Connie O'Reyes

Heeellllooo! I feel like I haven’t written in a long time! Holidays are always busy, I feel like I have a million friends/parties/events from Christmas thru New Years, then I’m back to sitting on my couch come mid January.  Here is my most recent post that you can also see on the Royalty page here: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye-royalty/

Before I begin my post I just wanted to say my thoughts and prayers go out to all the people of Haiti.  Here is a site that has a list of places to send donations to: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-haiti-help-boxjan13,0,6665203.story

Also, according to the White House blog, you can text HAITI to 90999 to instantly donate $10 to the relief effort.  I did it and it was fast and easy. They will text you to text YES to confirm, then they will text you once more and have you text STOP if you don’t want to receive updates.  Here is the White House site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/13/help-haiti

And now for my post…

I tend to have rather bizarre, out-there goals. My plans on how to improve myself/life/career never include rash, logical, well-thought out plans. Typically it’s more of a list of the absurd.  Some recent past careers that I have considered included becoming a Hedge Fund manager, because I thought it would be “easy money.” Obviously, this was before the Great Depression reenactment of 2009.  I then wanted to become a  Bounty Hunter because I loved Dog the Bounty Hunter and thought I’d be GREAT at tasering people.  And then I wanted to be a coach for the NFL Chicago Bears.  I would have the GREATEST threats of all time.  For instance,  if a player wasn’t performing well I would have their mom come down from the stands and threaten to have a player sit on her until her son did well. Talk about motivation.

Most of the time my plans don’t fall through. Usually something gets in the way, like did you know Bounty Hunting isn’t done in Illinois? And coaches in the NFL are all male? (Although that term is used pretty loosely these days if you ask me). Regardless, nothing has come to fruition.

One of my more recent goals came from watching the Biggest Loser. I looovvvee that show and even though its full of big fat crybabies, it still inspires me to get up and do my Jillian Michaels 30 day shred in between the challenges and the weigh in.   But the most amazing part of the show is when the finalists run a full marathon. A-ma-zing.  I sit there jaw-dropped the entire hour watching as these contestants run down the shore a full 26.2 miles and just think how incredible it is.

So the thought was in the back of my mind, like hey, I can do that! Sure, run a marathon? It doesn’t seem that bad. I’ve watched Run, Fatboy, Run, and he did it! Piece of cake.  But this dream, like being a Hedge Fund Manager, faded away, until the other day when Accidentally Sexy posted on Twitter how she wanted to run the Chicago 2010 marathon and it reminded me of my goal.

The timeframe below is a quick recap of what ensued the next day.

10:30AM– Looked into qualifications for Chicago 2010 marathon.

11:00AM– Asked friend who has ran marathons if you can stop to go to the bathroom during a marathon. Tips about pooping ensued.

12:20PM– Asked boss who also runs tips on what to do to go about running, being careful to not use the word “marathon” for fear of laughter and mockery.

12:30PM– Ate healthy salad for lunch! Lunchtime of champions!

1:30PM– Emailed another friend to tell her of my new scheme.  She was all for it and very supportive (and also a BL fan so thinks it would be a breeze).

9:00PM– Ate chocolate-covered bacon at the bar with beer. Official time of hitting rock bottom: 9:01PM.

Now, let me explain a few things first. I’m not normally hitting up the bars on Tuesday nights boozing and eating things covered in chocolate, but I needed to meet up with a friend to discuss our soccer team that is starting and had to work on getting a sponsor (hence, the bar).  And the chocolate-covered bacon was a recipe the chef was trying out as one of their new desserts, so the bartender was passing around free samples.  But as soon as I took my first bite of chocolatey covered bacon, I remembered what I had been obsessing about the entire day, and I realized: eating chocolate covered bacon is the polar opposite of what I should be doing if I ever want to run a marathon.

So the next morning (that would be today) I woke up, wiped the bacon crumbs off myself, and packed myself a gym bag. I lugged it on the train and downtown and it is presently sitting under my desk here:

 After work I will promptly head over to my old college’s gym and ask them to please sign me up right away, referencing the above mentioned bacon only if necessary. 

And now the goal. AC said last night that if I tell people about this, that I really and truly have to do it. So in front of God and all things holy, I swear on a pile of bacon that I will train and run* for the Chicago 2010 marathon.  I haven’t run more than a mile since high school, but I figure now’s a good of time as any to start. If anything it will give me excellent blogging material.

Honestly, how hard can it be?

*(The term “run” in this context refers to all forms of movement in which I can get from point A to point B.  This includes but is not limited to: sprinting, running, jogging, light jogging, walking, limping, crawling, and that seal-move where you drag your body across the ground using your arms.)