Wow...changes

This has been a very up and down week. 

On Saturday, I went with Cory, Zach and Allie to San Francisco to pick up my half marathon race packet.  Yes, on Thursday evening I discovered I would be running in the SF Half Marathon that goes over the base of the Golden Gate bridge.  Discovered, because I couldn't buy a ticket in...but had an online friend, who I have never met in person, who had paid for the race, but was unable to participate.  So...Carol Newell, AKA Andrea, bib 72015, ran the race.  Totally untrained.  Well, I guess I can't say totally, since I do work out regularly, and try to stay 'fit'.  BUT...yes, pretty much untrained.

For me, a lot of running is mental.  Of course you have to have the physical conditioning to haul your body 13.1 miles, but....there's also the mental. The thing that at mile nine, when you are going "WHY AM I HERE" says "You know you can do it, just 4 miles to go".  Mental also comes from having supportive people around you.  I was VERY motivated by one bystander who was talking about 'how strong you runners look'...and I know he wasn't referring to me, but I took it and literally ran with it.

Then, getting back to my kids.  At the last minute, I got them to come along. Saturday. And Sunday.  Not only did they come with me, they 'gave up' some of their precious weekend to COME WITH ME.  Not a small feat.  We had to be at the packet pickup location by 5. We left at 12:30ish.  Loretta, my trusty GPS, died once again. This time for good, she is being returned to GPS heaven.  Replaced by the soon to be delivered (I hope soon) Droid X.  Anyhow - we finally arrived to get my race packet at 4PM....with an hour to spare.  We went through the expo, bought a few things, and went on our way again.  Denny's for dinner, and then crash on the floor at Rinda's house - we all took a blanket and pillow, laid on the floor, and slept for about 6 hours.  ****HUGE Thanks again to Rinda for that - there were no Hotels to be had for MILES!!!****..and then up at at 'em.  **3:30 AM!!!** we were on the road by 3:45 to try to catch the bus from Daly station.  We were late for the 'hoped for' time of 4:11, so we waited there for a little while (in the dark, with homeless people around) until the bus finally arrived.  About 40 minutes on the bus and we were at the Embarcadero.  Almost.  we had to trek around to find the start of the leg I was in - the second to last one, based on finish time that Andrea had chosen - thankfully, the same pace that I 'usually' finish in.

I had done a lot of preparation with bus schedules etc, so the kids knew how to catch the bus from the start of the race to the end of the race, and that was what they did.  Then we get to the REAL reason I went to run this race.

Thomas had flown in from Germany the NIGHT before the race, and he was running in it.  He is staying with us, so I thought it would be fun to try to meet him there.  So..the kids went to the end of the race, where Thomas finished MUCH faster than me - he had started in an earlier leg, and also ran about 45 minutes faster than me, so they had a little time to find each other and get acquainted before I finally trudged across the finish.

So...the kids, Thomas and I caught the bus back toward the start of the race to get bags from the hotel room and try to catch BART back to the Daly Station.  It all went so smoothly it was amazing.  We got back to the truck, got on the highway, DROVE across the Golden Gate bridge instead of running :) - and headed for home.  In N out Burger was on the menu, so a nice lunch, and home sweet home we drove.

The work week wasn't so good....I had a couple days of stress where all things seemed to be going wrong and against me.  And me, being who I am, internalized everything.  I was feeling bad and missing Dave, who has been in Orange County now for about 3 weeks.  I was dealing with some jobs that had been nagging me for a while.  I have personal paperwork I need to get done...and the perfectionist procrastinator in me was putting it all off.  Finally by Thursday and Friday, I was happy with how the budget for jobs was looking, and realized I was being far to hard on myself, so I settled down a bit. 

We have had a good first week with Thomas here, I think he's settling in ok, at least I hope so. His English is really good, so that makes it nice.  He has shared some music with me, so I have a nice variety on my computer now, and will make some new running playlists on my I-pod.

Oh - and I ordered the Droid X tonight.  Wow.  I will be a total geek, I can see it already. And I can't wait.

Oh yeah again - my race time was 2 hours, 37 minutes and 17 seconds.  I thought longer than my half in March, but was ok because it had a lot of hills.  Oh yes, MANY STEEP hills.

Guess what?? I actually beat my Sacramento half marathon time by 14 seconds.  WOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Oh yeah - getting back to my kids.  I decided this week, after I came home from work one night and they had cleaned the kitchen, mopped the floor, and cooked dinner, that (with God's mercy) I must be doing something right with them.  They really are good kids.  Oh yeah - and they actually ended up having a great time in San Fran, I was so happy with how they worked together to get from one place to another, found and welcomed Thomas, and just made the weekend so much nicer for me.