Yoga

Did some yoga today. It actually felt nice to be in a really hot room (110 and humid). They turn off the lights at the end of the workout and I almost fell asleep (I wonder if that happens alot- they put this relaxing music and then tell you to go into child’s pose and then turn the lights out).

run with Alona

Had a nice run with Alona in the morning. I was a bit over dressed because I thought it was going to be really cold. I will have to start checking the weather the night before.

We had another work Christmas party at lunch....lot's of parties this month.

Fleet Feet Christmas Party

Today was the Fleet Feet Christmas party. Everyone wore ugly Christmas sweaters and there was a contest for the worst one along with a lot of treats and snacks.

Back to Chicago

On Sunday Brent, Colleen, and I went for a run around University of Kentucky. We finished the run at Starbucks. We left for home around noon. It seemed to take along time to get back because we got a late start. Some people were up really late so slept in ridiculously long. There is nothing really exciting to share for today- we all are tired from the weekend.

Club Cross Country Nationals

Today was race day! The race wasn’t until 12:45 so we had a lot of time. I had brought breakfast food which I was happy about because the hotel breakfast was like 11 dollars for a bowl of oatmeal and fruit. Later we walked down to Starbucks to get some coffee. Compared to the Calvin girls who thought I was crazy for drinking coffee before the run these girls were having more caffeine than me. Colleen ordered this drink called black out which she told me was cappuccino with 4 shots of espresso! Claudia had 3 Red Bull before the race!

When the race started I was in shock. All I felt were people flying past me. I felt like I was going backwards but I could tell I was still going really fast. At the first turn there were so many people I had to turn so wide but then I could see in the distance that I was going to have to be on the inside of this stake. This wasn’t looking good- either I was going to plow down the stake or I was going to end up on the outside of the fence. I some how got myself over in time. I have never ran with so many fast people in my life! I did start to pick people off at this point but I realized I was in the back third of the race. The annoying part of it was that I would pass 5 people going up the hill and then about 3 of them would pass me on the down hill. It doesn’t help to be good at going up if you stink at going down! : ) I passed 4 runners in the last 50 meters so that felt great. One of the girls I passed was from Club Northwest.

Although I had a great time I ended up 84th place out of 234 racers which is the highest place that I have gotten in a race in well…..at least 4 years : ). I was actually happy with my time because it wasn’t too far off what I ran when I was actually training for cross country and this was without any speed training. This isn’t a fair comparison because every race is different but I looked at the 2009 D3 nationals results and my time would have put me 10th overall.

After the race we went out to lunch and then went and showered. Later we all went out and explored Kentucky’s night life which included some Kentucky whiskey and beer, some Karaoke (which we learned means ‘tone deaf’ in Japanese), some dancing, and some horse racing on TV : ). It was a good time.



Oh I did forget to write something- our spikes for the race had not arrived in Chicago before we left for Kentucky so Nike overnighted them to Kentucky and we got them about 2 hours before the race : ) I have to show you how bright my shoes were. Friends watching said they could just look for the orange feet in order to locate me in the crowd. I went through all the pictures online and thought that there was none of me but then I noticed my feet in this picture…do you see the orange feet (click on the picture)? ( I put a circle around my feet : ) Those are my feet! I love my shoes- I have a new trademark—neon feet : )

To Kentucky

Today we met at the Starbucks by Fleet Feet at 7:30am to drive to Kentucky. We didn’t actually leave until 8:30. Once on the road we had fun talking and playing card games. However, at one point I started to look for signs to see how many miles away we were. I only saw signs that said how many miles to Saint Louis. This was confusing to me so I asked the people in the Van….how many miles do you think we are? Then people started to look and we realized we were heading west instead of East. So we had been going the wrong way on the highway for quite awhile! I wonder when we would have noticed if I hadn’t said anything! We ended up getting to the hotel only a few minutes before 5 (an hour and a half later than we thought) which was when team declarations were due—phew!! That was close! We went to the course to check it out but it was getting dark so we decided after about 15 minutes that it was dumb to run in the dark on the uneven ground. We did see that there was no flat part on the course and the footing was lumpy and the turns were muddy. Good to know. We went back and changed and went to dinner at a very cute Italian place. I was surprised that most people had about 2 glasses of wine before dinner. I had a good dinner of salad, chicken, shrimp, corn bread, and sweet potatoes. We are totally in the south! Everyone has that southern twang and the southern hospitality. It was fun to get to know people better.

Feeling like a Superstar : )

Two exciting things to share. One is that I won the "Chicago's Runner of the Year" award. My inbox was flooded with congratulations which made me feel pretty special : ) Then Rob from work emailed me a link about our Corporate Team going to South Africa for the Chase Corporate Challenge which was neat

http://www.jpmorganchasecc.com/events.php?city_id=18&page=events120909

However, later in the day one of the owners found it also and was not happy because they wrote that we werre "designers" and not "engineers" so he called them to make them change it. I hadn't thought anything of it.

Besides that I finished my Christmas stopping, made dinner, talked to Jeff, watched the snow fall from my window while I ate chilli with my slippers on ....awww...good life.