I just ate the last slice of my birthday cake – it’s a yellow cake with whip cream frosting and strawberries which is so delicious that I could eat it everyday. With this last piece of cake, my birthday weekend has ended. I had such a great birthday weekend, the weather was beautiful! I got to rock a baby to sleep and I got to sleep with a cat. I got to hang out at home with my family and eat my favorite cake – but I’m so happy mainly because I ran this 10 mile race on Sunday so much faster than I thought I ever could, I finished in 1:32, so a little under 9:15 pace, but for the first 6 miles I had tracked under 9 minute pace and I’m kind of still in a little bit of a high from it.
I know – it’s still pretty slow in the grand scheme of things, but it’s pretty speedy for me and it’s such a gift to myself that at 41 I’ve somehow managed to be in such great shape – that I now somehow have a body that can move quickly and actually run 10 miles at a time. I miss my running partner – did I tell you that her knee got injured via dog collision at the dog park? – so she hasn’t run with my for the last month or so and she’s my big motivator – she’s a great running partner, a little faster than me, a little more determined than me, and always cheering me on. So it’s been hard the last four weeks just training on my own. We had dinner at her house on Friday night. I promise not to talk too much about running because even though I’m very excited about it, I think it can be mind-numbingly boring to everyone else.
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I babysat on Saturday night – a trio of children and the youngest one – a toddler really – but a baby to me. I got to hold him and feed him and rock him to sleep. And he so peacefully went to sleep in my arms and I remember so well doing the same thing for Vince 10 years ago. Jeremy had this ingenious plan that I spend the night at my babysitting gig because then the parents could stay out as late as they wanted and I could go to sleep right after the kids went to sleep and slip out for my race in the morning. Which I did because all the kids were asleep by 8:15 and I was asleep by 9:15 (with the cat – I love cats but can’t have them anymore because some regularly visiting Martins are allergic).
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Finally, an article from the NYTimes that quotes Jeremy.