Best Week Ever

Do any of you ever watch the show Best Week Ever on VH1? If you've never seen it, basically these comics run down all the shows and entertainment news of the week, and then by the end of the show they pick one celebrity (or news item) as having the best week ever. It's hilarious, if you,ve never seen it. Anyway, I'd have to say my hubby Brent is having the best week ever. First of all he did a bang up job planning and executing my birthday, even in spite of typical random mishaps. (BTW, he's really enjoying all the 'great husband' comments so keep it up! =) ). Next, he was featured on a local news website as being one of the top Nashville blogs, and due to his inventive blog name he's actually listed first, upping his hit odds. THEN, he was featured in this week's rundown. When I did the rundown I mentioned him (of course!) but this is the first time one of us has ever been featured by a non-family member! Very flattering!! To top it all off, after several weeks of bad runs he had a great run with me Tuesday night. We started out with a mid-slow tempo, between 9:30-10 minute miles. We headed out on our typical 5.3 mile path to the hospital and then to the local community park. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of good, well-lit areas to run through after dark so our paths now are fairly unlimited. We ran the first 2-3 at the mid-tempo pace. For about a ¼ of a mile I had a fairly bad side stitch. It's been forever since I've had one, literally it was probably May of this year. Man, I forgot how bad those things hurt!! Towards the end of mile 3 Metallica's 'I Disappear' came on my Nano and I was ready to go. Normally when I start picking up the pace Brent will either stay with me for a short bit and then fade into his own pace, or he'll just stay with his own pace. Not last night. I kept kicking it up, and kicking it up (to my faster pace of around 8:20-8:30) and I never lost the little bugger! He was looking good and hanging strong, and he stayed with me through the hill back into the subdivision and all the way to the end of the run. I was so proud of him and it was a lot of fun seeing how shocked he was at what our pace ended up at. Some of the greatest benefits of running with someone else is pushing yourself harder than you would on your own.

Tonight we played racquetball at the corporate gym. We played Monday night but I was still so dehydrated from Sunday that I had ZERO coordination and I totally sucked it up. Tonight I played hard, but since the stupid weren'tloses at 8 we weren't finished with our game before we got booted out. The score was 8-3 (Brent), but I was in the middle of a come-back. Brent is mean - he hits long ones and then short ones that send me flying all over the court to get it. However, I'm getting much better and can actually get some of them now, and return the favor to him with some all over shots. Maybe in our next house we can have our own racquetball court so we actually have more time to play and not get kicked out!! A YMCA will be opening about 2 miles from our house next month and we're probably going to join so we'll have somewhere to swim and some longer gym hours! It's going to have a skate park, indoor track, tons of work-out stuff, teen center, kid center and THREE pools (2 indoor, 1 outdoor).

I forgot to mention in all my excitement that the day before my 28th birthday I registered for my very first marathon - Miami - in January!! I'd decided on that one a few weeks ago but had not actually signed up yet. There's a huge difference between saying you're going to do it and then actually signing up! I'm already starting to worry about it - will I be tough enough, will I end up as a DNF?? I really hope not, but I have a ton of training to go before the end of January. Anyway, I really excited about the half in Memphis in December and really, really excited about my very first full in Miami in January! This weekend we're doing the Octoberfest 5K. It runs through the Farmers Market and Bicentennial area of downtown Nashville. On the Nashville Striders website forum someone recently asked what people's favorite races around town are and several people said Octoberfest we decided we just had to do it! This weekend is a huge racing weekend with Chicago and Hartford marathons, plus tons of other races. Chicago is a race I have to do one day, maybe next year??

That's it for today, see you all later! It's time for me to give a cute little dog a bath!!

Rachel

Exercise-
1 mile am walk with Pippin, 20 minutes hills on the elliptical, 20 minutes racquetball, 20 minutes toning/stretching (focus:abs)