Hustled

I fancy myself to be in pretty good shape. I mean, I workout about two hours a day, five days a week. On Saturday, I ran 9 miles on an incline.

You would think running up 94 flight of stairs wouldn't damn nearly kill me.

But you would be wrong.

Here I am, all smiles and ignorance at what would shake me to my core about three hours later. I am waiting for the elevator to take me up to the Hustle Up the Hancock.

Sitting in the lobby, watching people at the start line, and strategizing. See - I'm deep in my race planning.

Eureka! I've got it! Race strategy = run as fast as you can and don't die.

It's almost time....

Holy crap I did it!!! I wish I had a finish line picture, but I did it much faster than Cheese was expecting, so he didn't make it to the finish line on time to see me exit the stairwell. But he did reward me with a box of sugar love.

Final Time: 18:32.

Age Rank: 59/422

Overall: 862/4000ish

You can't really see my bleeding lungs and sweat-soaked shirt, but don't be fooled- that was one of the HARDEST races I have EVER done.

I know, right? It's like 94 floors and 18 minutes of working out - What the hell should be so hard about that?!?!

And I don't really know why it was so hard - but at about 10 flights in, I hit the wall. By 20 flights I was sure I was dying and almost started crying. I stopped three times to drink water at flights 40, 60, and 74. The lung and throat burn was so severe I was wheezing and suffocating myself. And the leg burn? No words to described it.

In fact, I was still coughing and wheezing at 6pm last night.

But now that I've done it once, I know I can do better next year.

In fact, I am sure of it.

Like, I'm-gonna-try-and-win-my-age-group type of sure.

So who's in for next year?

A Few for the Road

1. So in about 18 hours, I will start my drive to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The last time I made the drive, it was about 7 years ago, to attend the wedding of one of my closest friends (and now bridesmaid). Oddly, this drive is for the same friend, but to attend services for her sister, who was found dead last week. Sad.

2. Late Saturday, I will pack it up again and return home, just hours before I begin my first Hustle Up the Hancock. I am crazy excited for this, both the event and the fact that I get to meet Jen for the first time!! A little race, followed by some pancakes and bloody mary's. now THAT'S a Sunday.

3. I didn't find any of those rainbows and puppies I promised yesterday, but I did have time to think about things. Right now, I am too full of Gumbo to put together a coherent thought, so I am going to think some more, watch my "First 48" on the DVR (weee!) and rest my pretty little head for my early morning workout.

4. Since I won't be around for the next few days, I hope every has a wonderful weekend! I'll be back with some pictures of Jen dragging me up the Hancock!

Good and Bad

First off, I missed BL last night because I went out and stuffed myself silly with Mexican food with my family. Who got kicked off?

Also if you do nothing at all for the next day, do this : SIGN UP FOR NETFLIX.

Holy 21st century, I have arrived.

Not only have we had a movie or series to watch everyday for the last two weeks, you barely have to do anything expect for click your mouse to get it.

And most of the thie movies you can stream right through your computer!

I mean - it's like when we first got DVR - I'm watching shit I would have never dreamed of before!

Genius.

And dropping the disk off at the mailbox so we can get another ASAP is great incentive to get Cheese out of the house for four minutes every other day.

So we all win.

Okay, so now for the nitty gritty.

The BAD:

So right before I headed out to go to my 6-month follow-up kidney appointment this morning(which is coming at a good time, as I haven’t been feeling so hot for the last two months, and I'm not preggers but something certainly is taking over my body, it’s a good time to check things out, you know?), I was going through my Facebook pictures and tagging some photos I have had in my photo app.

And you know what I discovered?

My Kidney Brother de-friended me.

Ain’t that some shit?

Lemme tell ya what I think happened.

See, Cheese invited my whole family to the surprise engagement two months ago. Kidney Brother never showed.

He was then invited to the Marathon CarboLoad Dinner/Impromptu Engagement Party the following night. He never showed.

Finally, he was invited to a pizza night when my other brother came to town about a week later.

No show again.

Now, mind you, this is the same brother who, before getting my kidney, had a really sketchy history with my family, was a pretty unhappy, angry, distant and psychologically impaired person. But yet he always talked about wanting to get closer to my family.

So he gets my organ, then doesn’t bother to show up for any family event since.

And he has still never met Cheese, the man I am going to marry.

So after the no-shows in October, I sent him an email and was basically like, “Whatever, I’m pissed.” He sent an email back, blamed my mom for everything – something about missed text messages or voicemail or something – just like he always does.

Everything is always someone else’s fault - the whole world is conspiring against him. What a fucking surprise.

And then at some point, that asshole de-friended me.

Because I called him out on being a meanie.

I don’t know what I ever expected would change, and I am a little pissed at myself that this even bothers me. I mean, I sort of always knew he would put up this “Look at me, I’m a new man with a new perspective” face on for a while, but in the absence of any real therapy or internal self-improvement, of course nothing was going to change in the heart of his personality.

Whatever. Fuck him.


Moving on to The Good:

On the upshot, I found out that I got taken off the waiting list for the Hustle Up the Hancock, and am now going to do the full climb!

That’s 94 floors, bitches!

Oh glorious Hustle!


And Need Some More Good?

Comm recently posted about it being the Chritmas season, and giving more of ourselves. Then I read on Mommymeepa's blog that she is taking it step further and made a list of things she intends to do every day for someone else.

And since I love a good challenge, I am going to challenge myself to do something outside of myelf each day, starting with this month, and then hopefully beyond this month.

'Cause let's be honest, I really can get pretty consumed with my own BS sometimes.

So check out their blogs and see what they are doing.

I'll let you know what I decide for myself.