The Quick Engagement Recap...and then it's Back to Training :-)

Cinderella had her glass slipper. Dorothy had her ruby slippers. I have my running shoes.

So, let’s face it, we’ve been talking about marriage for a while. We’re building a house, my condo has a contract pending (after 3 days on the market!), we were going to go ring shopping on Saturday afternoon. If a had a “Magic 8” ball, it would’ve said, “All Signs Point To Yes.” It just hadn’t happened yet.

So like every other Saturday, the alarm went off at 5:00am so that I could get ready to run with the Gazelles. This past Saturday, a particularly difficult 16-miler was scheduled. I’m not sure why, but I was nervous about the run. I hadn’t done much long distance in a while, so when the alarm went off, I was partly dreading the run, partly anxious and a whole lot of tired. Like always, I lay my running clothes out the night before so that there were no excuses about not having anything to wear.

I put my running uniform on and as I went to put on my very dirty (and needing to be replaced) Mizuno Inspires, I noticed something inside one of the shoes. “Oh yeah—My Garmin Watch.” I had put it in one of my shoes so that I wouldn’t forget it. I slipped that shoe on and went to put on the other one. “What in the world is that?” I noticed a heart shaped foam “stress ball” with a rubber band bracelet wrapped around it. The bracelet said, “Will You Marry Me?” I sat and stared at that thing a couple of minutes. “Oh my God. This is it. This is that moment. Is he even awake? Am I even awake!!? Is this happening?” I even thought about playing a joke on him and just walking out the door and pretending like I wasn’t going to respond. That would’ve been horrible!!! (and terribly funny) I went to his room and, of course, he was awake and he asked me the question properly to which I replied, “Yes, yes, yessssssssssssss” a few times.

I said I wasn’t going to run and he insisted that I go! Partly because I had so much energy and partly because I wanted the mileage, I went. Needless to say, I had one of the best 16-milers in a long time. Of course, I took plenty of harassment from my running pals. “He gave you a rubber band???” “Who knew finding a rubber in your shoe could be so fun!” …and so on…I love my sweet kind runner friends :-) It's a good thing I'm a "funny girl" and can take the harrassment :-) God knows, I dish it enough!

We did, in fact, pick out a ring on Saturday afternoon. It was fun picking out rings knowing that I had already said, “YES!” It took a lot of the awkwardness out of the process. Plus, it was pure joy making it a dual project. He didn’t have to suffer through it alone hoping that he made a good choice. Honestly, neither one of us knew the first thing about diamond rings, so it was pretty humorous being educated like a 5 year old about different diamond cuts and the 4 Cs (clarity, carats, blah, blah, blah). I just wanted something that sparkles a lot (and is kinda big)! The ring won’t be here for another couple of weeks—all custom made for me baby—so I can’t even show off the bling. It's a 3-stone platinum ring and that's about as girly as I can get when describing it. They told me that the round diamonds are more durable and less susceptible to chipping or coming loose. As a bad-ass, high powered, endurance athlete, that was good news. The only time my ring is allowed to chip is if I'm swimming in a race and I need to scratch some girl's arm or face to get ahead of her...just kidding...sorta.

So, in our continuing quest to do things in the wrong order, we got engaged and THEN picked out a ring!

We have no idea when or where wedding will take place at this point. We obviously live here in Austin, but a lot of our family members are either back in Ohio or scattered about the country. I just want it to be a freaking party. I've waited too long for it to be some boring, over-the-top, formal wedding. Anyone know if Debbie Gibson is available to play at receptions?? I could use a live version of "Shake Your Love!"

OK--tomorrow it's back to the boring training log. FYI, on Saturday I ran 16 miles, I biked 20 on Sunday and did a 10 mile Pace run this morning.