Bucket List

I cannot tell you how eventful this past week has been. For one, I turned 26. It finally happened, I hit the ripe old age of 2-6 and it feels good. In all of my days, I have never felt so loved. My friends, co-workers, family and boyfriend spared nothing in making me feel like the most blessed girl ever and I cannot get over how thankful I am to have each of them in my life. Anyway, I will save all of those special celebrations for another post... but for now, I want to share with you the biggest news of my 26th year (so far) and that is my completion of the MetroPCS 2010 Dallas White Rock 1/2 marathon. For those of you that know me well...yes, I am serious.

You heard me – I completed, ran every step, finished, a 13.1-mile course. Because, hey, nothing says "26" like running half of your age...

This, coming from the girl that as of June 1st could not successfully run one mile without stopping and/or whining. My two crazy friends and I started training in the earlier part of September and have wrestled with training fatigue, ailing bodies and all-around frustration. We have each held each other up when the other didn’t want to be prodded along and have let other “helpers” encourage us along the way. I, personally, sought special treatment from a certain someone (read: Brad) that slowed down their pace by 3 minutes per mile, listened to me complain (specifically, "I hate this.") and continued to feed me positive encouragement in spite of it. I mean, I wouldn’t even deal with myself!

All of this to say, the three of us embraced the "race culture," worked through the cold and ran home to victory. I think we all felt a sense of accomplishment that was bigger than imagined and agreed that it was well worth it. I've never taken the chance to push myself to a point where I could actually take pride in it and yesterday, when I laid my head on my pillow, I felt like I had earned it. I had earned a small bit of affirmation and an even larger belief in the fact that I can really do anything if I set my mind to it. So much of this goal was a mental hurdle and it feels good to have scaled it. To those of you that helped, cheered, and encouraged – thank you! I couldn’t have done this without any of you and my heart swells when I think of yesterday and all of your sweetness...

And so here we are - a few pics* to prove it!

The ladies of the O Chorral - Alyssa, me, Amy and Rebecca

The best of our amazing cheering section!

(Dave, Brad, Michelle, Bailey, Katie, Kate, Leah** & Sidney** - we love you!)

(such a great sign)

*Please note, this will be the last (and only) time that I am featured in Spandex on this site. That is all.
**Not pictured.