Friday Fun

I registered for the Illinois Half Marathon today!  I'm so excited about this race, Courtney will be running the full - her first - and Jess from Jess Runs will be there to pace her.

While I was trying to distract myself from some craziness going on in my life this week, I gave a lot of thought to my race schedule for this year and what my goals are for next year.

Last month I toyed with the idea of completing my first marathon this year - there is a marathon very near me the weekend of my birthday...my 26th birthday, no less.  This got me pretty excited because if there's a year to run a full on your birthday, I'd say 26 is it.  That said, at this time, I don't know that I would be able to prepare myself both physically and mentally for a marathon by September.  I have a lot of races this year I want to complete and I've decided right now those races (and the people I'll get to run them with) are more important to my development as a runner and achieving the goals I have than taking the step of training for a full.

I'll be updating my race schedule this evening, deciding which races are staying and which are going.

This year my two major goals are to become a Half Fanatics member and to complete the Kansas City Half Marathon in under 3 hours.

I'm hoping 2012 is going to be my marathon year.  I want to do it, I want to do it before I turn 30 and well, time is running out!

Kansas City and Ragnar are my two really big (important) races for the year.  What races are you focusing on the most this year?  What made you decide you were ready for a marathon?

The Truth

"The internet isn't written in pencil, its written in ink." - Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

My name is Rebecca Jean Petro.  I was born at 8:35 a.m. on September 19th, 1985 at Ingalls Hospital in Harvey, IL to John and Beverly Petro.  I have one brother, a cat and one living grandparent.  I'm employed by DiaTri, Inc. I attended Olivet Nazarene University and Tinley Park High School.  I have a Facebook account I haven't used in well over a year.  I'm addicted to Twitter.  I own an iPhone.

Oh. My. God.  I put personal information on my blog.  The truth is, this information was already completely available to anyone that wanted to find it.

I'm sharing this information to prove a point: There is no such thing as anonymity on the internet.

My readers may notice I've never allowed anonymous comments on my blog.  I have two reasons for this:

1. I think people should take responsibility for their words and actions.
2. Nothing on the internet is anonymous.

I feel the first is fairly obvious.  When I write something, I sign my name to it.  I don't share anything with my readers that I wouldn't say to their face - and sometimes I do say it to their faces, because I know a good amount of my readers personally.

As to the second, I'm a pretty bright girl.  My IQ doesn't break the bank but I can follow directions pretty well and my reading comprehension and problem solving skills are (not to brag) out of this world.  And if this wasn't true; my brother's IQ DOES break the bank and he is actually educated in computer science.  If you really want to leave an anonymous comment on my blog you should be bright enough to figure out how to get around my blog's security (which isn't that stellar, btw).  If you can do this, you might be smart enough to cover your tracks well enough to actually leave an anonymous comment.  MAYBE (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt; I'm kind of lazy, I'll probably get bored and find something else to do before I track you down.)  If you can't do this, your comment won't be anonymous even if I did allow them.  

This isn't the first time I've discussed anonymous blog comments but I hope its the last.  My final statement to anonymous commenters (all of them) is this:  I know who you are, Anonymous.  I know where you live and where you work.  I know the name of your spouse and your kids and your friends.  I know what you do for fun and above all, I know you're not that bright because you honestly thought you could be anonymous.  Remember in school when they talked about your permanent record?  The internet IS your permanent record.

So readers, do you allow anonymous comments on your blog?  Why do or don't you?  Do you ever leave anonymous comments on blogs yourself?  If you do: do you say things you wouldn't normally say if your name was next to those words?

And as I said, when I write something, I sign my name to it:  Rebecca J. Petro.

Civic (Blogger) Duty

I'm going to keep it short and sweet tonight guys.

Courtney at Run, Courtney, Run (who also happens to be my best friend) has been named one of the 2010 Top Ten Best Endurance Sports Blogs!

She's now in the running to be named THE Best and I hope you will all help her out by VOTING HERE.

And of course, if you you're interested in checking out her blog, you can go here.

That's all for today!

Obstacles

"Obstacles are the things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal." - E. Joseph Crossman

Happy New Year, everyone!   How is 2011 treating everybody so far?

I'm going to start my 2011 blogging year (not sure if that's a term, but I'm making it one) off with a confession.  This fall and winter I went over 2 months without running once.

Yes, I had a minor injury that briefly sidelined me but after I was cleared to run it seemed like I spent another month running into brick walls.  I won't get into the ugly details but let's just say December was a bad month for me.

I refused to start this year like that, so I was out the door early in the morning on New Year's Day, logging my first miles of the year.  It was a hard run but it felt good, so I didn't mind.

I have definitely found my fair share of obstacles in the last few months and as a result I've totally lost sight of my goals.  It took a terrible wake up call in the form of a pair of jeans that didn't want to button to even slightly disrupt my funk.  I've pretty well gotten my eating under control again.  That's a positive step. Unfortunately, I can't get myself motivated to move.

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, so I won't make any.  However, I do believe in having goals and I also believe we need to have expectations of how we are going to conduct our lives.

My overall goal (short and long term) is to live a healthy life.    My health is my first concern.   Do I want to lose weight?  Of course.  But the most important thing is for me to be active and healthy.  I don't have the best genes working in my favor: Obesity, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Cancer, a whole host of autoimmune diseases. I don't want any of these.  I don't want anyone in my family to have them.   I expect myself to be an example to my loved ones of how to lead a healthy life.

I know WHAT my goal is, now I just need to keep my eye on it, rather than whatever I seem to think stands between me and that goal