You know how they’re usually pretty good and you all wonder how I get decent race pics?
Yeah, not this time.
Was I running through a sandstorm?
Did I eat a lemon halfway through the race?
[Side note: the Camelbak chafed me again. Looking at this picture, I can see it’s bouncing up and down. I need to tighten it–this is clearly moving around a lot.]
Gritting your teeth totally makes you run faster, right?
The faster I stop my watch, the better my time will be.
Tonight, I have my first and only run between these races, and I am psyched for it. So, while I’ve signed up for a few more races, I’m definitely going to try to enjoy them rather than focus so hard on a time. I’m also going to use this time between now and July (when I’ll begin to train for the NYC Marathon) to get my eating, strength and cross-training back on track and get in better shape again.
I’m not gonna lie. After losing 50 pounds, I kinda like looking at pictures of myself. (What? I have a blog. You knew I was probably a little narcissistic.)
I especially like race photos, because I like seeing how I look to the rest of the world when I am clearly struggling inside. While I think I pushed myself harder Sunday than I’ve ever pushed myself in a race before, no race is ever easy.
Since I like race photos so much, I always try to smile when I see a camera. Really, I do this whenever I see a camera. If someone’s taking a picture, I don’t want to be caught looking stupid. But I love race photos because I think I always look so strong.
I got the race photos from the half last night, and some of them are pretty decent.
Clearly, I was looking for some inspiration from above.
Was I running in place here???
Still looking for inspiration from above.
Smiling through the pain.
Oh, thank god I’m done.
Thanks again to everyone for all the kind words about this race! It means so much to me.
—
I wanted to also address a question I got on Tumblr this morning.
Anonymous asked: I notice you’ve put up some Amazon links that have your referral code embedded. I was a little bummed to catch this since you are typically transparent about making money from things. You should mention that you profit from it and will get a kickback from your readers purchasing these things.
And here’s what I answered:
You’re right. I’ve updated my shop page on bothversions of my blog to disclose that.
I’m also going to write up my own version of these bylaws to be even clearer about what I get for free/what I’ll accept for the blog. But I 100% agree with Kath’s last point, and that is my guiding principle in accepting free stuff/making money off of blog stuff:
I believe firmly in keeping the integrity of my blog and would never compromise my beliefs and standards for the sake of a payment.
That’s why I ended my OpenSky shop. It was a cool idea, but it would have been a lot of work to get the products that I actually use into my OpenSky store, and I wasn’t comfortable with selling things just because they were sent to me for free. I’m doing the Amazon affiliate program because it’s stuff that I use/would be linking to anyway, so honestly, it’s cool if I can make a few extra bucks doing that.
