8.25 - Radio

Well would you look at that my pants fit again. The Colorado Diet sure is good.  I can even sit down in them.
Pants; VS
Shoes: Famous Footwear
Shirt: Kohl's
Necklace: Lia Sophia

Well this necklace sure bounced up and down as I walked.  Other people mentioned to me they couldn't get a necklace this length because it would bounce. I thought that I never had that problem. Well really it was because I just never had a necklace that length.

Poly tried to get me to sleep in by sleeping on me. It worked a little, but then I forced myself to get up. Then next thing I know she's trying to sabotage my clothes by laying on them so I won't get dressed. (Or is it lying. I never know when to use laying or lying)
Work was still super busy trying to catch up on things while I was gone. In addition to that, I was interviewed on the radio. I tweeted the time and even noted you could listen on the internet but didn't specifically tell my friends the time. My husband even forgot to listen.  I get so nervous so I didn't want to tell people because they'd listen and hear how bad I was.  Later I learned that a few people my family knew heard me and a few people I knew heard me.  They didn't think I was nervous and didn't think it was bad. I never heard it so I just assume they are making it up.

Dave and I had breakfast foods for dinner.  We ate French Toast and bacon.  My stomach seemed so small from the smaller meals in Colorado that I could barely eat any of it.

9.6 Red Pants

September 13 is Everybody Everywear day for colored pants.  And well my red pants work perfectly. But the thing is I get a week behing on posting (or more) so I wore these early. 1 week early.

Oh man how I love these pants.  For the past few months I was debating buying a new pair since these were too tight. I held out and now they fit. Yay. I'm so glad I didn't have to buy a new pair because VS is so hit or miss. Twice now they have had the most amazing pants ever and 3 times the pants sucked. The 2 good pairs fit nicely, are washable and dryable, and do not need to be ironed. The other 3 pairs are not like that. If you look at the VS website you can't tell the materials and they don't list washing instructions most of the time.  I wish they had reviews like other sites so I could read what people said about them.

My little baby Poly was hugging my arm.  I couldn't possibly get out of bed. 

Once I did bring myself to get out of bed, my little Poly tried to sabotage by sleeping on my new clothes.

I left work to go to Olive Garden for dinner with Dave.  I saw that they have the never ending pasta bowl so I knew I had to get that. This was the first time I wore my red pants in a long time and the last few times I wore them, they were far too tight, so I preemptive unbuttoned them. They were under my shirt and my cardigan. Nobody could tell while I was sitting anyway. Then I ate all of my food. Dave didn't even eat all of his. I also at at a faster rate than him.  I left the pants unbuttoned and with the shirts over it you couldn't tell at all.  This was the first time I unbuttoned pants before it was necessary. It was a good idea. I could have probably gotten a second bowl but I didn't.  Dave said the guys were eyeing me up when I was leaving Olive Garden. He thought my red pants drew their attention so they had to check me out.

Then it was off to work.  I worked until after 7:30 since I was gone for dinner a bit in there.  Leaving for dinner was great because it broke up the work day.

At 7:30 I went to the gym.

I didn't get home until about 9.  It didn't feel like such a long day because I left work for dinner.  That dinner just had so many benefits.  It also helped me run at the gym.

8.24 - Tired

I arrived so late on the 23rd that I was super exhausted when I woke up on the 24th.  I hit snooze for a long time.  I went with something simple. 

Skirt, shirt, cami: Express 

Shoes: Famous Footwear

Necklace and earrings: Lia Sophia

A great thing about flex time is the ability to hit snooze many times and still not be late for work.  The downside of that is if you get to work later, you have to stay later. 

Since I went so long without seeing Poly, I didn't want her to feel neglected so then I put her in my daily picture. 

I also took many pictures of her throughout the day.  Poly went right to sleeping on me after work. I was happy because last time I traveled, she snubbed me for a day like she was mad at me or like she forgot who I am. 

It felt so hot. I got used to the cool Colorado nights. I had trouble sleeping it was so hot.

So I got back from Colorado and the next morning weight myself to an incredibly low weight for me.  Dave always says there is the World of Warcraft diet which is that you are so busy playing then you don't snack.  Well maybe there is the Callie Diet or Colorado Diet where you are so busy doing 8 million things that you forget to eat extra to compensate. I lost over 5 lbs. I expected it to pop right back up but it wast at least that much lower.  The jeans I had packed were very loose on me by the end.  My mom noted that my thighs looked skinnier.  Maybe I should have visited Callie 5 months earlier when my red pants first stopped fitting.  My gut was gone too. It was nice and flat. I should have taken a picture. 

A Day's Worth of Twitter

03:52:35 PM - @TheNewChrissy I got exited to think you were training for an ultra. Also I can't comment on your post from my phone; will have lots to say
03:54:13 PM - @BodyMediaFIT you didn't give me enough time to tweet why :( I had work meetings. And I wanted one for a friend. To use for ultramarathons
03:55:35 PM - @reedaboutme just reprint it. I always have to reprint. People take small print jobs and never return them.
04:01:40 PM - @wrkngmomscloset I could not handle goof without a computer.
04:08:15 PM - Ok anyone have any suggestions for doctors in cranberry. This one has me in the waiting room 40 minutes a counting just to get a shot!
04:52:58 PM - @BodyMediaFIT oh maybe I did enter then. I just noticed the tweet from an hour or so before the deadline.
08:20:11 PM - I still have to eat dinner. Well also finish my lunch. Not a good day. At least I didn't die exercising too soon after an allergy shot.
09:00:37 PM - I need to eat more food. What should I eat? http://t.co/C6A7qoq
11:00:04 PM - @mikecherepko why do you write them by hand?
11:04:00 PM - @BodyMedia I'm here waiting. That random number generator us sure taking a long time

You can find me as @smilincolleen on Twitter.

4.57 Miles with Jen (9.12.11)

After work today I went running with Jen.  I ran with her one other time but that was a few months ago. She dropped a cymbal on her toe and needed stitches. It was pretty bad that she couldn't run for over 6 weeks. 

I was late meeting her (but only by a few minutes). But I guess it was OK because I read warning that you shouldn't do vigorous exercise within 2 hours of getting an allergy shot and since the doctor made me wait so long I was within 2 hours. (I had a nurse visit for the shot at 3:30 and I didn't get my shot until 4:45. This is the second time I used this place.  The first was as bad.  I think I'm going to switch doctors again.)

We ran counter clockwise just like last time.  We ran across the bridge cutting half a mile off the loop time. 

We ran for 10 minutes then did a 3:1 run walk ratio.  We did 2:1 for 1 time then we ran until we got to the car. It was slightly under 4.5 so we walked a bit to get to 4.5 but we ended up walking too far and got to 4.57.   I was going to run 3:1 the entire way but Jen wanted to run for 10 minutes first. 

My hips are still sore from yesterday.  I probably should have had a rest day after my long run. Oh well.  Jen ran yesterday too.  We both had decently hard workouts but ran together anyway. We talked the entire way and most of the discussion involved races and running. It made the time fly.  We used my run/walk app and it was loud enough that even Jen could hear it. 

I would say our split time each time my watch beeped.  We would run an entire .25 between 2:22 and 2:30 on average and then ones that we walked for a minute during, our time was 2:44 a few times in a row. About halfway through the pace got a bit slower but I am still shocked how similar the splits are even with walking an entire minute within the .25 mi. 

The low dip is where we stopped for water.  I mentioned it since I drank very little water today and the car thermometer told me it was 81 when we started running.

At one point Jen was talking to me about running every now and then without my Garmin. I forget exactly what she said because all I could think of was "Oh. I can't do that." and so that's what I told her. I need my watch and data on every run. Without the data, what's the point? OK the point is probably the exercise or something.

8.20 - Race Day?

Well 4:00 AM came early. Timmy decided he'd rather sleep a little longer instead of going to the start. Also I wasn't sure if Callie wanted to trouble us to go.  I also thought I should sleep more because I had 2 times of running ahead of me and wouldn't get sleep that night.  

Timmy had to drive for the first time without an experienced person in the car. He did fine. He actually did better than when others were in the car.  We made it to the first aid station and got Callie's stuff. Then we tried to go to the 2nd one but the way Callie told us to go ended up closed and we were stopped but it wasn't the official aid station. There were plenty of people there but Callie didn't think you were supposed to aid there. Oh it was a mess.

Then we went back home, killed some time, picked up Griff and headed to the third stop. We only had to wait a little bit for her. It was funny that we recognized Callie coming down the hill because she utilized the tree for support while running down.  She already had a blister. I got a picture of her sitting in the grass trying to inspect her feet. I would have had more but my purse wasn't handy and Timmy wouldn't take any.

Then we went to lunch and headed to the aid station at 50 miles.  I heard rumors that it is bad driving up there. I had no idea how bad. It's a dirt road. We sat in bumper to bumper traffic only moving 1 or 2 car lengths at a time going up hill on a dirt road. Timmy sure got to experience a stick shift that's for sure.  When there were about 4 miles left, Griff got out to walk because he was afraid Callie would make it to the station before us.  He was right. Callie was back by the time we got there.  Her blood sugar was high so she was waiting it out a little then was testing it again. He went up even more. She consulted the doctor and she was not allowed to go out and run more.  Boy was she mad.  It's a shame to run a race like that and have blood sugar be what stops you. It'd be different if it was being out of shape, muscle soreness, or injury that stopped her.

Griff didn't really end up walking 4 miles carrying all of Callie's stuff because once you got past a certain point they let a bunch of cars through and some lady offered him a ride. He still had to walk over a mile in the hottest part of the day while carrying a few bags.  I was going to get out and carry the rest of Callie's stuff after I was in the car a bit longer but realized he already grabbed it all. Griff was such a good friend to her and was so nice. Timmy and I collectively referred to Griff as "Nice Griff" or "Good ol' Griff" throughout the week. Callie never even realized how nice he was. Too bad he moved just a few days later.

Once we were at the point where the car was moving and we weren't stuck in traffic, two girls asked us for a ride.  We gave them a ride until we were at a stop again and then they got out to walk the rest of the way.  They were both going to be pacing one of their friends.  I didn't even think they looked like runners or like they could handle distance running and yet one of them was talking about an ultra marathon she ran in Arizona. When they were getting in the car, Timmy warned them that he had only driven a stick a few times and he's not that good. They gave him compliments.  I think he only stalled it once with them in the car.

So since she didn't run, I didn't run. And then we had to figure out what to do with the rest of our day.

The rest of our day included hanging out at Griff's.  We had pizza.  Drinks were involved but none that I like.

Callie ended up icing her foot, not because of running but because Huck stepped on it.

I also have a video of a howling contest but I can't even make it through the video because the howling just gets to my ears so I won't make you suffer.

Callie got tired.  She laid on the dog bed. She actually turned around three times like dogs do. Within seconds she was asleep.  After more people showed up and how we kept looking at Callie there on the floor, Griff tried to tell her to go sleep somewhere darker. Then finally he told us he thought he could squat a Callie and he did. He put her in bed.  Callie is light and all but he picked her up just like he was picking up a piece of paper. I was impressed. It was also after my bed time so things might have been impressing me extra.

Timmy and I walked home from Griff's.  We could have taken Callie's car but Timmy said he's not driving a stick anymore so we had to walk. He said it was only 1.2 miles so we could do it.  After a little bit of walking, I realized I had my Garmin on so I turned on the satellites and then documented the walk home. We walked extra to go to the finish of the race.  At 1:00 AM the only people there were the race volunteers and family of those finishing very soon.  It was still very interesting to see.  We waited until we saw 1 guy finish.  They interviewed him just as he crossed the finish line. The first question was about how his legs were feeling.  He answered that his legs weren't the worst of his problem and the worst of it was that he was vomiting and diarrhea since 6am. Now if that was me, I would not have kept running.  That's pretty insane.

At the finish they had these computer touch screens so that you can type in a runners name or number and see their times at different aid stations and see their finish time.

Man I was so tired at Griff's the last hour or two that I was there, but then the walk home and the excitement at the finish gave me a second wind.

A Day's Worth of Twitter

01:03:12 AM - Oh boy I stayed up too late.
10:33:17 AM - 5 miles done. 8 more to go. Will I do it? @missylizzylucy I'm doing Run/Walk.
11:17:46 AM - @missylizzylucy 9 miles done. But I'm so slow. Redoing how long I run after 3 min of walk.
11:45:44 AM - @missylizzylucy well I'm just going to walk the rest. Chest pains or shoulder pains. I don't want to take my chances
12:16:27 PM - @missylizzylucy finished I stopped at a water fountain once and forgot to restart timer so really did more http://t.co/1gBYs3P
02:18:13 PM - my hips are so sore
06:44:39 PM - I still never finished figuring out what I wanted to eat for lunch and now it is even past dinner time.
06:45:02 PM - @fmeissner359 Where in Colorado were you?
09:55:54 PM - OK I'm down to 5 unread work emails but I can't seem to find them
11:24:45 PM - @fmeissner359 a few hours away from Denver was even nicer than Denver

You can find me as @smilincolleen on Twitter.

13 Miles (9.11.11)

I went running this morning.  I took too long before I left. I downloaded an app used for run/walking.  I didn't get a fancy app.  I just wanted one that does the timer. I didn't need a GPS because I already have that. Also, I figured the less it does, the longer the battery will last.
I started off just running. Then decided I would run 3.25 miles before I started run/walking. I extended that a little bit to make it an even 30 minutes of running before I walked for 1 minute, ran for 4 and repeat.

Close to the end of 5 miles, I just ran the rest of the way to get to the car. I got my water and paced back and forth and back and forth until I drank about half my bottle.  Then I walked over to the loop again.

I ran in the opposite direction this time.

I continued with the run 4 minutes/walk 1 minute ratio.

There was an Ovarian Cancer walk going on and it was awful. It just kept getting worse. Walkers don't understand the concept of making room for a runner. They walk 5 across and even block half the road. I had to go to stops a few times just because people won't shift over when I'm on the very edge.

At 9 miles I had to change my ratio. That was the point that I turned around too.  I walked an additional few minutes just to recover a little bit.  I tried 3:1 ratio for maybe one time. That was still too hard and I was going too slow so I tried the 3:2 ratio.  Right after I got to 10 miles I switched to a 2:1 ratio. At 10.77 miles I had to walk for 5 minutes. Well I was trying to walk for a minimum but my shoulder/chest were hurting. I couldn't pump my arm without the pain and I didn't want to make things worse.  Then I ran for less than a minute and just knew I couldn't run any more based on my chest/shoulder pain.  At this point it was 11.15 miles.

Finally after walking until 12, I decided to try to run a bit. I ran .5.  At that point I finished the loop. When I turned around at 9, I forgot to account for all the walking I did by the car right at 5 miles.  I looped back and forth in the parking lot until I got to 13. 

I finished my run! I beat my goal time. My goal time was so slow to account for all the walking. I hadn't run 13 miles since March and I only ran more than 7 miles once since then.  I knew it'd be a hard run. My weekly mileage is 18.65 for this week which is pretty impressive for me but according to the training plan I should have run 25 miles.

My calorie burn only slightly dropped with the run/walk but it was a lot easier to do and I went further.

I ran 6.53 miles on August 7.
I ran 10.07 miles on July 31.
I ran 6.58 miles on July 10.
I ran 18.9 miles on March 26.
I ran 15 miles on March 13.
I ran 6.77 miles on March 6.
So those are all of my runs above 6.5 miles the 6 months. Not many! I should have had a lot more. I guess that makes me more proud of my completion today.  The run/walk method really helped. What also helped was being 2 miles from my car when I wanted to quit.

8.18 - DRIVING

Well I slept in a tent in the wilderness. Add that to my list of firsts from this vacation. The coloring is all wonky because of the lack of flash.  We hung out in the tent for a little bit before getting up.  I kept going back to sleep because nobody else was awake. Later we all learned that we were all doing that.

After we woke up, we got ready to head out. We didn't even cook breakfast.  The funniest part of the morning was when Timmy came back to the area saying how Reef came over and peed on him when he was peeing. He used rubbing alcohol to clean the pee.

Then we went to Irwin Lake to take some pictures.

Then we headed to Aspen via Pearl Pass.  After a long time the jeeps in front of us had car trouble and ended up stopping. Someone came to talk to us and then told us how we wouldn't make it to Aspen because on the other side of the pass, it is snow covered for 100 yards and we'd have to slide down it.  We decided against dying that way and turned around.

After Pearl Pass, I think we went up Cumberland Pass.  Then we we went back to Tin Cup and went up Tin Cup Pass.  There may have been one other Pass in there that we went up and failed and had to turn around.  Callie kept talking about how she kept having to eat her words.  She kept saying things like "you won't see that again" and then we did or "we won't be up to Tin Cup Pass again" and then we were.  While driving we talked about how we were eating dirt.

While drivin up the mountains I had to lean in to try to make me less afraid of falling over the cliff. My fear of heights sucks. I had on sunglasses but also had my eyes closed.

We went to St Elmo, a ghost town (another thing to add to my list of firsts).  After so long in the car and being covered in dirt I just didn't enjoy the ghost town.

Timmy learned how to drive a stick shift leaving the ghost town.   On our way home we stopped at some place and walked 15 minutes to see a waterfall and take some pictures.

We arrived at Callie's about 10 hours after leaving the camp site. If we went straight from one to the other without having planned stops, I think it would have taken about 3 hours.

After we got home, we had to bang off all the bags outside trying to get the dir off of them.   We got a lot off, but there was still a ton left.  We were also filthy.

After we finally made it home, we had grilled cheese and tomato soup.  Then Callie went and got Griff. She made him some and made herself seconds. She showed how to eat with class... out of the pot while sitting on the couch.  After playing some music, everyone was so tired. Even the dogs were exhausted from the day of traveling.

It kind of sucked being in a car all day but it was a great experience. Have you ever had a day on one of your vacations where nothing seemed to turn out right? 

To see more pictures click below or check out my picasa.

8.17 - Camping

Early in the morning I spent time lounging around. I was sore from climbing Mount Elbert.  I had quite a few marks from all my mosquito bites.  

Note the chair in front of the window. That's the peeping chair and peeping window. The chair has gotten ruined from the dogs using it that it isn't really meant to have a human sit on it. 

Once we figured we were going to go to the bog and them camping, it was time to use the internet to find the bog. Well what do you know the internet was no help. We called the park service and got our call forwarded to someone and we had to leave a message.  Then we tried to water people and got our call forwarded to someone and ended up learning where it was.

It was a secret. It was also hard to get to.  There were things like you drive on this road until you have about a half mile of pine trees on each side, then you go a little further and there is a spot for 2 cars to park on the side. You walk up there and find a stream. Then you walk 15 minutes along it until you find the bog.  Now to me that made me think we wouldn't know how we were in the wrong spot for over 15 minutes.   But we found it. Our trip started off successfully.  While we were on our way up, the forest service guy (I think that's who he was) called us back.  He didn't want to disclose the location but lucky for us we were already headed up. We told him that. He was shocked.  He was from Greensburg. What a small world. He said yinz there at the end.

I've never seen Callie so interested in taking pictures of anything.  I even gave her my little camera so she could take more pictures after she filled up her memory card.

The day seemed so successful. We got so many great pictures. It may seem like I put a lot on here but that's just a small fraction of the ones we took.

The only bad part about our little adventure was that my shoes got soaked. I didn't have spare shoes with me. I knew I should have packed them. Well I knew I was not packing stuff that I should have.  I was never camping before but I didn't want to pack a million things I didn't need.

I think the reflection pictures are more impressive to me than the plant ones.

I probably took more pictures of Callie and Timmy taking pictures than I did of the pretty things. But I figured they were getting pictures of the nice streams so why should we have a million copies of the same thing.

The bottom left picture was the view coming down from the bog.

Then it was off to camping.  The first spot that Callie wanted to go to was taken, so we had to find a new spot. The car didn't make it over the hill at our new spot but it was fine parking right behind it.  We camped near Irwin Lake but not sure if where we camped has a name. It probably does but I just don't know it. 

We hung out by the camp fire. We made some bratwurst. We talked. We talked about how awful high school was. Then we just decided to do some pushups. We observed so many stars. It was amazing.
We finally went to sleep early for once. In the tent Timmy slept in the middle and 2 dogs slept between me and him. Callie didn't get to sleep with an extra blanket under her sleeping bag because the dogs hogged all the room.  Timmy opened his sleeping bag to cuddle better with the cold dogs. I think it dropped to about 35 degrees that night but we were all warm in the sleeping bag and tents.  Well we were kind of all warm. I woke up cold. I got an extra shirt and covered my ear and neck with it. Then it was all good.

PS The shirt I'm wearing is what I refer to as my fraud shirt. It is a fraud because it says Pittsburgh Marathon but I never ran it.  The Dick's Sporting Goods Marathon bag is also my fraud bag. I took that on this trip too.  I was full of fraud. I had one other long sleeve fraud shirt and I also wore that in Colorado but not while camping.

A Day's Worth of Twitter

08:46:52 AM - I turned off my alarm by mistake. Now it is an hour later.
11:24:13 AM - I decided I like running but hate training & that is why I'm sitting here in my running clothes but haven't gone out yet (now I'm training)
01:38:20 PM - Mowing sucks. But putting away hoses and raking is worse
07:57:11 PM - well it appears I haven't balanced my checkbook since February.

You can find me as @smilincolleen on Twitter.

9.1

My brown pants are back to looking far too big. They just fit now look big. Before they looked alright and they were pretty tight.   This is the first time I wore this combination. The picture quality is bad because it was pouring outside.  

Pink tank: Costco

Cardigan: B Moss

Pants: VS

Shoes: Aldo

Necklace: Lia Sophia

I'm sick of all this rain.

This is my favorite of all my Lia Sophia necklaces I got in the last order. I even got a compliment on it. 

I have to dress like it is winter because it is so cube in my area at work. The weather outside was in the 80s. I figured I'd be inside and it would be OK, but I forgot about having to walk between buildings 4 and 1.  It was far too hot for that walk. 

I don't remember what I did but it must have been TV.  I didn't workout. But I figure I had justification because most training plans call for 2 rest days before a 5k. 

This might be a record for the fewest number of pictures I have taken of Poly in one day. I hope Poly isn't feeling neglected.

9.8.11 - YPE Event

I chose my outfit around my new shirt. Then after I was wearing it, I realized my very similar new shirt was just worn the most recent time I was at work. I wonder if anyone notices. Nobody probably does and they are the same style but different colors and so I guess if I buy similar items like that, I might end up wearing them close together.

Shirt: NY&Co (9.5.11 - $16.17)
Cardigan: NY&Co (11.7.10 - $19.84)
Belt: Kohl's (Spring 2011)
Skirt: Express (August 2009)
Shoes: Hot Cakes via The Shoe Dept (2005)

The only non outfit photos from the day are from after I got home at 1:30 AM. That's what happens when I actually do something and have a life.

I went to work and had about 6 hours of meetings in my 9 hour work day. I always wonder how I am supposed to get work done between all the meetings.

Then after work I headed to the Nuclear focused Young Professionals in Energy (YPE) event.  I helped the planning a lot with this but other people did more. This was third quarterly event. The previous one had about half the people show up who actually RSVPed so I was a little worried.  Well the event was a success. We had a full room (Over 110 people). Lots of people talked about how great the presentations were and how great the panelists were. The panel was really good. They interacted with each other so that helped.

So then the thing was since I helped plan the agenda when all the emails came out with it, I never realized there was an After Event. I did not help plan that.

Event Schedule:

   5:30 Doors open for Networking and Cocktails

   6:00 Dinner is Served

   6:15 Brief Overview of How a Nuclear Power Plant Works

   6:30 Keynote Address Begins

   7:00 Panel Discussion and Questions

   7:45 Networking Time

   8:00 Event Ends and After Event Begins (Sponsored by Turn Right Tools)

Prior to the dinner, everyone that came up to me to talk to me, I actually recognized and knew their name. I must be getting better. Usually I know about half the names. Then after the event, it actually took me until 8:45 to leave the hotel because of all the networking going on there.  The After Event was at Echo. I had never been there. It was fancy. It was nice. With so many people there it was hard to find the people I knew. This forced me to meet new people which was great (and scary).  Later I learned that during this time, Troy Polamalu was there eating dinner with his wife. I totally missed it. I was too busy talking.  Around 11, I see my friend there. I can't believe she was there the entire time. She said there were times she even waved to me. Oh boy, I need to work on observing what is around me while I talk to people I guess.

So I ended up leaving at 1:15 or so. I was out very late for a work night. A lot of the people that were out that late, did not have to work the following day. I met some new people and even got some business cards to help my memory. What I did after I got their card and was done talking to them was grab a pen and jot down some notes on the back of the card about them and our conversation. That has helped me in the past when I have done it.

Some highlights from the night

1. Person 1 introducing me to Person 2 as "This is Colleen. She blogs. Sometimes if I want to know what she wore the day before I check out her blog."  The person I was introduced to got all excited that I have a blog. I went on to tell her how it is boring and that I couldn't believe Person 1 even goes to it.  There was some blog talk and I was rather impressed that someone actually goes to my blog. At one point my blog was described as impressive. 
2. Less than 15 minutes after meeting someone and mid conversation yet Person A asks Person B "Are you gay?" and then that made for some awkward conversation.
3. Being mentioned by a presenter, who is an exec at Westinghouse, about my involvement with NA-YGN and all the time that I put in. He mentioned one other person too.  I was surprised he even knew my name or who I was.
4. Getting to talk to the three panelists after the event to tell them what a wonderful job they did and how I was glad they could take the time out of their day to come to the event.
5. Multiple people gave me goodbye hugs and most of them weren't awkward. (I often say how I'm an awkward hugger.)  But some people just gave goodbye hugs to others and when they got to me they asked if they could hug me. So perhaps my awkward hug fear was showing.
6. I got a compliment on my necklace.
7. I got a compliment on my shirt. Then I even got asked where I bought it. 
8. Two different people asked for my blog address and said they would look at it. (I already know at least one went to it.)

Some random information

1. The food was amazing and I wish I got more of it. Since I was helping with different things, my food got a little cold before I got to eat it and it was still great.
2. I drank water all evening even though drinks were covered as part of the event.  Then a few people ask me why I wasn't drinking and if I ever drink. (I do drink. Not often. I don't like beer or wine which is all that was covered at the actual event. By the time I went to the after event, it was crowded and I didn't figure out how drinks were working and I didn't know how long I'd say. I won't drink close to a time when I have to drive home.)
3. I already forget the names of some of the people I met but other people I know were there too. I may have to ask around to figure it out so next time I see them I will know their name.  I hate how I remember many facts about the person and much of the discussion but then don't remember the name. 

8.19 - Pre-Race

I woke up and Callie was awake. Her alarm was going off. She was running off to do the medical check-in. She was almost late for the window. (or maybe she wasn't. My memory isn't so good.) She got back and cooked us breakfast. It was her most elaborate breakfast she ever made. She picked a bad day to do it, because she had less than a half hour to have breakfast and get to the mandatory meeting for the race. I went with her to this meeting while Timmy stayed home. We got there late. It was standing room only. We actually only got to stand out in the doorway instead of stand inside the gym. It was so hot in the gym anyway that I was glad I was at least close to the outside. After 30 minutes or so we left. It wasn't over, but Callie said she knows what they say and she had to get home to get to Avon to go to Sports Authority to buy things for the race in order to get her drop bags set up in time.

They don't take attendance at the mandatory meeting anyway. Callie looked so small compared to the others that were running the race. The one guy who was near us was 6'4 and has run the race 16 times or so.  I kept peeping people's medical bracelets. Their height and weight were on them. I  also peeped their feet if they wore sandals. I wanted to see if their toenails were all screwed up or if you could tell they were blister prone or something.   I was glad to skedaddle from the meeting because I was starting to get clammy and lightheaded like I might pass out.

We came back and headed to Sports Authority and then to Walmart. Callie had to buy a ton of power bars and gu packets. She also bought stuff like gatorade. At the mandatory meeting, one of the speakers said that it's a marathon eating contest with some running in between.  While we were out or on our way home, I learned there was a crew meeting. It was too late now to go to that since the time had passed. I guess I didn't realize there was one. It was my first time crewing so I probably should have gone even if the information provided was all boring.

Callie drove both ways since she was in a hurry. Then she spent forever planning what water packets and what went with what aid station. We got her bags to the bag drop just in time. Well with about 5 minutes to spare.

Then we went to drive to where a few of the aid stations are so we can find them the next day.  We only went to the close ones. I learned later that we should have read the directions on a race packet because the paths from one station to the next were blocked at points due to the race so we had to go around. (Lesson Learned. Follow the instructions in the booklet and not the normal way to go from point A to point B.)

Then I got dropped off at home and hung out with the dogs while Timmy went with Callie while she drove her book bus (library bus or whatever).

After the book bus, Callie came home and continued to get ready for the race. I sat at my computer super nervous. Callie was more nervous with having to run a race and all but I was also nervous. I was pacing her at elevation and for distances I wasn't used to running and on terrain I wasn't used to running on. Oh the stress.

A Day's Worth of Twitter

12:57:36 AM - Stupid construction on 228. Stopped and waiting.
01:15:25 AM - I hot a compliment on my shirt today. And my necklace. And met and told 2 people about my blog
01:16:13 AM - I got introduced to someone as "this is Colleen. She blogs. Sometimes I go to her blog to see what she wore the precious day."
01:18:32 AM - After @briecs left tonight people talked about how awesome she was
02:03:18 AM - I was told I have OCD tonight.
08:17:27 AM - I finally remembered to bring in my blanket to work today.
11:42:00 AM - @angelineevans I'm always cold and said I was going to bring a blanket for backup if I need it when I wear a skirt.
10:11:14 PM - a 2nd day in a row I didn't workout :( I'm tired. I want to blog but think I'll just read my new book.
10:14:45 PM - I entered the 25 Days of Wellness Giveaway for a chance to win 25 healthy prizes: http://t.co/Kh4eD56
10:22:34 PM - all anyone wants to know is what my husband thinks of things. I got asked what he thought 5 times today and about the same yesterday.

You can find me as @smilincolleen on Twitter.