Slightly Obsessed

I am sitting on a pile of sheer wonderment. In mere moments, I could be rich. My world may be about to change altogether. What prompts this bout of optimism? Albertson's Monopoly.

My local grocery chain is currently having a game promotion. They have done this in year's past and I have generally ignored it. I suppose that something about the economy and something about having no idea what I am doing with my life is prompting me to search for the "light at the end of the tunnel" and Albertson's Monopoly appears to provide an appropriate diversion.

The game started about a month ago. You get Monopoly game pieces for certain products you buy and then certain combinations of game pieces mean you win prizes. What I would now describe as an obsession started out as slight interest. When I did my normal grocery shopping, I would get a game piece or two and check to see if they matched my board. Somewhere along the way, I started altering my shopping so that I would buy brands that had game pieces instead of brands that didn't. Of late, I just buy things that have game pieces and refuse to buy anything that doesn't have a game piece. (P.S. We don't eat a lot of vegetables these days since those aren't included.) I have gone so far as to search the web for fellow addicts who might be willing to trade game pieces. Most of those sites are "mom blogs" and I do see that as a childless, well-employed, non-minivan driving person, I don't fit in with the normal "Grocery Gamer."

Today, I bought the following:

24 Powerades

9 Coca-cola 2 Liters

6 Hershey's Candy Bars

2 CPK Frozen Pizzas

3 Boxes of Cheezits

All in all, I walked away with 50 game pieces today. I will spend the next hour opening each piece and hoping I am a winner. The game ends at the end of March and I know that I am running out of time. At least if I don't win tonight, I can keep the faith alive due to the 40 individual Cruise Sweepstakes entries I sent in during the course of the game.

Tonight I told my husband that maybe we should go back and get more powerade tonight. Mind you, we have about 50 total in the house right now and before I started playing the game, I hadn't had a powerade in years. He looked at me with slight fear in his eyes and I said, "If I don't win something, I am going to totally freak out." He said, "More than you are freaking out right now?" He seems to think that my actions aren't "normal".

My greatest fear, besides not winning at all, is that I will win the $2 prize. I have bought about $75 in powerade since the game started and $2 seems like a "Bernie Madoff type return" on my investment. Daniel just asked me what I wanted for dinner. How does powerade, a candy bar and some cheezits sound? That's all that's in the house.

Oh, that's right...I don't like running!

I've discovered something about running over the last week, it sucks. I know that sounds a little negative and certainly it's not the best conclusion since I am still training to run a marathon in September. I am sure things will start looking up again, but the last week of running has been B-R-U-T-A-L, brutal! Last Sunday I ran a 10-K. While I was glad to finish my first 10-K, I ran pretty slowly since the course was crazy hilly. We have been training on mostly flat land and I wasn't prepared for all uphill/downhill, all the time.

Since I didn't do that well on Sunday, I thought that this week's training runs would be good. Well, I "ran" 4 miles on Wednesday and had to walk most of it since my calves/shins were screaming after mile 1. This weekend I was supposed to run 7.5 miles, but it was pretty clear that this wasn't going to happen without medical intervention and/or being carried on someone's back the last few miles. So, I ran 5 miles instead and am amazed that I continue to get slower with each run, even though I am not running longer distances. We're headed to Phoenix on Wednesday, so I will be doing two of my runs in sunny (hot) Arizona and that should be interesting.

In an effort to focus on the positive, I ran/walked 5 miles today instead of sitting on the couch. I am at 9 miles for this past week and 23.2 miles in the last two weeks. I have run 79.2 miles since we started straining in January, despite having sat out for four weeks due to illness and a knee injury. That's more miles than I have run in my life prior to our 1/1/09 state date. I may not be progressing as fast as I would like, but I am still pretty amazed when I look at the mileage. Within the next two weeks, I will reach the 100 mile mark of training. That's pretty awesome for me...

P.S. As I type this, it dawns on me that my dad (clearly not 100% sane) ran 100 miles in just over 24 hours during an endurance run several years ago (see www.ws100.com).

Daylight Saving Time...Friend or Foe?

I grew up in Arizona. For 22 of my 30 years, or 73% for you math majors, I avoided the madness of switching my clocks twice a year. That leaves me nearly unable to adjust my life to daylight saving time or remember when I lose an hour vs. gain one. I am told by my mother that I lost time this week. Since I am up and blogging after midnight, despite having to wake up at six tomorrow morning, that seems about right. Apparently my body is still tuned to the sun and expects to stay awake for a certain number of hours after it sets. As such, I would say I didn't lose one hour, but at least three over the last few nights. By the way, heart attacks spike shortly after the switch to DST.

That said, I got home from work tonight at 7:15 and was able to still get in about 15 minutes of my run before it was dark. In that way, I guess DST is a friend as we train for the marathon (it's so daunting today that I feel like it should be The Marathon, the capitalization expressing how large it looms.) I have been really sick and/or working about 60 hours a week for the last couple weeks. That combo meant that my last run was 5.5 miles over two weeks ago. That would seem like a problem, except we have a 10K (6.2 miles) this weekend and half marathon (13.1 miles) in a little over a month.

Tonight I ran an easy 2.5 miles to ease back in. It wasn't great and wasn't terrible. I think I will be able to make it through this weekend's 10K, but we'll see if my body is a little shocked after a few weeks of inactivity. All in all though, training is going good. D. is kicking my butt, but it's easier for boys...

I Ran Four Miles Tonight...

...and I have the scars to prove it!

Tonight was a four-mile night, which isn't that long considering I am going to attempt to run 26.2 miles at one time in September. That said, it's tough to jam the run in between work and darkness. I knew that I was going to be cutting it close since I really don't like to run in the dark by myself. I got through all but the last mile in pretty much daylight, but then darkness settled in and I started to freak out.

To add insult to injury, I decided to wear my prescription sunglasses on the run. It wasn't the best logic, but I generally think that if people saw my eyes as I ran, they would see that with each step I wince a little and I don't need their pity. Sunglasses have one main purpose: to block light. Sadly, they did a bang up job of this tonight and I was nearly blind for the last mile. I even took off the glasses for a while to see if my horrible vision was better than total darkness.

Also in the last mile, I started to chafe really badly in my under arm area (code name: armpit). I tried to adjust my shirt and sports bra to mitigate the damage and realized that I was actually being gradually stabbed by a renegade bra underwire. Here's the thing, I love my bra. I generally sleep in it and I run in it too (despite wearing a sports bra). The underwire made a break for it during the run (I don't blame it) and my skin blocked its escape. I bet I am the only person who has ever removed the underwire from their bra while running... I also wanted to be "special" and now I am.

So, I have a hole/bruise/scratch from where my bra attacked me during my run in the dark. I think that is grandly ironic since I was so concerned about injury due to attack by a mad man while I ran in the dark. Turns out bras are far more dangerous!

Mix It Up

We started running about six weeks ago and while I have seen a steady progression in our distance and endurance (we did 5 miles today), I haven't seen any progression in my "running mix." About a year ago, I put together a 50 minute mix of mostly hip-hop/pop to listen to on the Ipod while I workout (pre-workouts, I did my calculus homework to this mix, both are similarly excruciating.) I've now listened to that mix for the past six weeks, about three times a week. While Kanye's "Stronger" still gets me through the last few minutes of the workout, I need to make a change on the rest of the mix. Although I have admittedly horrible taste in music (usually a large contribution comes from Top40), music really inspires me. For example, if I hear Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" in the morning, I face the day with greater strength and optimism.

Playing on my mind these days is the importance of a marathon day mix. Besides training my body to run 26 miles at one time, I need to spend the next 6.5 months fine-tuning the mix that will carry me through the race in September. I think I will likely find an hour-ish long mix that I can repeat many, many times until I drag my tired body across the finish line. [How long does an Ipod keeps its charge?] In the last week, I pulled some CDs out from high school/college to see what I might add to the mix. I rediscovered Cake's Fashion Nugget album and Everclear's "So Much for the Afterglow" and know that I have some potential contributors.

So, here's the question: If you had to run 26.2 miles, what song would get you through mile 26?

We won!

Tonight the North Carolina Tarheels played Duke and beat them handily. It was awesome. Here I sit in my #50 UNC Jersey and I am so happy. Daniel and I continued a tradition that I started years ago in Phoenix... We drink a 40 of malt liquor (Mickey's is our pick) as we watch the first Carolina - Duke game of the season...out of a brown bag. As I bought the Mickeys' today, the clerk at Walgreen's said, "Mickey's, huh? You don't strike me as a Mickey's drinker." My mom asked if our future potential children would drink their juice out of brown bags if Carolina and Duke were playing... I said, "Of course."

D. doesn't really swear much, I swear enough for the both of us on a regular day. That said, I think he stores most of his annual swears up for the Carolina - Duke game. The dog is hiding in another room because of all the yelling tonight.

The Carolina - Duke game (especially when the good guys win) is like a holiday to me, probably equivalent to Christmas. Go Heels!

I Love Jesus, but I Drink a Little

This video is a little long, but well worth watching... It made my week. (p.s. I don't know how to post youtube videos on here, but the link is below.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83JDXXKzOXg