That is what my shirt has on it today.  And I am trying to use that as my mantra today.

On a petty level I did something to my hamstring last Thursday and haven't been able to run since.  It is probably a blessing in disguise because it will force me to rest.

On a crappy note this weekend culminating with today just kept bringing bad news, when it rains it pours I guess.

My husband had a loss in his family this morning and I feel just terrible for his family and for him.  I feel like I have to be strong for him and I am working on it.  He had planned on cooking a turkey today so I am doing that right now (I know we are a little late, but my husband works at a butcher block and deli so he brought home one of the extra turkey's).  We won't be able to eat it tonight but at least I can have some for lunch tomorrow and he can take some to his family. (That is if I don't screw it up royally)

Hopefully things will start looking up.  I have to go out of town on business for the first time tomorrow night and will be back Wednesday evening.  Luckily my hubby is going to be staying with family tomorrow night so I don't have to feel so bad about being gone.

Well I have to pack and try to clean a bit and keep an eye on the turkey.  It is going to be a long night.

Just got back from the Turkey Trot.  Both my sis and I had good races.  This was my sisters first 10-k and she ran the whole way!  I stayed with her the first mile then did my own thing.

I have really gotten so I like starting the race easy because then I can pick off runners the rest of the race comfortably.  It doesn't produce a great time but it is really fun :)

Here are the splits.  I missed the mile 2 marker because it was hidden in the madness of the waterstop.

Mile Time-Split

1-12:06.02-12:06.02

2-?-?

3-?-27:12.59 (Miles 2 and 3 I ran in 15:06.57)

4-6:47.77-34:00.36

5-7:22.05-41:22.41

6-7:31.48-48:53.89

6.2-2:05.65-50:59.54

Fun Times :)  I am off to eat some turkey!!!

Pre-race!

Running my sis in to the finish

Well the family household is up and about.  I think Hubby and I are a little dehydrated.

I feel bad for some reason I thought the Turkey Trot was a 5K and found out last night it was a 10K, therefore, the longest my baby sis has ever run.

So wish us luck ;)

Still Unknown...Just got off the phone with Cuyahoga County Board of elections:Registration office.

Informed that they cannot look at the "provisional screen."  Because this has been a "tough" election.  I should call back in "a few" weeks.  When I informed her that I was told to call on the 17th she was not deterred from her "few weeks" diagnosis.  Do they realize that official tallies are due on Dec. 1st?  And Blackwell is supposed to certify by Dec. 3rd?  For some reason even though that is in the Ohio Constitution elections officials are saying results should be reported by Dec. 6th...but I can't get the registration lady to give me a date and she assured me she was giving me the correct information.

I don't know why I am even bothering obviously I won't be able to find out my vote wasn't counted until it is too late to legally do anything about it.

Current Course Records

Men 2:07:15 Cosmas Ndeti (Kenya) April 18th, 2004

Women 2:20:43 Margaret Okayo (Kenya) April 15th, 2002

The first woman to run Boston was Roberta Gibb in 1966.  She was considered a "bandit" because she ran without a race number.  She had tryed to enter but her request was rejected.  At the time AAU restrictions prohibited women from running races longer than 1.5 miles!

The first "official" woman entry was Kathrine Virginia Switzer.  She used her initials on the entry form and the race directors didn't catch that she was a woman until during the race.  The race directors tryed to get her off the course but her coach and boyfriend both kept them from hauling her off the course and she finished in around 4 hours. "At the moment everything happened, I was embarrassed.  As I continued to run, I got angry.  I had trained just as hard as the men who had entered teh race legally.  Why shouldn't a woman be permitted to run?"  That was in 1967.

Just got around to putting these up.  We had a pretty fun Halloween night this year.  I put a lot more effort into my costume than last year.

Big thanks to A for the pics!!!

Hubby and I.

My Wig rocked!  Too bad my eyebrows totally gave away my true hair color.

This is an awesome bar, both times we have gone there weren't too many people so we get the dance floor to ourselves :)

Yesterday morning went out with SERC and did a 5 mile run.  My left calf is bothering me again like it did after River Run so I am not running again until Thursday's Turkey Trot.

Yesterday Afternoon we met up for what was supposed to be a group workout but only A, C, and I showed up.  So we just did a 6 mile bike ride.

It was pretty chilly, but we had a good time :)

A and I have been trying to get our Triathlon mentees to go out to group workouts.  So far we haven't been very successful :(  Holiday season is here though and people are busy.

We went out with the TNT marathoners this morning.  I did a little more than I should have but I felt pretty good and didn't go too fast.  We did a little over 6 miles in a little over an hour.

We recruited another runner to come to tomorrow's SERC run :)  I hope the group doesn't mind that I am recruiting people :)  It really is a great group and they genuinely just love running so I don't think anyone will mind having a few more runners out :)  I know how hard it can be to go run by yourself, for me the more runners the better!

Someone got to my blog yesterday by searching "(fat OR overweight) AND (athletes OR athlete) AND (photos OR photo OR picture OR pictures) AND (funny OR humor)"

Bizarre!

I don't think they got what they were looking for. 

Went out for a 20 minute easy jog this morning.  Starting to get back into the groove without doing anything hard for the next month or so.  Although we will see how I feel at the Turkey Trot next week :)

Supposively your body needs 1 day of rest for every mile raced.  So I should have earned 26 days of "rest"  I figure I can actively rest as long as I don't do anything fast or high impact.  So my Thursday trail runs should still be part of my plan :)

Countdown to Boston: 5 Months!

I sucked it up and tried to go for a run with my hubby after dinner.  The first 5 minutes or so were pretty amusing.  I probably looked more like a power walker with locked knees than a runner.  I was able to lift my legs a little after 10 minutes or so and finally was able to jog slightly faster than walking pace by the end of the 20 minutes :)

Definately going to rest tomorrow :)

I am officially signed up for Boston.  They will be charging my credit card as soon as they confirm that I actually qualified.

I have now officially been initiated into the marathon club.  Yesterday I finished my first marathon.  I knew it was not going to be easy, but man did I underestimate how hard it would actually be!  You get to a point where the pain is so overwhelming you don’t think you can take one more step, but you still have another 4-6 miles to go and you can’t slow down if you want to qualify for Boston.  My whole running career I have had the legs for running but never the brain.  If I felt good I ran well and if I didn’t feel good and my legs wouldn’t just carry me through I never toughed it out.  This went for anything including track workouts.  And that was when I was only running 5k’s!  So yesterday will probably go down as my best race ever.  I conquered my mental running demons and persevered. 

In order to qualify for Boston I needed to run under 3 hours 40 minutes and 59 seconds.  That averages out to 8:23 minute miles.  My goal was to run a steady marathon.  Try to stay away from running too fast or too slow.  When you go out too fast in a marathon you will most likely pay for it later.  As most marathoners will tell you, you hardly ever hear about someone going out too slow.

We got into Richmond Friday night and I got a watch with 30 splits on it so that I would be able to track my progress throughout the marathon.  I have a good memory but I didn’t trust myself to remember 26 splits J I also picked up some running shorts and a cool max shirt to wear during the race.

We went out to dinner with one of the members of the club and his wife and sister-in-law.  Very nice people.  I had a beer and shrimp scampi pasta.  The pasta was delicious.  It had capers in it, which I have never eaten, they tasted very good but I was a little worried that my stomach might not handle them well.

Got back to the hotel and got everything ready for race morning.  Pinned on my race number, set out my clothes.  Checked out how to work my watch.  I went to bed shivering like a maniac, hoping that it was just that it was cold in the room, and that I hadn’t caught something by being out in the rain.

Heading to the Race

Woke up around 5:30 yesterday morning and decided I wasn’t going to be able to sleep any longer so I hopped in the shower and got ready.  At this point nerves were settling in and I really felt like I was going to vomit.  My parents and I headed over to the race at 7am.  I waited in the porta-potty lines twice and checked my bag to pick up after the race.  I saw Coach K and M and they told me I shouldn’t wear a jacket even though it was cold.  So I waited till the last minute, handed my jacket off to my parents and went to the starting corrals. 

Checking My Bag

Waiting In Line :)

Richmond had set up pace teams but they didn’t have one for 3:40.  So I was surprised as I headed to my corral to see a sign saying “3:40 Pace Group: Headed to Boston?”  Bonus!  I was very excited about that.  All I had to do now was stick with this group and I was golden!  Well as we started I hooked up with a few girls and we decided to run the race together.  We saw our pace leader up ahead but he was going too fast, so we decided we would pace each other to get through the marathon and qualify.  We were slightly ahead of pace most miles and the mile markers just kept continuing to go by.  I was amazed at how fast the race was progressing, and I felt great!  I was talking with my running partner, by now it was just two of us.  Around mile 6 my friend from the running club was passing us, he was in the 3:45 pace group.  I don’t know what was up with these pace leaders but they were not pacing!  We were right on pace, or slightly ahead and we were supposed to finish 5 minutes before these guys J Well R stuck with his pace group even though he knew they were going too fast.  So we had another running friend for 4 or 5 miles. 

At mile 7 and 14 we passed “Party Stops” with tons of spectators!  Crowd support is wonderful and really helps spur the runners on!  We had picked up another 3:40er who was also struggling through his first marathon.  My race partner had done 5 other marathons and an Iron Man!  But her best marathon time was 3:59:00.  So we were both in for a ride J

Around mile 15 the wind picked up really strongly.  We crossed a large bridge and it was incredibly windy.  We were starting to head uphill and the wind wasn’t going away.  My parents were cheering between miles 16 and 17.  Later I found out they made it just in time to see me!  They asked how I was and I lied through my teeth “Great!”  At this point my quads were starting to feel a little sore and 8:23 pace was not quite as easy.  But I knew it would not be wise to say out loud how I actually felt because that could be the end of my Boston Qualifying goal. 

Between Mile 16 and 17 (The girl in the red cap ran with me for 22 miles)

From there it started becoming a mind game.  I knew my parents were going to be at mile 25, so I just kept counting down the miles till then.  My running partner was starting to feel the pain too and we had a really slow mile from 20 to 21, just over 9 minutes.  At 20 I decided to walk through the water stop and when I tried to start up again my legs were screaming at me.  I knew I was in trouble.  At 21 we both decided to go to the bathroom quickly and got back out there.  I was worried about stopping again but knew I couldn’t let my bladder go another 5 miles. (I realized something horrible at that porta potty trip, but I don’t want to write about it, needless to say I decided to just go with the flow and not worry about it until after the race)  We had another slow mile, over 9 minutes and I realized my chances of qualifying were now slowly drifting away.  With more pain in my legs then I have ever felt I made the decision to go after my goal no matter how bad it hurt.

That got me going but what really helped was that R had caught up to me and since he knew his goal of qualifying was not in danger he sucked it up and started running 30 seconds faster than his goal in order to run me in.  My legs were screaming, I kept telling myself how upset I would be if I gave in, and R kept telling me I was trained for this and I just had to hold on.  At the time I was grateful and annoyed because he was driving home the same things I was saying to myself but I knew that he was putting himself in a lot of pain just to help me reach my goal.  Just before mile 25 his wife jumped on the course to run him in and he told her he was fine and to bring me home J She was so kind.  At this point the sun had come out and I was hot, my headband was around my neck and I asked if she could take it from me.  I also had her take my fuel belt so I would have less weight going into the final mile.  I know that that stupid thing is heavy so it was really nice of her to take it.  She stopped just before the 26-mile mark because that was a huge downhill.  I could see the crowds ahead and could just make out the finish clock.  I knew I just had to drive it home and I had it!  With music from Rocky playing through the street I crossed the finish at 3:39:42!  It was the most wonderful awful feeling in the world.

Coach K and M at mile 25

Mile 25

My legs were screaming at me. I could barely walk.  I was slightly delusional at this point.  But I had done it!  I conquered my mental demons and had overcome pain to realize a very lofty goal.

R and his wife and sister-in-law were there at the finish line to celebrate with me.  Then I had to make the lonely trek to retrieve my bag with my warm clothes in it.  They gave us a Mylar “blanket” at the finish to keep warm until you could get warm clothes.  The walk from the finish to get my clothes contained some of the most painful moments of my life.  At points I felt like my legs were going to give underneath me.  The path to the bag pick up was downhill on cobblestone streets.  What kind of cruel trick were they playing?  It was horrible, and it was almost ¼ mile to the bag pick up.  When I finally retrieved my clothes it took me about 10 minutes to actually change.  Putting my shoes back on was absolutely horrible.  I knew it was going to send both my calf and quads into cramps.  I managed to get my clothes back on make a trip to the porta potty then I set out to find my parents.

I found Coach M and K and they had seen my dad so I headed back to our hotel since I couldn’t find them at the finish.  Luckily our hotel wasn’t too far from the finish line.  Eventually my dad made it back to the hotel and I showered and we went out to lunch with the group.  We had a celebratory drink and some lunch then my parents and I hopped into the van for the 8-hour ride home.

My parents are absolutely the best!  I can’t thank them enough for coming to Richmond with me and helping drive me there and back.  I probably would have just stayed in Richmond if it weren’t for them J

I am not really sure how I feel about this experience.  I know I should be absolutely thrilled but for some reason I am not.  I think it may just be hard to digest everything.  After my triathlon I was absolutely thrilled, I felt great, and I had a blast.  I guess this victory is bittersweet because I really had to give everything to get to it.  I can honestly say I left nothing on the course for the first time in my life.  And I think by doing that I actually may have left a piece of myself out on the course, and that may be why I feel odd.  (If that makes any sense)  I have to leave behind the runner who gives in when it gets too tough and now I have much bigger shoes to fill.  And maybe that is a bit frightening.  I feel bad that I am not more thrilled because I know there are people that work their whole life to qualify for Boston, and I did it in my first marathon. 

Going into the marathon I wasn’t sure if I would go to Boston, even if I did manage to qualify.  Now I really feel I have no choice.  I have to go.  Too many people gave a piece of their time to get me where I got, and they didn’t do that so I could turn around and not go to Boston.  I have my next triathlon to do and that is less than a week after Boston.  I know that it will be tough but like I said I don’t have a choice J Maybe I can convince A and C to do the triathlon as a relay.  Then I would just have to swim.

I am sitting here barely able to walk and registering for the Boston Marathon on April 18^th.  I have reached the peak of craziness J

My quads are really sore as well as my calves.  One of my toes has turned purple and I am pretty sure that nail is going to fall out in the next few days.  I have to go and run two miles today and I have no idea how to even attempt it.  But I have been ensured that by running those two miles my legs will be better off over the next few days than they would be otherwise.  Maybe I will go to the pool first and try running in the water.  I cringe when I see a curb let alone stairs.  I must look like I just got done riding a horse for days.

So this is what a marathon feels like.

For you statistics junkies out there like me check out my splits!

Mile-Split-Lap

1-?-?

2-16:48.53-?

3-25:03.11-8:14.58

4-33:14.91-8:11.80

5-41:33.95-8:19.04

6-49:58.88-8:24.93

7-58:11.35-8:12.47

8-1:06:38-8:26.19

9-1:15:08-8:30.35

10-1:23:34-8:26.17

11-1:32:09-8:35.32

12-1:40:20-8:10.91

13-1:48:33-8:12.55

Half-1:49:29

14-1:56:46-8:12.78

15-2:04:56-8:09.81

16-2:13:28-8:32.16

17-2:21:53-8:24.89

18-2:30:14-8:21.16

19-2:38:36-8:22.21

20-2:47:13-8:36.96

21-2:56:13-9:00.31

22-3:05:30-9:16.66

23-3:13:48-8:18.07

24-3:21:46-7:57.97

25-3:30:03-8:16.97

26-3:38:08-8:05.46

26.2-3:39:42

Picture Of My cat when I got home, You would think he ran the marathon with me :)

http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/" title="http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/" target="_blank"http://www.thealliancefordemo...

I just donated $10.  That is enough to recount one precinct in Ohio!  If you like me want to make sure that Ohio is held responsible for all this voting craziness make a donation to a group that will fund a full recount.

I don't care who won frankly.  I would just like to be able to go to sleep at night knowing that all votes were counted and they were counted accurately.

God forbid we have to actually count some of these provisional ballots in Ohio...

"Are the provisional ballots in Ohio being thrown out? A new rule for counting provisional ballots in Cuyahoga County, Ohio was implemented on Tuesday, November 9 at approximately 2:30 in the afternoon, according to election observer Victoria Lovegren.

The new ruling in Cuyahoga County mandates that provisional ballots in yellow packets must be “Rejected” if there is no “date of birth” on the packet. The Free Press obtained copies of the original “Provisional Verification Procedure” from Cuyahoga County which stated “Date of birth is not mandatory and should not reject a provisional ballot.” The original procedure required the voter’s name, address and a signature that matched the signature in the county’s database." http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/200 4/985" title="http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/200 4/985" target="_blank"http://www.freepress.org/colu...

Met J at the Strawberry Picnic Area this morning and we ran for 30 minutes.  We took a different trail out today which was nice.  Legs felt great today, my ankle is still a little tender but only when putting on and taking off my shoes, once I am running it doesn't bother me.  I have been making sure to wear shoes cut below the bruise all week so I am a bit surprised that it isn't better yet.  Hopefully it won't bother me on Saturday :)

I made race pace chart wrist bands for the marathon with my pace for each mile marker.  I "waterproofed" them with packing tape.  We will see how they hold up in the shower.  The goal is not to go very far off the pace.  Too fast and I may pay for it later in the race, too slow and I may not have enough time to make it up.  Easy right :)

The website should have live results Saturday if you want to check in and see how I am doing. http://richmondmarathon.fe-works.com/" title="http://richmondmarathon.fe-works.com/" target="_blank"http://richmondmarathon.fe-wo...

This is the plan:

Mile-Split

1-8:23

2-16:46

3-25:09

4-33:32

5-41:55

6-50:18

7-58:41

8-1:07:04

9-1:15:27

10-1:23:50

11-1:32:13

12-1:40:36

13-1:48:59

14-1:57:22

15-2:05:45

16-2:14:08

17-2:22:31

18-2:30:54

19-2:39:17

20-2:47:40

21-2:56:03

22-3:04:26

23-3:12:49

24-3:21:12

25-3:29:35

26-3:37:58

26.2-3:40:00

There are some great pics here: (If you are a democrat who feels sorry for the results of the election)http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery/1/" title="http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery/1/" target="_blank"http://www.sorryeverybody.com...

This was my fave so far :)

Went to the fitness center with my hubby again tonight.  He rode the stationary bike and read while I ran on the treadmill.  I had to wait a few minutes for the treadmill because there are only two plugs in our fitness center but three machines, bizarre.

I ran for 30 minutes and went 3.56 miles according to the treadmill.  I did the "intermediate workout" tonight with max speed set to 7:30 minute miles and max elevation at 6.  I was able to do all of the speed work but I had to cut out the hills that the program added to the already maxed out speed.

This time of year sucks for evening workouts because you either have to brave the dark or bring it inside.  But it is so nice sleeping in...

I took it upon myself today to do a quick Q&A from the Cuyahoga County BOE website this morning. http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentres ults1.htm" title="http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentres ults1.htm" target="_blank"http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/...

And to my amazement I found out that over 97,000 more votes than registered voters were tallied in 29 precincts.  You can check this out for yourself pretty easily. Just copy and paste the data into Microsoft excel and compare the ballots cast totals to the registered voter totals in all the precincts.   Of course I have no way of checking where these votes went but I am looking into that.  I don't care if they were all for Kerry or Bush I would like an explanation!

Apparently Cuyahoga County just likes to do things a little differently (at least there is an explanation for this, unfortunately the canvass report is a little harder to wade through but I will check that out later when I have some free time): http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/ index.ssf?/base/isvot/110008988 056520.xml" title="http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/ index.ssf?/base/isvot/110008988 056520.xml" target="_blank"http://www.cleveland.com/elec...

Explanation of Ballots Cast Totals on this page and the Summary Report

In even-numbered years, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections tallies absentee ballots by Congressional, House, and Senate district combinations.  Because of this, the ballots cast totals for municipalities on this web page and on the summary report needs to be derived by using the following technique:  For municipalities with wards, find the ballots cast total for each ward and total them.  For municipalities without wards, please refer to the contest of interest on the canvass report.  Absentee ballots cast totals appear separately at the end of each contest on the canvass report.  If you have any questions, please contact the Board of Election’s Ballot Department Manager at (216) 443-6454.

I talked with the voter registration office in Cuyahoga County today and finally someone changed my address in the system so I will be receiving a new voter registration card shortly.  I asked if I could call back there to find out if my provisional ballot was counted and he said, "you should have received a card telling you where to get that information” I informed him I had not.  He retorted with "they are all stupid out there too".  I felt pretty bad for this guy.  He is probably having one of the worst couple weeks at work ever.  He had to enter my correct address several times because the computer kept changing it to a different address.  Lovely!  At the end of the call he did apologize for the problem and inconvenience.  So at least someone had the balls to admit there was an error that occurred and it wasn't my fault.

If you, like me, had trouble voting and want to speak out about it check out this site:

http://indyvoter.org/index.php" title="http://indyvoter.org/index.php" target="_blank"http://indyvoter.org/index.ph...

I really found the story interesting about how precincts with large numbers of (predominantly democratic) voters typically had about 1/5th the number of voting booths as those in smaller (mostly republican) counties.  Meaning a longer wait for many people.

I find the way this election was run very discouraging (especially in Ohio).  Between registrations to vote not counting because they weren't on thick enough paper, provisional ballots only counted if cast in the right precinct (even if you were at the right polling place it doesn't count if you went to the wrong table), challengers chasing off people left and right, how can one feel their vote meant anything?  How are the American people supposed to put trust in this system with all of these complications and problems?

Came home tonight to no power so Hubby and I headed to Joe's Crab Shack.  Power was out all along Highland Rd.  I ordered a "Shaker Rita."  They really should print alcohol prices on the menu, that drink cost more than my husband’s meal.  But it was a nice treat; hopefully it had enough calories to justify the cost.  Joe's was pretty slow, we thought it might be busy because of the power being out, but I guess most people had already eaten.  The power was only out for an hour, but when it turned back on we found out that our heat had kicked out again.  That is the third time this month.  So we had to call emergency after hour maintenance.  The guy said he still had 7 calls to deal with after us.  But he was up here pretty quickly.  I am glad the power came back on because I have no clean socks for running and really needed to do laundry. 

Printed out all the details for this weekend and called the hotel to confirm our reservation.

My hubby pulled out his guitar so I just have to get out my sax :)  Gotta run

I am feeling a little bit better in general but also feeling much betetr in the running realm than I did yesterday!

Went out and ran with J in the rain today.  It was cold and wet but I didn't care, I was just happy to be running!  We got in a half hour and stayed on the all purpose trail since the bridle trail can be treacherous when wet and muddy.

We talked politics mostly.  But it felt good to speak opinions out loud and we both agree that issue 1 passing really sucks.

Tomorrow is a rest day so I will proabbly be stir crazy and emotional again, who ever thought the hardest part of marathon training would be the rest days?

My quads are back in shape and feeling good.  My ankle was a little tender today but much better than Tuesday!

Off to work!

These are some race-day strategies from “Runner’s World: Complete Guide to Trail Running” that I found interesting J

The night before a race

1)    & nbsp; Eat a high-carb, low-fat meal that’s familiar I am definitely familiar with this strategy and have used it often for big races, especially States in high school.

2)    & nbsp; Have a beer if you want I have heard tell that this is good especially if it will help you sleep but I prefer to go T-totaling about a week to a month before something as big as the Olympic distance triathlon or my marathon, why ruin a good thing by drinking?

3)    & nbsp; Have sex if you want Whhhwaaaahhtt?  I have heard this before but mostly from high school guys that I figured were just trying to get a girl to go for it...apparently “Runners fall into two camps on this issue: Some believe abstinence the night before a race helps conserve precious energy.  Others believe the benefit of relaxation helps them sleep.”  As I recall the high school guys told me it would improve race day performance “You can rest comfortably either way knowing that nobody’s ever proved sex hinders performance”

There were some other good tips but I thought the beer and sex were funny enough to blog about.  And to get my mind off other things that are bothering me.  If you like trail running or hiking the book is pretty good.  It covers all kinds of ground including trail running basics, equipment, to ultra marathon race strategies and training.

Sorry to go off on a political tangent.  I am sick to my stomach about this election.  How on earth can our country be so evenly divided, yikes.

What makes me sicker is the Bush campaign basically stating that my vote doesn't count because someone at the county board of elections made a clerical error and changed my address unbeknownst to me.  I don't care if it takes a month to count all of the provisional and absentee ballots.  My vote should count just as much as someone given a normal ballot.  I sincerely hope Kerry doesn't concede even if there isn't a chance of him winning because I want my vote to be tallied, is that selfish?  I don't think so.  I have no idea why this country is so concerned about knowing the president before all of the votes are even counted.  Guess what he doesn't officially get voted in until December when the Electoral College votes anyways.

Anyone who tells me that the election should just be called so that we don't have to wait to find out the results is in my opinion full of it. 

I wonder how many other people in the country had to vote on a provisional ballot because of a mistake that they had no control over.  Seems to me it could be a lot, and their votes should be counted!

Oh and don't even get me started about all of the jerks out there who don't believe in equal rights for everyone.  I just can't believe that people would really vote to put in amendments to state constitutions that take away peoples rights.  Guess what if a church is willing to marry a homosexual couple that should be their right.  The church has a right to decide if a marriage is sanctioned by god.  The government has a right to give civil unions.  It is no different to me whether that marriage or civil union is given to a man and a woman or two men.  It isn't hurting anyone!  Give me a break do we really need to write it into constitutions so that there is no chance of people getting equal rights?  Do you not trust that your church will only honor the marriages that agree with your beliefs?

And guess what kiddies, those bans affect other people too!  That's right your heterosexual son/daughter will not be able to get certain rights associated with civil unions either now.  Uggh.  What on earth is this country coming too?

I literally feel ill just thinking about it. 

Sorry for the ranting I just really needed to get this off my chest.  And I can't even go running today because I need to rest for the marathon, ugggh