Blogging

Well, I think my time as a quasi-blogger has come to an end.

I have no idea what my next major physical goal will be, possibly a half marathon at the end of the summer or in the fall if I can squeeze it in with that little wedding thing we have going on. But either way, at this point, it will be a little old hat for me and not really worth blogging on about. I never really got into blogging about the Avon Walk the same way I did about the marathon.

Part of this is simply related to technical difficulties. Since I got rid of my old Dell last fall, I've been doing all of my photos on our Macbook Pro but I use my Dell mini for my daily computer usage. When I blog, I have to figure out which computer to use (usually the mini because I'm already on it) and I hardly ever post pictures anymore. We have cheap internet but do we ever get what we pay for! Our internet frequently will just go out in the middle of what I'm doing. If I'm in the middle of a post, usually most of it is lost. I have probably lost 25 posts over the course of this year and I've mentioned it before but things never come out as good the second time for me.

I enjoyed having a place to vent my frustrations when training didn't go well and having a place to celebrate when things were over. So, if you are reading, thanks for that!

At least I'm honest...

*sorry I did not mean for this to post today but our internet is evil and cut out on me halfway through and it lost half of the post (I cannot stand rewriting, it never comes out as good the second time!) and apparently the date that I wanted it to post on. I'm so sorry that the first thing you'll read about the walk today is a Debbie Downer moment!*


Before I get to the good stuff tomorrow, I have to get some stuff off my chest. There were several things about the Avon Walk that disappointed me. I learned a valuable lesson through all of this and I can say that I definitely will not be one of those people next year wearing an alumnae button. I didn't realize it until this weekend but (somewhat understandably) our fundraising was valued far, far more than the physicality of the challenge we endured. I realize that their main goal is to fundraise for the cause and I am completely behind that, however, the physical nature of walking the 39.3 miles in a weekend is what inspires our donors to give money to the cause. I felt that my accomplishment should have been acknowledged a bit better than it was.



I cannot even describe the disappointment I had in the finish line. It's just a blown up thing that says FINISH and it was so crowded with spectators that we struggled to get a picture taken. It was utter chaos. There was no 39.3 milestone anywhere to take a picture. The first thing you came to when you crossed the "line" was the Avon Walk Shop and a booth where you could sign up for next year. Another quarter mile away was the medical tents, food and water. At that point, I felt a little hustled. I had absolutely zero interest in signing up for next year or spending my money on their product because they don't value what I did enough to provide necessary things for me after the physical exertion I did all weekend. (For those in the audience, when I ran the marathon and at most other races I've done, you cross a finish line in an organized manner, are handed a bottle of water and some food immediately. I didn't appreciate not being able to find those items and having to ask someone after crossing the finish line cluster of insanity.)



The mile markers, oh, the mile markers. I cannot even begin to explain how awful they were. A good portion of the 39.3 (probably about 15 miles over the two days) were on the lakeshore path. The path has mile markers that were done by the park service and a local running group. My sources with Garmin watches told me that they are pretty darn accurate. After spending a great deal of my summer and early fall training on the path, I know it well enough to know when mile markers are off. There was one part in Sunday's walk that was so blatantly wrong that the organizers should be embarrassed. It's too long of a story to tell but I know there was only half a mile between two mile markers and then supposedly the next "mile" took us 40 minutes, which there is no way. I think they just arbitrarily put rest stops and mile markers wherever they could, which is fine, but don't tell me they are at a certain mark when they actually aren't there. In my book, no mile markers are better than obscenely wrong mile markers. (I also can't count on one hand the number of times that someone told us, "Just around the corner and you'll hit mile XX." We'd assume we missed the mile marker until about half a mile later we'd come to it. Not cool when you are exhausted and your mind is messing with you enough already. Trust me you don't need a volunteer to mess with you about mileage.)



I even google mapped walking the end of the course. What they told us was 1.2 was really much closer to 2 miles. What all of this means is that I have no idea how much we really walked! I'd like to think that we did walk at least 39.3!



They were so secretive about the route during this entire time! We didn't know it until the actual morning of and even then, the map I have looks like a squiggly line and there are 2 roads drawn in. It was impossible to tell Adam where to be to meet us on the route. I was a bit irritated when I found out that it was the same route as the year before. As a first time walker, they made it extremely hard for me to have any sort of support. We could have had Brooke's friends come meet us along the way but we had no idea where to tell them to be! I personally hypothesize that they give us such a bad route map so we can't go home and check them up on the mileage. At first we thought they wouldn't have known the route until the last minute because of street closures. However, not a single street was closed for the entire 39.3 miles. You read that correctly, we did the entire thing on trails and sidewalks. (In case you were wondering, that's why it took us 11 hours the first day. We had lots of intersections to cross and cross walks back up really quickly with hundreds of people.) I was completely caught off card by this. I had no idea how the day was really going to have such a stop/start/stop/start nature. If you had been doing the walk for years and years, it would have been much easier to tell someone where to be if they wanted to come and sit and have lunch with you. They did give several "cheering station" locations but those were never good places to sit and rest and I would have liked to have known where lunch was going to be (especially the first day in the pouring rain, we could have sat in the car, haha!).

I hate feeling like I potentially come off as a jerk in this post but if anything, I always try to be honest. In this case, I honestly felt like my physical accomplishment was devalued by the Avon Walk organizers. It's not something that I will ever consider doing again or recommend to anyone because of the poor organization. With that being said, I have absolutely no regrets in doing it. I enjoyed spending the weekend with a friend who challenged herself in a completely new way and became a marathon finisher on Saturday! The fundraising was important and I completely understand that, but at least in my case, I felt that my family and friends donated because I was doing something big. Something that they wouldn't or couldn't do themselves. I would have liked to feel like that was as important as the money to the organizers.

26.2 = 26.2

I have so many thoughts on the walk that I want to get down on this virtual paper. I took probably 100 pictures or more, which is a great benefit of walking. I had time to literally stop and smell the roses. We weren't "racing" or really concerned about time except for to get off the route before it closed at dusk so I enjoyed taking lots of pictures, talking to people, not being out of breath, etc.

I'll get to lots of the other stuff later but I just wanted to say that after having done both running and walking a full marathon, I can tell you that 26.2 miles is hard no matter what you do. It took us close to 11 hours to walk it. We ate our lunch barely "sitting" on cardboard boxes in the mud under a tree in the pouring rain. On that first day, we hardly rested because the rain showers rendered most of the ground too wet to really want to sit on it. So that means that we were upright and involved in some kind of motor locomotion for truly 11 hours. I dare anyone who has ran a marathon to attempt that and try to tell me it's easier. At the end of the day, my body felt exactly the same as it did after running last October, only this time there was a catch. I had to get up and do a half marathon the next day!

Random Stuff

I'm waiting on a couple packages. First off, the highly-anticipated heart rate monitor is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. This afternoon, my new blackberry should arrive to Adam's office. I had it shipped there because I'm horrified that I'd be out of the house when it came and someone in his building's mail room will be there to accept it.

Yep, I lost my blackberry on Sunday. We started our morning by playing beach volleyball for a couple of hours, it's been a heatwave here in Chicity. We even have the A/C on... in May! Adam says I have improved 200% since last year. I think it's my stronger body that makes it easier to play. I still have my Daria moments (think watching ball fall near me when I totally should have had it) but I'll take 200% improvement any day. After v-ball we rode our bikes back home, showered and headed off to watch the Blackhawks game. We had a few too many pitchers of beer because they were only $3.75 (A PITCHER!) and my phone somehow got lost at some point during our transfer from one bar to another. I think I probably left it on the train and seeing as how our group was totally decked out in Blackhawks gear, including a playoffs broom (we swept the Sharks) and singing the "after goal song", I think we sufficiently annoyed everyone on the train car and if anyone saw me leave my phone behind they probably thought I deserved it. Which I probably did.

Moral of the story... take it easy on the pitchers, Big Jen. It was a valuable experience because we'll be getting iPhones in the fall when I move onto Adam's plan and I realized that I seriously suck at keeping a phone (this is the same Blackberry that fell out of my bag on the floor of a hotel in Montana and had to get mailed back to me) and I'll be taking Adam's old iPhone and he can get the new model instead of the other way around. And if you don't already have phone insurance, you should consider getting it. They are overnighting me the phone for $100. Which is way less than the $400 or so a new Blackberry costs. There was no way that I could carry on with my old flip phone for the next 4.5 months until my contract was over. I need the internet for so many things (CTA bus tracker being the most important).

Tonight I'll have to figure out how to do Sprint's at home phone activation for the first time. Oy vey. But on the brightside, my lost Blackberry was having more and more frequent meltdowns and for some reason the back was stuck on so I couldn't remove the battery for the hard reset that they are so fond of for fixing said phones. Hopefully the new-to-me (I am expecting it to be a re-ferb) will be able to hold on until October.

We only have a week and a half until the Avon Walk! I'm so excited and ready for it to be here. Brooke and I are mapping out our weekend plans and we've decided on our pre-walk meal of pasta at Mia Francesca's and our post-walk meal at Tango Sur (aka the best BYOB Argentinian steak house ever). I try not to think about the overwhelming emotions that will be running through me. At the introduction meeting, I was tearing up at the video. There are so many survivors that walk and many who have lost mothers, sisters, friends, daughters, etc. I'm thankful that it is a walk so we'll be able to chat with so many different people and hear their stories (as opposed to me asthmatically running and not able to talk as easily). But because I am an emotional basket case I'm not looking forward to the sheer sadness of it all. Luckily, I'll have Brooker next to me to hold my hand and walk me through it (literally, haha).

Negative Nelly

I'm going to totally be a jerk and use this opportunity to vent. We've had the amazon.com gift certificate for a week but it was mailed to Adam and he chose this week to decide that opening mail addressed to him was not important. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

On the bright side, I ordered my HRM. It will probably be shipped when we are in San Diego next weekend and I'll have to pick it up from UPS. See, I am so cranky right now! I can't even be happy that it's ordered.

I also wasted $50 on signing us up for a 5K that we didn't run this morning. To be fair, I could have gone alone but I chose to sleep in and Adam is not-so-recovering from bronchitis so there was no reason to push him into running. But I'm mad at myself for registering and wasting money on it.

So in short, I am having a not so good Saturday. But it's all stupid in the grand scheme of things and nothing that a good sesh at the gym can't fix.

Impatience

Do you believe that your (future or otherwise) children will haunt you in similar ways that you drove your parents mad? Adam and I talk about that sometimes. I am determined that my children are going to be so demanding and impatient because that is exactly how I am.

As I previously mentioned, we used CC rewards on two different cards to get gift cards. Adam's Sports Authority is already here and it's an actual gift card so he can have merchandise in hand as soon as he's willing to go there. My amazon card? NOT HERE YET. I'm going insane. I've needed a heart rate monitor for about a year or so now but I'm too cheap. I also will have to wait for shipping and as I mentioned, I'm too cheap to do anything but the free super saver shipping that takes twice as long.

Ok, rant off.

Lately, I've been finding that I'll glance down at my watch now and then during workouts (even, gasp, yoga, so much for the mental benefits). I imagine that I was just getting bored with my routine and classes and needed a new challenge or two. Hot yoga has been one of them but at the hot yoga studio I signed up for an introductory set of private lessons on the Pilates reformer machines so I can take group classes if I want. They are a little more expensive but we save a lot of money by using the YMCA as our private gym so I figure I can handle it.

When my hour was over, I could have cried. I definitely checked to make sure that she wasn't gypping me out of some time because it felt that fast. I don't think I've ever had a 1:1 workout/instructor ratio before and HOLY MOLY I cannot wait for June and personal training sessions. It was the best ever! And the reformer machines? Awesome, awesome, awesome!

Credit Card Rewards

We did some redeeming of our credit card rewards last week and believe me, it was hard to convince the old man around here that we should but I prevailed.

He obviously needs to replace his entire golf club set, golf bag and the oodles of things he kept in said golf bag (a nice windbreaker pullover, etc.). So I used my card rewards to get him a gift card to Sports Authority. Combining that with the $25 off of $100 purchase coupons they come out with frequently, he'll be able to get a lot for a little.

We also got an amazon.com gift card from our joint card rewards because that is the best price that I've seen for the Polar F6 heart rate monitor, which is what I have decided I need for my latest fitness purchase. I am so impatiently waiting for that stupid certificate to get here so I can buy it. Which brings up a huge pet peeve... it's a gift certificate for amazon.com, which basically means it's going to come with a little code that I can enter on their website. Why do they feel the need to waste the postage (and my time) to mail that to me? An email wouldn't have worked? Grr.

At any rate, I'll be rocking this on my wrist soon enough and I am SO intrigued to see how many calories I'm burning.

P.S. There will be some money left on the amazon card so Adam is replacing his prized hokie bird golf club cover. And I am still royally pissed at the dude who stole the clubs.

25 Days

We got an email yesterday from Avon Walk... only 25 days until it's here! I'm excited but I'm not going to lie, a little freaked out.

I'm a researcher, I looked up and had an idea of the marathon course about six months before the race. The Avon Walk is slightly more, well, loose in their planning. I don't think they have the actual course decided yet. I don't even know where it starts or ends. They keep saying that they will send a detailed email as the walk gets closer but I have this innate need to have a better understanding of what I'm up against. I must continue to suppress my Type A obsessions and get over it.

In other related news, I had my serious legs class with Mondale yesterday for the first time in three weeks and oh the pain!! I know I am making serious strides but I still have a long way to go. I would just like to be able to do the three minutes of jumping jacks with 8 lb dumbells!!!

Hot Yoga

Holy wow.

That's pretty much it.




I tried a hot yoga class for the first time on Monday night. They don't offer it at our Y but I have been wanting to try it for quite awhile now. Oh yeah, and this did not fit into my no-spending plan, oops, but I decided to bite because it was health and fitness related and I figure that is important stuff. They changed a couple of yoga classes around at the YMCA and I found myself not going as much as I would like to.

Anyhoo, it was nothing short of amazing. I went to a small studio and I am pretty sure that it was the first time I've ever done yoga outside of a traditional gym setting. It was from 8:00-9:15 pm so they had the lights off in the room and the only illumination was the street lights (the studio is on a pretty busy corner right next to the L train so we weren't completely in the dark). I found the setting to be extremely relaxing. The heat was already turned up when we started but the yogi turned on several extra heaters all around the room. I was sweating within just a couple of minutes.

I realized that the yoga I am used to practicing at the YMCA is very, very beginner. It was good to be exposed to a new instructor and new positions. Some of the stuff was insanely hard but for other positions I was the only person in class that could do them! Yoga is strange that way, I feel like I learn so much about my body each time I go.

When I got home and saw myself in the mirror, I cracked up. I had sweat stains everywhere! I was afraid that I would be really sore on Tuesday but I surprisingly wasn't! I think the heat helped with that because I know I really pushed myself. I have nine more sessions to use at the studio and I'm looking forward to it.

It was just a regular Vinyassa class so I will still have to try Bikram one of these days!

Holy guacamole!

It's been kind of a big couple of days in my life. Some of our besties are getting married, one of my longest friends is having a baby and my sometime-employer, United, is merging with Continental Airlines. I won't comment on the friend news, not sure if all the news is out yet but I am SOOOOO happy for everyone involved and I love it when life works in great ways for my nearest and dearest. So I'll tell you more about the big merger.

Nothing really changes for any United employees at first, most especially me. I am still on my 30 month furlough. I'll still send my $10 check every month and keep all my health bennies. The company isn't expected to officially, legally "merge" until the end of 2010 and even that legal merge is only the very first step. After the legal merge, the company will start working on getting a combined certificate of airworthiness and begin the combining of operations. In an email I read today from CO's management to their employees, they think they can have this done by some time in 2012. If you look at new Delta (Delta and former Northwestern), they announced their merge two years ago and nothing major has happened except I think that the old Northwestern planes have been painted and I assume they make announcements as Delta.

As you can only imagine, merging two Fortune 500 companies with tons of employees and different unions on the premises will be mad complicated. I am not even scheduled to return to work until March 2012 so I can just sit at home and wait to see what happens. I have other plans for myself in the meantime that may ultimately affect my situation but we'll have to wait and see (that was kind of cryptic, sorry).

It's going to be a wild ride, that may be the only thing that's certain but I am really looking forward to hopefully having more options within my homestate (Continental's biggest hub is Houston). I'll be sitting here and counting the days until we can pass-ride on Continental!

Clearly, I suck at this

I really suck at not spending money. It's so hard, y'all!

Last night we dined at a new restaurant I have been dying to try and it happens to be a brewery so it wasn't like I couldn't drink a housemade beer. Adam *technically* paid but give me a break, it was on our joint credit card. Blast! But the beer was so worth it and felt amazing on my allergy-stricken sore throat.

Tomorrow, scheduling is going to necessitate that I have Subway for dinner. Dammit. I realize it's a $5 footlong we're talking about but I am seriously saddened that I'm going to screw up my plan again. And my dad is talking of coming to visit this weekend so we all know that the no spending rule will get completely thrown out due to the "company in town clause".

I am failing at this and I'm on Day 4!

Tiny Kink in the Plans

I forgot one detail and need to update that spending is allowed, of course, for Mother's Day. Luckily, I already purchased cards last month because I am trying to be ahead of the game as an adult but gifts for my mom and future mother-in-law still need to be procured.

Other than that, my allergies are so bad that I haven't even left the condo since we returned from St. Louis, which makes non-spending super easy! Tomorrow when I return to reality we'll see how well this experiment goes, haha!

Competition and Challenges

I've decided that there is no way I'd ever be able to go to the personal trainer alone. Not that I'm afraid of working out by myself, it's purely from a competitive perspective. I have an innate need for someone else to compare myself to and work towards being better than. Is that a bad thing? Depending on circumstance, I suppose, but it also is extremely motivating! I hope that we'll be able to start personal training in June after my Avon Walk is over. Because I want to go with Adam to have someone to "compete" against (and presumably discover that I am not as strong as a man and never will be), we'll be paying for two personal training sessions at once. Awesome for the body and not for the wallet.

I have so many stupid wants (a body bugg, thanks to Biggest Loser; new running shoes; new summer clothing and shoes) that I need to quit thinking about and researching to death so I'm going to challenge myself by doing a month of not buying anything (within reason).

For me this is going to mean:

-only groceries will be purchased
-no alcoholic beverages purchased (making an exception when we have company in town in May)
-no takeout/to go food, pizza-I will miss you
-no clothes, shoes, etc.
-minimal to no purchases earmarked for the wedding

It's only until May 26th but it's going to be insanely mega-hard to do! If I can manage, I think I will definitely have saved enough for quite a few of those personal training sessions!

(the reason why I say minimal purchases for the wedding is because we might have to start looking at plane tickets and jump on them if the fares are inexpensive!)

A RANT

I realize that Ben Franklin was absolutely correct when he said that there are only two certainties in life, death and taxes. I've been paying taxes for over 20 years if you consider using my parents money to buy candy and what-nots as a child and I know I have a lot more dollars to put toward taxes for the rest of my life. But right now, I get so beyond annoyed with my current state and city because I swear they may just tax us all to death and then still claim that the damn state is still broke as a joke!

I also understand that I am massively biased toward that because I was blessed to grow up in the best state ever and never had to pay state income tax until I was 24. (I know, I know, I am extremely ethnocentric but seriously, go to Texas, check out some real estate prices and cost-of-living stuff, coupled with awesome winters and then you'll understand. I feel like I have been enough places to know that it's something special down there.)

So yeah, I have a real problem with state income tax. I have an extreme problem with the fact that HR Block charges me about $10 to e-file my federal taxes and a WHOPPING $36 to file my stupid Illinois taxes. Last year the refund I got from the state was less than that! But what I have a bigger problem with is all the stupid state taxes (and don't even get me started about the city taxes) on EVERY DAMN THING. They are nickle and diming us to death around here and the state is still so "broke" that they are firing a bajillion teachers, already cut all the train and bus service in Chicago and every day the news is full of new things that have to be cut or start being charged for. If they are charging me out the wazoo for everything, where exactly is that money going? (Amen to the fact that neither of us smokes, I think the going rate per pack is around $10 these days after all the taxes.)

Case in point: our moron replacement-for-the-corrupt-idiot-Blago governor wants to start charging 6.5% tax on iTunes. As if the new $1.29 price tag wasn't enough. I like my music and I don't want to have to pay any more anything to Illinois than I already do! I am so irritated and obviously, this is such a small thing to rant about but COME ON! Enough is seriously enough! Get me out of here!

Reality Check

I have an app on my Facebook page that tells everyone how much money I've raised towards the Avon Walk. If you were curious, I've hit my goal of $2000!!

It also has a ticker that reminded me we have 48 days until the walk. EEEKS!

48 days until I walk a marathon.

Gym, Tan, Laundry

Shout out to Jersey Shore (which I do not watch and have never seen, actually)!

GYM: I've been really enjoying my renaissance at the gym. After a couple of lazy weeks at the beginning of March, I've been back and really hitting it. I worked out with Adam today and it was nice to see how far I've come in a relatively short time! We were talking on the way home and I think my ultimate goal is just to be always able to say, "I'm in the best shape of my life!". I thought I was after the marathon, but I know I am in WAY better condition now. If I did marathon training again this summer, I probably could shave about 45 minutes off last year's time. We ran into my favorite gym instructor (and hopefully soon to be personal trainer), Mondale, and I had a brief discussion with him about protein powders. I'm just concerned about my protein intake, or lack thereof, with my aggressive workout schedule. He recommended a powder that I can put in my green monster smoothies and we got some after our workout. I felt like such a mega-tool walking down the street with a huge jug of protein stuff. I promise, I'm not becoming a meathead though!

TAN: We actually had nice weather this week and I did a ton of Avon Walk training outside. Which is awesome, except for the awesome tan that I end up with. Last year I had a total farmers tan and watch tan lines because of all my running on the lakeshore path and it seems I'm doomed for that fate again. Plus, when I run, I find my legs never get tanned to match my arms. I'm not going to lie, I was about 10 seconds away from walking into a tanning salon but for some reason, I didn't want to. I ended up at Walgreen's instead and accidentally bought real self-tanner instead of that tanning lotion that I've used in the past. SELF TANNER IS SCARY. Then I started having all these crazy thoughts about how I was actually dying my skin with chemicals and how could that be any worse than fake'n'baking? I'm in a wedding next weekend in a strapless dress so I guess I'll keep on with the self-tanner and see what happens. It's pretty funny because it makes me insanely glittery when I put it on!

LAUNDRY: I have extra laundry to do this week because we are finally PACKING AWAY OUR WINTER CLOTHES! So happy and thankful for that! There were days that I thought we'd never get here but it is so glorious to sit in the living room with all the windows open. I love it! The really craptastic part is that we keep the off-season clothes in our storage locker in the basement. We went downstairs to retrieve our summer stuff and discovered our lock had been cut and Adam's golf clubs (hopefully that's all) were stolen. I WAS SO MAD because we are 99% sure it was a former tenant that came back to vandalize and burglarize after he was booted out of his property by the bank. What a jerk!

Race Report: Shamrock Shuffle

Last Sunday, Adam and I woke up bright and early, met our friend Heather at the train and made our way downtown for the Shamrock Shuffle. I would describe it as a kick-off of sorts of the outdoor racing season here in Chicago and it's sponsored and run by the same people as the marathon and the course is basically the downtown portions of the marathon, except you never leave downtown and it's only 8K (thank goodness!!).

I'm telling you it's basically the Chicago Marathon when it comes to crowds as well! And 35,000ish people is fine when you are running 26.2 miles and there is time for the crowd to finally thin out but much more challenging when you are running only 4.97 miles. Plus, this is probably the first time in several months that many of the people were running outside (other than my 5K in San Antonio in Feb, it was my first time too) but FOR REAL, if you are not conditioned and cannot run from the start line, please start yourself in the back!

Anyhoo, it was crowded, which made me semi-cranky and my bladder was making me mega-cranky because I kept having to pee! Adam and I ran together until sometime after the 2 mile marker in which case I decided that I wasn't going to finish and I'd just meet him at the beer tent. Easier said than done, apparently, because I got yelled at by a course official to get back on the course and at that moment, I turned a corner and spotted the 3 mile and 5K markers. At that point, I figured I'd quit being a chump and get my full bladder back out there. I actually ended up running a much faster second half. The last bit of the race is exactly like the marathon, up "Mount Roosevelt" and around a corner to the finish. Mount Roosevelt is the closest thing we have to a hill in Chicago and while it's pathetic, it's still a hill and at the very end of the race. The whole time I was moving up the hill, I was cursing the people that were walking in the middle of the street (grrr!) and wondering just how on earth I'd conquered it after more than 25 miles in October!

Heather and Adam finished a few minutes before me due to my unfortunate almost wimp out and we all met up at the beer tent for the trademark Shamrock Shuffle debauchery.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention, it was SO FREEZING COLD and kinda rainy/misty. Blech! It was especially sad when you consider that it was in the 60's and sunny on Thursday and Friday but at least it wasn't dumpy snowing like Saturday so we can be thankful for that.

***AVON WALK UPDATE***

I decided to try and add about 10 miles of extra walking a week, in addition to the gratuitous amounts of walking I do just getting around the city and to my regular gym schedule (that I am actually trying to follow again). Adding 10 miles sounds so easy but I forgot that walking just takes a long time! Last night I had 48 minutes on the treadmill before my yoga class and only managed about 3.5 miles. UG! So this week I'm at about 5.5 but my schedule was a little crazy at times so I'm going to work really hard to get all 10 miles in next week.

If you are a reader in San Antonio, please come and join Brooke and me at Taco Cabana on Blanco and 1604 for dinner on April 11th (6-8 p.m.)! They are donating 20% of all receipts from people that come in for us to our walk funds. I need less than $200 at this point so every little bit will help me reach my goal!

Change In Plans

This past weekend I had this great idea that I'd go home (standby pass travel, of course) to San Antonio for a couple of wedding details and to see my grandmother, who started chemotherapy yesterday. I just forgot one important detail. It's spring break! I'm pretty sure the kids are out of school here in Chicago but I know it's break down in Texas. All the flights were mega-full and there were tons of other people trying to stand by as well. Getting on a flight is based on several things, the first being if there are any empty seats that have not been paid for and your seniority with the airline. Being that most people at United have been with the company since well before I was born, I always assume that I will be the absolute last person on the stand by list to get on the flight (very rarely am I wrong). So, seeing all that, I'm not going to spend my day in misery at O'Hare when there are 64 people booked for 60 seats with 6 other people trying to stand by. That is a recipe for a CRANKY Jen.

There was just one teeny little problem with me not going. Adam had scheduled the cleaning lady to come on Saturday morning since he had a review class for his big exam and wouldn't be home either. *now before you go all banana sandwich and think we are little princesses around here for having a cleaning lady, there are several reasons for this and the main one is that we literally have NO closet space for any sort of significant cleaning supplies. seriously. and she only comes about 4 times a year since I moved in, I can handle the light stuff. oh and she is worth every darn penny and more. she stays about 5-6 hours and gets totally jiggy with cleaning this dump up*

Anyhoo. I needed somewhere to be starting at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. LUCKILY, it was Chi-rish Day and they were dying the river green. Adam goes to class with his buddy, Joe, and it so happened that Joe's wife was making a full Irish breakfast and going down to see the river and parade so I got to tag along with her and two buddies. It was rainy, which was so perfect considering that I have these phenomenal lime green wellie rain boots! I could kick myself for not getting a full-length picture with them!

We ate great and I started my day with some coffee and Bailey's (heavenly) but we missed the river dying by a few minutes, which was not a big tragedy to me after the coffee drinks. We went to a really crowded bar and drank some overpriced green beer and got some SWEET Chi-rish beads before moving on to Morton's (which, sidenote, is called Morton's: The Steakhouse, when you are actually in Chicago instead of Morton's of Chicago). Ironically, it was the cheapest place downtown to drink. They were also doing an all-you-can-eat corn beef buffet which looked like boiled dinner, one of my worst food nightmares. But they had some killer bagpipers and we watched a few NCAA games.

After Adam finished his class and a little time at the office (yes, he worked on what was essentially a holiday, not to mention Saturday), he came and met me at Morton's for awhile before we met some friends at a bar further north. That bar was ridiculously crowded and we didn't stay for long. Our friend Heather's birthday was the next day so we went to her bf's house for pizza and cake. Saturday night was a really big night for me because I finally saw the Hangover for the first (and maybe last?) time. I have only two things to say: I kinda wish now that Adam was not going to Vegas for his bachelor party and if my brother roofies everyone, he's dead meat. Ok, three things to say: the Andy Bernard character was my favorite. That guy is so funny!

Sometimes the best-laid plans don't always work out but I'm glad I got to be here for Saturday at least!

39.3 update!!

I haven't talked about the Avon Walk in forever (well, to be fair, I haven't talked about much of anything lately)! But we're less than 3 months away, WOO HOO!

The snow is completely melted, I didn't even see any of the big residual piles in parking lots over the weekend so I will begin walking in earnest now as the weather allows. I'm not sure how time consuming it will be but I'm going to try to average about 10 miles of dedicated walking a week. When I say dedicated, I mean not counting trips to the train, grocery store, gym, etc. Given how marathon training worked for me, I know that some weeks I'll be able to get more in and some weeks it just won't happen. I hope to not have to do too much of it on the treadmill so let's all cross our fingers now for sunny days (and about 65 degrees if I might be so picky).

My fundraising has been going rather swimmingly, I must say. I'm at $1605 of the mandatory $1800 right now. The only sucky part is that I kind of feel like I have exhausted every person I know at least once and I hate badgering people over and over (although I know that is a cardinal rule of fundraising, that you must ask people eleventy billion times). I do it myself, I have to read something probably three times before I donate. Which at least this experience has taught me to be better about that!

I'm walking with my VERY BRAVE friend Brooke (who is going to rock this walk, btw) and she bought each of us some super fab bright pink Texas A&M hats. I'm so excited to sport the pink and rock our school support. Speaking of, I CAN'T WAIT TIL FRIDAY FOR OUR TOURNEY GAME! GIG 'EM! Brooke has been battling plantar fascitis, which foot injuries are awesome if you are attempting mega-walks, but she's been slowly rehabbing it and logged a killer 7 miles over the weekend. I logged a killer 7 green beers so I am clearly behind in training.

My immediate plans for the extra odd $195 are to do two things. I'll be in San Antonio for my dear friend Charlotte's wedding in April and Brooke and I are trying to get a dinner organized. I know for sure that our local (and very pink) restaurant, Taco Cabana, does charity nights where everyone you bring in can drop their receipt in a bucket and they will donate 10% of the grand total. But, I'm trying to think bigger (and better food) and trying to work something out with Willie's. I figure people will probably be more likely to come and the overall receipt totals would be a little higher at Willie's (plus, they have Linie's Sunset Wheat beer and I could sit there and drink it all evening). In short, SA people, mark your calendars for April 11th because I plan on having something together by then to raise a little moolah! You can see our cute hats and Avon Walk t-shirts. I even plan on getting some pink balloons for our tables. It'll be a rowdy time if they still have Sunset Wheat (because clearly cutting out beer is NOT a part of my training program this time around).

I also want to do a happy hour fundraiser in Chicago for our local peeps. I know of a couple bars that will do all you can drink packages with a portion donated so I need to get my research on and make some phone calls. I figure with having two events I can probably get that last teeny tiny little bit I need to get my thermometer overflowing on my personal webpage. My personal goal all along has always been $2,000 but I'd love to be able to destroy that amount.

Either way, as always, you can donate at:

www.avonwalk.org/goto/jenbreda

Thank you Thank you Thank you!

A big THANK YOU to all my awesome donors (so far):

Brett Albright
Catherine Austin
Brian Bazan
Adam
The Boyds
Grandpa and Grandmother
Dad
Mikey (and there's a blog shout out for you, brother)
Mom
The Carmeans
The Daughertys
Brian Demeyer
Christiana Earle
The Earles
Kristin Geiger (and James)
Booker T
Nancy Hester
The Kruses
Katie Kummer
Sara McD
James Palmer
The Pawasarats
Sherry Pederson
Bev Poe
Lynn Renner (and Jerry)
Angel Suhor (and RJ)
Sherril Theis


With the help of all these amazing people, I have raised over $1600!! Thank you for donating to a great cause!