Running Army Wife

Yesterday, I knew I was supposed to get a call around dinner time to here if my husband has passed Phase 3 (the final phase) of Ranger School. His last letter had not been a very happy one.. I could tell he was really ready to be done. So our extended families, co-workers and friends were all praying for him.. that the call would be good. My parents and brothers already have plane tickets to go down there. We were really hoping/praying that he would. I had been looking at a lot of army wife/gf/fiance blogs and that was actually really helpful to read their experiences. Most got the call late on Sunday night. One got the call as late as the following MONDAY night. Another said that when her SO did it, the calls started coming at 7pm on Sunday. So I tried to relax all day.. and planed to be at his parents house for when the call came. I got there around 7. 8 O'clock came around and I decided to get on twitter and facebook and do a search for the phrase "Ranger School...

I got a letter last night! The bad news is that he said his chances of recycling were pretty high. He said that he heard rumors that his company had the harshest graders and they also said that they would grade officers harder than the enlisted guys. Great. So I'm praying hard. If he recycles, it pushes back graduation almost a month. He did include a food wish list! He said he was craving baked goods after all of the processed MREs. Ranger students can receive care packages at the end of each phase. Otherwise, they aren't allowed to be sent food, except for non-caffeinated gum. I've been putting gum sticks in each of his letters. He'll be able to bring the food and magazines I send him on the 4 hour bus ride back to Fort Benning after Phase 3. His wishlist included: Cake Mix Cookies Trail Mix Puppy Chow (yes, he underlined this one) Cheese-its Beefy Jerky Pepperoni Slices Peanut M&Ms Magazines (like Runner's World and Outdoor) So last night I ha...

Today begins my last full week of work (hopefully) before I drive down to Georiga. I got my first florida phase letter from the hubby on Saturday. Well.. I was actually not home on Saturday so I didn't get it until Sunday night. He said that he is doing well and really liked my care package! I could tell that he was getting really excited that he's in the final stretch. The bad news is that more than half of his company in the previous class had to recycle Florida phase. Not good. They had previously heard that Florida was the "easiest" of the three, but it doesn't sound like that is the case. My father-in-law has actually been in the hospital with pneumonia for about a week now. So the question was.. should I write him about it? It's not life-threatening now, but pretty serious. Apparently it was pretty scary for my mother-in-law the first couple days. So now we're just over a week and a half away from graduation, so I'm worried about them making ...

I've been trying to do my long run on Thursdays this summer. I got 10 miles in last night and it was actually the first long run I've gotten in since the Waterfall Glen 10 miler (almost 3 weeks ago!). I ran to running club, which meets only 2.5 miles away, ran 5 miles with my buddy Steph from the club, and ran home. Felt great, but my hamstrings were pretty tight starting at about mile 4 or so. I haven't been using GU gels this summer. Last summer, I used them every long run and would always feel sick afterward. I always thought it was just because I did a long run, but now I've figured out it's the gels. So I'm not really sure what I'm going to do once I do a full marathon. This was a pretty slow, easy pace. My fastest mile was probably around a 9 min mile. And I'm sure I slowed down above 10 a couple times. My average was 9:50. I've kind of been wishing I had one of the Garmin watches, especially since so many people in the running club hav...

A friend of mine from the tri club posted some more pictures! Here are a few. The lovely Kankakee Triathlon Club. My favorite part of the race.. coming out of the water. The run. My pearls matched my swim cap so they took a picture of me showing them off. :) Now that I'm pretty sure that I'm done with triathlons now for the rest of the summer. Which is kind of a relief to just focus on running. I did mile repeats on Monday instead of my usual long run. This was actually because it rained.. but I'm kind of glad that I got the running workout in instead. Then I got another 5 miles in at running club. I'm already doing way better on mileage this week. Also.. 11 more days til I get a phone call from my hubby! Trying not to go crazy. I also discovered Daniela Andrade and I decided I love her music.

On Saturday, I competed in the LaPorte Triathlon! I loved this race. It was my first open water swim and my first race with my cycling shoes. Even though the extra pair of shoes was only one more thing to pack, it still made me nervous. I'm used to running races where really all you need is your running shoes and you're set. Everything else is optional (for the most part). For a triathlon, that's not true. You need you bike, bike computer, helmet, bib number strap, cycling shoes, towel, running shoes, sunglasses, goggles.. omgoodness I'm already overwhelmed. I laid it out and took a picture while I was packing. My transition area. The dreaded lake. Me and my number. I love that part. I feel so hardcore. My new Brooks Mach 12 Spikeless Racing Spikes. With the laces switched out for elastics. During transition 1, I somehow put my sock on sideways and got a blister because of it. I'm still a noob. Me after! Glad to be done. My resul...

So on Friday, I was a little bit of a nervous wreck. I knew that I was supposed to get a call from James if he passed Mountains (Phase 2). I wasn't really sure if I would still get a call if he didn't pass. Now, I know he's really great at what he does but I knew something could still happen. I knew I may be getting a letter from him so I took a late lunch so I would get home after mail was delivered. I opened up my mailbox and there it was! I was so excited. I took it up to my apartment to read it. It was about 3 or 4 days worth of letters in one, since he had been out in the field. Then as I was about to finish up reading, I got a call from a 706 number! "James??" "Hi" "Did you pass??" "Yep. I don't have much time to talk. I just wanted to let you know that I passed, I'm okay, and I love you." The total time for the phone call was about 3 minutes. I told him I was proud of him several times. He said something ...

( source , Oh the lovely things) I'm a bit obsessed with bird tattoos lately. But I'm pretty sure it may be a phase, so I'm afraid to get something permanent. My favorite lyrics ever are "Oh when I die hallelujah by and by. I'll fly away.." from the really old hymn. I also found this awesome tumblr blog of all bird tattoos. I didn't get a call yesterday from hubby. Which is good. No news is good news until tomorrow... he guessed it would be tomorrow evening. I might be driving to Indiana for my triathlon when he calls, so I'm starting to get nervous about silly things like "what if I don't have signal when he calls?" So I hope he calls before I leave. I'm pretty sure I would have heard from him by now if he had to recycle, but I'm trying really hard not to get my hopes up. Tomorrow is either going to be extremely good or very bad day. This is how I've been praying for him . Even though he's not deployed yet, I still think...

Yesterday, Donald Miller wrote a blog post entitled " How to Live a Great Love Story. " My favorite quote from it is "Living a great love story doesn’t look like winning the lottery, it looks like training for a marathon." I love it when running distance is used as a metaphor. Some other quotes I love: "Sprinting is Sex, Distance is Love" - Anon "Take my feet, and let them be Swift and beautiful for Thee." ~Frances R. Havergal I already have told my story about running toward God to find your life partner. Training for a race is such hard work, but so worth it. :) From our college running days. I should get a phone call from my man on Friday!- hopefully no earlier than then because that means he had to recycle. :/ I read this blog post about getting the call about recycling. I hope this doesn't happen, but it's great to find people that went through the same experience. I know after reading this, if it does happen to m...

This is kind of a late update, but I did the Waterfall Glen Xtreme 10 race last saturday. I ran a 1:36:03, which is a 9:36 pace. Not bad, but I remember when I could do that loop at 8:30 pace. I would like to get back there. :) It had rained really hard the night before, and this creek was a lot higher than normal. It was about knee deep to cross over this foot bridge, so I decided to use my triathlon transition skills and take my shoes and socks off. It was actually the first time I have ever taken off my shoes during a running race. So I probably lost 2 minutes of so doing that, but this was only one mile into a 10 mile race, and I wasn't about to run 9 more miles in wet shoes. Nuh uh. I hate running in wet shoes. In other news, I will find out for sure if my hubby passed Phase 2 this week. If he has to recycle (redo phase 2) then I think I'm supposed to find out Wednesday. If he makes it through, he will get to call me on Friday. I'm really praying hard. He is also heari...