Never thought I would be writing this...

In 6 days is my first half marathon. I have trained for 12 weeks for this. How quick the time as gone. I am still in awe with how far I have come since September.  When I starting running in September we were on our family vacation at the beach. I thought I was going to run just for exercise, then just for a 5K. And, here I am less than a week away from my first half. 13.1 miles! Holy crap! People have probably been thinking that I was joking about the freak outs beginning, but oh, no, I was not. I am completely flipping out. Yes, I know it is just another race, but it is so much more to me. I wish I could put it into words, but how do you sum it up?!?  I have a feeling that there are going to be a lot of emotions on that day. So many, that I already have my race day outfit picked out.  I will be wearing my red BCR tank, a black running skirt and some red hair bling from the awesome people at SparklySoul. I gotta have some bling. This week is my taper week. I am looking forward to it, to enjoy life a little slower this week. Today was a stretch day, which, I do anyway, but I also took it for time to paint my toe nails.  (Hoping by the time I am finished writing this I will have a picture, if not, later). Tomorrow is a 4 mile day, and on Thursday, it's 2 miles. I CANNOT remember the last time I ran only 2 miles. Look at that, me calling it ONLY 2 miles. WOW! Anyway, here is some race information for those that are reading this that want to come to the St Luke's Half Marathon....

DATE – Sunday, April 29, 2012
START TIME – 8:10 a.m.
RACE START LOCATION
Allen High School
126 North 17th St.
Allentown, PA
FIELD LIMIT – 4,000

For spectators...

Spectator Buses
All buses taking spectators to viewing points: 15th St & Martin Luther King and the Covered Bridge in Lehigh Parkway. Buses will load spectators in front of Allen High on 17th Street. All buses will run continually throughout the race.
Getting Back to Hotel or Parking Lot
At the end of the race, buses will be available at J. Birney Crum Stadium (race finish) to shuttle runners and spectators back to the Holiday Inn Allentown Center City, Wingate, Comfort Suites, Holiday Inn, and Howard Johnsons with a first stop at the Fairgrounds parking lot for those who drove.

There are many good locations to cheer along the half marathon route. We offer spectator buses which will take your family and friends to the intersection of 15th St. & Martin Luther King Blvd. and the Covered Bridge in Lehigh Parkway. Buses will load spectators in front of Allen High School on 17th Street. All buses will run continually throughout the race.
Buses are free for spectators. Please understand that as per the bus company’s regulations, we cannot allow dogs onto the buses.

Starting Area

Runners will be escorted from the Allen High School gymnasium and assembled outside along Turner Street according to your starting time. Runners will then be lead to the starting line along Linden Street. The 5k runners will line up first and start their race at 8:00 am. Once the last runners leaves the starting area the half marathoners will line up.
There will be three starting corrals grouped according to your bib color: Corral 1 (Green Bib) is for anyone planning to run a predicted finish time under 1:49:59. Corral 2 (Yellow Bib) is for a predicted finish time between 1:50 to 1:59:59. Corral 3 (Blue Bib) is for a predicted finish time of 2:00 and aboveI am Corral 3!

Don't know what you will do for 2.5 hours? Check this out...there are live bands at every mile of the half marathon.

Thanks for being a part of this...see you at the finish...in hopefully 2.5 hours!

2 week hiatus

I can't believe I haven't posted in 2 weeks. I am sorry for the unintended break, I didn't think things were that crazy here, but I guess they were.  I had 1 final due last week and one due this week, so a lot of time has been spent writing them.  I am still full steam ahead on training for my first half marathon, which I can't believe is less than 3 weeks away.  I am getting excited and nervous all at the same time, I know that I am, err, will be ready, I am just trying to embrace every single moment.  Which, brings me to the last 2 days where I haven't been able to do anything.  I went to the doctors yesterday and got a cortisone shot in my knee to help with the inflammation of the IT band. I have been doing the stretches that I was given, and resting it. I guess maybe I should take some of the aleve, (although not sure how I feel about taking it when I am not hurting). One of my awesome running friends Jennie is lending me a foam roller to try out. A lot of my running friends recommend a foam roller, so I thought I would give it a shot. It can't hurt right. I am also going to start adding ab work to my regime, it can't hurt. Maybe I will start to feel better about how far I've come if I start seeing changes again. Enough about me...I know that you want to see pictures of my sweet baby girl. Here are some pictures that my cousin took on Easter, please enjoy.

I also hope that my sister doesn't mind, but here are some pictures of my niece from Easter as well..

Bubbles were a big hit! It was a great day, with an amazing family. I hope that I will be able to keep up on blogging now that there will be a break in school. I will start posting information about the half marathon soon. I am getting excited, really I am. I am just also very nervous about the race itself and about how my IT band will hold up. If you can spare it, say a prayer for my IT band (oh, and that I get the new job that I applied for, that is another blog post in itself). HAPPY WEDNESDAY!

Camping

In 3 short months our family will be reuniting at one of our favorite past times. We will be coming from near and far and meeting at one special location. We will swim to an island, go to the rec barn for some shuffle board, swim of the rocks, go to Foxy's and eat mud pies, heck we might even go to see Boldt castle. All of this and more, while we are doing this...




Yep, we will be camping! We love it. We used to do it all the time, then as we grew up we stopped going. Hoping this year will rekindle the magic of said camping. Oh, and yep, I am ready. I have the tents up airing out and making sure that there are no leaks or rips. We already got rid of one tent because it had seen better days. I will be sleeping in one of the tents tomorrow, I figured since the tents were up, I might as well enjoy their company.