Approaching the finish line!

Four more days until I travel back to the US to start the long-ish journey to my 6 April oral board certification exam.  Sagoy!  I'm going to stay in the LA area for a few days on an "extended layover" which a totally awesome concept since I get to see SMS.  On April 1 afternoon, I'll head to Chicago to start my 3-day review course the next day.  I am excited for the practice and final consolidation of my studies and ability to present them in a clear, logical, correct fashion.  I have a day "off" on the 5th and then my exam is on the 6th.  The next day, I'll have a bit of time in Chicago before I head back to Japan, probably totally nerve-wracked!  I won't get my results for 9 weeks, wah! [Oh, I realize that posting full itineraries on the internet isn't the smartest but no one really know where I live to break-in and steal my stuff, plus I live in a secured apartment building.  And if a robber tried to come in the middle of the day (um, what robber would do that?), Yamaguchi-san would probably kick their a** given the aggressiveness of her pursuit of bad garbage sorters!  Yamaguchi-san is the little old lady- really, she's very little and pretty old- who supervises the building.]

I'm looking forward to the boards being over although I did manage to run a race this weekend and go to Church, where I sat with the lovely Cragin family.  On Saturday, I ran the Anchors Aweigh half marathon.  I felt alright during the race apart from a brief wall-like feeling at mile 9.  Oh yeah, at the end I thought I was at the finish line but I didn't realize there was a 1/3 mile loop to complete.  Argh.  I had already started my kick and that did not feel awesome to keep it going for longer but that's what I get for trying to pass people at the very end (because I am competitive!).  I ended up coming in at 1:46:48, which is respectable enough.  I'd love to train more so that I could keep that pace up for a whole marathon since 3:40 is what is needed for Boston, but I'm not super bitten by the long-distance bug right now so I might keep my long runs around the 10-12 mile mark for now.  Granted, before the race, I hadn't ran very far at all- one six mile run and one twelve mile run with a few stretching breaks.  Eh, we'll see how my motivation holds up as the humid, hot Japanese Summer approaches. [<-- That sounds promising.]

Ok, back to studying!  I have such big reading (for fun!) and TV/movie plans when this is all over.  I cannot wait!