top gun virtual run and CA countdown

4 days until we're off to LA!!!  I've kinda sorta started packing, at least I have a list of stuff I need.  I just found out that while Anaheim is going to be lovely, temps are going to be in the 40s-60s in Yosemite!  Yikes.  Good thing I bought a new, ridiculously large suitcase this summer.

The other week, Lizzy Dragon and I did our Top Run Run- she came up to the house around 7am after I'd run almost 7 miles to join me for the back half of the half marathon.  Scot decided to run that morning too, even though he wasn't signed up for anything.  She and I stuck together and pounded out the last 6.2 together.  LD isn't a fast runner by any means, but she is steady.  We took about an hour and 20 minutes to finish the run.  After refilling our water bottles, we all jumped in the pool for almost an hour, which felt great!  Scot ended up cooking us some breakfast, and we were able to rest up, stretch, and be dressed and out the door for a day of work at 11 am.  

I've been stalking the mailman the past few days waiting for my medal- here is it, and it's gorgeous!

You really can't appreciate the heftiness of it until you actually get your hands on one.  Behind the airplane there's a clear blue glass and the clouds are all glittery.  It's fantastic.

Also, it just registered in my brain today that there's a little more than 4 months til I have to run a marathon. Eeek!  If it were just a marathon, I think I might be okay with it but this is DOPEY we're talking about!  The day I run my first marathon, I will have run a half marathon the morning before!  I will be on day 4 of 3am wake-up calls.  I will be sick of vacation food.  Actually, that's probably a lie.  I'm going to be eating the same, boring, safe foods I always do when I run and I'm going to be craving the biggest plate of junk food of all time when it's all over.

Anyhoo, back to Disneyland stuff- I bought us one day tickets to the park, figured we'd just do the Disneyland side on Saturday or something.  At work, a customer of one of my coworkers who works for Team Disney told me there's no way I could just do one day and completely pass up California Adventure (and Cars Land!)  He ended up giving us 2 one day park hopper passes to use on top of the tickets I'd bought already!  After figuring that the airport is only about an hour away from the park, the plan now is to get to the hotel, get to the expo, then go into CA adventure around 4pm.  Early day Saturday for the race, then back at the gate to Disneyland at 9am to use the park hopper tickets.  I'm pretty excited about it now- I think Scot thought this was going to be a restful vacation.  HA!  After the half marathon on Sunday, it's back in the car for a 6 hour drive to Yosemite.  Stay tuned for more pictures!

  

ok, now i'm awake!

So last Thursday, Scot did his first morning run with me.  It was also his first run over 5K, and he made it 6.3 miles!  I'm proud of him, and it bodes well for the 10K we signed up to run in September to use as proof of time for the Princess Half Marathon next February.  I certainly don't want to be stuck in corral P- he's male and had no proof of time when we signed up so you KNOW that's where he'd end up.  

On a more interesting note, we were maybe a half mile into our run, coming up the hill when we saw the lights from police cars.  We slowed down a bit to see- there was a ton of activity on the opposite sidewalk!  Cops, a couple DEA vans, and- I kid you not- about a dozen SWAT guys in their gear headed up into a house across the street!  The road was blocked off and because it was still dark, we could see just a line of car headlights up the road behind it all.  As we passed the house, a loud BOOM! went off, and I'm not gonna lie, I took off running!  It was a weird kind of run-walk, I was honestly trying to not look suspicious.  We carried on down the road, not wanting to stick around but peeking back to see what was going on!  We passed that house again a little over 15 minutes later on lap #2, and again on lap #3, all the lights were on, the front door and garage door were wide open.  The DEA van had gone and the house was full of police.  A haze hung in the air inside, probably from whatever they threw inside as they took over the house.  Flashbang, smoke bomb, whatever it was.  We did see too that there were 3 or 4 tightly wrapped white brick-like packages in the driveway and found out later that afternoon from the news that this house was one of many that were busted in a huge heroin ring in Volusia county!  Yaaaaaaay Deltona...!

Not long after our run was over, a big truck with a forklift-digger machine thing showed up to tear up the driveway.  That's the latest and final project- we're putting in pavers and adding an extra parking space.  I'll add photos later when it's done- it's looking pretty incredible so far!