Surely most of you are familiar with good ole Achmed the dead terrorist. I love this stand up routine… it just never gets old. [Yes, it's a tad racist and definitely not PC, but funny. We're all allowed to have guilty pleasures, right?]

My dad sent me this holiday edition of Jeff Dunham and his little friend, including a rousing performance of the age old classic Jingle Bombs.

To attack your Wednesday doldrums, I give you some unintelligent humor to enjoy…

4 days til go time. i need to get pumped. i need to energize. i PRAAAY my taper and peak haven’t been screwed with the happenings of late… a cold/3 day sinus headache, missed runs, exhaustion, and low iron. yeah… i know… wtf?

went to the doctor yesterday for my annual check-up and my iron was way way low. so low that she felt the need to put me on iron pills for 2 months. damn. and all this the week of my focus race for the year. so here’s hoping that iron pills, stocking up on lean beef, emergen-c, multi-vitamins, 12 cups of water daily, and today’s final workout (a couple Yasso 800s to get a teensy bit of speed flowing through my legs) will bring me energized to the start line this saturday.

wednesday i toil at job #2.

thursday i pack.

friday i stretch out with a 2 mile skip around the neighborhood before a half day of work, then traveling to huntsville.

happy week. good thoughts. that’s all that matters at this point.

and sleep. lots and lots of sleep.

“We rejoice in our sufferings because suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”  [Romans 5:3-4]

I need one. Bad.

Yeah we just had Thanksgiving, but with 2 jobs, cooking for 10 over 2 days and running for miles, it was nothing resembling a break. So busy, that Sunday night found me crashed into a wall of germs. By Monday, getting out of bed was difficult and breathing damn near impossible as my head was in a vice grip of sinus pressure. 24 hrs and calling in to two workplaces later, I felt a little better where my sinuses are concerned, but still exhausted.

I don’t have time to lose runs and be sick now, so of course I’m mentally freaking out with marathon #5 only 10 days away.

I’m trying to distract myself from negativity by getting into the Christmas spirit. I mean… if I have time to that is. I’ve gotten my decorations out of storage, but unfortunately that just means the boxes are sitting in my living room being attacked by my cats. Hopefully they will open themselves up and my apartment will decorate itself. I accompanied my family to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular last night at the Fox as well. I adore the Rockettes, and they were spectacular! However, there were these weird filler scenes during the production full of bad dancing, bad music, and down right strange things going on. I think I would have better enjoyed the singing Christmas trees, dancing “little people,” jiggling stuffed bears dancing to the Nutcracker, and Rock and Roll Santa if a bag of mushrooms had come standard with each seat. Not that I do drugs, but it probably would have made the whole thing more understandable and entertaining.

And for some reason I’m insanely busy at work lately, while my coworkers seem to be tapering off into slow season (inverse relationships tick me off… math=bad). Which of course means that I really shouldn’t be taking the time to write this. But my cold medicine just wore off, and my brain is foggy and no longer willing to focus on the mounds of paperwork on my desk. (Not to mention I don’t want to touch said paperwork, as it seems to have been attacked by Slimer from Ghostbusters… oh wait… that was my nose… nasty.)

Anyhoo… please forgive my lack of updates of late… which will surely continue for a while until I can get past the middle of December (post marathon, post sickness, and beginning of CHRISTMAS VACATION!!). Just pretend I’m doing something inspiring, witty, embarrassing, or other such entertaining (lame?) activity.

Until next time… it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

So yesterday I got all introspective and thankful and happy, counting my blessings despite the nasty weather outside. What I FAILED to mention was the dark side of the tropical storms’ effects.

No, no… not flooding or fallen limbs, no damaged roofs or wind-blown chaos. The damage I speak of is a by-product of horrible weather. The horror I share is that which happens when tropical storms drive me indoors for workouts. The horror of … The Dunwoody L.A. Fitness. [If that name brings no ire of fear in your very being, please refer to a previous post of mine - An Open Letter to L.A. Fitness.]

But ooooohhhh… the Dunwoody L.A. Fitness. A place where stench and douchebags come together in a fit of explosive ridiculousness. A place that, genetically speaking, is 90% devoid of that which is good. A place that steals your innocence with more nipple sightings than people, and more plastic than real body parts. A place where meatheads abound and bimbos rule. A place my friends, which I shall never wish upon you.

Example #1
Innocently putting my bag into a locker for safe keeping thrusts me deep into sweaty, somewhat hairy, cleavage, as some lady deems it necesary to take up 10 ft of space to change her bra post workout.

Example #2
Working out my rear deltoid places me on a machine next to someone discussing his injured pectoral muscle. And why pray tell, is it injured? Well thanks to him discussing the topic so loudly with his friends, I now know that said injury occurred while he was slapping his wife’s ass during sex. Vomit. I no longer even want deltoids.

Example #3
Waiting in line for a treadmill (yes.. WAITING IN LINE at a GYM to WORKOUT) forces me in the middle of a heated argument between meathead #1, meathead #2, and bimbo (who apparently belongs to one meathead and was hit on by the other). Oddly, the argument quickly turned from what you might assume – “don’t hit on my girl, she’s taken” – to a weird testerone induced twilight zone. The meatheads decided that whomever could benchpress the most would win the honor of dragging bimbo into the sunset.  

First of all… WHERE am I? Second of all… do wonders never cease?

Please pray that tomorrow brings sunshine for outdoor workouts, and Santa brings Lauren a new gym for Christmas.

__________________________________

In the spirit of crazy, I share with you a quote brought to my attention by my friend Justine…

 ”In Canada, a severed human foot was found washed up on shore wearing a Nike running shoe. Nike says it’s all part of their new campaign, ‘Just Do It…or Else.” 
…Conan O’Brien…

This rain is brutal. Since when did I move to the rainforest?! (…minus the fun of strange looking animals that throw poop at you.) Thankfully it’s here for a short stint this time around. We had a 5 day reprieve of awesome-ness last week and this tropical storm shenanigans should be gone by Wednesday this week.

I shall not complain, because after taking a hard look at myself over the past week, I’m amazed at the number of great things that are happening in my life lately…

1. I’ve gotten in some speedyspeedy runs in the past few weeks. A bunch of interval workouts and pace runs of distances between 8-13 miles are showing me I have some leg turnover I had forgotten about. I’ve felt strong with multiple weekly runs at or under Boston qualifying marathon pace. CANNOT get ahead of myself though. It’s obviously easier to maintain 8:00-8:20 pace for half the distance. Not sure that I’m *quite* ready to run a 3hrs, 40min at the Huntsville marathon in 4.5 weeks. But I’ll sure as hell try, and along with smarter fueling and pacing, I’ll definitely hit a PR in the 3:50s at worst. I’m excited.

2. I’m finally losing weight. Over the past 2 years I took (way too much) to heart the idea of eating, drinking and being merry… and it has shown. It may just be 15 lbs, and I don’t care if others can’t tell (liars – all of em!). I can tell. And in order to get some of my speed back, I know I need to get back to my previous weight. But now, finally seeing numbers tick off the dreaded scale. 8 down, 7 more to go.

3. I’ve had lots of small running successes lately that make me feel like I’m going somewhere and it’s a huge boost to my self-esteem. Conquering the 50k trail idea was huge for how I think of myself as a “real” runner. I’ve been educating myself better too (imagine that… running for 16 years and I still don’t know everything!) and it’s moving me forward… eating better before, during, after workouts has helped me a lot. Plus, I finally owned up to the fact that I overpronate (damn wide birthin hips) and got shoes with more stability in them to help overcome my uneven foot strike. I can already tell a huge difference/improvement. In 2009, I’ve PR’d in the 10k and half marathon distance. Hopefully I’ll round out the year with a 26.2 PR too.

4. I FINALLY finished reading the Fountainhead! Small wins feel good too. It wasn’t a bad book, just heavy-handed at times with its message… and it managed to drone on and on since I had only time to read about 10 pages a week since starting the damn thing back in March. Alas… I’ve finally wrapped it up and moved on to something brainless for the time being. Fumes!

5. I’m completely and totally in love. It’s lame to share that publicly, but I don’t care. It’s a success in my book, and feels awesome besides, so I feel the need to shout out loud about it.

6. Enjoyed some ridiculously beautiful fall weather while running the past couple weeks. Naomi and I conquered 16 miles at Kennesaw Mtn last weekend. There is nothing like emersing yourself in God’s bright reds, yellows and oranges in 50 degree weather under a crystal blue sky. Living life to say the least.

7. I’ve started my gear list for the Great Western Adventure of 2011. I’m diving in head first with planning, but am still pretty scared of sharing the news with my family (who happen to also be coworkers). I know ultimately they’ll support me and we’ll figure it all out, but I’ll deal with that later. For now I’m just happy to scrutinize ounces, plan gear, read anything I can and dream, dream, dream of mountain passes, desert plains and all the goodness the woods have to offer. Yes, yes?

Life can be tough and crappy and we all know that. So I think we need to appreciate and celebrate whenever possible. Be ever mindful of the gifts and blessings we have, no?

Yay for love, yay for joy, yay for life!

It’s not all running and DMB-ing up in here.

Sometimes a girl’s gotta get herself cultured. And what screams culture more than Atlanta’s historical Fox Theatre and… Fantasia Barrino?

A couple weeks ago Mom and I made a routine trek to the Fabulous Fox in midtown to see Fantasia… yes… that Fantasia… star in the stage rendition of Alice Walker’s classic, The Color Purple. And yes… Mom and I were two of the 10 caucasian’s in the sold out audience. But let’s not mince words here. It was PHENOMENAL. I always thought Fantasia was a pretty annoying person on American Idol, but she is on point when it comes to live theatre. Her portrayal of the lead, Celie, was brilliant. Seriously… this was one of the absolute best live performances I have ever seen. I bawled like a baby and rolled with laughter.

If you’re not familiar with the story, you can read synopses on your own time. For now, I want to share how the story of a poor, uneducated (and raped and beaten), black woman relates to little ole me. Because it seems it’s a story more about recovering from a crappy situation in the most unexpected ways. Maybe it’s not what your circumstances are. We all go through tough stuff. Live’s got its hardships, its challenges… and it’s manifested differently in every person’s life. But the situations aren’t what’s important. Rather, it’s how we react to those situations, how we choose to overcome, how we find our inner strength.

Throughout the production, I found myself screaming inside for Celie to stand up for herself, to harness some strength against her opressors by running away in the night, slapping someone silly, anything! Rather, she continued to persevere and just TAKE all the abuse, all the hardship. David beat Goliath, why can’t Celie just stand up for herself?! But then it dawned on me that the reason David beats Goliath is not brute strength. He doesn’t harness some ethereal power to overcome his situation; but rather humility, patience, perseverence and love for something outside himself. Celie as well was not an outwardly strong character. She can’t just all of a sudden pretend to be strong to succeed. Rather she patiently yet tenaciously perseveres, shows strength of spirit and never gives up on the idea of love. She can only overcome by using the talents she does have to better herself. And only by focusing on her passions, pushing herself to her limits to create success, is she able to realize that true inner strength and finally heal from her starkly wounded past.

What the hell does this have to do with me? We all have obstacles to overcome. We all have run into a mountain that seemed impossible to climb. We’ve all been hurt, some of us cut to the very core with heartache or hardship or setbacks (or all the above). For a long time I had no idea how to climb over the mountain in my own life. Recovery and healing seemed too distant, too difficult to harness and reach. Yet it seems once I stopped focusing on trying to heal… once I stopped forcing an absent strength to appear… I could start to move forward towards healing. Once I redirected my emotion into another passion I was able to push myself to truly discover who I am and what I am capable of.

My redirected passion has been running. I’ve always been a runner, but since my life changed drastically in 2007, I took on running with more of a vengeance. Four marathons and countless half marathons and training runs later, I realize that pushing myself in this capacity has allowed me to gain emotional strength. As I push my body, making my quads burn, my heart rate fly and my feet ache, I not only increase my capacity for mileage, I increase my capacity for love and my endurance of spirit.  Focusing on something outside the suffering in my life (much like Celie focused on her business to support herself) has taught me enough about myself that I can heal from that very pain.

It is truly humbling the way God speaks to us… the lessons he uses to teach us and the ways he heals us. There is no more burning bush. There are just gentle lessons that can only reach us when we are humbly open to seeing love all around us. The title “The Color Purple” references a theme of the story articulated in a conversation Celie has with her friend Shug. Celie has tried so hard to see God before, to heal and understand her plight, that she’s never actually noticed God. As Celie laments her state of utter despair, she glances out to a nearby field and among fields of brown she sees a flowering plant of bright purple. She says, “Well, us talk and talk about God, but I’m still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn, not the color purple…”

 Which leads to a conversation between Celie and her friend… 

Shug: More than anything God love admiration.
Celie: You saying God is vain?
Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it…

I’m finally able to count my blessings, to feel God has taken my sufferings and allowed me to use them to better myself – to become a strong runner, a confident woman. All because I finally opened my eyes to see the color purple all around.

And the only cure is more trail running.

You thought cowbell? Nay.

GAH, I’m obsessed. I’ve accomplished approximately 30 minutes of “real” work today at the office. BUT I’ve accomplished the hell out of “fake” work. What I like to call “homing from work” or what most bosses would call “wasting company time.”

Semantics.

Judge my productivity for yourself:

• joined GUTS – the georgia ultrarunning and trailrunning society.
• added 3 trail races to my event calendar.
• emailed my boyfriend no less than 5 times regarding various and sundry ultra and trail related topics.
• read a few trail running blogs – somewhere in the vicinity of a lot… i’ll admit it was more than 2 but definitely less than 50.
• made a list of gear to try out for the next trail training cycle.
• researched volunteering for the Pinhoti 100 in November. intriguing – it’s like putting on trail magic for thru-hikers… but for trail runners!
• brainstormed the idea of actually running (as opposed to thru-hiking) the PCT someday.
• picked out (but not yet ordered) a new pair of Vasque trail runners.
• cursed society for building thoroughfares with cement rather than singletrack trail. damn road running.
• watched dmb’s new video for You and Me (hey… my obsessions are not ALL related to running).

I’m stupid obsessed. Seriously. I think my co-worker hates me. He knows I don’t have this much work to do on the internet. Also, I think he’s on to my game of quickly clicking on Quickbooks to pretend I’m working every time he walks by my desk. Good thing he’s my brother. He gives me lip, I buy him a 6 pack of 420 and we’re good.

Also… I am lamenting the loss of my camera charger. Hence the boring lack of picture-posting to the blog as of late. I think my cat ate it… since she was probably still hungry after she chewed up my apartment lease renewal. Argh.

Back to invoicing, organizing and copy-writing. Juuuust after I research the Cheaha 50k…