14 posts tagged “adam”

That's right, I survived my very first half marathon! Today was such an amazing day - I'm still floating on adrenaline! I was super nervous this morning... if you know me, you know how I get. I'm cranky and, well, a little bit on the bitchy side when I'm really scared about something. So you can only imagine the sorts of things I was saying to other drivers on the road who cut me off at the exit.

My good friend Susan left me some great advice on Facebook last night... she said "the challenge in marathon running is getting to the starting line, knowing what lies ahead and having the guts to start. The rest will take care of itself." Honestly, it was so true. I was so freaked out until I actually started the race. Once we took off, it was "just run"... like every other run I've done for three months. Amazing.

And, of course, my fantastic family was there to support me! Adam and Eva brought some "flair" with them to make sure that our family was the loudest most visible group on the course:

And cheer they did... I know some of you are skeptical, but let me tell you, I was happy to have ANYONE cheering for me. My friend Jess also came to cheer... it was so amazing having all that support! Here's the family and I before the race:

The weather could not have been more perfect - it was cold, but once I started running, it was enough to cool you down without cramping your muscles. I started out pretty fast (hooray for adrenaline). My goal was to run 10 minute miles, which would have given me a final time of around two hours and ten minutes. Instead, I ended up doing roughly nine minute thirty-three second miles which gave me a final time of two hours and five minutes. I'm so super proud of myself! Towards the very end of the race, I seriously wanted to cry. I'm not sure if I was just that tired or if I was overwhelmed by it all or both. The only real pain I have going on is some seriously screwed up feet. I spilled some water on my shoes at one of the aid stations and managed to get it to soak through my socks... leaving me with some great blisters. Other than that, just the normal soreness!

Mike was stuck on a fire all night but was still sweet enough to drag his tired self down to catch what he could of the race. I honestly didn't think he'd make it, so I was blown away (and probably a little delirious) when I saw him standing at the top of the stairs. Here's us (don't I look great after 13.1 miles?):

After the run we headed over to Mom and Dad's for a delicious lunch (trust me, today I'm ready to eat just about anything!). I then went over to Betty's for a little going away party for one of our CERT members, Cheryl, who is moving to Texas. We did an offical "couch picture" for Cheryl to remember us by:

I spent the rest of tonight working on the pictures and catching up on some work... I think I'm just about ready for bed! For those of you who are wondering, yes, I'm still contemplating doing the full marathon, although I'll need some time to think about it. Here are the final stats for this run:

Half Marathon Final Stats

First Day Training: January 4th

Race Date: March 15th

Final Race Time: 2:05:08.3

Total Miles Logged: 178.6

Well, tomorrow at this time I will have just started my first half marathon. Yup, I'm a little nervous. No idea why - I've done 12 miles for the last two weekends, so I'm pretty sure that the extra 1.1 miles won't kill me. Oh well... today I'm heading over to Mom and Dad's to hang out - the whole gang is here! Adam, Eva, Mom, Dad, Kati and Oma are all there ready to chill and BBQ later tonight. It looks like it's supposed to rain, which is a little bit of a bummer, but nothing I can't handle!

Ok, off to carb load! :)

Marathon Update

Miles This Week and last: 27

Total Miles: 166

On Friday, Mike and I drove down to Livermore for the Adventure Race that he and Sean were going to do on Saturday. We met up with Sean and his wife, Erin, for a delicious Italian dinner. Saturday morning we headed over to the park for the race. Now, for those of you who don't know, an adventure race is no ordinary triathlon. In this one, they had to kayak 2.5 miles, run 2.5 miles and bike 15 miles. Here's the catch... there is no real course. That's right - there are like 7 checkpoints that they have to hit, but no trail to get there. They can basically take whatever route they want - they all have maps and compasses. From what I saw, it was a pretty crazy, hilly course. Talk about crazy people. The race went well... here's the guys at the finish line:

It was a gorgeous day - somewhere near the 70s and I pretty much had nothing to do other than sit at a lake and relax. I know, it's a tough life I lead.

Today was pretty mellow - Kati and I ran this morning and then did a bunch of errands. Tonight consisted of delicious chicken caccitori and us watching "My Best Friend's Girl". I'm just about ready to head off to bed... it's going to be another long week!

Here's my marathon training update - so far so good. I was a little sore after my last long run, but it wasn't anything that didn't go away. I got a book today that was written by a woman who had never run pretty much anywhere and still managed to make it through. She goes through all the crap that no one tells you - apparently the marathon part is the easy part - it's the 300 miles or so that you run to get ready for it that pretty much destroy your body. I can't wait.

Miles This Week: 15

Total Miles: 32

Finally, a great big (and day late) HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Adam! I believe he was floating around in the ocean somewhere near Cuba (not a bad way to spend a birthday, is it?)... I hope it was a good one!

Ok, I know it's a few days late, but apparently I've been really bad at blogging lately! Here's the 2008 recap:

January

• January 1st: Shadow breaks my nose. Happy New Years!
• January 13th: I get smacked in the nose again at a CERT drill and realize that my nose really is broken.
• January 17th: I started EMT school - so exciting!

February

• February 28th: My first of many encounters with the neighborhood turkies.

March

• March 8th: Houseboat weekend with Brigitte and Amber!
• March 15th: Mather Air Show Day One: lots of patients to practice on!
• March 16th: Mather Air Show Day Two: more patients!
• March 26th: My hospital rotation - a life changing experience!

April

• April 18th: Rivercats baseball game with Dad, Brigitte and Amber
• April 19-20th: CERT Mobex - disaster drill in Clovis

May

• May 10th: Kati graduates from UGA - Mom, Dad and I flew back for a fantastic weekend in Georgia!
• May 13th: NREMT exam - I passed and am officially an EMT!
• May 24th: EMT party - absolutely hilarious - everyone came dressed as some sort of victim... it was great!

June

• June 10th: Metro's CERT team is called up to help out with the local grass fires
• June 21st: Saved my first patient at a CERT event

July

• July 14th: Visited my customer in Houston. Hot and sticky. Ate more steak than a girl should!
• July 20th: Kati moves home from Georgia!

August

• August 8th: Joanna and Chris come to visit!
• The rest of August - Kati and I go to Germany, France, Italy and Greece... it's the trip of a lifetime!

September

• September 14th: Met Mike! :)
• September 24th: Had a close encounter with a tomato hornworm. Had to call Julie in for backup.
• September 26th: Went to the Neil Diamond concert with Kati!

October

• October 9th: Went to the New Kids On The Block concert with Julie, Mindy, Amanda and Chris.
• October 16th: Selected for the Sarah Weeden jury - little did I know it would last two months!
• October 31st: Halloween party!

November

• November 1st: Went to the Madonna concert with Adam and Eva!
• November 4th: Barak Obama is elected president
• November 26th: Thanksgiving vacation at Lake Almanor
• November 15th: Second Annual Friends Thanksgiving!

December

• December 11th: Sarah Weeden trial ends
• December 30th: Kings game with Mike
• December 31st: Mike's New Years Eve Party - LOTS of pig!

All in all, I'd say it was a fantastic year! Who can complain?!

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year! Mike's party was a blast - they roasted 120 pounds of pig! It took four of them just a few minutes to cut it all up (lots of practice apparently!). Here's a picture of the pig on the spit:

It was insanely delicious! The party was a blast!

As you probably know, today is my birthday. It's been fantastic... it's 2:30pm and I'm still in my jammies! I've watched a bunch of episodes of "ER" (thanks Mike!) and some "Friends" reruns. It's been wonderfully relaxing!

Well, it's been a long few days! Christmas was spectacular - Mom, Dad, Kati and I made the trip out to the Bay Area to Oma's house where we were joined by Adam, Eva, Tante Cati, Emy, Jake, and Jared. It was so great to see everyone again! I'll be posting pictures on Facebook soon (hint hint - people who took pictures, SEND THEM TO ME!). Jake ended up cooking the whole dinner for us... who knew he was a chef?! We had ham, schnitzel, mashed potatoes, veggies, bread and lots of wine! It was a fantastic meal - well done Jake!

The next three days were basically spent glued to Mom and Dad's sofa. I hadn't really intended to park there, but they bribed me with hash browns and bacon. I can't resist potatoes in almost any form. It was fantastically relaxing... I don't think I've actually done NOTHING for three days straight in a long time!

Santa was good to me this year and I decided to treat myself after Christmas... introducing my new Coach addition:

It's gigantic and I love it!

In sad news, today we lost a member of our family - Adam and Eva had to put Onyx to sleep. Eva has had her for the last 19 or so years - she will definitely be missed!

I know it's been forever since I last blogged... life, as usual, has been a crazy whirlwind.

Jury duty has been going well. I can't (and won't) blog about the trial, but it's been super interesting! There are times that have moved frustratingly slow (I get the point, but REALLY). I will not blog about it once the trial is done (not even sure if I'm allowed to), but if you want to know, ask me (AFTER the trial is done, of course!). The other jurors that I'm working with are really great and we're always joking around and trying to have fun in light of a tough situation. The other bad news is that the courthouse is three blocks from the mall, so it could potentially be very expensive jury duty! :)

I also exercised another of my civil liberties today - I voted! Kati and I went to the polls together at 7am when they opened. It was fun to have someone to go with and I always love actually going to the polls. As we all know, I'm not great at waiting in lines, so we were lucky that the line wasn't very long. I'm proud to say I voted for Obama and I'm hoping that tonight he wins! I'm not gonna lie - I also love going to the polling place so I can get my sticker, which I proudly wore all day!

This weekend was pretty busy too! On Friday Kati and I had our Halloween party, which was a total blast. People came up with some seriously great costumes! Email me if you want pictures!

On Saturday I drove up to the Bay Area to see Madonna's Sticky and Sweet tour with Adam, Eva and Catherine. We had such a fantastic time! As always, Madonna was amazing - it blows me away that she still puts on the energetic shows that she does and that she is in better shape than half of her dancers (who are probably half of her age!). Here are the four of us at the show:

Here's Eva and I... note our really cool glow in the dark necklaces!

I'm spending the rest of tonight in my jammies on the sofa, switching back and forth between the election coverage and just about everything on my DVR. Woo hoo!

This weekend was spectacular! I decided to have a little party to celebrate becoming an EMT (can you tell I'm freaking excited about it?). Adam and Eva came down for the weekend, so you know it was a blast!

Saturday morning we hung out at the parent's house. We watched movies, sat in the yard and just enjoyed the beautiful weather. After a brief nap, the EMT festivities began. I asked everyone to dress a some sort of victim that I would come across in my time as an EMT. As usual, my friends and family did not disappoint! Here are some pictures:

Adam was attacked by a shark and Eva had a really cool looking jellyfish sting on her leg (sorry I didn't get a good picture of that one!).

Poor Mom actually had a real injury (darn ribs and a couple of bruises) and Dad had a nice eye accident.

I was the EMT who didn't pay attention to scene safety (that's rule number one people!), Brigitte was a suicide attempt, Kris was a victim of domestic violence (those finger prints on her neck really made the costume) and Amber had an injured ankle.

Marilyse (a fellow new EMT) had a little problem with a pencil that caused a breast implant to deflate.

Melissa had road rage and slit her wrists. Tony was the responding EMT (also a new EMT) who got disoriented at the scene and wandered into traffic. For those of you who don't know - that was one of the answers on a test that was meant to throw us off.

Laura was a car accident victim and McClain (spelling?) was stabbed.

 

The party was fantastic - we BBQ'd, played games and roasted marshmellows - what more could you ask for?! I'm so glad that everyone was able to make it - my neighbors must have wondered what the heck was going on! Of course, Shadow was the life of the party... he got a lot of hot dogs (someone told me around 4) as well as various other food. He loves to have people over! Here he is in the middle of a conversation:

Sunday we hung out at Mom and Dad's again - this time we let the dogs play together and swim... this weekend was all about Marley! That little guy managed to poop out both Darcy and Tucker (Shadow's not quite ready to play with the little guys yet). He did get some time to swim and play with Tucker and trust me, he slept well last night!

Today was filled with more of the same... just enjoying the beautiful weather by the pool. We could not have asked for a more beautiful weekend!

This weekend rocked! On Saturday I had my EMT skills class... again, this is where we get to practice on each other. This class was really great because the instructors gave us all sorts of crazy scenarios to work out. For example, they took us to the bottom of a narrow stairwell and made us backboard someone with very little room around. This is  a big change - so far we've been learning all of our skills on flat, carpeted ground. A lot of the scenarios are getting harder - they combine a bunch of the skills we've learned. I like it because it's more real life and I feel like things are finally clicking! After class Mom and I drove to the Bay Area to hang out with Oma.

On Sunday morning Adam, Eva, Mom, Tante Cati, Jared, Oma and I had a celebratory brunch in honor of Oma's 79th birthday. Let me start by saying that I took everyone's vitals (we're supposed to do it on all sorts of people so that we get a feel for what's normal). Oma has completely normal (and actually very healthy) vital signs! I hope that by the time I'm 79 I'm still in great shape too!

We had a yummy breakfast and it was great to spend time with everyone! After that we headed over to Adam and Eva's to say hi to Marley (who is HUGE now, by the way!) and then headed home. It is so nice to be back in my house and have some time to relax - it's just starting to cool off and I've opened the windows... there's a lovely little breeze blowing in and I'm finally starting to cool off (it was in the high 80's today!).

That's it for this weekend... now I'm off to watch some "Law and Order" and then off to bed!

What a fantastic weekend!

Friday night I spent the night at home, curled up on the sofa watching TV. To normal people, that probably sounds totally boring, but to the person who was not home Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, it was bliss.

I got up early on Saturday morning to head out to the Golden Gate Kennel Club Dog Show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. I made the trek with mom, dad, Fran and Chuck and we met Adam and Eva there. It was a blast - the first thing we did was start wandering around to see all of the different dogs. It might sound a little boring, but it's amazing to see some of these dogs. From the itty bitty Miniature Pinschers to the gigantic Irish Wolfhounds, it was really cool to check out what purebred dogs should look like. I had a great time trying to figure out what Shadow's mix is (I've pretty much settled on about 99% lab and 1% American Staffordshire Terrior. I really love all of the big dogs, or, as I've dubbed them "Dogs You Can Ride". I can't believe how huge some of them are! There were 200 pound dogs! I can't imagine trying to walk one of those down the street.

We also watched the Golden Retrievers show because the people that gave my parents Darcy were there showing Darcy's grandbabies. While that was cool to see, I couldn't take my focus off the obedience competition on the other side of the ring. It was really interesting to see the things Shadow and I are learning in class actually being put to use. It also shows me what a long way we have to go.

Finally, we did a ton of shopping. The neat thing about these shows is that they have all sorts of vendors there with the latest and greatest stuff. There's food, toys, beds, clothes, collars, even fake grass for your yard. If it has to do with dogs, they had information about it there. I was excited because they actually had toys that Shadow could have (he can't have anything soft or squishy because he's such a tough chewer). I always feel bad because all of his toys are hard rubber and don't have any fun element to them. There was also all sorts of yummy treats and food (and free samples!). My little man made out like a bandit! Here's his loot:

He absolutely loves the "knotty ball" as we've dubbed it. Here's his first time playing with it:

We also tried some of the treats, which, being a lab, he loved because it was food (they eat just about anything!). All in all, it's been a wonderful weekend. It rained all day today, so I just stayed home and relaxed. It's the first time in a long time that I haven't left the house all day (except to walk Shadow, of course). I did a lot of reading for school and some napping. I couldn't ask for a more relaxing Sunday!

I have to say, I was worried that I'd be one of those people that just couldn't handle the EMT class. I'm proud to report that not only did I handle the gross pictures, but I'm totally intrigued. I know it sounds morbid, but I think anyone who wants to go into pre-hospital care has to be intrigued by all of this. My teacher put it perfectly last night. When most people are saying "Ewww. Gross!", EMTs are thinking two things:

 

1. "Wow, how the heck did they do that and/or get there?"
2. "Wow, how the heck am I going to fix that and/or get them out of there?"

 

There was a ton of information last night - we talked about everything from how to keep ourselves safe (I can't help you if I'm a victim) to dealing with death and dying. Our instructor had pictures from actual calls that he's worked to help teach us. Some of them were pretty graphic - I guess the idea was to get the tough stuff out there and weed out the people who like just like the idea. The thing that surprised me was how many people were appauled that they would take pictures at an accident scene and show them for training purposes. I mean, it's not like we all signed up for Math 101 and weren't expecting this. Eight people walked out at the break.

 

All in all, I think this is going to be an amazing class. I'm not naieve enough to think that I'm not going to see some terrible things and that it's going to be easy, but I think that it's going to be a really wonderful thing to help people. I can't wait to start our hospital work (don't worry... that's a month or so away... they don't just toss us in there without skills)!

 

In other exciting news, today is Adam's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM! I hope you had a wonderful day!