Motivated to Succeed

2:00 PM - Went bike riding with my sister Su for the first time all year. We had fun. Temperature about 70 degrees and windy but sunny and not a cloud in the sky. Didn't try to cycle hard at all. We took a nice leisurely pace, went up to the school and did a mile on the track, walked a lap, jogged one, walked, jogged one, then came home. Total did 11.27 miles of biking and mile on the track in 1:10:00. Felt good. It's been a very hectic week so far. Went to Emma's graduation and it was so awesome to see her walk! Drama started when I got yelled at for saving seats by people. God forbid I save seats for her family that drove 4.5 hours to see her walk at graduation. Well they stopped for breakfast I guess. So I was out in the hot sun saving seats for a cool 80 minutes. I was okay with that, but it was just that one guy saving seats for five people I guess can look sketchy. But this a$$hole complained as if I didn't have a right to save seats, and actually went and got the cops. Her family was there, it was just that they had to walk from the parking lot to the ampitheater, and he went and got the cops and the cop comes down and tells me I need to move. I go excuse me? I have been saving seats for my girlfriends family. They are at the restroom. He goes: Nice try. And kicks me out. So I told him to go somewhere not so nice and do something that I don't think is anatomically possible, and this only further supports my hatred for cops. (All those but Scott Z. that is.). Well the rest of the week was nice. I got to spend time with Emma and her family. Got to see little Sky boy who is very big now, and it was overall very nice.

Yesterday was my 22nd birthday and it was bittersweet. Emma made me two paintings and breakfast and we got to go for a walk and all which was real swell, but then I had to work 4pm to midnight. My family came in to see me though. So that was nice. Had to run a lot of errands today though, and I work Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Oh yeah, I got a whopping .20 cent raise finally after 2 years. So I now make $8.08 an hour. Oh the joys of having a 4 year college degree. Talk about stupid. Can't wait to quit this job.

My achilles still hurts, and it doesn't seem to help me if I take time off. So it doesn't look like I'm going to be running any time soon. I'm going to try to focus on other stuff to get my mind off of it and maybe do a little biking this summer, but I'm not keeping my hopes up.

Finally my uncle had a massive heart attack and has been in the hospital for 19 days now. :( My parents went to see him yesterday on my birthday out in Boston, but he had a mini stroke while they were enroute and then another one today. So they are going back out there this weekend. I am really hoping he is alright. He is such a really cool guy and he definitely doesn't deserve it. I wish I could be the one having the heart attack instead of him.

3:30 PM - I worked until 3 today, and then headed home and outside in the sunny high 70s for a bike ride. Not sure how it was going to feel, but I ended up having a pretty good time. Absolutely zonked though because it was really hilly and windy! Went on the backroads down Hermance and up into Providence, a town adjacent to Galway. Then came home Barkersville Road. All in all a great time.

Thank you everyone for your comments and suggestions. I guess I won't think about any races then for the fall just yet. Instead I will concentrate on biking and trying to stay positive. I just hope this achilles issue is resolved by then! Thanks all for the kind words about my uncle as all. You guys and gals are the cream of the crop. Thanks for being such great friends!! FRBlogger for life :)!

Total Time: 1:11:21 Total Distance: 18.15 mi Average Speed: 15.3 mph

Steepest Grade % in bike ride: 16%

Maximum Sustained Speed: 34.3 mph

So I worked all day today, then when I got home it was a sad day because I decided to get rid of some of my bibliophile obsession (books). First to go were my six years of Running Times and Runner's World. They were just taking up space. You really only read them once, you know?. Then I went and got rid of 200 books, though I still have 2 and a half bookCASES of them! haha. Don't worry. I wouldn't trash them. I donated them to an organization that turns them into insulation! :)

On a plus note, Jonn had his last race of the season and the coach put him in the mile. I found this funny and ironic as it's the only race he liked to run besides the 4x880, and yet the coach only let him run it once this season where he ran a 5:20 something. Weather was muggy and hot and about 75 degrees, but my mom called right after the race to give me the good news. Jonn stuck with the leader for the first lap, let the guy go, then worked with another guy and blistered the third lap to catch the leader who was fading. Then Jonn burned the guy he'd been running with during the last 150. His time? 5:03! I could hardly believe it! This coming from a sophomore who surely doesn't do consistent training and whose coach only did field events as a kid in track. I told Jonn that with consistency there's no reason why he shouldnt be able to get to mid to low 4:50s by this time next year!! And with a mile time like 5:03, I think his 5k average pace should be somewhere right about 5:20, not the 6 minute I think it is with his 5k PR of 18:40 or something. Needless to say we got a bit of work to do this summer.

Oh, and scary, weird story. Emma was mowing her lawn the other day and hit something with the push mower that she thought was a rock. Comes out the next morning (yesterday), and sees metal sticking up from the spot, she goes over to it and pulls out a handgun which at first she thought was a toy. To make a long story short, the gun is very much real and is actually a late 1920s or early 1930s semi-automatic handgun from Austria. Talk about scary! Imagine the headline: "Local Girl shot by handgun: Lawn Mower the Culprit!". I'm just glad she's okay!