Not A Blogger

 Is There Anything About You

That your family or friends do not know about you? Most of my friends and family know me as, well, ME!

A 32-year-old married mama of 2 kids that works a lot. Too much sometimes. Even on my days off (except for when we go to Hawaii. I will only check in for emergencies). They also know I have a freakishly weird love of running. Something that I never loved EVER until a year and half or so ago. They also know I LOVE coffee, hot cocoa, cooking, dancing, fall/winter, sweatshirts, slippers, did I say cooking? Yeah, cooking. And baking.  They also know I am a weather wimp and hate ridiculously hot weather. I would rather it be cool any day of the week. At least when it’s cool outside I can get warm. When it’s hot outside it is nearly impossible to cool down (unless in the ocean or a pool…or a/c but we don’t have that at my house). I love shopping, especially for other people. It’s so fun to see someone’s eyes light up when they open a gift. Even the homemade ones! I am terrible at shopping for myself because I am too critical.

They think I am good at being in charge when in reality I AM JUST GOOD AT FAKING IT! I am TERRIBLE at being in charge. I hate schedules and usually do everything at the last minute. TOTAL PROCRASTINATOR! I am very forgetful and usually have to make a list of things that need to be done. BUT, I am good at remembering USELESS INFO or FUNNY events that happened in my life. It’s the current things that throw me for a loop!

One thing that a LOT of my family and friends DO NOT know about me?  I HAVE A BLOG!

SAY WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?

Yep. That is one little bit of info that is for ME. Now, don’t get me wrong, some of them know. But majority DO NOT and I like to keep it that way. Why? Because then I can’t vent about them! Kidding. Most of my writing is rambling about running or my wacky life that has no direct impact on them. People like to read about topics that can help them, are interesting or offer instant gratification. Those are things I AM NOT GOOD AT! So, therefore I keep this little world that keeps me sane to myself. Or maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to be criticized for my bad grammar and overuse of expletives. I have a degree in journalism you know.

Now That I Got That Out Of The Way

We can focus on more important things. Like how I need to get back to running so you are not stuck listening to my nonsense! This is what happens to a runner when he/she is FORCED to chill.

Today is day 4 of run rest.

 I have been spinning and stair climbing like a mad woman. I am certain that the people at my gym think I am a lunatic. “Look at that girl who was just on the spin bike for 45 minutes. Now she is on the stepper at a level 13. She MUST need help. There is no need for that much cardio.” HA! If they only knew I would rather go run 20 miles!

My Achilles pain in almost GONE which is good. Now I need to focus on keeping it away. You know I have it in the back of my head that as soon as I go on my first run it’s going to hurt. Yep. Freaking. Out.

T-2.5 weeks til MAUI!!! I just pray that I will be able to take on the Maui Marathon Warrior Challenge like a champ and represent for us SoCal girls!!!

When Injured Eat Dessert!

Sunday’s Race

Was a no go. I set my alarm for 5:45 am to get up and check my Achilles. I had decided that if it was even slightly sore I was not going to run. Got up, walked around, stretched and felt just slight soreness. Made coffee, texted my RPIC that I sadly was not going to make it and chillaxed.

Best. Decision.

Although it was a hard one. I love running. I especially love running short races. Short distances test my fitness and I love seeing how fast I can go. That is the main reason why I bailed on Sunday. That and the fact that my little brother’s best friend just ruptured his Achilles doing track work. Poor guy. That is exactly what I do NOT want to happen.

When I Can’t Run

I bake to make myself feel better.

That, friends, is whole wheat cookie cake. Doesn’t the “whole wheat” part make it sound healthy?! Of course it does and if it’s “healthy” you can have more of it. At least that’s the rule in our house. Life is too short to not enjoy a sweet treat!

I loved it, LD said it was one of the best desserts ever and the kids ate it so fast I’m not sure that they tasted it. I don’t usually post recipes but this one is EASY PEASY and it  NEEDS to be shared!

Here is how you make it:

In a large mixing bowl combine:

1 cup of softened butter

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

Once it’s blended beat in 2 eggs and 1 tsp of vanilla

Then slowly add 2 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour

The batter should be sticky and thick

Fold in one cup of mini chocolate chips

Then spread into a 13×9 greased baking pan and pop it into the oven (350 degrees) for 25ish minutes or until you notice it browning on top. Take it out of the oven and then sprinkle some more mini choco chips…or mini m&m’s on top and let it cool.

Serve it up with ICE CREAM!! Or cocoa…or coffee..or by itself. I love desert.

That’s it- so simple and so good!

After Drowning My Injury Sorrows In Desert

I headed to the gym this morning and put in 35 minutes on the moving stairs, followed by 35 min of core and strength training. The stairs kicked my butt and I hope that by rotating that and spin I can keep my cardio up while giving my Achilles a break.

I will be super bummed if I am not ready for Maui. But I think I would be even more bummed if I didn’t chill, seriously injured myself and could not run Vegas in December. It is going to be my best friends first marathon and I plan on being by her side every step of the way. PLEASE GET BETTER ACHILLES. I HAVE TRAINING TO DO!

Happy Monday All!

 

Packet pick-up at a bar

We Survived

Disneyland in 97 degrees and very high humidity. At one point I got super confused by the weather and thought we somehow ended up in Florida. Yes once I again I am a weather wimp! Thankfully kids do not care about heat or humidity and they went 200% the entire time!

We ended walking about 7 miles in total between the two parks. It was not crowded at all and I think the longest line was to wait to see the princesses. Other than that we walked on just about every ride. Love that.

This Morning

I decided after 2 days off to try a short run. I put in close to 2.5 miles at a slow pace (avg 8:30) and felt ok. Got home and iced/stretched only to feel a little bit of soreness and hour or so later. Starting to think I am once again going to have to take at least a week if not more off to resolve this. I am super bummed because I really wanted to be ready for Maui! 

In an attempt to make myself feel better I went and picked up my race packet for tomorrow.

Yes that is a bar. Yes that is where packet pick up was.

If Janae was running this race she would have walked out of packet pick-up directly into here

 

Sorry for the really bad picture. I didn’t realize it was there until we were driving away.  Snap shot as a passenger didn’t work out like I thought it would! HA! I haven’t been to Pacific Beach in ages so I had no idea Yogurtland on Garnet had opened. If it would have been there when I was in college I would have been at CBW and YL nightly. Thank goodness those places came after I moved!

Tomorrow’s Race

Will be a game time decision. It really isn’t worth making my Achilles worse so if it is sore in the morning there is a good chance I will not be running. Arrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.I’ll pray about it tonight. 

Did you miss

My last giveaway? AMY scored this sweet FALL package

Yes he is a jar filled with hot cocoa! The candles are oatmeal raisin cookie and they smell so darn good.

I will do another one at the beginning of October with a Fall theme! Keep your eyes peeled 🙂

Til Tomorrow!

 

 

 

reRun Running. No, I’m not talking about What’s Happening?!…or am I?

Have You Ever

Read  the reRunRunning blog? If you haven’t you need to head over NOW! No it doesn’t feature Fred “ReRun” Berry. Jessica and Cecily are beautiful sisters with a passion for family and, well, RUNNING! They both ran cross country for BYU (and laid it down) and now blog about everything from running to moving across the country from one another. I am telling you I love this blog and you will too!

Jessica just posted some AMAZING info on stretching and strengthening your Achilles tendon!! 

Since Tuesday

I got an easy 4 miler in pain free but am still feeling some tightness in my Achilles this morning. My interior shin splint in my right leg is gone (praise GOD) so now I am going to focus on getting my heel better. Yesterday was a complete rest day and today I am headed to DISNEYLAND for the day! Yes again. Living only an hour and fifteen minutes (or so) from the park leads to several visits a year. The kids are out of control this morning. Seriously, it is one place that I would miss if we ever moved away from SoCal!

So The Plan Is

Touch and go and see how my heel feels tomorrow morning. I am scheduled to run the End Of Fire Summer 4-miler on Sunday but if the Achilles is acting up I may just be a spectator. 

For now I’m headed to the happiest place on earth with mi famiglia!

It's a Bugs Life!

 

 

When I Feel Fit I Feel Strong!

Today’s Workout

40 minutes spin, 15 min stretching/core, 25 min upper body strength training.

There is a girl who runs on a TM pretty close to me at the gym. This morning we both ended up in the group class room stretching and doing core so I decided to pick her brain. What? I can’t help it. I tend to be a chatty patty! We got on the topic of strength training and she told me she loves to run (she does a lot of 5k races) but hates to strength train. She said that every time she adds it into her routine it actually slows down her race times. Wait, huh?! This totally confused me. Has anyone else lost time in races from strength training? This is the first person I have heard this from so now my wheels are turning!

I love strength training. It makes me feel strong even if I can’t lift more than 10lb free weights! I add it into my workouts at least twice a week and have never found it to be detrimental to my running. If anything it helps me to prevent injuries.

Thoughts on this? I keep meaning to do another strength training post and just haven’t got around to it!

Speaking Of Preventing Injuries

My left Achilles is still sore. It is much better than it was yesterday but the ache is still lingering. Insert GINORMO sad face. I have been icing and compressing and only stretching slightly. I read that overstretching it can actually make it worse. EEEEEK.

Does anyone have any suggestions on strengthening my Achilles? I am working on my calf muscles/stretching but I am thinking there has got to be other exercises to help. I have a 4 mile race this Sunday and as long as there is little to no pain I plan on running. I just don’t want it to get worse. I am really looking forward to my races in MAUI and have some serious marathon training to do for VEGAS! I cannot afford an injury right now! Wait, we can never afford to be injured, right?!

Just For Laughs

This picture just expresses my complete frustration with my race on Sunday the best.  Yes I like to share ugly race photos

Doesn’t it look like I am saying ” REALLY? A HILL? REALLY?” It also looks like I am not moving. Niiiicccceeeeee!

Again, any recommendations on how to strengthen my Achilles would be greatly appreciated!

AFC Half Marathon Recap and kicking myself

The Weekend Started 

With me going to the AFC expo on Friday night. I figured it would be less crowded and with pending dinner plans I couldn’t wander around and blow money. I headed to the harbor and picked up my bib and another shirt to add to the collection

The front is not so bad

Not a fan of the logo

I got in and got out. Felt good not to walk out with a butt ton of bags full of things I do not need.

Saturday

Ended up at Costco throwing everything in sight into the cart. It had been way too long since the last trip. I mean a huge bag of Craisins and two GINORMO jars of Nutella should be staples in every household!

Saturday night turned into me starting to go into panic mode that my longest run since June was only 11 miles. Most people get their stuff together the night before a race. I go into freak out mode while attempting to make sure I have everything ready. I am pretty good at coming up with 7,232,456,789 reasons to throw in the towel. Remember, I am TERRIBLE at racing.

I ate dinner, set the alarm for 4 am and then proceeded to deal with Miss Sassy Pants (my youngest) go to battle with her bed. For whatever reason she decided she would rather camp on the couch. Camping in the living room is super fun, but not on nights that I actually need to sleep. Silly girl!

Sunday Race Day

Alarm goes off at 4 and I hit snooze twice. I finally drag my butt out of bed, eat a banana while getting ready and head out the door. I caught the bust at 5:15 and headed to the start. I think it took us 25 min or so to get there. Unloaded around 5:45 and found my peeps. So glad they were there, otherwise, it would have been a looooong 1:15 min wait for the start!

As I stretched I had a goal in mind of 1:42. I figured it wasn’t too unreasonable other than I hadn’t done too many outside runs and the longest was 11 miles. Yes I had been working on speed but I am a HEADCASE runner that couldn’t stop thinking about how I should have run more outside. I know, its torture. After prayer and devotion I decided a little motivation on the hand would help. I channeled EMZ and crossed my fingers

Gun went off…and I went out too fast. SHOCKER. I should have moved farther back so that I would be forced to start slow. The first 3 miles were rolling hills. I felt good and tried to hold my pace as I knew there was a long downhill ahead. I saw my RPIC at mile 3 working the water station. It was so good to see her! I hit mile 4 at a 7:04 pace and wanted to smack myself. I guess I was a little excited!

I slowed it down and got comfortable at a 7:30 pace for the next 4.5 miles.  I took a gel getting close to 9 and at that point I realized I was getting tired. I hung onto my pace through 10 and felt major slowdown coming on at 11. At that time a girl from my running group caught me and said she was hurting. I knew we were about to hit a giant climb and she asked if I wanted to 30/30 with her. At this point I knew 1:42 was out of the window so I said heck yes! We did 30/30 for the entire climb. 

At 12.5 we were flat and it was time to run. We had lost a LOT of time on the hill so it was time to get our butts in gear. The humidity was high and the sun was out and I was ready to finish. I turned my iPod on and just ran.

Holy crazy calf muscle

I crossed the finish line in 1:47:02.  8:10 pace. A new PR.

I should be celebrating right?! Although I am happy to have PR’d I am disappointed in myself. I gave up- the opposite of what should happen at the end of a race. At the time I should be throwing it down I was throwing in the towel. How did I hold a 7:30 average through 11 and end with an 8:10? I JUST LOST IT. It’s that simple. I was thankful for my girlfriend who ran in with me! What an awesome gal. 

Best part of my day? Seeing my family with big smiles at the finish telling me that I rocked! Oh and getting my triple crown medal!

Me and the kiddos

Post Race

I had to get over myself because it was silly to be mad and celebrate. We headed to the Station Tavern and Burger Joint to eat lunch and participate in the annual FANTASY FOOTBALL DRAFT! I don’t remember how good my food was because I am pretty sure I inhaled it. We got into the draft and I have a GREAT team! I won 2 years ago and I think I have a great shot at taking back my title…watch out OBRRFL! 

 

 

 

 

Race Results and Weekend Update

Coming this evening…stay tuned

Ready to run and an offer!

Today’s Run: Easy 3 miler that felt anything but easy

Why Is It:

That the last easy runs before a race feel hard? It must have something to do with taper, right? Or maybe it’s just a total mental game! If you are a headcase runner like me taper brings on all kinds of drama. Like soreness, maybe an undiscovered injury, a slight cold, you know all things SABOTAGE! LOL! It is totally ridiculous and is why I will always be your AVERAGE runner and NOT an elite! Elite runners are FAST know how to adjust, average people like me just try for even splits and turn into this the morning of a race

But bad runs right before a race usually mean good is to come right? That means Sunday could bring a little of this

An Offer:

Came in on or place last night! The buyer offered our asking price and now we just need to pray that it all works out. I did NOT think this would happen so fast. The house hasn’t even been on the market for a WEEK! Now starts the waiting game. Just because an offer came in doesn’t mean we are out of the woods. TIME FOR SUPER PRAYERS!

Who wouldn’t want this place right?

I mean it is a cute little house! I might even miss it a little. It was the first house that LD and I bought when we got married. It will always hold a special place in my heart. But it is time to move along. The kids CANNOT wait.

And Now

We need to figure out where we are going to live. We want to rent for a while until we decide on where exactly we want to be. We love SD so if our work is here we will stay; but if work takes us to another place we are ok with that too! The kids could care less as long as H has a “superhero room” and S gets her “princess room with mostly Ariel.” Ahhhh to be a kid again!

 

Dinner outdoors

When Selling A House:

People like to come during the week and look right during the dinner hour. I figure it’s because they are working peeps (like us) and go from the office out house hunting. It’s hard because we don’t want to cook a smelly dinner and stink up the place. Then again if you pick dinner time to look at a house you should expect that people might be eating. Especially people with 2 small kids. Tonight was one of those nights so instead of having to worry about cooking/cleaning we packed a dinner picnic and took it outdoors!

Picnic At The Park:

Convincing children that they must eat before playing

Smile mooommmmyyyyyyy

We love our Abby dog

The Best Part Of The Picnic:

Is when the sun goes down, we HAVE to put on a light jacket and there are NO bugs. Total reminders of why we moved to So Cal in the first place. We waited until just after 7 to head home. We stopped at Golden Spoon on the way and came home to a sparkling clean house. So NOT normal for us!

PLEASE LET US GET AN OFFER ON OUR PLACE!!! If we don’t HGTV may be hearing from me.