Game Time

Today is a big day. The NBA season begins.

My other love besides running is basketball and people who know me know that I’ve got this date marked on my calendar and that I schedule things in my life so they don’t conflict with games of utmost importance. In fact, my husband (who is also basketball obsessed) and I chose our wedding date so that it was before the season started and we chose the 23rd in honor of our favorite, Michael Jordan.

We look forward to Christmas day not only because of presents, food, and family but because of the big triple-header that’s always televised.

We think summer officially begins in June after a champion is crowned.

Tonight’s game is a big deal. It’s the Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls. I detest LeBron James and will seriously go in to depression if he wins a third championship. What makes this match up such a big deal is that Chicago’s Derrick Rose is back. Derrick Rose sat out last year due to injuries and many speculate he’ll never regain his MVP status that rivaled LeBron’s.

This game is also important because I have a cousin who is a Miami Heat fanatic. I’m not kidding. The first time the Heat won it all he got a Heat tattoo. As in permanent tattoo. He’s gone to LeBron’s Vegas celebrations twice. He constantly updates his facebook status with something about Miami, the Heat, LeBron, or haters.

The Heat losing this game, albeit it being the first game, will allow me to plant a seed in his brain that this bad start is an omen of what the future holds for the team. They’re done. They can’t handle the pressure that is a three-peat. They’re too old. They won’t last 82 games.

He’ll tell me it’s only the first game but I won’t care. For a basketball fanatic, it’ll be a perfect way to start the season.

Book Signing Sunday–Jeffery Deaver

One of my passions is reading. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to read. When I was younger, my parents never had to worry about me as I would be more than content with curling up on the couch with a book and bag of sunflower seeds. I would read anything and everything but my favorite genre, even at a young age, has been crime/mystery/horror. I was obsessed with R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and Fear Street books and as I got older, Stephen King and Dean Koontz. About ten years ago, I discovered a new author, Jeffery Deaver, and instantly I was in love.

His books are creepy and very disturbing—which I love. I have no idea what draws me to this genre of literature, it’s hardly intellectually stimulating (although I have learned some pretty interesting things from Deaver—I’ll explain later). The first book I read from him was The Bone Collector which introduced his now most famous character, Lincoln Rhyme. Rhyme is a quadriplegic but is a superman when it comes to forensics. The book is basically about a killer who has a very unusual/terrifying way of murdering his victims and leaves at each scene of the crime a clue–it’s like a game to him (or her). This book was made into a movie starring Denzel Washington as Rhyme and Angelina Jolie as Amelia Sachs, Rhymes’ sidekick. Very rarely do I like movie versions of books and very rarely do I like Angelina Jolie, but both worked incredibly this time around.

From there it was one book after another. I couldn’t and still can’t get enough of him. All of his books are very CSI so there is a lot of thinking involved when the reader is trying to solve the mystery. One of the main reasons I like Deaver is that in most of his books he also addresses something related to or happening in society. For example, one of his most recent books, The Kill Room, is about the U. S. government’s involvement in targeted assassinations which some say actually occurs. Another book, The Blue Nowhere, the killer is a computer hacker and the plot hones in on the lack of computer safety knowledge and the amount of access strangers have to personal information.

I like that about Deaver, I think it’s this aspect of his writing that makes his books that much more scary—what is happening in the plot could happen to us.

The book signing that I went to today was for his newest book, The October List–probably his most unique book in that it is written backward, starting from the end and ending at the beginning. Think the movie Memento. I’m very excited to start reading it.

How do I make time to read? As you know, my workouts start at 8 p.m. My gym is pretty fancy schmancy and they have a pretty comfortable lounge area. When I’m done with my workout and cool down, I grab a book from my gym bag and sit in one of the old leather chairs and read for 15 minutes. It’s the best way to end my gym session. Despite a busy day with my kids and my sometimes rigorous workouts, I love that I can still curl up with a book and relax. At least for a little while : )

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The Countdown Begins…

It's happening....March 1, 2014.

It’s happening….March 1, 2014.

I did it. I signed up for a full marathon.

I knew this day would come. I wasn’t sure how soon and I definitely didn’t think I’d consider running 26.2 miles 7 months after giving birth to my son. Don’t they say it took 9 months to create a child, you should at least give yourself that much time to recover? Clearly, I’m crazy.

I also have crazy friends. I wouldn’t have been able to click that submit button had it not been for my running pal Salt. This is a person who is as crazy about running as I am. You need friends like that as a runner. Someone who is unfazed by the decisions you make however irrational they may be—they’re still going to cheer you on regardless.

Along with Salty, I’ve got an amazing support group. Her and I are in a pretty awesome moms’ workout group online and these women are so inspirational. They are single-handedly what has motivated me to fall deeper in love with running. Every mom has a different story, a different, unique life but our goal is the same—to be healthy. This goal unites us and as the days pass, it is amazing to see how each woman transforms physically and mentally.

This marathon will be for them. This marathon will be for the moms who care about being healthy for their families and for themselves. This marathon will be for the moms who work all day and then come home and cook and clean and wash clothes and tuck children in and then go work out. For the moms who wake up before the sun to work out. For the moms who stay home all day like me, running around after their kids and somehow finding the time to work out.

This marathon is for the moms who don’t think they can do something like this.

You can.

I’m doing it right now.