to recoil at the sight of the word 'feminist' and to consider their first job in this world as submission to their husband. If you want to use that model for your marriage, by all means, do so. But I consider it a completely different matter when it is taught as the only correct school of thought in a University (sic) that receives federal funds. At any rate, I happened to pick the book up in Lynchburg across the street from LU, and even though it wasn't on Liberty property, the fact that I could only buy it by requesting it from behind the counter was not lost on me - especially on the weekend LU announced that their chapter of the Young Democrats was thrown off campus because they lent support to pro-choice candidates. It made me think a lot about what they've done to my hometown, and quite frankly, I'm running out of good things to say about them. You know when you've gotten to the end of your rope with an old friend? The one who has never made you feel like you've known them all that well, the one who continually hurts you when you stick up for them? Yeah, that's about how I feel. I'm continually saddened to see that the Liberty / Thomas Road Baptist Church / Old Time Gospel Hour / whatever sideshow has hijacked the meaning and name of institutions and ideas that I used to actually enjoy - namely, the Republican Party, Lynchburg, and for that matter, Christianity in general. I hate that they've invoked the name of God to parade their moral high horse and have imposed the idea that if someone doesn't agree with them, they're against God. I've got news for you, Jerry Falwell Jr: Martin Luther's 95 theses still stand. It's not between a person and a Church, a person and a Megachurch, a person and a University, or even a person and a Moral (sic) Majority (sic). It's between a person and God. And by the way: Church. State. Separate. Get it?
OK. Off my soapbox now. This is the book - The Unlikely Disciple, by Kevin Roose. For a guy of all of maybe 22, he's a great writer and seems to have accomplished a task that not many native Lyncburgers ever could - writing a fair and balanced (um, not in the FoxNews way, though) account of the nation's Holiest-than-Thouest school.
Hope you all had a great weekend, and nope, sorry...no word on the job yet.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Nice Rack...
I have to go running now, but I thought I would show you how amazingly AWESOME my new shelves are. I can see all of my paints on the wall and it looks like the freaking store or something. I love it. My boyfriend is the best shelf-builder ever in the whole wide world.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Random junk from your elusive friend Molly...
Oh I know...I'm a horrible, spotty poster.
Random updates...
1. Still no update on whether or not I have a job. Supposedly going to find out on the results of my company's rebidding of the project next week, and by the looks of things, my company should be in a pretty good position. After that they've got to negotiate the details of their contract, which should help them figure out if they can afford me. At this point, I just want a decision.
2. I got an iPhone! I love it. I had to get a new phone (the blackberry really bit the dust - I couldn't type the A, S, W or space bar keys for some time) and I finally qualified for reduced pricing - actually lower than a new blackberry. First time EVER an Apple product has been cheaper than a non-Apple product!
3. Dan was in town this week. I had so much fun with him, we didn't do a whole lot, but he did build me some AWESOME shelves for my paints. I already knew Dan was good at this sort of thing, because on our first real "date", he outpacked my Dad (not easy) in loading up my U-haul to move here. I had more stuff than when I moved from Boston, and Dan packed way more stuff than my dad did in the same size U-haul. He really blew this one out of the water with the shelves though - I told him what I needed and he proceeded to build me some shelves that rival the work of any Engineer I'll ever know. All for less than $30 in materials at Lowe's, plus the purchase of a jigsaw that will come in handy when I start making my own frames again.
4. Still running, but I'm having some knee pain. I've had surgery on the same knee before, and I know that it's not an ACL or MCL (that would be HORRIBLE), and I think it's just tendonitis. But MAN, it HURTS. I had to slow down on an easy 3 mile run the other morning (yes, I had to run in the morning - it's already too damn hot to run in the evening here) because it hurt so bad, so I took two days off to rest it and I'm going to buy a specialized ice pack to ease the inflammation. I refuse to use those knee straps - my stepdad is in Sports Medicine and has always said that if you start running with one, you'll be dependent on it forever. Thankfully, the rest helped, I ran 3 miles today and I didn't have any pain. I'm going to run again in the morning, so we'll see how it goes on day 2 after the break. I am still up to date on my mileage, 2 months in, but I told Dan the other day that part of my slump with the knee pain is that frankly, I'm BORED of running. He recommended to not make myself make up runs if I skip one run or so a week, as long as I keep my long runs engraved in stone. I don't know - I'm afraid that if I break a schedule without making it up, I'll never start back. We'll see.
5. I'm babysitting 2 of my favorite towheads for like 36 whole hours this weekend - Owen and Caroline! I know Meghan's probably freaking out right about now, but it'll just be a quiet day and a half with the littlest Holbrooks. Meghan said we could go somewhere if we wanted, but given that there's a massive outbreak of Pinkeye, not to mention the Swine Flu, I think we're just going to keep it low-key and stay home. No, I don't think that they'd be Swine Flu Patient X and Y, but I pride myself on giving my baby-sitting charges back to their mothers without highly contagious diseases. We're going to have loads of fun, though, and I'm sure Matt and Meghan will do the same at the wedding in the dirty Jerz.
6. No real change in deployment status, but Dan might get a different unit, which will mean that he will go to the OTHER war-torn region. It means he gets to be with one of his best friends while he's on deployment, though, which is really good news for him and for me. I'd much rather him feel like he's being backed up by people that he really trusts instead of people he only recently met. It could be weeks before he even finds out, though, so I'm not thinking about it until I have to.
7. How ABOUT that professor that killed all those people in Athens? I was floored when I saw that. I had him for a class, but I ended up dropping it. I just remember him being smart, but I got an odd feeling from him. I thought maybe he was one of those teachers that would end up being fired for inappropriate relations with a student - turns out he was a brewing mass murderer instead. Who'd have thunk it?
Random updates...
1. Still no update on whether or not I have a job. Supposedly going to find out on the results of my company's rebidding of the project next week, and by the looks of things, my company should be in a pretty good position. After that they've got to negotiate the details of their contract, which should help them figure out if they can afford me. At this point, I just want a decision.
2. I got an iPhone! I love it. I had to get a new phone (the blackberry really bit the dust - I couldn't type the A, S, W or space bar keys for some time) and I finally qualified for reduced pricing - actually lower than a new blackberry. First time EVER an Apple product has been cheaper than a non-Apple product!
3. Dan was in town this week. I had so much fun with him, we didn't do a whole lot, but he did build me some AWESOME shelves for my paints. I already knew Dan was good at this sort of thing, because on our first real "date", he outpacked my Dad (not easy) in loading up my U-haul to move here. I had more stuff than when I moved from Boston, and Dan packed way more stuff than my dad did in the same size U-haul. He really blew this one out of the water with the shelves though - I told him what I needed and he proceeded to build me some shelves that rival the work of any Engineer I'll ever know. All for less than $30 in materials at Lowe's, plus the purchase of a jigsaw that will come in handy when I start making my own frames again.
4. Still running, but I'm having some knee pain. I've had surgery on the same knee before, and I know that it's not an ACL or MCL (that would be HORRIBLE), and I think it's just tendonitis. But MAN, it HURTS. I had to slow down on an easy 3 mile run the other morning (yes, I had to run in the morning - it's already too damn hot to run in the evening here) because it hurt so bad, so I took two days off to rest it and I'm going to buy a specialized ice pack to ease the inflammation. I refuse to use those knee straps - my stepdad is in Sports Medicine and has always said that if you start running with one, you'll be dependent on it forever. Thankfully, the rest helped, I ran 3 miles today and I didn't have any pain. I'm going to run again in the morning, so we'll see how it goes on day 2 after the break. I am still up to date on my mileage, 2 months in, but I told Dan the other day that part of my slump with the knee pain is that frankly, I'm BORED of running. He recommended to not make myself make up runs if I skip one run or so a week, as long as I keep my long runs engraved in stone. I don't know - I'm afraid that if I break a schedule without making it up, I'll never start back. We'll see.
5. I'm babysitting 2 of my favorite towheads for like 36 whole hours this weekend - Owen and Caroline! I know Meghan's probably freaking out right about now, but it'll just be a quiet day and a half with the littlest Holbrooks. Meghan said we could go somewhere if we wanted, but given that there's a massive outbreak of Pinkeye, not to mention the Swine Flu, I think we're just going to keep it low-key and stay home. No, I don't think that they'd be Swine Flu Patient X and Y, but I pride myself on giving my baby-sitting charges back to their mothers without highly contagious diseases. We're going to have loads of fun, though, and I'm sure Matt and Meghan will do the same at the wedding in the dirty Jerz.
6. No real change in deployment status, but Dan might get a different unit, which will mean that he will go to the OTHER war-torn region. It means he gets to be with one of his best friends while he's on deployment, though, which is really good news for him and for me. I'd much rather him feel like he's being backed up by people that he really trusts instead of people he only recently met. It could be weeks before he even finds out, though, so I'm not thinking about it until I have to.
7. How ABOUT that professor that killed all those people in Athens? I was floored when I saw that. I had him for a class, but I ended up dropping it. I just remember him being smart, but I got an odd feeling from him. I thought maybe he was one of those teachers that would end up being fired for inappropriate relations with a student - turns out he was a brewing mass murderer instead. Who'd have thunk it?
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