So apparently I am defective and, when I read that they were posting the results 24-hours after the race, I somehow took that to mean that the results would be up by 6pm tonight.

Until a few minutes ago this made perfect sense to me.

I also forgot to set my watch at the beginning of the race and, thus, have no factual basis for the idea that I broke 30 minutes.

But I think I did.

The run felt good. It was wet and muddy and very slow and crowded at the beginning. But I felt fast.

I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

I’m leaving in 15 minutes for the 5k.

I’m well rested, well fed and more nervous than I expected.

I haven’t competed - I mean really competed - in sports since rec-league volleyball in college. (I know, it’s a fun run. But I’m competitive. That’s just how I roll.)

It is dumping rain. Buckets.

I love fall.

More tonight, my friends.

One of my favorite parts of the library is the shelf where they randomly face books so that people can blatantly ignore their mother’s advice and judge a book by its cover.

Before I discovered this shelf, I constructed a system for finding new books at the library, combing the shelves in alphabetical order until something caught my eye and then marking where I stopped so that I could start at that exact point the next time I visited. However, this was at the same time that I was throwing away weeks worth of coloring because of one small mistake, so I’m not sure it was a great idea nor would I necessarily recommend it to anyone else.

No, a much better plan is trusting to chance and letting some library drone choose books for me to look through.

Spaceman Blues jumped off the aforementioned shelf and landed in my bag a few weeks ago. I originally got it because I thought Justin would like it, and he did, but I think I liked it more.

To find out why, go to the book list.

Break free from the confines of your feed reader, my friends! Break free!

My ten-year reunion is tonight.

As stated previously, I’m not going.

But because I still apparently care way too much about what these people think of me, I wrote this for the little book they make:

After graduating from the University of Washington with a Political Science degree, I worked at a number of jobs including First Grade Teacher, Paralegal and Bookkeeper. For almost three years now I have worked as a homemaker and stay-at-home-mom and find the duties and dress code much more to my liking - although the hours are horrible. Recently, I started working from home as a freelance copy-editor for a small marketing firm based in Portland. The income from that job helps fund my ever-growing flower, running gear, and cookbook collection. I have been married to Justin for seven years and we have one son, Andrew, who will be three in January.

I feel like a sellout.

My 5k is on Sunday.

My whole family is coming down with colds.

My throat hurts. My ears hurt. I can’t breathe through my nose.

I have been overdosing on Vitamin C, Echinaccia, Throat Coat and Elderberry extract.

I feel like I got run over by a truck.

This is one of my main motivations to improve my overall health. Our household seems to spend most of the winter in some stage of respiratory infection.

It’s ridiculous.

It must stop.

I’m pissed.

This is from a series of pictures that Andrew asked me to take of him and his race cars, you can see the rest here.

Lest anyone get the idea that I am completely depriving my child of the (ahem) benefits of children’s music, I want to state publicly that I do partake of one flavor of kids music, thanks to those wacky nutjobs at VeggieTales. (Or, as Andrew calls them, Those Crazy Veggies)

In case you’re not familiar, this is why I love them:

My favorite part? “Your umbilical equivocal is on top of your head” and the fact that, after watching this, Andrew told me Justin Timberlake was a Crazy Veggie.

Now that’s quality entertainment.

…for an afternoon snack with Johnny Tractor.

32.29.

The hills, how I hate them! The truth revealed by Google Maps, how I loathe it!

It’s faster than my previous 3.1 mile hill route time of 33.16, which is what any sane person would look at to see progress. But I have this hang-up about the 30-minute mark. I know I have it in me, I just have to find it…

After the 5k next Sunday, I am going to take my insanity to new levels and start incorporating a route that has downtown Seattle worthy hills (for those of you that don’t know, downtown Seattle has some hills that appear almost vertical).

I am going to earn that pint of Guinness on St Patty’s Day!

…Setting An Alarm.

This morning I didn’t and, as I heard Justin leave to get to church early, I figured Andrew would be waking up at any moment. So I burrowed back under the covers and closed my eyes.

When I next looked at the clock it was 9:40 and I could hear the sounds of a little boy just waking up in the next room.

I was bummed, in a way. We are going to miss church next week because of the 5k and that seems like a long time to not be in church. But, as I sit here in my pajamas and drink my second cup of coffee I realize that slow Sunday mornings have their charms too.

(As I was fantasizing about another New York trip on Travelocity while simultaneously chatting on IM with Jen.)

Andrew: “You don’t want the balloon to get your head! You can just get away from that balloon. The balloon doesn’t have to get your head.”

I went downstairs to find the string from the balloon wrapped around his neck and him running and batting at the air, trying to get away from the balloon.

Maybe there is something to be said for not neglecting your child in favor of unlikely travel dreams.

We went on our second annual camping trip last weekend. Last year, Andrew played all day and slept like a log at night. This year, Andrew played all day and was awake for most of both nights. Oh, what a difference a little sleep can make! I don’t know if he was just more aware of the surrounding campground noise (I know I was), or if the transition to nylon sleeping bag was just too much to handle, or if the gods of sleep were just against us this weekend - it was probably a combination.

I have fun on these trips. But, I realize how much I miss backpacking when I camp in a campground. I miss the solitude and the utter stillness. I miss the self-sufficiency of carrying everything you need on your back. I miss waking up early in the morning, packing up and heading off down the trail.

I know it will be years before Andrew can join us on a backpacking trip, but I’m guessing he will sleep really well when he does.

The rest of our pictures are here.

So I was just planning some new routes on Google Maps and, to my great consternation, it shows my route of the last two days as being 2.96 miles instead of the 3.1 that I got when I drove it.

Crap.

Faster is faster, no matter what. I’m counting it.

Dear Sir or Madam,

As your records may show, between the hours of 5:25 and 6:00 on Monday morning there was a downpour in the greater South Seattle region. When compared to the crisp, fall perfection of Tuesday and Wednesday** mornings at the same time, one finds Monday’s weather to be wholly unacceptable. Not only was one’s depth perception off-kilter due to one’s tendency to focus on the raindrops that were highlighted by one’s headlamp, resulting in the narrow avoidance of at least two potentially catastrophic collisions with parked cars, one was also unable to regain a normal body temperature for the remainder of the day, thus necessitating the wearing of heavy sweatpants, a hooded sweatshirt, and warm socks while turning one’s furnace up to 68 degrees. One was also forced, due to one’s inner coldness, to lay down in bed, burrowed under blankets, while one’s son watched two episodes of Sesame Street. One much prefers to ignore one’s child while he watches TV but was unable to follow one’s normal course of action on Monday due to the aforementioned weather patterns.

As your primary focus should be me, and insofar as you have the power, please strongly consider imposing a moratorium on all forms of precipitation in the early morning hours so as to avoid encountering this problem in the future.

Sincerely,
One Who Is Too Cheap To Buy A Proper Winter Running Coat
Federal Way, WA

*It’s worth a shot.
**29.40. In case you were wondering. Tomorrow I swim, Friday I hit the weights and Saturday I have a slow, long-distance run. Come Monday, I’m tackling the hills again.

Yes, it was on the non-hilly loop.

Yes, it was on a perfect, cool, fall morning.

Regardless.

I ran 3.1 miles in thirty minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

I haven’t changed my watch back to clock mode. I might just leave it there all day…

and then go out tomorrow and beat it.

This is what I was so excited about a few weeks ago.

Head over to the Book List and see what Rumspringa is all about.

I signed up for my first 5k! I’m hoping the pressure of running where people can see me will get me over the 30-minute hurdle.

It is the 8th Annual Run For Children’s which benefits uncompensated care at Children’s Hospital here in Seattle.

I am running with Team Zoe. As you may know, Zoe is the daughter of our friends Paul and Jenny and little sister of Andrew’s buddy Noah. She had a heart transplant at Children’s shortly after her birth and just celebrated her one-year transplant anniversary. Paul and Jenny were the grateful recipients of uncompensated care and they are trying to raise money so other families with sick children can take part in this great program. You can read more about Zoe at This Heart Broken or check out Jenny’s post about the run here.

If you are interested in providing a donation to support uncompensated care at Children’s Hospital you can contact me (jarygel(at)gmail(dot)com) and I will get that information to you.

Thanks!

One of the only downfalls of running in the early morning is that number of spiderwebs that cross my path. I don’t see well. I never see them coming. And its all I can do to keep from screaming when a particularly nasty one attaches itself to my face.

It would be so much better if they had encouraging words spun in to them:

Wonderful!

Excellent!

Hell, I’d even settle for Some Pig!

Maybe then I could finish that last .6 miles in six minutes instead of nine and a half, thus getting my 5k time under 30 minutes. I am stuck at 33:16 now. The hills in my neighborhood are conspiring against me!

I want to write about epiphanies, but I am scared. My superstitious heart is scared that I will burst the bubble, or jinx it, or royally fuck it all up this afternoon and my epiphany will be left meaningless - one more good intention strewn by the side of the road. This is the same fear I have when it comes to talking about God - oh, let’s just say it - about Jesus. I am afraid that He is too small to stand up to my mistakes, to my hypocrisies. I’m afraid that, if I say something wrong, it will somehow ruin the Great Cosmic Plan. I am afraid that my clumsy words will turn someone away or that I won’t be able to articulate what I am feeling and will have to rely on tired, evangelical platitudes.

And so I say nothing. And I let the epiphanies pass by. And I continue the cycle of half-truth.

I had an epiphany last week. Like many of my deeper thoughts, it came while I was listening to Andrew Peterson. This time he was singing about Abraham and Isaac, and suddenly, the horrific story of thwarted child-sacrifice in Genesis 22 was real to me. If you’ve hung around a church on a few occasions, you have heard the story. You’ve heard the allegory. You’ve sung some applicable song about God providing a lamb. You may think about that story from time to time, as I do. You may have been moved by it, as I continue to be. You may have walked away, thankful that you aren’t asked to offer up your firstborn son, as I am, everyday. But somewhere, in the back of your mind, there is still a doubt. No one can have that much faith. Abraham was just a man after all. No one could offer up their child. God must have whispered the plan to him backstage.

But what if He didn’t?

What if Abraham walked up the hill to build an alter and offer up his son with not even an inkling of what God was up to? What if, as believers, we can trust God that much?

This is where my epiphany comes in: I am to give up the thing that I love - without any proven contingency plans in place - and trust that God will make up the difference. I am to give it up without knowing what God will do. I am just supposed to do my part so that God can do His. (Dammit, there’s the evangelical platitude, sorry about that.)

Settle down. I’m not planning a child sacrifice. No. I’m talking about food. I’m talking about the way I use food to care for myself. I’m talking about the way I treasure my time with food and see it as the ultimate reward for making it through another day. Those of you who share the struggle know what I mean. You know that, on the continuum of things to sacrifice, it isn’t that far from firstborn son to naptime freezer run. You know, on any given day, you would choose food over your family, or your health, or your friends, or God, because food is a known commodity. And while it will disappoint, at least you know what that pain feels like. The letdown is always the same, a stomachache, even vomiting, the sugar coma, the sweet release of numbing all your pain - if only temporarily. Food doesn’t surprise you like people do. Food doesn’t devise new ways to hurt you and then ask you to forgive. It doesn’t hit you blindside like God does. It is consistently mediocre, and that consistency is enough.

Here’s where things get really scary. I don’t want the mediocrity any more. Jesus is changing my heart - as a believer I have no other explanation for it, because it is not happening the way I would have done it, were I in charge. I walk through the day and I am confronted by the opportunity and desire to binge, to fall in to those old habits and seek the known comfort. And then a quiet voice says, “You don’t have to. You know that right? In this moment, you don’t have to.”

I’m not trying to offer up a foolproof, five point plan for weight loss success. I am not saying that things have been 100% perfect since this epiphany, or that they will be 100% perfect in the future. All I’m saying is that, for the first time ever, I hear the still, small voice of God, calling me to give up the things that I love more than Him and see what will happen.

The chorus in Andrew Peterson’s song goes like this:

Holy is the Lord / Holy is the Lord / And the Lord I will obey / Lord, help me. I don’t know the way

And on that note, I will start the day.