If my stats page is truthful and you guys follow through with taking the three minutes to sign her book, we'll reach triple-digits in the donations by the end of today. So please take just a moment to say hello to a good friend of mine and boost her donation amount!

So now Benito has offered a challenge of his own. According to his IM, he'll donate $10 for every minute I finish behind him in the upcoming Shamrock Shuffle under 5 minutes. For example, if he beats me by three minutes, he'll throw in 20 bucks. In addition, he'll throw in $15 for each minute I beat him by.

Seeing that I've been training for running a 10k exactly twice, this is unlikely to gain anything for the cause. However, it's apparently worth a shot.

In sum, Benito the Motivator gets his way. I won't be on the sideline that weekend after all.

Dammit. The things we do for charity.

If any of you have ideas for any stupid things I can do in exchange for your donations, email me, and I'll see what I can do.

Yes, I realize that I'm opening up a big ol' can of worms with this one.

Bring it on readers... Bring it on...

So Practice #2 of becomming a runner went pretty crappily.

I was too lazy on Saturday to get myself to my office to get my good running shoes before the sun threatened to set, so I took to the roads with my crappy sneakers instead.

BIG MISTAKE.

Not only did it make me a McWalkerson for six of the thirty minutes I was out there, it also made everything hurt. My feet are unhappy. My back bones feel all compressed. My legs are grumpy. And I'm also blaming my oh-so-sore shoulders on the year-old Adidas.

In addition to the shoes being cruddy, I really wasn't dressed well enough. I figured with it nearing 40 degrees that a long-sleeved thermal and Old Navy yoga pants would be enough. Wrong-O!

23 minutes into it, I almost gave in and just headed home. My teeth were all chattery, and my skin was all prickled with the goose bumps. With my real estate location so close to the lake, I had quite the howling gale there.

However, I somehow sucked it up and got on with it. ToughJo indeed.

Not only was all of my gear inadequate on this jaunt, but I seriously almost got his by a car. Yeah, yeah. I know Benito is shaking his head at me since I report over IM about once per week that I was within millimeters of my end because of a combination of my carelessness and some crazy downtown Chicago drivers.

This was not the case this weekend.

I was seriously within millimeters of my end.

All right, all right. Maybe not my *end*, but I could have lost a knee due 100% to driver negligence.

So I was jogging around the Gold Coast (I swear I'm gonna make a Chicago Gold Coast website just so I have something to link when I talk about my hood). It's a good point to note that there aren't any stop lights when you get off the main streets, and you have to be super-careful that the dill-holes who drive around there are paying attention to both the pedestrians and the stop signs.

As I went to cross this one street, I cautiously entered the cross walk as a car approached it. With his slowing down while moving towards the stop sign, I entered the painted lines. And for some reason, instead of coming to a complete stop as the law would dictate, the ass-weed accelerated right as I entered the space in front of him.

We all have this moment where we surprisingly hear our parent's voice escape our mouths, and Kevin Keena was in full force that day.

I let out a

and threw my arms up in a "What the fuck?!" motion.

I gave the driver my best angry face and continued trotting off. As I rounded the corner, I about doubled-over in laugher.

Jesus Christ, I am truly my father's daughter. �