Becasue I am loving, every horrible, wonderful minute of this!

I am a run leader!
I signed up to be a run leader for the Runners' World Tulsa Beginner Half Marathon group. As my friend Pat (who recently moved from Tulsa to Iraq)said 'You are taking over, I can feel it.' Actually, Pat did say that only after saying it scared him a little to know that I am in charge of a group of people! The picture is actually of me holding a sign for my friend Kelly's group. But, this is the picture that went our on a Runners' World email. Isn't it cute? My husband has teased me to no end about this pic. My group is named 'On The Run.' So if anyone has ever had a burning desire to run a half marathon now is the time!

Training for San Francisco
Well, I have found out that there are three other runners from our running group going out to SF. So we have joined up to run our long runs together! This is such a relief to say the least. I am not dreading the long runs as much now. I have also been doing a fair amount of yoga. So cute story...we are sitting on the grass after we finished a group run on Saturday. Some of the guys are doing some streches, and some how I get in a conversattion with them about the names of the streches. All of the streches that they are doing are yoga poses. So it was really fun to teach them that they were doing pigeon or goddess' pose.

THE GARMIN....
So I have went back and forth for awhile about if I wanted a Garmin Forerunner (think GPS in the form of a watch.) Well, I finally conviced Stuart to get me one as an early birthday present. But, only after him asking me which model all of these famous (and mostly dead) past runners' had. Like Jim Thorpe...
He is still getting a big kick out of it. He enjoys this to no end, I got a text the other day with just a name on it. It was a runner from the 70s, he thinks this is so funny. The other thing is he called me at work to tease me about the picutre with the sign, because it was the first picture on the email that went out from Runners' World. He asked me for my autograph, and petty much laughed for the entire conversation. But, all in all he is a good guy. I mean he got me the Garmin, and he is pretty tolerant of my training schedule. He does tease me about going to bed early!

Things I have noticed/learned/heard while running lately...
Of course I am sure everyone's favorite part is either things I have learned or noticed!
1) People at Riverparks' in full exercise gear smoking as they walk the trails...is this an Oklahoman thing?
2) Yoga must finally be paying off for me because I have not tripped, fallen or otherwise embarassed myself lately.
3) Running by a guy walking with a McDonalds bag in his hand told me 'Girl, I think you need this hamburger more than I do.' He started chuckling to himself as he walked away!
4) Being told by the Riverpark patrol that 'I was a really fast runner.' Keep in mind this was on a hot day after being out for 8 miles, and I think the only running he saw me doing is the sprinting I was doing trying to get in front of a 5 year old at the water fountain.
5) Thinking people are looking at me because I am in such great shape, just to get in the car look in the mirror and find out they are probably wondering if they need to call someone due to the fact that there is a lady with some crazy looking hair, dripping in sweat with a bright red face running around.
6) Deciding that however tempting the sprinklers in people's front yards look, that I probably should not go run through them. I don't want police calling Stuart in the early hours of a Sunday morning to come pick his wife up due to the fact that she is the only participant in a wet t-shirt contest in some CEO's yard.
7) My favorite thing I have heard so far! My grandmother telling the waitress at the restaurant we were eating that I had ran 12 miles that morning! It was so great to hear her sound proud of me (at least I think she was proud, she could have just been explaining that she thought I was nuts!)