i can almost feel the sand between my toes...

josh & i are off to jamaica for the week!
i am beyond excited!
the half marathon is done, finals are over, & now it's time for some relaxation!
i can't wait for some sunshine, sand castles, and whatever else jamaica has to offer!!!

see you next week!
xoxo
...........

obsessed.

i might be a little obsessed with my baby birds.
see, i call them my baby birds now.
i do that sometimes with cute little creatures.
like my "bun-bun."
{the cute little tiny rabbit that lives in the side yard}
anyway, i just think they are so neat.
they change every single day.
i hung out with them today...
they can open their eyes now!



and then they went to sleep.

amazing how much they change in a few short days.

don't worry... i won't keep posting pictures of them every day since we won't be here next week.
i'm sure you all don't think they are nearly as interesting as i do anyway.
i am a little nervous though because i read that baby birds usually fall down to lower branches in the trees before they learn to fly.
and i really hope they don't try to hop/fall out of their nest before they can fly because it's a long way down...
to concrete.
not grass.
i hope the momma bird doesn't let them fall. :(

31!

Today I took Josh out to lunch for his birthday. Doesn't he look thrilled that it's his birthday? Actually, I think that face could just mean "I'm really, REALLY stuffed because I just ate 31,000 calories in honor of my 31st birthday!" because I took it as we were walking out of Five Guys Burgers & Fries. We've never eaten there, so Josh picked it for his birthday lunch and this is what he ate:


A cheeseburger, with everything on it. I ordered a "little" cheeseburger and this is what I ended up with:


Not exactly what I think of when I think of "little." I was going for something a little more the size of a Wendy's junior cheeseburger or something. I'm definitely glad I went with the small one! I am still stuffed and it's almost 3PM!

Happy 31st Birthday, Josh!
I hope you enjoyed your cheeseburger! :)

The baby birds!

If you remember, I posted a few weeks ago about the little bird's nest with 4 tiny blue eggs in it that we found outside one of the upstairs windows. Well, I didn't really post about it but I did post a picture. Anyway, I'm not sure if anyone {besides my mom because she's weird like me} cares about the baby birds, but I just think it's fascinating! Here's the first picture again, this was on April 11th:


I loooove that it's up there and that we can see inside it! Normally you can't see inside it, you know when those silly birds build their nests in trees.

So anyway, I've been checking on them almost every day and finally on April 23rd two of them hatched!



The other two hatched the next day {or maybe later that night}.

They are already getting bigger and fuzzy! I took this picture yesterday:


I'm sure the momma bird hates me because I tend to scare her off when I'm looking at her babies.

My bad, I just think they're neat! Not neat enough to set up a video camera on them as my mom suggested... sorry, mom! :o)

Is it bad that I'll kind of miss watching them next week when we're out of town? Maybe we'll have to put my mom on bird-watching duty as well as Kosmo duty...

Post-Race Celebrations

After the race on Saturday I wanted to have lunch with my family since we don't get to see each other all that often. After some more vehicle-swapping, I took a quick shower and then we decided on lunch at Cheddars since they have a little bit of everything so everyone would be happy! :)


And we actually had the same waiter that Josh and I had last week. Usually I don't feel like eating for a long time after I run a lot, but this time I was starving!





As always the food was delicious! I had grilled chicken & shrimp, baby carrots, and green beans for my first post-race meal! YuM!

I LOVE this picture!!! And I'm SO HAPPY my family was able to come and celebrate this accomplishment with me! I know I have already told them all about 9873453764726356735 times how much I appreciated them coming and they are probably tired of hearing it by now, but I just can't say it enough. It seriously meant the world to me that they were there!! And when I say my family I'm including Josh too because this day would NOT have happened if it weren't for him! He wasn't just there for me yesterday, but every step of the way and I could not have done it without him {seriously... I had no clue what I was doing!} And he biked along the course with me, took pictures, gave my family updates so they knew where I was and could find me.... thank you, Josh!!!!! You are the best coach ever!! :)

Okay, end mushy stuff.

After lunch Josh and I ran errands in the rain... to get his mom a present and to Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cake for his & his mom's birthday party that night. His mom's birthday was last Thursday and his is this Thursday so we had a joint birthday party for them. He let me pick out the cake though since it was also my half marathon day! It was a day full of stuff to celebrate!!! We also got Blizzards because they are buy 1 get 1 for 25 cents right now! It's been a long time since I've had a Blizzard but I figured I could splurge :)


I really wanted a Tagalong ice cream cake but apparently they aren't allowed to sell stuff with Girl Scout cookies while the Girl Scouts are selling them, so we settled for a Reese cup ice cream cake. I wasn't too disappointed ;-)


Josh was going to grill out but since it was so nasty outside we went the easy route and got some Papa Murphy's pizzas. Then we watched The Dark Knight and since that movie is forever and a day long and I haven't even see Batman Begins, I ended up falling asleep. Sorry everyone! Apparently the whole waking up at 4:30 and running 13.1 miles finally caught up with me. It was still a fun evening though.. it's always nice to get together with family.

Happy Birthday(s) Josh & Lynda! :)

Derby Festival Mini Marathon!!!!!!

Yesterday was seriously one of the top 10 best days of my life! {which is a really weird thing to say about any day that I have to get up at 4:30am} but I accomplished probably my biggest goal in my life to date:

I RAN A HALF MARATHON!!!

It started on Friday. We went to a pasta dinner to support one of Josh's friend's cross country team. Josh ended up winning a raffle drawing and getting a women's running hat. Lucky him! The pink stripe down the side was just his color. I wore it in the race for good luck :) After the dinner, my brothers & Jamie {brother's wife} came in town!


I was so happy to see them! So happy in fact, that I stayed up until almost midnight talking to them even though I was planning to be in bed BY 9 o'clock at the LATEST. Oh well, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway.

Fast forward to race morning. My alarm clock went off at 4:30. I snoozed it once and then got up at 4:40 to eat breakfast. The next hour seemed to fly by and then at 5:45 Aaron met us at the house to pick up Josh's bib number so he could run in his place, and then we were out the door. We dropped off Josh's truck at the stadium near the finish line and then met up with Pat & Sheri to get a ride to the starting line and for Josh to borrow Pat's bike so he could bike along the course.

It was raining pretty steadily all morning and I was not excited. The latest forecast had said that the rain was supposed to stop by sunrise and then there was only a 30% chance during the race. I was hoping they were right but not holding my breath.


Our little group of runners... Aaron {running in place of Josh}, me, Sheri, & Pat. Aaron was only doing the mini {even though Josh was signed up for the full} and Pat & Sheri did the full marathon. We walked to the starting corrals, wished each other good luck, and then I left them all in the super-fast corrals and headed to my much slower corral of C.

Erica and I weren't able to pick a good place to meet up so we were just going to see if we could find each other in the corral. Unfortunately, with thousands of people in each one we weren't able to meet up. I ended up meeting a girl who was doing her first full marathon and I decided to at least start off running with her because she was going at a slower pace, so I knew that way I wouldn't start off too fast.

Once I got into the corral was when I really started to get nervous because I knew as soon as the gun went off I had a 13.1 mile journey ahead of me....


We started walking... closer and closer to the starting line... and then OFF WE WENT! No turning back now!


A couple blocks in and I already saw Josh! The weather was pretty good, too. It was cloudy but thankfully the rain had stopped.

Within the first mile I saw a poor trampled turtle and about 5 men pee on the side of the road.

This course went through the same hilly park as the 10 miler, but this time the park was only a mile in instead of 3. So I was totally fresh going into the park and didn't stop AT ALL on the hills! I was so proud of myself! :) I was amazed at how much difference the timing of the hills made. I felt GREAT! The same random guy who was screaming for us in the park at the 10 miler was there again, too. Apparently he's always there! This time he was screaming, "I AM YOUR MUSIC!!!! GO!!!!!" Also in the park I encountered a couple of running Elvises who were pushing a speaker blasting music. It was pretty entertaining.

The park & hills ended at mile 4 and there was a water stop, so I took my first Gu then. Coming out of the park I was feeling GREAT. I was actually a little surprised at how good I felt.



Hey, look! I passed that girl in blue shorts ;-)

Somewhere around mile 6 some local residents were out giving us orange slices. I thought that was pretty nice of them.


If you look closely at my left hip you can see the not-so-secret place where I stashed my Gu packets... right inside my shorts in my little key pocket. I suppose it made my butt look weird, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do for her Gu.

I had remembered Josh saying my family might try to see me around mile 6, so once I got there and they weren't there I was wondering where they were but I just kept on running.. I mean what else was I gonna do? I finally got to mile 7 and saw a big yellow sign that said "GO LYNN!!!" on it and I was so happy! It was so good to see my family there cheering for me!!! I almost started crying. I'm such a sap, I know! But I've always wanted a big sign with my name on it. It was so cool. It made me feel so loved and special :)



At mile 7 we got to run through Churchill Downs! That was super cool! We got to run through a little underground tunnel to get in there and everyone was screaming through the tunnel. It was one of those moments that just felt so surreal and special. It was such a neat feeling to be out there running with all these thousands of strangers who all had the same goal: to cross that finish line. Just a cool moment that I'll never forget. I'm not sure why running through that tunnel made me feel like that, although I suppose it could have just been the delirium setting in...

There were horses out training for the Derby while we were running around the track. It was such a neat experience! We made a one mile loop around and then went back out to the street. I guess it was good that my family was running too late to get to mile 6 because they were able to see me on the way out of Churchill Downs too! I totally wasn't expecting to see them again until the end, so that was pretty awesome!


Around mile 9 or so was when I first started getting a little tired. I knew it had to happen sometime. I was surprised it hadn't already happened....

Yep, a little tired if you couldn't tell. Mmm doesn't that blizzard look delicious?! Why don't they hand those out during races?

Apparently I wasn't too tired to give the thumbs up sign... tired, but at least I'm still going!!!!

I remember seeing Josh here and asking him for water so I could take my next Gu. He rode ahead to the next water stop and got me some water and I was so thirsty that I drank it all and forgot to take my Gu! So I ran along until I finally made it to the water stop and THEN took my Gu! I love that stuff.. it's like magic - instant energy! Seriously, you go from looking like death (above) to awesome! (below)



Double thumbs up!

And then I got to mile 11 and if you can't tell by the look on my face, this is when I started going crazy. Exhibit A:


Exhibit B:


This is when things started to hurt... specifically, my knees. The little buggers were THROBBING. If they hurt that much with the kinesio tape, I don't even want to know how much they'd hurt without it! I wondered how much longer they were going to be able to go. Other than my knees, I felt pretty good, but they were driving me crazy! I stopped for a second to try to stretch them out a little even though I knew stopping always ends up making them worse... I just wasn't sure what the lesser of two evils was right at that moment.

The stretching didn't really help, so I kept going.

The last 3 miles were definitely the worst... they seemed to go on FOREVVERRRRR.


Mile 12. Just 1.1 to go. Not so bad right? Umm... yeah. It's amazing how much harder running 1.1 miles is after already running 12. I felt like I still had a marathon ahead of me.


But okay, I'll still give you a little thumbs up because I'M STILL RUNNING A HALF MARATHON, SUCKA! Go me!



These were the last couple pictures Josh was able to get of me before he almost got arrested.

Okay, not really. But a cop was pretty mean to him for "riding a bike on the marathon course!" Apparently that cop was having a bad day and totally chewed him out. I was unaware that we could no longer be polite and just say, "Excuse me, kind sir, you're not allowed to ride your bicycle here because this is the marathon course."

Anyway. This was around mile 12.5 or so... SO CLOSE to the end, but it felt like forever. But I told myself to just keep on going. I'd come this far, I knew I could do the rest.

I finally turned the corner and saw the big FINISH LINE!!!! I ran for it... not nearly as fast as I do at the end of other races, but I picked it up quite a bit. I heard someone scream for me but I didn't even look {I later found out it was my mom}. I was focused on that finish line!! As soon as I crossed, I almost didn't believe it was okay to stop running. And then it hit me that I had just completed my first half marathon!!! I got my medal and I was so proud of myself!

I then walked hobbled around the finishers' area and got a bunch of free food that I only paid $50 for in registration fees. And then I heard my family yelling for me from outside the fenced in area. They all congratulated me and said they were so proud and I almost started crying again... I tried to hold it in though, because you know, I didn't want to look worse than I already did.

We finally met up outside the finishers' area when they told me we still had a nice little 1-2 mile walk back to the car. They said they didn't want to feel left out, they needed to get in some miles too. I just wanted to know whose brilliant idea that was?!?! I also wanted to know where was my boyfriend!? We finally found him AND he gave us a ride back to where my mom had parked, thank goodness!!! No walking for me!


I love how short my mom looks here and how Josh and I look like we're the same height. Apparently we were standing on a small hill... and somehow the tallest person ended up being at the top!



I have been waiting for this day since the thought of running a half marathon entered my mind last September at the Philadelphia Half Marathon. Back then I knew I wanted to do it, but I didn't think I COULD do it. It seemed impossible. But yesterday all of my hard work & training came together. I accomplished the goal and I'm so proud of myself! I know I have said this before but I seriously never ever thought I could be a runner. I used to hate running and I used to give up when things got too hard. But this journey to running 13.1 miles has taught me SO much about myself.. it has shown me that I can do things I think are impossible if I work hard and stick with it. It has taught me that I can do so much more than I ever dreamed of.

My goal was to have fun and finish it in under 2 hours and 30 minutes. I accomplished both of these goals!! My final time was 2:28... and according to Gertie I actually ran a total of 13.36 miles! I know she lost signal for a second while I was running through the tunnels into and out of the track, but logically wouldn't that mean she would actually estimate a shorter distance? It's a certified course though, so I know it has to be accurate, I just don't know where the extra .26 miles came from..

Either way, I am still proud of myself! I am amazed at how good I felt throughout the whole thing! And I still felt good at the end, my knees were just sore. If my knees didn't hurt I definitely could have kept going! For my next half marathon, I'll try to push myself harder for a faster time, but for my first one I am just proud to have finished and still feel good at the end! I'm glad I didn't try to push it too hard and make the experience miserable. I had fun and soaked it all in!

Over all it was PERFECT! Everything was so much better than I expected. The weather was great and the sun even came out! I LOVED it!!!! I think it is safe to say that this definitely won't be my last half marathon!!!!

P.S. #1 is definitely done!!!

Derby Festival Mini Marathon
April 24, 2010

Distance: 13.1 miles

Time: 2:28:37

13.1 DONE!!!!!!!

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!

And I loved it!!!!!
AND I beat my goal!!!
Full re-cap coming soon!

But first, Josh's and his mom's birthday party tonight.
And yes, I will be eating lots of well-deserved cake :)

Ready or Not...

Tonight we went to the expo and I got my race packet. I thought when I went to the expo that it would sink in, that I was really doing this, and make me really nervous. But it didn't. Probably because I still have one more whole day before I have to be nervous. I'm sure tomorrow it will be a different story. Or, you know, maybe I'll be cool as a cucumber because I GOT THIS. 13.1 miles?! PSHHH.. that's nothing!

Yeah... right.

What I am worried about though, is the forecast:



Look at Saturday!!!
THUNDERSTORMS!

So... yeah, that should be a blast. I didn't mind the little bit of rain we had at the 10 miler, but I'm not so sure about thunderstorms... I hear it's supposed to be windy and rainy... and don't thunderstorms typically come with lightning too?

But oh well. I mean, I'd prefer perfect weather, but might as well make it an adventure, right? I want to have fun at this race so goshdarnit, even if it rains I will make it FUN! I just hope it's not a cold, nasty storm that makes it miserable and makes me want to quit.

Because that is my only goal... to FINISH! I'm not putting anymore pressure on myself for my first one :) I would like to do it in under 2 and a half hours though, so we'll see how it goes....

I'm not letting the storm totally freak me out or anything but just so you know, I'm blaming anything that happens during the race on it. ANYTHING. That means if I don't make my goal because I had to stop and poo, it's the storm's fault. If I give up and decide to walk after 3 miles, yep, storm.

On another note, I was pretty happy with the loot we got...


A tech shirt, which is always nice, even if it is the most ginormous size small I've ever gotten. Last year they just had cotton t-shirts {Josh has one} but those were nice too. We also got a poster, free admission into Churchill Downs for a day, of course a bunch of coupons, and some stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting now.

Well... just one more day! I can't believe it!!! I can't believe I'm going to run a half marathon! Tomorrow my brothers are coming in town and I'm so happy they're going to be there to cheer me on! And another thing I'm super excited about is that Josh will be able to see me cross that finish line, too! Originally, this was going to be his first full marathon but since he's been injured and hasn't been able to train for over 5 weeks now he's just going to bike along the course to give me water, encouragement and maybe a ride if I'm lucky at various points along the way. It's kind of bittersweet because even though I'm sad he can't run it, I'm really happy he'll be there for me at the finish line. He's pretty much the person that inspired me to start this journey in the first place so I'm excited that he'll be able to see me finally accomplish my goal and finish this race!! I CAN'T WAIT!

Hopefully the next time I post I'll be a half marathon FINISHER!!! Yeah Baby!!!

movin' my hips like yeah...

yesterday marked the 3rd annual thunder fest!
thunder is actually much older than that, but it's the 3rd consecutive year for our little group.
i love it because my friends from tennessee come up!
i miss them during the year and even though i usually get to see them at least a couple times a year, i always know they're coming for thunder!


we had a few less people {+ a BOY!} in our group this year.
but i think this is now our core thunder group {minus my fellow j-villian kristen who missed it for the first time in her life!}
we're already planning next year's... only 363 more days to go!


since josh and i went to a photography class at murphy's camera in the afternoon that we thought got done at 4:00 my friends weren't planning to get here until around 4:30 or 5:00...
except they forgot to factor in the hour time difference and ended up getting here around 6:30... even though our class ended up getting out at 3:00.
so it was pretty much dark by the time we actually got down to the river!
on the plus side, we didn't have to wait as long for the fireworks, but on the other hand we didn't have as much time to hang out and do stuff!

we went to the same little beer garden that we stumbled upon last year.
it's actually a really good spot to watch the fireworks, as long as you don't sit next to the same group of crazy drunk people that we ended up next to.

the highlights of the evening included: goley finally getting her beer & hot dogs, josh dancing to miley cyrus {a la party in the usa}, and me forgetting my ID and having to make a 40 minute round-trip walk all the way back to the car to get it.
okay, so maybe that part was a lowlight.
so glad rindi walked with me and didn't let me get abducted by one of the crazies that come out at thunder!
not the first time i've done that, i really should learn my lesson...

after a technical delay the fireworks started!!
...about 20 minutes late.
oh well, it gave us more time to hang out!

they say it gets better every year.
i still feel like it's kind of "if you've seen it once, you've seen it..."
but it is still a really awesome fireworks show.
for real.

then it was time for yet another 20 minute walk back to the car...

on the way back, goley acquired a new hat.


"excuse me sir, can i have your hat?"
i guess since the show was over he no longer had to sell them for an outrageous price.
she got it for free.





i love love love my tennessee friends.
i wish they could have stayed longer.
hopefully i can make a trip to tennessee in may for graduation!

rindi, goley, britt, carrie... so glad you guys came !
thanks for letting me steal your pictures!
i love you guys!!
can't for next year!

p.s. #13 = done! :)