Sometimes you just have to laugh

Today, I had a 12 mile run scheduled on my Marathon training schedule and wouldn’t it figure that today also happened to be one of the hottest day of the summer. Did I let that deter me…no way. I was determined to get this run in, so I set my alarm for what was way too early for a Saturday morning and tried to get a full nights sleep. When the alarm went off..what do I hear….rain!! Not a light drizzle, but heavy rain. What is a girl to do…I needed to run.

So, I checked the weather and it looked like the rain was moving out of the area -PERFECT!! I laced up, grabbed my water, and headed out to the trail. By the time I drove to the trail, the rain had nearly stopped, it was just a drizzle at this point. 

I started my run and within the first mile, the rain had completely stopped and there was a slight breeze. The is going to be a great run, I thought to myself. Well, then I hit mile 5 and started to hear thunder in the distance. At first, I shrugged it off and said, ‘that must be a truck’. Nope..it was thunder and it was getting louder. Ok, at this point, any sane person would turn around and head back, especially knowing that I still had 5 miles to get back to my car. But did, I turn around…no way. I still had one mile to go to hit the 6 miles that I needed to make my 12 mile run.

Well, that turned into a huge mistake..I made it to the 6th mile, turned around and then the skies opened up and the rain came pouring down. I was completely soaked within 5 minutes, but I still did not stop running! Here I am soaking wet, in the middle of corn fields, with absolutely no one in sight…I couldn’t help but start laughing! What a sight I must have been. It is actually a good thing no one saw me – Oye vay!

Anyway, I finished those 12 miles, completely soaked, but feeling quite proud of myself. But next time, if I hear thunder, I am turning around

Peace.

Kevin’s birthday Celebration

Happy Birthday, Kevin!!

Today, my family and I celebrated my brother, Kevin’s 19th birthday. We didn’t do anything fancy, just dinner at one of his favorite restaurants and then cake back at the house. It was really good to go out with my family and just relax. However, it was a little sentimental because this is the first birthday we have celebrated since my grandma passed away in June.

I was actually standing in the kitchen cutting his cake, when I could hear my grandma’s voice telling me to ‘cut just a little piece’ for her. She never ate a lot of sweets, but on special occasions she never turned down a piece of cake or ice cream. She would of really liked the cake we got for my brother..it was chocolate – her favorite.

As more and more birthdays approach and as the holidays came nearer, I have a feeling I am going to have more and more of those moments of sensing my grandma or remembering the things she used to say. I am so grateful for all those memories that I have of her!

I still miss her terribly and wish she could have been here to see my brother turn 19, but I know that she was celebrating up in Heaven and eating a piece of chocolate cake in his honor!

Cumberland Gap

For all those that read my blog, I am terribly sorry that I have not posted in over a month. These past few months have definitely been a whirlwind for me. I want to fill everyone in on what has been happening this summer, but before I do that, I want to tell you all about this past weekend which included a trip to the Cumberland Gap! For those of you that don’t know, the Cumberland Gap National Park has the spot where you can stand in 3 states at once. Here I am standing in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.

After spending ten months in KY, I was never able to make it to the Gap until now – it was well worth the wait! So, last Friday, I headed back down to KY after work (for those of you who don’t know, I am back in IL) to hang out with my fellow roommate, Ann! I arrived on Saturday morning, we chatted for a bit, and then along with Alex headed to the Gap. It is about 1 1/2 hours away, so it gave us plenty of time to catch up.

So we get to the park, get directions on which trail to take to get to the famous spot and off we go. Of course, Alex and Ann make me lead the hike…bad idea! We hike for about a mile and never find the famous spot and soon we find ourselves right back to the beginning of the trail. And this is why I never lead hikes! Well, apparently, we had missed a sign that said ‘The GAP’ with an arrow pointing in another direction. Nonetheless, we started on the trail again and followed the sign. Here’s a pic of me at the beginning of the trail the second time around.

Well, we made it the second time and the view from the top was awesome and it was also pretty neat to be standing in 3 states at one time. We were also lucky enough to eat lunch up there without anyone bothering us. I ate in Virgina, Ann ate in Kentucky, and Alex ate in Tennessee – it was pretty humorous.

After eating our lunch in different states, we decided to drive to the Pinnacle Overlook located in the Cumberland Gap National Park. More amazing scenery even though it was cloudy.

Being away from Kentucky for a month has made me realize even more just how beautiful Kentucky is and how blessed I was to be able to spend so much time there!

The rest of the weekend included dinner at the Mexican Restaurant, late night chatting, church on Sunday, and lunch at Dino’s. Oh and the Brown Cow which has the best ‘twist’ icecream cones in Kentucky. The weekend went by way too fast and I definitely could have spent another day or two or five there, but I am so grateful for the two days I did have!

And a HUGE thanks to my ‘peeps’ for making this weekend an amazing one (you know who you are ).

Peace.