Phoenix
Mike and I went to Phoenix, AZ for the long weekend. I ran in the Rock n Roll Half Marathon with my friend Chirag. I was amazed by how many runners there were. Nearly 34,000 total, and 21,500 half marathon runners. Because of the huge number of participants, they put us in corrals according to our predicted finish time and had a wave start. It took about 30 minutes to get all 23 corrals going! Mike says I should tell people I ran with a world-record holder, Haile Gebrselassie. This Olympic gold medalist set the new world record for the half with a time of 58 minutes and 55 seconds! If only I could run that fast! I finished with a time of 2:17:15. It was a little slower than I had hoped, but I'm OK with this time. I know now where I need to focus in my training. So all in all, it was a great day with beautiful weather! And the best part is that Mike is now motivated to run the Foot Traffic Half Marathon with me in Portland this summer! This trip also allowed us to see family. We spent Sunday afternoon and evening with my cousin Angela and her husband Bob, who live in Phoenix. We were excited to see them, as they are a fun pair! After watching Carolina beat the Chicago Bears, we had dinner with our grandma and Ang's parents.
Holidays
Happy 2006! The holidays are over. Mike's mom and sister came out to Portland for Christmas, and we rang in the new year with our friends Aaron and Amy at clarklewis. Amazingly, I kept a consistent training schedule in between the gorging, time with family and friends, and classe francais. Oh, and congratulations to our friends Albert and Julia who not only are parents-to-be but will be having TWINS! So far, it's a good year!