Back To School and all that jazz.

I am trying to adjust to the school schedules starting around here and fitting my running in during the week. I prefer to run first thing in the morning, but find I am running at night instead. The mornings are too dark now at the times I get up. Soon it will be too dark to run in the evening safely out here where I live. I am going to have to figure out how to get my runs in mid day.

I got a Nike+. I really like it. I guess I like to see for real just how slow of a runner I am. But you know.. I ran the solid 40 minutes today - no walk breaks. I might be slow, but I can run and I will finish what I set out to do. It took me a long time to be ok with being so slow. It was hard to have everyone pass me coming and going on the long runs. But eventually I settled in to being ok with the fact that I am who I am and I run slow. I think I am running pretty fast - then I look at my Plus and see I am cruising at the speed of 13.1 minute miles. Mario Andretti of the track I am not.

I am starting to get donations in the mail. It is so exciting to see those return envelopes tucked in the junk mail and bills when I arrive home from work. It keeps me going. My family - all of them - extended and immediate are incredible. I just love them and am so fortunate in my life to have them.

I will be adding my grandpa Henry Kinnune to my honored list. I put his name on my wristlet to wear as I train. He died of Leukemia long before I was born. My cousin sent in a donation and asked I run the marathon in his honor. Not only will I do that, but I will also train in his honor.

This weekend we run 90 minutes and then I have been asked if I wanted to sell hot dogs again at our local grocery store. The last time we did that a couple weeks ago a bit of a fiasco occured with the group following us. We were treated very poorly by some of the group members. I let the store manager know what happened. As a result I am being set up to fundraise in conjunction with a big store event - a Tail Gate Party to kick off the Seahawk's NFL season. The store is donating all the food fixings and I just need to sell them and keep all the proceeds for my marathon.

Sometimes it pays to speak up.