Hooray Weather!

Finally!

Awesome weather has returned to the DC area! For the better part of the past two weeks, at least, it's been awful. Cold. Rainy. Cloudy. Dreary. Blegh.

But yesterday was different. Sunny! High temperature in the 60s!

This week, I decided to bump up my mileage for running. For the past month or so, I'd been running four miles on Tuesday and Thursday, and then running five miles on the weekend (whichever day I didn't have to wake up early for whatever sport was happening).

I figured it was time to up the difficulty and run five miles on Tuesday and Thursday and six miles on the weekend. So yesterday was the first weekday I was going to run five miles. When I woke up to walk Allie and felt and saw how excellent the weather was outside, I was immediately pumped. Already, "The Distance" was humming in my head, and I just couldn't wait.

And oh man. It was a fantastic run. I ran every bit of the five miles and finished in just more than 46 minutes. While nine-minute miles may not seem impressive, it's important to note I had to really bust my ass to finish ONE mile in nine minutes last year. Now, I'm running all five miles in right around nine minutes each. Miles 1 and 2 were in the 8:30-8:40 range because I was pacing myself to try to run the entire time. Mile 3, as I've mentioned, is a lot of uphill, so I'm slower there. But still. Clear improvement.

It's also important to note if I can finish my next half-marathon with nine-minute miles, I'll finish in under two hours, which would be a 20-minute improvement over my first race. Needless to say, I'm really excited with my progress so far.

And, again, finally it did NOT rain on a Tuesday. Seems like that's the first time in a month. We've only been able to play one softball game, despite the season being a month old already. Before last night, we were 1-1 on the season. We lost our first game -- a game we should have won, but we had a bunch of errors in one inning that allowed a bunch of runs to score. And we picked up a forfeit victory last week.

We had two games last night against the same team. Allegedly, according to Andrew, this team was previously undefeated. Well, we beat them twice, 8-7 and 9-8. Let's GO.

I am compelled to mention our team almost entirely the same team that went 2-13 in the CAN softball league over the summer. Well, we won as many games last night as we did in that entire season. But not without making it interesting.

The first game was tight throughout. We were winning 6-5 going into the bottom of the final inning. We were the home team for the first game and the visiting team for the second. All we had to do was hold them to win. Of course, they scored a run to tie the game.

In the bottom of the final inning, we loaded the bases with two outs, but a harmless pop up ended the inning. The top of the first extra inning, their first hitter hit a ball so far we didn't even bother chasing it. Home run. They were up 7-6. We managed to hold them there, though.

Then we finally came through and scored two runs in the bottom of the inning to win. Dale scored the winning run on a throwing error, which is something we're usually accustomed to happening to us. So it was nice to be on the winning end for once.

We led the second game by a decent margin for most of the game. We played solid defense throughout, and scored runs in almost every inning. One of the better games we've played in either league. Up until the last inning.

We were up 9-5 going into the other team's last at-bat. We changed pitchers for the last inning because he wanted a save haha. He then loaded the bases with no outs to bring the tying run to the plate. In his defense, he yanked himself from the game right then haha. He knew what was at stake.

Evan got a quick out, but we were still facing a bases-loaded situation with one out. A couple of hits and errors later, and it was a 9-8 game. They had players on first and second base with one out.

Their next hitter smacked a liner right at Brent at shortstop. He grabbed it and saw the runner at second off the bag. His throw was a little low, but Jen broke out a Mark Teixeira-like scoop at second, beating the runner back to the base and securing the win. What a finish.

We're 3-1! I can't imagine any teams being all that much better than the team we played last night. Also, the improvement we've shown since the CAN league is incredible! I knew it would happen, and I totally called it this summer. We have so many people who are such solid players; we just needed to play together more often.

I didn't have a great night offensively. A couple of hits, a run scored. Nothing noteworthy. But I played first base for the entire first game and 2/3 of the second game. Wow, I loved it. Like, a lot.

I loved joking with the opposing players when they reached first. I loved being involved in some way in almost every play. I was able to field a couple of grounders cleanly and make some solid plays with the pitcher covering first. I missed a couple of scoop opportunities, but I blocked a couple of others from getting through.

Although, I did come away with a nice bruise on my left index finger. Our infielders really have to throw it hard to first to beat the runners, and one time I felt a throw from Sean hit my finger inside the glove a little more directly than I would have liked haha. Aaand bruise.

Anyway, I'm totally going to campaign to play first base in every game I can. Loved it. Let's go Pack! Keep it rolling now!

So yeah. Thank God the weather has turned for the better this week. It's supposed to be LEGIT awesome throughout the weekend, too. It's going to be a HUGE next few days, tomorrow especially. Feel free to IM me and discuss it if you'd like. Suffice it to say, I'm pumped.

And then Friday, there are preliminary plans to hit one or more of our favorite bars downtown. Great success.

Saturday, flag football in the morning, and a ridiculous day planned because a friend of Katie's is moving away. Katie promised me the day, which includes stops at several bars, WILL end in dancing. GREATER success!

And next week? Whooooaaa boy. Raleigh on Friday night to go out for Mike's birthday. It's also Laura's birthday so she should definitely make it out, too. And then Charlotte for Kirk/Liz's wedding on Saturday? Wow. WOW. That's a lot of dancing potential. GREATEST success!

CAN'T WAIT.

-BG