Eat Drink Run Woman

My goodness — I just realized today is the 1-year anniversary of Eat Drink Run Woman! (Although given what happened during my 20-mile run, “Eat Drink Can’tRun Woman” is more precise). 🙁

What a bizarre coincidence. For some reason I JUST decided to haul out my high school yearbook when I then saw Topher‘s dare to post one’s picture (the feathered bangs must make him psychic). I actually like mine; having been a total buck-toothed geek throughout elementary school and a braces-wearing nerd in junior high and high school, I finally got my braces off and my hair styled in a current fashion (gotta love those feathered bangs!) just before senior pics were taken:

(and don’t you love the quote I included? Always the party girl!)

If you didn’t get a chance to see Spirit of the Marathon this past Thursday, I highly recommend you catch the encore February 21. It played on two screens at our theater — each with at least 450 seats, I would guess — and both were sold out. It was the fittest crowd of movie goers I have ever seen! My darling and I were totally dorky and wore out Goofy shirts (we saw another Goofy runner showing her friends her three medals).

As many reviewers have stated, I would have loved to see more of the elites — Deena Kastor and Daniel Njenga (particularly Daniel in his home country of Kenya) — but of course I could relate more to the “amateurs.” This clearly is a movie for runners, as I’m sure many of the running in-jokes would be lost on non-runners. (I love when Jerry states he runs marathons for the t-shirts and that the only time he gets a “runner’s high” is when he stops running). Of course the entire theater cracked up at the “You’re all crazy” sign one of the spectators was holding up.

(And just to ensure my spot in the Hall of Running Geekiness, I’m currently downloading the soundtrack). 🙂

It sounded like a good idea back in August: head to Walt Disney World the second week in January to run not just a marathon, but a marathon and a half! Sure, I’d be training in the cold, but what a way to keep the holiday pounds off. Sign us up!

sigh

While I’m happy to say our training has been going very well (I’ve already logged a record 90 miles for the month), it’s been to the detriment of everything else. It took me a full week to get my tree trimmed, and I just managed to dash off cards to my clients (friends and family will be lucky to get Groundhog’s Day cards). Normally I spend a couple of weekends baking treats for clients, but this year only one received cookies (and only because she requested them).

And gifts? Oy! Although my darling and I agreed not to get each other anything this year (we’ll probably buy a “household” gift such as a TV or mattress), I feel guilty for not thinking of a special something that will totally surprise him on Christmas morning like he did to me last year.

But even though I’ve neglected a lot of holiday-related activities, I’ve still been feeling overwhelmed and a bit brain dead. I’ve been meaning to blog for several days, but once I sit down with my laptop I feel all creativity has left my body. So I just end up reading every else’s blog instead. (Hopefully you’ll forgive me).

Here’s a quick synopsis of what I’ve been up to since I last wrote:

• Ran two races — the Jingle Bell 5K and the 12Ks of Christmas (I’ll be posting a race report on the latter soon)
• Started taking a yoga class on Tuesday mornings. I’m thrilled to have found a yoga class I actually like. I’ve taken 3-4 classes in the past, but I think they were just too advanced for my inflexible body. It just hurt too damn much to try to get my body/limbs to go where the instructor wanted them to go, and I’d get flustered trying to breathe the correct way. This class is a TOTAL beginner one; we’re doing more stretching than anything else.
• As I mentioned earlier, with yesterday’s 3.3-mile run, my total mileage for the month is now just over 90. While training for Medoc I think there was only one month where I logged over 80 miles; all the rest were in the 70-75 mile range. Today and tomorrow will be our last long runs before our taper for Goofy, and we’re making it a simulation of what we’ll be doing in Orlando: 11 miles today, 22 tomorrow. So it looks like I’ll be able to make my “Way to go Betsy!” goal of 125 miles for the month, and will possibly hit the “Wonky Body Mechanics Be Gone” goal of 150.

Happy Holidays everyone!

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