Lucky Week

I am having one lucky week.
I almost cannot believe it.

So it started Sunday with this

Ring! Ring!
"Hello?"
"Hi may I speak with Caroline please"
"Yes this is Caroline"
"Hi it's Danny from the ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW!"
"AHHHHHHHHH! HI!!!!!"
"I have 2 guarantee tickets for you for September 15 do you still want them?"
"YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you!!!!!!"

Going to the Ellen Show is like going to a party,  it is so fun!  I have been lucky getting tickets to go a few times already.  It helps to be local to get them I think and also knowing when to request the tickets is key!

Monday I find out that I won a NUUN giveaway on Kerrie's blog!

And now today...the big one.
This morning I went to the hospital for my 6 mos scan.  For the new readers, the short story, I have a tumor in my left kidney and I have to have scan every 6 mos to see if it grows.  I do not know if it is cancer or not because they cannot do a biopsy on those tumors.  It has been there for 2 years now.
When I got back I went for 3 miles run.
It went great.
When I got back I checked my email and I had one from the Keith Urban fan club saying this: 

CONGRATS! You've Won Our Keith Urban "Feet Up On The Dashboard" Street Team Contest!‏

 The prize is 2 Backstage pass to go Meet Keith.  

I could not believe it!
For the contest we had to email a picture of what we like to do during the summer time.
Most people sent pics of themselves relaxing by a pool and a lot of folks took pics of themselves with their feet up the dashboard of their car.  They went with the title of the contest! I decided to send this picture:

I said I like to spend my summer time running a half marathon by the ocean and listen Keith's music in my ipod while I do this!!!  Who knew running would get me to meet Keith again!!!  I am really happy but I also have a huge problem now.

I get one pass. I have another one for a guest.
I have 2 sons.
Now if you read my posts you know they both LOVE Keith.  For new readers who don't know the story it is here

How do I pick? One will be jumping of joy and one will be heartbroken.
I think mini Urban should come with me for this one.

Yes that is Keith on the cake.

Remember the little video we made for Emz 24h marathon run? It was him in the back singing and playing air guitar with a piece of paper!

For now he has the lead....they dont know about this yet...concert is in 2 mos I still have time to think about this.
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Sunday fight

I finished week 7 of my Disney Half Marathon training. 
I am not sure about how to run this thing yet.  For fun and take pictures along the way with the Disney characters or run it like a regular race.  I have the Long Beach Half  just a month after and this one could have been the race to chase a PR but I know I will be really tired come race day.  We will have a really busy Saturday that weekend.  We have to get to LB for the kids race and then hit the Expo to get my race packet and hopefully meet a few of you.  In the evening, we have to head to LA to go see this guy play at Staples Center (I know poor me).

Paso Robles, June 2010

After the concert,  we will drive back to LB and spend the night there.  All this with the boys of course, cannot go see Keith without the boys, I don't think  my 5 yrs old son would ever speak to my again if I went without them.  So Disneyland may be the race to pick to chase the PR for me and do my best in LB and if there is 2 PR than even better!

Week 7
Mon: 4.5 miles tempo
Tue: 3 miles easy
Wed: 3 miles
Thu: 5 miles. Speedwork: 11x400 @ 2:10
Fri: Rest
Sat: LR: 9 miles
Sun: 3 miles recovery
Total: 27.5

Sunday we had crazy rain here and thunderstorms.  I had to wait to go for my run.  Finally around noon it stopped and I was able to go.  I had looked at the weather...90 degrees and 90% humidity...yeah! That was fun.  Not really.  Good thing I only had 3 miles to do and that I brought water even for this short run.  I feel for you guys who have been running in humidity.  It is HARD.  On my way back I saw that there was a guy with 2 dogs ahead of me on the trail.  I knew I would catch up with him.  As I got closer I could see that his 2 Rottweilers were NOT on leash. Now before I continue with this I want to say: I love dogs.  I have a dog and I adore her.  There she is, the queen of my house:

Ok so I was not too happy to see that they were not on leash.  On that trail ALL dogs are supposed to be on a leash.  There's 2 sections on the trail: dirt and pavement.  I was on the pavement and same for this guy and his dogs.  As I got closer I realized that unless I completely stopped I would have to pass him.  He had no clue I was coming behind him.
Then one of his dog decides to stop! Crap.  The guy does not see his dog is not following and me well I froze.  I have to say that when I was about 8 I was attacked by a Rottweiler and so I do not like them very much.  I am sure most of them are great. 
So I yell "Hey!" to get this guy's attention and he turned around.  He did not say anything.  I don't know like "Sorry, he will not hurt you".  Did not put the dogs on the leash that he had in his freaking hand either!  So I said in my normal voice, not my angry voice "You know they should be on a leash here" and he said " You are a F#$%ing Bitch!" Wow thanks... (clearly he was not Canadian cuz that was not very NICE).  I cannot have someone call me that and not say anything back...  That's just not me.  I said: "Well aren't you a nice guy.  You also do not own this public path."  And again he showed what a gentleman he was "Run away F%$#ing Bitch!" And I did because well I was alone and even though I was WAY taller than him, he was a lot heavier than me plus he had the dogs, but I showed him how tall my middle finger is before I left him.
I know, I know. Very stupid.
I just cannot stand people like that. 
I confessed my crime when I got home.  I started like this "Now I have something to tell you but before I do you need to remember that I could have easily decided not to say anything...."  Bill knew it would not be good right then.

To continue with real nice folks..what is up with anonymous people email bloggers just to be mean? Do you get those sometimes?  I got an email yesterday about this post here.  Some nice person emailing me to say
 "At 5"11" you must look like an moron at the start of a race.  Real runners are not that tall."
Lovely right?  This had to come from a world class runner because clearly they know their running facts.
I know I need to ignore this BS.  Poor little sad sad anonymous man or woman.

I am having a great week so far as you can see...or read.

Did speedwork yesterday 5x800 at 4:30 and 4.5 miles today in 95 degrees that was harder I think than the 800s.

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Me, Keith and Bryan

THANK YOU JIM!!!!

Aren't those great?

I decided to do my long run today in case the rain decide to join the nasty wind we have.  Yes once again some wind for my long run.  I am getting a little tired of it.  9 miles today.  5 of those facing the freaking wind.  At times it was so strong I lost my balance.  Bill's response to that: "Put some weight on!".  No comment.   I took these 2 guys with me in my ears for my run:

I took the picture of Keith the first time I saw him in concert, front row seat, that was great.  REALLY GREAT.

I also took EFS liquid shot, this time vanilla flavor.  This one is better for me.  Less sweet. I can even take it while "running".  I have to slow down but no need to actually walk.  Last week I did not take any water with the EFS liquid shot.  This week I took some and followed Chris K's advice and took small sips after taking the shot.  It worked fine for me.  I cannot tell you how happy I am that this stuff works for me.

If I run like I did today for my next half marathon and even If I crash for the last 4 miles (WILL NOT HAPPEN) I would get a PR.  :)

Next week I won't have a long run, I am racing on Saturday (10K) and my best friend from Quebec will be in San Diego for a medical seminar and we are headed there to meet her! I cannot wait!  I have never been to the city of San Diego, I have been to the San Diego Zoo, that's it. 

Now time to go park my behind in front of the TV.  Loved the games yesterday! We have a true Cinderella in the tournament! VCU!  The look on the VCU coach's face says it all:

Yes EMZ I will be cheering for U fo A.

I am still leading my pool, even with Ohio loosing. That is crazy.

I still have a chance to win this thing, I need the CATS to take UConn OUT.

If I win, I will make another donation for EMZ's crazy 24h hour run on a treadmill.  You read that correctly.  If you don't already know about this go here: 

 http://royalpitatoias.blogspot.com/2011/02/dirty-little-secret-all-american.html

GO CATS!

15 minutes of fame

Happy Valentine's Day! I am not the biggest fan of that "holiday" to be honest.  My wedding anniversary is what I consider my Valentine's day and well I did not get married on February 14! 

Ran 3 miles this morning, still working on the arm thing.  It will take time for this to feel "natural", for me not to have to think about it all the time. 

Last night I got a message on my Facebook page telling me that a picture of my family and Keith Urban was published in the magazine "Country Weekly". I thought this was a joke but she told me that it was for real.  So Bill went on the hunt for that magazine last night.  Not as easy to find as Time magazine.  I told him to try the grocery store by our house first.  He went to Barnes and Nobles, Target, Walgreens and then the grocery store by us where he found the magazine!!  Lesson here: listen to your wife, sometimes she is right.  So it is true our picture with Keith Urban is in this week's issue of Country Weekly, it even has all of our names printed and where we are from.   I showed it to my boys this morning and the look on their faces was priceless!!!  I scanned  the page from the magazine here it is:

Back in November when I had maybe 10 followers I had a post about our Keith Story.  I re-post it below, that explains how we end up in a magazine today.

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My sons are both OBSESSED with Keith Urban.  Not Batman, not Buzz Lightyear, not Ben 10 or any other super hero most boys their age are obsessed with.  For us it is all about KEITH.   This love affair started back when my older son was about 19 mos old.  I left him in the playroom while I was changing his baby brother's diaper, the TV was on and somehow he figured out how to change the channel.  He put the TV on CMT and park himself in front of the big TV, mouth wide open like he had seen Santa Claus!!!  I kept checking on him to make sure he was fine then he started to cry and scream pointing at the TV.  I came to see what was wrong, he was just pointing at the TV.  Well thank God for TIVO!  I hit rewind and the tears stopped!!! Like magic!  Did not pay much attention at what was on, some guy playing guitar, never seen him before.  The song ends, the crying came back.. and it went on and on and on....you get it right...So after 43 times I learned the name of the dude causing all this commotion: Keith Urban.  So I kept the recording of this one video of course...the song was BETTER LIFE (now the official anthem of our family!!)  Of course I thought this would pass....Oh no....the next day same thing...pointing at the TV waiting for the song to start.  At the end the host says "And this was Keith Urban and Better Life" and guess what was the first word out of my son's mouth? No it was not MOMMY!!!! Yes it was Keith! I kid you not.  He would get up in the morning and stand in his crib and say KEITH!  After a week I got really tired of the same song all day long...so I went to the store and found a DVD of one of his concert and that saved my sanity or what was left of it!!!!

Since then we have purchased all of Keith's CDs and DVDs.  I thought this would pass and my son would move on to another obsession and also that my younger son would not follow in the under 2 yrs old Keith fan club....I could not have been more WRONG. 



Future Stars?? They were 2 1/2 and 4.

My youngest took this to a whole new level.  He also said Keith before mommy...one day I might forgive them for this I am not sure...and when he was old enough to tell people his name he would say - you guessed it- KEITH!    Last year we were at the grocery store and a lady asked him what is your name and he said :"I'm Keith and this is (pointing to me) Nicole-the-wife!"  This is not a joke! All true!  He knows all of Keith's songs he know all the words that he says on the DVDs even when he just talks between songs!
For his 4th birthday he asked for a Keith cake!  When he got his piece with Keith on it he refused to "break Keith" and he had no cake!!!

I have video of the kids singing and I put them on Youtube so that my family could see them.  Well in 2009 I got an email from a guy in Nashville asking if he could use one of my clip to include it in a video montage that they were making for Keith Urban's tour!  Of course I said yes! They used 7 people for this and my son was the only child in it.  He is right after the girl.  This montage was used for the whole tour in the US, Canada and Australia!  I got to go to one show here in LA and saw it in person, it was very strange to hear 20 000 people clapping for my kid!!!

Will , from one of the concert

In November of 2009 we  got to meet Keith Urban.  It was like Christmas for my kids!
He could not have been nicer!  I was so happy to be able to see my kids meet their idol and that he was just as great as they imagined him to be.  This was a great day for them.  They saw him play after we met him and at the end of his set he came up to my son Will and put his guitar pick in his hand and left the stage!  On the way home my older son said : "Wow dreams CAN come true!!!"