Congrats to Marisol and Marvin!

CONGRATS TO MARISOL AND MARVIN ON THEIR MARRIAGE!

Here's the link to all 100+ pictures from their wedding: Joe's Shutterfly Site

Blogging from above

No I didn't die.  I am currently on a flight to Vegas for my cousin Rodell's wedding.  I am pretty excited about getting to see all of my relatives that I have not seen in a while. Obviously all of Rodell's brothers and sisters will be there.  I don't even know the last time I saw all NINE brothers and sisters together.  It must have been one of their weddings or something.  I have no idea who got married last...too many to keep up with!  I haven't seen Rodney, Rodger, or Jun in it seems like forever! It will be a great family reunion with TONS of pictures.  I brought my 75-300mm lens so I should get better than usual shots of the wedding.  When I am so far the normal lens doesn't help a lot.  I'd like to buy a new camera body, as this one just doesn't do all I would like, but that will have to wait until I strike it a little rich.

Chloe gave Jaz and I some good luck smurfs for our trip.  Legend has it that when Chloe had these smurfs in her bag at school, she got 100% on her test.  I like to think it was just that she was smart enough to earn that 100%, but I guess that lesson will have to be taught a little later on in life.  I will still bring them with me when I hit the tables, because quite honestly, I can use all the help I can get!

Now onto the important task at hand for the year: The Marathon!  Training has been going pretty well.  Take a look at the past couple of posts, I have some VLOGs up on youtube talking about some of the training, trials, and tribulations.  This weekend would mark the end of week 4 of the marathon training.  I will admit, I have not been doing as good with the runs I am supposed to be during the week as I had hoped.  I have only been doing two of the scheduled three runs during the week.  According to the schedule, I am supposed to run each day Tuesday-Thursday with varying and progressively increasing short runs and then Saturday I do my progressively increasing long runs (which I have been running with CARA).  This week was kind of screwy because of the vacation we had scheduled to Vegas.  I originally was going to run my long run as scheduled in Vegas on Saturday.  After checking the weather was going to be over 100 degrees, I quickly changed my mind.  I ended up running the long run today of 9 miles.  Problem is that I had a pretty good 3 mile run yesterday as well. Normally the long run is preceded by a rest day.  Since it was "only" 9 miles, I figured I could tough it out, and I did.  This run did make me want to scrap my Polar HRM and footpod though.  It just appears that the Polar is making me "faster" than I really think I am.  I am pretty sure it has to do with the fact my laces are diagonal on my new Asics Nimbus.  (Oh I didn't even take a picture of my new shoes!  Remind me to do that!)  Again...gotta strike it a little rich to score a Garmin. :)

The CARA group runs have been very helpful and motivating.  My normal pace is about 12 minutes per mile, but the slowest pace at the group is 11:30, so I have been running with that pace group.  It hasn't been so bad running a little faster, but I guess we will see what happens when we really turn up he mileage around 15 miles and such.  I'm dreading it, and looking forward to it at the same time.  I should really get that third run during the week, maybe that will help me out even more during the long runs.