March Madness

Countdown: 37 hours until the awesomeness!

Calling All Stayput Sisters!

If you are a member of Team Stayput for the 2007 season, send me a note (meredith-gordon@insight.rr.com) or leave me a comment. We should keep tabs on each other and offer words of encouragement and help motivation and send congratulations. If you have a blog, I'll add you to my blogroll.

Hope to hear from y'all!

Thursday Thoughts

It's finally Thursday (I know you're excited too!), which means it's time for Thursday Thoughts. I've had some new commenters this week who hopefully will be coming back, so I'll explain "the rules" again.

I'll ask a question and you answer it in the comments. Pretty easy! If you would like after you answer the question, you ask another question for the next commenter to answer. It's fun, interactive, and did I mention fun?! Let's shoot for 10 comments today!

What is the most amazing thing that has happened to you this week?

Kinda Sad

A recent graduate of the school I coach at committed suicide this past week. His funeral was last night. As I drove past the church where the funeral was held, there wasn't an empty parking spot. In fact, the cars were parked along the street, in neighboring driveways, just about anywhere. And this is a pretty big church. I did not know this person, but the scene really affected me. Here was a kid who thought he was so alone and troubled by so much that his only escape was to kill himself, and yet there were hundreds who did care.

Tell someone you care about them today. You never know how much that other person might need to hear it.

Speed Demon

Not to jinx it, but I think spring is on its way. The weather is getting warmer, the snow is almost completely melted, and the sun is out a little longer (thank you for changing that one, dudes in Congress!). And the big Boston Marathon is 5 weeks away, which means I need to put my wheels in motion and pull in some big miles and some serious speedwork.

Yesterday's scheduled workout was 8 miles with 5 X 600 at 5K pace. It turned out to be a little bit different. The girls team was running 5 miles and we decided to push them. With the warm-up and the cool-down I had done 6 miles right around an 8:00 pace. Then I started on my 600s which should have been at a 7:00/mile pace which would be 2:38. The first one was a little quick--2:16. Yikes! The remained four were 2:29, 2:28, 2:31, 2:30. I finished the day with 9.25 miles. I didn't have really high expectations for Boston, but maybe I shouldn't settle so quickly.

In other news, I googled Team StayPut this morning to see if anyone else had a blog and had written about it. And I found this one. Yikes! She's like a serious athlete. Dude, I'm seriously not worthy!

Thursday Thoughts

In case you missed it, there was a HUGE MegaMillions jackpot this week....

So, what would you have done with the $390 million payout?

Really Big News!

Oh my gosh! I'm sponsored!

I got sponsored by Team StayPut, presented by Goody®. From my materials: "The role of the Team StayPut athete is to promote their sponsor by wearing branded apparel and Goody products during workouts and competitions. The dedicated athletes of Team StayPut not only take top honors in races across the country, but they also act as brand ambassadors for Goody in their local communities. Their success both on and off the course is due in part to Goody's revolutionary technology, which holds hair better than traditional accessories. The 2007 team train and compete while wearing Goody products; all of which allow athletes to easily move and manage their hair. Good is an industry leader in hair care technology and is the number one choice among consumers worldwide." Check out Goody's website and the team's website.

I am so excited! I applied on a whim and really didn't think I was good enough to get accepted. And I got a ton of hair so this is a perfect sponsorship for me. :)

First Day of Spring

Today is the first day of spring and it's sure going to feel like it...high temp. today, 25 degrees.

And now you say, today's not the first of spring Meredith?! Well it is for me. Today is the first day of spring track practice, and I have no idea what this is going to bring. For the first time in 6 years I have other coaches helping me. The team is very young too so there's lots of room to improve. And if I can get them to wear hats and gloves, practice should go smoothly. :)

Thursday Thoughts

Here we go: Thursday Thoughts!!!

What is the best burger joint in your town?

A Pair of Hooters

Two nights ago Dave and I crawled into bed and heard this hoot, hoot, hoot sound outside. I said, "What was that?" And Dave was like, "I think it's a car." But it continued and was very rhythmic. So we got up and looked out the blinds. Low and behold on the roofs of two houses behind ours were two owls. Big owls!

Where did they come from? Dave and I live in a big neighborhood with about 300 houses in a giant field. Surrounding that field, though, is strip mall after strip mall, after big shopping areas. There's not even any trees around. Even so, it was really cool.

It Happens Once a Year

Nope, I'm not talking about a one day sale at Macy's. I'm talking about taking a spill while running and today it happened.

Today's workout was 10 miles with 5 X 1000 at 5K pace. And that's what I did, except my track is under snow so I had to do the intervals on the road as part of my run just based on time. I warmed up with 30 minutes and then I started 5 X 4:20 with equal jog in between. Most of the path I usually run on was snowy and icy so I did most of the run on the road beside the path. The path goes around the golf course and you have to travel under the road to get from one side to the other. The last part of my first interval traveled this section and it was extremely icy. To avoid the ice, I went up on the grass which was really snowy and slippery. I tried to slow down, but slipped on the ice and fell onto my knee and hands. No biggie. Probably just a bruise. I kept running and finished the workout.

Despite the fall, it was great to finally get a good run.

Thursday Thoughts

My head is so full of snot that it's hard for me to come up with a question today.

How about....What is your favorite city in the world?

If it's not one thing....

...it's something else.

It's been the bad weather: the cold, the snow, the ice, the rain. And now the weather is warming up and the snow is melting, but of course, I've got a cold I just can't shake. I haven't run since Saturday. I haven't done a run this whole training season over 12 miles. I'm just waiting for March and I'm just gonna start over. Thank goodness Boston is a bonus.

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby

Right round, on a treadmill baby, right round, right round. I think that's the words?!

I don't know if y'all have been watching the national news, but if you have you know the midwest has just totally been socked in the gut by Mother Nature. One thing that has always been said about Ohio weather is, if you don't like it, stick around for a day it will change. And that's usually the case. But, it hasn't been the case this winter. We usually get snow in Ohio and it usually gets really cold, but usually the next day it's in the 40s and the snow has melted and everything is back to normal. It snowed on January 21st and we've had snow on the ground ever since. And it hasn't warmed up either.

Tuesday we got hit by a huge winter storm. It started snowing in the early hours of Tuesday and snowed at about an inch per hour. Around noon on Tuesday it started to rain/sleet and it continued for 12 hours. The entire city of Columbus shut down. All the malls closed. Restaurants closed. Businesses closed. It was eerily quiet outside; just like I remember it was from September 11th. Yesterday morning it started to snow again and continued through the day. And it turned bitterly cold again. Our average high temperature in the last month has probably been under 20 degrees. It's been just miserable.

Sunday I did something I wasn't very proud of. I paid to run a half marathon last Sunday and then didn't do it. I didn't even go and pick up the shirt. The temperature with the windchild was -13 degrees. This weather is wreaking havoc on my Boston training. I actually did 12 miles on the treadmill on Sunday. I did it in 3 mile increments, in between switching loads of laundry. Today I have 11 miles to run and I fear it's going to have to be on a treadmill.

All of those training in nasty weather right now, how are you getting through it?

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

I am a huge fan of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I watch it every week. And you may have seen the commercial for this week's which is about the soldier who helped rescue two people from the World Trade Center. It's a two hour special. Well, this one was filmed about eight miles from our house. And we really wanted to go and help out or at least watch, but it looked like it was a closed set. But, I have read a lot about this one from the local home builder and it's supposed to be outstanding. Plus, it was filmed during Michigan week, which is a crazy week in Columbus, OH. Tune it!

Now that I've seen the show....
Obviously I love Extreme Makeover. I watch it every week and almost every week it makes me cry, but knowing more about this one episode, I was surprised how much was not put into the episode. For example, I know for a fact that the Ohio State marching band and cheerleaders were onsite during the build because it was Michigan week and they didn't show any of that. I also know that they hurried to get the house done in time to watch the game. We just thought it was interesting that almost the entire crowd was wearing OSU apparel and yet nothing was said about it. It's such a big part of life in Columbus that it's hard not to hear about it. Secondly, we had known that Ed sanders got injured during the build, but it was crazy how the forshadowing was done. It wasn't like he knew he was going to get hurt. We also thought it was weird that one of the entry pictures (from commercial to the episode) was from Cincinnati. Sure we have a river that runs through Columbus, but it's not big enough to fit a barge down it. Cincinnati is two hours away. Lastly, I was a bit disappointed that more wasn't said of the community support. MI Homes has raised thousands of dollars in the community to help pay for this house and none of that was mentioned. I know you can't show it all, but I guess I was surprised at what they didn't show.

Did you watch the episode? If yes, what were your thoughts?

Thursday Thoughts, Upgraded

I tried. I really tried. I did not want to upgrade my blogger to the new version, but damn blogger made me. They wouldn't let me get to my page without updating. GRRR! So I had to update and I apologize if this makes it difficult for people. I know that if you have a new account and you want to comment you need to sign in first with your google account.

So if you haven't been watching the news, it's really, really, really cold in the midwest. They have closed schools for most of the week because it's just too dangerous to be out in these temperatures. And sure it's not as cold as Minnesota or Chicago or wherever, but it's cold for here.

What's the weather like where you are and how are you coping (or enjoying)?

An Alarming Awakening

Around 4:00 this morning Dave and I were awoken by our alarms going off in the house. Every single one of them. We both sat straight up out of bed. I think the first thing I said was, “this is not good.”

When I was a kid we had a wood-burning stove and every once in a while it would catch the chimney on fire, so I knew the drill. I got up out of bed and put on socks and a warm sweater and even thought about grabbing my purse. I just knew we would be outside and our house could possibly burn to the ground. Dave thought it was an intruder, which is weird that he thought that because we do not set our alarm and we do not get it monitored, but he left the room immediately to check it out.

We’re such dummies, however. Did we feel the door with the back of our hand? Nope. Did we drop to the ground and crawl around in case it was a fire? Nope. Did we immediately call 911? Nope. Instead we searched the entire house for a fire. We turned up our sense of smell and hunted for smoke. We tried our carbon monoxide detector to make sure it was working. We tried to disarm the alarm, but that wouldn’t work. Finally we had to start calling people. Dave called the alarm people who said our alarm wasn’t going off, but told us we would have to disarm every smoke detector individually. I called my parents to see what we should do. I don’t think they were very happy that I woke them up.

We were not very happy that we would have to turn every smoke detector off individually. The back of our house is like a Cape Cod and our ceilings are 12 feet tall. We started with the ones we could reach. We turned off one and then went upstairs to start with the others. Dave pushed in the button and nothing happened. He tried another one and nothing happened. It was so loud and it had been going off for a ½ hour and we were so tired. All of a sudden, they just stopped.

We called the local fire department and funny enough it was my brother-in-law who was dispatching and picked up the phone. He asked us to check this and this and that and that—all of which we had done. He said sometimes it just goes off. We finally crawled in bed right before our alarms were to go off to get ready for work. We turned them off and slept in.

We’re still really paranoid about what could be wrong with our house. Any thoughts? I think we’re going to call my brother-in-law today on his day off and see if he’ll inspect the house. He might have some thoughts that we didn’t think of. It was a really scary evening and really exhausting. The good news is that we’re both still alive and our house is still standing.

I'm Published!

Check it out!

You can get your story published too.

A Dream (Nightmare) Realized

Well I have a few hobbies outside of running and triathlon too. I like papercrafts, sewing (quilting), and photography. And I had one of my photography dreams/nightmares realized yesterday. My sister called me and asked me to shoot her friend's wedding in two weeks. Yikes! It could turn out bad and it could turn out good and I'm sooo nervous.

Thursday Thoughts

Answer a question, ask a question. Not that difficult.

What other hobbies have you interest in besides running/triathlon?