Happy Thanksgiving (and Liz Trains for a Marathon)

I'm writing this Thursday morning (Happy Thanksgiving!) although my internet connection is somewhat in doubt so it's not clear when I'll actually be posting. I'm also writing this in a plain text editor (see my previous comment about the internet connection) so I have no idea how it will look when I copy it onto my blog.

Yesterday, I had every intention of getting up and going to the gym. I did not. I didn't go Tuesday either. Or Monday. One of my goals with this whole "Liz Trains for a Marathon" thing is to run consistently over the course of the month, even at ahem uncomfortable times. It's a work in progress. This month, I made one five mile run I probably wouldn't have last month.

The drive was, well, I'm really not a fan of driving in, around, or near Chicago. Other than that stretch, it was fine. There were these two crazy merges, one on I-90 and one on I-39 within a couple miles of each other and traffic was less than thrilled about it. This might be one nice thing that comes of me going to Indiana for part of this trip. I don't have to come home that way. Traffic was equally screwed up on the other side of the road.

For most of the trip, I listened to an audio book. Perhaps you've heard of it, Dreams of my Father. I really didn't think I would enjoy listening to a book while I was driving. Usually I prefer to dance and sing at the top of my lungs. It keeps me active and engaged in driving. But I absolutely fell in love with this book. If you've been living under a rock, Dreams of my Father is the first book President-Elect Obama wrote. He wrote it right after he was elected editor of the Harvard Law Review. And of course, he reads the book himself. Thank goodness too, it would be really distracting if it was someone else's voice. Some passages of the book are really eerie, in hind sight. There's one part in particular about moving to Chicago right after the first black mayor was elected and how the white and black communities in Chicago reacted. Although possibly my favorite part was when he realized how his (white) mother saw African children. I loved that part of the book because that's how I see Africa too. When I arrived in Cincinnati last night, I'd just gotten to the part where he meets Rev. Jeremiah Wright for the first time. He'd already applied to law school (glad I know how that turned out), but hadn't heard back yet. Anyways, it's a book I could really get into.

Last night I stayed up and talked with my parents for a while before bed. That was nice, to actually visit with them.

This morning, I did, in fact, get up and run. I went to a bike/running path and ran a little over 5 miles. Go Lizzie. I was supposed to run four times this week, instead I think I may do three runs and cover the same mileage. I'm not sure if that's cheating or not. So, for the record:
Miles today: 5.3 (I'm guessing on the .3, it was over 5, that's kind of a low estimate really)
Miles this week: 10.3
Goal Mileage this week: 15