Weekend Goodness

Well, the weekend turned out to be not so insane as I feared, which I was enormously thankful for...

Friday night, Jenna's team lost their first tournament game. It was a close one, but I was secretly a little glad, because it made my Saturday schedule so much easier - and Jenna's too, for that matter. We were up ridiculously early, and I had her dropped off at the local community college for her testing by 7:30. Gross.

Now, originally I had planned to join the running club for a group run in Sherry's honor. But Friday night, everyone who was my pace dropped out because it was supposed to be super windy and cold Saturday morning. *sigh* I THOUGHT that I could smash it in a bit later, but truthfully, that just never worked out. I was really really bummed, but life happens. Jenna's team ended up losing their afternoon game (my husband called it "street ball with horrible reffing") so we all went out to dinner at Red Robin.

Yes, for those paying attention I ate one of my favorite POST long run meals the night BEFORE my long run. *cue ominous foreshadowing music here*

Sunday morning, bright and early (again) I met up with Marcia for a long run on the March Madness Half Marathon course in Cary, IL.

stolen shamelessly from Marcia!

It was pretty effing cold to start out. But we also started with the wind at our backs, and we warmed up quickly. The sun was bright, and we both remarked that this winter (this AMAZINGLY MILD winter) has made us soft. The early miles ticked off easily, mostly because they were pretty downhill.

this course is no joke, and we missed a chunk of it...

It was really nice chatting about all things running and blogging, and I thoroughly enjoyed her company. We made a SUAR stop, we saw a bunch of deer that just stared at us. We ran some hills.

And the first of the hills I handled pretty well. As a matter of fact, I was feeling pretty good as we passed a couple runners who stopped to walk it. But soon, they sucked the life out of me. I'm not used to hills like that (guess that means I should head over there more often, huh?) and my unfortunate dinner choice decided to mock me for my complacence between miles 8 and 9. Oh well. As I said then, at least I GET to run. It seemed rather fitting that it was a tough one during Sherry's run. I was due for one like that, if for nothing else than to remind me that I NEED to pay attention to my diet more than I have lately.

It's been wonderful and overwhelming reading everyone's Sherry tributes. I feel honored to be a small part of something so huge even if the reason is so tragic. I wish us all her courage and strength and grace.