@roadtrip10: First of all: Welcome to the blogosphere!

Second: Uh, last year was probably not the best year to judge Chicago on… I would still like to try it because it’s supposed to be a fast, flat course. And Linden likes flat for sure (it’ll be a few years before I’m fast!). Plus, the audience is supposed to be great. I would be very surprised if there is ever another catastrophe like 2007 at Chicago again.

@charity: Don’t worry! Running season has started, but not marathon training. That’s when I’m going to do the first fitness test.

@topher: I did, I did! And thanks for the bloglovin’, too! About that vote… my best friend was also nominated (SarahJoAustin.com) *cough, cough* so I think I kinda have to vote for her. *Yikes* What a pickle I’ve got myself in!

Dude! What’d you do? You nominated me? THAT’S AWESOME! Thank you so much. I gave you some bloglove in my latest post announcing my nomination.

Dumb question, but does that mean I can count on your vote?

Eek – your running season has started and I haven’t even taken my first fitness test. I haven’t forgotten – I promise – it’s just been delayed. But finals are OVER and I WILL do it this weekend. Ugh – it won’t be pretty.

Oh – and I’m impressed that the two of you try to present normalcy for the sake of others. I’ve long given up (much to the embarassment of my husband and my mother).

Ah Chicago Marathon (even though you’re not running it). Greg ran it last year and although he said he would run another marathon, he said never again for Chicago. It was a zoo.

@topher: Thanks, you too! He sure does. Man, I paid full price for my Pearl Izumis and he just gets the latest model for free?!

We never talk in Valley Girl, or any other voice, for that matter, when other people can hear us. Gotta keep up the illusions of normalcy. But I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one getting laughed at on the trail. :)

Good luck with the bike give-away. That Vanilla’s got some sweet hook-ups. I wonder if people would look at me funny if I incorporated valley talk into my runs. I wonder if they’d look at me funny because I’d be a guy talking like a valley girl, or if it’d be because I’d be talking to myself, or b/c I’d be talking to myself…in valley talk. Either which way, I guess it’d be no different than the way people laugh at me when I’m running to begin with.

You know how you speak for Ravi and now Mowgli? And you drug Chris into it? Well, our equivalent idiosyncrasy is that we talk to/at/for each other and random characters in all sorts of voices: black, valley girl, Russian, German, hick, stoopid, gay, woman, granpa, et cetera, et cetera. It’s funny. At least to us.

So I was Valley Girl (that’s Rob usual voice for me when he’s mocking me), and you were Woman. It’s similar to Valley Girl, but in this case, he just switched voices to indicate a different speaker. :)

Yea! Running season!

I’m confused. Did I get the Valley Girl voice or did Rob give it to you? In all fairness, that’s not what I sound like.

:)