Philly Marathon/The theme is Susan

I have officially registered for the Philadelphia Marathon on Sunday, November 22, 2009!!!!! This will be my first full marathon!!! I started my training on Saturday. I'm using the Galloway Method of marathon training. I *sort of* used this method for the Half Marathon I ran in April, but I wasn't super-strict about my training. I am now 100% committed to doing every single solitary thing Jeff Galloway tells me to do, and I am so excited about the 26.2 miles ahead! I'm even incorporating some speed workouts this time to try to meet my time goal. I won't be sharing my time goal here, though, until later - I need to wait and see how my training goes! The important thing for me is MY MAIN GOAL IS JUST TO FINISH. I will worry about the actual time it takes me to do the marathon on my second or third race....for this first one, I'm trying to not get caught up in the numbers and just enjoy the ride. I met a veteran marathoner in my Booz Allen training today, and he said "the first is always the best" so he encouraged me to just enjoy the training and not worry about meeting a specific time goal. So, that's what I'm going to do - although I do have a super secret time goal in the back of my mind, that maybe will become more pronounced once I see how my training is progressing and determine whether or not my time goal is actually doable.

I'm in training for Booz Allen Hamilton this week. Here is what our main campus looks like, located in McLean Virginia. Pretty corporate! With over 22,000 employees, $4.5 Billion in revenue, and 31 buildings in the DC area plus offices nationally and internationally, Booz is definitely the biggest company I have ever worked for. And, on a side note, Booz Allen employees are called "Boozers"....I figured y'all would like that. Anyhoo.... Things are going well so far. I'm not on a project yet, but I did learn that I'll be doing "Business Process Re-Engineering" and "Strategic Planning" for the Department of Defense. Basically, this is Strategy and Operations consulting. I was a Strategy major as part of my MBA, so I feel comfortable doing strategic planning....but my minors were Finance and Marketing, and....well....technically I only took one or two Operations classes. So, let's just say I'm hoping I there will be a lot of on-the-job training!!! :)

I gotta give a shout-out here to my little sister, Sarah. When I was in NC we had this great idea to go get our hair colored and cut together. Well, it turned into a fiasco because we went to a beauty school because we were trying to be economical and save money! Out hair cuts were OK, but both our highlights got kinda jacked up... with Sarah, I don't think they used a strong enough developer, because her highlights are REALLY SUBTLE. They look cute, but just subtle. With yours truly, however, the exact opposite occurred. They used too HIGH a developer on my highlights so I wound up with these bright white streaks in my hair (which, combined with the lowlights I had actually asked for, gave me a sort of Pepé Le Pew look):

Fast forward to later in the night, after we had dinner with our OLDER sister, Kathy (who agreed that my hair looked like a hot mess), the three of us made a last minute dash to Sally Beauty Supply and bought some brown hair dye. That night, Sarah and I dyed over the really white streaks in my Mom's bathroom with a warm brown. It came out MUCH better than it was originally - even looking CUTE, dare I say - and we learned that Sarah (at age 17!) is actually better at doing foils than the girls at the beauty school! If nothing else, it was fun bonding-time between sisters and, as much as I am eternally grateful to her...I hope I never have to visit the "Sarah Jacobs School of Hard Knocks Emergency Cosmetology" ever again.. I will be paying full price for my highlights from now on, thank you very much!! :)

And lastly, a friend of mine, Clint, asked me what the "theme" of this blog is. I honestly didn't understand his question. Then he asked me what I was going to blog about. Well, Clint, to answer your question, this blog is about ME! The theme is Susan! Isn't that enough for you?? You are my friend, you should just want to know what's going on with me, right?? I don't need to package my life up in some cute format with funny anecdotes and clever picture captions, do I ??? THE THEME IS SUSAN, for crying out loud!!!