Happy Healthy Runner

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2011-08-29T21:14:00.001-05:00

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Moving moving moving

2011-07-22T15:37:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the every so lovely Heidi I was able to finally get all my blog stuff together and we are MOVING!

Update your readers, etc please and find me now over at:

happyhealthyrunner.com

Please bear with me because we're still under construction, but I'm working on getting that all worked out soon :)

And Heidi, THANK YOU!

Progressive Miles

2011-07-22T12:51:00.000-05:00

I did 6 progressive miles outside today.

It's the first time in weeks that I've run outside for longer than 2-3 miles per the doctors orders... He told me to stick to the treadmill... but I just couldn't do it today.

He was just too cute not to add in again

I tried, I really did.

But when I walked into my living room the thought of running another run on the treadmill made me a little bit sad inside. And I just couldn't bring myself to walk into the back room and hop on the stupid thing.

So I grabbed my mace, knife, and Garmin and left the house. It's hot and humid outside. But I ran pretty good considering.

These were my splits:

All I wanted to do this run was make it progressive. I wanted to finish strong and I did. So that's a win. I can't wait til it's a little bit cooler and I don't feel like I'm running through a sauna.

For whatever bizarre reason, I'm also breaking out a like a 15 year old boy right now. I think it's from lack of sleep, but I can't be certain.

Gross.

In other news, I think I have hooked LB on running! One down, one to go. Sean, you're next.

If he's reading this, I'm fairly positive he's going "yeahhhh right" right now. But I am stubborn.

Do you try and get family members to run too?? I have been after Sean for a while but it hasn't worked yet. Just recently LB has become interested, which makes me very happy.

3 Things Thursdayyy

2011-07-21T11:41:00.000-05:00

It's that time again! And you know what that means - tomorrow is FRIDAY!

1. I guest posted over at Gourmet Runner today. Vanessa is fantastic and you should all be reading her if you aren't already. Plus she loves peanut butter as much as I do, which is a definite win in my book! :)

Seriously, she is so cute!

2. Things are happenin' around here (hopefully) and I (hopefully) will be able to share some good news soon. Secrets secrets are no funnn... I know, I know.

3. When I got home last night I wanted to run. This never happens (I am one of those weird morning workout people, Tara) so I popped in Mamma Mia and jumped on the treadmill to knock out a progressive 5 mile run. This movie makes me so stupidly happy. I was singing along while running. If you ever need a treadmill mood-booster, this is the way to go!

Your turn! Tell me something that's going on with you!!

Do you like guest posting? I love it. And if you love it, I may need you next week.... :)

La Parmigiana Italian Oven - YES PLEASE. Oh and Weekly Workout #9

2011-07-20T12:06:00.000-05:00

Bet you thought I was going to start with La Parmigiana Italian Oven huh? Too bad :)

This week is an 'easy' week for me. My body is tired, my motivation is lacking, and I just want to take a break.

If you keep up with my training, you know I normally take Monday's off from working out. But since I'm going on a girl's trip this weekend, I decided I'd take two rest days this week instead of one and make them Saturday and Sunday instead of Monday.

I almost took Monday off too, but I forced myself to get it done Monday evening. It's a rough life, I tell ya.

THIS WEEK:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 6 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 6 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Easy enough, right? We'll see.

Onto bigger, better things now...

Because I am going out of town this weekend and we are going to Vegas next week, I have been trying to get rid of all the fresh food in the house. This is not as easy as it seems... I'm tired of leftovers!

Last night when I got home I told Sean we could either have leftovers or go somewhere. He opted to go somewhere (and I secretly rejoiced). Since we had Mexican food on Saturday he was brainstorming other types of food we could have (we really get stuck on Mexican or sushi 99% of the time). We've been trying to branch out past our "safe" go-to restaurants, so we drove around for a bit before stumbling on La Parmigiana.

It is conveniently in the same strip center as Orange Leaf. Frozen yogurt afterward? Done and done.

Now, usually I'm pretty good at avoiding bread at restaurants. And by avoiding bread, I mean that I'm pretty good at limiting myself to one piece. And by one I usually mean two.

But they had the cutest little pizza slice shaped pieces of bread that were fresh-baked and came with a pesto-olive oil-parmesan mix to dip in... It was little bites of heave and rainbows I tell you!

But I was good. I only had 1 1/3 pieces... (yes, I stole part of a piece that Sean ate...)

And then we ordered an appetizer that is one of my all-time favorites - steamed mussels in white wine garlic sauce. This one came with shrimp too.

Let me tell you - white wine garlic sauce is the best thing that has ever been invented and the white wine garlic sauce at La Parmigiana was made by fairies and unicorns. I'm not even lying when I say that I could have drank the stuff off the plate. Because I have a *little* more class than that, I really just inhaled two more pieces of bread soaked in the stuff.

Our waitress came over as I was stuffing my face (Sean had stopped at this point, rude) and said she was going to ask if we wanted her to remove the plate but by the looks of it I did not... oops. I let her take it to save myself from eating anymore bread.

Then our pizza came. This is what pizzas should always be made like. The same bread that we had been tearing through seconds before was the crust of our pizza. I die. Everything was so fresh and flavorful and delicious.

We each ate one slice before we both agreed we couldn't eat anymore (yayyyy leftovers!!).

If you are around my part of the world, go here. Seriously. So good. We will be returning very soon.

Then we had Orange Leaf where I drowned myself in cookies 'n' cream and coffee frozen yogurt topped with butterfingers and waffle cone pieces. I'm not sure I think it's as good as my beloved Yogurt Cup, but I also signed up to be part of their preferred members so I get a discount every time I spend $30... which will be every third time I go. I didn't take a picture because someone is embarrassed when I take pictures of my food in public places. Something about not being discreet. Maybe because the flash went off when we were in the dimly lit Italian restaurant. My bad.

Needless to say I skipped the scale this morning.

Oh and sorry for the crappy picture quality but all I had was my phone and like I mentioned - someone gets all in a tiff when I take pictures of food ;)

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 8

2011-07-19T10:13:00.001-05:00

I have no pictures right now because my camera is being weird... so, sorry about that. But we'll make this recap short and sweet and I'll try to find interesting pictures to throw in from my phone :)

I bought this shirt for $2.88 at Academy. $2.88!!

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 4 miles @ 8:26 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 18 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: rest rest and more rest

Tuesday: 2 miles @ about 9:00 min/pace with the brother; 30 min Pilates

Wednesday: Jackie Warner's arms & abs circuits; 30 minutes on the bike at the gym

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace, 1 mile @ 8:20 min/pace with 1 mile warm up & 1 mile cool down

Friday: Jackie Warner's arms & abs circuits; I don't remember if I did anything else, but I think I might have walked and I don't have my workout log with me so I'll update this later ;)

Saturday: 5k race

Sunday: 18 miles; the first 9 were at a solid 9:50 min/pace, the last 9 varied between speeding up and slowing down; 10 min total body Pilates, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Overall planned miles: 26

Overall actual miles: 29.1

Louie decided to get in a quick run before I went out to conquer 18 miles.

Despite the fact that I really had a hard time getting motivated to work out for most of the week, I feel like my week went pretty well. My 18 mile run went much better than last week's 16 miler, and it left me pretty satisfied with my whole week of workouts.

I'm taking this week really easy because I'm tired and my body just needs a break. That being said, hitting 18 miles was a really big deal for me because it showed me that my body is capable of carrying me through a full marathon. I don't know what it was about making it to 18 but it made it very real and exciting :)

Tell me something exciting about your weekend! We went out for Mexican food on Saturday night and I had the most ginormous margarita of my life! Because I am a lightweight these days, I was also tipsy after that 1 margarita. We also went to see Horrible Bosses. Eh...

Lunar Rendezvous 5k Race Recap

2011-07-18T11:51:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday I ran the 33rd Annual Lunar Rendezvous 5k race out at Space Center Houston.

Let me just preface this by saying this was not a good race for me.

Let me also get all of my complaints out of the way and blame this on Sean. It was hot. It was humid. It was about to rain (seriously, it started raining about 10 minutes after I finished running). I got no sleep because Sean was out with the guys and I waited up to make sure he got home in one piece which means I went to sleep at 2am and got up at 5:30am. (Ok, it isn't Sean's fault, but I was really tired.)

See how gross that weather looks?!

Complaining over, this just was not a good race for me.

For one, I started out way too fast.

I ran the first mile in 7:13 (who am I?!).

The first 1.5 miles were OK. I felt ok, but not great. By about mile 1.75 my head left the race. I wasn't into it, I didn't feel great, and I was running way too fast for me. I couldn't slow down. And I mentally gave up. And I walked for about 30 seconds. My pride died right then, I've never walked during a race before. How I can run 18 miles and be OK but walk during a 5k race is beyond me.

Needless to say, even with my 30 second walk, I ran the second mile in 7:15 (yeahhhh.... I was running wayyyy too fast)

And then I mentally shut down. I've never even come remotely close to walking in a race before. Everyone talks about how running is a mental sport - it is.

I walked twice more after that. I didn't want to be there anymore. I didn't want to run. I just wanted to go home and cry. Was I being overly dramatic? Yes. Did I care? No.

When I slowed down for the third time (I was less than 4/10's of a mile away from the finish) a guy ran up to me and said "NO". And he paced me in the rest of the way. What a miracle worker. I could have hugged him I was so happy that he showed up when he did. Here's a tragic picture of me finishing:

The irony?

I PR'd.

Go figure.

I also came in fourth in my age group, which I don't want to talk about because if I hadn't stopped three separate times I would have placed somewhere in the top 3.

All I wanted out of the race was to beat my PR. My PR was currently held at 23:18 BUT the course was only 3 miles, not a full 5k. I finished this 5k (and it was the full 5k) in 23:14.

And then I ran 18 glorious miles on Sunday. GO FIGURE.

3 Things Thursdayyy

2011-07-14T11:09:00.000-05:00

I'm still running on a high from a great run this morning so I'm in a superb mood.

Which brings me to 3 things thursdayyyyyyyy!

1. I guest posted for Britt, so you should go check it out! You can read my post here :) I adore her, so I was thrilled to post for her!

2. I did end up signing up (gah, I'm so last minute about these things sometimes!) for a 5k this weekend. I just couldn't pass up paying only $18 to race out in the heat and humidity this weekend. Hopefully I'll come back with a nice PR.

3. My best friend's hubby is coming home tomorrow! He has been gone since January (he's in the Navy) and I could not be more excited for her!

Tell me something (or 3 things!) about you!

Anyone else running any races this weekend?!

Competitiveness

2011-07-13T12:17:00.000-05:00

Merriam-Webster defines the word compete as follows: to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective

Taken in that context, I am a very competitive person in just about every aspect of my life. Especially running. Nine times out of ten I have some sort of goal that I want to meet. Usually it's a time goal that I've arbitrarily picked out. Sometimes it's that I want to place in my age group. Sometimes it's both. For instance when I ran the 10k, I had several goals set, the most important of which was that I wanted to run it under 53 minutes. I finished in 51:13 and finished first in my age group.

Within 20 minutes of finishing almost 2 minutes under my desired time, I already was plotting out the next time that I wanted to beat. My thought process went something like this:

YES! I DID IT! I AM AWESOME!

::20 minutes later::

Hmm... I should run it under 50 minutes. I will be really fast then.

And thus the new goal was born and now I won't rest until it's accomplished. The same is true for everything from 5ks to marathons. I set goals and if I reach them I immediately start to plan out how to exceed them.

Don't get me wrong - I think having goals is one of the best ways to advance in anything and everything. But Em wrote a great post the other day about giving yourself some credit. And it really got me thinking - as competitive as I am, I'm doing some pretty awesome things right now.

I had a really sucktastic 16 mile run on Saturday. I bitched about it, both mentally and verbally, all day long. But I RAN 16 MILES. It was hard, it was miserable, I walked a lot, heck I stopped a lot, there wasn't a single step that I took on Saturday that didn't cause me some sort of mental or physical pain, but I did it. And if I can run 16, I can run 18. And if I can run 18, I can run a marathon. And that is a-freaking-mazing, whether I BQ or finish in 6 hours.

Sometimes I think I let my competitiveness with running get the better of me. Sometimes it causes extreme negative self-talk conversations in my head. And sometimes I need a good kick to remind me that every single day I'm working towards incredible things.

And a big tribute to Em for writing the post that sparked this post.

THAT BEING SAID, LB came over last night to run with me. It was a 2 mile training run for me, supposed to be easy, and I figured it'd be a cake walk for him. Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience for me, one that reminded me that we all start at square one.

We ran at about an 8:45 pace give or take - sometimes faster, sometimes slower. But by mile 1.5 he was dying and I could see it written all over his face.

So I stopped my Garmin and we walked. I started it back up and we ran. I let him walk while I ran back and forth until we hit roughly 2 miles (my Garmin died at about mile 1.83). And in that last half mile and for the rest of the night, I remembered everything about when I started running. I remembered getting winded after a mere 5 minutes. I remembered hating it. I remembered my first 5k and how freaking exhilarating it was.

1.5 miles at an 8:45 pace is pretty good for someone that never runs.

Oh and after taking our picture, Sean had to take this picture "for the blog" (his words) so that everyone knows that he was working while we were running, not sitting around eating bon-bons. Even though when we got back 25 minutes later he was sitting on the couch in the dark.

Are you competitive by nature? With what?

Do you set new goals immediately upon breaking old ones?

Weekly Workout #8

2011-07-12T10:49:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty bad at posting workout recaps on Sunday and workouts on Monday, huh? Ohhhh wellll...

THIS WEEK:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 4 miles @ 8:26 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 18 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

This actually isn't very accurate. I'm SUPPOSED to be doing this:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 6 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 6 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

HOWEVER I am going out of town next weekend so there's absolutely no way that I will be running 18 miles. And let's be realistic here, I would rather give up training then run 18 miles on Friday before work. So I swapped the weeks :)

I've also managed to "gain" 3lbs. in the past 2 days. I'm positive it has nothing to do with the 5 rounds of thin mints I ate before going to Yogurt Cup Sunday or the 15 different meals I ate yesterday. So I don't know what that's all about.

I am pretty cyclical with foods. I tend to get really into one thing and eat it ALL THE TIME for a few weeks straight and then get tired of it. Right now I'm OBSESSED with overnight oats (again).

These are actually "in the shower" oats because I decided at the last minute this morning that's what I wanted for breakfast.

I challenge you to get your peanut butter oats jar this clean.

What breakfast foods are you loving now that it's summer?

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 6 + I am so lazy

2011-07-10T17:20:00.001-05:00

Right now Sean is busy being productive and sweating out in the Houston heat.

I, on the other hand, am sitting in the AC, reading blogs and calling it "productive". I also have managed to change out of my real clothes and into my workout clothes, even though I haven't worked out today and have absolutely zero plans of doing so. Oops. ~~And I'm debating eating for the third time today.~~

And I'm eating for the third time today. Oh and I'm being so lazy that even though the Patriot ended 30 minutes ago I have yet to turn the TV off so I'm listening to the theme music over and over again.

I'm also (im)patiently waiting for Sean to finish doing whatever he's doing (ok, he JUST started doing it) so that I can force him to drive me to Yogurt Cup where I can indulge in the source of my broke bank account yet again. If you know us in real life you know that Sean and I are arguably the cheapest people in the world when it comes to stuff and are master clearance shoppers with anything and everything, so why we're willing to fork over $10+ for fro-yo all the time is beyond me. Oh wait, it's because I force us to go AT LEAST once a week. My bad.

So why do I have the luxury of doing absolutely nothing today? Honestly, I should be doing a lot of things but I'm going to blame my lack thereof on my sucktastic run yesterday.

And ya know, actually, now that I've read over all that, I'm doing quite a bit today. So I don't feel so bad afterall.

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:23 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 16 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: Not.A.Thing.

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:50 min/pace, 30 minute Pilates class

Wednesday: Jackie Warner's 40 min. Total Body Circuit

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:20 min/pace, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Friday: Jackie Warner's Upper Body Circuit and Abs Circuit, 2 miles walking

Saturday: 16 really awful horrible miles somewhere between a 9:50 and 10 min pace with lots of walking; 10 min Total Body Circuit Pilates, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Sunday: Eat ginormous baked potato with BBQ turkey, watch the Patriot, eat more baked potato, wait for Yogurt Cup. Eat Girl Scout cookies while waiting. Exhausting.

Overall planned miles: 23

Overall actual miles: 23 (running); 2 (walking)

Yeaaahhhhh about that run yesterday....

I made it to mile 8 before I had to stop. I walked around the house, chugged a bottle of water, laid on the living room floor. Got up, ran to 10 with some sporadic walking. Back to the floor. Ran to 12 with sporadic walking. Back on the floor. Ran to 13. Floor. Ran and walked to 16. Died. It.was.horrible. No clue why. Don't you love that?

LB (little brother) is coming over Tuesday and we're going to run together, so I'm hoping that starts a track of superb runs this week so that I can forget about the awfulness of my run yesterday.

How's your weekend going? Anyone do anything exciting?!

Long runs or races this weekend? I feel like it's been a while since I've raced. I'm going through slight withdrawals. There's a really cheap 5k this next weekend that I'm thinking about doing - $18 entry fee... Hmmm...

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

2011-07-08T11:26:00.000-05:00

And the winner of the Gotein giveaway as decided by Random.org is...

#2 - Jenna Z!

Congratulations! Email me your shipping address and information at happyhealthyrunner (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll get that shipped out to you ASAP!

Hope you're all enjoying your Friday so far... Can't wait for the weekend!

3 Things Thursdayyy

2011-07-07T11:25:00.001-05:00

There's still time to enter the giveaway!

1. I hit a really bad lull this week with training. I've been going at marathon training pretty hard lately and this week I hit a big fat brick wall. Every.single.workout has been a HUGE struggle. Once I get there I'm OK, it's just the getting there part that has been a little rough...

2. This little book, courtesy of this beautiful BFF of mine, has been a HUGE lifesaver. HUGE. I love writing in my workouts and how I felt during them so that I can look back and see what factored into what when I'm reviewing my weekly workouts.

3. I am the most miserable shopper known to man (woman?)... And I hate the mall. With a serious passion. I used to be a magnificent shopper, but I think after working at the outlet mall in San Marcos that it stripped me of my desire to shop.

Hate the mall or love it?

Do you track your workouts? If so, how?

Weekly Workout Recaps & Weekly Workout #7

2011-07-06T09:43:00.000-05:00

I know, I know... I'm behind. So I'm combining. We'll start with Weekly Workout #6's Recap... Oh and I don't feel like uploading new pictures right now (I am lazy, I know) so I'm going to supplement this post with some of my old favorites. :)

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:57 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 4 miles speed work, 2x1600 in 7:56 with 800 jogs in between

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 14 miles @ 9:57 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: 10 min Long & Limber Pilate's; foam-rolling

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:50 min/pace; 30 min Pilate's class

Wednesday: 15 min L5 speed intervals on stair stepper, 15 min L10 elliptical, 15 min L5 hill intervals on bike

Thursday: 4 miles speed work, 2x1600 in 7:53 with 800 jogs in between; 10 min Long & Limber Pilate's

Friday: Walked 3 miles @ L 4.5, I 1.0

Saturday: 14 miles @ 10:00 min/pace; 10 min Pilate's Total Body Stretch; 10 min Pilate's Long & Limber Stretch

Sunday: 1 mile @ 10:00 min/pace; 10 min Core Basics Pilate's, 10 min Lower Body Basics Pilate's, 10 min Upper Body Basics Pilate's; 1 mile @ 9:50 min/pace

Overall planned miles: 20

Overall actual miles: 20 (running); 3 (walking)

If you're wondering where any of the strength-training was... well, so am I. I really have no good answer other than I just didn't do it and wasn't feeling it. This is 100% against what I believe in, because I am a firm believer in strength-training, but.... I don't know, it just didn't happen. OHHHH WELLLLLL.

THIS WEEK:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:23 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 16 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

I'll tell you right now that I'm having a very hard time getting motivated so far this week. I don't know if it's from the long weekend or what, but the workouts I've done so far have been a struggle.

What do you do when you're lacking motivation? I tend to not give myself any time to think about what I'm doing. I just throw on workout clothes and tell myself to do just a little bit of what I had planned and usually I get through it OK.

How do you do with long weekends? I totally did not do well as far as "healthy eating" went on Monday.... or last Friday... but Saturday and Sunday I was OK. No not really, the whole weekend wasn't what I normally eat and I felt it Monday evening.

Holiday Weekends Are WAY TOO SHORT.

2011-07-05T11:15:00.000-05:00

Seriously.

But first: go enter the giveaway. :)

I don't understand how I can have one extra day and STILL feel like I need more time. I was a majorly lazy bum this morning when my alarm went off and I barely got up in time to run and even then I was seriously cutting it close when it came to running late to work (however there was no traffic so I was actually early).

It feels like this weekend was really short, but looking back we really did do a lot. And by do a lot I mean that I ate my freaking face off all weekend and tried to justify it with Saturday mornings run... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Oh and I took next to no pictures because I am lame.

Friday when I got home from the longest drive home from work ever Sean and I drove over to Alicia's Mexican restaurant to have dinner with Sean's family. I just love them and love spending time with them. I really was not wanting to go anywhere when I got home from work but within 5 seconds of seeing their smiling faces I was so glad to be there, it was exactly what I needed after a weird work day. The whole drive home from work I was thinking about how I couldn't possibly eat any more because my coworkers and I went to Fuddrucker's for lunch where I devoured a buffalo burger and sweet potato fries, but this all went out the window right after I sat down and inhaled chips and salsa, fajitas and then ice cream. Can't win 'em all...

Saturday I woke up early and proceeded to do a 14 mile treadmill run. This was made OK by my fancy new set-up courtesy of the hubs.

Sounds horrible, right?

It actually wasn't bad at all. I popped in the first Harry Potter movie and set out to conquer all 14. Since I went to the doc last week and he said to stay off the pavement til my leg feels better I've been diligently doing treadmill runs. I had water at mile 4, took shot bloks at mile 6, had water at mile 9 (by the way, I still haven't mastered running and drinking - I got water up my nose every time), took shot bloks at mile 11, and then finished out the last 5k.

Glorious. I was on cloud 9. I ran the entire movie and then, per the doctor's orders, did 20 minutes of Pilate's (OK, he said stretching, but Pilate's instead works for me), and then took a 20 minute ice bath. On the way to the gas station I drank a glass of cherry juice per RoseRunner's recommendation in this post, and afterwards I felt AMAZING. No pain. WIN.

Then I went bridesmaid dress shopping with one of my best friends. We ended up going to lunch and having mimosa's before I ventured back home to my husband. He has had poison ivy for the past week and has been a miserable mess and is finally starting to feel better. We ended up going to B-dubs to watch the UFC fight and then over to Stats and then over to my coworkers house... I skipped most of the drinking though and DD'd. We got home and in bed at a ridiculous time, but honestly being able to see my friends and hang out and catch up was completely worth it.

Don't be fooled by how innocent they look. Because our cats despise when we sleep in, Sean and I were up by 9:30. We woke up our friend Matt (who crashed at our house), went to IHOP, dropped him off, and then I worked out while Sean did the yard.

Then we cleaned up and headed over to my parents. We played Scrabble (I won), ate some pretty rockin' bacon-wrapped shrimp, drank wine, and played Scattergories until we looked at the clock and realized it was 12:30am. Are you kidding me...?

Went home. Slept. Woke up early again. Took the motorcycle out and met my parents (who took their motorcycle out) for coffee, went home, watched True Blood, I napped and fought the worst headache of my life, cleaned up, went to Sean's friend Mike's house to hang out in the pool/hang out with friends, went home, watched Criminal Minds, and then went to bed.

At several different point I thought about doing a 4th of July 5k, but honestly, hanging out with our families and friends really trumped racing this weekend. So now I'm on the prowl for a July race to do. :)

Anyone do any 4th of July races?? How'd they go?

If you haven't entered my giveaway yet, you still can. Giveaway winner on FRIDAY. :)

Protein in the form of GOTEIN: Giveaway

2011-07-01T14:38:00.000-05:00

I mentioned earlier this week that there would be a giveaway on Friday and guessss what! It's Friday! What better way to kick off a holiday weekend then with a little giveaway, right?!

A couple weeks ago the lovely folks over at Gotein contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in doing a review and giveaway of their products. I'm not one to turn down free stuff, and I love you guys, so it's a win-win...

Enter: Gotein

What It Is:

Gotein is a portable protein supplement that comes in a powdered form that you can easily add to water for a post-workout protein drink or just for a to-go protein shake.

Why It's Good:

I don't know how you are about getting enough protein post-workouts, but I can tell you three things about me:

1. I used to be terrible about taking in protein after hard workouts (I'm much better now, by the way)

2. I prefer to eat my calories vs. drink them. I am a volume person and food really does it for me. That's not to say I can't be swayed though because...

3. I am obsessed with Honey Milk. Seriously, it's a problem. Their light coffee flavor is ah-mazing.

Which brings me to Gotein. I was 100% skeptical about this. I've used powdered drink mixes before with moderate success, but I'm really picky about that kind of stuff.

And I'll tell you right now, I've only tried 2 of the 3 flavors.

The Stats

Chocolate: 16g protein, 6g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 110 calories

Vanilla: 17g protein, 5g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 100 calories, gluten-free

Strawberry: 17g protein, 6g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 110 calories, gluten-free

Not too shabby, eh?

Day One: Chocolate

I added it to my water and I shoooooooook it up. Still a little grainy so I shoooooook some more.

It was OK. Not wonderful, not horrible.

I'm 100% sure that I should have taken more water out because it had a slightly watered down taste to it. I drank it all though, if that tells you anything.

Day Two: Strawberry

Now would be a good time to mention that I hate strawberry flavored things. I'm not even positive that I've ever had strawberry milk but the thought of it grosses me out. And I have convinced myself that this strawberry protein mix is going to turn into strawberry milk (don't try to make any sense out of it, it doesn't make any).

So I improvised.

And made a smoothie! And it was wonderful! And pretty! And honestly - I wasn't hungry again until lunch and if you know me at all, you know that I eat all.day.long. So not having my 11am snack is weird for me.

Success.

I saved the vanilla one because I adore vanilla flavored drinks and I want to try it after my long run.

What I Liked:

- I love anything portable because I am almost always on the go
- I always have a bottle of water with me, so being able to add in 100 calories worth of protein is a win
- There wasn't the chalky, powdery taste that some protein supplements have
- The stats on them are pretty good for a protein shake

What I Didn't Like:

- They're pretty pricey
- There's only 2 stores in Texas where you can buy them. You can find a list of locations to buy in store here and you can buy them online here

Where You Come In

Gotein gave me extras to give away to one lucky blog reader! You will get one of each flavor :) Cat not included. He just wouldn't get out of the way.

What Ya Gotta Do

There's always a catch, right? Of course. There's 6 different ways you can win. Leave me a separate comment for each one and Random.org will decide who wins. Easy-easy.

- Like Gotein on Facebook and tell them I sent you!
- Blog about the giveaway
- Tweet about the giveaway (You know... @HappyHealthyRun is giving away Gotein!... Or something lame like that. Be more creative than me)
- Be a follower of this blog
- Let me know if you're good, bad or indifferent when it comes to getting your protein
- Tell me your favorite way to get protein

I'll announce the winner next Friday so you have a good solid week to get in. Enjoy your weekend!

Guest Post! Beating the Running Funk!

2011-06-30T10:52:00.000-05:00

Today's guest post is one of my favorite bloggers, Melissa, from Hungry Healthy Happy. Melissa is ALWAYS posting the most delicious meals on her blog and has an enthusiasm for life that I adore. She's starting a new job soon that I am SO jealous of (hello, dream job!) and she has some GREAT tips about breaking out of that running funk that we all go through from time to time...

Hi Happy Healthy Runner readers! I’m Melissa, and I blog over at Hungry Healthy Happy about eating, running, and being generally neurotic about pretty much every aspect of my life. Given the similarity in the name of our blogs, you can guess that Rachael and I have quite a bit in common, and I’m so flattered that she asked me to guest post!

A few weeks ago, Rachael wrote about being in a running funk of sorts. I, too, have recently battled the same thing, so I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts on breaking that funk and getting your running mojo back!

Try Something New

Last fall after I ran my first half marathon, I was in a serious running funk. For whatever reason, I couldn’t get excited for my runs. Since running is one of my favorite hobbies, this really bummed me out. I didn’t want to give up running altogether, but I needed to find my passion for it again. Instead of quitting, I scoured blogland for new ideas and found a zillion great treadmill workouts to try. The first time I discovered HIIT, I was smitten and finally excited to run again. Even though it was tough, it was also challenging and fun. Just the kick I needed to get back into running.

Some other ideas:

· Any interval workout on the treadmill.

o It makes the time fly by and always makes me push myself. What’s not to love about that?!

· Running with someone (or alone).

o I am typically a loner when I run, opting to rock out to my iPod rather than chat my way through the miles. Flip-flopping my routine makes it more fun and adds some variety.

· Run your usual route—backwards.

o Sometimes it’s enough of a change that you don’t feel so bored.

· A New Playlist

o I have a very hard time running without music, but sometimes I get tired of the same old tunes. Mixing it up with a new playlist reenergizes me. I actually look forward to running when I have a fun new playlist

Sign up for a Race

Having something to train for really motivates me and gets me going. For my last half marathon in the beginning of June, I used Runner’s World’s Smart Coach tool to come up with a training plan for me. I didn’t follow it exactly, but it really helped me stay accountable during my training. I also liked not having to decide what to do for each run. I just looked at the plan and did it. This is a great plan for anyone else who’s indecisive like me!

Give It Some Time

If trying new things doesn’t work for me when I’m trying to break a running funk, I generally tend to just keep up with my regular runs. After a week or two, I usually snap back to my usual happy running self.

Rest

Rest?!?! Are you kidding me??? Most of us runners don’t even know what this means. We are not “rest-ers.” But if you’re not enjoying your runs, your body may be trying to tell you something. Like slowtheheckdownyoucrazyperson!!! Take a day, two days, a week . . . I know. The horror! But it might be just what you need to get your groove back.

Try some cross training instead. I used to like strength training, too. Now, I only strength train for muffins. But I don’t hate the elliptical. So find something else you like to do and give the running a little breathing room. It’ll be there when you get back.

Get New Stuff

When all else fails? Buy yourself a new outfit or shoes. It might not help, but it can’t hurt!

What’s your best tip for getting your running mojo back?

Guest Post! Relax and Unwind... Enjoy Summer!

2011-06-29T10:16:00.001-05:00

Today's guest post comes from Tara who blogs at Dashing in Pearls. Tara is one of those bloggers that I immediately wanted to be best friends with because we are both HUGE Astros fans (and true fans are far and few between these days...). Her guest post is like her blog - fun and upbeat! But you should just read on instead of me droning on...

Hi y'all! I'm Tara and I blog over at Dashing in Pearls. I was really excited when Rachael asked me to guest blog for her! A little about me... I'm originally from Houston, left for a little while to go to college, and am now back! I'm a 4th grade teacher so I'm currently on summer vacation! I live with my best friend from college who magically got a job at the school I grew up at last year. I have an amazing boyfriend who is really loud and shares my love for the Astros, even when they're doing terrible. I completed my first half marathon about 2 months ago and am waiting to find out if I got into the Houston Half Marathon in January before I start training for something again! (a side note: Tara got in!! Go congratulate her!)

Today I'm going to share with you my list of things you need to do during the summer even if you aren't a teacher and have months to get these things done. I'm a firm believer that summer should be a time for EVERYONE to relax and unwind, even if it's just a little bit.

1. Get a pedicure. Nothing says "summer" like bright toenails. I've started bringing my favorite color with me so that if I need to do touch ups, I have the color already! My favorite color right now is Essie's Super Bossa Nova. It's bright pink with a little sparkle!

2. Find at least 1 day to sit by the pool (or beach if you're lucky enough), enjoy some summer time drinks, and grill out. Make those things your only "to do's" for the day. No regular house cleaning, running errands, or bill paying.

3. Find a good book to read. It can be something light (like the Shopaholic Series), something a little heavier (John Grisham) or even something about your favorite activity (Kara Goucher's Running for Women). Because I'm a teacher and have the luxury of time right now, I'm currently reading 3 books: Kara Goucher's, the Paleo Diet, and I'm rereading the 7th Harry Potter before it comes out.

4. Buy a new summer dress. Whether it's for a date night, girls night, or weddings, every girl needs at least one new dress for the summer! Most of my dresses are from Gap or Loft but I love almost every dress from Anthropologie. This one is my favorite but I haven't bought it...

5. Go on a vacation! Or a staycation! Just do something vacation-like, even if it's just a weekend you don't go anywhere but block out any social "musts". It can be with friends, family, or by yourself but take some time to rest and relax. It's nice that I'm a teacher and don't really have to schedule anything but I'm still looking forward to the few getaways that I have planned!

More than anything, do something you ENJOY!

Marathon Excitement & Weekly Workout #6

2011-06-28T14:02:00.000-05:00

First things first... I'M RUNNING THE HOUSTON MARATHON! Thank you to everyone who offered up kind words while I stressed about getting in or not, but it's official now - I'm going!

Unfortunately, my right leg has been giving me some grief over the past few days (OK, weeks) so in an effort to make sure I'm in tip-top shape for Marathon #1 in November and #2 in January, I'm going to the sports doctor tomorrow morning and have been taking it easy so far this week. Depending on what he tells me, that may or may not affect my workouts this week :(

But here's what it should be looking like:

Planned miles for the week: 20

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:57 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 4 miles speed work, 2x1600 in 7:56 with 800 jogs in between

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 14 miles @ 9:57 min/pace

In GOOD news though (and to give you a little something to look forward to this week), there will be a giveaway here on Friday! In the meantime, I have some fun guest posts lined up for the rest of this week!

:) Hope every one's week is treating them well so far!

Guest Post! "I Suck At Sports..."

2011-06-27T09:58:00.011-05:00

Today's post comes from the super speedy and adorable Margot who blogs at The Faster Bunny. Margot is not only fast, but funny... I love reading her blog! She just ran Boston this year AND is running the Nuun Hood to Coast Relay! Plus, I can really identify with this topic, as I am not a team sports person at all and running is the only thing I've really been able to do and do half-way well... I especially relate to her anecdote at the end ;) Enjoy!

I Suck At Sports : My Tribute to Long Distance Running

You know some some people who are long distance runners but played every other sport in high school too? Give them a ball, a bat, a racket, or a freaking stick and they will MacGyver the bajeezus out of any sport?

Yeah that's not me.

Here's my story:

I remember my last day of school in 7th grade like it was uhhh...16 years ago: A tiny girl named Katrina who was in my gym class signed my yearbook.

"Margot...we might suck at sports but that's ok. - Katrina"

Wait What? Suck at sports?? Honestly, I was a little bummed. This wasn't how I envisioned my middle school legacy. I could see my end of the year school award right then. Crowds cheering as I received "Most likely to not succeed at sports".

I thought back to our volleyball unit earlier in the year. How I literally never got the ball over the net, even in a serve, through the ENTIRE UNIT. How my coolness level probably plummeted to a new low during that sport from the underworld.

And honestly, most of the other "ball sports" were similarly challenging for me. Soccer wasn't as bad. What I lacked in skill, I gained in aggression!

However, like the stubborn girl I am, I figured, eh....surely I'll get on some team in high school. So I tried out for JV field hockey.

And I made varsity!!!

Hah. Just kidding. I didn't make the team.

Instead, I started running. 2 miles a day in my spare time. Mostly just because I wanted to be skinny since I was a vain and insecure 15 year old. About a month later, we ran the mile in the fall of my freshman year. I ran it in 7:11 with almost no effort. Not that this is anything that special, but I was surprised at myself. My mom told me if I was going to run on my own time, I might as well join the cross country team. I told her "Are you crazy?? Those girls run like four miles a day! No way!".

And then, I took her advice. I joined the track team. I figured...we'll probably just race the mile every day... and that could be cool, right?

On the first Friday of practice, it was raining. I saw my coach after school and asked if practice was cancelled. I still remember the look of confusion and disdain on his face when he answered "No. Why would it be cancelled? We run in the rain."

I think that's the moment I became a real runner.

One that runs in rainstorms and snow. Who has become addicted to the feeling of intense discomfort at the end of a race and nervous butterflies before.

I ran every season after that in high school. I was nothing spectacular, but I loved it and got a couple letters. And no one wrote that I sucked at sports in my yearbook!

Since then running has come in and out of my life in various waves of seriousness. I've never stopped completely, but developed a talent for running while hungover in my early twenties.

And yeah. I love it. Every run isn't great, but the overall result is awesome.

Three marathons, a billion halves, and one running-ish blog later, here I am. I could go on and on about what running has done for me, but let's just say it's a ton :).

I'll leave you with this anecdote:

Last Fall, I went frisbee golfing. My boyfriend remarked that I would probably be good since I was "athletic". I held back the laughter at this remark and promptly got my butt kicked by everyone playing.

But that's ok because if we played a game on my field, I know I'd smoke these fools in a race.

And I probably wouldn't even have to trip them.

Guesssss what!!!

2011-06-24T16:39:00.001-05:00

1. It's Friday! That, in itself, is wonderful.

2. TRUE BLOOD starts this Sunday. And if you are a non-HBO watching, non-vampire-show-loving person, I am so sorry. Because that means you're missing out on THIS:

AND THIS:

Happy Friday! And you're welcome.

Oh, and sorry guys, there's pretty girls involved too.

3 Things Thursdayyy

2011-06-23T12:49:00.000-05:00

1. I'm going for 12 miles this weekend. Everyone can go on ahead and be jealous of what is sure to be a fabulous run with my new shoes and (hopefully) running PIC *ahem, Britt, are you convinced you need to go yet?!)* And Paula, I hope that these shoes work better for me than they did for you... I am the world's best clearance shopper and I died a little when I bought these at (almost) full price, so they better work. Otherwise I will just be getting new legs.

2. My new shoes came in the mail yesterday! Remember them? They are here!!! Well, technically they're sitting in a brown box in my car, but they're in my possession. Now let's just hope they fit when I try them on. :) I should also be getting another package today with a new dress and a new shirt. Ordering things online sucks when you order them because you have to wait, but it's like Christmas when you get them because they're already paid for (and I've already forgotten that I paid for them...)

3. DirecTV says they offer "thousands of videos" at the tip of your fingers to watch immediately (when you're willing to pay $5,000 to rent it through the TV). This is the biggest sham of all times. Sean and I spent fooooreeeeveeeeer (Sandlot, anyone?) trying to "rent" a movie because I didn't want to watch the billionth recorded episode of Criminal Minds sitting in our DVR, but none of the movies were "out yet". Guess what we ended up doing.

Confession

2011-06-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

I am suffering from extreme lack of motivation lately. In all aspects of my life.

Here's a really superb indication of this: I started this post at 8 this morning and only got as far as that first sentence. I think the problem is that I don't know what I want to write about, what I want to do with my life, what I want period.

I KNOW.

That being said, since I am fresh out of ideas for everything, my life included, anyone want to do a guest post? I would love you forever. Topic of your choice. You can leave a comment or shoot me an email at happyhealthyrunner @ gmail DOT com.

Weekly Workout #5

2011-06-21T11:24:00.000-05:00

Planned miles for the week: 19

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:59 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run, 3 miles @ 8:26 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 12 miles @ 9:59 min/pace

I was really grateful to have a 2 mile run this morning. Weird right? I have two reasons:

1. My right leg was a little off after the 10 miles Sunday, so I took it easy yesterday and figured a short, easy run would be good for today

2. I bought new running shoes yesterday! It was about that time anyway, so I headed over to Fleet Feet on my lunch break to get fitted for new shoes.

The lady who helped me (who was also named Rachel) was so nice and we talked marathons and training for a while before I realized if I didn't hurry I wouldn't have time to eat (I am not a happy camper without food).

Oh, wait... did you want to see them again? It doesn't matter what your answer is, here they are:

And in case you had any doubt that I am obsessed with Words With Friends in any form, when we got to my parents house on Sunday we spent hours doing this:

Hmmm...

I won.

Do you play Scrabble? You know, I didn't really care too much about it growing up, but now I LOVE it. I guess I am a real adult now.

Does your family play games? We love to! Another favorite: Scattergories. If you don't play it, you should.

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 4

2011-06-19T13:24:00.000-05:00

Isn't it weird how vastly different runs can be? This week was an exceptionally good week for me as far as my runs went, as opposed to my mostly crap runs last week.

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 5 miles @ 9:59 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 miles @ 9:59 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 5 miles @ 9:59 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: Rest day

Tuesday: 5 miles; 1st mile @ 10:00 min/pace, next 4 miles @ 9:50 min/pace
Wednesday: Jackie Warner Power Circuit Training DVD (40 min)
Thursday: 5 miles @ 9:50 min/pace; 10 min long & limber Pilate's
Friday: Jackie Warner Power Circuit Training DVD (40 min)
Saturday: 45 min on elliptical
Sunday: 10 miles @ 9:27 min/pace

Overall planned miles: 15

Overall actual miles: 20

I had planned on doing Jackie Warner's DVD on Monday, but when I woke up my whole body was tired. I imagine it has to do with running 7 miles Saturday and then 2 + yoga on Sunday. At any rate, I can tell when I need a break, and I definitely needed it, so I took the day off.

I did both Tuesday and Thursday's 5 mile runs on the treadmill because for whatever reason I just couldn't get motivated to go face the heat and humidity. Call me crazy. They both went pretty well, I felt good through both of them and I had AC, can't complain about that!

The Jackie Warner DVD made me SORE. I was a little nervous about running after doing it, because my legs were pretty sore, but it didn't really affect my runs. I love being sore after doing weights and I think I need to strength train more. I know Hungry Healthy Happy hates weight training, but I don't mind it so much :)

We went out on Friday night to Wild River to see some friends from college and see Aaron Watson play (he was awesome).

We had a TON of fun, but got home really late and I was worn out on Saturday.

We had a pretty jam packed Saturday as it was because Sean's nephew's (my nephew's?) second birthday was Saturday morning and then Sean's parents came over and hung out at our house for a while after. Somehow I made it to the gym around 3ish and cranked out 45 minutes on the elliptical. It wasn't easy or pretty, but I got it done with the help of Men in Black. I know a lot of people love the elliptical, but I am just not one of those people.

via

I met Britt at 7 this morning to do the 10 miles that I skipped last week courtesy of the Funfest race. Normally I am a solo runner, so it was really nice to switch it up and have a running buddy. We chatted the whole time and the first 9 miles flew by. The last mile was brutal for me because my shin was starting to bother me, but we got it done. We went to a park that I never run at, and it made for a really pretty run, definitely going to have to go back there!

I came home and did 20 minutes of Pilate's because I am the world's worst stretcher and yoga/Pilate's is about the only way I get it in, and now I am dead.

And by dead I mean I'm eating a massive salad, doing laundry, and putting off vacuuming and mopping. Boring.

Do you normally do all your house chores on a certain day? I try to do one thing a day so that it doesn't all stack up on the weekend. But I am running behind this week. Oops.

Anyone do anything exciting this weekend?! Any races? I love spending time with both of my family's, and I got to see Sean's familia yesterday and get to see mine today. And I was super excited about doing a long run with a friend, THANK YOU BRITT!

Vegas

2011-06-17T14:56:00.000-05:00

You may remember that I'm going to Vegas next month.

I've never been before. What the heck do I bring? I am a notorious over-packer. I could dedicate an entire suitcase to shoes easily if someone *ahem Sean* would let me. I realize that we're not leaving for another month, but being the girl that I am, I want to start shopping now (and yes, it's completely reasonable that I possibly need all new clothes. Sean, if you're reading this, skip this post).

This is where all you non-virgin Vegas folks come in.

What do I take? Do I need to be really dressy? The only thing right now that I'm positive that I'm bringing is my running gear and these bad boys:

I realize that now is probably way too early to start packing but I am slightly OCD about these things and I love to be super overly prepared. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I am a neurotic list maker/checker/etc. It helps me from getting way too stressed.

So you tell me what to bring. Clearly I need a new swimsuit, but what else do I need?

What are your favorite things to do in Vegas? Even though we're going for a wedding, we're going a few days early as a late anniversary trip.

Is there anything specific we should go do?

You tell me! I want to know it all!!

Oh, and anyone doing anything fun this weekend?! Britt and I are going on a 10 mile run this Sunday. Is it sad that I look forward to my long runs on the weekends? We also have a lot of other fun stuff going on, so it should pan out to being a great weekend!

Three Things Thursday

2011-06-16T12:46:00.000-05:00

1. Lately I've been hearing the word "epic" to describe things, events, etc (OK, mainly from my little brother). While I assume that, like, epic is the new "like", I think the term "epic" is WAY overused. Just because you had a good day does not make it "epic". Just because we went to Yogurt Cup, does not mean it was "epic" (well, that one is debatable...)

2. I just bought these on sale from $30 from White House Black Market. My Vegas trip thanks you for putting these on clearance.

3. There is a slight twinge in my right leg that showed up this morning. I've been trying to ignore it today by propping it up on my trashcan and putting an ice pack on it. Britt and I have 10 miles to cover this weekend, so that needs to stop immediately. Unfortunately, my entire leg has gone numb. That tingly feeling is driving me insane right now.

Has anyone else heard the extreme overuse of the word "epic"? (And Luke, if you're reading this, I promise I make fun of Sean way more than you).

Do you get to wear slippers at work? I don't really leave my office in them (yes I do), but I wear them sitting at my desk all the time. I also usually have a pair of flats and a pair of heels readily available.

To help you pass the time...

2011-06-15T11:30:00.003-05:00

Since I'm too busy making things happen today to do an actual blog post (and I'm an idiot and forgot to put my memory card back in my camera yesterday and I haven't yet figured out how to get my pictures off the internal memory of my camera) this little bloggy-blog survey that I stole from The Sweet Life will have to do:

A. Age: 25, it just happened and saying that I'm in my mid-20's versus my early-20's is not something I've accepted yet

B. Bed size: Queen. I would like a King but for whatever reason that hasn't been made a top priority yet. Something about having just bought new bedroom furniture (lame).

C. Chore you hate: Since I have been delegated the official chore person in our house, I am pretty used to doing them all. But for whatever reason I can't stand putting up laundry, which is really counter-productive to doing the laundry because I just leave it on the couch and then our cats (who shed a RIDICULOUS amount) cover them in hair and I have to wash them again (but don't, who am I kidding? that would take WAY too much work)

D. Dogs: I love them. LOVE them. And if I didn't think our precious little kitties would rip a puppy's face off, I would so get one.

E. Essential start to your day: I'm a little neurotic about how my mornings go... I have to work out first, followed by a cup of coffee. Otherwise my day is thrown all out of whack and I am a mess.

F. Favorite color: Blue, I think. And green. And yellow.

G. Gold or silver: This is a tough one. I think white gold. Which conveniently looks just like silver but sounds way better.

H. Height: 5'4"... However in an effort to win the argument about who was taller - my mom or me - I put 5'5" on my license one year. Take that.

I. Instruments you play: Zero. I played flute in middle school and high school and dabbled in guitar for a while, but right now the only music I play is on my iPod or radio.

J. Job title: Trademark Paralegal

K. Kids: No, thank you. We are not ready.

L. Live: H-Town. (The "H" stands for HOT, HUMID, and HOUSTON)

M. Mom’s name: Linda Sue. Though she'd kill me if she found out I included the "Sue" part.

N. Nicknames: My closest friends call me Rache not Rachael and my bestest friend has gone through a few nicknames, including but not limited to Arby (for my pre-married initials RB)

O. Overnight hospital stays: Only for that boy that I am married to that loves to get in trouble and end up in the hospital. The first night I met my in-laws was when I had to call them to tell them that he got the bejeesus beat out of him and could they please drive to San Marcos because he was not doing so well. Oh and Hi, I'm dating your son.

P. Pet peeve: Ehh I have a few. But I REALLY can't stand when people drive slowly in the fast lane and won't get over into the slower lanes no matter how many people are passing them. And I can't stand when people don't wave in thanks for letting them over and such. I am a courteous driver, you should be too.

Q. Quote from a movie: I love movies. Lately when Sean or I point out something obvious one of us will say "I KNOW THAT FAGGLE"... Superbad, anyone?

via

R. Right or left handed: Right

S. Siblings: I have 3

T. Time you wake up: During the week, usually 5. On the weekends, Louie will be pouncing on my face around 6. Never Sean's. Only mine.

U. Underwear: Well this is an awkward question.

V. Vegetables you dislike: The only 2 things that I can think of currently that I dislike are olives and coconut. Blech.

W. What makes you run late: Running longer than I should, waking up late and working out anyway, trying to do too much before I leave for work, traffic... Despite how that list sounds though, I'm rarely late. I can't stand to be late.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: You are reading about the girl that (knock on wood) has never broken, fractured, or strained anything. I am the clumsiest careful person you'll ever meet. Bruises and falling down/running into things are regular, nothing else is.

Y. Yummy food you make: Right now, roasted anykindofvegetable, specifically broccoli and zucchini. YUM.

Z. Zoo – favorite animal: I LOVE to watch the elephants dance. And I also like giraffes, sea lions, koalas, monkeys... Um... I love the zoo!

YOUR TURN! You answer one!

Weekly Workout #4

2011-06-14T12:09:00.000-05:00

So far I've been feeling like this all week:

But that's ok. Cause at least he's cute, so maybe no matter how worn out I am, I am looking that cute too? There's always wishful thinking... Good thing my week looks like this:

Planned miles for the week: 15

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 5 miles @ 9:59 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 miles @ 9:59 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 5 miles @ 9:59 min/pace

Easy... right? :) We'll see.

Sean and I spent Saturday after the race doing this:

And this:

And being cute like this:

(That all translates to going to Galveston, playing washers on the beach, and drinking cold beer.) (And yes, I realize that drinking beer on the beach is counter-productive to the 7 miles I ran before that, but it was nothing compared to the pizza I inhaled when we got home...)

Do anything fun this weekend?

Do you like going to the beach? I love being out by the water - river, ocean, you name it. And while Galveston isn't the prettiest beach, I still like going and playing in the sand.

Funfest Run By The Bay 2011 Race Recap

2011-06-13T09:14:00.001-05:00

via

I'll be honest, I was really nervous about this race. And not just because of my week of bad runs, but because on Friday night while Sean and I were heatedly playing Words With Friends, I was also googling race reviews for Funfest in years past. And they were not good.

Mostly they talked about how unorganized everything was, how the miles were not clearly marked, and how the split from the 5k/10k was not clear. At least I wasn't already nervous. Sean was nice enough to text me Friday at work the following:

Me: I've had sucky runs all week

Sean: Saving the good run for when it counts, good strategy babe!

This is what was getting me through Friday night. The knowledge that for every bad run, there is a good one waiting somewhere. Have I mentioned that I really like him??

Needless to say, at 10pm Friday night I was neurotically laying out all my running clothes (and yes, even my socks matched my shorts, thanks Jenn!!) and setting out my Clif Shotblocks just in case I needed them (I am not a fan of gels), my iPod, my Garmin, and any other miscellaneous items I thought I may need.

At 4:15am I was sliding out of bed and into my running clothes, and at 4:45am I was running an easy "warm up" mile on the treadmill. By 5:00am I was shaking Sean awake (who seriously gets an award for best husband ever for letting me wake him up earlier than he gets up for work on a Saturday and then subsequently forcing him to drive me an hour an a half to the race. he ROCKS) and loading him up with coffee while I simultaneously made PB + banana toast and got everything ready for us to go to Galveston after the race. By 5:30ish we were on the road.

We got to Funfest about 6:45am and I picked up all of my race stuff and then Sean and I hung around watching all the other runners get everything together. At this point I was feeling pretty good - it was a beautiful day and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful run. We watched the kiddos dominate a 1k and then it was time to line up. Sean fulfilled his husbandly (word?) duties and took the necessary pre-race photos.

Then we found this gem:

I don't even know.

And then we were off.

I suppose now is good time to tell you that I had mapped out certain goals:

1. To finish (I know this sounds dumb, but I was seriously contemplating if I would be able to given the crap runs I had going for me. Ok that's not true, I knew I'd finish, but it seemed like a good goal to have).

2. To finish under an hour. When I did my self-imposed 10k a couple weeks ago, I finished right under an hour.

3. To finish under 53 minutes. I figured that was a good goal to be reaching for, and had pretty much figured out I'd be ok if I ran 8 1/2 min/miles... I just wasn't sure if I could sustain 8 1/2 min/miles the entire time. I wanted to run hard, but sustainable.

When the gun went off there was a little delay in me crossing the start line, so I made sure to start my Garmin right when I stepped foot over it.

That picture has nothing to do with the race, we had just figured out how to work the panoramic settings and I thought it turned out cool and wanted to somehow include it...

Mile 1 went by quickly, I was running about an 8:38 pace and felt good. I figured I'd keep it around there and I should be golden. I picked out a couple people to catch up to and was off without a hitch. We looped around the street and went off onto a small trail. It.was.gorgeous.out. Seriously, one of the prettiest races I've ran to date. I wish I had taken my camera with me, but I left it with Sean because he is notorious for getting finish-line photos. Good husband.

We ran up a wooden bridge (random) to a street that gave you a full view of the bay. This is where it split for the 5k and 10k. And it was very clearly marked. I headed off with the rest of the 10k folks, still feeling good, still maintaining a good pace (little under 8:30).

Around mile 3.5 I started wondering where the turnaround was. There were no runners coming back at that point. But the view of the bay kept me calm and collected, and it was really neat watching the sun come up over the water. Eventually people started coming back and there were water stations every 1/2 mile or so. For the first time ever I grabbed water during the race, because let's be honest, I live in Houston and it's the summer. It's hot. I hit the turnaround and picked a person in front of me to pace me up to them. At this point I checked my Garmin and saw that I was running about an 8:17 pace. Pretty happy and feeling pretty good.

I do want to say though, that one thing that bugged me was that by the time we hit a water station that the 5kers had already ran past, they were out of cups. This seemed like poor planning in my opinion, but I also didn't need water so it didn't really affect me.

I picked water up at random intervals and took small sips before tossing the cups. I also managed to choke on one of the gulps of water I took and got water up my nose. Clearly I have not mastered drinking out of a cup and running. I should point out that while I felt great, I also was very aware of what mile I was on and how much longer I had to run. I just kept telling myself that even though I was running hard, I could maintain it. Right before mile 5 I ate one shot block, but before eating the rest told myself I didn't need them (I didn't) and that I'd be fine without them. So I put them up. Found a guy in a red shirt and ran to him. Passed him on the downhill wooden bridge. Then he passed me. Then I passed him again. There was no way I was going to let him finish ahead of me.

I saw the finish line coming up and my BIGGEST complaint is that there was a couple doing the 5k and they were walking and we hit a turn at the same time and I had to make a huge arch around them because they didn't move. Some of us are here to race, not just to participate. Just sayin'.

I picked up the pace and was running around a 7 min/mile for the last 1/2 mile or so. Crossed the finish line and immediately looked down/stopped my Garmin.

51:13

I am pretty sure I yelled "yes!" pretty loudly. I was so stoked. And out of breath. I had to walk around a bit chugging water before I regained my composure and found Sean. I didn't even say anything, I just showed him my Garmin. I was so proud of myself at that point. I told Sean we could leave, I didn't care about seeing the results because I figured it was a big race (definitely not huge or even the biggest I've been to, but there were quite a few people there) and I wasn't really concerned with my ranking, I was just so happy to have exceeded all of my goals. Sean convinced me we needed to stay because "the last time you wanted to leave early you placed first". Touche.

So we hung around waiting for results. When they finally went up and I finally located my name I lost my breath all over again.

1st in my age group. 5th woman to finish overall. And the girl who placed 2nd in my age group was 7 minutes behind me.

I was beaming. (And yes, I realize that no one pointed out to me that my medal fell behind my number.) Sean noticed though, which is how we ended up with this awkward picture of me:

Overall: I thought it was a great race. It seems like they listened to past complaints and fixed things that had been wrong. Would I run it again? Definitely. It was beautiful. They did seem a little unorganized, but nothing that was unbearable.

Best.Husband.Ever.

Anyone run any races this weekend??

Ever gone into a race thinking it would be horrible and it turned out great? I'm notorious for this.

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 3

2011-06-12T08:22:00.002-05:00

We're gonna keep this short and sweet today because 1. I want to work on my race recap and 2. I have to recover from not being home all day yesterday. Weekends are way too short.

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 3 miles @ 10:01 min/pace
Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day
Thursday: 5 mile tempo run with 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace
Friday: Rest/Cross-training day
Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day
Sunday: 10 miles @ 10:01 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: Jillian Michaels 6 Week 6 Pack Workout 1

Tuesday: 3 miles @ 8:57 min/pace
Wednesday: Jillian Michaels 6 Week 6 Pack Workout 1
Thursday: 5 mile tempo run with 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace
Friday: 10 min. core basics pilates, 10 min. long and limber pilates
Saturday: 1 mile easy warm up, 10k race @ 8:24 min/pace (more on that to come)
Sunday: 2 miles easy, 10 min/pace; 40 min Core Yoga Flow

Overall planned miles: 18

Overall actual miles: 17

You already know that both my 3 mile easy run and 5 mile tempo run sucked. Majorly.

The Jillian Michaels 6 week 6 pack is good, but man my legs were sore, which I think factored into the crappy runs. Because of the sore legs, I opted to not go three times with that this week. There was no way I could handle sore legs for yesterday's 10k.

In all honesty, all of my workouts were sub-par, but I'm ok with that because I had a great race yesterday. But I'll recap all of that later. For now, I'm going to go drink my coffee and enjoy the morning now that I'm awake (because the cats would not leave us alone at 6:30 this morning, jerks).

And I'll leave you with this:

Jillian Michaels - RIPPED IN THIRTY Week 4 Review

2011-06-10T12:28:00.002-05:00

First of all, thanks for all your supportive comments and advice. :)

My solution to a crappy week of runs? Mexican food with Sean, one of my besties and her fiance! (Oh wait, that wasn't an option y'all gave...?)

Love her!

And I took it easy today too and just did a little abs/stretching. :)

I don't know why it's taken me so long to finish up the RIT review. These are the other reviews:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

What I Liked:

- I really liked the whole warm-up, honestly

- The second exercise in the warm-up you are in a side lunge and you move over to the other side without standing up. This sounds easy, but made me really sore. But the good kind of sore.

- The third exercise in the warm-up you do a side crunch/knee lift. Don't know if that makes any sense, but I feel like my obliques get left out way too much normally, so I was happy to be doing this

- All of the ab moves were hard, but good. I've been trying to focus on strengthening my core more, so I really appreciated the hard workout there

What I Didn't Like:

- Uhh how perfect all three of them look while working out. I am a sweaty mess and they look like they're coming out of the salon. Rude.

- Static squats with overhead presses. OW.

- There was a move where you walked into a downward dog (that was a horrible way to describe this) and then you held one knee and up towards your chest and then switched to the other. The switch wasn't very clear so I had to try to balance and watch the tv while still holding good form.... Eh, not impressed.

Overall: I really liked the whole DVD. I loved that every week you changed, but I think one thing I might do differently if/when I do the whole challenge again is to do each week for 2 weeks, increasing my weights the second week. I definitely recommend it for a good, quick, overall strengthening workout (which is perfect for me since I normally work out before I go to work). It's a little hard on the legs, especially when you're trying to add in distance each week, so be mindful of that. Am I ripped now? Nah, I don't think so. But I do think I'm stronger, and I think it's important to note that I only did it 2-3 times a week and I didn't follow her nutrition plan, I ate what I wanted. Oh, and if you're interested, you can buy it here (thanks, Amazon):

A week of not-so-great runs

2011-06-09T10:17:00.001-05:00

We all have them. Those runs that just don't hit the spot. The ones that are a true struggle to get through. The ones where if it can go wrong, it does go wrong. (And if you don't have those runs, we need to talk. Because I am clearly doing something wrong.)

This entire week has been like that for me. On Tuesday I set out to do an easy 3 miles. It was 3 miles of torture. I hated every.single.second. It felt like I was running for hours, when in reality I finished it in 26ish minutes. I was having weird stomach issues. I could only think of one thing: making it home. At the same time, you had better believe I was bound and determined to finish all 3 without stopping.

In the end, I made it. And then I spent the next 20 minutes laying on the tile in our living room with the fan on full blast hoping Sean didn't wake up and walk into the living room and find me in my semi-dead state trying not to puke.

It was only 3 miles.

I can run 3 miles in my sleep.

So what made it so bad? I really have no idea.

This morning I had a 5 mile tempo run. The last 5 mile tempo run I had was glorious. I came out of it wanting to just keep running it over and over again.

Today... Not so much.

My head wasn't in it. My legs were tired. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I could give you a million reasons as to why I think it didn't go well, but the truth is, sometimes my runs just suck.

So where am I going with all this complaining? I'm terrified now. I have a 10k on Saturday that I've been looking forward to for weeks, and suddenly I've moved into a state of unease. What was supposed to be easy and fun is now looming over me.

I'm hoping and praying for a miracle run that is all rainbows and sunshine, but preparing for the worst.

What do you do to get out of a "bad run" funk?? Any advice? I'm trying to keep my head in the right place, but I'm pretty discouraged right now.

Oh and sorry for the overkill of cat pictures, but they make me happy, and editing them in Picknik makes me happy too. I really enjoy that when it's loading my pictures it says things like "buttering bread" and "fluffing clouds". Just me?

Rivers and Motorcycles

2011-06-08T10:47:00.000-05:00

If you missed the first installment of "what I did on my weekend that you are all waiting anxiously to hear about", fret not, you can find it here.

Because Sean and I are such party animals, as soon as we finished our dinner at Mark's, we went home and fell asleep watching Criminal Minds. Try not to be too jealous of how exciting our lives are.

Saturday I woke up and rolled out of bed at 6:30 and into running clothes to do the awful 9 mile treadmill run. And just in case you forgot how exclusive-looking our home gym is, here you go:

Like I said, try not to be jealous of us.

After complaining to Sean for forever about how tired my legs were, how boring the last 3 miles of my run were, how hot I was, etc., I finally cleaned up enough to go to one of my best friend's river house for her family's annual crawfish boil.

Please ignore my headband. I'll just go on ahead and admit now that I did not wash my hair before going. In fact, I did nothing post-run with my hair before going. My bad.

This makes me miss my college years. San Marcos, you and your plentiful rivers spoiled me. The San Bernard is a good substitute, but seriously, SM, you set the standards pretty high.

That is the hubs about to do a back flip into the river. He is a HUGE show-off. And I mean that very lovingly.

Yep. There we are again.

These are some of my favorite people.

When we got home from the river, I had to immediately go plug my phone in because it was dying from me surfing the internet, stalking twitter, and online shopping the entire way home. When I walked into the living room, I found Sean spooning Leo. Proof:

Someone may have had a few too many adult beverages. That someone was not me. I'll let you guess who it was. (It wasn't Leo either).

Sunday morning I forced Sean up and out of bed to do this:

And this:

(This picture translates to us spending an hour in the coffee shop sitting next to each other playing each other in Words with Friends. I won.)

When we got home I kicked Sean out of the house, did an hour of Pilates, shopped a ridiculous amount, and then we met both our parents for dinner.

Birthday? Successful.

Do you play Words with Friends? We play each other all the time. So far, Sean hasn't won once.

Expensive wine, expensive meals

2011-06-07T09:49:00.008-05:00

This post has NOTHING to do with running...

...because I want to remember my weekend in full :) Forewarning: this is long. I'll break it up into a post about Friday and then later on a post about Saturday/Sunday.

First let me be clear about one thing. We don't do nice dinners. Ever. And by "we don't do nice dinners", I mean we never, ever get dressed up and go out. The last time we went to Carabba's, I was in work out clothes (classy, I know). I complained to Sean about never going on dates anymore and so Friday he texted me to tell me we had reservations at 7:30 "somewhere".

I left work early, came home, had a glass of wine with the hubs, and then we got ready... This told me very clearly how long it's been since I've worn heels because I came wobbling unsteadily out into the living room wearing the heels I bought for my bachelorette party (actually, the whole outfit, thanks, White House Black Market for making me feel rich). I'm very lucky because I don't have to wear heels every day to work. In fact, the majority of the time I'm wearing these bad boys:

Like I said, classy.

Anyhow, we ended up at Mark's. (Let me pause to just tell you my hubs = awesome.)

Never been? It's ridiculously out of our league. Anyone who gets their initial stamped into the butter they give out must be rich. (Oh and sorry for the crappy picture quality but I turned the flash off so people wouldn't realize I was taking pictures of everything) I'm pretty sure we were the youngest people there and if it had been possible I would've taken the tablecloth home with me just to get my money's worth.

Mark's is set in an old church, and they really played into all of the details that the church offered - everything was beautiful.

While looking at the wine menu, the wine director cornered us (ok, we were sitting down, she just stopped by our table) and started asking us a million questions about what kind of wine we like, what country/region we like our wine to be from, how dry or fruity we like our wine (is now appropriate to say that we buy 1. wine on clearance at Target and 2. boxed wine from HEB?).

We ended up with a $100+ bottle of wine. You had better believe that when you normally buy wine "because that label is SO cool" or "it's on clearance, let's try it...", $100 for a bottle means that we are drinking every.last.drop.

It was really good, though. She was right on when she described the flavors and it had a nice, smooth, slightly peppery taste afterwards that set well. However Sean's comment was "I can't tell the difference between this stuff and what we had on the way over here..." (Should we have told her that we are SO classy that we drank wine in plastic cups on the way to dinner?)

One of the cool thing's about Mark's is that the menu changes every day. We started out by splitting a salmon sampler that had different types of sashimi salmon with some sort of salad that was to die for. Seriously, one of the best appetizers I've ever had. For the main course, I had seared ahi tuna with risotto and Asian slaw. It was easily one of the best meals I've ever tasted. I tried to eat every bite on my plate but I was so full that I had to leave some of the tuna.

The whole reason that we went to Mark's in the first place was based on a recommendation from one of Sean's friends. So when we were finishing up our meal and about to grab our check, the GM came out to talk to us and ask us what we wanted for dessert. We both said we were way too full for dessert and he (very politely) told us to pick something, otherwise he would pick for us, and that it was on the house because Sean's friend had called in ahead of time to say we were coming. :) THAT made me feel special. (And let's be honest, you don't really have to twist my arm about having dessert...)

Oh and just to try and redeem myself for re-posting the picture of Sean pointing out the double chin:

We ended up with a raspberry tart with pistachio ice cream that was divine.

Oh yeah, and a candle and a piece of white chocolate that said "Happy Birthday" (I guess now is a good time to mention we were out for my birthday).

If anyone is ever in Houston looking for a really nice (and expensive) place to go to dinner, this is the place, seriously. Actually, the pricing wasn't even that bad, we spent the same amount on a bottle of wine that we did on our appetizer and two dinner plates.

Oh and if you're wondering, my hubs is seriously the best ever.

Gone on any fancy dates lately? Like I said, we never go on fancy dates. It was fun to get dressed up :)

Anyone else have the wine problem? I guess we're just really cheap...

Vegas and Workouts

2011-06-06T10:34:00.002-05:00

Sean's going to kill me for this but I just can't resist.

Back here I posted a picture of Sean and I. His response was "thanks for posting the picture of me with my double chin". So, in case you had any doubt that guys can be self-conscious about things, here you go:

You're welcome.

I've never been to Vegas. I'm not even sure that I ever really cared about going to Vegas. BUT two of our good friends are getting hitched in Vegas this July! When Sean and I celebrated our first anniversary, we did so with the thought of having a small vacation over our actual anniversary and a big vacation later on in the summer. However, with a Vegas trip in there, we just couldn't justify spending a ton of money and taking a week off work in June and then spending a ton of money and taking off several days in July.

Solution? We're going to Vegas early! And I'm SO excited! I don't know when my feelings about Vegas changed (still not a big gambler), but I'm stoked about going!

Onto week 3 of marathon training :)

I suddenly can't remember where I saved my cool PDF of my workouts, so this is going to have to do:

Planned miles for the week: 18

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 3 miles @ 10:01 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run with 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 10 miles @ 10:01 min/pace

Yesterday on my weekly trip to Target I picked up this:

I think I'll do reviews of it like with her Ripped in Thirty (you can find week 1 here, week 2 here, week 3 here, and week 4 will be coming this week). But since this has you doing 3 weeks at level 1 and then 3 weeks at level 2, I'll just recap them at the end of each 3 week period. Maybe I'll have a 6 pack after.

The 10 miles this weekend will be interesting considering I'm running a 10k on Saturday. I'm thinking that I'll do the 10k and then do the remaining 3+ sometime Saturday versus trying to do the 10k Saturday and then the full 10 Sunday. Decisions, decisions...

Hope you all have a good Monday!

Do you try and stick to training plans when you have them? I try and stick to them just because I like having things pre-planned out. But I definitely can be flexible if I need to!

What do you do when you have a long run scheduled that coincides with a shorter race run?

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 2

2011-06-05T15:21:00.000-05:00

What I was SUPPOSED to be doing:

What REALLY happened:

Monday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 4

Tuesday: Easy 4 miles @ 9:47 pace

Wednesday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 4; 1 mile easy to be a part of NRD

Thursday: 4 mile speedwork - 1 mile warm up at 10:00 min/pace, 1 mile @ 8:00 min/pace, 1/2 mile @ 10:00 min/pace (times 2), 1/2 mile cool down

Friday: Not a thing. I chose to sleep in and sleep off being at Buffalo Wild Wings the night before. Sometimes beer and sports games with two of our best friends on Thursday night trumps working out in the morning.

Saturday: 9 mile long run @ 10:00 mile/pace

Sunday: 50 minute Pilates DVD

Overall planned miles: 17

Overall actual miles: 18

The Ripped in Thirty just didn't happen three times this week. And it was the last week. Sad, right? I debated doing it this morning, but Pilates just sounded better and I am all for listening to what I feel like doing versus forcing myself to do something I don't want to. Who knows, maybe I'll do it at some point today (probably not).

And as for that random one mile... well, it was a cross-training day but at 10:00pm Wednesday night I decided I wanted to run a mile for National Running Day. So I did. One of the joys of having your own treadmill. Best Craig's List purchase EVER.

The four miles on Tuesday were a breeze, which was a blessing because I ran them after work in the Houston heat. The four mile speedwork was like running on air. I flew threw it and loved every single second of it.

I did the 9 mile run on the treadmill yesterday morning. Things went great the first 6 miles. Then I made the fatal error of looking to see how far I had gone. Definitely thought I had been running longer than I had and that's when EXTREME boredom set in. I just started talking to myself. Out loud. Good thing I was at home. I would love to show you beautiful sunrise pictures like last week, but the truth is, our treadmill is in a room that we have done nothing with yet and it is facing a wall.

Beautiful.

Or not.

But he sure is cute!!

Jillian Michaels - RIPPED IN THIRTY Week 3 Review

2011-06-03T14:54:00.000-05:00

This is way late, but better late than never, right?

If you missed the review of week one you can read it here and you can read week two here.

She's mean. That's all.

No just kidding.

What I Liked

- I came away sore every session.

- They were in hot pink and black, and I love that color combo.

- The warm-up incorporated weights, which I thought was kind of cool. And I had never done any of the moves in the warm-up before, so win. I love trying new things.

- Static lunges with a twist? I'll take it. And you should too.

What I Didn't Like

- There was a BIG focus on legs. And this little runner's legs were shot by the end of it. I guess that's not bad, it's just kind of hard on my running.

- During the first set of strength moves she did the traditional 3 minutes. Except not. You did the first two strength moves twice like normal, but the 3rd strength move you only did one time. I didn't get it. The first day I did the video I actually stopped working out and hit rewind because I was so confused.

- There was a whole lot of balance moves. And guess what? I'm not coordinated. I can handle one balance move but not two in a row.

Overall: Still love it. I love challenges.

Happy Friday! It's HOT here in Houston. Wish I was back here...

Anyone doing anything fun this weekend?? Tonight hubs and I are going out to dinner, tomorrow we're going to one of my besties river house for a crawfish boil, and Sunday is my birthday!

Is it unbelievably hot where you are too? Houston is a death wish in the summer. But I'll take heat over cold any day.

Getting bit by the bug...

2011-06-02T15:16:00.000-05:00

...the marathon bug that is.

Yesterday I signed up for the Houston Chevron Marathon lottery (again, fingers crossed I get in!).

But I am an unabashed overachiever. I'll be the first to admit it. It takes me a while to gain the confidence to move forward with something, but when I do I'm all in, no ifs, ands or buts.

If you remember (or if you don't) I ran my first 5k in December 2010. HOWEVER the first 5k I signed up for was in January 2011. After I signed up for the EP5k in January, I didn't want to wait. Have I mentioned I'm pretty impatient? I am.

Fast forward 7 months.

I've come leaps and bounds with running. Is now a good time to mention that I started "training" for 5k's in 2009? I have a tendency to over-train because I get nervous. But once I take that leap.... Anyway, I digress.

As you may know, I started marathon training last week.

I signed up for the Houston Chevron marathon yesterday morning.

I have been stalking June 1 for weeks now waiting for 8am to roll around so I could sign up. Low and behold at 8am our Internet was out at our house.

So I did the next best thing and logged onto my phone. It wouldn't take my payment over my phone.

So I jumped into my car and high-tailed it to work and was registered by 8:45.

Blogged.

Worked.

Talked to Britt.

Thought hard.

Worked some more.

Talked to Britt some more.

Thought even harder.

And I signed up for the Rock 'n Roll SA marathon.

:)

It's all or nothin' round here, baby.

Marathons & National Running Day

2011-06-01T10:14:00.000-05:00

I hope you all are out there celebrating National Running Day today!

Well, kind of. Sometimes it feels not so great while running, but afterwards I (usually) feel great!

There's some great deals out there for National Running Day - go here to see some of the deals that are going on today (perfect time to sign up for a race...)

So how am I celebrating National Running Day? Why, by taking the day off work and running my first marathon.

Or not.

But I did enter the lottery for the Houston Chevron 2012 marathon (!!!!! please, everyone, say a little prayer for me that I get in!!!!!), I'll be doing another day of marathon training (ok, ok it's a rest/cross-training day, so I'll really be doing some cross-training and I'll probably run a quick mile for good measure, just to be a part of National Running Day...), and I'm seriously considering signing up for a Rock 'N Roll race somewhere close by... we shall see (and by we shall see, I mean as soon as I wrap this post up I'm googling what would be a good option...)

This whole having Monday off work has really thrown me off, so I'm a little behind on all the things I wanted to post about. We'll be all caught up by the end of the week (maybe), but for now we'll just take a look at what I'm supposed to be doing this week :) Last week was a huge success though!

There's going to have to be some tweaking on this week, because June 5 is my birthday and I'm not sure that I'll be running that day, but the 9 miles will happen, be it the 4th or the 5th.

GO RUN!

So tell me, how are you celebrating National Running Day?

Anyone running any RNR races this year?

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 1

2011-05-31T11:03:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah... I know, I know... I said I'd do a Sunday post, maybe Monday because of the holiday here... But we were busy doing a lot of this...

And I suck. And even though I did read blogs over the weekend, the thought of actually writing a post maybe crossed my mind once. (I know you all really care, too, so I am sorry). But not really sorry because I was too busy having fun.

ANYWAY. Here is a refresher of what my workouts were supposed to loosely resemble:

Actual:

Monday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 3

Tuesday: Easy 3 miles @ 10:02 pace

Wednesday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 3

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run, 1 mile warm up at 10:00 min/pace, 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace, 1 mile cool down @ 10:00 min/pace

Friday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 3; 35 min interval run (<--- DUMB.)

Saturday: Rest

Sunday: 8 mile long run @ 9:59 mile/pace

Overall planned miles: 16

Overall actual miles: 19.5 (take that RoseRunner... juuuust kidding, rock star over there does that many miles in a day. A day. And it's my weekly total. No shame.)

The week started off really easy. I felt like I was cheating working out so little. The Jillian Michael's stuff will get its own post, but really, I do feel like I'm taking it easy by only doing a 25ish min workout on those days (granted, I'm super sore).

The 3 miles on Tuesday I had to consciously work to run that slow. I almost think I should have run it on the treadmill because then I'd have been forced to keep the same pace, but I enjoy running outside too much.

I was ~~a little~~ really worried about the 5 mile tempo run because I decided way ahead of time to do it on the treadmill. I really wanted to hit that 8:30 pace for the 3 miles, and the easiest way to do that (for me) is by running it on the TM where I set the pace. I had the option of running the 3 miles at an 8:34 pace (level 7.0) or an 8:27 pace (level 7.1) so I opted for the 8:27 (all at a 1% incline). I went to bed Wednesday night telling myself over and over again that I would have a great TM run (I'm not a TM running kind of girl. I hate it for everything except intervals or fast 1 mile sprints).

It was glorious. Seriously. I had the best run ever. One of those runs where you really feel like you're running on clouds and you never want to stop.

Friday I messed up. I started off good with the Jillian Michaels. But I was feeling really off by the time I left work. And since hubs was going to the mow the front yard, I decided to run (dumb). I knew I needed to give my legs a break, so naturally I ran a really hard interval run. My legs were shot by the end of it. Seriously shot. Saturday I did nothing because they were so tired.

When I woke up Sunday they were still tired. But there was no way I was skipping the 8 miles.

So I laced up and hit the pavement in my favorite neighborhood to run in.

There's really no way around it, they were hard.

I had to talk myself up to get to mile 7, all the while telling myself that if I got to 7 I could walk.

Naturally, when I hit 7 I told myself I was dumb for thinking I'd walk the last mile and I sucked it up and ran it out.

I really did try to hit that 10:04 pace, but my miles were all over the place.

Sometimes I was running way too fast, and sometimes way too slow (wind did factor in as well). I was really happy to be done (and happy that I sucked it up and ran all 8).

I ended up averaging pretty close to what I was supposed to run, but let's be honest, all 8 miles were brutal.

Because I just cant help myself...

Happy ~~Monday~~ Tuesday.

Biggest Loser Finale

2011-05-25T12:08:00.000-05:00

Even though I LOVED Olivia:

I REALLY wanted Hannah to win:

Both images via Google Images.

And did anyone else notice how awkward Jillian looked standing in heels and a dress? Sean and I couldn't stop gawking.

Love.this.show.

Do you watch Biggest Loser?
I didn't until this season when Sean randomly had it on one night. Been hooked since then and definitely cried every episode at some point.

Who did you want to win??
I LOVELOVELOVE Hannah, I thought she was hilarious! I really wanted her to win, but I'm also really glad that her and her sister were the top two, I loved them both.

new happenings

2011-05-24T15:04:00.000-05:00

A few random Tuesday Tidbits:

1. I started to try to get myself "marathon-ready" today. It's going to be a long, slow process for me, but it's happening.

2. Vanessa, over at Gourmet Runner, does something that I'm going to start implementing here. She posts her 'weekly workout recap', which I think is a great way to track workouts. What I'm going to do is on Monday's I'll post what I want to accomplish for the week, and then on Sundays (brace yourselves, I'll be doing weekend posts! maybe...) I'll tell ya how I did.

3. I love sweet potatoes. Seriously, I don't know how I went 24 years shunning them.

4. I bought a new digital camera! It is tiny and cute!

5. I had an awesome breakfast Saturday morning with my Houston blogger friends and in true blogger FAIL none of us took any pictures. How does that happen?? Also, totally out of my comfort zone to do something like that (meeting up with randoms) BUT so glad I did. Plus I feel like we're all secretly BFF's even though I'd never met any of them ('cept Heidi!) before Saturday. WIN for blogger meet-up!

But I figured to start, I'll show you what I'm supposed to be doing this week and then Sunday (maybe Monday because it's a long weekend) we'll recap and see how all that business works out :)

Have a fantastic Tuesday!

Jillian Michaels - RIPPED IN THIRTY Week 2 Review

2011-05-23T14:57:00.000-05:00

As you may already know, I have taken on Jillian Michael's Ripped in Thirty challenge. If you missed the recap of Week 1 you can find it here.

I feel like I might as well get this out of the way and say that this challenge may not be entirely fair because I haven't been watching my diet at all the past couple weeks and I haven't been running quite as much either, so my weight has been fluctuating between 5lbs for the past 3 weeks. One of these days I'll get my act together and get my eating under control, but sweets cravings have attacked in full force. (I have sworn off desserts for this week to try and calm down my huge sweet tooth, WISH ME LUCK.)

But back to RIT Week 2 Review :)

I managed to get in all three sessions that I wanted to Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday.
What I Liked

- one thing that I really have liked is being able to do something in roughly 30 minutes on Saturday morning and then go on about my day

- going back to last week, I really like the way the 3 minute of strength is broken up with 30 second moves at a time

- I felt that she did a really good job of switching up the moves so that you really weren't doing any of the same moves as week 1 (you did do variations of moves from week 1, but they were a little more intense)

What I Didn't Like

- there were a LOT of variations on planks... I have no issue with this because I do love planks, but it was a little hard for me to transition into the next strength move and never move out of the plank position... and then follow up with the cardio moves being in the plank position as well... these little arms were tired

- at one point she pretends to bite one of the girls butts. little odd. (I felt it wouldn't be complete without a weird Jillian thing thrown in there)

Overall: Still happy. Week 2 is definitely more difficult than Week 1, but that's the point right?

Blogger FAIL, 6.2 WIN, and RUNNING GIRL YOU ARE MY FAVORITE.

2011-05-20T10:58:00.000-05:00

:) It's Friday!

Blogger FAIL
Every now and then when I log into blogger I get this screen:

And I want to punch my computer screen because that is just not the case. What I do in actuality is click the "B" for Blogger and suddenly my little dashboard appears. Weird.

6.2 WIN

As some of you may know, I've been doing 10k training for the past however long. Well, since I am dumb and didn't actually line up my training with any races, I finished training today. Solution? Run a 10k this morning, duh. In actuality I was running 6+ miles a couple weeks before I started training, but I wanted to set a good, solid foundation and I love training and I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with my running, thus 10k training seemed logical.

After an entire week of not getting enough sleep, waking up in the middle of the night, etc., I finally got a decent full (ok, 6 hours) sleep last night. At 4:50am my alarm went off and I popped out of bed, laced up my sneakers and was out the door to run my 6.2. I took it pretty conservative because running in my neighborhood is BORING (especially for distances longer than 1 mile and when no one is awake and its dark out) and I didn't want to burn out and quit early. I realized in the last 1/2 mile that I took it a little too conservatively because I felt really good and not worn out, so I did the only natural thing and raced the last 1/2 mile in. Glorious. So, 6.2 I'm done with you now and will move on to half marathon training (and if you're wondering I run an actual 10k on June 11).

RUNNING GIRL YOU ARE MY FAVORITE

I saved the best for last. :) See, I time all my runs so that when I'm walking/cooling off I walk past my mailbox and today was no exception. Except today when I checked my mail I had a package!!!!

A little while back here I WON ONE OF RUNNING GIRL'S GIVEAWAYS! I say "one of" because her she is SUPER AWESOME and did 3 giveaway's at once. If you don't read her blog, then you should. She is one hot mama who is training for 2 upcoming half marathons! You GO GIRL.

How cute is she? I stole this pic from her blog :)

WOOHOO PACKAGE FOR ME

Wanna see again?

Please excuse my extremely red face, but I live in Houston, home of humidity, so even runs at 5am make me sweat like crazy. And the wet hair is the result of showering off 10lbs of sweat. There's no way you would've wanted to see a picture of me pre-shower.

THE GOODS:

Ah, my soul is satisfied. Gummy bears and new lip gloss plus a sweet note on cute stationary! PERFECT way to start the morning.

And then, just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I went through the rest of my mail.

Do you see what I see?

Here let me help:

30% off Yogurt Cup?! Guess where I'm going soon...

Jillian Michaels - RIPPED IN THIRTY Week 1 Review

2011-05-17T11:07:00.000-05:00

As I said here, because of Britt I decided to try out new the Jillian Michael's Ripped in Thirty (RIT) DVD.

I was pretty excited to try it out because, so far, I have been impressed with her DVDs, and I love the idea of getting a total body strength workout in a fairly short amount of time.

I'm a longtime fan of her 30 Day Shred, though I'd be lying if I said I made it through an entire 30 days. I tend to get bored with things if I do them for too long and I like to have structure. With the Shred DVDs there was the leeway to move up to the next level when you're ready, which means that I eventually got less and less dedicated to it. That isn't to say, however, that I don't still use the DVD - I LOVE going back to the Shred, and have been frequently alternating between the Shred and Jackie Warner's circuit training.

Right off the bat one thing that really appealed to me about RIT is that there are four solid weeks, and each week you move up a level. The structure is good for someone like me who is a list-driven, check it off my to-do list, kind of person.

Britt was trying to fit in four sessions a week, but I knew for me that three was more realistic. I don't like doing back-to-back days of strength training, so I decided that I would do Week 1 Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday and that I would do my training runs on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, with one or two days of Pilate's/Yoga thrown in for good measure, and if possible also a day of hills/intervals/tempo runs.

Last week was a total success in that Monday/Wednesday/Friday I did my scheduled training runs and Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday I did RIT. I also got in one day of Pilate's and one very rough tempo run.

What I Liked:

- the way the DVD is set up is similar to the 30 Day Shred, where it alternates 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs. You start with a warm up, then do three different circuits of the 3-2-1 module, and then you cool down

- unlike the 30 Day Shred, the 3 minutes of strength is broken into three 30 second strength moves that are repeated upon completion of the third strength move. With the Shred, you alternated 30 seconds of one strength move with 1 minute of another, more complex strength move. For me, the RIT is a better set up because some of the moves (like the side lunge with front arm raises) are really hard for me to complete for even 30 seconds (much less an entire minute)

- none of the moves are ever repeated in any of the weeks. you do a certain move (say push-ups) one week and then you will never do push-ups again (so she says, time will tell)

- by Saturday I could tell that I had improved because some of the strength moves that started out being hard for me I was able to complete without stopping

- like her other DVDs, Jillian has two girls working with her that show you a beginner way to do the moves, and an advanced

What I Didn't Like:

- It says that the sessions are 20 minutes, but in reality they are longer than that. I couldn't figure out why I was starting at 5:40am and ending at 6:15 or later (these are rough estimates) until Saturday when I did the DVD through Sean's laptop and I actually had a timer showing me how long it was running. This isn't a HUGE complaint, because I don't mind the extra time, but be prepared to spend a little longer than 20 minutes doing the DVD

- Jillian has a tendency to do really awkward things (like making one of her girls talk straight into her sports bra)... It was a little disconcerting the first time I saw it because I focused on that rather than the actual move I was supposed to be doing... little weird

All in all, so far I'm really happy with the DVD. I did my first day of Week 2 today, and it was definitely nice to change it up from what I was doing last week. I love fitness DVDs because, in all honesty, a lot of times I'm way too lazy to drive to the gym in the morning, but I love strength training, so it's nice to be able to work up a sweat in my own living room (or hotel room)

Stay tuned for a Week 2 recap next week!

Weekend Getaway - Destination: Galveston

2011-05-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

Every year Sean's company hosts a golf tournament in Galveston and Sean's branch of the company cooks for all of the golfers. This means that Sean gets a free hotel room and we get to hang out in Galveston for the weekend. It's a win-win, because this means that not only do we get a free hotel room, but I get to take the weekend off from all my normal grown-up responsibilities like grocery shopping and house cleaning (and I avidly ignore that it means that these things will now have to happen after work and such).

I got down there about 5:30 Friday afternoon and Sean and I hung out, went by the silent auction, and schmoozed with coworkers/clients like you're supposed to during these things. We went to Landry's with his coworker and his wife and - in the spirit of being healthy - had a chopped salad with blackened shrimp... it was SO good. I don't eat at Landry's very often, so I never really know what to order. This definitely hit the spot though!

Saturday morning I woke up and debated for a LONG time what to run - treadmill intervals or a tempo run on the Seawall.

The tempo run won, which was a COLOSSAL mistake. Seriously. The only good thing that came out of that run was this:

And this:

I set out to do a 4 mile tempo run with an easy warm up and cool down and harder in between miles (around a 7:30 pace). The first mile was a breeze and I cruised along at about an 8:38 pace. The second mile I was flying down the Seawall, maintaining about a 7:15 pace. This is where I realized I made a GINORMOUS mistake. See, I had to do an out and back 4 miles so that I could get back to the hotel (I suppose Sean could've picked me up, but hindsight is 20-20, right?). I couldn't understand why I was cruising so easily at 7:15 until I turned around. And then it hit me like a brick, literally. Dang that wind was hard. I struggled to maintain an 8:45 pace that 3rd mile, the wind was blowing so ridiculously hard into me. I even had to stop to walk at one point and frequently was taking a step back before pushing forward. By the time I hit mile 3.1 I started walking/sprinting in 1/10th mile intervals.

I think it's the tiredest (is that a word??) I've ever been from 4 miles.

Sean had to leave earlier than expected to go out to the tournament that day, so after he left I did this:

Dedication at it's finest? No, that's more like knowing how many extra calories you'll be consuming and trying to prevent it.

Later on I met Sean and his coworkers out at the golf course and hung around chatting with the boys/their wives until the end of it. Afterwards we went to the company crawfish boil and then to the hotel bar to have drinks with the coworkers/clients/wives/etc.

Sean and I giggled our way through YouTube videos after everyone left the bar (sometimes, we are 5, don't judge).

We went to the cutest place for breakfast - The Mosquito Cafe:

via

I got the vegetable omelet, which came with a side of honey-wheat toast and an apple salad that had sliced apples, pecans, celery and some sort of sauce. Apple salad = win. Vegetable omelet = pretty good. The vegetables were cooked in butter, which was a huge disappointment for me. I don't use butter ever (unless I'm baking) so I was bummed when I tasted it through all the other flavors. Next time we go, I am definitely branching out of my norm of veggie omelette's and trying something else - they had a fab selection of unique breakfasts and I am just hugely boring and hate to break out of my norm.

In other news, Sean and I are FINALLY renovating our guest bathroom. The bathroom makes me sick every time I walk into it. It's puke green and boring and has all sorts of issues with it. But that is a post for tomorrow :)

it's about time.

2011-05-13T12:03:00.000-05:00

Um, I've never wanted to blog so badly as when I wasn't able to for the past 24 hours. Seriously.

I'll leave it at that, because I'm sure the Blogger folks were diligently trying to get Blogger back up. I'm ashamed to say I may have considered a break-up if things didn't turn around quickly, but I'm a little impatient and have a hard time remembering that everyone has flaws sometimes. (excluding myself, of course).

Britt (who blogs at FitChickBritt) called out to any Bloggers that wanted to join her in doing this:

via

Being the Jillian lover that I am, I jumped on the band wagon (albeit, a week behind Britt in the 4 week challenge) and started RIT on Tuesday. Holy geeze I'm sore. My little legs have been struggling with running this week because they're so sore. Yikes.

On Wednesday I branched out in another direction and tried spaghetti squash for the first time. I'll be honest, I was a little nervous.

via

I'm happy to report though that it was REALLY good. I've been trying to use up all the fresh produce in our fridge, so I mixed in some baby spinach/arugula, feta cheese, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and fresh basil with a little olive oil... DELICIOUS.

See what I mean?

Perhaps I'll try out being vegetarian... (Sean would die.)

It rained for the first time in FOREVER yesterday (which naturally means that everyone freaked out and drove at negative speeds. Don't think it's possible? Try driving home during rush hour on 290 in the rain. Negative speeds are possible).

But it did result in this:

Beautiful. The rain also resulted in my 5 mile run this morning happening in 64 degree weather. I'LL TAKE IT.

Oh and because I just can't stand to leave them out... how cute are they:

The one of Leo in the bag is an all time fave. Man he's cute! Since Sean was packing to go out of town, he tried to leave with Sean (rude).

Tuesday, you are way better than Monday

2011-05-10T09:49:00.000-05:00

I bet you were wondering if I was ever going to post again. I was too.

Friday I switched things up a bit. But you probably read about that here. This whole running after work thing is becoming a big problem. Not because I hate it, but because I love it. The problem factors in when I don't get home until 8pm. I had one of the most stressful nights of my life on Friday night because of this:

via

I've never been so stressed watching a movie ever. Usually when we watch movies I gradually shift over until I'm laying down and then before you know it I'm asleep. I sat straight up throughout this entire movie. Tense. It was good, though, I mean, I'd recommend it, if you don't mind being stressed out.

Me and Jillian had an early morning date on Saturday, and after a 20 minute sweat session I did all the really, super fun things that you (ok maybe just me) do on Saturdays, like clean up and grocery shop.

In an attempt to make our front patio more inviting and spend more money (because we are so rich), Sean and I went out on a quest to find a bistro table and chair set. We finally decided on one at Garden Ridge, and then I played the role of super wife and kept Sean company while he sweated it out in 90+ degree Houston heat putting the furniture together. I drank mimosas and went inside any time I started to glisten. Yes, glisten. Not sweat.

Please ignore my frightening facial expression. Sometimes I get a little overly excited. Also, please ignore that I am wearing the same shirt I was wearing Wednesday. I promise I only wore it for a couple hours on Wednesday night.

We met my family for some pretty outstanding sushi on Saturday night to celebrate Mother's Day and then Sean and I drove over to a little hole in the wall bar for a few drinks with my coworker and her fiance. Apparently it was karaoke night. I will never do karaoke.

I took some pictures at the bar of the folks brave enough to get up there and wail their little hearts out, but they all turned out so dark that they aren't worth posting. We spent Sunday with Sean's family celebrating Mother's Day and then we came home and I proceeded to lay on the couch and put off vacuuming and mopping until the evening.

Apparently Sean didn't know just how much I love Yogurt Cup, because he was silly enough to ask me Sunday night if I wanted to go. He can attest to the fact that within 3 seconds of him asking I had my shoes on, changed my shirt, grabbed my purse and was ready to go. Silly, silly.

Guest Post @ Team Giles

2011-05-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

Go check it out: here

Weekend recap and such to come. Just not right now :)

Well, I tried...

2011-05-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

The Good: I got to have lunch with my husband yesterday. That NEVER happens and it was glorious.
The Bad: It made my day feel like Friday, which was so depressing afterwards.
The Good: Cinco de May gives me a "reason" to have a margarita
The Bad: When you stop by Spec's and they have a "low-cal" margarita and you are suddenly sucked in by marketing, you should know that making your own "low-cal" margarita is a MUCH better choice. I made the decision to buy pre-made. Bad decision. It wasn't so great.
The Good: I'm going to Memorial to run after work again!
The Bad: The reason I'm going is that I skipped my run this morning. Wanna know why? I figured. Sit down, kids.

As Sean and I were coming back from our Mexican fiesta (ok, ok we just went and ate sub-par Mexican food. I consumed those calories for nothing, because it wasn't that great) EVERYONE was out in our neighborhood. This conversation ensued:

Me: Why is everyone outside?
Sean: I don't know...
Me: Do our neighbors hang out outside at night and we had no idea because we never leave the house once I get home??
Sean: I don't know...
Me: WHY WEREN'T WE INVITED?!? We need to make friends with our neighbors!!!

Go into house, start tidying up a bit. Sean goes outside to put out the sprinklers.

Sean re-enters house.

Sean: Rache, apparently everyone was outside because there was a man-hunt going on. The police in the helicopter came and everything.

Well, crap.

5AM alarm goes off. I get out of bed, get dressed to go run. Stand and stare at Sean sleeping. Think really hard about the man-hunt. Wake Sean up and ask him if he cares if I run tonight. Peel off running clothes and get back into bed.

Yeah-freaking-right. Like I'm going out there in the pitch black after a freaking man-hunt was taking place.

You know what's good fuel for long runs?

Yeah, duh. Cinnamon cupcakes from Crave. I love you just as much as froyo!

Making it work

2011-05-05T12:04:00.000-05:00

EDIT: Are you serious? Someone searched this TWICE and my blog came up? "have a nice life. who am i kidding? i hope you get hit by a moving truck."

I mean, sometimes I get frustrated with Sean and all, but never that much...

What started out as a comment on Running Girl's post, turned out looking incredibly long-winded, so I'm just going to go ahead and preface this by saying you should check out her post here and then you'll get the basis of my post.

For anyone too lazy to click over and read her post, to sum it up she basically is talking about finding the healthy balance between planning your days, your workouts, your food, etc. while also allowing for life to intervene like it so often does.

Like her, I'm incredibly particular about my workouts. I am a very list-driven person (just take a look at my planner on any given day) and I thrive off of crossing things off one at a time. I also have found that I execute workouts at a much higher success rate if I know ahead of time what I'm going to do and have some sort of schedule about it.

Unfortunately for my perfectly planned out life, LIFE has a way of jumping in the way of those plans sometimes. It doesn't matter if all of my t's are crossed and i's are dotted - sometimes life just throws a wrench in all of that.

It's taken me a long time to figure out what works for me. And what it comes down to is schedule + flexibility. I am at my best when I have mapped out certain training runs that I have to hit - though I am flexible about which days I hit them. I have at least one hills or speed workout that I want to get in per week. I try to do at least one day of yoga and one day of pilates (though usually I just get in one day of one of them) and I try to get in 2 days of total body strength training (even if that means one day of arms, one of legs, etc. and then one total body day).

What works for me won't work for everyone, myself included sometimes.

There are days that I have planned to go to spin class and I wake up and I don't feel like driving to the gym (It's really far. A whole 7 minutes). So I'll pull my bike out of the garage and bike around the neighborhood, or I'll do an interval workout on the treadmill instead.

And there's days where I finish a run and know I need to get in some abs, but when I peek into my bedroom and see my husband still sleeping peacefully, the only right option at that point is to crawl back into bed and snuggle up to him and nap for 20 more minutes (so what if I did that yesterday? I got my ab workout in after work!).

Lovelovelove!

That's what it's all about to me though, making it work for YOU. No one else's schedule will fit yours. You have to find that balance.

Kind of like skipping dinner so you can do this:

Don't judge that we are wearing the same shirt. It was not planned. And dinners consisting of froyo are perfectly acceptable. They hit my calcium AND fruit needs and I got an added bonus with the dark chocolate chips that I added in. And I'm pretty sure that pecan praline froyo counts as a "healthy fat". Plus, little brother had never been, so it's obvious that he needed to experience this wonderland. Duh.

Oh and for anyone who cares, Yogurt Cup is 5.1 miles away from my house. Which is a perfectly legit running distance to be rewarded with froyo after. The hubs will just have to meet me there...

Finally.

2011-05-03T14:52:00.000-05:00

So I'm sure it's been evident (as you can tell here, here, and here) that I have been struggling for the past week. And even as 5:50 rolled around yesterday evening and I grabbed my gear to go change so I could scoot out the door at 6 to go run, I was seriously debating.

The one thing I had going for me was that I called Garmin support and they walked me through trouble-shooting the stupid thing. "Um, I tried that already, thanks, I read the website and followed the instructions you are giving me right... Oh, never mind it's working now, thanks, kbye."

Well, that's that. It started working like a charm again. Technology.

Clearly.

Anyway, I did get changed into my beloved tempo shorts and out the door and in an effort to bring some spark into my runs again, hit up Memorial Park (which is 0.5 seconds from my work) instead of my usual Monday routine of sitting in traffic, getting insanely annoyed, getting home 45 minutes later even though I only live 15 minutes away and then jumping into a long run so I'm not really home until 8:30.

What a breath of fresh air. For one, being around tons of other runners (except you people that walk slowly four deep on the trail... please move for those of us running!) was so motivating. I ran 7+ miles like a champ. I pushed speed (which never happens in long runs), sped up towards the end (that also never happens in long runs), and finished feeling like a million bucks. I'd have kept going but I was fairly positive that the hubs may have a panic attack if I didn't show up at home before it got dark.

All that leads me to say, I'm BACK. I feel 110% better now.

Now if I could just get back here...

Weekend Recap

2011-05-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

Man-o-man. Last week was a very stress-filled week for me.

Friday after work I drove over to my friend Lindsey's house - she just moved into her first non-roomie apartment and another girlfriend and I drove over there to see her new place and indulge in some girl time. Thank goodness for girl time. Unfortunately, I spent way too much time stuck in traffic getting over there and she had quite the incident with some abusive neighbors in the parking lot (but you should click her name and read her blog post about that, because I wasn't actually there to witness it). I got home exhausted and passed out almost immediately. In keeping with the way the week went my sweet, sweet kittie woke me up at 4:30 meowing and never stopped. So I got up early Saturday too (enter: bad mood). I did manage to get quite a bit accomplished on Saturday, but I was in a huge fog. I forced myself on a brutal mile and a half run (mile and a half! that is not even that far or that long!) and then I eeked out 50 minutes of yoga. Yoga makes me happy.

We met my parents for an early dinner at Berry Hill and I sucked down a couple margaritas. Um, yes, I ran a 5k on Sunday. I'm telling you - I was in a huge funk. At that point, I was seriously considering skipping the race entirely. Luckily, I have a super supportive husband. We were on our way home from dinner and we drove past the Catholic church on the road that runs in front of our neighborhood... They were having their Spring Festival. No, we're not Catholic. Yes, we did stop.

We wandered around, listened to the country band, drank a few beers, and at this point I was positive that I wasn't going to run in the morning. I complained to Sean about it that my head just wasn't in it, and he spent the next however long coaching me through all of my complaints and self-doubt. My hubs = best ever. Seriously.

When my alarm went off Sunday morning I got up, had some peanut butter toast, made coffee for the hubs, felt hung over (big shock), and went back to bed. I woke up an hour later, checked the times for the races, checked the distance to the race, and then went back to bed. I finally forced myself out of bed and thanks to Sean made it to the race in one piece.

I killed it. Seriously. I ran fast and hard and finished 8th overall and 1st in my age group. After doing a million things wrong, it was the one thing that I needed to happen to get my head on a bit straighter. I floated around for most of the day after that. And I owe 150% of that success to my husband. He is the best race manager/cheerleader/photographer I could ask for, seriously. As I came barrelling into the finish line (and this little kid came out of nowhere and passed me - ughhh I would've been 7th!!) there was Sean, video-taping the whole thing. He is my favorite.

We drove over to his parents house after where my ravenous self devoured an AWESOME homemade taco salad courtesy of Sean's mom. Yum yum yum. I promise you that my body believes that it runs marathons, when in fact it does not. Yet.

I have a long run today after work that my head isn't entirely in yet, but I'm in a much better place than I was. Oh and my Garmin freaked out and stopped working after the race yesterday. Not sure what that's about, but it's frozen at 9:57AM. Hopefully we'll get that fixed ASAP.

Oh and I made an amazing pizza last night for dinner. Wanna see?

Delicious. Be jealous.

You guys are awesome.

2011-04-29T09:47:00.000-05:00

Seriously. AWESOME. I love yall.

The Astros were terrible last night, but we had fantastic seats and good company and a really drunk and obnoxious girl in front of us so it was ok. I only took one picture because I was too busy gossiping with Sean.

Then we came home and watched You Tube videos because we are 12 years old. There is nothing better than Kitten Mittens. I laugh my head off every.single.time.

I woke up super early this morning (before my alarm went off) and was wide awake. I debated trying to go back to sleep (by debated I mean I laid in bed with my eyes closed praying for sleep to come back to me) but my alarm went off and I yelled at myself and got out of bed.

Can someone explain to me why it's 58 degrees outside? Not that I'm complaining (I kind of am), but I live in Houston for a very good reason. And it's not the cool weather.

Since I've been so crappy all week I decided I'd do a punishment run this morning. My punishment runs always vary with what the 'punishment' portion of it is - sometimes its hills, sometimes its sprints, today it was no music.

Best.decision.ever. I had a good run. Not the best, but definitely the best this week. I cleared my head. I thought a lot. I made to-do lists. I prayed. I giggled to myself. I scolded myself. And I just ran. And I remembered why sometimes, I like the absolute quiet of 5am runs with no music.

Because I am awesome I then came home and did the weights that I didn't do yesterday. Back on track, baby.

Unfortunately, it's now 9:40am and I'm EXHAUSTED. Happy Friday! I have a MUCH needed girls night tonight and I can't wait.

Are you there weekend? It's me... Rachael...

2011-04-28T09:45:00.000-05:00

Bloggers: I need some encouragement right now! I have (no lie) BINGED for the last 3 days (I don't even want to get into how much sweet stuff I've eaten today in addition to the two days outlined below). Clearly, I'm stressed. So please please please send a little prayer my way that I GET MY HEAD ON STRAIGHT and get up and start nice and fresh tomorrow. :) kthx.

This week has been one for the books. Seriously. I can't remember the last time I was so unbelievably exhausted.

I also can't remember the last time I spent two days binging on junk food without a care in the world (until late last night that is... And don't think that made me get up this morning and work out.)

Work has been... stressful and tiring. And that's all I'll say about that. No one likes to hear complaining.

And workouts have been... I don't know. I think they've been a little off because of work. Stress has a way of making its rounds into every aspect of life.

Tuesday the hubs was sick (poor thing) so I skipped Pilates and came ~~straight~~ home after going to Target to buy a thermometer, orange juice, sprite, and chicken noodle soup for him. After realizing he was running a fever I went to CVS and bought him medicine and bought myself a pint of ice cream. I ate the entire thing.

Dinner looks like this when you know it's going to be followed by a pint of vanilla/chocolate ice cream:

Yes, I roasted two entire heads of broccoli and ate that for dinner. Followed by:

Don't discount that I ate a bag of Nutter Butter bites after lunch Tuesday. I rationalized that it was OK because the bag says "Made with real peanut butter!" Oh well in that case, don't mind if I do...

Yesterday started out OK enough. I suffered through an excruciating run that should have been easy, but was not. At 2pm my BFF/coworker and I went and had Mexican food. Sigh. I ate it all except the rice. I left in a food coma. And followed it up with another bag of Nutter Butter bites (REAL PEANUT BUTTER!).

By the time I got home I thought I was going to fall over from exhaustion, so I did the next best thing and Sean and I went to Willie's Ice House. IN MY DEFENSE I got a salad. There's no pictures because I pretty much inhaled the whole thing, but it was field greens, dried cranberries, pears, artichoke hearts, Gorgonzola cheese and some delicious vinaigrette on the side. It also came with candied walnuts, but for the sake of calories (what a laugh) I skipped those.

Then I forced Sean to take me to YOGURT CUP! AKA Heaven.

That's red velvet and vanilla ice cream with kiwi, strawberries and dark chocolate chips if you're wondering. And I came dangerously close to using my fingers to scrape the bowl entirely clean.

Haha.

Please ignore my cheezy smile and the fact that I look like I was run over by a car before entering. Stress I tell you.

I also proceeded to sleep in this morning, pop in a weights DVD when I finally pulled myself out of bed, and then turn it off 15 seconds into the warm up and drink coffee.

There's not even a shot of a workout today because I'm going to the Astros game tonight. Oh well, at least Yogurt Cup is still fresh in my mind (and heart). Now that I know just how close it is to us, I will be frequenting it A LOT more. I've even considered running there so that I can indulge guilt free.

:-/ Being a girl blows sometimes.

I'm baaack!

2011-04-25T10:55:00.000-05:00

I hope you all had a spectacular, family-filled Easter weekend.

There is a good reason for my blogging absence, I promise. Reason being: I have zero patience at blogging via a cell phone. I don't know if this makes me un-dedicated or just rational, but it takes me way too long to post from my cell phone touch key board and my "." is right next to my space bar so I spend a lot of time deleting because my sentences.end.up.looking.like.this.

I also took only one picture all weekend and it wasn't for the sake of this blog but to remind my husband what he was missing out on by staying in Houston while I ventured out to El Paso. :)

That being said, I'll go on ahead and start my recap now and supplement this post with old pictures and pictures via Google images.

Because I ~~am super dedicated~~ knew that eating healthy was out of the question this weekend, I pulled myself out of bed at my normal 5am time Friday morning for an hour run, followed by 10 mins of abs and then 40 mins of running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to make sure that we had coffee, I ate some semblance of a breakfast (okkkk it was a Clif bar), and that I had everything I could ever possibly need for a two night stay in El Paso.

My parents came and picked me up, I kissed that boy goodbye, and my dad dropped my mom and I off at the airport and we were off to spend Easter weekend in El Paso with my mom's side of the family. This was a girl's trip :)

Thursday afternoon I went into Barnes and Noble and snagged this book to read on the flight:

It is so good. You all need it.

We got to El Paso early (our flight left at 9) and went straight to my Oma's (grandmother in German) apartment to drop off our bags, catch up for a few minutes, and then head out to lunch.

I had a delicious salad of spring mix, dried craisins, blackened shrimp (which were divine!!), sunflower seeds and raspberry vinaigrette. Oh and one of the best rolls I've ever tasted. It was without a doubt one of the most delicious salads I've ever had and I will most definitely be recreating it at home. Yum.

Then we went back and napped/read for a few hours. My mom and I had coffee and cookies (what? I worked out beforehand!) and I read like a mad man about my new BFF Kara.

Before I knew it, it was dinner time (this is what you do on vacations, right? eat?) so we met my two uncles/aunts for dinner at a steakhouse. Dinner consisted of another roll (that was not nearly as good as the the one at lunch), 2 glasses of cab (my absolute favorite red wine) and my mom and I split a rib eye, baked potato, salad, and pineapple coleslaw. Um - delicious. I never have steak, but it's by far one of my favorite meals.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and my mom and I laced up and went on a slow, hard, HILLY, 3.75 mile run. It was glorious having a running partner (something that I really wish I had more often!) because it made the whole run fly by, despite being as hilly as it was. My Oma ended up being really sick all day Saturday, so we just hung out at her apartment, kept her company, and hung out some more. Since she wasn't feeling up to going anywhere for dinner, it was frozen pizza and cab. A totally acceptable dinner by my standards.

And carrot cake. We may or may not have eaten WAY TOO MUCH carrot cake.

Sunday we were up early again, walked 2 miles easy, and then packed, loaded up, and headed to my uncles house for more wine (seriously? who drinks wine at 11am? oh I guess I do. sheesh) and a brunch of a WONDERFUL salad, ham, green beans, au gratin potatoes, fresh home-cooked bread, and homemade strawberry shortcake. My stomach has not hurt so bad from being THAT full in a long time. I may or may not have also made my mom split half a chocolate bunny with me. Oops.

And before I knew it, I was back home. Back to the grind. Back to most definitely sleeping through my alarm this morning and forcing myself to change today's run to a night run. Oh well. :)

Oh and the one picture I did take? It was this one, simply to remind my husband of what he was missing out on:

Yep, that's me. Post 3.75 mile, hard, hilly, SWEATY run.

But in case you were wondering, he is an extra good sport and followed up with:

Happy Monday!

Zombieland V. 1.0

2011-04-21T10:13:00.000-05:00

No sleep = Zombie. I didn't sleep at all last night.

I did a k.i.l.l.e.r speed workout on Tuesday after work. And I was so.happy. There was no sarcasm in that last sentence. If people looked into the window of my makeshift workout room they probably would have thought I was a huge creep. I was running along at level 8 on the treadmill anticipating when I would have to bump it up to level 9 and for whatever reason it was just working right then. I had a huge, goofy smile on my face and every now and then I would pump my arms in enthusiasm.

I have no good explanation. It was just a phenomenal five miles of speed work. I also had a great run Wednesday and a fair strength workout today. But those are not worth mentioning right now.

In other ~~good~~ news, I can not stop eating that stupid wedding cake. And it is never ending. For such a small circle of cake that is left, I don't get how Sean and I are still able to eat it every.single.night.

But that's the boring news. Let's get on to the exciting news.
I should never be allowed to bring this stuff to work with me:

Get real. Like I would ever just have a teaspoon of almond butter. It just makes me feel like I'm being healthy, all sixteen times I fill it up.

When I got home from work yesterday I literally squealed like a small child (or pig, you take your pick) in excitement at this:

AHHHH!!! It's like Christmas in April!!

Can you feel the anticipation building??

YAYYY CHOBANI!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SENDING THIS TO ME!! You are officially the love of my life. Sorry Sean, you lose out to INCREDIBLE Greek yogurt. And no, you can not have any, just stay away from the second shelf of our fridge!

I cleaned out the entire fridge right then just so I could dedicate an entire shelf to my soul mates up there. I wish I was joking.

Since I was home alone last night while the hubs was at softball I decided I would take a page from Hungry Healthy Happy:

Um, you just need to go to this blog post on her website. I would share the recipe, but I really want her to have all the credit for this PHENOMENAL meal.

And just to make her happy, I even sat down at the table, just like she did:

Twice baked sweet potato, you are hands down my new favorite meal. HANDS DOWN.

When Sean got home and crawled into bed and asked me how my night was I told him I made the best meal ever. And then I spent 15 minutes describing its goodness while he told me he hated me for making the best meal ever while he was gone. LOVE YOU HONEY!

:) Best wife of the year?