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Born to Run: Bites of the Apple Book Review

March 16, 2010 by Megan

When my sister started reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall for a class she was taking in college, I was definitely intrigued. I considered waiting until she was finished and stealing it from her, but I ended up springing for it on tape. (Listening to books on tape during long runs is AWESOME. Especially books as riveting as this one.)

This book tells the story of a tribe of “running people” in Mexico called the Tarahumara. The author sets off to learn their secrets for a Runner’s World article, and takes us on a journey through Mexico, where he encounters a mysterious man known only as “Caballo Blanco” (the White Horse). Caballo, who lives among the Tarahumara (as much as any outsider can) emulates their running style and is determined to host an ultramarathon that pits American ultra runners against the Tarahumara superhumans. This quest leads the author to eventually meet up with as a cast of zany American ultramarathoners, ranging from the best ultramarathoner in the US, binge drinking college kids who also run like lightening, and a devoted barefoot runner known as “Barefoot Ted”.

The book keeps the reader thoroughly engaged by weaving MacDougall’s tale of Caballo’s quest to organize a race in mountains of Mexico with various factual jaunts. These jaunts include interviews with evolutionary biologists about the history of human running, discussions of running shoes and barefoot running, and tales of U.S. ultramarathons. MacDougall’s writing style forces you to the edge of your seat, no matter what the topic.

The book kept me so engaged that I had to shift from only listening to it on long runs to listening to it on my daily subway commute. I even chose to listen to it over watching Friends and The Office re-runs on several treadmill runs. While reading it, I felt energized and excited about being a runner. I also was riveted by the discussions of running form and injuries. While I previously had written off barefoot runners as hippie freaks, after reading Born to Run, I found myself lusting after these babies:

 (source)

Barefoot Ted wore these “shoes” to protect his feet, and I had a serious hankering for them!! I decided to ease into it by buying some super light road racing shoes to train in as a baby step towards barefooting. I *did* end up getting a pair for Tim for his birthday, and he LOVED them! He hasn’t run in them yet, but I think he’ll be a barefoot enthusiast in no time. If he ever runs in them, I’ll def get him to do a guest post!

To summarize, this book was one of the most interesting I’ve read recently. It’s a fun, interesting, engaging story, but you also end up feeling like you really learned something. And learning is fun, right??

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Megan’s Weekly Workout Recap

March 15, 2010 by Megan

So, turns out I haven’t been that great of a blogger lately, but I decided that the weekly workout recap is non-negotiable. It’s great for holding myself accountable to make goals and stick to them.

I realized that I’ve been struggling to get my long runs in on Sundays, because I’ve been heavily skewing my runs towards the later half of the week. For example, if I’m shooting for 30 miles total, with a 10 miler on Sunday, 1/3 of my mileage is scheduled for Sunday. If I also run 10 miles on Thursday at CPTC and 4-5 on Saturday, then all of the sudden, five sixths of my mileage occurs between Thursday night and Sunday morning. No WONDER I’ve been struggling on Sundays!!!

I just realized this yesterday, however, so this was yet another 25 miler. I’m okay with that, but I realize I need to start getting 10 or so miles in on Monday-Wednesday. Shouldn’t be too hard, right!?

Here’s what my week looked like:

  • Monday: off
  • Tuesday: 4 miles on the treadmill including 10 pickups (avg. pace 8:00); stretching and abs
  • Wednesday: 40 minutes elliptical
  • Thursday: 12.5 miles total, including CPTC 10K tempo at 7:18 pace (WOO!!)
  • Friday: off–my speedy workout in snazzy shoes on Thursday resulted in some BRUTAL blisters!
  • Saturday: 3.5 easy on the treadmill (8:55 pace)
  • Sunday: 5 struggle-filled windy miles (~9:15 pace?)

Goals for This Week

  1. Run 10 Miles Early in the Week: I don’t care how I spread it out, but I want to run 10 miles on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday combined. Hopefully that will make for less of a struggle getting a long run in during the weekend.
  2. Make and Post a Recipe! I know for sure this was a goal a few weeks ago, but…have you seen any recipes from me? No. I’m going to shoot to post something, even if it’s an example of a quick weeknight staple.

Posted in Running, Workout | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

Q&A Tuesday (on a Tuesday!!?) (Nope.)

March 10, 2010 by Megan

Wow, there really have not been a lot of blog posts from me lately, due in large part to busy-ness with work, running, frolicking in Central Park, and all sorts of other delightful things.

So I’m back with some awesome questions from Felicia, as well as a mini weekly workout recap before the week gets away from me. ;)

Mini workout recap: Last week I ran a total of approximately 27 miles, struggling a little bit with my long run on Sunday and only getting in 7 miles total instead of 10 or 11. But I had an AMAZING workout on Thursday night. I  ran 3 x 2 miles. The first was in 14:51, the second with MONSTER hills in 14:18, and the last in 14:13. (!!!) I also ran a warmup and cooldown for about 9 total.

Without further ado, Q&A Time:

What is your favorite season for running?

This is such a hard question, because I honestly get so excited every time the seasons change. Like, who doesn’t love the first snow, the first winter day where you can feel a *touch* of spring in the air, the first realllly hot summer day, or the first hint of crisp fall air!? That being said, spring and fall are by far my favorite seasons to run in. I love very very few things more than that perfect fall day where the leaves are changing colors, it’s that perfect temperature for shorts and a long sleeve shirt, and the beauty of it all takes your breath away. (Or maybe you’re just so happy to be running that your pace leaves you breathless…)

That being said, my final answer is going to have to be spring. It’s so hopeful, and I feel overwhelmed by appreciation when I don’t have to wear 18 layers to set foot outside. When I set out for a run now, I see eight months of sunlight-filled, joyful runs ahead of me. As gorgeous as fall running is, you know that soon, the leaves will turn brown, and you’ll be doomed to several months of dark, cold, treadmill running. Sorry, fall.

You mentioned that you’re going to start posting recipes of your meals more often. Do you have plans for any exciting new meals in the near future?

Honestly, right now, I’m just trying to hold it together here. I’m proud of myself if I can execute a dish that has some vegetables in it. I think that I’m going to post some suggestions of ways to spruce up some of my go-to quick dishes. For example, one of my regular “I’m in a hurry” staples is pasta w/ jarred sauce. But this week, I’ve been beefing it up with some pretty awesome additions that take it to a whole different level.
What are your tips for increasing one’s running speed?

Simply put: run faster. Sounds easy right? If you’re currently sticking to one pace, mix it up with either fartlek-style one or two minute pick-ups. Just increase your pace to about 2:00-2:30 per mile faster than your comfortable pace (or–if you’re a racer, at about your 5K pace), hold it for 1-2 minutes, then recover for 1-2 minutes before repeating. Repeat this hard/easy pattern 8 to 10 times.

Alternately, you can start adding in steady state runs, where you run 10-15 minutes of warmup, followed by 10-60 minutes at a pace about 1:40-1:50 seconds faster than your normal comfortable pace, followed by 10-15 minutes of cooldown.

If you’re down with steady state runs, you can try some tempo runs, which are the same, but the middle bit is even faster.

By adding in one of these run types 1-2 times per week, you should start to see definite improvements. But remember, easy days should be EASY. You need recovery days!

What did you have today for lunch?

HEALTHY SOUP. Whoa. Delicious, filling, takes a long time to eat. It’s incredible. I also had a side of Cape Cod salt and vinegar chips, because if you’re eating pureed vegetables for lunch, you deserve a treat. Add two clementines and you’ll have my lunch every day this week.

You manage to witness the most ridiculous stuff in the world. I might regret this, but I’m opening this question up for you to tell all of us the most ridiculous thing that you witnessed in the past week.

I am a witness to many, many freak things in any given day. I’ll give you my top two of the last week. First, a guy on the subway wearing a gas mask that appeared to be from circa WWII. (Like, seriously old school.) I suspected he was just crazy, but he was pretty young, so I got off immediately just in case he was planning on releasing some sort of chemical. I also saw a girl walking and brushing her hair like Marcia Brady (and then put the brush in her POCKET). Weird. Weird. Weird.

P.S. I started this post on Tuesday, so I think I deserve *some* credit?

Posted in Q&A Tuesday, Running | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Race Day Recap: Part 2

March 6, 2010 by Felicia

The New Orleans Half Marathon had a staggered start, so Megan and I actually didn’t start moving until about 10-15 minutes after the first racers took off. Finally, it was our turn. We started moving slowly, kind of jogging/fast walking. Then, we hit the Start Line!

At this point, I wasn’t really thinking about the fact that I was about to run a little over 13 miles. I was more focused on getting around runners and falling into a comfortable pace. Well, apparently my “comfortable pace” at first was 8:20, so I had to slow it down a bit. Thanks for that little bit of info, Megan!

The first two miles went by really quickly, and I was pretty excited because my legs felt absolutely great. It was practically a miracle! Not one ounce of pain ANYWHERE, which is shocking since I have never had a pain-free long run. Thanks, Tylenol! Also, my legs were a little numb in the beginning of the race so maybe that helped too. Kind of like a nice little ice bath. ;)

Shortly after Mile 3, we saw Chris and Marco. Funnn! Then, about 10 minutes later, we saw them again. They even had enough time between sightings to walk to Marco’s house, get Clarence (Marco’s adorable hound) and for Marco to awkwardly change into a robe (hehe). It was nice to see them early on when I was feeling great, but I knew that I’d probably need their support/cheering later on.

I don’t have the race map with me, so I’m going to get things a bit out of order, but I remember well that my first water station encounter was a disaster. I didn’t want to stop to walk but forgot the trick of pinching the cup to form a more narrow stream of water, so on my first attempt I got 70% of the water up my nose, 20% on the ground and 10% in my mouth. Not ideal. My second attempt wasn’t much better, so from that point on, I decided to walk at each water station. Definitely a great decision.

I took my first Gu – Espresso Love, 2x caffeine – around Mile 5. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great. I didn’t gag, so we’ll call it a success! In between Mile 6 and 7, it finally fully hit that I was running a half marathon, and this was the point where I wished that I had run more than 10 miles. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – running is such a mind game for me. I obviously could physically run 13.1 miles, but I wasn’t necessarily convinced and I started paying very close attention to how much farther I had to go. It was time for the iPod. I loved running with Megan and chatting, but it was time for me to get in the zone. I needed my Lady Gags and Ke$ha – bad.

Mile 8 is when the stomach problems hit pretty hard. I quickly informed Megan that it would be great if we could find a bathroom, and she said that she’d keep a look out. This was an especially tough time because I was even more focused on the fact that if I was running 10 miles, I’d only have 2 more miles to go, but instead, I had 5.1 miles! That was a bit much to handle, and I knew that it might be a tough end to the race.

We did eventually spot a porta potty, but I refused to stop. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to stop all my momentum to go to the bathroom. It seemed a little risky, but whatever, the race was becoming hard enough at that point. Stopping didn’t seem like a good idea.

I had another Gu – Vanilla Bean – right before Mile 10. I was struggling and was really hoping that this would give me a nice boost to finish the race. I’m sure that it helped, but I also had some unrealistic expectations about the power of Gu. I expected to zoom afterwards. There was no zooming involved, but my legs did feel a little less tired.

Finally, Mile 11. Ok, two more miles to go. It was around here that we saw Chris and Marco again. I barely waved. Chris later told me that I had my “angry run” face on, BUT he said that unlike normal, my running form was still pretty good. Upgrade!

I knew that we were close, but it didn’t feel like it. At this point, you could see runners on the other side of this little river heading to a Finish Line that still wasn’t in sight. I wanted to be them. They were so much closer than me! We turned a corner, and I wanted to die. We still had so much farther to go. We had to run a little bit and then double-back on the other side of the street. We were finally at Mile 12! Oh wait, no we weren’t!! They had created double-sided signs, so we thought we were at Mile 12, but really, you weren’t there until you double-backed. So rude! Luckily, I was struggling so much at this point, I wasn’t really shocked that the world would conspire against me in this way.

1 Mile to go – putt putting along, trying not to die (hehe, so dramatic). Another pic of me struggling.

Right before Mile 13 I looked over at Megan and said, “I’m NOT going to sprint to the end, so don’t even ask.” Hahaha – product of “angry run” face. She really was great throughout the race, even if she was looking at her watch one too many times, so perhaps this comment was unwarranted. When I hit Mile 13, I saw all these people running kind of slowly to the Finish Line, and it occurred to me that I absolutely had enough energy to sprint it out. I was tired, not exhausted. So I sprinted the .1 mile to the Finish Line, and it was the most GLORIOUS thing EVER to hit that final ChronoTrack pad. TRULY AMAZING.

I was so, so tired, but so HAPPY to be done!! I DID IT!! AND I got a medal!! I had completely forgotten about that. I gave Megan a hug, we grabbed water and I stumbled to an area where I could collapse and fake stretch.

BEST DAY EVER.

Posted in Half Marathon Training | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

The World’s Greatest

March 4, 2010 by Megan

No matter what you think about R. Kelly (and, for the record, I think he’s a creep), “The World’s Greatest” is a pretty spectacular pump up song for any athletic endeavor. And at several points on Sunday, I looked over at Felicia, and I felt like I was watching a montage of some sort, with “The World’s Greatest” playing as the soundtrack.

I’ve honestly never been so proud of or impressed with another person pretty much ever. We ran together for the whole race, and I tried to be as unannoying as possible (it’s hard for me..) and let her pace herself. This was her race, and she wanted to feel like she ran it herself, not that I dragged her along or yelled at her. The fact that this is how she felt is one of the things that makes me know she’s turned into a real runner. So, I didn’t yell at her, didn’t give her any pep talks, and let her set the pace. (She yelled at ME at some points, but that’s a different story…). She claims I pointedly looked at my watch too often, but hey, if that was my worst offense, I think I was pretty obedient.

It’s hard to articulate why exactly I’m so impressed with Felicia (beyond the obvious fact that she ran a half marathon in a pretty spectacular time). This is the thing: running is hard, especially when you’re a grownup (ish) person. Work takes an unplesant number of hours per day, you have to feed yourself and clean up after yourself, and make time for your friends and your fiance and also your favorite reality shows. It’s tough!

The marathon this year was the third I trained for since graduation, and the first where I even remotely did the appropriate amount of training. Before then, I always had an excuse. And the problem is, they were all good excuses. My IT band was giving me trouble, I was traveling almost every week for work, I was working lots of hours and hardly got to see my friends or my boyfriend. But those excuses are always going to be there.

And as hard as I thought it was for me to stick to a training plan, I had the benefit of having run for more than fifteen years (whoa. I’m getting old!). Even when it sucked, I knew that physically I was capable of running a certain distance. Felicia was out there in unchartered territory. I feel like I always hear about people talking a big game about training for this race or that race. But when the race day actually rolls around, they don’t even make it to the starting line.

Felicia committed to this race and then stuck to the plan throughout business trips, injuries, engagement festivities and all sorts of other things. And she did so so much more than just getting to the starting line. She stayed tough and finished in a GREAT time. Not only does it make me proud to call her my BFF, but it also inspires me to work my butt off when I feel like making excuses.

Also, her race-day shirt was super adorable and AGGRESSIVELY neon. Which I respect. A lot.

Posted in Half Marathon Training, Running | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments »

Race Day Recap: Part 1

March 4, 2010 by Felicia

I woke up at 5:15 the morning of the race, and I felt great. I clearly should go to bed at 9 PM more often. ;)

For most of the weekend I was pretty calm about the race. I actually think going to an awesome city like New Orleans for my first race helped a ton with any potential anxiety. Yes, I had a race to run, but I also was just having a lot of fun with Megan, Chris and Marco (friend who we stayed with in New Orleans) in a city that I had never been before.

After I woke up, I got dressed and immediately ran into a minor issue. I couldn’t get my shirt on. I was so confused, but I couldn’t seem to get my arm through one of the holes. I didn’t plan on mentioning this, but it amuses me. I spent so much time pinning and re-pinning my race number on my t-shirt the day before. Yet I seemed to overlook the fact that I had accidentally put one of the pins through both sides of the t-shirt. Needless to say, this was fairly tough to figure out at 5:15 in the morning. I proceeded to spend about 15 more minutes working on re-pinning my race number and was finally ready to go!

I should quickly mention that I wore the cutest outfit ever. I went to Niketown on Friday with a giftcard and got some awesome stuff. I know that it’s not ideal for runners to wear anything new on race day, but I did and it was wonderful.

New shoes! I got actually got these a week before the race – yes, another risky move – but my toes were poking through my old ones, so it was time. I went to Jack Rabbit and tried on a couple different shoes, and they actually recommended these – Mizunos. I wasn’t fully on board with switching away from my Asics, but now that they’ve brought me through a half marathon, I’m pretty attached to them.

Here we have the most AMAZING sports bra ever. LOVE. And then the brightest, most pink shirt that I have ever seen. The picture definitely doesn’t do it justice. Chris described it as “brain searing neon” – he meant that in a good way of course. Everyone loves pink!

Back to race day, I headed downstairs and made a PB&J bagel. I definitely need to work on this part of future race days because I really couldn’t stomach any food. Megan was happily eating, and I barely got through a third of it – at least I had something I guess. I drank a bit of water, took two extra strength tylenol, had four Tums and we were off to the Start Line!

I was still feeling super calm at this point. I honestly don’t think that it had hit me quite yet that I was about to run 13.1 miles.

When we got in the car, Marco asked what song we wanted to hear, so I requested the New Orleans Saints’ Halftime song – Stand Up and Get Crunk! OMG – LOVE this song now. Little background – Marco sent this song to me a few weeks ago, and I thought it was OK. He then played it on Saturday when we were driving around, and I began to like it a lot more. By race day morning, it was the perfect song for that moment. It is ridiculous and wonderful all at the same time. It just feels like New Orleans and resulted in me dancing for four minutes straight. Chris made a joke that I was probably wasting all of my energy – he might have been right, haha.

After a few more great songs, we were at the drop-off point. Megan and I hopped out of the car and walked the rest of the way to the start line. We were expecting to see Chris and Marco around Mile 4, and at this point, it finally started to hit me just a bit that I was about to be in a race. My very first race! This was a big deal, and I was getting really excited!

I stood with Megan in the porta potty line but had no intentions of going. I recognize that I might not (and maybe should not) always do this, but I didn’t think that my stomach could handle walking into one of those things. And based on Megan’s reaction, I was right. Gross.

After that, we headed to my corral. Megan was actually in a much better corral but was going to be running with me. What was the description of that corral again, Megan?? I’ll let her mention this exciting little fact.

At this point, I couldn’t believe it!!! I was going to run a half marathon!!! CRAZY.

Since this is getting pretty long, I’ll finish up the race recap in my next post. But I’ll say it again, it was an awesome experience! :)

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Megan’s Weekly Workout Recap

March 2, 2010 by Megan

This weekend. Was. AWESOME. Felicia was a star, New Orleans was so so cool, and I ate a lot of delicious treats!! I’ll be back with my race recap after Felicia writes hers, as she really was the star of the show. ;)

I struggled a little bit with my runs this week, but after such an exciting race, I’m back in business. (I think). Getting a little taste of 50 and 60 degree weather also made me SUPER excited for the (hopefully) rapidly approaching spring weather. Daylight savings time is going to cramp my style a little bit though, since it means I have to wait even longer until it’s light in the mornings.

Here’s what my week looked like:

  • Monday: off
  • Tuesday: 2 miles on the treadmill (8:20 pace) before losing my mind and switching to the bike
  • Wednesday: 4 miles on the treadmill (8:30 pace)
  • Thursday: It was the worst day ever at work, and the world outside of work filled with snowy gross weather and trees killing people in Central Park, which made me skip the CPTC workout. The nearly two hours it took me to get home on the subway put me over the edge and resulted in me curling up in a fetal position, rocking slowly and watching 16 and Pregnant** instead of running. ;)
  • Friday: I didn’t think I’d have time to run on Friday, but I got out of work early thanks to the blizzard, so was able to fit in 4 miles on the treadmill (average pace 9:00), and 30 minutes on the elliptical. This was a big victory because I had blown my hair dry in the morning and didn’t want to get all sweaty.
  • Saturday: 2 miles easy in the glorious spring-ish morning in New Orleans with Felicia, Chris, and our friend Marco, who we stayed with.
  • Sunday: New Orleans Half!! Ryan Hall was there too! This was actually my longest run since the marathon.

 **Tim considers my watching this show to be truly reprehensible, and I do not disagree. I think I deserve at least a slight reduction in judgment given the fact that I recognize that I am a terrible person.

Goals from Last Week

  1. Five Days of Running: Technically I ran five times, but with 2 2-milers, I didn’t exactly get the mileage that I was shooting for. It’s time for me to start building up slowly. The weather warming up/staying light longer is def going to help.
  2. Yoga: Fail. Fail. Fail.
  3. Kick Butt with Felicia in New Orleans: BIG success. ;)

Goals for This Week

  1. 35 miles. For serious, this should not be hard, especially with a CPTC workout AND a long run on the weekend.
  2. Cook and Post About It. I have actually been doing an okay job with cooking lately, but I haven’t been doing well at posting about it. And I know that at the very least, my sister enjoys my recipes.

All right, I’m out. Work is sucking the life out of me, which I’m starting to think is a good thing. Yes, you read that right–a GOOD thing! When it was sucking the life out of me this fall/summer, I was able to focus all my energy into training and ultimately kicking @*& and taking names at Disney World. Realizing that I did that will hopefully allow me to have the same outlet now (ideally with as little whining about work as possible.)

CONGRATS AGAIN TO FELICIA ON HER FIRST RACE EVER!!!!!!!

Posted in Workout | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

RACE DAY: I DID IT!!!

February 28, 2010 by Felicia

OMG. What a glorious day!!

This is going to be a quick post, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I did successfully run the New Orleans Half Marathon today.

2:00:39

Not so shabby!!

It wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, and I definitely seriously struggled at times. BUT it was truly wonderful and such an amazing experience to cross the finish line (especially with Megan by my side – she’s the best!). I’ll recap more later though.

I’m off to finish watching the end of the Canada/USA gold medal hockey game (USA! USA!), and then it will be time for some more delicious/glorious New Orleans food.

I’m a half marathoner!!!!! YAY!!!!!

Posted in Half Marathon Training, Running | 3 Comments »

Reason #1 Blogging is Awesome

February 25, 2010 by Megan

 One of my absolute favorite things about having a blog is being able to read the search engine terms that lead people here. Every time I look at them, I can’t help but giggle. I LOVE when Food Newtowrk Humor shares emails they receive and the weird things people google to let them end up there, so I decided to share.

Disclaimer #1: I have a super weird sense of humor, and I know for a fact that others are not as amused by this as I am.

Disclaimer #2: I am not judging most of these searchers, as I am a notoriously bad Googler. Tim always makes fun of me because I tend to Google questions and/or overly complicated phrases and get upset when Google doesn’t read my mind. The people who *may* end up here by searching creepily for pictures of Little Miss Perfect participants, I judge.

Google Searches That Make Me Giggle

  1. ugly running: What do you think this person was actually looking for? Images of ugly runners? Commentary about running form? Some sort of subculture of runners who like to run like Pheobe did on Friends? One of the main reasons that looking at these searches provides me so much amusement is that I like to imagine what the searcher was actually hoping for when they google a phrase like this.
  2. “cheddar pudding”: Not one, but three people have arrived at our blog by searching for this phrase. It actually makes my stomach turn a little bit. Felicia’s savory bread pudding actually was very yummy, but it wasn’t pudding pudding. This makes me picture  an orange Jello pudding cup with a cheese flavor. ewwww.
  3. chocolate cake from matilda: We’ve gotten several people who arrived here by searching for the chocolate cake from Matilda. This search fills me from joy, as the chocolate stout cake I made when we first started th blog was JUST like the cake in Matilda.
  4. little people pageant: We get lots of people who come to the site looking for information about Little Miss Perfect  (facial beauty anyone?) and getting lured here by my post about it. This person, however, was looking for something else entirely…
  5. little miss perfect pageant dresses: I would love to see the site where they really sell those dresses. I’m sure it’s out there
  6. “blow my nose”: I’m sorry, but I’m not entirely sure I can help you with that.
  7. gatorade we love sweat: Hmmm.
  8. canned pumpkin shortage: This is the second most popular term that led people to our blog. Nice work writing about the canned pumpkin shortage, Felicia. You’re bringing the people the hard-hitting news that they want. ;)
  9. gym “naked in front of”: I especially enjoy this person’s use of quotation marks. (Awk.)
  10. i’m so embarrassed of being short: HAHA. Someone searched that?! And ended up here!??

Hope this brought you as much joy and amusement as it brought me (although I know that is unlikely.) In other news, there is a SUPER unpleasant snow situation going on here and I have reached my breaking point on the treadmill running front. Sooo, if some spring weather could go ahead and come, that would be great.

Posted in Pop Culture | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

Less Than A Week

February 22, 2010 by Felicia

That’s right. I am less than a week away from my first race ever. It will not only be my first race, but my first time running more than 10 miles.

I keep wavering between being really excited and incredibly nervous. I think that I would be more excited if I didn’t have such a busy week ahead. As it stands now, I still have a lot of stuff to get done before I get on that flight to New Orleans, but when I land and get settled, I think that it’s going to hit me. I’m not going to watch someone else run a race. I’m going to be a part of it. I’m not going to lie – I definitely get some goosebumps when I think about it.

Training hasn’t been easy. It’s been physically painful at times, mentally difficult, and I had to take a week off in the middle of it. But I have also had some amazing moments. I am suddenly a runner! I still can’t believe that I am saying it, but I think it might be true at this point. I can head to the gym knowing that I have to run 5 miles and not freak out. I used to struggle through a 12 minute mile, now I can hit double digits at a much faster pace.

I had a 10 mile run this past Sunday, and I wasn’t really worked up about it at all. I just knew that I had to do it, and I did. In fact, I ran 10 miles in 1 hour and 31 minutes, with the first five miles done in 46:40 – meaning a negative split! My general goal is still to finish the half marathon, but I might just be able to do it under 2 hours. We’ll see. I’m going to try to not put too much pressure on m

I’m excited to see what the energy of the crowd is like, to feel my heart beat as I wait to cross the start line, to listen to the bands along the way, to struggle through a mile and realize that I haven’t come this far to quit, to wonder if I’ll see Chris in the crowd, and to look over and see Megan by my side cheering me on – running with me instead of going as fast as she can.

I’m ready.

Posted in Half Marathon Training | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments »

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