Heaven on earth

Because I feel like rubbing it in ;-)

Didn't want you forgetting about the glorious hotel in which we'll be staying whilst in London. ;-)

This time, 11 days from now...

...we'll be arriving at Dulles for our flight to London! You can't possibly begin to understand how excited I am. We've been planning this trip for, what, four years now, and it's such an understatement to say that I'm READY. Every time I think about seeing those familiar sights, and possibly visiting Kingston-upon-Thames, the town in which I lived for a year, I actually start to get choked up. My stay there wasn't always easy, but the bad memories have definitely faded into the background as time has passed, and all I remember is what a wonderful, emancipating experience it was. Here are some pics of my old uni town:


Kingston Bridge, with the John Lewis department store in the background. This pic was taken not too far from the dorm where I lived.


Kingston-upon-Thames, a shopper's haven. A lot of the central part of town was pedestrianised.

The lovely, traditional English market.

The Penrhyn Road campus of Kingston University, where most of my classes were.

One more dress update, then I promise to not talk about clothes again for a while

I managed to snag the green one in a smaller size and it fit perfectly! I'm SO EXCITED to wear it. Keep your eyes peeled for pics!

Oh well...

The blue dress didn't work out - despite the fact that it fit perfectly otherwise, the hem was a tad too low (what I wouldn't give to be a statuesque 5'10") and the ruffles were kind of overwhelming on little ole me - but I still have hope for the green one. Of all things, the bust is a little loose (not a place I normally have trouble filling out), but somehow, I'm going to make it work...I just can't bear the thought of sending it back!

Like I need an excuse to shop

We've got a bunch of weddings coming up in the next few months, so I thought to myself, what better opportunity to invest in gorgeous new cocktail dresses?





These are sitting on my front porch right at this very moment (I swear, the UPS guy must think I'm a shopaholic or something. Don't know where he would've gotten an idea like that) and I can't wait to get home and have a mini fashion show. Now I just need to track down some equally gorgeous shoes to go with them. ;-)

Race Report

Well, I just had a good summer's worth of road races crammed into the last three weeks, so I thought I'd update you on how they went. The half-marathon kind of kicked off the festivities, but you all know about that by now. I took the entire first week of June off to give my body a chance to recover, although I probably didn't need to...I was kind of achy the day after, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. I can't sing the praises of ice baths enough, as agonizing as they may be!

Anyway, Dad and I have made it a yearly thing to run the Bel Air Town Run (5K), which just happens to fall a week after the half. I didn't know what to expect from myself, considering my week-long layoff and the beating my body had taken a week before, but I felt amazing - I was strong, fit, fresh and ready to kick some ass. Unfortunately, my dad wasn't as strong, fit, fresh or ready as I was that day. We enjoy running these races with each other, rather than just meeting up at the finish line, so even though he told me to go ahead when he had to stop to walk, I stuck with him. We ended up finishing in 30:23, a full four minutes faster than last year, but he was disappointed. He was really shooting for sub-30 minutes, but what can ya do...it was sunny, hot and humid that morning, which, as we all know, is a recipe for disaster when it comes to running a race. And besides, he stuck with me last year when I had a bad day, so not PRing that day was okay with me.

Less than a week later, we were due to run another 5K, this one in Eastampton, NJ, which is right down the street from where I grew up. I was psyched for it...we managed to recruit my aunt, cousin and a family friend to join us. It was going to be a good time! However, the day before the race, I forgot to bring my lunch to work with me so I had to make do with eating two packages of peanut butter crackers...which promptly gave me salmonella poisoning. And it was a brand that supposedly wasn't affected by the recall! The lying bastards. I was up all Friday night with a fever and a roiling gut, so the last thing I wanted to do Saturday morning was run in the hot and humid sunshine (again). My dad was really disappointed that I wouldn't be joining him, but I made it up to him the next day (when I felt a little better) by going for an early-morning run with him. We changed our usual maintenance route a bit, and took a detour through "downtown" Lumberton. Doing so also extended the run to almost five miles, which is about as far as Dad has gone. But it was fabulous. You know how you can have good running days and bad running days? Well, this was a good one...we both felt light on our feet, didn't tax ourselves by going out too quickly and weren't completely spent at the end of it. And we were able to get in some great conversation. I think I enjoyed that more than I would have the race.

So now I'm all finished with races until the Philly Distance Run in September, and then the NCR Trail Marathon in November. I'm getting back into the swing of things with a few easy treadmill runs this week, and then I start marathon training next week (yikes!). Wish me luck!