As I write this, Carnival 2013 is coming to an end.  It also happens to be my birthday.  This will mark my last carnival birthday until 2086 I believe.  It’s so far ahead into the future that not every website gives dates for that far ahead.  Alas, I ended up not spending the day in New Orleans as initially planned.  It was never a decision etched in stone.  It was more or less a wish.  Then as the weather looked increasingly worse and worse, I left my options open.  Then with the passing of my great aunt at age 85, the week didn’t look near as exciting; although it wasn’t terrible either.  My 90 year old grandmother has done so well through all of this, losing her son way too early and now her sister.  The sister was much more expected as she had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and had unexpectedly slipped into kidney failure.  It only signified that she was worse off than we initially though, but we knew something was wrong four months ago.  It’s amazing how much can really change over the course of two years or even four months.  Luckily grandmother is still going full steam ahead.  What an incredibly resilient woman.  So much we have learned and continue to learn from her.

So it’s Mardi Gras Mambo week and I feel calm and nervous at the same time.  I still haven’t gone 6 miles yet.  Five has pretty much been my cutoff up to this point.  I’m interested in what my race pace will be, if it’ll be better or worse than I imagine.  I also wonder if double the distance in a race means double the pain.  I know I’m going to have to pace myself a little differently than I have been in the 5K races but it’s easier said than done.  I’m generally always trying to push myself until I can’t push any further.  Fortunately, I haven’t gotten to that point with the 5Ks so I’m hoping that introducing some 10Ks will help improve my 5K pace and endurance.  But it still doesn’t answer how do I tackle the 10K as a whole.  Worst case, there are a few walkers at the end so I know I should finish before them and at worst, I can stop and walk and act like I meant to walk the entire distance.

The course should be relatively painless.  It’s flat and goes through LSU’s campus before coming back up the river road.  We’ll pass by Mike the Tiger’s cage.  I wonder if he’ll be cheering for us, or licking his lips for lunch.  I also wonder how cold it will be that morning.  It seems another Louisiana cold front is coming through in time for this race, so it could easily be in the mid 30s Saturday morning.

It’s also time for Lent.  It’s the time of year to give up on something that I’ve been overindulging in lately.  With all the movements and commotion with life, I’ve eaten more fast food than my normal.  I’ve also been drinking more cokes than normal.  Both are killing my figure.  (Smirks)  So I’m going to give them both up, eating out at fast food and any restaurant that’s not healthy and also soda/colas.  Particularly Coke but anything else that can be a substitute.  I’m hoping that will push me back towards my normal habit of water, milk, green tea and smoothies.  Believe it or not, this works on occasion.  My freshman year in college I had a huge obsession and addiction (really) to Ritz crackers.  I’m getting that way with cookies now but it’s not near as bad as my Ritz addiction was.  So for Lent that year I gave up Ritz crackers.  Well, it worked.  I went from buying probably a box a week to a box maybe two or three times a year max.  And I’ve never looked back.  I don’t obsess over them like I did.  Heck, I don’t obsess over Ritz at all.  I don’t even know what it was, the salt on them (I’m not a huge salt person), the buttery flavor on the cracker, the taste of any type of cheese on top of it…  I don’t know.  From what I’ve gathered, you do some pretty strange things when you get into college and maybe I would have gotten over it naturally anyway, but the Lent thing worked.  I actually have pretty strong faith that it’ll help again.  Notice I didn’t say ‘work’ or ‘cure’.  I don’t intend to stop drinking coke entirely.  But even one a day for me is just too much.  I’m more of a water drinker anyway.  It’s just that I’ve navigated away from it recently, just not thinking.  I’ve had too much on my mind, pick up lunch, get a coke from a machine, even if I bring my own lunch I’m stopping at the coke machine almost like habit now.  Well, it’s time for that to stop.  Then perhaps next year I can work on the cookies.  😉