Quick Update

I have SO much to catch you all up on. I just wanted to send a quick message out that I am alive and well and most certainly NOT pregnant. That seems to be a trend right now when bloggers take a little bit of a break. Haha

I went. I saw. I conquered Rock N Roll San Diego half. While I didn’t have any goals in mind for this race, I was slightly disappointed with my performance. More to come on that. I still had an amazing time and I ran my heart out. I was about 4 minutes shy of a PR and wayyyy too far off the elusive sub 2:30 half that I have had my eyes set on for 2 years now.

All is good though, my time be damned. It was seriously a blast being with family and seeing friends. I even ran into one of my favorite Nuunies, Kim, at the expo. And I saw my fellow NuunKOTB-er, Holly, at the airport! It was great catching up with both of them!

Oh! And I managed to get my favorite race pic to date:

Don’t worry, race picture stealing police. I will be buying this one within the next week! 🙂

Hubs also managed to capture a pic of me coming into the finish line!

So glad I went back this year.

Also, Saturday is Rock n Roll Seattle! If anyone is running it, we are gonna do a big group shot at corral 7 at 6:40 am. It was so much fun last year having so many bloggers come in from out of town. While that isn’t happening as much this year, there is still a big group of us doing it.

[Last year’s pre race pic]

So what are my goals for this race? To finish without feeling like I’m going to puke. Ya, that definitely happened at RnR SD. It sucked.

As far as time goals go, I don’t necessarily have any. I want to finish right around 2:45. I mostly plan on running by feel. I want to feel like it’s okay to stop to take pics if I see something pretty. Or to feel like it’s okay to walk up the huge ass hill at mile 5.5. It is a Beautiful course and I really just want to take it all in.

Anyways, that’s my short lil catch up. I promise I have lots to go into detail with soon!

Who’s running RnR Sea this weekend? Come meet at Corral 7 at 6:40!! 🙂

What I’m Racing

Why, hello friends. It has been a while. I am still very much alive.

Hubs and I have been working out together for the past two weeks, which has been amazing. He is super determined to lose a few lbs, so he has been working out nearly every day. I’m so proud of him. Because of his determination, it has sparked some determination in me! I have been running a lot! Oh yes, the mojo is back. I even had a seriously kick ass 5 miler that I did in 53 minutes the other day.

My running mojo making a big return has also sparked fire in me to get racing again. That brings me to my next two races…

Snohomish River Run Half Marathon and 10k on October 27! I will be doing the 10k at this race that goes right along the water! Fast, flat, and scenic?! Sign me up!!!

Then my next race after that is none other than the Mustache Dache at Magnuson Park on Nov 17!

I am so friggin excited for this race. It is in honor of Movember. You may see men sporting some sa-weet looking mustaches around your office during the month of November. It is all to raise awareness for Men’s Health.

No, I am not a man and I am not capable of growing a sweet stache, but you better believe I will be there supporting the cause with an awesome fake stache. Proceeds for the Mustache Dash go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Such great causes.

So who will be racing with me?!

And in honor of the Mustache Dash, lets play a little game… Name that Stache!!

Snohomish River Run

Last nights workout:

Intervals!!! Woot!
3.01 miles in 30:42 (10:12 pace)

Dang this run felt fabulously sweaty. I ran while reading my book on my iPad. I ran hard for 4-6 pages of my book, then recovered at a 12 min pace for 2 pages. Super scientific approach to intervals. Woooo it felt great.

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To all my Seattle-ish area peeps, this post is for you.

There is a new race in the area! The race is called the Snohomish River Run Half Marathon and 10k.

The race is on October 27 which makes it a great race for people running the Seattle Marathon/Half marathon. It could be a great ramp down week.

The course if a flat, fast course along the Snohomish River. And by flat, I mean FLAT! There is only 115 feet of elevation gain over the whole course of the half marathon. That is a rare treat in the Sea-Town area.

Awesome scenery AND a flat course?! Sign me up!

I’m thinking this may HAVE to be my 10k redemption race. My 1:13 “PR” can suck it! 😉 Who else is down to get their race on?!

Sign up here before September 1st to be the entry fee increase!!

Lake Union 10k Race Recap

Well, ladies and gents… Guess what happens when you only run twice the whole month prior to running a 10k…

You run REALLY slow.

Final time: 6.2 miles in 1:13:55

SHOCKER.

Anyways, let me back up to the seriously awesome parts…

Sunday morning, I woke up from a DEEP sleep to a screeching alarm. I had no idea what the heck it was going off for. About 2 minutes later, I realized IT IS RACE DAY!!!! Queue excitement.

I did my standard pre-race rituals and headed out the door all decked out in my neon. NuunKOTB fo lyfe. Word.

I got to Lake Union, found a parking spot, hit up the port-o-johns and still had an hour to spare. Not long after, I saw my NuunKOTB ladies.

[Lauren, Megan, Me, and Meghan pre-race]

We chatted a bit and then Dawn joined us. Before we knew it, it was time to get our race on.

There were a lot more people at this race than I was expecting. There ended up being over 1,000 finishers. It was great seeing such an awesome turnout considering proceeds went to Girls on the Run.

Anywhooo…

We started running and I felt pretty dang good for such a small amount of training (aka ZERO). I was going at a comfortably hard pace around 10:30-11 min miles for the first 3 miles or so. Right about that point is when my body said WTF are you doing to me?!?!

It felt pretty lame knowing I had lost so much endurance in such a short amount of time but I just couldn’t get my body to handle that pace. So I slowed. A lot. At that point, I just decided to really take in the scenery.

The course was one loop around lake union. There were a lot more hills than I was expecting but there were some great downhills to make up time. A pretty major bonus is that my back didn’t hurt me on any of the uphill climbs!! Thank goodness!!

Funny thing… I hadn’t charged my Garmin since Ragnar. At mile 2 it beeped that the battery was low. It actually ended up lasting the whole race. I thought I was going to be garminless at mile 3.

There was a pretty fantastic downhill and flat path to the finish. As I came around the corner, I saw my NuunKOTB ladies there cheering me on. That put a huge smile on my face.

[Megan, Lauren, Me, and Dawn post race]

So, it wasn’t the most amazing race in the world, but since it was my first 10k, I got an automatic PR that I have big plans to crush in the future. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Proceeds went to a great cause, I got to see running buds, and there were some gorgeous views. You can’t beat starting your Sunday out like that.

Goodness I love running… Even when it beats me up, it still makes me want to come back for more.

RnR Seattle Race Recap

This post is a long time coming. Sorry for the delay!

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My alarm went off o-dark-thirty (also known as 4:30) and I started with my pre race rituals. You know how it goes… Get dressed in a complete and total daze, then get redressed because your shirt is on backwards, eat oatmeal, gag on said oatmeal, etc. Before I knew it, it was time to head to the race start.

Somehow, I talked hubs into driving me there. It was PERFECTION. We hit absolutely zero traffic and he dropped me off about a block from the start. Can’t get better than that! I had some time before the blogger picture, so I decided to break in the porta johns before the lines got long. Luckily for me, I got to break in a brand new one. Yep… No vomit inducing smell here!

After, I headed to corral 7 to meet up with the other bloggers.

Some of my favs… Adrian, TriGirl, Me, Rebecca.

Gloomy morning, but no rain!!

I ran into a bunch of my Ragnar teammates! Of course, we had to pose for a pic. Team Nuun Kids on the Block all the way!

[Picture shamelessly stolen from Holly. L to R: Me, Tasha, Holly, Lauren, and Alanna]

All of the bloggers showed up, so we took one huge group shot and then headed to our corrals.

Rebecca, TriGirl, Adrian, Ann Marie and I decided to start in the same corral even though I am approximately one bajillion times slower than them.

[Panoramic view of the race start!]

Before I knew it, it was time to take off. I had only one goal for this race: have a freaking blast! I didn’t want to focus on time at all. I wanted to feel like I could stop and take pictures if I wanted to, take in the scenery if I wanted to, etc. Since my garmin wasn’t working right for the first couple miles (since we were in the heart of downtown surrounded by huge buildings) it really forced me to run by feel. A little after mile 1, I pulled back and my bloggy friends kept on chugging along.

I took my first little walk break around mile 4. I stripped off my arm sleeves, tied them to my fuel belt, and took a couple sport beans. Then I kept chugging along.

This part of the course was slightly boring. We ran down Rainier Ave which is kinda run down. Soon, we made a turn towards mile 5 where I noticed TONS of people walking. Why would tons of people walk during a race? Oh, because they expected us to run up a mountain, that’s why! Steepest uphill and downhill ever. The downhill was kind of scary!

Then we headed towards lake Washington. This is where the course started to come alive.

The views of Lake Washington were unbelievable. Just like the Seattle Half Marathon, they had a whole section full of people holding American flags. Gets me every time. I tried to snap a picture of it, but it just doesn’t do it justice.

Next up was the I-90 tunnel. I had heard a lot of complaints about running through the tunnel, but it didn’t really bother me. It was a big steamy schwety mess, but other than that, it was kinda cool.

Before I knew it, we were coming up on mile 9.

From the mile 9 marker, we could see views of downtown Seattle and the stadiums. In true “taking my time and enjoying the race” fashion, I stopped and snagged some pics.

At this point, my legs were slightly tired but they weren’t nearly bad as I was expecting given the number of hills we had climbed. Next we ran right by the stadiums and then hopped onto the on ramp of the 99. The views of the Puget Sound were GORGEOUS, so I stopped and snapped some more pics.

Then, right around the mile 11 marker, I noticed a marathoner down (at their mile 24). There was a man helping him, but since most runners don’t carry phones on them but I do, I immediately pulled over to help. The poor guy only had 1 gel and 0 water up to that point in his race. I don’t know what he was thinking. I immediately gave him the rest of my Nuun to help hydrate him and we got a hold of the EMTs. It was pretty scary because when I first got there, the guy was able to tell us his name and age, but by the time the EMTs got there, he couldn’t. Because he couldn’t, the EMTs looked at the back of his bib for his info. I never fill out the info on the back of my bib, but I COMPLETELY understand the importance of it now. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS fill out the info people!!! I will from now on!

10-15 minutes after I pulled over, he was in good hands, so I continued finishing my race. Some old school jams came on my ipod and REALLY helped me to kick it up a notch to the finish. P.S. Whoever thought it was a good idea to put a HUGE ass hill at the very end of the race needs to be kicked in their shins. That was brutal!

I ended up finishing the race in 2:56. If I wouldn’t have stopped to help the runner, there is a good chance I would have gotten a PR even with all the stopping I did to take pictures. Oh well. It was worth it, and I would stop again in a heartbeat. After all, we are all in this together.

After the race, I met up with more bloggy friends. They all KILLED their runs. Amazing job ladies!

Overall, I absolutely LOVED this course. It was seriously gorgeous. The only boring part was running down Rainier Ave, but since it was at the beginning of the race, I didn’t really care. I will absolutely be doing this race again. There are definitely some big hills, but there are also some good downhills to make up for it. Highly recommend!!!

RnR Seattle Expo and Zensah

So, I’m not going to do a whole post on the RnR Seattle expo. I went today and had a FABULOUS time. My coworkers are running the race too, so I went with them on our lunch break. It was really fun and I scored some serious loot!

We actually went around to ALL of the vendor booths since it wasn’t super busy! Major score!

I didn’t take any pictures, so if you want to know what it looks like, check out my RnR San Diego expo post. RnR Seattle is the premie twin of RnR SD Expo. It was set up and looked exactly the same but Seattle was just a little bit smaller. I love expos. 🙂

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Last week, some bloggy buddies and I met up with a rep from Zensah so he could tell us all about their products. I knew they were big on compression gear, but apparently their sports bras are their number 2 best selling item! I didn’t even know they sold sports bras.

[Rebecca, Dawn, Me, Zensah rep, and Wes – not pictured: Karla (she was the photographer)]

They were nice enough to give us all some awesome Zensah gear to try out.

Oh yes, those are definitely some kick booty neon colors. It is like they were made for my Ragnar team!

So far, I have tried my compression socks, my Zensah sports bra, and my Zensah tank.

See! I was all compressioned out the other night.

The sports bra ended up being slightly too small for these tatas but I could tell that it was made really well. It had way more support than my usual Champion C9 sports bras that I know and love. The extra support was a pleasant surprise.

I absolutely LOVED the tank. The material is so soft that I kind of want to sleep in it. Ahhh cozy!

I plan on wearing my compression calf sleeves to work under my jeans tomorrow to get my legs nice and ready for Saturday!! I’ll let you know what I think about them!

31 more hours!!!! Ahhhhhhh!!!

THE Race OutfitS!!!

Tonight’s workout:
Biked 14.6 miles in 1 hour

Wednesday is cross training day over at Skipping In Seattle. It is no secret that my favorite cross training is working my abs, but today, I opted to do something I haven’t done in a while. I rode the bike!

I kept it a fairly easy pace with some mini ‘sprints’ here and there. Well, as much of a sprint as you can do with a recumbent bike. When we buy a house and I have my own exercise room (A girl can dream!), I am SO getting a spin bike. Oh how I miss spin already, bruised crotch and all.

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Well, ladies and gents… I have officially purchased my race outfits!! Yes, that is outfits, as in plural. I have already ordered both my RnR San Diego AND my RnR Seattle outfits!!! Insert loud cheers.

Rock n Roll SD:

Recently, a friend gave my a Lululemon gift card for helping her out. It was so incredibly sweet, and since I am a Lulu virgin, I was SO excited. Not gonna lie though, I was a little intimidated. There are SO many things to choose, I didn’t know where to start. Immediately I went the best source there is… Rebecca @ LuluRunnerLove. After getting some fabulous advice, I decided to go with a Lulu staple… The CRB. I’m not too proud to admit that it took me way too long to figure out that CRB stood for Cool Racerback.

Anyways, I decided on this beauty:

And what could go better with this than some SPARKLE?! Yes, that’s right, I finally caved and ordered, not one, but TWO Team Sparkle Skirts!!!

I still can’t decide which skirt looks better with the top. Help me decide!! P.S. I have been told that the Gunmetal Sparkle skirt is a much darker gray in person.

What’s a girl to do?!

Rock N Roll Seattle:

This race is basically going to be a big blogger meetup. I am SO excited. In true blogger fashion, a big group of us decided we wanted to all be super obnoxious match. Enter Tri Girl.

Holy moly this girl is amazing. She designed shirts for all of us to wear!! Check this out! How adorable are these!!

Front:

Back:

Adorable, right?!?!

So the catch with deciding on my skirt delimma is that whatever skirt I don’t wear to SD, I will wear to Seattle!

Oh, and I fully plan on buying some of the Sweat Pink Shoe Laces for both races!!

So, there they are in all their glory. My half mary outfits!! Now, help a girl out… What combos should I wear?!

RnR San Diego Trainning Week 1

Sorry for the lack of posts last week. I just wasn’t really feelin it. I blame it on the time change. I felt SO sluggish ALL week and could not for the life of me get to bed before 1 am. On a positive note, my training was SPOT ON last week.

Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: 3 miles of Fartleks in 32:48 (10:56 pace)
Wednesday: My first spin class ever with Rebecca
Thursday: 3 miles easy in 34:08 (11:23 pace)
Friday: Rest day
Saturday: 6 miles in 1:05:52 (10:59 pace)
Sunday: 2.67 miles in 30:51 (11:33 pace)

Both Tuesday and Thursday’s runs were dreadful, awful, horrible, no good, very bad runs. I found myself watching the miles slowly tick by the whole dang time. I felt sluggish and kept getting light headed. I had to take way too many walk breaks for a measly 3 miles, but I got it done.

Wednesday, Rebecca invited me to a spin class at her gym in Bellevue. Holy moly, now THAT is a good time.

We totally disrupted the cleaning guy just so we could be camera whores after class.

WHAT A WORKOUT! My legs and tush were on FIRE. I am definitely going to have to incorporate spin into my regular workouts. If only it didn’t completely bruise my lady bits. Yes, I went there. Major ouch. Looks like I will be investing in some padded bike shorts in the future. I just hope it doesn’t feel like I am wearing a diaper.

And just in case you were curious (and I’m sure you were), there are some REALLY awkward pictures on Google if you search for adult diapers.

Did you notice that I ran FOUR days last week? Yes, FOUR! It was rad. I am still on the fence if I am going to keep up with it or go down to 3, but I am still pretty stoked about the first week of training going as planned. Here’s to a successful week 2!

Are you training for anything right now?

I Wanna Rock And Roll All Night

Soooo I may or may not have pulled the trigger on something exciting!!! And because of that, I may or may not be getting a Rock Encore medal this year!!!

Dum da da dummm!

Yep… Hubs and I will be venturing down to San Diego in June!! Last years RnR half was so much fun. I really loved it. I got to run with my MIL for the first 4 miles, I set a PR, I got to enjoy the sunshine, and sweet hubs waited at the finish with a rose for me. It was awesome.

I came THISCLOSE to doing the RnR Portland, but when it came down to it, I loved having an excuse to go see my family. Plus, my sister is running her very first full mary and I would love to be there for that. Ahh I am so excited.

I am going to kill it this year! Mark my words. Training starts March 11th and I could not be more excited. This is going to be my A race of 2012. I am going to give it my all.

Uhm… Can someone remind me that I said that about 7 weeks into my training?

Wooooo! Time to put the training plan together!!!

What is your ‘A race’ this year?!

Valentines Day Dash 5K

So remember that race that I was so excited about this past weekend? The one I was hoping to set a PR at? Ya, it blew chunks. But before you get my bitter recap of the race, let me tell you about the awesome parts.

I woke up at about 7 (nice and late for a race morning). I got dressed in my pink attire, ate a clif bar, and headed to Greenlake. Hubs and I left the house at about 7:45. We stopped for coffee and still got there annoyingly early. The race didn’t start until 9:30 and we got there just after 8. I was worried about parking and lines for picking up my race bib, but we pulled right into a spot next to the start and I walked right up to the bib table.

We had well over an hour to kill and it was COLD!!! Hubs and I walked around and took pics.

He is such a trooper.

A little while later hubs and I saw TriGirl and Ann Marie! TriGirl was AWESOME and printed out a Sherry bib for me because I forgot our printer was broken. Camera whoreness commence.

[TriGirl, Me, Ann Marie]

We like to call this ‘The Awkward Ass Shot.’ It was so cool running for Sherry. It definitely made the race special.

Not long after that, we ran into Rebecca. She looked adorbs all decked out in vday attire.

When it was time for the race to start, we headed to the 10:00-11:00 minute pace mini corral. Before we knew it, we were off to a strong walk. It was CROWDED. This is where it got ugly.

There were strollers and dogs everywhere. I have no problem with strollers and dogs, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE start in the back. It is just courtesy to the rest of us! The path started to narrow more and I could do nothing but walk.

I ran with Ann Marie and TriGirl for the first 3/4 mile or so, but I lost them in the crowd. I tried to make a move around people but I couldn’t. I was completely blocked in. I could not catch up after that.

Then I was running on my own. I tried to run in the street, but in typical Seattle fashion it was uneven and I got SO close to rolling my ankle. So then I tried the sidewalk, but the sidewalk was covered in super slippery mud. No joke, I almost did the splits at one point. Slippery felt safer than uneven pavement so I tried to stay on the sidewalk but my pace slowed considerably. I felt like I was tiptoeing my way through the race having to be cautious with every step.

Somewhere around mile 2.5, a woman yelled ‘On your right’ behind me. I immediately moved to my left a bit to give her room. That’s when the idiot woman ran by me on my LEFT hand side!! WTF?! Don’t they teach right from left in elementary school? On top of that, she had a little rat dog (Note: I love little dogs. I just do not love nearly eating crap because of little dogs) running behind her that I DID NOT see. This was about the 80th time I nearly broke my ankle during the race. RUDE.

I tried to finish strong, but in the end I finished with a PW. My final time was 34:24. I definitely had a smile on my face though. Regardless of the craziness, I had so much fun. I love racing even when it doesn’t go as planned. My favorite part is seeing my hubs waiting for me at the finish line!

I thought the course itself was beautiful. It was one lap around Greenlake. You can’t go wrong with that. The only issue is the fact that 3000 people run this race. If they are going to have that many people, then they need to prohibit strollers and dogs. There just isn’t enough room!

Regardless of the craziness, I would run this race again. I just won’t try to make this a PR race. I will just dress up and do it for fun.