Tuesday Refueling

Today’s workout was short but sweaty – 20 minutes elliptical @ 12 resistance +10 minutes of abs. I read Mockingjay (the 3rd and final book in the Hunger Games series) so my elliptical session went by super fast. I didn’t even notice how much my legs were burning from the resistance until it went into cool-down mode.

After the gym, I headed over to J’s where I properly refueled.

Please excuse the sweatiness. I told you it was an intense 20 minutes.

Despite what the picture suggests, I’m usually pretty good about refueling after long workouts, and especially after long runs. My favorite things to eat/drink after a long run are oatmeal with brown sugar and maple, chocolate almond milk, or a Click protein shake blended with ice, almond milk and a little chocolate syrup.

J, Tiff and I also made a delish and healthy dinner of pasta with broccoli and a garden salad (my contribution – I’m good at chopping, not so much cooking).

Tomorrow I’m planning to do an easy 3 miles. I don’t want to work myself too hard during the week because I’m running that Gladiator Rock N Run on Saturday morning then Sunday morning I want to get up bright and early to get in 8 miles. I’m actually excited for that and hoping that I survive the Gladiator run with nothing worse than some mud in eyes. Thankfully, Madison @ I’d Rather Be Eating ran a Gladiator run and warned me about the slippery state of the walls so I’ll be careful on those babies.

And don’t forget to vote for our Ragnar Team Name! Polls close on 9/30 and we’ll be announcing the names over the weekend.

PDR & Rock the Vote

7 miles baby! Yesterday morning I set out at the far-too-early-for-a-Sunday hour of 7AM and was out the door by 8. I was determined to up my mileage from last weekend’s 6 mile run and get in a nice 7 miler while taking advantage of the misty gloomy 60 degree weather. After running 6 miles in 1:05, my goal for the 7 miles was to do it in 1:15. Well I kicked that goal to the curb and finished my run in exactly 1:10. A perfect 10min pace. I was so excited and felt great afterwards! I definitely had a few moments where I had to keep telling myself “You’re almost there. You’re so close. You DO NOT need to walk. and WHEN YOU GET HOME YOU GET TO HAVE COFFEE!!!” But overall, I felt really good and steady the whole time.

Coffee w/ Natural Bliss PURE HAPPINESS

We had a crazy busy day planned so I was a bad runner and got home and I pounded a cup of coffee, showered and was out the door again after barely remembering to grab a Clif bar on my way out. No stretching, no icing. Thank goodness I feel OK today. My hips are a little sore but I think that may be from the gym on Friday so the only part I seem sore from my run is my feet. Not bad, but I think a pedicure with a foot massage may be in my near future.

So remember that little Ragnar Relay thing I’m taking part in at the end of April? We now have the top 10 names chosen by all my fellow teammates’ readers (all you lurkers reading this should know you missed out on the change to win some sweet running swag). Now we just need everyone to vote and then the 12-(wo)man team and the ultra team will duke it out over the top 2 names and the winning names will be plastered all over our shirts, signs, vans, and someone else’s face with sharpie bc I’m sure OUAL isn’t kidding about that and I don’t intend on being the first person falling asleep. So now I need anyone who reads this to head on over to her page and vote on our team name. Vote as many times as you want and we’ll be finding out the winning name this weekend. I’ll be recovering from the Gladiator Rock N Run so I’ll be excited to find out our team name and have another crazy-psycho-running experience to get even more excited about. So please go vote and if you do, leave me a comment and tell me what name you liked best. I can totally see how many views I get via facebook, links from other blogs, twitter and people just typing in the address and coming straight to my page. So quit lurking and let me know you’re here. Otherwise I might say something mean about you not knowing you’re one of my 5 readers (JUST KIDDING!). 

So what name did you pick???

Confession Thursday

A few of my favorite bloggers sometimes do these confession posts and I think it’s time for me to fess up to a few things. Before though, on the running front – yesterday I did a 3.5 mile speed workout at the gym. 1 mile warm up, 4x.25 FAST (I normally run a 10 min pace, I did these at a 7-8 minute pace), followed by a half mile cool down. I was sweating like you wouldn’t believe. I think J was embarrassed by me. 

Now for some confessions. I think I owe a little more info about my life to my 3-4 readers, whoever you are. And please enjoy the random old pictures throughout.

Confession 1: I LOVE to blog. I just don’t always WANT to blog. I spend 40+ hours a week staring at a computer. Sometimes I get home and I want to do anything but look at my computer for another hour. I really do enjoy it when I actually sit down and pump something out. I truly love writing, and before the desire for boatloads of money crossed my mind I was actually a Journalism Major for 2 years.

Best Eggs Benedict EVER. A result of being on the computer so much is that I buy a lot of Groupons. This was for Larchmont Bungalow in LA. GO! Seriously! You will thank me.

Confession 2: I talk about Jason A LOT. If you read my blog, get used to it. I spend 90% of my free time with him and he’s absolutely the best boyfriend ever so after 5+ years with him I have a lot of bragging I like to do.

My handsome man in Maui. We got shaved ice from Ululani’s and it was amazing. UHHHMAZING. It had mac-nut ice cream in the bottom. I would buy a plane ticket just to go get more of this stuff. 

Confession 3: I love food. Anything I eat and enjoy will be deemed “The BEST thing ever” for a period of time, and every time I mention it again (as you can see).

Confession 4: I over exaggerate. If you’ve ever heard Dane Cook’s bit about taking a 100 hour nap, well, that’s probably about me.

Confession 5: If I could choose to only watch TV or only read for the rest of my life I would not even hesitate. I could never give up reading. But before you think I’m some arrogant, pompous intellect-type, I need to clarify. I pretty much spend all of my reading energy on anything and everything written by Stephen King, then when something comes out that caters to high schoolers (like Twilight and Hunger Games) I drop everything and read every book in the series. Then I go back to Stephen King when I’m done obsessing and pretending to be Katniss (I’m currently considering taking up archery).

I plowed through the first book in one afternoon at the beach and a couple days on the elliptical. I’m now on the second book, Catching Fire, and all I can think about it that I really wish the movie was already out so I could be Katniss for Halloween and not have people ask me a million times if I’m supposed to be Peter Pan.

What’s your favorite book? Maybe you can pull me away from the Stephen King & Young Adult Fiction Fan Club.

Out of My Rut

See this:

That’s me… stretching, drinking chocolate almond milk and SMILING because I got over my 4-mile rut and did 6 miles this morning in 1:05. I’m SO excited that I finally conquered this. I set out to do 6 miles one time before but it was in July and about 90 degrees with the sun BEATING down on me so I walked about half. Today I powered through and luckily the weather was great for the first 3 miles. Cloudy, cool and a little breezy. The last 3 back the sun came out but knowing that I was getting closer with every step kept me going.

I discovered a secret. Rather than trying to run longer runs through my excessively hilly neighborhood, I will now be driving a mile down the hill to the flat, main street, doing my run, then driving myself up the hill home. So much better. I only almost got hit once by an old lady who didn’t feel the need to stop at a stop sign and when I had to pee I was able to run into Coffee Bean. So much better than my usual method of suffering through it. TMI? I got stopped at every light though, so my Nike+ said 1:06 when I got back and I decided it must have been at least a minute of waiting at lights (6 there and 6 back) so I’m gonna go with 1:05. Congrats to me!

Now I’m icing my hips, knees and ankles while watching the freakshow that is Toddlers & Tiaras. I hope everyone has a great weekend! 

Not Running Related (And My Lack of Design Skills)

This post will be quick. I am in LOVE. His (its?) name:

Ummmm, can we say BEST THING EVER! I’m pinning everything. From running clothes, to everyday clothes to (my favorite) home decorating ideas. I’ve found my dream home:

Don’t you love my amazing Microsoft Word collage skills? I want my house to look like that. So if you have a Pinterest, find and follow me! I love seeing what other people pin. And if you need an invite I’d be happy to send you one. Just leave me a comment or email me directly. And please leave a comment for our team name if you have any good ideas 🙂

Crosstraining and a NAME CONTEST

Yesterday I hit the gym for a little crosstraining: 30 min elliptical, 15 min abs and back on the incline thing, 15 minutes of leg machines. I don’t really feel sore, but I also know I probably wasn’t working as hard as I should. We’ve had so many client meetings at work (the third was today!) and I’ve just been exhausted and kind of run down the last week. Also, I think I feel like I’m on the verge of a cold.

Tonight I decided to just hit up Target after work to get Catching Fire (yes I have the reading level of a 14-year-old right now) and come home to relax and do a little blogging and baking. Tomorrow morning will be an easy 3 miles. 

Does anyone else have that weird disease where you walk into target and end up walking out with about 47 things you never really needed but had to buy because they were such a great deal? Yeah me neither… 

But today I was good and I only bought the things I went in for – the book, toothpaste, new toothbrush heads, some baking supplies and a random can of tomato soup (ok ONE thing that was too cheap to pass up).

On another note – I need some help. There is a group of 18 of us crazy running blogging  girls planning to run the So Cal Ragnar Relay in April. It’s a relay race from Huntington Beach to San Diego. I think I’m clinically insane because I have yet to even run my first half, but I’m hoping to be the runner who gets assigned the “easier” legs of the race (hint hint ladies). We have two AWESOME teams. A 12-woman relay team and a 6-woman ULTRA team. Thanks to OUaL for this amazing picture collab and for organizing the teams:

The ULTRA Team

SkinnyRunner, Chacha, Margot, OUaL, Pam, HauteRunningMama

The 12-(wo)man Team

Heather, Becka, Rose, Kat

PrettyFittie, Kate & Ang, Monica, BrokeRunner

Madison, Elisabeth, Me

I’m so excited to have the opportunity to run with some of the AMAZING ladies that have inspired me, as well as to meet some new bloggers I’ve become a quick fan of, and most of all have a SUPER CRAZY FUN experience while making some new friends. But here is that catch – OUaL has done a great job organizing everything but WE NEED A NAME! 

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE it if you are reading this, if you could PRETTY PLEASE leave a comment on here with an idea for a name. If you go check out SR’s blog – she has a pretty sweet giveaway planned for the winner and I will totally contribute especially if one of my 4 readers comes up with a good name. So help us out, make it funny, cutesy, girly, whatever, and I will GREATLY appreciate it!! And if anyone who lives in a close enough vicinity to me wins I will totally bake you cookies or take you to Yogurtland 🙂 So COMMENT AWAY! Team YET-TO-BE-NAMED thanks you!

Earthquake Weather

I know there is no correlation between the weather and the chance of an earthquake, but I swear this feels like earthquake weather.

I’m kind of mad at myself. I was supposed to get up and run 6 miles this morning, but I slept through my stupid alarm and ended up only doing my typical 4 miles. It was majorly muggy this morning and I was like I was breathing in swamp air at times. Unless it’s a legit rainstorm, I don’t do humidity. No thanks.

Bright red and sweaty. Mmmm.

My ankle hasn’t been bugging me nearly as much but I’ve been trying my best to be diligent about icing and stretching.

If only someone was home to make and bring me some coffee right now. My family is up at Mt. Sac for the high school XC super-big-deal race and J is off doing grown up man things that are way out of my range of comprehension. Too bad Heidi is useless.

This is an old picture but her lack of thumbs and inability to help me with my caffiene mix is making her a bad dog. That, and I just watched her figure out a way to roll around on the ground so that the Cone of Shame pops right off.

One good thing about today’s run is that I got to wear my new Road ID for the first time and it was absolutely useless as nothing bad happened to me. I normally don’t like wasting money, but I sure won’t be disappointed if this thing never needs to be looked at, but it is cute in purple!

Cone of Shame!

I feel like I’m still catching up from the long weekend. Work has been absolutely insane and all I can think about is how I cannot wait for it to be October when some of the craziness will settle down until the holiday shopping season starts up. Luckily, I work in advertising, not retail – so as long as I stay on top of things and get everything set up before Thanksgiving, it’ll hopefully be smooth sailing into the new year.

Now, I really wish I didn’t already have holidays and new years on my mind. It was just Labor Day! And it feels far from Fall right now as I sit here boiling hot at 9PM. Ugh. Hate the heat. But Labor Day was a great day of pool lounging, eating too much and backyard beer pong. Yesterday I had to get back into the swing of things with my first speed workout, and today I took it easy on the elliptical. It was supposed to be a rest day but I felt like I needed to make up for the mass consumptions of the holiday weekend.

My mom lounging in the pool.

The boys teaching my dad and uncle to play beer pong (and yelling at them for their ELBOWS)

Heidi tried to cool off. She gets stressed when school starts back up and the house is empty all day so she bites her paws. Then she gets to look super embarrassing in the Cone of Shame. Other dogs point and laugh. My dad likes to tell people when she looks in the right direction we get HBO.

I yelled at Heidi for partaking in underage drinking, but she told me she is 54 in dog years so it’s totally legal. Touché dingo.

Another exciting thing happened over the weekend (besides my craptastic 2 mile run on Monday. 90 degrees + running + pre-run pancakes = death). Jas and I got to head back to our BEAUTIFUL alma mater because my little brother just started his first year of college!

That’s the face of 4 whole years of fun ahead.

And that is the face of pure, bitter envy. I don’t blame you J… 

After lunch at Wahoos Fish Tacos (I scarfed down my Grilled Fish Banzai Burrito way too fast to take a picture), we took Michael back and J and I braved the craziness of Venice beach for about 23.6 minutes.

Drinking iced tea from the coffee shop we used to work at on campus.

Fancy skulls and coffins. If only I had a place to put them.

Jason better watch out because there were some fine fellas out there on the boardwalk:

Then we paid $1 for 20 smelly sticks and went home to suburbia where I can walk alone at night and never have to pay for parking. And had Yogurtland. The end.

Running with Mountain Lions

I just got back from a 3 mile run in 30:09. Considering it was 85 degrees and the last mile was completely uphill I’m ok with this. And I still can’t lift my arms all the way after Pump. Excuses excuses right?

If you paid attention to my last post, you know I already failed my September goal of getting up at 7:00 to run on weekends. But here’s the thing, I was up at 7, I just didn’t run right away and it turned out to be a good thing I waited. My brother had his first NCAA cross country meet down in Orange County today so my parents left super early to go watch. I was on call to pick up my sister from XC practice on the other end of town when they got back. I wasn’t sure what time that would be and since I don’t run with my phone I figured I would just head out on my run after I picked her up.

Around 8:45 my mom called me freaking out. Apparently, while the girls were running a trail between our town and the next one over, the ran into some hikers who told them there was a mountain lion on the trail. The hikers freaked them out so much that Maddi had to borrow some ladies phone to call my mom and try to tell her to get a hold of the coach. My mom was freaking out and couldn’t reach the coach so she wanted me to drive over early to see if I could find anyone.

Luckily, the girls made it back safe and in one piece. I always worry about rattlesnakes out here in the hills and I had an encounter with a coyote back in high school while walking Heidi, but I’ve always figured those were just animals I had to keep an eye out for while running near the hills. But a MOUNTAIN LION!?!? No thanks. I like all my limbs in tact. I don’t blame them for freaking out, I would too! Oh and I guess there has also been a bear spotted around the hills too. Last time I checked I didn’t live in the Redwood Forest…

 

So I got back around 10:30 and hit the pavement for 3 miles. And my brother got 1st for LMU in the meet and 31st overall. I’m so proud of him for doing so well in his first college meet!

Now I need to go shower and try to figure out what to do for the day that doesn’t involve spending money.

Have you ever had a wild animal encounter while running?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September Goals

We’re getting closer to FALL! I’m so excited. I’m literally drooling over the thought of a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks. Pumpkin creamer for my morning coffee. Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins… I might actually turn to a weird shade of orange before it’s even October.

With the start of a new month, I thought I’d hop on the running blogger bandwagon and lay out my goals for September. (I am also secretly trying to distract myself from the Snickers bar in my desk drawer but it’s tough.) Here are my Goals for September:

1. Wake up earlier. This means waking up at 5:30 at least 2x per week for morning runs, 6:00 for non-running mornings, and no later than 8:00 on weekends (7:00 for running!). I am a HUGE oversleeper and this usually results in me waking up far later that I would like to and feeling completely rushed every morning. And on the weekends, it results me in waking up when it’s already too dang hot to run outside so I’m stuck running on the treadmill.

2. Pack my lunches every day. I try to buy lunch as little as possible at work, but some days (due to being rushed from oversleeping) I end up running to Subway or Togos. DUMB. I can make just as good of a sandwich on my own. Or make good salads or bring leftovers. Living at home still means that groceries cost me nothing. Time to start packing.

3. Blog more. I love updating my blog. Sometimes I am just lazy. My goal is to post 5x a week.

4. Take more pictures. Another thing I love to do, but don’t do enough. Maybe I should title this goal “Remember to charge camera and stop leaving memory card in computer”.

5. Run a 10k and train like a beast for the half in December. It’s time to get cracking on that. Time to run faster and start tackling those hills instead of letting my mind talk me into walking the hills instead of fighting on. And I don’t want to let my Ragnar Team down!

I think these are some pretty realistic but challenging goals for the next month. I’ll make sure to keep you posted on how I do 🙂 **Update: the Snickers bar sadly did not make it through this post.

What are your goals for the new month?

Oh and one more thing – you should definitely watch the BFster’s new YouTube vid because he is my own personal JT and I’m super impressed because I couldn’t hit a note if my life depended on it: