Beautiful Day

Here it is, your Three Things Thursday. Note: I'm switching from using initials to using nicknames for people. It's a fun twist. I'll put nicknames in italics for a while so it isn't confusing.

1. Our good friends who I'll call The Minnesotans had their baby this morning! She's a beautiful 8 lb. 13 oz. bundle of joy. Ears and I got to visit the happy family this afternoon. What an amazing gift. Mother & baby are doing well, and for that we are so, so thankful.

2. I am officially 10 days ahead of schedule on pacing! I did 4.1 miles today in an average pace of 9:16. I'm planning to do 6.5 this weekend and am hoping for a similar pace. Depending on how that goes, I may pick a new target pace and start working on it next week. I'd love to get down to 9 minutes eventually, but it's going to take some serious work, especially as long runs get longer.

3. That 4.1 miles brings my total mileage to 60 for the year. I am especially excited about this for two reasons: a) I'm on track to hit 80 by the end of the month, and b) IT WAS MAY 18 LAST YEAR BEFORE I HIT 60 MILES. Un-freaking-believable. I'm 3 months ahead of 2009 Joanna. And yes, I ran that 4.1 rather than 4 because I really wanted to hit the 6-0 mark. I'm a dork like that.

Side story from the gym (pretend this is part 3a). As I was walking back to my locker, I overheard a conversation between two moms whose kids were doing hockey practice. "I asked her what sport she wanted to focus on and she said crafting." Love it. It made me think of The Bestie, who I then called, because she comes pretty darn close to making scrapbooking a competitive sport. I also loved the idea of a little girl loving both. I love being both an athlete and a scrapbook enthusiast. Who says you can't do both? Since I'm on the topic, here's a link to my most recent project, still from our honeymoon to Alaska. It's a very unusual page for me, both because it has only one picture and because of the excessive layering.