today?

i ran.

18 miles.

in 3 hours, 40 minutes.

for perspective.

if you drive from my house to just about grand marais, minnesota on the north shore without stopping?

or if you drive from my house to 30 minutes past the wisconsin dells.

it takes the same amount of time.

or you could watch three john hughes' movies in that time.

here's a handy 'jd's show and tell' for where myself and 5 other friends/runners went. if you press 'hybrid' it shows the lakes, and player cracked me up to see the animation...

not quite over the river, but through many many woods and lake areas. actually very scenic for just being around home...

it was hard work. it was long. but with phenomenal friends and others doing the same thing i was (3 of us are marathon training virgins, so this was our inaugural 18 miler), it made each mile much more bearable.

at one point cindy turned to me and said 'i really want to stop. but what am i going to do? i'm in the middle of shoreview!' :) so true. you just have to keep going. i know that race day on june 20th will feel just like that. i know there will be times i want to stop. but i'll just keep going..

after i got home we set up the tent. (part of some campin' stuff a friend lent us for our first outing in years at the end of the month..)



then i promptly got out my new sleeping bag, and fell asleep. i earned a nap.

today is ending much better than yesterday. yesterday consisted of a trying waitress job and tears shed on the way home. i am so very tired of working 2 jobs. and i'm having regrets about leaving the wrong place...i'll just go with it was an off night.

have a great rest of your weekend! mark just asked if i wanted to go to REI to get some more stuff since they're having a sale-palooza. outstanding!
~jd