One Year Running Anniversary, Paintball Adventure and other updates

Yesterday I ran in the Music4Everyone 5k (http://www.music4everyone.org/). This marked the one year anniversary of when I first started running races.  Unfortunately I wasn't expecting to much out of myself for this run. First, is because I donated blood Friday afternoon (and since technically I'm under the weight limit I'm not suppose to donate) and second, it was an extremely warm and humid morning to run.  I find that after donating blood I can be a bit tired and run down for about a week as my body is recouperating and then on top of that it was so humid it was hard to breathe and every part of me was drenched in sweat after the race. I really thought I might not make it through this one. My results showed. I ran the slowest I had in a long while with my finish time being 24.20.  As the race only had about 170 runners I still placed 19th overall and then 4th overall for all women and 3rd for my age group.  Even though I expected to not do as well as I have been it was still dissappointing.

After the race I rushed to Lulu Lemon (http://www.lululemon.com/rochester/Cloverviewplaza) where they host free yoga on Sunday mornings. Again probably not the best idea after running a very warm race but it was worth it. I got to cool down in the ac and do some stretching. I'm hopefully going to go this going Sunday again as I liked the instructor and well hey...it's free!

Moving on to other adventures. A friend and I bought a Groupon for paintball and went the other weekend. Niether of us had done this before and I have to say I was a little apprehensive having heard that it hurts when you get hit.  Here's what I learned from this adventure;

I was grossed out having to use unsanitized helmet/face masks but the first time out on the playing field I got hit right between the eyes with a paintball and was grateful for the mask and helmet.  Yes it really does hurt to get hit and leaves a red mark for a bit but it goes away fairly quickly. I would not be good in a zombie apocolypse with a gun or in a war zone as I freaked out at the sound when all of the guns started going off at once, froze and got shot right away. Like many things practicing helps make you better. I was able to make it through 2 games the entire time without getting shot.  The worst part was when you got shot and were exiting the game because you got shot more from the stray shots still being made.  The ground on the playing field is disgustingly sticky from years of built up paint. And lastly, there are a lot of teenage boys that take pleasure and have fun in paintball pretending they are on a battlefield (I'm not sure this is a positive thing). Oh, and on Sunday's from 1-5pm at NVP Paintball (http://www.nvppaintball.com/) women play for free other than purchasing the paintballs. So if you live in the area and want to get get shot at and hit with painful paintballs this is the place to go. :)

On to other updates. Below is the newest pic of the Community Hand Swap I've been participating in. I think I've gotten all but one maybe two back at this point.  I really liked this one. It came from Austrailia and though it is simple in it's design the quote is exactly what I needed at this time.

Also regarding the Global Peace Project- the founder hooked me up with an Angel Corps member from Australia who created a piece of artwork for me and has been in touch with me via email and just sent out the artwork to exchange with me since my global partner from Indonesia never sent me anything. I thought this was very kind of the organization to do and even more kind of the Angel Corps member.

Upcoming adventures:  This week I'll be heading to free yoga where I work and bringing a couple of friends. We are then going to go SUPing and hopefully 3x's will be a charm and we won't get attacked by a rabid beaver. Then we are going to go for froyo. It's going to be a great day!!!  Friday, I'll be running in yet another race celebrating the 4th of July. I'll be running with my friend and her entire family. My parents are going to come and watch me race. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will be more recovered and run a lot better at this race (supposedly the weather is suppose to be much cooler also). Then both families are going to get together for a bbq at my place. Another great day to look forward to!!!