Back to Basics

I am now fully recovered from the marathon, and it's time to get back on the training horse! yippee! I kicked things off nicely today with a great triple. TriPower before work, 1200 yards in the pool over lunch, and a nice 30 mile bike ride after work. Also today was a vegetarian day. Good healthy eating compliments a strong workout schedule by leaving you fueled up for the next day.

It also makes me feel "purged". Last week I fully appreciated the recovery process. I got in a single swim last thursday, 1000 yards and that was it for the week. I ate anything I felt like. Hamburgers, fries, ice cream, whatever. I knew the metabolism was ramped after the marathon. Plus we had a big deadline at work last week, so it was quite stressful.

Today, for a monday, wasn't so bad. My forced purge was just what I needed to keep the stress at bay and keep everything moving forward. It's back into tri training now with the first tri of the season only about 3 weeks away! I don't even have a training plan laid out yet. Not that I need to form a training plan for a sprint. But I do need one for the following weekend.

Only 1 week after that tri is my first century ride, the Tarwheel century. It's on the NC coast, so we'll get to visit some friends out there. And it's a milestone that I can't wait to knock down! The 100 mile barrier is something that I've been afraid of for a long time. But the plan is to knock out 100 miles a week including a 60 mile long ride each week between now and april 24th. If I can keep that up I'm sure I'll have no problem with the Tarwheel.

And I'm switching a race up. June 7th come to Asheville, NC for the Fletcher Flyer! It's a full century (100 miles), metric century (64 miles) and half (50 miles) bike ride through the NC mountains. I want to do the full century. It has 4000 feet of climbing. Spread over 100 miles I'm not too worried about the climbing, but it will certainly be more hilly than the Tarwheel. This should be a really fun one, and if you are within driving distance of the NC mountains you should come do it with me! It's going to be a great challenge.

Back to Basics means this week is the time to get back into full blown tri training mode. It's back to the 14 workouts per week schedule I kept up the first part of the year. Time to slim down, speed up, and HTFU! Game on baby!

Marathon #2 Done!

I finished the Tobacco Road marathon in 4:34:33 on Sunday. All the goals were met from the marathon preview:

1. PR - 5:07 shouldn't be too hard to beat. - Success!! PR by 33 minutes is freaking exciting!
2. 4:3x:xx - I really feel like a 4:30 something is within my reach. Might be able to break 4:30 if I don't go out too fast and don't hit too much pain. - Success!! 4:34:33 rocks
3. Don't Die. - Success!! Still alive and kicking ass.
4. No ER visit this time. - Success!! I hydrated right, fueled up and stayed strong.

I owe a beer to The Snail. We were texting saturday (he ran Wrightsville Beach full marathon about 2 hours east of me), and his plan was just to knock down 10 minute miles and finish around 4:20. I thought that sounded like a good plan. He finished around 4:30.

I did not have any kind of camera to carry with me, and I wish I did. Some of the sights that are now burned into my brain I wish could be shared. I did get a before shot at 5 am:

and then Kelley's dad dropped me off at the starting line in plenty of time. I found the 4:30 pace group and got in line. It was right in front of the 2:20 half pace group, and there I found my boss who was running the half. He finished in 2:10.

I didn't here anything starting us off. The crowd just went and I went with them. When I crossed the starting line, I hit the Garmin. I got into the starting line while it was still dark, we started right at sunrise. It was perfect.

This course had the first 3 miles on local roads. I hit the lap button on the garmin at mile 1, then planned a bit more efficiently. I thought the Snail had a good idea for once. So I was just going to knock down 10 minute miles and see how everything felt. I know 10 minute miles seems easy for me, and my nature said to push the speed while I could. But I know... plan to keep an even pace.

Lap 1: 1.01 miles, 10:15 - all day long. I wasn't breathing hard, didn't even break a sweat.

Then I figured I would hit the lap button at more strategic points on the course. At 3 miles it turned onto the Tobacco Trail, a rails-to-trails conservation project. The half'ers went right, and the full'ers went left. So that was the next place I hit the lap button.

Lap 2: 2.06 miles, 19:48, 9:38/mile pace. Whoa there tiger. Watch out.

Less than 10 steps after I turned left onto the trail, I saw a woman run 2 steps off to the left, drop trou and pee. She wasn't even close to being behind a tree or anything. Whole ass hanging out. That's when I knew I was among my own kind today, and was in for a fun race. These people obviously have no dignity; I was going to fit right in.

100 yards later down the trail I saw 3 dudes on the left and 3 dudes on the right of the trail. All peeing. It was like a convention or something. People can't hold it for more than 3 miles? 200 yards later there goes another chick off to the left. These people obviously were properly hydrated for a marathon. I'm just knocking down 10 minute miles.

Now this course is supposed to be flat, and I saw a lot of false flats. When you really look, you are actually running uphill. In fact, the race web site said 300 feet of elevation change over the full course. The garmin tells me it has 4750 ft of elevation climb. That seems like a helluva underestimate by the organizers.

We're heading south on the trail here to a turnaround point, and I'm just knocking down 10 minute miles. At the turnaround, I did have to give a pause for the cause, found a port-a-let and dropped off some friends. I hit the lap button at the turnaround.

Lap 3: 4.37 miles, 41:59, 9:36 pace - steady as she goes heading south.

Made the turn and headed back north and I keep knocking down 10 minute miles here. I'm double checking my times with the mile markers. By 8 miles, the garmin says 1:20. 10 miles, 1:40 (100 minutes). I'm barely breathing hard and currently feeling great. The next place I hit the lap button was the halfway point.

Lap 4: 5.83 miles, 59:00, 10:07 pace heading north

I hit 13.1 (according to the official results) at 2:10:59 for an exact 10:00 pace. I felt great. I was sweating pretty good, but the tall trees kept a lot of the wind and sun off of us. The weather was perfect - mid 50's but getting warmer. By this point the leaders of the full and the slower halfers were coming towards us - two way traffic on the trail from here on out. Also everyone had sort of fallen into their pace line at this point so there was very little passing.

I had in my head to just keep knocking down these slow 10 minute miles as long as I could. Just keep running. Steady pace. No hills (yea right). Just keep going. Finally, 18.7 miles in I did something for the first time.

walked.

My previous LDR was 12.5 miles. The goal in my head was to get to 18 miles without walking. I picked that goal around mile 6. Yes I know I have to count the crap stop at the south point turnaround. But I want you to ignore that for a second. 18.7 miles with no walking. I'm still kind of letting that one roll around in the noodle. When I set my 5k pr, I walked 4 times. in a 5k. This was 18.7 miles. with. no. walking. I took gu's on the run. 2 cups of water at every aide station on the run. just to see how far I could go.

18.7 miles is the answer.

Finally at 18.7 miles I was going up this long hill that wasn't very steep, but was intimidating. I knew I had passed the 18 mile mark (at 180 minutes - well, 2:59 actually) so the last .7 miles was just gravy. So I told myself it was ok to finally walk some and bask in the fact that I just ran 18.7 miles with only 1 poop stop and no walking. Yes, yes that is what I just did.

Lap 5: 5.91 miles, 59:34, 10:04 pace - like I said... all day long. These miles were all heading north.

At the north side turnaround about 19 miles into the marathon - I stopped for another quick poop break. If I had known the damn turnaround was only .3 miles away I might have pushed it instead of walking. oh well. I was feeling all 19 miles at this point. The leg muscles were burning. Sweat was everywhere. The fact that I only got in a single 20 mile run in this training cycle was running through my head. The day was starting to catch up to me.

Heading south on the trail again, I would run when I wanted and walk whenever I wanted. There was a fair amount of walking. At mile 22 they had an aide station that was only serving shots of PBR! HA!! I think it was an official aide station, the organizers asked (on facebook later) if anyone noticed the "alternative beverage aide station" at mile 22. I didn't even notice it while running north, but going south it was in plain sight. I did not grab a shot of pbr and instantly regretted it. Sure it wasn't exactly the Kentucky toothless redneck offering me a hit on his joint from the last marathon, but PBR? I should have taken that. These are my people, and I should have listened to them.

Lap 6: 4.36 miles, 51:11, 11:44 pace. with walking.

I have no idea how the second half of the trail was uphill both ways, but I swear it was. Running north to the turnaround the uphills killed me. Running south it seemed to be uphill the whole way. How does one trail do that? argh.

At mile 23 we came off the trail and back onto the roads to head back to the start/finish line. If you've never run a marathon before, you truly cannot comprehend what happens to your body and your mind at mile 23. I don't know why that's the magic mile, but it is. That's when you see the best athletes doubled over in pain. That's when you hit the wall. That's when the mind has to take over and you have to deal mentally with physical pain and suffering.

At mile 23 we came out of the trail and back onto the roads. I was shocked at how much it had warmed up while we were under the cover of shade trees. It was now in the low 70's and we were running uphill into an incredibly strong headwind. In full sun.

Lap 7: 2.91 miles, 32:43, 11:14 pace all on the roads to the finish line

Yea, I hit the wall. You can't talk, words just kind of slur together. You can barely breathe anymore. The only requirement is to flush lactic acid from the legs. Lots of walking. Hydrate. Endurolytes. Gu's. What hurts? EVERYTHING. Just keep moving.

By mile 24 I had at least gotten used to the sun and the roads had flattened a bit. Breathing was labored but steady, and I had any discomfort (notice I'm not using the word pain here) under control mentally.

The mile 25 marker came and went and I was happy. I was starting to get my second wind. Watching my pace on the Garmin, I started running again at 25.5 miles. I kept around a 9 minute pace from there until the finish line. Luckily, it was a downhill finish, and there were plenty of spectators cheering me in.

That was a beautiful finish line. I know I had just seen it about four and a half hours ago, but it was still an incredible sight.

Totals according to Garmin:
26.44 miles, 4:34:33.27 total time, 10:22 average pace.

Official stats:
4:34:32, 10:29 pace (I don't see how the pace could be different from my chip time)
Finished 353 out of 464 males, 43 / 53 in the 30 - 34 age group

This was an incredible race, fantastic course, and it was well organized. The aide stations were great, volunteers were incredible. I would do this one again in a heartbeat. I'm actually sorry YOU missed it (unless you ran it too). Put this one on your calendar for next year and come on down to NC.

Kelley and the girls got there a few minutes after I finished, so the only pics I got are standing near the finish line with the finishers medal on.


The worst part about the post-race was getting on the bus. We had to take a shuttle back to the parking area and I thought I was going to need a handicap lift to get me up those steps. Still today (tuesday) my legs are really sore. I got adjusted at the chiropractor today so everything else is feeling great.

I had 3 bottles of water at the finish line, my Recoverite and a protein bar on the drive home, and I slept a lot that afternoon. They had pizza and a beer garden at the finish line but I could not partake and risk the dehydration from the beer (from my first marathon) and after eating pizza after the first marathon, I wanted no part of that. They did have a local baker there with bread samples which the kids and I got plenty of. They were really good. Overall the recovery was outstanding compared to the first marathon. No trip to the ER this time. No dehydration or heat exhaustion. Everything felt good in that happy but painful kind of way.

I did not wear knee braces for this marathon like I did in past long runs. Didn't need them. I had no joint or tendon pain. Really no pain period. Muscle burn and lactic acid soreness aren't really a pain like a blown knee is, or an overused hip flexor. The balanced approach of triathlon training for a marathon proved to be the best way for me to go. I put up a 33 minute pr and finished with no pain. So when's my next marathon? ah, next year. oh well.

Marathon Preview

Well folks, this is it. I haven't been freaking out this time nearly as bad as I did for my first marathon. I guess that was expected. Of course I didn't run an oly tri last weekend either. I have been enjoying the taper madness this week, but it's time to talk about a solid plan for this race sunday.

It's my second full marathon. The Tobacco Road Marathon starts in Cary, NC which is a suburb of Raleigh. So it's hometown baby! Actually the start/finish area is about a mile from my office. It's at Brooks Park, a small baseball field. It should be a great place for a start/finish area, plenty of room for vendors. There's 3000 people in the race total, 1500 for the half and 1500 for the full.

20 miles of this marathon are on the American Tobacco Trail. The half and full follow the same route for the first 3 and the last 3 miles, the rest is all trail. The trail is as wide as a road but with no car traffic. It's hard packed screenings, so it's softer than asphalt and more solid than just dirt. The total elevation gain on the trail is 300 ft. That means FLAT and FAST.

The conditions are ripe for a nice time. My training runs have been feeling great. I've been following a baseline triathlon training plan, with the run distances taken from a FIRST plan with my own flavor of laziness thrown in. I've been hitting 2 or 3 runs a week (usually 2), which doesn't seem like a lot until you factor in all of the bike and swim workouts. So my aerobic capacity is very high right now. Muscle strength is good, muscle endurance is really good. Joints and tendons are feeling great. Every time I run more than 3x / week regularly, or train for a marathon I end up with strange pains and run in knee braces. Not this time. This is my 3rd marathon training cycle and it has been wonderful.

I'm sure race day will come with it's own surprises. It always does. But I feel prepared for the following goals:

1. PR - 5:07 shouldn't be too hard to beat.
2. 4:3x:xx - I really feel like a 4:30 something is within my reach. Might be able to break 4:30 if I don't go out too fast and don't hit too much pain.
3. Don't Die.
4. No ER visit this time.

The mistake I learned from last time is to drink freaking more while running and when I finish. I stayed hydrated during my only 20 mile run with a full camelbak, and it was almost drained at the end. With 14 aide stations on the full route, I will hit each one of them. They have GU's at some of the aide stations, so 1 gu and 2 cups of water wherever i can get it should help. I want to take at least 5 gu's total. And I'm putting Gatorade in the camelbak and taking Endurolyte capsules whenever I start to feel sluggish. Should need 4 or 5 Endurolytes. The secret I learned in the medical tent after the beach 2 battleship? 3 full bottles of water at the finish line. Get them down in less than 10 minutes each even if you think you're going to hurl. That will rehydrate someone my size.

So nutrition? check. Good course? check. Speedwork done? check. Feeling prepared? i guess so.

The coolest thing about this race? Having my girls at the finish line. They've never seen me race before; logistically it's too tough to get them out there and keep up with my crap. But this time I'm going to be running towards them.

The closing got delayed due to a title thing. So Kelley and the girls are heading to Raleigh tomorrow instead of saturday and I am so excited! It's been a long and tough week; going through it alone sucks. I'm ready for date night friday, play time saturday, and race day sunday. I'll post a report up as soon as I can, and put my time on facebook before then.

Update: We have live athlete tracking! how cool http://tobaccoroadmarathon.com I'll post my bib number once I get it. The race starts @ 7 am, so the first few miles will be run in the dark.

Much Better

Today was much better; thanks for all the concern about yesterday. It totally blew.

Today started with yoga before work. I went in feeling centered and ready to steamroll. I finished the day actually ahead of schedule instead of behind the 8 ball. It is amazing.

Also amazing was the 5 miles of speedwork I got in on the treadmill after work. And the fact that I left the gym at 6:30 and the sun was still up... priceless. That speedwork is the last run before the marathon on sunday. I'm as ready as I'm going to get. I will hit the bike some tomorrow night, and maybe a swim on thursday. But the next time I'm strapping up the Mizuno's will be race day. Marathon #2 here I come!

UPDATE:
Also in Much Better news, you might remember my dear loving friend Catherine. Her husband Adam (recurrence of leukemia) is finally well enough to accept a bone marrow transplant. It came from an international donor. 7 million donors in the US and 6 million internationally, and only 2 people matched him well enough. They took the best match, and he gets the stuff tomorrow. This is a terribly difficult procedure for him. Adam, Catherine and their family will be in my thoughts and prayers tomorrow. He will need all of the strength we can send his way.

If you have ever known someone who dealt with Leukemia or trained with TNT, you should check yourself out to see if you could be a match. Visit Be The Match to find a simple blood testing program near you. Adam's odds are typical - 2 in 13 million match. You could save a life.

Their new son is doing well. He's almost 2 months old now. Cute as a button too.

Eff Mondays

I'm not a huge fan of the time change. I'd rather just stay on daylight savings time, really. But today it really got to me.

The move went ok. Saturday we loaded up both pods, and got a few truckloads of stuff to the storage unit and both parent's garages. Sunday Kelley and Mom went back and cleaned everything good, and we are out of there. It was strange to leave, 5 years is the longest we've been at one house. And we still found boxes that were never unpacked since moving in!

So we spent saturday night with my folks, and sunday Kelley took the kids back to her mom's place and I went back to Raleigh. I did get to visit with my grandmother some first. That was a real treat. Turns out she had to do the same thing! They moved from Gaffney to Charlotte (about 2 hours apart) when she was 9 months pregnant with my oldest uncle (he's 65 now). Then my grandfather had to be back in Gaffney, SC for 3 months. Some things never change.

So today was horrible. Screw Monday's. Screw the time change. It wasn't a big deal yesterday. But today when I woke up at 4:30 AM with a migraine, the body thought it was still 3:30 am. So of course there was nausea and more pain..... ugh. I hate migraines. How did I ever live getting those stupid things 4-5 times a week! Thank God for chiropractic care so I don't have those too often anymore. This is only the 4th migraine in the last 3 years.

So by the time I needed to leave for work, the medication had kicked in enough to let me drive. I got there on time, and got instantly overwhelmed. I got dumped on and yelled at. And the body is still pretty sore from moving.

Over lunch I had to find a UPS store near the house. I wrote down the address, and walked outside to find my trunk had been popped. Turns out somebody broke into my car and stole my GPS!!! The bad thing is I needed that; I had no idea where the stupid UPS store was. We are moved out of our house and I can't even get a PO box to forward the mail to! I gave up looking for the store and went home for lunch.

I get back to work and nothing goes right. You ever have one of those days where everything breaks? I still had the tinge of a headache, was knuckle-dragging tired, and ready to leave by 3:30. I left at 6.

I got lost going home. Actually, I found the UPS store behind a grocery store I needed to hit anyway. Then I got lost going from the grocery store to Target. Eventually found Target, and by this point I was so mentally done for I bought a shit ton of chocolate and a gallon of milk. I knew how I was going to spend the evening. Then even after buying dinner at the grocery store, I stopped at Snoopy's (a local hot dog joint) for some dogs and fries.

So in the end I have a PO box to forward the mail to, a new pillow to sleep on to help with the migraine, and enough reece's eggs to fill an easter basket. But no GPS in a town I don't know my way around in very well yet sucks. And I still have to file a police report. I want to put an hour on the bike trainer tonight just to have something happen today that I can feel good about.

So I hope your monday was better than mine! Got the marathon this Sunday, taper madness is kicking in. Pics from the move to come whenever we can plug in the camera again.

Finally moving

If you guys don't have anything to do this weekend...... We're moving out of the house in Greenville all weekend long. Come on by! We'll put ya to work. The pods got delivered today. I'm headed back to Greenville tomorrow after work and we're going to load them up all day saturday and sunday. Oh the joys of moving.

I had to miss the 10k last weekend. Kelley was a bit overwhelmed with the packing, so I blew off the race and went back to SC to pack up all weekend. It was quite productive.

I finally did get my 10k on last night (wednesday). I walked for a few minutes to warm up, then set the treadmill at 6.7 speed and just left it there for 5.2 miles. Took the next .8 miles at 7.1 and the last .2 at 7.3 speeds for a total time of 56:02. Damnit Snail.... he's been goading me into a 55:xx 10k for weeks and now I miss it by only 2 seconds. Going to have to try again after the marathon.

Yes don't think I forgot. This weekend is moving, next weekend is the marathon. I don't have to go back to SC for the closing. So once we finish loading up the pods sunday it's go time. Last year I ran my first Oly Tri only 6 days before my first marathon. This year it's lifting heavy furniture and the emotional release of leaving our family home. Why can't I just have a calm the weekend before a marathon? Is lifting armoires really an appropriate taper activity?

We still have no place to go. Kelley and the kids will move around a bunch. I'll stay here with her dad in Raleigh. They'll be in raleigh next weekend for my marathon, and then taking off to the beach for 2 weeks. That's what the kids are focused on. Still we moved into that house with 2 pets and no kids, and we're moving out with 2 kids and no pets. Tough to see it go, it's going to be an emotional and scary weekend.

Have a great weekend! and if you don't come help me move out this weekend, at least try to get in a run will ya?

10 random things

But not a 10k! Kelley is getting overwhelmed in Greenville. So I am blowing off the 10k race saturday and heading back Friday night to help her pack. I was going to leave straight after the race anyway, but this will buy me about 5 extra hours of packing time. I have reserved the right to go out to Furman and run around the lake for 6.2 miles while I'm down there, just to get a time. Now I've got to look for another dang 10k too. It's not a popular distance down here. At least I feel good about supporting the cause of women's safety around the Raleigh area. That is very important to me.

There's a lot of meme's going around right now which I love! I got tagged by Amanda to do the "10 random things about me" meme. Joe posted it today too and I was going to claim a tag from him. Funny enough, Joe's blog is Rock Star Tri and Amanda's is Rockstar Rants. What an unusual coincidence.


1. I have never been a rock star. However my brother Michael is an actual, bona-fide rock star with groupies and everything. Lookup the Slow Runner channel the next time you're in Pandora, or you can download Slow Runner songs on iTunes. He's going to put out another record soon.

2. I was a decent musician. As a Music Industry Studies major at Appalachian State university, my principal instrument was voice, but I also played piano and guitar. I was not actually very good at any of those but it made me popular in high school (at least in my own head). I was the first person at my high school to ever audition for and make the SC honors all-state chorus all three years I was eligible. Now I play piano for my kids. I'm still not very good at it.

3. I used to have "a way" with the ladies. Don't let all the good looks and charm fool you. After 11 years of marriage my flirting skills have become "are the kids in bed yet?" but before then I used to be a smooth talker. Now all I have going for me is being rich, handsome, and athletic.

4. I majored in Radio. Actually, I spent the first 2.5 years at ASU as a music major and racked up enough hours to be classified as a senior. So naturally I then switched majors from music recording and production to Communication - Radio and TV production. That took another 2.5 years (as a senior) to finish.

5. I was a truck driver. Turns out, there is no good work in radio. So the only job I could get was driving an 18 wheeler for Wilson trucking. It sucked. I hated it so much that I got married. And that was all in the first 6 months after college.

6. I am a junkie. Full blown - Hi, my name is John - Hi John - I'm addicted to nicotine, caffeine and big women. I should go to meetings but I don't. You know I put the cigs down. And since Kelley lost all that weight I'm done banging fat chicks. But by God you will have to pry that coffee mug from my cold, dead hands!!!

7. I am hungry. Right now. All the time. I love to eat and I eat. all. the. time. I work out more so that I can eat more. If you love to cook we could be good friends.

8. I'm not actually rich, handsome, or athletic. I might work out 14 times a week, but I have yet to finish a race in the top half of my age group. It does not bother me. One day I will be in a smaller age group.

9. My wife thinks I'm gay. Mind you, she has good reasons. I shave my legs, love musicals, dig chick flicks, I totally queen out over "The Batchelor", watch soap operas, use terms like "queen out" to describe my own actions..... it's a long list. I'm into more girlie things than she is. Hell I even drove a Miata before we had kids. Just yesterday I was telling Ryan about the time I had a mani/pedi and they put clear coat on (I was trying to talk him into doing the same thing). And a few weeks ago I told him I was going to shave his name into my pubis and dye it "white hot", but you'd have to read his blog to know why that's funny. And he's the one that had "gay shaved triathlete" show up in his google analytics search terms. Geez.

10. I speak my mind. My hope is that no actual musicians, addicts, LGBT's, truck drivers, or rich folk were offended by my comparisons - they were all in the name of humor. But you handsome or athletic types can kiss my ass.

Feb is Gone

March is here already. wow. It's going to be a fantastic month - my expectations are pretty high. I've got a 10k race this saturday morning where I expect to PR. On the 13th we're moving out of our house in SC, then on the 19th we're closing the house sale. On the 21st I'm running my second marathon. It's going to be a busy and stressful month, but I know we'll all come through it with flying colors.

So what happened in February? Well I PR'd a half marathon and completed an Iron Week. That Iron week really turned out fantastic. And the half mary led to a wonderful weekend at the beach with my brothers. Here's the month's totals:

Swim: 11,480 yards (4.8 miles) including 2.4 miles in Iron Week
Bike: 203 miles including 112 in Iron Week
Run: 58.3 miles including 13.1 in Tybee Half and 26.2 in Iron Week
Strength Training: 45 minutes, 3 sessions
Yoga: 3 hours, 6 sessions

Wow, I really thought the totals would be higher than that. Final month of marathon training and all. 3 Tri Power workouts is pitiful. Should have been at least 9 workouts. 203 miles on the bike is pretty good though. And I'm loving the swim right now. Really loving the swim. But having 1/3 of the monthly total come from one run on saturday is not exactly "planning for a good marathon" in a few weeks.

I got tagged by JeepGirl the other day for this:

Here's the delio: go to the first folder in "my pictures" and scroll to the 10th picture. Post it and the story behind it.


It happens to be a picture of me holding Bigun the day she was born. Doesn't look like almost 5 years ago, huh? I've got a few more gray hairs now. She's certainly gotten bigger. Ok fine the first folder in My Pictures didn't have 10 pics in it, and the last one in there was a sample photo for some kitchen cabinets. This was the 10th picture from the 10th folder. I thought it was nicer.

I'm supposed to tag people too. But I'm totally going to cop out on that one and ask YOU to do it. I'm tired. I did some weightlifting (yes actual weightlifting) tonight and I can't lift my arms up anymore. It's 8:15 pm. Time for bed. Try to tag people (in the comments) that ran more miles than I did last month. That one should be easy.