Well I’m back, but barely. I’m still behind on emails and such, I appreciate everyone’s patience. Before I forget, I’m going to Los Angeles tomorrow. Among other things, I will be judging a fashion contest (you can go too). One would have to ponder the wisdom of my being a judge considering this picture of me below -truly one of the most unflattering pictures of me ever taken, after the race. For some reason, I think it’s funny.

That thing wrapped around my waist is a plastic sheet, some sort of blanket thing they gave everyone. It was freezing, only 29 degrees. Also note the lovely shoes, a giveaway. Anyway, as I said, I’ll be judging the contest and touring Tom’s contract facility so I’ll keep you posted on that. As far as I know, I’ll have some free time available on Saturday; my plans (meeting Miracle and going to market) just fell through so if anyone wants to meet up or arrange something at the last minute, let me know. I am staying in Costa Mesa. You can either email me or keep watch here for any last minute notices. I will also be touring Patternworks so I imagine between the two, I’ll have posts up next week.

Onto the marathon. First, I have to thank all of my wonderful supporters. Thanks to all of you, I was the top fundraiser for the entire state of New Mexico! I wish I could have done as well at the running part. Considering I only started running last September, I didn’t do too badly. Out of nearly 40,000 runners, I placed 352nd in my division (of old hags) and 8887th overall which is still in the top 25%. Among women overall, I placed 4264th. That leaves lots of room for improvement, no? I’d like to get my time under 10 minutes a mile; I’m right at 10:20sec minute miles now. Actually, my real goal for all of this (other than to raise money for charity) was to pick up the running habit permanently so the jury is still out on that.

Funny thing…in the forum several months ago, we’d been talking about kaizen, small changes we could adopt that would change our lives slowly, and I posted a modest goal of putting on my running shoes. At the time, actually doing something like this marathon was totally beyond me. I hadn’t even quit smoking at the time, but look where I ended up. With the tiny goal of lacing up my shoes and no promise of actually putting feet to pavement, just making that pledge made all of this happen for me. I have to give Team in Training the largest share of the credit. They will take anyone -anyone- and train them to run a marathon. No matter how overweight or out of shape you are and all you have to do in return is raise money for charity. And if you don’t want to run, they’ll train you to walk it. I’d encourage you all to consider it too. There are chapters everywhere, most participants are female, over forty and overweight but they all manage to do it. It’s great. Think about it, won’t you?

Lastly, to thank each of my supporters, here’s a message from me:

Follows is the list of donors. If I have somehow missed your name, please email me for the correction. Also, I didn’t have web addresses for everyone. Please submit yours if it’s not here. It wouldn’t hurt to get linked from here considering my google page rank and it’d be a very small way of thanking you. I appreciate every donation, no matter how small. I do know that some people are experiencing financial hardship and I profoundly thank each of you for sharing as your means permit. Thank you!

[edit 3:38 PM]
Ack! Errata’s already coming in. Some people used the donations button (upper right hand corner) rather than the TNT link. Boy, that means I have to email everyone who’s made a recent site donation to sort it out. I was wondering why I was getting donations all of the sudden. Then, I’ll have to donate that amount to TNT. So, if you don’t see your name below, please email me. It’d be great if you could make it easy on me so I don’t have to look it up and tell me the amount, your name and web address. Thanks!

Anonymous 500
Dunford, Suzanne 500
Ortiz, Humberto 500
Cerny, Michael 150
Anonymous 100
Anonymous 100
Hartman Garcia, Vesta 100
Rodgers, Saundra 100
Wanzo, Miracle 100
Anonymous 50
Beck, Alisa 50
Burton, Christy 50
Hudson, Todd 50
Knox, Julie 50
Louis, Gigi 50
Markley, Jinjer 50
Meyer, Kevin 50
Murphy, Jennifer and Sean 50
Sever, Kathie 50
Vermeersch, Carol 50
Volenec, Brad 50
white, sharon 50
Blank, Lisa 30
Laurent, Patricia 30
Anonymous 25
Anonymous 25
Anonymous 25
Bachman, Meghan 25
Baker, Arlene 25
bennett, sue 25
Carroccio, Lisa 25
Cornila, Gini 25
Crews, Janet 25
Fitzgerald, Linda 25
holleran, Jane 25
jayne, carly 25
Kathrein, Victoria 25
kelly, colleen 25
Kerls, Kerri 25
Lachapelle, Christelle 25
Latham, Jess & Josh 25
Launer, Laura 25
Madison-Kennedy, Jessika 50
McClintock, Marsha 25
Meder, Danielle 25
Paterson, Diane 25
Phillips, Carol 25
Pierini, Heather 25
Raye, Sarita 25
Richardson, Raelynn 25
Roberson, Sherry 25
Routley Fosdick, Sarah 25
shaw, jan 25
vogler, laura 25
Vornov, Karen 25
Anonymous 20
Contessa, LeAnn 20
Santiago, Maria 20
Charvat, Darby 15
Clark, Karen 15
Thomas, Jamie 15
Anonymous 10
Anonymous 10
Carlino, Jennifer 10
DiCintio, Jan 10
Drummond, Andrew 10
Estrada, Natasha 10
Jodi Jean Baird 10
Killeen, Sarah 10
Kim, Jessica 10
Koch, Bambi 10
McHugh, Catherine 10
Oelerich, Pamela 10
Sannikova, Tatiana 10
Smith, Robyn 10
Suter, Carissa 10
Anonymous 5
Anonymous 5
Melander, Esther 5