Oh God.

And so it begins...

"Congratulations!" the e-mail that just plunked in my inbox innocently says... "You have been selected and are now officially registered for the 2012 Aramco Houston Half Marathon."

I'm still in denial, re-reading the registration confirmation. Several weeks ago, I was just signing up to have a chance to run a half marathon, which I was okay with. It was just a chance. It was a lottery. I sign up for lotteries all the time and never win. Lotteries are just taxes on people who never took statistics. And now, my luck decides to kick in (or, more likely, I never calculated my probability of winning). My brain doesn't seem to be processing this information the way the nice marathon folks have processed my credit card ($105.00 registration fee, *yoink*!).

I got here somehow. I've got a long way to go. I'm pretty committed to it at this point, standing to lose a hundred bucks' registration fee and a whole lotta face to the friends, family, coworkers, and random Facebook acquaintances who I've been talking this up to, and I have a feeling that this is going to be an interesting journey. A blog is warranted-- for data collection, for reassuring my parents that I'm not dead yet, for looking back at when this ordeal/opportunity has passed. I'll go back and explain how I got into this mess, and how I've started out, and then I'll just keep track of where I'm headed and how I'm doing.

But for now, I'm just going to sit here in a bit of a haze because I'm apparently running a half marathon.