In which I show you ugly photos of myself and talk about running.

I'm not sure what came over me in January when I thought that maybe I should consider doing the 9+1 Program through New York Road Runners. You probably didn't click that link, did you?  Go back and click it.  Maybe it was when this happened in January:

Oh, Miami.  What did you do to me?  Running in shorts and a tank top in January only leads to disappointment later in life.  Also, what are those pics!?!?

You guessed it.  I signed up to qualify for the 2013 New York Marathon.  And qualify I did, as follows:

Scotland 10k

City Parks 4M
This might be the ugliest photo of me that I've ever seen.  And Martin right behind me taking photos of my best side.  If you ever wonder how I actually feel about running, please reference this photo.

Healthy Kidney 10k

Portugal Day 5M

5th Avenue 1-miler.  A few minutes after this race, I thought I might be dying.  I would also like to note that during this race I also stopped to tie my shoe.  I ran my little heart out.  Then I remembered that I have asthma and couldn't breath for the next 3 days.  

Some races were not photographed, but below is the list of races that I ran.  

 There were many days that I did not want to get out of bed and run yet another race and there were a few races that I signed up for that I didn't run and wasted a bunch of money.  Such is life.  So now comes the hard part where in 382 days, I will be running my second marathon.  Let the countdown of death continue.

Being enough

In applying for various jobs over the past six weeks I have had to go through all sorts of past educational transcripts and be reminded of all sorts of test scores and grades that have long been forgotten.

Some random grades from my past that you might find interesting:

Aerobics: C
Travel & Tourism: A
Preparation for Eternal Marriage: A
World Religions: C
Biology: D
Orchestra: A

D in Biology?  I do know that I passed the AP Biology test, so I'm not sure how my teacher graded the rest of the year.  Also, how did I get accepted into college with that as a grade?  The mind reels.

Satan is good at kicking you while you're down.  All these feelings of not being good enough when I'm surrounded by people making a lot of money who have lots of graduate school level education and I was taking classes like Horse Back Riding in college and loving life.  And now I'm unemployed and applying for jobs as an administrative assistant.

Some advice that I would give my 15 year old self:

• Study harder and watch less tv
• Major in something that will financially benefit you more than English Literature
• Be on the track team in high school.  Running is good for the soul.
• Don't quit piano lessons.