My concern was the swim; I couldn’t chance having a coughing fit or asthma attack in the water without access to my inhaler, and I also worried that with my ears being so congested (so odd and annoying), any water that lingers could easily turn into an ear infection. I do not want to be sick again, and I do not want to be on antibiotics again, so I stayed home while my friends completed the course.  

Missing the starting line at a race like this is doubly frustrating because in addition to missing out on race day festivities, you forfeit the fee to be on the course. In this case, I think it was $75. Quite the cost not to participate. There’s no sense in asking for a refund, these events are non-refundable because whether I’m there or not, the race must go on. The supplies, the permits, the race crew, the photographers; they’re all there whether I show up or not. So I don’t mind losing out on the money; the production crew has a job to do and the organizers are clear about the no-refund policy. But seeing all my friends’ smiling, confident faces in their race pictures? The camaraderie displayed in the pre-race group shots? The enthusiasm on display in their race reports? I’m more sad I missed out on the experience than the money.

All that said, I can’t be too sad; I have a long race season  ahead and now it’s time to transition from triathlon and focus on running. Marathon training officially kicks off tomorrow and I need to be mentally ready for all the ups and downs the next 18 weeks hold. In retrospect, I guess I’d rather have been sick before marathon training and be healthy for the rest of the summer and early fall. Time to focus on wellness and getting back to fighting form.

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Well, I got hungry. And I opened — and finished — this, all 500 and some odd calories of it:



It was supposed to be my “extra munchies” for the week. It lasted one day. Oops.

Let’s discuss how much I ate today.

Breakfast
Instant g-f oatmeal plus banana
Coffee with almond milk

Snack
Half a bag of Pirate’s Booty

Lunch
Tuna sandwich on g-f bread, with a slice of cheddar cheese
Apple
Fage 2% blueberry yogurt
The other half of the bag of Pirate’s Booty
HonestTea honey green tea bottle

3:00 Snack
Kind bar (fruit and nut)

It’s 5:00 and I’m hungry snack
The rest of the tuna salad that was supposed to be a side with lunch later this week (about 2 Tbsp. full)
2 dried dates
LaCroix

Somewhere in there I chugged a bunch of water too.

The good news is that I brought all this food with me today so at least there was no spontaneous spending today. Yay! The bad news is that some of it was supposed to last a little longer.

I think I need to start eating a breakfast with more protein to get me through the day so I don’t wolf down a bunch of air-puffed carbs. Unfortunately I already shopped for the whole week, and oatmeal was the breakfast I chose. Maybe I’ll just hard boil some eggs and add one of those, or toss some almonds in my bag for the morning to tide me over a little better. I really want to avoid unnecessary trips to the cafe down here. Everything is so much more expensive! But the calories in/calories out equation is difficult to figure out when you’re upping your training time every week.

I’ll figure it out, eventually.

All that said, I am still STARVING. I’m going to go home and eat an avocado for a snack before dinner. And then snarf down a lot of dinner before I swim tonight. And maybe some sea salt caramels. And anything else edible in my line of sight….

The post The Hungries are Messing with My Budget! appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

That was my Facebook status on April 16, as I digested the news from Boston.

I have been a runner for more than 15 years. This awful tragedy touched me deeply. Not only because I’m currently training for the 2013 Chicago Marathon, but because, like many runners, I felt personally that MY community was attacked. I just kept thinking about all the finish lines that people I love have stood near, waiting with open arms for me, no matter how good or how poorly I performed. I’ll never be fast enough for Boston, no, but on another day, in another city… The thought is too horrible to bear.

Not much is left to say that other writers haven’t already covered. But I thought as a sign of support and resiliance, I would share some pictures from our local Run for Boston, held Monday in Oak Park, Ill. We had between 60 and 75 runners, most decked out in blue and yellow, running through the streets of our town, behind our local Boston finishers. We held a moment of silence for the victims, then, with steadfast resolve, took our grief to the streets. I loved that cars driving through the town stopped and honked, waved, and shouted their support. The sense of community, of support, and trust, was overwhelming.

Here’s all I could fit in my iPhone camera, before we hit the streets.

And here are the ribbons the local running store made for our shoes.

You can see a few more pictures on our local newspaper’s web site. We had more than 60 runners, the town next to us had 300, and apparently downtown Chicago’s runs were packed too. I hope some of the love and support we were sending eventutally made it over to Boston.

In addition to taking over the streets, I also made a donation to one of the victims, Jeff Bauman. For some reason I was just drawn to his photo immediately on the day of the bombings. I knew his condition was bad, and I was praying for him to make it. My cousin later sent this fundraising link over because she’s somehow in his network. His story later turned out to be even more remarkable given that he was able to wake up and identify the suspects. I will continue to pray for his recovery and that of all the people injured that day.

I also plan to support The One Fund. It’s wonderful that they’ve already surpassed $20 million; health care is not cheap and certainly most of those injuries we’ve heard about will need a lot of follow-up care and rehabilitation.

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