3.21.2014: Engaged!

My most favorite day:

Josh had mentioned earlier in the week that we should go to the outlet malls in North Bend then check out the lower Snoqualmie falls viewpoint since it just reopened after years of renovations. 

Seems nothing of suspect for a beautiful, sunny Friday. 

I came straight from work, so at least I changed out of my work jeans into yoga pants. But I had my hair grossly up, glasses on, makeup nonexistent. 

Glad he loves me anyway. 

Get to the viewpoint, I'm still totally oblivious. 

I start to take a couple pictures of the falls--(there were rainbows!)

As I took that picture, Josh got down on one knee behind me :) 

I turned around, and he simply asked, "Kirsten, will you marry me?" 

:) 

My eyes got huge and I said Josh!!!!! 

And then of course I said Yes! and just started hugging him--so much so that he had to say, "Well are you going to put the ring on first!?" Oh yeah :) 

Total blessing was that before we got to the viewpoint there were other people, and about 5 minutes after he proposed a bunch of people came down, but for those 5 minutes we had it all to ourselves. He told me how he managed to ask my dad (4 in the morning when he was in SD over Christmas, my dad wakes up crazy early). He told me he had had the ring for about 3 weeks. I was so excited and still couldn't fully believe it all was really happening.

As we walked back up the trail to the car he told me the story of buying the ring. The main diamond is from his grandpa's ring--he passed away shortly after Josh and I met, so I never got to meet him. So the ring is even MORE special! 

Once we were in the car, Josh said only his parents knew he was proposing that night, so he suggested going to their house and going out to dinner with them to celebrate! 

The car ride back to their house was filled with me calling my mom, dad, grandma, and close friends. I was still sort of in disbelief I think--everything was such a blur of excitement! 

Once we got to Josh's parents house, his mom and dad were sitting in the living room, so they jumped up and gave us both hugs and looked at the ring--they helped pick it out, but they hadn't seen it on me yet! ;) 

Then Kevin said, come on into the kitchen we started some appetizers! 

I walk in...first saw this:

...and thought, "that looks like Brittney's sign.."

Then, SURPRISE!!! The kitchen was filled with friends!!!!! 

Surprise engagement party! I was SOOO excited, is this all real!? How could it possibly all be this perfect!?!

Good job, Josh :) 

So we got to tell the story to everyone, and we just felt SO loved! 

I spent much of the party continuing to call and text my MN friends (two of my best friends didn't answer when I originally called). 

Then towards the end of the night, Josh said something about his "bride-to-be".

And I think that's when it finally truly hit me :) 

I get to marry the most wonderful Christian man and spend the rest of my life with him!

That is certainly something to celebrate! 

My Run Plan.

I've signed up to run a full marathon in June. I know it's not that big of a deal, lots of people run marathons. Grandmas even run marathons. But it's a big deal to me. 

I've run 3 half marathons (13.1 miles), but never had even the smallest desire to do a full (26.2 miles). 

To be honest, I still have no real desire to run a full...but I'm doing it anyway. Why? Because I sort of think I can't. So I need to prove to myself that I can. (Kirsten logic.) 

I would be ecstatic if I finish under 4 hours, but honestly I'm not too concerned about that. I just want to cross that finish line with very minimum walking to get there, if any.  

But one thing I'm going to do differently during my training season, is to run a little less, and lift more. In doing so I'll probably get a slower time on my half marathon than I've previously gotten (running the Tacoma City Half in May), but...I think I'll be okay with that too. But maybe stronger legs will make me run faster? 

Who knows. I like surprises. 

In the past I've trained by just stacking on the miles according to Hal Higdons training programs. It works. I've always met or exceeded my goal pace and felt well-prepared. Plus, I like having a schedule to follow and little goals to meet.

But all I did for 9 weeks was run and run and run. My hips always hurt after longer runs, my knees would occasionally give out...and I lost weight. But I wasn't trying to. I'm not going to eat crap foods to keep weight on because then I just FEEL like crap. And eating lots of healthy foods is dang expensive. 

It's a struggle. 

Here's my training program for this marathon: 

That's...a lot of running. (Ps. 8 miles the first week!? This is just craziness.) But I'm going to try follow it about 80%. 

Maybe TMI but being not a very curvy girl to begin with, lots of cardio does NOT help. 

Plus, as I mentioned earlier, lots of crazy running kinda ruins your metabolism. (For me it results in too quick weight gain or loss) 

SO. Yes, I'm still going to run lots during these next 16ish weeks of my training, because you have to train well to avoid injury building up to running 26.2 miles. 

BUT. I'm going to push/force myself to strength train each week too. I've never really done that in the past while training. And ultimately I'm just going to try keep a healthy metabolism and stay injury free. 

How am I going to make time for all that? Who knows. Guess I'll just have to eat more and run faster ;)