i am dumb + introducing the SHU half-marathon

yesterday, i bounced home at 4 pm, all pumped about my trip and the race. i started fastidiously packing: gloves, headband, socks, sports bra, pants, jacket, shirt, gels, my nano, and bodyglide all went into my trusty gym bag. i printed out my hotel confirmation, directions to the expo, and my sister’s 5K registration form (i had registered for her several days ago). feeling very on top of things, i even made lunch reservations for saturday afternoon! but i ran into some confusion when i tried to print out my registration confirmation. one by one, i made the following discoveries:

there was no race registration receipt in my email . . .

there was no record of the registration on active.com . . .

and there was no record of my name on the race’s registration look-up feature.

there was no way around the obvious, but heartbreaking and embarrassing conclusion:

I HAD NEVER REGISTERED MYSELF FOR THE RACE!!

panic set in quickly! my first thought was to just register on-line right then, but it was already 5:45 pm the night before, and the site informed me that this was no longer possible. there was a ‘last chance’ registration at the expo, but that ended at in just over 2 hours, and my sister was still 45 minutes east of chapel hill (charlotte is 2.5 hours west).

so, we bagged it. my sister came over anyway, because she is awesome. we made an unglamorous-but-delicious martha dinner of lentil soup and salad, and josh joined us just as it was ready. and we had a lovely night.

i could focus on the sad results of my dumb error: that i won’t get to run the official race that i trained for, that i won’t get to do lunch with kath and matt, and that i won’t get to drag my sister kicking and screaming into her first 5K. instead, i am choosing to embrace the positives:

♥ i won’t have to leave josh for the weekend
♥ i still got to hang out with my sister and we had a great time cooking and hanging out
♥ i will get to go hang out with my fellow peds residents at brunch today
♥ i can do something fun with josh tonight
♥ i don’t have to spend 5 hours of the weekend driving
♥ i wasn’t aiming for a PR in this race anyway
♥ i can still do MY OWN half marathon today! and i will.

introducing the inaugural SHU half marathon! the SHU half (yes, those are my initials) is a scenic course through southwest durham involving 2 loops on the american tobacco trail. there are no timing chips, but a Polar RS200sd and mile markers will be used to create an official 13.1 mile course. there will be no water or gels along the trail, but there will be the opportunity to grab such items out of the car between the two loops. it will start when i get there, and it will end when i’m done. it is not a boston qualifier, but who cares since half marathons are not qualifying races and i am too slow right now anyway.

so all’s well that ends well. i am still looking forward to a fun weekend, just a more homey and cozy one. i’m off to run with my glass decidedly half full. race report to follow!

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12.12.2008

run: last taper run — 4 miles easy, 8:57/mi @ 0.5% incline. it didn’t feel so easy, but hopefully i was just saving energy for today!

doin’ time: with my sister’s help, i made this lentil soup and served it with a simple green salad dressed with the lemon-parmesan version of martha’s vinaigrette. i used somewhat less oil and more lemon juice, and the dressing received raves from the crowd (ok, it was a small crowd, but still). also on the side (not shown)was a piece of my mom’s sourdough, for carb-loading purposes. family effort all around!

the meal was accompanied by a delicious spanish red:

how cool is that cork?