It's OFFICIAL!

I've finally registered Jon and myself for the Cincinnati Half Marathon NEXT weekend in my lovely hometown!

I've been procrastinating our registration for two reasons:
1. I couldn't find my checkbook in the move and I'm too cheap to want to pay the $11 processing fee online... Turns out, it's at my mom's... She tried to send them to us but it didn't work, so I finally got us in (with the processing fee) right under the deadline for the tee-shirt ordering!
2. I was afraid to sign up because even though I did "run" a half last weekend (I say "run" because I walked a TON starting at mile 8 when my sciatica/whatever that weird pain in my back right butt area was popped up again for the 2nd week in a row), I'm still really intimidated and nervous.

That said, here we are, no refunds from Active.com, so I gotta do it now!  I'm nervous AND excited, so we'll see.  I think it might be really cool that the half is the longest distance for the day--won't have to compare myself to the ultra awesome marathoners!

Any tips for my first BIG, LONG, SCARY race?

This Weekend: Wine-Tasting, Oversleeping, and a new C25Ker

Busy weekend over in Cincinnati for this girl! Overall it was great seeing my family and friends, since I won't be able to go back to Cincy until I get back from Paris in August.

Friday: Jesse and I did a fair bit of shopping, hitting big at the semi-annual sale at VS and buying a lot of sale items at the Gap (a sweater and a polo), Forever 21 (tank tops, tee shirts, and a cute "going out" skirt), and a dress at J.Crew. We also just enjoyed hanging out together and browsing all the favorite stores. The best part of the J.Crew dress? Well, my dress from graduation is already getting a bit big... and when we were at J.Crew, I saw the same dress in cream and ended up getting it a size smaller! I was bummed that it was on sale for a lot less than I'd paid for it, but happy to be down a size! My friend Megan might take my grey dress, so I feel a bit better about spending the extra money.

The game was great--the Reds stomped the Indians 10-2. We had great seats...up top, right behind home plate:


Jon also found a new girlfriend at the game in the form of Jennifer's 2-year-old daughter Isabella:

See? Here he is, wooing her with his iphone and its lightsaber app
Saturday: Saturday started with a WW meeting and a weigh-in. I love my WW leader Lori in Cincinnati, so I always make sure to go to a meeting while I'm home. Plus, I had the bonus of being down 1.4 lbs!!! After spending time working on the car (while I was napping...), Jon and I met my mom and a couple of her friends up at the Dilly Deli for lunch and their weekly wine tasting (and to watch the sad US v. Ghana game). In honor of the game, the deli featured all US-produced wines. After the wine tasting, Jon and I treated ourselves to gourmet cupcakes from the Sweeterie, which is located above the Dilly Deli. I opted for my habitual favorite (Red Velvet) and Jon went for a chocolate marshmallow fluff creation.

Jon thought I was weird since I wanted to take photos of them...


We ended up eating the fabulous cupcakes in the car since Jon and I went to Best Buy to buy him a digital camera so that we can send mine off to be repaired. This way, if for some reason mine's not back in time, I'll have a camera I can borrow to take to Paris with me. Plus, we now have the added bonus of having a camera to take to Auburn with us! Jon maintains that this new camera is pink (he didn't have a choice since it was a return/refurb that was uber-marked down), but I'm sure it's really red. Silly man. :-P

Other than that, we just spent a chill evening at my mom's... I mowed the lawn and then we went out for dinner for some Cincinnati-style chili at Skyline. I was semi-blown away though when I came home and found out that a small 4-way and a coney totalled to 16 points!!! We'll see how the rest of the weekend's eating will influence the weigh in tonight!

Sunday: While lounging around the pool, Jon decided to play with his new toy and the dog at the same time, so we caught these fun photos of her in the backyard:


She leads a really tough life.

Aside from lounging around my mom's and completing my invigorating 6-miler, Jon and I joined some of my family for dinner at Montgomery Inn. I caved and ordered ribs and chicken with a baked sweet potato. We both overate, but we left the leftovers with my mom and proceeded to drink lots of water to make up for it. Thankfully, when I stepped on the scale this morning I was at the exact same place I was when I left Nelsonville on Wednesday. Still, we'll see what the scale says tonight.

Also, my former roomie (and one of my best friends) Katy decided to start doing C25K AND blog about it! I'm so glad she's started the program. Hopefully she and I will be able to run a 5k together before I leave for France again in October. She's planning on running in the Hocking Hills Indian Run, which is the same day as the Dayton Half... We'll see, especially since the Dayton Half has bumped up to being so expensive! Perhaps Jon and I will run a different half and then join Katy in Hocking Hills for a trail run.

Speaking of leaving for France in October... A lot of the other assistants in my académie have been getting their placements and contracts in the mail. I'm getting really frustrated with all this waiting! The anticipation is killing me! Hopefully my "arrête" will arrive tomorrow and I'll let you all know where I've been placed!

Also, kudos if you made it through this whole post... I'm so longwinded today! How was YOUR weekend?!

Half Training, Day 2: Merrily we plod along

Let me tell you, today was definitely a day where I had to drag myself out of the house to run. Despite the good news that I might possibly have a short-term job between France trip #1 and France trip #2 (the long haul), the beginning of my run was pretty ick seeing as I had to postpone it due to a walking cellphone fight with my dad... Don't you love those? Anyway, by the end of that, I was pretty ready to pound out some frustration on the pavement, or, well, the middle school track:

When I'm home, I always loving running up at the middle school because, like I've probably mentioned before, that was the last time I "ran" in my life since I was on the middle school track team. I remember being so proud of myself for being able to run an 11-minute mile as a 13/14 year old and then looking over at my coaches and seeing their disappointment. I was just happy with myself because I hadn't stopped once! Anyway, running on this track makes me remember that girl and feel really proud to be doing what I'm doing. I wasn't really overweight then, but I know that if someone had told my eighth-grade self that someday I'd be training to RUN a half marathon, I would not have believed them at all.

Anyway, once I finally got started, the run went pretty well. The first 2 miles (1 warm up, 1 of the "tempo" bit) were really easy, but the last few were a bit more of a struggle. I stopped and walked for 30 seconds right as I hit 3 miles and then again after mile 4 for a minute walk and a quick water-fountain break at the park. My pace splits looked like this:

Mile 1: Average Pace of 12:37
Miles 2-4: AP of 12:08
Mile 5: AP of 13:27
I'm surprised at how fast Mile 1 was (I was trying to keep it at a 13-minute + pace to start slow and not tire out), and slightly disappointed that I didn't hit the goal of an 11:39 pace for the tempo part. But, most importantly, I did it and kept it up for an hour... 20 minutes more than I've been doing lately. That in itself made this run a success in my book. Plus, Week 2 of training is the exact same as Week 1, so I can always shoot for some improvement then!

Here are some quick post-run photos and the overall map of my run... I bet anyone who drove past me on the main street thought I was crazy taking photos of myself with my cell phone, but whatever!
Yeah, I was going for an upbeat "YAY!" photo and got distracted... though this probably sums up my life at the immediate end of my run...
Quick shot of my running buddy after our date together today. See! 5 whole miles!
See? Much better. Side note: I don't think I've EVER been this sweaty after a run. Seriously, my entire top looked like it was just supposed to be darker pink. Epic.

Anyway, I'm just glad I finished the run. It's giving me more confidence that I can successfully complete Sunday's 6-miler. It is nice being home and finding some fun places to run and friends to catch up with! Also, it's nice being able to come home from a run and immediately put on a swim suit and jump in the pool. That helps! On tap for today: getting graduation announcements out and going out for happy hour with some friends from high school! :)