I drove to Reston after a late day at the office on Friday. It was so strange being up there again- I hadn't been up to Northern Virginia in a while. It reminded me of going to Radford- I can get around just fine, but I don't live there anymore.

I met Sam and Tiago up at TruSecure, and got to walk around up there seeing some unfamiliar nameplates. It's only been a year, but so many coworkers had gone by the wayside. I guess that's part of doing business! Sam is working on putting together a web album for his recent Alaska trip, which I'm dying to see (read: Sam, get a move on, ya hear? heh) and Tiago and I went out to Big Bowl for some dinner.

I was looking to carb-load before the morning's half-marathon. I didn't care that it wasn't healthy, because frankly, it was delicious.

My training for the half-marathon went like this:
~steady eating of pretty much anything I wanted, whenever I wanted over the course of two months
~gaining 4-5 pounds from not running regularly
~going out maybe 2-3 times a week to run between 1.5 and 3 miles
~hobbling on a knee that shouldn't be exerted.

(hindisght: it's a freaking miracle I'm not dead.)

Anyhow, on the eve of the race, my thoughts were that even with a cocktail before dinner and a big meal of pasta, if I wasn't ready for this race to that point, it wouldn't matter what I had the night before. Besides, the carbs would help my endurance and the cocktail would help to get me up early (it's a side-effect).

So it began. We left Tiago's place at 6am and headed in the dark to the Marine Corps base at Quantico, VA. (Full race details are on my workout blog if you want to read how that went.)

After the race, I started a long, tiring drive back to Richmond. It wasn't too long- probably only an hour or so- but the fact that I'd just gotten 5 hours of sleep, jogged 13.1 miles, been completely soaked to the bone and cold, then sat in a car? Yea, not a pretty combination.

I got back to my apartment, started spraying the mud off my shoes and went in the living room to relax and watch Season 2 of 24 I got through the first disc (4 episodes), and ... wow... that's all I can say about that. This show is amazing. Some damned good TV.

I took an hour nap and a long hot shower before heading over to Paul's place. We drove to the south side for a get-together at Mike/Laurens. Good times.

My new class is Finance, and it's going okay. So far, it's relatively interesting, as a lot of it applies to my current company as well as other businesses I've been a part of. So far, it's making sense, and I'm a big fan of that!!

Boy, Cheney ripped Edwards a new ass the other night. While I really don't like mud-slinging (I'd rather hear about what candidate A will do instead of what candidate B won't do) I think Cheney delivered a truthful message that the Kerry/Edwards team really says one thing and does another. It will be scary to see Kerry/Edwards in power, and I hope for our country's sake that we don't let that happen.

Oh, and before I forget- Congrats to Liz Campbell and her family- their newest daughter Ellie came in at 7 lbs, 7oz :) I couldn't be happier for ya, Liz!

Fall weather is here. I am so psyched!!!