De Baking Psychopath

This year, I was instructed by a good friend to: Kick ass Take names And I am proud to report that I took 10 minutes off my last year's time to finish: 2:15:09 So I think I followed my given instructions! Waiting for the start... Running over one (of many) bridges Home stretch. If you could see my face at this point, you would see that it was contorted with pain, and at some point I even closed my eyes to shut out the crowd and focus on running just a tiny bit faster... And I made it to the finish line! Here, we're situated at the post-finish line festival family reunion area. I don't know whether I'll be able to do it next year as I expect to be back in medical school rotations, but I think long term I hope to participate in many more races to come!

First off, I want to thank everyone for your support and for generously donating money for the Animal Rescue League! I was able to raise $260 with your help! The team of 40-some runners for the ARL raised over $17,000 !! I ran the half-marathon in 2:25:48! (just over an 11-minute mile pace) Waiting in the start corral (we were in the slowpoke corral so we didn't start until ~15 minutes after the first people). Flashing the double V for Victory sign! Having a good time! Waving happily at Michael at approximately mile 6. Belting down the last bridge and mile for a sprint to the finish line! Victorious first-time half-marathoners! Looking forward to next year! (Yes, we've caught the bug!) But...not sure yet whether to graduate to a full marathon...I think for the sake of my knees and time management, I'll keep to the half marathon for now, but there are days that I have a good long run and I start to think that maybe a full marathon is an achievable goal...oh dear.

Yup! Training has officially kicked off! I have a beautifully mapped out schedule for training from now until the big day on May 15. I'm headed off today with a running buddy to check out a running shoe store where they are reputed to be fanatical about having the right shoes and even put you on a treadmill to analyze your gait for better recommendation of what you need. Please consider donating even a little bit to my charity fundraising for the half-marathon! Every bit counts for the shelter. My kitties' saviors would really appreciate the support, and so would I! Just click on the link on the right side bar to go to my fundraising site. Thanks to the Animal Rescue League, my cats are living the high life! Now if I could only convince my cats to exercise more too...

Oh yes. Welcome to the new label series "putting the 'psycho' in psychopath"!! Let me explain. About a week ago, the Animal Rescue League, the shelter where we adopted both our kitties, sent out an e-mail rallying everyone to support the ARL by signing up as a fundraising runner/walker for the Pittsburgh Marathon in May 2011. As a participating charity, they need a certain number of people to run on their behalf and raise a certain amount of money each year in order to qualify for participation for the following year. I thought, "That's cool! Hey, the marathon is still pretty far away, I think I could probably do a half-marathon...." That led to a chain of events that eventually resulted in the following: 1) I am now signed up for the half-marathon (yes, it is 13.1 miles, and yes, I'm scared) 2) I have convinced at least two other people to do the same 3) I have my own fundraising site on behalf of the Animal Rescue League 4) I have spent a lot of ti...