I'll be in NC this weekend!!!

I am interviewing this afternoon to be on a project. That's right, a real, live, actual project! Meaning they may actually start paying me to do WORK instead of paying me to (among other things) write on my blog and send emails! And what's also bizarre is that I have to INTERVIEW for it... I mean, I'm already HIRED for crying out loud!!! :) But that's how it works, so wish me luck! It's a huge project, and would be phenomenal experience, so I am really hoping I get it!

I had a great weekend in Indiana this past weekend, visiting James and going to a wedding with him and his family. Check out this snazzy picture below of me and him with his Mom and Dad during the cocktail hour of the wedding:

It was a blast! Friday night I went down to Bloomington and saw my dear friends Caleb and Jessi. Then Saturday James and I went to eat at my two very favorite places in all of Bloomington - Runcible Spoon for breakfast, and Laughing Planet for lunch. Yum yum! Then we drove back up to Indiana for the wedding that evening.

The wedding was GORGEOUS and we had a blast. They had a live band and we boogied down! Sunday morning we were invited to a post-wedding brunch, which was lovely and we ate and ate and ate and ate! Then, driving back to James' parents' house from the brunch, James asked me what I wanted to do since I still had a couple hours before I had to get on the plane back to DC. He knew I was supposed to get in a long run over the weekend as part of my marathon training, so he suggested we run.

To make a long story short, we did go running. I felt pretty terrible at first, having "enjoyed myself" at the wedding the night before, and having eaten WAY too much yummy food that morning, but I went anyway. We ran all over northern Indianapolis and it was gorgeous - there are lots of really great trails and we took advantage of them! James ran the first 5 with me, and then I got some Gu and water and looped back to do another 5 miles. As I was coming up on mile 9, I was beginning to think I was lost. Even though James had given me directions about a million times while we were running to make SURE I knew where I was going (and, in a 5 mile loop it was only 1 turn so it's not like I should've got lost ANYWAY, but you know how it is). Anyway, I was starting to stress out but then I saw a person off in the distance who looked like they were working in their garden. I thought "Awesome! I can ask this person for directions and find out if I am lost!" So I get closer and closer and the person starts coming into view, and they were holding a shirt I had taken off right at that very spot on the beginning of my run (I had a running top on underneath, of course! I just shed my top layer early in my run because I was getting hot). I thought to myself "That man is holding my shirt." Then I kept getting closer and closer I thought to myself "That man is holding my shirt and he is bald." Then when I finally got right up in front of the man, I realized it was JAMES!! He had come out another mile to bring me in and run my last mile with me!!!! What a sweet thing to do!!!

I was so exhausted and delirious that I didn't even realize the man I had been looking at was him!! He even brought more Gu, another water, and was carrying my shirt for me! Another thing he did was really encourage me on that last mile. I'm really trying to focus on starting out REALLY SLOWLY on my runs, as Jeff Galloway says, so you can use your reserves for the last couple miles. Galloway recommends going slow for the first 20 miles, and then using all you got to make up time on the last 6. So, for my run on Sunday, I went the first 5 pretty conservatively (which was great, since James was running with me and we could talk and plus we were both very full from breakfast, so not sure I could've run any faster if I wanted to!), but then I tried to really pick it up for the last 5. James knew this and he knew what my time goal was for my second 5 miles, so he did a great job of cheering me on on that last mile. And!! Guess what!! I ran the first 5 miles in 1:02, but I ran the second 5 miles in :55! So I shaved 7 minutes off my last 5 miles, without even trying that hard! I was pretty happy with that!

So I'm averaging about 11 minute miles right now using the run/walk method. This is slower than I want, but I'm only in week 6 of training, so I'm going to concentrate on speed going forward. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to finish the marathon in 4:30, but I've been told that you shouldn't have a time goal for your first one - your goal should be just to finish, so I'm trying not to freak out too much that I'm running slow right now.

This weekend I'm coming home for Labor Day weekend! I am super excited because I am going to meet up with my Team in Training friends for my long run on Saturday morning!!! 12 miles, baby!!! I am so excited to see all of them! I'm also trying to get together with my friend Jacqueline from DWSP - hopefully we can meet for brunch although I'm going to be pretty sweaty post-run on Saturday so we'll have to see about that!! :) I cannot wait to be home!! My Dad has been taking dutiful care of my bigger plants until I got settled in my apartment, so I'm super pumped about getting my babies back!!