Whew! What a title right?!  So basically, all these things are happening… presently, plus the normal full time job, dog, husband, etc. Life is BUSY! Which makes upkeep of friendships difficult. When we hit mid-October and I realized I hadn’t seen some of my friends that I was seeing every week, in over 2+ weeks, I realized that I was busy and that life was busy and I just might be becoming a bad friend. :-/  If you aren’t my husband, my pug, my family or directly related to running, chances are I haven’t seen you. God. I suck. I have increased my efforts to see my friends. Gotta get in something consistent with the friends for each week or every two weeks so that I can ensure I still see people. I love all of the people in my life and in order to keep em in my life, I gotta work for it. Like any relationship, they all take work! Long story short, I am working on it. It may take me sometime to get it all straight and together, but it is a work in progress. I will say that Leah had a birthday and I actually managed to get my husband and me both there! It was a great time with a bunch of totally awesome and amazing people! Baby steps, folks, baby steps!

Anyway, basically, to transition… this is important, the holidays are coming. This can be a difficult time for a lot of people. People passed away, people going through hard times with other members of family or other friends, losing jobs, etc. Life is tough. I just want to encourage people to be understanding and remember that no single person is the same and no one is walking the exact same life as the person standing next to them on the street corner. Hell, my husband and I have our shared life but we aren’t walking the same path. I am a computer nerd and he is an exterminator. 10 hours out of the day, our lives are almost as polar opposite as can be. So just remember, understanding and consideration are key this holiday season. DON’T BE A JERKHOLE. 

Being so busy means I have been getting up at 4 and 4:15 am to get my workouts in before headed to work (goal time of being in the office by 7:30-8am every day). This gives me enough time to get up, check email, eat a small something and head out the door (even to walk the pug, if he gets up outta bed before I leave for my run… this is happening less and less), with enough time to shower and do my normal morning routine by 6:40 or 6:50 and head out to the metro. This also means that 1) my life and most of my conversation topics, facebook posts, twitter feed and blog reel are CONSUMED with running. Running update this, 4am that, etc. This can get boring and tiring and to be honest, I imagine the majority of my FB friends don’t care that I was up 2-4 hours before them getting in a workout and beasting it out on some trail or another. I plan to work on this, but damn, when it’s between this and “gosh, grad school is physically assaulting me” (yes, that would be a repeated update if I spoke about grad school), I tend to pick running everytime. Even though there is little variation, at least there is SOME variation. I will work on adding more variety into my postings also.

This brings us to grad school and what a segue… I am only taking one class at a time. Mostly, because with a full time job and paying out of pocket so as to avoid school loans, it is all I can do to not feel constantly overwhelmed. Grad school is tough, no matter the field you are in. I am going for my Masters in IT with focuses in Cyber Sec and Software Engineering (Database Admin is in there somewhere… but those two classes are last). Anyway, I will get a brief reprieve in between Dec 9 and my very first marathon (!!!! and there I go again). Right now, I am in cyber security 1, for lack of a better name, but it is essentially an ECE class at an engineering school which makes it really hard, harder by the fact that it is at a graduate level. All command line/terminal hacking stuffs and while I am busting my ass and learning the materials, it isn’t something I have known before so I am learning what the prof is teaching PLUS playing catch up! So makes things SUPER INTENSE! (thank god I have an understanding husband!)

So these above paragraphs should have updated you on my life. I have been racing within training (I know, bare with me as I go over this). I tried my hand at a 5 mile trail race through fountainhead park on Nov 3 (I will get yall a recap soon) but basically it was tough as hell. Very hilly and super technical. I was more spent after those 5 miles than I was after my first half marathon. I have also thrown my hat in for both the NYC half in March and the Nike half in April (here in dc). We have a team set up for Ragnar trails in June and after that (maybe a fall marathon. not sure yet. gotta see how this one goes first). I will prolly ease up and stick to local races. So please, feel free to follow my exploits via twitter, instagram or facebook. I AM ALL OVER THE PLACE! You know you want me in your life.

I should be getting some killer pictures this weekend as I venture down to Cape Canaveral to see my VERY FIRST NASA LAUNCH! My pop (the super enginerd) will be going with me! Should be fun time had by all. I leave Saturday! I am so stoked to get to see some of my NASA buddies and witness this amazing event. I am truly blessed.