Happy Memorial Day!

After a huge emotional growth spurt last week this week, thankfully, was a pretty normal week. Normal things happened, with normal challenges, and normal feelings, and normal successes.

There are a couple of things that I'm really proud of. The first is that I got my eating habits on track last week and lost 5 pounds! You may remember from this post that I was doing silly things like eating ice cream for breakfast, so as you can imagine I had put on a little padding. It wasn't difficult to clean up my eating, but I still had to make the decision to do it! For anyone who is curious, my weight loss method is simply counting calories, eating fresh foods, lots of fruits and veggies, and working out. Ground breaking, right? Not at all, but it really works!

Secondly, I am really proud of my "long run" this week. It was on a day when I'd had very little sleep the night before, and just finished nine hours of retail. My feet were killing me, I was hungry and tired and the Blackhawks were playing. All I wanted to do was sink into my big green chair and not get up again. But I went! I went past one of my favorite places in Chicago.

It's beautiful!

Wrigley is surrounded by bars, most of them sporty in nature and as I ran I discovered that I could keep up with the Hawks game through their windows. So a tip for any sports-fan-runners out there: run past your town's main sports bar strip and you can watch the game as you go! I must remember this for football season.

My long run was 55 minutes this week, and in the end I clocked 5.2 miles. That's not including my walking warm ups and cool downs. I was stunned at how far I went! For Chicago locals I nearly made it down to Diversey. That is FAR! There was a moment of elation as I turned around at the halfway point, knowing what a great distance I'd travelled, immediately followed by a moment of terror. I was so far from home, how would I get back? The answer, of course, was to run, but it seemed really tough at that moment. But I did it, and in the last 15 minutes I kicked on the turbo boost and ran hard. In my head I wanted to give it all I had before rest day, and after a long crummy work day. And my rest day was that much more peaceful, knowing that I had given everything I had. As a street graffiti artist reminded me this week:

I also really appreciate whoever fixed the your/you're situation going on here.

 Folks, you're all worth it. Whatever it is you're wanting to change about your life, you deserve it. If it's the job, or wanting to get out and go for walks or be more active, you can do it. Change is hard, but also so worthwhile, and you really can achieve whatever you desire. Just work for it, and go get it!

In closing I would like to say a big thank you to our current serving men/women and those who have served in the past. You are awesome, important, and heroic. Thank you for everything you do.

Another big thank you to Greg, who is my donation rock star this week! I learned that my donation goal is $50 for every mile I run, which is outstanding. As I run the marathon I will remember who believed in me for each mile of the race! Greg, that means you're a mile 4 sponsor! Thank you! This amazing piece of information also means that if I hit my goal we will have helped 26.2 people get clean water for the rest of their lives! Folks, let's make that happen. In fact, let's get reckless and round up to 27. Because what's .2 of a person anyway? That doesn't exist. So thank you to my sponsors up to this point, and know that you will be with me on race day! 
Gracias! Danke! Merci! Grazie! Thanks!