It's On!

Today is the day!

This morning J and I got up at 6am for our very first run of my very first day of training for my very first full marathon. It was short and more than hot, but I survived it.

3.38miles/32:38 (9:39 pace)

Good thing too, I need some structure in my life, I have been a major slacker lately.

I haven't really done any running in two weeks. Last weekend I spent Thursday through Sunday in Fort Lauderdale photographing the NASSM conference for J. It is an annual Sport Management Conference that is hosted every year by a different university. This year J and his collegues from UM hosted it and my job was to come to this fabulous beach resort where it was held and sit by the pool, drinking Pina Coladas and every now and then, photograph a meeting or lunch. But since it was the first day of hurricane season, it rained for four days and looked pretty much like this the whole time.







Needless to say, I ended up taking a lot of pictures. Although Tropical Storm Barry made a short visit, the weekend was a huge success! And lucky for us, Sunday (the day we were leaving) the sun came out and we got to hang out for a few hours at the hotel's amazing pool.







I did manage one treadmill run at the hotel gym while I was there. I hadn't run on a treadmill in almost a year and was a little apprehensive. For a long time in my life, a treadmill was the only way I could run. Once I finally got the courage to really give outdoor running a try, I became addicted and felt clausterphobic running indoors, so I gave it up all together. This run was actually OK though. It was a nice change for my knees and it felt good to start at a pace that I used to finish on as my sprint in the past. My average time on a treadmill run in the past was about 2.7/30:00. This time I ran a 3.1/27:10. It's amazing the difference a year can make.

It's also amazing the difference a couple of weeks can make. I have worked out twice in two weeks and feel like I have gained about 30lbs. Other than the treadmill run, the only other exercise I have gotten has been random dog walks and a long 6 mile walk on South Beach with J this past Saturday morning. I brought my camera and spent the first 2 miles shooting a lot, which J looooves by the way (sarcasm), but I picked up the pace for him the last four miles. Of course, the waffle breakfast we had at Big Pink afterwards pretty much cancelled out any health benefit to our walk. Here are a few shots since I know how much you guys like the beach.













Here are the rest if you are interested.

So yeah, I haven't gotten much excercise in and pretty much ate whatever I wanted and drank a lot of beer, but whatever. I know the next six months will be very long, hot and miserable, so I'm ok with it.

By the way, the weather here has been out of control. I know I complain about it a lot, but be prepared for a long summer of me whining incessantly about the humidity. I am apologizing for it now. There was a "feels like" temperature of NINETY DEGREES the other night at 12:30 PM!!! AT NIGHT PEOPLE!!! There was NO SUN! CONAN O'BRIEN WAS ON FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!

Sigh.