My First First

I am happy! And I'm proud to say that my happiness has been self derived. Life has been good. Work has been busy. And running has been great.

My latest race was about a week ago. It was another local fun run. It was a brisk Saturday morning, approximately 30 degrees when I left the house at 8 am. The race was taking place about 5 miles away. When I got there, no one else was around so I was afraid I had gone to the wrong place. After a few minutes, people started arriving, however, it wasn't very many people. Actually only 4 people ran the race. I guess that's what you get for small towns. I think more people would have run, except the route was right on the lake and the wind blowing off the lake made the temperature about 25 degrees. So I ran in full gear. Winter hat, running gloves, pants, three layers and a jacket. All running appropriately gear (wicking, etc.) but my face remained cold the whole time.

So the four of us took off. We stayed together for a few minutes and then two of us broke off ahead. I stayed behind the only other female running until we hit a hill. She slowed down. Since I've done quite a bit of hill running, I knew I could push ahead on the hill, and taper off coming down. I passed her, but I knew she wasn't far behind. I kept up my pace, but eventually I heard her behind me. Since I let someone pass me in the last race, it wasn't about to happen again. So I pushed harder than I ever have probably. I finished first out of all 4 people. My time was 13:37. After I finished, I tracked the distance of the run and it was 1.8 miles. It definitely wasn't the 5k I had signed up for but I was happy for the first.

The next run isn't until the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. I'm pretty stocked for the run, and I'm hoping in that time I'll have a faster pace for races. Right now, I am staying pretty steady at an 8:30 mile for most runs, short and long.

This weekend will be an exciting time. My Mom and Dad fly in Friday for my swearing in. The last time I saw them was Christmas and since then my Mom and I have both lost 40 pounds. She'll be staying with me for a few days while my Dad visits the rest of the family in Mass. We have a lot planned, so it'll be jam packed but definitely still fun. My swearing in is Tuesday. I'm actually getting sworn into the NH bar and the NH federal bar. Two different bars, but only one test. After that, they'll fly out Tuesday night. I'm pretty sure I'll be quite exhausted after all that but I'm excited just the same.

I'm also happy to say in what has seemed like chaos, I feel like I've finally figured out my social groove up here. Hanging out with new people and getting out more. Its been nice, and I'm hoping to keep it up.