I ran a half marathon!

All 13.1 miles of it (and I did it in 2 hours, 8 minutes)! As many of you know, I run cross country and while I like my 5ks and 6ks, I LOVE running longer distances much better! I'm so excited for my next half (probably in April).

Never be afraid to dream!

This probably seems rather insignificant to most, but for me, this is a milestone :) Three years ago, I was completely incapacitated and came close to dying more than once. One day while lying in bed, I made a list of one hundred things I wanted to do before I died. I had no idea if any of them would even be accomplished because my health was so frail, but I dreamed on regardless. One of the top five things I wanted to do was run a 10K. Most of you know that I've been participating in some races with my cross-country club at school, but those have only been 5Ks or 6Ks. Considering where I was three years ago, that is a miracle right there. However, I have stilled dreamed of running a 10K.

And next week, I finally get to scratch it off my list. I'm not sure why I put a 10K on my list. Probably because the number sounded large and...I was dreaming and the odds of it ever happening were slim. But, here I am. Those long months of enduring the embarrassment of a cane, walker, leg braces and exercises have made it possible for this dream of mine to come true. I am SO excited!

Yay!

I hate tooting my own horn, but this is really just too exciting for me not to mention :)

For years and years and years and years, I contemplated pursuing photojournalism as a career. I've obviously decided to take a slightly different approach to photography, but that doesn't mean I've stopped snapping pictures of events. A week and a half ago, I snapped hundreds of pictures of my teammates racing in Wisconsin. Imagine my surprise this week when I opened the newspaper and saw my photos. My reaction was actually something like this (not even kidding)...

"Oh look, a story about the team! Cool! They even included some pictures... [insert long pause] Those look like the ones I took....oh, they ARE the ones I took!"

I can be such a clown sometimes. Anyways. They included two of my absolute favorite pictures from the entire event. I've shot many different action/sports events, but I've never liked many of the photos. Usually the athlete has their eyes closed, their mouth is wide open, they look horrid, the quality stinks or the overall photo doesn't capture the determination, hard work and mood of the event. Well, I finally have my ideal sports pictures and my portfolio is happy! I don't think the editors of the paper could have picked better pictures:

Great job UMDXC!

Cross Country!

Not the greatest pictures, but this is what I did early this morning! Our women's team won the invite, making school history :D

because see-saws are the best places for team pictures....