What!!! Double Digits!?!

That’s right people. And not just for the week (which granted has been a bit of a stretch these last few weeks...and will be again this week)! Jason and I ran a solid 10 miles yesterday morning and felt great. We drove to the lakefront path at Montrose and started our run east of the golf course. When we got to the totem pole we met up with my Dad and the three of us ran together to Belmont. It was like we were our own little running group which was fun. From there we continued down stopping at the Fleet Feet aid station at North Avenue Beach which was nice. I love those aid stations as I refuse to carry water bottles in the summer but sometimes you want more than water and so it’s nice to get a cup of Gatorade before moving on. We went as far south as Navy Pier and then headed back. We ended at the totem pole where we met back up with Dad who was feeling some calf pain. We went to his apartment and had a nice big breakfast. From there we decided to go home since I am just about on the edge of explosion since my defense is this week (holy ass...this week...how is that right?!?!?!?) and I wanted to go home and just try and study a little. We had a great rest of our Sunday napping, watching the Cubs come back to life, making a quick dinner and finishing up with a walk to Piccolo for some ice cream and a walk around our neighborhood.

The weekly review in running is shown below. As you can see we are finally in the positive for our planned versus actual, and I had a nice week of running consistently getting in 5 days worth.


The rest of the weekend was just as good as our Sunday. On Friday we had Psych night (cause the new season is on and Jason and I are loving it more than ever) and had my dad and Sue over for some bbq, some Psych and of course some Pineapple for dessert. The episode was as quick as ever with LOTS of references to movies from the 80s: The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day off. After they left we discovered that we had recorded Pretty in Pink at some point on our DVR and so we watched that and caught some of the references from the show. On Sunday morning The Breakfast Club was on and we had our fill of 80s hair and Molly Ringwald.

Saturday we went to The Taste of Lincoln with my Dad. I found a super cool new necklace which was exciting, we listened to some good music, had some good bad food...corndog yum! From there Jason and I went home and I was exhausted and so I took a nap, and from there we headed to St. Charles where we met Jason’s dad for dinner. His dad was at a golf camp in the area and so we went to meet him. It was a really good time and we went to this really good Mexican place. For those of you in St. Charles, I think it was called El Puente and it’s right downtown. Really good stuff.

Thus we come back to Monday. I am going to the library today and locking myself in there to study. I know I know stuff, but I am so worried they are going to ask me stuff I don’t know, and they probably will and that’s probably ok, I’m just really nervous. I know I should treat it like, I GET to give this amazing talk and show off what I did for the past two years because my analysis is really complicated and I am really proud of it. But who the hell does that really? I mean who is ever that comfortable standing in front of people? In fact I was talking to my adviser the other day and he was going to California to give a talk at SLAC and he said, “I’m really kind of nervous because there will be a lot of big wigs there.” I laughed (to myself of course) as I think of him as one of the big wigs and I don’t know how he could be nervous as he is so freakin’ brilliant and gives really good talks...but I guess that never goes away.

This week will be lacking in running because we are taking today off and then tomorrow we’ll get something in, Wednesday we leave early in the morning for Bloomington and no running that day, Thursday is my actual defense and I am planning on running around the campus for a few miles in the morning, then Friday Jason and I are going to just enjoy Bloomington as we have spent 10 years of our life associated with IU and we heart Bloomington (especially in small doses). Then this weekend is my cousin’s wedding which should be a crazy good time. They are having their wedding reception where Jason and I had our wedding and reception, and then on Sunday they have a pack of Cubs tickets for everyone and we have that going on. In short. This week = awesome (should anyways).

Alright...well in less than 72 hours I’ll be giving my talk. That’s right, I have a countdown going in my head of the hours left. This chica cannot WAIT for that to be done!