Off we go!

Hello from London!
Currently I'm sitting in heathrow airport after a loooooong 11 hour flight and a somewhat frightening experience with UK customs. Seriously, the customs agent almost made me cry! Almost didn't let me into the country because i didn't have a printed itinerary and didn't know the full address of my friend's flat in Dublin. Ugh I hate traveling. I love seeing other countries but traveling is seriously the worst. Yet alas... I have made it through the first flight and in a few hours i will have my feet on Irish ground!
I will be in ireland for a few days visiting a friend who is studying in Dublin and then i will be headed off to Lebanon to visit another BFF who teaches in Beirut!
For now, I wanted to take this short layover as an opportunity to give a quick recap of my recent running endeavors!
My roommate Sam decided in the beginning of January that he was going to do a 50 mile run to promote cancer awareness. Being a cancer survivor himself it was an incredibly emotional event. I was lucky enough to run a few miles with him. Below are pictures of the crew heading off from one of the check in points along the way and pictures of me with Sam and a few of the
other folks who ran all or parts of the run with him.

Truly an inspiring day!
This past sunday i ran my second half marathon! I ran the kaiser half in San Francisco and it was great. I got a personal record of 2:25:15 and that even included exceptionally warm weather for SF and all of my walk breaks! I was thrilled and also relieved to be done with it. Seriously, running has become quite a serious thing for me as you can see from the picture below. The gear i need for one race is somewhat daunting. Garmin, gu gels, water, phone, racing pants and skirt.... The list goes on. I love it though and i hope i get a chance to do some running while I'm out of the country.

On the way home Chris and his little sister and i drove home on highway 1 along the coast. Here are some of the pictures i took from the car. It was great having them both at the race and having their support and then driving home on such a gorgeous road just made the day even better.
Well i must get on board my flight to Dublin. Hopefully I will be able to blog while I'm there but if not... You all better believe there will be some great pictures to come soon!