Excited!

I am SO excited! I was chosen to be a Team in Training mentor! I went to a mentor's informational meeting Wednesday night to learn all about the program & the more I learned, the more excited I got.

After the marathon, I went through a depression. I'd worked so hard for so long & then, before I knew it, it was all over. Sure, I could always get back to running, but without having a TNT event to do, I am uninspired. I know I may very likely do the San Antonio 1/2 marathon in November, but again, it's not a TNT event, therefore, I'm not raising any money & nobody is really counting on me. That's why I applied to be a mentor.

Now I'll be involved in something again where people will be depending on me. Plus, I am required to attend at least 50% of the weekly practices, so my "happy ass" will be out there running again on a regular basis! I don't want my mentees to go through what I went through with my mentor, so I plan to attend much more than 50% of the practices. I want my mentees to actually see me out there so they know that if I can do it, they sure as shit can do it! And I want to be able to offer them any kind of support they need. Two of my friends from my team last season are also going to be mentors & we're already planning on events that we can do together for our mentees.

The 1st thing we're going to try for is weekly breakfasts after the Saturday morning practices. Our coaches last season did this & it was always so much fun, not to mention a great way to get to know each other & strategize about fundraising. It really helped bring us together & make us a more close-knit team. (Btw... I'm also excited that my 2 favorite coaches will be back again. I haven't seen 1 of them, Emily, since the week before the marathon. She was my walking coach & she was absolutely the BEST!)

My 1st duty as a mentor is to help out with the recruitment meetings. The 1st one for me is next Saturday morning, with another one the following Wednesday evening. Then there's the big kick-off party on August 13. All the mentors, staff & coaches will be required to dress up in some sort of attire that goes along with one of the marathons for the season. So it's either "Go Texan" for the Houston marathon, something Chinese-like for the P.F. Chang's marathon in AZ, or "Honolulu Luau" for the Honolulu marathon. Should be pretty entertaining.

I can't wait to get started!!! :)

Dread

I know I need to get back out there & start running again, but I am dreading it so. damn. much!! I don't know why. Maybe it's because I have no real cause behind it now that I've run my marathon for TNT. By not running right now, I'm only letting down myself & not people dying of cancer.

I keep thinking if I hadn't gotten so sick immediately after returning from the marathon in Alaska, that I would've been "back in the saddle" much sooner. I'm hoping that once the new season starts on Aug. 5 & I start mentoring the new crop of TNT runners that it will give me back that motivation I once had. All I know is that if I don't get back into running regularly again, I'm going to gain back all the weight I lost & I'll start feeling like shit about myself again. I need to keep reminding myself of all the progress I made & how good it all made me feel. Maybe that will keep me motivated.

*crosses fingers*

Now if only all this damn rain would stop, I could get out there sooner. But now there's Hurricane Emily threatening us on the horizon & this rain isn't supposed to go away for at least another 2 or 3 days.

Eh. Maybe I'll just start going to the gym & run in the pool. Something's gotta give!

Mentoring

I've made a decision. I'm going to be a mentor for the winter season of Team in Training. My mentor sucked so bad that I figured I should make sure that others aren't subjected to the same fate as me. Mine gave me hardly any support at all. She never came to any of our practices, she only emailed me about 3 times during the entire season, she never came to any of my fundraisers, & the one & only time she called me, she called early on a Saturday morning when she knew I was out running with the team. (Her message even said "I know you're probably at practice right now, but I just wanted to call & see how things were going.") The last time I saw her was at the big 21 mile practice. She manned our water station. When she saw me & the big ass scar/cut on my knee, she said "Oh my God! What happened!?!?!" I wanted to say "Well, if you'd been around or ever tried to contact me, you'd know what happened!" Hell, everyone on the team knew what had happened to me. Ya know why? Because, unlike my mentor, they were there at practice & they all saw it happen!

I mean Jeebus... she didn't even call me or send me an email wishing me luck in the friggin' marathon before I left! Other mentors sent their mentees to the marathon with hand made cards & "goody bags". Me? I got BUPKISS!!! Why the hell did she even become a mentor if she wasn't going to do anything?

*hmph!*

Anyway, there's a mentor's meeting Tuesday night, & another one on the 20th. I'll likely go to the one on the 20th cuz things will be too hectic next week w/ my boss back in town again. Two of my good friends from my team have also decided to mentor with me. It should be fun, especially since the Houston marathon is this season, which means we should have lots of participants. I'm pretty excited. :)

Well POOP!

I just checked out the San Antonio marathon website. Cut-off time is 6 hours. It took me over 8.5 hours to finish the Alaska marathon. There's no way I can cut that much time off my run/walk in only 4 months. Oh well... the 6 hour cut-off also applies to the 1/2 marathon. There's no shame in doing only 13.1 miles, right?

Funny

I've been reading my old posts on this here blog & it's so funny to me how much I have changed in such a short amount of time. Just a few short months ago, I was complaining about the pain of doing 8 miles. Today, doing only 8 miles is an easy day. A few months ago, walking for an hour tired me out. Now, if I walk for only an hour, I feel like I've done nothing.

It's been almost 3 weeks since the marathon & I'm itching to find something else to do. I haven't worked out since the race but now that I'm pretty much over that horrible cold/flu & my feet have finally healed (who knew it would take so long for blisters to heal?) I need to get back out there. I probably won't do another TNT event until some time next year (the fundraising is SO hard & I don't think my friends & family would take too kindly to me hitting them up for money again so soon), but I still plan to do a marathon here & there. My old roommate, Evan & our friend, Rob are running in the San Antonio marathon in November & I think they've pretty much convinced me to do it with them. Lord knows I won't finish nearly as fast as they will, but hopefully if I keep up my training like I did for the Alaska marathon, I'll be able to improve my time significantly. (*crosses fingers*)

LOL! Is this really me? How did this happen? I HATE to exercise. It's all so amusing to me.