Marathon update

I realized I haven't updated on my progress on the marathon in a while. I believe we are five weeks away from marathon day. My running has been going well and I have been doing probably about 75% of the runs that I had originally planned. My current distances are something like 5 miles on Tuesdays and 9 on Wednesday. Then I am supposed to run 5 on Thursday but can never seem to motivate myself to run on Thursdays so that is usually the 25% that I skip. The farthest I have gone so far is 16 miles, although I was supposed to go 18 this past Saturday. I ran the 16 with Emili (who I am running the actual marathon with) when she was in town over Labor Day weekend. It was so great having her there running it with me to see how it will be on the actual day and I think we both motivated each other. We also run at the same [slow] speed which is perfect. Our time for the 16 was 3 hours 40 minutes.

I didn't run the 18 miles on Saturday due to all this rain, but I did run 9 miles in the rain last Wednesday so I'd know what it's like to run in the rain, as it's always a possibility that it will rain on marathon day. I am taking Friday off of work in hopes that it won't rain and I can get in a long run since I have another activity on Saturday keeping me from running Saturday.

Actually since the 16, the farthest I've run is 9.5 so hopefully I'll be ready for my 20 mile run in 2 weeks :-/ Once you get going though it's pretty easy to just keep going. As long as my knee holds out!! I am still glad I'm doing this and still enjoying it but I'm ready for it to be over with so I can have my time back. I want to work on my house!

In other small news, I saw Julie and Julia last night and it was an absolute must-see!! I laughed so hard all the way through. I'll update on other things soon I hope..

Have a great week!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world"

This past weekend was very fun and quite a flashback, as well as very touching. Friday night the Virginia Tech band, 300+ Hokies, travelled to Augusta, GA to play their show at my high school as a tribute to my friend Ryan who was killed in the Virginia Tech massacre. Our stadium was overflowing with love for Ryan and with too many people to fit. Before the game, the Hokies, my high school band, and our opponent's band all took the field to play the Star Spangled Banner. Then during halftime my high school band (which my sister is part of) played part of their show followed by the Virginia Tech band's performance, including the "Hokie Pokey"!

I also got to see a few old faces from high school as well as my high school band director. It felt really surreal to have everyone in that space together, especially to celebrate Ryan. "Be the change you wish to see in the world" encompasses everything Ryan stood for. I have some pictures down below of the evening.

On Saturday, Matt and I went to test drive a Honda Fit in replacement of my poor car. We have word from insurance that it is totaled but are still waiting on the final call. And waiting to find out how much they are going to give us for it. We are planning on getting a used Honda Fit. I *love* them!

Yesterday I got to spend the day with my bff Emili and we ran 16 miles!! It was really fun to have her here since we have been training separately for the marathon. I can't believe the marathon is almost here.. less than 2 months. Emili and I have been friends for 20 years so it's a pretty cool thing to do for our 20th anniversary ;-) And sadly we didn't take any pictures together this weekend, what's up with that?

Here are some pictures from the football game:

VT & Lakeside on the field for the Star Spangled Banner

My sister Erin in the band! Can you see her smiling at the camera in the middle?Lakeside & VT together, Lakeside is the dark corner and VT is all the whiteMy mom with a VT freshman band member. Everyone was so nice!

Lakeside band halftime showVT band halftime show. They're huge!

VT doing the Hokie Pokey. I wish I had taken a video. See the huge sousaphone section?