Day 9 of Happiness: Left-Over Happiness

Training for my next marathon:

 I usually struggle to find something to be happy about on a Monday, but it's not actually too difficult today.  I had a great weekend and am still feeling the left-over happiness.  I am also still feeling the left-over pain from running my half marathon too fast, but it's a good pain.  Or at least that's how people describe the pain you feel after forcing your muscles to work too hard for an extended period of time.  Ahh, the joys of running.  

Actually, the ING Philadelphia Half-Marathon turned out WAAAYY better than I was thinking it would.  My lack of serious training made me think that I might have to hobble my way through the race.  Actually, I think I did hobble.  I just hobbled fast.  Pretty much what happened was that two of my friends trained better than I did so I spent the first 9 miles chasing them.  And by chasing, I really mean chasing.  The first few miles Levi and I were enjoying a nice pace.  I felt good, I felt strong, life was great.  HAHA!!  Then Levi starts to pull ahead.  So I push myself and catch up.  Then Levi pulls ahead.  Then I push myself even harder and catch up.  Then Levi pulls ahead.  Do you see the pattern here????  Well, after 9 miles of this I called it quits and refused to catch up (Megan, who was doing an impressive job of chasing Levi too, refused to give up and continued to chase him until the end of the race.  Great job Megan!!)  Of course by then I had pushed myself for pretty much the entire race so I was exhausted and had to push myself just to finish.  I kept thinking about how happy I was going to be when this race was finally over and I could walk.  I tried using my "visualization" technique - picturing myself running across the finish line - but I was so tired that the only thing I could picture was myself walking.  This is not the point of visualization, nor is it helpful.  I also tried Levi's suggestion of passing the the time by looking for other people who were wearing the exact same shoes as me.  This also didn't work.  Spending long periods of time looking down made it difficult to run forward.  I think in the end trying to come up with an activity to pass the time actually passed the time.  The surprising news - I beat last years time!!!!  Last year I finished in 1:55:43 and this year I finished in 1:49:52!!!  Talk about excitement.  It is difficult to shave time off your runs and I think chasing Levi was key in this situation..  So, thank you Levi.  Hopefully next year you'll be chasing me!! 

Here are some photos:

Aside from the weekend, I do have a spot of happiness for today, that is specific for today.  Peanut butter.  Yup, that simple food makes me so very happy.  I pretend that I am eating celery dipped in peanut butter (sounds nice and healthy, huh), but really I am using the celery as a spoon to get the peanut butter in my mouth.  I was looking forward to eating that peanut butter all day.  And I just finished it.  And it was fantastic, as usual.  Although I learned this past weekend that ambrosia is the food of the Gods, I believe that the Gods just hadn't tried peanut butter yet.

[Small aside: How did I find out that ambrosia is the food of the Gods???  I talk too much and am beginning to annoy my friends.  Nick got so tired of me talking on the car ride to Philly that he forced me to play trivia instead.  This is a character trait I am really working on - hopefully the next time you see me I will be quieter.  And if I am not quieter, know that I am aware of this flaw and will regret dominating the conversation after I say goodbye.  I think this blog is a great idea because maybe if I write my stories down then I will feel less incline to share them aloud and will then stop interrupting people and be a quieter person.]

SSSHHHHH!!!