May 30, 2007

Happy Birthday Brad & Shane!

Today is my brother-in-law's birthday. Since I am so kind, I gave up my Cubs ticket so that he could go with my husband, and instead I busted my butt at the Wed night team workout. Its all ok though - on the way home I stopped to get cupcakes so that after the game we can all celebrate - and in addition to the three cupcakes (myself, Brad and Jeff) I got one extra for the ride home. Yes, so after a nice workout I am going to eat TWO cupcakes. (I already ate one, and am patiently waitng for them to get home so I can eat one of these:



Fundraising Update
I wanted to do a quick shout-out to all those who have helped me with fundraising so far! So far I have raised $1045 - getting close to the 1/2 way marker of my $2800 goal. Every penny matters and all of this (the training, the fundraising, etc) is for such a worthy cause!

Shane's Wish Update
A while ago I posted about a young boy, Shane, who is currently battling Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Shane's only wish is to receive as many birthday cards as possible - and his birthday is today. I thought I would check to see what the outcome was and deliver anyone who likes to read my blog a quick update!
It looks like Shane has received about 2 MILLION cards from at least 68 different countries. For everyone who sent one - you helped make a little boys wish come true :)
There is an annoying ad first, but if you keep watching there is an interview from today with Shane & his mom here.

Training Log
Distance:~3.5 miles   Pace:  varies!
Tonight was another one of those exciting weekday team runs! Today we did 1/2 mile intervals. We were told to run at a faster pace then you run the long runs, in 1/2 mile increments, with a pause in between each 1/2 mile. The goal was to pace the same for each of those 1/2 miles...which I sortof did. The first one was about 4:30, the next 3 were about 4:20 and the last was about 4:10. The reason we do this is because some guy came up with some formula or something that says your marathon time will be 10X your avererage pace for 10 of these 1/2 miles. I only ran 5 of them - but if I had run 10 at the same pace, lets say 4:20 (since that was in the middle) my marathon time would be 4 hours and 20 minutes. There is no way I could have kept that pace up for 5 more intervals - but maybe by the end of training I will! If that is accurate (and I could actually do it for 10 laps) that would put me at 9:55 miles for the marathon - much faster than I am currently assuming I will pace. I guess only time will tell!

Progress Made
  • Got a paper accepted into a conference, finished another with a conference submission deadline of tomorrow!
  • Ran 3.5 miles, ate 2 cupcakes...but also shoved lots of broccoli and cauliflower down my throat to make up for the cupcakes. (That works, right?)
Lessons Learned
  • If I can keep up the work, and keep improving, I might be able to pace at 10 minutes for the marathon, which would be very nice :)

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