Versatile Blogger Award

So I got this award the other day and am finally getting around to playing along. The rules are:

1. Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 blogs you enjoy reading.

I'd like to thank XLMIC at Taking It On for being nice enough to chose me AND for following my sad little blog. She is awesome and kinda famous so it really made my day to have her follow me :D

About me:

1. When I'm not running, researching about running, reading blogs and books about running or searching for a new race, I have another hobby to occupy my time. I am learning how to make jewelry. It's been a long time dream of mine and after stalking a high-school friend in her jewelry making, I decided to give it a go. I'm not very good at it since I don't have a lot of free time or money to dedicate to it, but each time I make a piece I get better (or at least learn something).

I made this!

2. As I get older I have become a big cry baby. I used to watch Last of the Mohicans every friday afternoon after cleaning house (for the better part of a year) and cried every time. I cry at cartoons. I recently started reading The Long Run (at work on my kindle app for iphone) and had to stop because I kept tearing up.

3. I have two birthdays! My brother and I are both adopted. Our parents got him three days after he was born, and got me two months after I was born. There was never any clear reason for the delay other than I was a church adoption and his was private. Anyway, every year on the day I was adopted I got a present, sometimes a cake! It had downgraded to a phone call now that I am an adult, but it was pretty cool while it lasted!

4.  Even though I am a pretty slow runner, I have a habit of driving really fast. I once got tickets on back to back days at the same location by the same cop. Now I have a fast car to go with my lead foot. So far only one ticket, but I have been pulled over several times and it seems like the reason is they wanted a better look at the car.

She does 11s in the quarter mile.

5. I hate the TV. Not completely just for day to day entertainment. I actually canceled the cable after it was unplugged for 6 months and no one complained. It's hooked up again thanks to my new in-law squatter and I remember why I hated it in the first place.

6. On the other hand, I love computers. I can spend the better part of a 10 hour work day on a computer and come home to go straight to my computer. Throw in my iphone and laptop and I am pretty much always online unless I am sleeping.

7. I totally suck at cooking, I'm not being harsh on myself, everyone agrees. I once made a box of brownies and couldn't figure out why the batter was so thick. I forgot the water. I can boil a noodle or rice like no other tho!

As it turns out I have 16 followers for my blog, so I tag all of you with the award! If you'd like to play along please do so, I'd love to know more about you!

Where is my free time?!?

I honestly don't know when my last post was. Yes I know I can look but who has the time ??

So here's what I have I been wasting my time doing:

1. I've started looking for a job, which is a full time job in itself. I don't really want a job, but the extra money would be awesome.

2. I drove to New Orleans FIVE times in less than two weeks. Now this is only an hour drive, but it really eats into a day. I took the Boy THREE times for college info nights (got lost all three times). Then #4 and I went with others to watch the Stepson get sworn in and shipped off to BT for the Marine Corp Ooh-rah! And then the most important last trip was to the Girl's place of work to get my hair colored. I'm a red-head now :D

3. Working for the man #4. I really have to say I have it easy. But it would be wrong of me to fart around 100% of my time here at the shop, so I try to keep to about 75% farting.

4. Planning a trip to Denver for a special wedding. This may seem easy but other family members are traveling with us and they are notorious for waiting until the last minute. Which is direct conflict with my OCD-Control Freak nature.

5. Running - I know this is a no-brainer, but you may have forgotten that was why I was here in the first place.

6. Facebooking, twittering, blog reading. A girl has to have hobbies.

7. Halloween costume planning. Two parties and a race is what I need stuff for. Ugh. I hate spending money on costumes. I like to dress up of course, who doesn't! But I'm cheap.

On the running front, I was shooting for 9 miles last Saturday.

It was an interesting run. We went a new route that included part of the race route. It was actually hilly, well as hilly as you can get here.

I am pretty sure the purchase of a garmin or similar device was proven on this run. Within a quarter mile of my iphone app telling me I had gone 2 miles, the FFW (fleet feet woman - owners of store hosting the class) looked at her garmin and hollered out "yay 2 miles!". Technically I'm okay if my app steals a little distance from me here and there since I am still a "new" runner. But I can see this bugging the techie in me when double digit runs become old hat.

Although I made the 8 mile run the weekend before without a potty break, it just wasn't in the cards for this run.  When I finished up and was heading back out, I ran into FFW again. She asked how I was doing (cuz it's kinda her job and I'm sure I looked like hell). I mentioned that I wish I get over me need to pee. She laughed and said that it was ok, I  would just pee on myself in the actual half. Good to know. Not like I haven't done it in training.

That gave me a great idea for a shirt. A couple of years ago, one of SILs gave me my fav t-shirt of all time!

Source

I do, I'm not afraid to admit it. It serves two purposes. I don't have to get out (wet bottoms are the hardest thing to pull back up!) and it keeps the kids away from me. I wear the shirt every time we have a pool party :D

So my idea is to get a tech shirt and have "I pee in my shorts on long runs" put on the back. For the half. With an optional "that's not sweat hitting you in the face" in smaller print. I know I would have a big grin on wearing it!

How much can I squeeze into one post?!?

I would be first in line for to have a chip inserted in my brain IF it did certain functions. Namely, record and post all the wonderful bloggy stuff I think about while running, driving, showering and the many other activities I do while not in front of the computer. But since there is no chip yet, and I don't want to leave out anything good, I'll just see how much I can cram squeeze in here.

And because I am a little OCD, it will be in chronological order :D

1. I officially have a running buddy. One of the ladies in my Half training group is not going to be able to do the half with the rest of us, so she set her sights on one the following month. I was already planning to do it so I said I would do it with her. We now are running together every Monday and Friday mornings. Although we run different paces, we start together and meet up again after we are done. It really helps me to get out of bed knowing that someone is waiting on me.

2. The race weekend that wasn't. I managed to miss both of my free races. I wasn't totally planning on doing the mud race. It really didn't seem to be the kind of race that would be fun alone and I couldn't guilt get anyone into doing it with me. It was okay, because after my 6.4 half training run I was pretty exhausted. I was upset about missing the trail run. Our a/c unit shut down Saturday night and we were up til pretty late trying to see what was wrong with it and hopefully get it going again. But we got to go visit my DS again in her new town so it wasn't a total wash.

This is my DS Cori, and her BF Corey. I'm not joking.

3. More running, half training, blah blah blah. Yeah right, like that's not the reason I live and breathe! Monday of Week 5 felt like crap. I felt slow, had trouble breathing, wanted to stop. Wednesday we did a tempo run. I didn't do as well as the last time (maybe there is something to peeing on yourself). Friday didn't feel all that great either. I did a virtual 5k and posted my time at 33:37 at a 10:46 pace. Didn't really notice it until later. It was pretty doggone good for me.

4. New longest distance. 7.19 in 1:17:40 at an avg pace of 10:48. Go me!

5. Tried Yoga for the first time. It was AWESOME, except for the gnats. After Wednesday nights tempo run, FF had an instructor come and do a session with us. It was outside and that's where the gnat came from. I have never felt so good after a run. (I actually ran into to the little girl that did the class after my run yesterday, she does not teach anywhere anymore :( but did recommend some things for me to check into since my gym doesn't have a yoga class).

I'm gonna close it here. I did have half a diet coke this weekend so my memory is not 100% lol

Learning

The old adage goes: Learn something new everyday.

Since I have started down this road, I have hit that mark. Actually most days I exceed it. That's part of why it is so exciting!

Today I read an article posted on Runner's World. It's title is Stride Right. I printed it to save it's useful information. What is interesting is that I remembered a small part of it while I was out on my run tonight. "Focus on gliding—rather than bouncing—over the ground" '


I actually kept saying to myself, over and over, GLIDE. GLIDE. And I ended up having an awesome run.

Now  I went out feeling a little sore from yesterdays treadmill run. So I had actually planned to do a run/walk. Just something to keep my muscles memory going. But I ended up have the best time I have ever had. I think if I had not started out sore, I would have PR'd! lol.

I also learned how to add pages to my blog. So I have separated "topics". Eventually I hope to learn how to make the blog pleasant to the eye.

Learning is so much fun!

State of Confusion

I haven't blogged in a while. I blame google. They made changes a while back which gave me frustration, confusion and a large headache. Right after I started this blog they changed the way google app accounts work. I use google app accounts for my business. For some reason, I could not "own" this blog thru my app account,  my MAIN account. All I could do was post. UGH.

SO I set my goal for this weekend to work around it somehow. Low and behold, they seem to have changed things again. Now I can own this blog thru my app account. I am excited (and still frustrated and confused).

I feel I have a lot of catching up to do. This blog, which ultimately is for myself, is somehow a great source of motivation. I guess as I read others blogs, I dream of being like them. Not only their wonderful blog-lives but their real life racing/running lives. I feel like I am part of a group, albeit on the outside circle looking in.

Welcome back Me!

What's so great about morning runs anyway?

I'm not a big fan of morning runs. Really the only perk I can see is that once it's done, nothing can get in your way for getting your run in that day. Other than that, nada!

Now, you may want to know why I dislike morning runs so much. Several reasons. 

Let's start with the simple fact that I hate mornings. Not all mornings, just the one's that start before 8 am. And right now, by 8am it's just too hot to go run. I'm a lite sleeper so I'm almost never fully rested. 

There is also the pesky nutrition factor. If I'm supposed to eat 30 min to 1 hr before I run then that means I just have to get up even earlier. And to be honest, it's not in me to eat before 9 am. It's almost a workout just to chew. 

So why did I go run this morning, especially after stating yesterday that I was going back to my night runs???

#4 of course. He "wanted" to run this morning. He ended up not joining me, same as last Saturday except this time I went without him. Don't get me wrong, I will change all my plans for him. I want to run (or bike) with him. But I'm not willing to put my training on hold for him. I am looking forward to a bike ride tomorrow with him (cross fingers).

Plus there is supposed to be horrible weather today.

I had a good run despite the hour of the day. I have increased my mileage to 3.5 miles (calm down). I want to be doing 4 miles regularly before my half class starts in mid August. My average pace today was 11:57, which is about 30 sec faster than normal. I wasn't trying to run faster, just trying to finish as always. I know that to a certain degree speed will improve on it's own, it's just interesting to see it. The run was good, no pain and not really hard to finish. If I weren't running in circles (or rectangles) I may have done a full 4 miles. (Running in circles, ovals, squares, etc is so boring!).

I did my last two runs without the aid of a wet beverage. If I let myself I can easily finish off my 10 oz handheld in the first two miles. Thinking ahead for 13.1 miles, I know that isn't gonna cut it. Even if I carry two handhelds, and I'm not interested in a bigger size. So I have decided that I will teach myself to run my short runs without. I'd say I'm a fast learner. Granted the lower temps of nights will help that issue. (Unless I swallow a bug, then I NEED a drink to wash it down.)

I was unable to wear my visor today because I just couldn't find it:

(I swear he did this to himself)

Taking the day off!

Did a 3 mile run and a 7 mile bike yesterday so I think I deserve it. Gonna spend the day researching races and running form :D