Hopeful.

It has been a craaaaaazzzy week!  This past week/weekend I had an awesome opportunity to go to the National Association for College Admission Counseling conference.  This one is different from the IACAC conference here in the spring that I always talk about as that one is Illinois specific, where of course this one is for all admission staff and high school counselors across the nation.  The location of this conference changes every year but since it was in Indianapolis this year and more affordable to go to, we were able to send two staff members.  I feel super blessed that I got to be one of the people to go.  It was AWESOME.  So many great sessions.  I have lots of reflections and thoughts that I will be sharing in some future blog posts, so stay tuned 🙂

A little Boston update for you.  Registration opened up last week and I submitted all my information and have been anxiously waiting to see if I made the cut.  Today I got the unfortunate news that I did not.  Insert sad face here.  They capped registration off at -1:02 below qualifying time.  Which means anybody who qualified by less than that did not get in.  I knew this might happen,  I knew I was cutting it close but it still really sucks.  A lot.  I have been researching how to get into Charity spots for Boston as well, but from what I can see the fundraising limits are incredibly high and it is still tough to get into those unless you know somebody.  But this is where the story gets interesting…stay with me on this one.

There was a 5k being held during the conference I attended last week.  Now I am being honest, I had no intention of doing the 5k.  Really, I swear. It less than a week after my marathon and quite frankly I was looking forward to a little break from running for a while.  But there I was on Wednesday morning sitting in the common area, drinking coffee and checking some emails before the sessions got started when I realized my entire water bottle was turned over and emptied into my work bag.  Everything was SOAKED (those of you that know me, know this is a very typical Jill moment and has happened hundreds of times, sigh).  I happen to be sitting across from the area where they were doing registrations for the 5k happening later that night.  If you registered…you got a t-shirt.  And I thought well why not sign up for it so I can use that t-shirt to soak up the ocean that is my work bag?  Genius right?  So that is what I did and that is the story of how my brain decided to sign up for the 5k.

It was a beautiful night out, perfect for running.   My legs were a little sore after the marathon, but my body as a whole didn’t feel very fresh. So, I did not have very high expectations and lord knows I was not in the mood to “race”.  But then…the announcer mentioned that the male and female winner of the race get a complimentary registration for next year’s conference…in San Diego.  That kind of changed things a bit.   Needless to say, it was not a leisurely jog in the park like I planned and kinda hurt a little.  Was certainly not my best 5k, but I still pulled a sub 21 and won first female 🙂

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE.  The best part of all this?  See that cheesy picture they had me take with the male winner?  As you can see he is from Boston.  We got to talking about running and he mentioned that him and his wife are running the Boston Marathon.  I told him how I just qualified but was skeptical I would not make the registration cut with how close my time was.  Turns out he knows some people and might help me get a charity spot.  So there is HOPE!

I have some emails out to other charities just in case, so right now I just have to wait and see.  I hope I can get in to 2015 somehow.  My time is also good for 2016, but if it is anything like this year it might be the same case again.  I have thought about signing up for a marathon that is happening in November while I am still technically trained and see if I can pull a faster time, but I did that last year and my recovery was awful.  So the debate is still out on that.   I was really looking forward to running shorter distances and focusing more on Crossfit and Yoga for a while and right now that is still my plan.  The thought of going through another year of training or even a couple more weeks makes me want to cringe.  Don’t get me wrong, if I were to get into Boston I would prepare for it, but minimally.  I just would rather spend more time hitting the iron.

If it was meant to be, it will be.  Just to be considered a Boston qualifier is a huge honor and life goal for me that was accomplished.  So send some positive vibes up and I will keep you posted.

Stay blessed in the mess 🙂