Dude!

I got a blog award? Whaaaaaaat? You mean people actually read this thing? Apparently, Colleen at Irondiva does, because she gave it to me! Look how cute it is!

Along with this award, I have some things to answer, so here goes...

1. If you had a chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be? I wouldn't consider this a regret, but I wish I would have taken up running and stuck with it earlier in my life. I picked up running in fall 2006 (more on that in my next post) in an effort to help me lose the 25ish lbs I put on during grad school. My sister Alli had gotten bit by the running bug right around then, and she convinced me to do a local Turkey Trot 5mile run with her that Thanksgiving. How could I turn down a chance at a free pumpkin pie (the first 1000 male and 1000 female finishers got one)? So I started running at the gym more, in addition to the elliptical and bike work I was trying to adjust to, and lo and behold the Trot went far better than I anticipated (and I got my pie!) The next spring (2007), Alli and our youngest sister Julie decided to do the Flying Pig 1/2 marathon in Cincinnati...I knew I wasn't ready for that yet but happily tagged along for their 5k races here in Columbus, and even joined them for parts of their training runs while we were on Spring Break in Myrtle Beach. Somewhere along the way, I started to look forward to going on a run...four years later, countless 5ks and 10ks, and three (soon to be four) half marathons later, here I am. Much healthier, and a lot less stressed :) I feel like if I had picked up running in college, or even in the year I took off between getting my BA at Ohio State and starting my MA program in Cincinnati, I would have been able to head off the stress eating that was a big part of my weight gain and overall kept myself in much better physical shape. And I likely would have quit smoking a lot sooner than I did, too.

2. The second thing you have to do is pick 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform the person that they have gotten this award. Oh jeebus. Here goes... Emily at A Day in the Life of Em, Brit at Duke's House , Katie at Vegetarian Lunchbox, Andrea at This Year's Love , Jill at Happy Hopefuls, and Sarah at TBDBITL-OT. These are all blogs I love to read, and therefore they're all awesome :)

3. The third and final thing is, thank the person who gave you the award. Colleen, thankyou for the super cute award! I've really enjoyed following your journeys through training for your Ironman races-what you and Tom do is an inspiration to us all. I know Louisville didn't go the way you planned, but you have so much to be proud of and I know you're going to keep on kicking ass!