This is definitely going to have to be broken up into several posts, if only to not send everyone into a post-induced stupor of boredom. (I’m so self-deprecating, see?)

Let’s start with Friday. Friday was exciting because Oprah gave everyone half-off shoes at Payless! Yay Oprah! I don’t watch your show, but I appreciate your power! I got the boys six pairs of shoes, a pair for me, and a new purse. Sweet!

Lookie at the cute shoes that the boys will be wearing for the forseeable future:

In between the trips to Payless we dropped the boys off at my ILs so they could watch them while I…

…rawked 13.1 miles! (That’s the word Kristina and I coined. Run + walk = rawk.)

(Yes, you only get a small version of that picture. It’s really bad.)

I am pleased to say I was not last. I was 1314th, but that was out of 1,379 people. And that may not sound great, but considering for the first few miles, I (and a few other women I met up with) were last, that’s not bad. (But a 75 year old man did best my time by an hour. Hmmm.)

We started out walking, but that was actually very painful. I started to develop blisters on the bottom of my heels, so I had to run, just to take the pressure off. So we walked a block, ran a block, walked a block, ran a block. Before we knew it, we weren’t last anymore. Whew!

At about mile 9, I needed to run more (for my heel) so I left the other ladies in my dust. Ha ha, only kidding! But I did take off so I could run a little more. I pulled out my iPod to listen to the music I’d thoughtfully picked out (and purchased) for the race, only to discover that I didn’t sync the *%$#@ thing, so the only music on it was horrific German progressive rock from the ’70s. (George had gotten a hold of my iPod, you see.) So as it turned out, I carried around the stupid thing for 13 miles for nothing. I’m sure if I hadn’t had that extra three ounces, I would have gotten a better time.

Ha.

Anyway. I finished in 3:06, five minutes slower than my previous slowest time, but I was fine with that. Remember, I really didn’t train for it. I am quite pleased that for the last five miles, my pace was in the 12 minute/mile range, which is really good for me.

So now, what’s next? I want to do a 2 mile race in City Park next month, and then I’m thinking of trying again with the Mardi Gras Half Marathon in February.

Woo!