My First 10K

I was getting the itch to grab some smokes again a couple weeks ago and thought I had better sign up for some runs that were a little closer that the marathon in October. I signed up for not one but two 10K's. The first was today. It was the Wrigley Start Early Run to help prevent child abuse. As I signed up only a couple weeks ago, I did not attempt and fund raising. I will, however, post something for the run on June 7th for Lincoln Park Zoo (one of the last free zoos in the country). If you are interested in donating towards preventing child abuse click here. Tiff got up this morning and went down with me. It was great to have the company and all the pictures here are courtesy of her support.

The run itself was fantastic. It was also my longest thus far. I liked it but found myself alone by the mile 3. I had some adrenaline going to start and probably got off to too quick of a go, but maintained for the distance. According to my Nike+, I ran my fastest mile thus far in my training at 7 min and 33 sec at the 2 mile marker. It was super fun. That's me in the picture recovering from being hit with silly string from Benny the Bull's mascot just before the finish line. What a surreal fun day in Chi-town!

*I just found out the results. My overall time was: 47:04 with a pace of 7:36 per mile. I placed 117th out of 676.

In other news, I hit the road for The National Theatre for Children on Monday. I am joined again by Scotty and we will hit Minneapolis for a quick rehearsal and probably be scolded for not being better on our Spanish lines (yes we have lines in Spanish on this one). Then we fly to Denver and work a day for Caldera before a week of shows around the Mile High city. Then we fly to my original hometown, Houston! I am super excited to get down there again!! I truly hope we don't have MY middle school there though. Paul Revere Middle School had a student parking for its 2500 students if that tells you anything. Then back to Denver and possibly off to Detroit for Caldera. The latter is still up in the air.

Stay tuned!

Opening Day, Easter and Opening Day

Run Motherfucker, Run

Yeah, I know it's bendy... but it's still me in front of Navy Pier. I ran there again today. No bendy picture this time as it has gotten a little nicer and I had no where to carry my phone. Speaking of which, I would love some input on running belts/packs. Also any headphones that are more inclined to stay in the ears? I celebrated a continuous week without a single cigarette by running 9.15 miles. I am signed up up now for a 10K on April 18th and another 10K on June 7th. That should keep me motivated.

Credit Card to avoid

Just putting this out there, if you have a Barclay credit card, I strongly recommend closing it. I had one through Frontier Airlines and enjoyed it for a long while. In Jan. I made a error on my account and the financial charges and APR were tremendous. It is the sort of situation that reminded me of vultures waiting to finish off the dying. The kill scenario is familiar though and Barclay is not the only ones utilizing this model. They jack the account to where it becomes an out of control system that you can not hope of paying off. Fortunately, I made a minor error and have since righted the account but am still enjoying one of the highest APR's I have seen in a long time. After several calls, some assuring me it would be taken care of. I finally closed the account today. Funny how the guy on the phone could not 1.) get me a supervisor, 2.) fix the problem I called about, or 3.)seem to muster anything like genuine customer concern. He could however close the account the instant I said waiting 2 billing cycles was unacceptable and waiting 48hrs for a call back was too long. Company's like this do not deserve the money we are sending them. They wait to make the highest profit possible from your mistakes. If you have the means to get rid of any Barclay credit cards, I recommend it. There are better places to do business.

17

For those in the know, Mon marked 17 years. Truly grateful for this life I never expected nor could have imagined. It truly is "beyond my wildest dreams."

Thank you all for the support!