i did it!!!

well...the moment we've all been waiting for. i did it. i ran the half marathon last saturday. and you know what? it was great. here cara and i are before the race: cara and i ran together pretty much the whole time, except at the very end. i was so happy to be running with her. it was a totally bonding experience. the first half of the run i was grumpy and sucking and she helped me and motivated me.
then, when we were halfway we reached the peak of a hill and i looked over into the valley and it was gorgeous! there were green fields with horses and cows in them and the smell of wet grass and hay filled me. i knew we were halfway there and i got this sudden surge of adrenaline and felt like i could run forever. it was thrilling! that's when i got to help cara run.
we ran and ran and i kept getting more and more thrilled. i was looking at the sunflowers along the path and i felt like they were cheering for me (corny, i know, but helpful imagery for me. i've been meaning to go back and take some pics of those cheery flowers and post them so you can see them, too). the second half of the race seemed to go much faster for me than the first. before i knew it we were running back into the neighborhood. i took off, giving it all i could. chris and matt were cheering as i ran my way to the finish line! here i am:

and here comes cara:

we did it!!
this is my victory cheer:thrilling. i'd like to do it again. maybe in january. maybe i can run it faster next time. we'll see.

i did it, part 2:

today i did the stupidest thing i've done in a long time. i stapled my foot. how did i staple my foot? well, i was decorating my bulletin board for work. my shoes were squeezing my feet so i took them off since i was alone in my room. then i opened up the stapler so i could staple some papers to the board. i set the stapler down on the floor, grabbed the papers from a nearby desk, walked over to the board and **OUCH!**

(thought:) "did i really just do that?" (looks down) "yes. yes i did. i am a moron"

the staple went all the way in and i had to pull it out. yuck.

and i know the last thing you want to see is a picture of my foot but i just wanna toss this up there as proof of my idiocy. see those two little red dots on the right side of my foot? yep, those caused me a lot of pain today.