chestertown half marathon!

so i was able to cross off another 30 before 30 goal this weekend!
i ran 13.1 miles to complete my first half marathon!
YAY!

last may 2 of my college friends and co-captains on the crew team were talking about running in the first chestertown half marathon as a fun thing to do... and i've kinda been wanting to run one so i told them i was interested in running with them. so we signed up and said it would be a fun little mini college reunion weekend!

so i attempted to train this summer and before i knew it the weekend was here! i was kinda freaking out on thursday & friday, because my longest training run was 10 miles and the last week i wasn't running as much as i should have... but after training on friday i jumped in the car and drove back to one of my favorite places on earth. driving to ctown this way was interesting - it made me feel as i had just gone to annapolis for the day and was coming back after shopping or something, not 3.5 years after graduation and almost a year after my last visit. i met up with jeanne and we went to our favorite pizza place in town and caught up on life since last may. and then walburn met us at the hotel and we chatted the night away.

saturday morning we were up bright & early because it was race day! i was super nervous but wanted to have fun and just not think. and before i knew it we were at the start line and we were off!

yay! for running 13.1 miles

i ran with jeanne the first mile and looked at my watch and saw i ran it in 8.30.... ummmm, waaay too fast! (i had been training at like at 11 minute mile pace) so i slowed down and miles 2/3 kinda sucked. but once i got into my rhythm it went better. miles 4-9 kinda rocked. i was feeling good and positive. then i hit mile 11. and my happy yay! running went. i hit the wall. and then the ipod gods intervened. i have a cute little green ipod shuffle (the one that is like 1"square) so i really don't have any control over my music. mary whipple came on my ipod and coxed me through mile 11. now for those of you not up to speed with your US national team coxswains - mary whipple is my rowing idol! she is the US national team coxswain and won a gold in 2008 and silver in 2004. and when i was in college, i used her recordings and such to help me train. and so i have a favorite recording and i put it on my ipod and so when i hit the wall - mary was there coxing the US to gold in 2003 at milan at worlds and it was just what i needed. (yes, i know i am weird... it is ok) and then mile 12 - i was running along the chester river, along where i spent so many hours rowing and it was awesome. plus i only had a mile left to go! so i finished 13.1 miles in 2:11.56 which i was super happy with!  going in my goal was to finish and run the whole way - and i would have loved to run under 2:15. so i was excited! and i ran an average of a 10:05 mile. so YAY!

at the bird

so the rest of the weekend was fun! another girl we rowed with came to cheer us on so it was great to see jones at the finish! and then the rest of the day was spent in chestertown - meeting up with the team's captains to talk to them about their goals and such, walking around revisiting one of my favorite places and also seeing coach and catching up with him. and then going to dinner along the river with many of my favorite people and watching the sunset along the river and then going to the bird - for a bit of college fun where in true bird fashion some locals bought us shots. so it was a great weekend of running, seeing friends, going back to a place i love and just having fun.

my legs are still in major rebellion - like i touch my quads and they say "haha" but other than that i'm good!

the river

how was your weekend? what is the furthest you've ever run?

library of congress library card!

me with my loc card!

so one of the things on my 30 before 30 was to get a library of congress library card! and on monday i did! i've wanted one since i was 17 and came to dc as a high school senior as a student in the program i am now working and visited the library of congress. but i wasn't able to get one. and i wanted to get one in the summer of 2009 when i was in dc - but it never happened.

so after my weekend in baltimore i went to dc and got to hang out with mj until we could move on site for work. so we decided to be tourists on monday around the capital. so we headed out and had a fun day walking around (her making fun of me for taking pictures) and playing in the supreme court and library of congress. i absolutely love the library of congress - it is sooo gorgeous inside and is the national library. plus tj helped found it and it has a great history. so it isn't like a regular library where you take out books - it is a research library and they have awesome books and some cool historical documents. and in order to look at anything they have all different reading rooms and you have to ask for a book (like in an archive) and this is why you need a library of congress reader card. and now i am eligible to do research in the loc! which i am super excited about.

so in the next few weeks i'd love to be able to see what i can find in the loc and do some research on my irish domestic servants, because i really miss doing research.

so excited to be able to cross off my first thing on my 30 by 30 list! (and the 2nd thing i'll be able to cross off after this weekend - YAY)

so i'm in training for the conference i'm working the next few weeks and it has been interesting. i'm loving being back with patricia & mj and i've met a few cool people. it is an interesting staff dynamic but it should be fun next week when the students are here!

so i'm headed to chestertown tomorrow to run the half marathon on saturday! eeeeeeek! i'm getting nervous about it!

how was everyone's week?

adventures

it has been an adventurous few days! i had my little's bachelorette party in baltimore last night, went to ft. mchenry and i'm in dc for the next 2.5 weeks working. 

little's bachelorette party was fun. it was pretty low key - went out to dinner and had some fun in the canton bars. it was great to see little & glittle and meet some of little's hs friends and family. i can't wait for the wedding!

glittle, little and i

:)

then today after hanging around little's house and being lazy the history dork i am went to ft. mchenry from the war of 1812/battle of baltimore. aka made famous by frances scott key and the star spangled banner. so that was fun and i had a little history moment. the war of 1812 is my favorite war (yes, i have a favorite war) so it was pretty awesome. 

entering the fort

view of the fort from the riverside


so now i'm in dc for the next 2.5 weeks for work - working at a high school leadership conference. and training starts on tuesday and until then i'm hanging out with mj. tomorrow we are going to play tourist around the capital (something despite working here before i've never done.)

oh and tuesday i went hiking to one of my favorite places in nj - sunfish pond. it was a gorgeous day, a little hotter than expected, but great to be out in the woods with my best friend from high school. 

becca & i

rock cairns along the pond

sunfish pond

and i also finally posted the last 2.5 weeks on my photoblog! oops for being a slacker and not posting. i'm gonna try and be better about that!

hope everyone had a great weekend :)

words to live by

from holstee

saw this today and i absolutely LOVE it. 

and i think it was a good reminder that everything will work out

and just have fun and live

update

hope everyone had a good labor day weekend. sadly for me this labor day wasn't too different, it marked the end of summer, but i'm not back in my classroom. my first day of school would have been last wednesday if i was teaching this year and it is weird that i'm not. it is finally starting to feel real that i'm not teaching, and i hate it. i loved what i was doing last year and i hate that i probably won't be teaching for a year until next september. i feel like so many of the things i want to do are on hold for a year. without a stable job i can't move out on my own and i hate the fact i'm 25 and i don't have a job and that i'm living at home. but everything happens for a reason, so i'm just waiting to figure out what fun will happen next. i'm probably going to be doing a lot of subbing this year but i'm looking into taking a little trip to europe this spring. i miss ireland like crazy (i can't believe it has been 5 years since i first went there and studied abroad) and there are still a million places i want to go in europe, so i'm thinking about taking a 3ish week trip in feb/march because when else will i have time to go on a multiweek vacation and i'm young and i have nothing holding me back.

the game plan right now. i'm home this week. and pretty busy. hiking in the gap with becca, planning for a college sorority recruitment that i'm the recruitment advisor for and i'm not going to be here for, a date with an awesome guy, doing something fun with erin, and packing and doing a bunch of errands. 

packing... i was hired for a few sessions with the program i worked last summer (2009) in washington dc. so i'll be down there working with high school students on leadership and the us government for a few weeks. i'm kinda upset i was only hired for 2 of the 6 sessions, but whatever. the thing i am excited about is patricia, mj and i will be together! my 2 favs from summer 2009 and i are back working together. sooooo excited for that! we've all kept in pretty good contact, i've seen each of them twice since that summer and went out to kansas to see patricia. so it is going to be kinda redic. i can't wait. so that starts next monday. and then this weekend is my little's bachelorette party in baltimore! yay! so exited for that! 

and i'm also SUPER excited about these boots. omg, drool. they are from lands end and i can't wait to get them! luckily they were on sale (yay 25% off and free shipping) because i am slightly crazy to not have a job but spend $125 on gorgeous boots. what can i say, i love shoes. buuut i have to wait a few weeks because sadly they are on backorder until september 20th.                                                                                             ummm, oh yea. a date this week. since i've been home i've gone out a few times with a really awesome guy. he lives locally (and can i just say how awesome that is, i've never dated anyone who lives 20 minutes away, my last few bf's have lived at least an hour away) so we've hung out a lot since we first met. he's cooked me dinner, i've met his sisters, we've hung out at his house and yesterday with 2 of his friends we went to a scandinavian festival - which was so much fun! so this is something nice in my life right now. but i will say i was gchatting with patricia last week about him and she joked, at least he isn't an only child and i said i've moved on from only children who live in pennsylvania to engineers who own houses. which is funny because ross & matt were both only children who lived in pennsylvania and matt and the new boy are both engineers and have recently bought houses. i apparently like to keep traits in common in guys i like. 

and so still lots of unknowns in my life but i'm dealing with it the best i can. trying to have fun and not be so upset about not having a job. i'm excited about dc and enjoying the coming fall.

how was your weekend?