Ready to Run

Over the weekend I completed my 2nd Half Marathon! The first one I ran was the St. Jude Half Marathon in Memphis in Dec. 2008. It was very cold and I ran about 9.5 of the 13.1 miles in right about 3 hours. So my goal for the Rock 'n' Roll Phoenix Marathon this weekend was to run the whole thing and finish under 3 hours. I did both! I felt good about my training knowing that I had worked very hard and the weather was perfect. Here are a couple pictures from the weekend!

At the race expo the day before, just picked up my registration packet.

Pre race at 5am. Jeremy ran the full marathon and his race started an hour and a half before mine so we were there earlllllly.

And a post race picture. We both walked funny for the rest of the day but were feeling fine by Monday.

It was fun and I'm ready to hit the Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis Half Marathon in October!

Open Hand

I had my first real open hand experience last night I think. You know, open hand, almost a test of faith to see if you're holding more tightly to the things of this world or if Christ is really the center.

There was a fire in my apartment building. Someone on the 3rd floor (I live on the 1st) had a stove fire that set off all the alarms and the sprinklers in her apartment. It turns out this 3rd floor apt is directly above mine. The firefighters were here checking my apartment for leaking water. I walked through and only found one sprinkler leaking, in the kitchen. Then I did a second walk through and as I walked through my bedroom I heard water running down in my closet. If you know me, you know there are two things I love: shoes and watches. Both are kept in the closet. I opened my closet door and tried to turn the light on to no avail as the power to my room was turned off. All I could see was that the carpet in the closet was a darker color than the bedroom carpet. Meaning...it was all wet.

The firefighters came in, cleared out the wet stuff and set buckets and containers underneath all the leaking points. A little while later the water had been shut off and maintenance took over. They cleared everything out of my closet and I began going through the wet stuff. After that the carpet cleaning company came in, sucked up all the excess water, sprayed to prevent mold and mildew and brought in huge blowers to blow under the carpet to dry the padding. I had to turn the heat way up last night and sleep with the blowers on so needless to say I didn't sleep well.

I've got a lot of cleaning and laundry yet to do but at the end of the day, nothing was ruined (I don't think). All my shoes are wet but drying, my watches still tick, and the majority of my clothes are just wet and washable.

When I heard the water rushing down in my closet I had a little time to think as I waited for the firefighters to get down here. I thought all of my stuff would be ruined but I didn't freak out, I didn't cry because it's just stuff. I hope that my peace was in direct relation to knowing that this world is not my home and not due to the fact that I have renters' insurance. In reality, it's just stuff and there is so much more important.

Holidays

Well, the holidays are over and time marches on. I left Washington on December 22nd and spent the next 12 days traveling - 3 days of flying with stops in 6 different states and 3 time zones!

I spent Christmas with my family in Pinckneyville, IL. My mom's birthday is Dec. 23 so I always try to make it home in time for that. I woke up on Christmas Eve with a sore throat and ended up with the worst cold I've had in a while. It kept me from running for a whole week which wasn't good for my training and I'm still trying to get over it. Nevertheless, I had a great Christmas.

My cute pregnant cousin Whitney and her husband Jonathan were able to join us for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning this year. All the way from Houston, TX! Whitt and I are only two months apart in age and I think this was the first time I'd seen her since her wedding in January of 2009.

My Aunt Freda made each of the adult women in the family an apron. Very cool. I love to cook and I always make a mess so this was a great gift.

Other than Christmas Day when we were out and about I spent the majority of my week in Illinois laying around on my parents couch. However, I did get a white Christmas which was awesome, and I did don the camouflage overalls so I could hop on the four wheeler with my brother to play in the snow. Love that! Thankfully there are no pictures. On December 29 I hopped on a flight to Phoenix to spend a few days with my boyfriend before heading back to work on January 3rd.

Right after I got into town we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Illini play in the Texas Bowl. Of course I outfitted Jeremy in orange. He's an Iowa fan so after he put on the Illini shirt he made me promise not to put this picture on facebook. But he never said anything about posting it to my blog (which he doesn't read). Shhh, don't tell him! He's a good sport.

And for New Years Eve we headed out on the town with J's best friend and others. I think this is the first time I did not spend my NYE in on a couch somewhere. It was a nice change. The whole time I was in Arizona I don't think it got about 45 degrees though. Not exactly what I was expecting. Praying that it is warmer next weekend when I go back to run!

Hope you had a great Christmas and wonderful start to the New Year!