Clearing old pics off my phone: Awesome license plate edition

Fun fact: T9Word types "slave" before "plate."

Training, Weeks 8-10: Springtime!

I love spring. I especially love running in spring! Here are a few of the things I get to see on my runs around the neighborhood:

• Squirrels! Usually running around on telephone wires.
• Flowers! Oh, man, this category keeps growing and growing. First there were hints of crocus, and then the daffodils sprouted, and the grass kept getting greener, and then one day I was jogging through an actual mini shower of cherry blossom petals as though I were an anime character or something. This week it's been mostly pansies, tulips, hydrangeas, and flowering bushes - I make sure to breathe deeply when I pass a lilac or viburnum. Tulips are still my favorite, though.
• Birds! Mostly robins, but plenty of other birds as well, from sparrows to wrens to (last week, in Mount Lookout Square) a yellow chickadee. (EDIT. Mr. W informs me that this last one was more likely a goldfinch.)
  
• Lots of nice dogs! Often they are being walked by their owners, who make sure they heel as I puff past. (Despite the stereotype of dogs chasing joggers, I've encountered just one dog who's tried to follow me. In Milford. On two separate occasions. And he wasn't a particularly scary dog.) The dogs pent up in fenced-in yards tend to yap at passersby, but they're probably just excited by any change to the scenery. I tell them hello - and also "woof," if no other humans are about.
• Other runners! Especially on Observatory and Madison, which seem to be popular running streets. I say hello to them all and try to smile, although I worry that in the later miles of my routes it comes off as a grimace.

Training, Week Seven Again: Missing the Mini

Week Seven began with my newfound "don't stop" goal; it was supposed to end with the Heart Mini-Marathon. But two days before the race, my friend Chele texted me: "Just so you know, I'm not running the Mini on Sunday if it's raining."

(Explanation for posterity: After a week or two of 60-degree weather, Sunday's forecast called for temps in the 40s with drizzle, sleet and maybe even snow.)

Chele had already registered for the Mini, but the idea of facing that freezing rain on a surprisingly hilly 9.3-mile course was too much for her. I had not registered, but the rain wasn't about to stop me. Yet suddenly, the prospect of running the scary hills in the terrible weather without a friend to meet me at the finish was looming, and that was too much to bear.

So, not wanting to wait until two hours before the race to know if I was running it, I made my decision: I skipped the Mini.

And guess what? Chele wound up running - even though it rained. The other friend who planned to run it with her convinced her to do it. (Guess I should have tried that. I could have gotten 9.3 miles and a sweet T-shirt instead of the "stay in bed until 1" award.)

Training, Week Seven: Don't Stop (with special guest star Katie!)

(This is the proper music to listen to when reading this post, by the by. Maybe don't watch the video, though; I'd like for you to like Brazilian Girls when you're done.)

Week Six was ending, and I headed out to Milford to do my six-mile "long run" (actual marathoners are laughing right now) with my dad and my sister, who was in town for the weekend.

Katie (my sister, not the Katie from the bacon bourbon experiment) is also training for the half Pig, but she runs faster and is using a more rigorous training program. (It actually asks her to run 14 miles two weeks before the 13.1-mile race, which seems anticlimactic to me.) She eats six-mile runs for breakfast. (Or brunch, seeing as how it was Sunday.) So she was saying that we should try to run it straight through and make a 10-minute pace and all this other stuff, and my dad and I were all, whoa girl - we run slow, and we stop and walk when we feel like it, which is usually once a mile or so.

Still, off we went. I was trying to keep pace with Katie, who I think was slowing down a bit for our benefit, so we still hadn't stopped to walk after a mile and a half. At that point, my dad - whose knee has been giving him a lot of trouble lately - tapped out and walked back home, and Katie and I kept going.

And going.

And going.

(And then we stopped because I had to use the Porta-Potty conveniently located at the three-mile mark, but then we got going again.)

And going.

And an hour or so later, I had run the whole six miles with only that bathroom break. (I was such a jerk to Katie when she said I shouldn't lie down after.)

Thanks to my lovely sister's inspiration that day, I've realized that I haven't really been pushing myself. So my new goal on any given run is to go as long as I can without stopping to walk. So far, it's going pretty well.

GO WOMEN

Man, Nike just knows how to make a video that makes you want to drop everything and go run RIGHT NOW:



Nikeplus.com seems to be down right now, so I can't tell if there's a way to enter this challenge if, like me, you don't have a Nike+ system. But if there is, I'm doing it! Good job, video!

Training, Weeks 4-6: Pick Up the Pace

Wow, it has been forever since I've posted about my marathon training! Here's the beginning of my catch-up posts:

Saturday of Week 4 was the always-lovely Strides of March Carrot Run. It's a small run compared to the Pig or the Heart Mini, but it appears to be growing. Usually I can find a spot in the main parking lot; this year, both the main and overflow lots were full. I had to park across the street in some overflow-overflow lot, and I think I was among the last people able to squeeze in there. Next year, I'll know to come earlier.


I'd be lying if I said the Strides wasn't disappointing for me this year. For one thing, since I parked so far away, I had to abandon my swag bag! (There was no way I was going to be able to stash it and make it back to the line by the starting gun. I tied my T-shirt around my waist and bid the rest of the bag farewell.)

And for another, it was a pretty bad run for me. I was too hot, and I felt kinda sick (due to the heat or the Clif bar I wolfed half an hour before race time, who knows?), and I came thisclose to just stopping and walking, which should not happen to me on a flat course after FOUR YEARS of running. I should be able to run a 5K without dying, and I should be able to run it in under 35 minutes.

I ran the whole way, but I missed the 35-minute goal.

But at least I finally remembered to take pictures during the race!


My dad at the turn-around.


Maybe I should have stopped to get a better photo of the silly fruits and veggies (plus the Flying Pig, just to remind you of what you'll be doing in two months) that cheer you on. My on-the-run photo seems somehow perfectly framed to make people in felt produce costumes and saggity pig outfits seem off-kilter. But they are very nice and encouraging!

After the race, we went to IHOP, which was nice.


So for two weeks after the Strides, my goal was to increase, um, my stride. My steps when running are kinda tiny and shuffly (especially when I get tired), and I figured an easy way to improve my pace was to just make each step longer.

And then, at the end of Week 6, everything changed.

Wow.

Scenes from the nineteenth floor

I'm not that Kelly

I've gotten a couple of strange comments in the past week or so. This was a few days ago, and I figured it was spam and deleted it (although there was no link):

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Furlough, Day Four: Furloughier Than Ever":

0 comments because you are nowhere as talented. Jealousy will heal over time.

And yesterday, a new comment that seems to explain the previous one:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Coming soon to a mall near you!":

i saw your comment on that girls blog who you called "commonplace" and i just wanted to say that you were 1. not hiding behind an anonymous name and 2. you were so right about everything you said. I don't understand why this girl is worshipped for style that isn't even real style..except all she does is wear cheap forever 21.

So I guess some other Kelly is talking smack about someone on the Internet. Is this person linking to my blog or something, or are people just finding it through a Google search for Kelly Hudson? Because it's not me, anonymous commenters - I promise!

UPDATE. Thanks to those of you in comments who pointed me to the offending post, on a site called fashiontoast. Somebody really did comment as "Kelly Hudson" with a link back to my blog! What person who knows of my blog would even do such a thing?

Anyway, I've written the site admin asking that the comment be taken down. Hopefully she'll have time; her site appears to be a good deal bigger than this one, and according to commenter meso, this sort of thing happens over there all the time. Ah, well - if it's not taken down, people will just come here and learn about what happened through this post.

Coming soon to a mall near you!