And this is why...



Say hello to my disgustingly bruised and extremely painful quad.

Turns out when a dude rockets a ball up the middle, you get very little time to react, and last night, I just couldn't get out of the way fast enough.

It's one of the occupational hazards of being a pitcher. My mom never really loved that part of the job.


Nice backdrop for softball

Luckily the injury happened late in the game, and the ball hit about two inches above my knee or else I would have been in the hospital with a shattered knee cap.

Perhaps most importantly, I managed to keep enough composure after it happened to scoop up the ball and make the throw over to first to get the batter out.

I think my first words were, "I got the out right?" (Priorities).

But then I pretty much hobbled around the field trying to walk it off. I pitched the rest of the inning, which was only one batter I think. I don't really remember, everything hurt a lot.

You know the ball hit hard when you still have stitch imprints on your leg, and the guy playing in left center said he could hear the ball make contact.


This was maybe two hours after it happened and after 30 minutes of icing. You can't see the swelling in this picture, but it was massive.

To his credit, the batter apologized right away, and when I bumped into the pitcher and another guy on the opposing team at the Metro later, they both apologized too and asked how I was doing.

I had iced it down at the bar after the game, which helped a bunch, but trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in last night was impossible. I'm a stomach sleeper, and that just wasn't happening. Sleeping on my side wasn't working so well either because the bruise was so massive. So I'm fairly exhausted today.

On top of the exhaustion, I can barely walk because it hurts so much and it's just generally been throbbing all morning. Ice seems to help so I'll be doing that a lot at the office today.

I know I'll have the bruise for a while, but I'm hoping most of the pain subsides in time for Friday night's game. Until then I'll be on a steady diet of ice and ibuprofen.

This morning I ran the Frederick Half Marathon for the third time! It's easily one of my favorite races, but I haven't actually run it since 2011, so I've really been looking forward to running this course again.


Back in 2011, I feel like I look super young!

This year was extra special because Meghan was running it too, and it was her very first half marathon!


Meghan and I before the race (and before my headband fell off and got lost at mile 4)

We got up to Frederick about 45 minutes before the race was supposed to start, which left plenty of time to hit the porta-potties multiple times and to find Aila in the crowds.


Aila, me and Meghan at the start

We lined up right near the 10-minute mile pace group, waited for the gun and were off.

I couldn't believe how crowded the course was in the beginning. This is a pretty small race, and I didn't remember the roads being as crowded in years past. I also probably should have started closer to the nine-minute group, but whatever.


Random hot-air ballon fly over at the start

One of the reasons I love this race is because you spend the first part of it running through downtown Frederick, which is so, so pretty.

Plus for a small race, there's always really decent crowd support. In fact, near mile three a minister at one of the churches on the course was out with some people from his congregation cheering for the runners. I thought that was so sweet.

As we headed out of downtown, we turned to run along Carroll Creek. We ran through some neighborhoods where kids were handing out strawberries and high fives.


One of my favorite scenes on the course (Photo credit)

I was feeling pretty good through this point. My splits were faster than I thought they would be, and my energy levels were still pretty high. I took my first Gu around mile five, and was enjoying the fact that the first half of the course was pretty well-shaded.

I felt awesome all the way through mile 8, and up until that point, sub-two was probably still within grasp.

But then the sun came out, the shade went away, and I found myself getting closer and closer to my good friend the Wall.

Mile 9 seemed like it would never get there. I stopped to walk for longer than I would have liked, trying to get myself back in a good mental place for the remainder of the race.

It worked for a little bit and I ran Ok until about mile 11. Then the wheels started to fall off for real.

I was hot. One of my arms was chafing like crazy against my tank top (weird because that never happens in the shirt I wore), and my feet hurt every time they hit the ground.

Between miles 9 and 11, I only stopped to walk once. But between miles 11 and 12.5, I walked like three or four times.

I was so glad when we finally, finally made the last turn onto the track. I knew the finish line wasn't far, and I'd finally be able to get off my feet.

I crossed the line in 2:05:12.

Not my best, not my worst, but overall a time I'm pretty happy with.

Aila totally crushed this race and set a new PR and Meghan rocked her very first half.


With our hardware

As I was walking over to pick up my race shirt, I also bumped into a family friend from PA (who now lives in DC). She and her boyfriend had also run the race as their first half. They did great and are looking forward to doing another one! YAY for more runners!


We are all way more squinty than normal! The sun was brutal!

Plus I also bumped into some Twitter and blog friends! Hi to any of you that are reading! It was so nice to see you in person today!

Honestly, I can't say enough good things about the Frederick half. It's so well-organized and well-run. For a small race, the crowd support is always amazing. Plus the swag is usually pretty awesome.


This year's swag

This race is a keeper and I know I'll be back again.

April was a pretty great month around these parts. Some solid running, a nice little vacation, classes wrapping up for the semester. Really some good things all around. I'm almost a little sad to say goodbye to this month.

Sports

April was my month to ease into softball before all my teams get into the swing of things in May. Managing one team with games only one day a week seemed so easy, breezy. By the end of next month, most weeks I'll have three, if not four games. Love summer softball season!

Also caught the Orioles game last Sunday when they scored 18 runs to beat the Red Sox.



It was the picture perfect day for a ball game, but it was a little surreal being the city. On Sunday everything was so calm, but the night before my friend's bar had been pretty badly damaged during protests, and by Monday, things had definitely turned violent again.

Miles

Running happened. I didn't do a great job of tracking it. But I had some good runs and some bad runs as I was training for Frederick. I had a disastrous long run a few weeks ago that really shook my confidence going into the race, but I rebounded after that with an OK 11 miler that made me feel a bit better about things.



I can't believe the race is this weekend. I feel like it really snuck up on me, even though I guess I've been training for a while now. I'm not sure where my confidence stands going into this race. I'm confident I'll finish, but I'm not confident that I'm ready to PR or even finish with a stellar time, and I guess that's OK.

I didn't go into this training cycle looking to PR. With grad school + work + training, I wanted to go into the race feeling strong, and I think I do. I guess we'll find out Sunday for sure...

Books

April was another pretty great month on the reading front. Once classes wrapped for the semester I dove into a lot of books that had been chilling on my Kindle. You'll notice the theme for this month was Nicholas Sparks' books (though I did read other stuff too). I think this was inspired by my trip to the South.

The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks

This book had all the hallmark Nicholas Sparks traits. Hunky dude saves woman from car crash, then finds her missing son. The two grow really close, but then because of demons from his past, he pushes her away. But by the end of the book, after a wake up call from a friend, he realizes his mistake and that the two belong together. Apparently they live happily ever after in their small Southern town.

The Longest Ride - Nicholas Sparks

This was not one of my favorite Sparks books. I thought the parts told through Ira's point of view were a little slow moving and I just kept wishing to get back to the present day love story of the cowboy and the student at Wake Forest. I will still probably go see the movie though.

Nights in the Rodanthe - Nicholas Sparks

This book was so short I have no idea how there was enough of a plot to make it into a feature length film. The story was OK, but not great. Divorced woman meets divorced guy. They fall in love and spoiler alert, he tragically dies while on a mission trip trying to re-connect with his estranged son.

A Bend in the Road - Nicholas Sparks

I think this was my favorite of all the Sparks books I read this month. It was sad, but it had a pretty well-developed plot line, and I really liked all the characters and empathized with them throughout the book.

The Girl on the Train

This book reminded me of Gone Girl in the sense that I hated all the characters in the book, but still really liked the book overall. This book tells the story of a girl who rides the train to and from London each day and passes by the same houses and she makes up stories about the people who live in them. Then one day, one of those people goes missing, and the girl on the train gets involved in solving the mystery of her disappearance. It's dark and a little twisted, but still good.

The Real Thing: Lessons on Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter's Notebook - Ellen McCarthy

Ellen works with my best friend at the Post and so we went to see her speak about her brand new book a few weeks ago. The book was a super quick and fun read on the lessons Ellen's learned over the year's of covering DC weddings. It was touching at parts and packed with good stories, told in the way only a great feature writer could tell them.

All Groan Up - Paul Angone

I've been reading Paul's blog for years now for the fun bits of wisdom he shares on growing up in the digital era so I was really excited to get my hands on his second book. This book tells the story of Paul's growing pains in the post-college years as he tried to find himself and his path in life. I appreciated the insights he shared and his openness about the mistakes he made and how he discovered new paths and opportunities in ways he never expected. It was a quick read, but packed with some nice wisdom and inspiration from someone who didn't want to settle for just an average life.

Looks

Baseball tees and maxi dresses. Man I love spring!


Opening Day in Baltimore


Phillies v Nats in DC


Maxi dress in Charleston

And I'm totally in love with this yellow cardigan and have been wearing it for everything lately (including my updated head shots at work)