Yikes. Just--Yikes.

Now I really have to move my butt.

There's no turning back - it's all paid for.

No refunds.

gulp.

I'm Louisville bound in '07.

C'mon, ladies. (I'm calling out Pirate and Helen, too!) Don't leave me alone in this madness.

I went on an "easy" 6 mile run today as I'm tapering for SOMA. I forgot that this was THAT weekend. THE weekend. The one where they have the Duke City marathon. All the way back, people kept leaping out at me, clapping, screaming, "good job!" and trying to give me things to drink.

I thought I heard someone yell, "Bandit! Swarm! Swarm!" but maybe not.

A photographer kept trying to take my picture, too. I should have let him. Then, when I turned off the path, spectators were trying to help me. "No! That course is that way! THAT WAY!"

It felt good, a good 12-minute pace. I think my goal for 2007 will be to be able to maintain that 12-minute pace throughout 26.2 miles, instead of the 7 or so that I can currently maintain it at before my legs threaten to succeed from the Union.

So far, for 2007, I'm signed up for

• My very, very first marathon: The Rock n Roll Arizona Marathon, during MLK weekend. Husband is doing it, and so it Mini-me--er, I mean, The JONSTER. As soon as he heard me say, "40 cheerleading squads will line the course" as I was reading it from the descriptions, he lifted his head from the fog that it's often in.
  
  "Cheerleaders? I wanna do a marathon!"
  
  We tried to sign him up for the full, but he's on 15, so we signed him up for the half. It'll be a family affair.
  
  I'm also planning to do another Marathon in April, in Albuquerque, but I can't remember the name.
  
  
• Some triathlon in Rocky Point, Mexico, in May. I can't remember the details, and I have no idea how I'm going to do it since I have no more time off
  
  
• Ironman Louisville, the newst Ironman, which will be my first full Iron distance race. Louisville is very close to where my father's immediately family lives, and due north of Birmingam, Alabama where my father and sister (yes, I have one Sister) live, so it's very, very possible that one or both of them may deign to come and watch.
  Possible, but not likely.
  Unless Dad can watch cable, plug in his George Forman grill, AND be a spectator, I don't think so.
  
  In fact, I mentioned to Dad that I was doing this, and he said something like, "Gosh, that's really far off. I just don't know. Pretty far ahead to plan something."
  
  My Dad is retired, and otherwise uninvolved in anything other than Cable and the aforementioned George Foreman grill.
  
  I should mention at this point, that my father has never seen the house that Sweet Baboo and I built in 2004. Sister, meanwhile, has never visited me out of state. Ever. Once I crossed the State line out of Alabama, I lost the right the be visited.
  
  I lost my mother in 1998, and she was really the only one that was interested in any of the weird things I became involved in.
  
  But, anyway.

So, I've signed my life over to training for 2007.

It's not like I had anything else to do.

Other than, Oh, writing that paper for my 2nd master's degree. To finish it. Finally. AND THIS TIME, I MEAN IT, Dr. WELLS!

Oh, and put together a Dossier, which is required to go up the next level in my teaching certificate.

And working.

And taking trig or calculus as a refresher.

But other than that, I've got scads of time.

...