My first 5k...

In February, after being on a month long "sabbatical" I was trying to think of ways to encourage and motivate myself to get in shape and lose weight (refer back to "Not Resolutions" post on January 5th). After looking around at different programs and gyms in the area I ended up finding a website listing all of the running races for 2009 held in Virginia. I then proceeded to sign both Mike and myself up for the GW Parkway Classic 5k. I was so motivated. I even found a training program called Couch to 5k that I knew I could do in order to be successful. For the 2 weeks following sign up I trained diligently. I did most of this training on a treadmill rather than outside because of the cruddy weather. By this point I had even enlisted my sister to run - which was shocking because she's not a runner either. It was about the 3rd week that things started getting difficult. ----- For those of you who don't know me ----- I'm a 2 week girl, meaning I always start something but rarely carry through past 2 weeks...... this goes back even before college, every diet I've tried, every workout I've attempted - 2 weeks then :( Mike was very sweet, he'd go out on his runs and invite me, but I'd always have an excuse. Mainly my excuses were the previous broken bones in my foot or my plantar fascitis, or when I got my stomach bug in early April, which were true to some extent, but no reason to stop training entirely.

I can honestly say that for the last 2 months I've done nothing. I've eaten relatively healthy but besides that I have worked out a maximum of twice a week in increments of 30 minutes. Before I knew it, April 25th was here and my parents were parking the car on Columbus Street, unloading their suitcase, anxiously waiting to cheer Mike, Lauren and I on. Over the last couple of weeks I had talked to my sister, but didn't think she had done much to train for the race. Even by Monday I had talked myself down to merely walking the race, hoping to finish under 45 minutes.

Saturday after my parents arrived and unpacked, Mike, Lauren and I walked down to Pacers to pickup our race packets. And, like anyone who was running a race the next day would do, we went to Hard Times for lunch, where I enjoyed a delicious and nutritious hot dog smothered in chili and cheese - I'm a moron. Oh, but the fun didn't stop there, for dinner we feasted on some real race food - Ledo's pizza - did I'm mention I'm a moron. Fortunately, for fear that I'd have to stop along the race to handle some bathroom business, I didn't eat or drink anything but water for the rest of the night. When we got home, we all set out our outfits that we would wear for the race and headed to bed around 11pm, after a friendly game of Smarty Party with my parents.

Sunday morning came all too soon, as we woke up at 5:30am and started to get ready. The weather forecast said it would reach the mid 80's by noon, so I was oh-so thrilled to have chosen this race. Mike, Lauren and I headed down to the 200 block of Fairfax street to hop on the buses that took us down to the race start, as we boarded the bus, I became more than nervous. Why did I sign up for this stupid race, why did I not train, why am I so lazy? It only added to the nervousness to see the tons of athletic people surrounding me in the parking lot of the park near the race start. Oh, and we got there so early we had to wait nearly an hour before the race would even begin.....fabulous. Everyone around me seemed so enthusiastic to be there, so confident that they were going to do their best to complete the 3.1 miles. As the race start neared, a voice came over the loud speaker to introduce a guy from a local gym who would lead us in our pre-race warm-up. His son, 6 years old, was by his side. We marched in place, did some jumping jacks, stretched our legs and arms, and were just about ready to start.

As the 3 of us, and 1000 others headed to the start line, I told Mike - "Okay, my goal is to finish, and not to be last." He offered, for about the 3rd time, to run with me. Absolutely not - he had actually somewhat trained for this, he had a personal goal of finishing in 27 minutes. "I'll be fine" I said, and the race bell sounded.

Everyone took off running, and as they rounded the cones to head north to continue the race, I couldn't run any more. My body was already tired, I could barely breath. There they all went. At about the 1 mile mark I had about 30 people behind me, the time on the clock read 14 minutes and 20 seconds. My heart sank.....in my head all I could think was, how did I let it get this bad? As I got to Williams Sonoma I was thinking I may not make it to the end. At this point I could feel, what I thought was a huge blister forming on the entire outer portion of my right foot. I got to the 2 mile marker which read 33 minutes. As I glanced back, the number of people behind me had dwindled to maybe 15. As I rounded the corner of Union Street, in the distance I could see crowds of people at the end of the 3 mile mark. Up until this point, there weren't many people along the race route, nobody there to cheer you on....which at minute 33 on mile 2 I was thankful for. As I ran passed some onlookers I began to feel as if I would never make it to the end, and then, at the worst possible time, I felt the need to go the the bathroom. Starbucks, couldn't come soon enough, and as I entered, I didn't even give the employees a chance to tell me I couldn't use their bathroom, I just headed straight in. After that I headed back out to the race, at which point the first of the 10 mile runners was passing me....people cheering him on, looking at me yelling "You're almost done...you can do it". I was so embarrassed, I didn't even know if there were any other 5k racers left. When I got about 2 blocks from the finish I heard people screaming "GO Sarah !!!!!" and as I looked up I saw, Mike, my dad, mom, sister, Alana & Kristen. I headed over toward them and didn't want to finish the race, all I wanted to do was head to my car and hide the rest of the day. But Mike came over, consoled my broken ego for a minute and walked the rest of the way with me to the finish. My official time was 1 hour, 1 minute and 56 seconds.

I know this is already a long post, but for my own records, I'm going to say a little more.

I finished #1044 of 1047 5k racers. Of those that finished before me included the following:

367-30 to 39 year olds

185-40 to 49 year olds

81-50 to 59 year olds

22-60 to 69 year olds

6-80 to 89 year olds (one 89 who finished #336 of 1047 racers)

and 44 10 mile runners

Mike's time was 27 minutes 25 seconds, making him #182 of 1047 and Lauren's time was 48 minutes 50 seconds, making her #1000 of 1047. Congrats to both of them.

How humbling ...

Never again ...

So to go back to my short term goals for 2009, an amendment to my "Run a 5k" is "RUN a 5k, in 36 minutes." So I have a lot of work to do between now and December 31st.

Thank you to my parents who drove from Roanoke to see me "compete". And thanks to Alana and Kristen for waking up on a Sunday morning to cheer us on. We really did appreciate it.

Matt & Andy move to McLean...

Earlier today Mike, Brett and several others helped our friends Matt & Andy move from Centreville to McLean. Thanks to Andy's organizational skillz the move went quick and easy for the most part - once everyone figured out that the garage was the most direct shot for big furniture. I conveniently showed up just as the last piece of furniture was being unloaded off the truck. I didn't plan it that way - I promise. After everyone feasted on pizza and cookies, the large majority of "movers"/friends headed home to enjoy the beautiful weather. Mike, Brett and I hung around for about 30 minutes more (mostly because we felt guilty for not helping more) and we helped Andy setup the living room furniture while Matt and his dad returned the moving truck.

We're so happy to have Matt & Andy closer to us. We look forward to many more game nights and get togethers!!! Welcome to life inside the Beltway!!!!!!!!

Nationals Opening Day...

Today I scooted out of work around noon to make it home and change clothes, only to head right back into the city. My sister was kind enough to drop Mike and I off in our Nats gear at the King Street Metro on her way back to Salem. We boarded the metro at approximately 1:00pm hoping to make it to the stadium with plenty of time to spare before the 3:05pm first pitch. We hopped the yellow train towards L'Enfant with plenty of room on the trains. By the time we made it to L'Enfant, our transfer point, it was a different world. We shuffled off the train and crossed over to the green line platform heading to the stadium. As we were running down the escalator the green train was saying "Stand clear, doors closing". But, it was an 8 minute wait for the next green train, with 1000 of our closest fellow Nats fans. Mike and I stood patiently waiting hoping the door would stop right in front of us. And it nearly did, but there wasn't anyone getting on...the train was packed to capacity when it arrived, one guy nearly got his arm stuck in the door trying to push his way in. Seeing that there was an 11 minute wait for the next green train Mike and I got creative, we crossed back over to the platform, rode one more stop up the yellow line to Archives, got on for standing room and rode back down. It was kind of depressing, I actually felt bad for all of the people who would get excited at the sight of the coming train only to find there wasn't any room. I don't know how long they waited, but from now on, Mike and I vow never to get off at L'Enfant again, we'll always catch green from Archives. FYI!!! We finally arrived at the game at about 2:15pm, just in time to hear that the "Voice of the Phillies" Harry Kalas had passed away moments earlier in the press box of Nationals Stadium. So there was a litle extra commotion entering the stadium, but we found Anthony and got our tickets! On to the Bar!!! Where we met up with Nick and Danny; who had a round of drinks waiting for us, how sweet! We spent about 45 at the bar before heading out into the sun to find a spot where we could stand and see the game rather than sit in our cloud covered/cold seats. Money spot btw. We watched the opening ceremonies where there were two separate moments of silence - one for Nick Adenhart, the LA Angels pitcher who was killed last week in a car accident and the 2nd for Harry Kalas. Then the opening pitch(es) were thrown out by 5 war veterans, which was pretty original. It was all downhill from there though. The Nationals continued their 0-6 streak with a 8-9 loss to the Phillies. Regardless of their record, I had a blast hanging out with all of our friends, and hope we can see a couple more games this season!!!

Happy Easter...

Happy Birthday Jay Dee...

Hope your birthday rocked as hard as you do!!!

Spring Break Woo...

No, I'm not on spring break, but all our teacher friends are....so why shouldn't I get a day or two? I deserve it...I work hard. Anyways, enough ranting. I took a couple days off and went with Alana to Charlottesville for a little wine tasting and relaxing. We headed out bright and early Monday morning and hit Barboursville, Veritas, King Family and Jefferson Vineyards. I, as always, enjoyed the tastings, bought too many bottles of wine and ate too much. But that's what a mini vacation is for right?!? Sad to say, but two of my favorite wines are no longer being made - Veritas Cabernet Franc and King Family Late Harvest Cabernet Franc. So, if you're out and happen to see either of those, buy them and I'll reimburse you - especially the Veritas, it was absolutely my favorite :( Monday night we met up with our friend Jenna; Alana's former coworker who is back in school at UVa for her masters. We ate dinner at this cute little mexican restaurant called Mono Loco, I got the spicy chicken burrito.....the thing was the size of my arm, so leftovers went home with Jenna. We got back to our hotel just in time to snuggle up in bed and watch UNC stomp Michigan State and then pass out for the night. This morning we stopped off for breakfast at IHOP and both enjoyed the stuffed french toast before we headed back to Nova. It was a nice getaway, I'd go every weekend if I could afford it. Pictures to follow.

Lil Merrill visits...

Crazy, I know...but we haven't seen Mike's sister Lauren since Christmas. So, she made a trip down from Baltimore this weekend to hang out. It was so nice just hanging out. We grilled some burgers, drank some wine, watched some tv and then spent most of today doing a little house hunting. She's been in "seclusion" preparing for an architecture exam which was very challenging....but CONGRATULATIOS to her, she PASSED!!! She's the only architect in her office with this special certification, so she's pretty important if I do say so myself. We're so proud!!! Hopefully it wont' be another 3 months before we see her.

Happy Birthday Ashlee...