Thoughts on Running

So Lisa and I (and several others) have signed up to run the Houston Rodeo Run 10K on March 1st...yeah 6.1 miles. Yikes! So yesterday we did a bit of a longer run, ~3.5 miles...good pace, good breathing, great weather. All in all a very good run.

Today was a different story. I decided that I was going to run 2 miles for time. For those of you who live in Houston, you know that today is an exceptionally humid day (currently 88% in my area). My first mile was great... 9 min 38s...and then I about died...I COULDN'T breathe! Seriously, it was like the air was getting stuck in the back of my throat! Does any one know of a lung implant I can get to filter the air? (Wouldn't that be a great invention??) So needless to say my second mile was just plain awful. First, I was running into hurricane-ish gale force winds (maybe a slight exaggeration...) granted...it did help to shove the air into my lungs...and then I had the Pain of Death in my side. Horrendous side cramp...which I used to my advantage by distracting myself with morbid scenes of myself collapsing on the side of the road because it was really acute appendicitis (overactive imagination..me?...never...). So definitely not my best mile ever. Oh well...

So bottom line, pray that the humidity on March 1st isn't ridiculous..under 30% would be great (and for you Arizonans out there, 30% humidity is NOT humid :) ).

What a cutie!

Although I was really bummed that I missed my sister and nephew at Christmas by two days, they had a wonderful time. She is such a good mom and he is just so cute! I hope to make another trip to Seattle to visit them soon...

My beautiful sister and her cute kid...who is distracted by the animals at the Reid Park Zoo



Just don't fall off please...



Chatting with some javelina at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum



This is really the best picture of them all...see what he is holding? Yep, that's a soccer ball!

Girls Group

We finally managed to get a group picture of our girls group today at our little New Years Shindig (the unofficial title). I can't believe 5 of our gals are graduating high school in May . They are just growing up so fast! :)

Serious picture...



Goofy picture

Random squawking

So a few weeks ago, I think my neighbor bought a bird of some type. It's very loud. And the noise it makes is a cross between a cat coughing up a hairball and someone stepping on a duck's tail. My cats freak out every time...it's starting to become white noise to me, but every so often, I just have to giggle....

New Attitude 08

I just registered for New Attitude. What's New Attitude you ask? It's a conference sponsored by Sovereign Grace Ministries for young adults, singles, and young married couples. This year the following men are speaking:

CJ Mahaney
Josh Harris
John Piper
Mark Dever
Al Mohler
Eric Simmons

And it is about "God's Word". Let the learning and challenging begin!

Check out the video for more info. I went to this several years ago and it was fantastic!

Weekend Summary

This weekend was all about catching up with some of my families.

Friday night was the Smythes and they introduced me to a new game: Sequence. So fun!
Saturday was sleeping in, a trip to the recyling center and then some time sewing/quilting.
Sunday was church, lunch at the Millers (another new game: Qwitch) and then the McFerren gals came over to watch PBS's Masterpiece Theater: Northanger Abbey (yay for Jane Austen!)
And today (gotta love 3 day weekends) was spent at the Van Wrights visiting with Sonya and the kids and hanging up stuff on her walls. And I finished another block on my quilt... pictures will follow once the quilt top is done (it's just a small size one, lap/baby quilt). And now...I'm off to run!

Houston EP5K stats

I got my official 5K results:

• Division: Female 25 to 29
• Gun Time: 33:31
• Chip Time: 32:50

The difference between the gun time and the chip time is the time it took me to get to the start line after the race started (there were a lot of people!). The chip time is my actual race time.

• Place within division: 85 / 230
• Place within gender: 376 / 1315
• Place overall: 1011 / 2398