The Calm Before the Storm

This weekend was either the start of something good or it was the end of my social life as I know it. I just won't know which until Tuesday.

Tuesday is the day that I find out if I'm going on trial or not. Our judge hasn't quite made up his mind yet. If this case goes, then I'm booked solid in terms of weekend and evening engagements until mid-June. If this case doesn't go to trial then I get to keep my social life and hopefully have more weekends like this past one.

Chicago didn't have great weather this weekend. If the old adage of April showers bring May flowers is true then May will be in full bloom. I can't complain though because when I needed the weather to come through it did, starting with Saturday morning.

This was the second time I tried to meet some friends in the park for photos. Last time we were met with hail. This time we had windy, overcast skies, which were actually perfect. The good conditions gave me a chance to experiment and get down and dirty in the grass. Here are four of my favorites shots from the 200+ that I took.

I have to thank my friends Carly and Bun because they really could not have been better. I truly had so much fun. And I might possibly have some more of these shoots coming my way. I attended Carly's baby shower today. As part of my present, I gave her a CD with a slide show of all the images set to music. They played it for everyone and the two pregnant ladies at the shower both wanted to know if this is something I might do for them.

The other event I attended this weekend was the Ravenswood Run 5K. And dare I say it, I think I had fum. What? What's that you say, Amy? You enjoyed running this morning? Why yes, I believe I actually did. It's possibly because the weather held up and there was no rain. Although that wouldn't have mattered. Given I bailed on my last race due to inclimate weather, I wasn't missing this one - rain, sleet, snow, hail, excessive heat, tornadoes... I was going to run. Imagine how happy I was to wake up to mid-40s temps and no precipitation. The race was great in another way too. It was local. Instead of hailing a cab or taking public transit, I got my bike out of storage and rode a few blocks south.

You may remember my goal for this race was under 33 minutes. And my finish time was...

33:01.

Seriously. Thirty-three minutes and one second. Two seconds away from my goal. That's all. Two measly seconds. I ended really strong and flew over the finish line. If only I had known how close I was I would have started sprinting about 10 feet sooner. If that isn't motivation to get a Forerunner, I don't know what is.

I take comfort in the fact that my pace was 10:38 min/mile. I don't remember how I've done in previous 5Ks, but I'm pretty sure that's a personal record for me. And really my sub-33 minute goal was based on running 11 min/miles. I forgot to factor in the 0.1 mile in the 5k(3.1 mi.) race so I was still on target. All in all, I'm pretty pumped even though I finished two seconds slower than I wanted.

In a very large, all inclusive nutshell that was my weekend. Come back and Tuesday to see whether or not I'll continue with such jammed packed weekends/posts or if from then until June I'll have regular updates of how many hours I'm working each day.