It’s Friday 5!!! Addition to the family and Life in General!

1.  So, life has been hectic…  I feel like I’ve never known a time in my life when it hasn’t been that way lol…  The things taking up most of my time consist of school, homework, my interpreting practicum (internship), driving an hour or more both ways (to and from) everyday, an interpreting mentoring program, and…did I say homework? ;) 

 

 

2.  So, as you can see from the above, I haven’t had time for much of anything else.  That means that blogging (*gasp*)  and running (*even bigger gasp*) have taken a back seat in this season of my life.  I’d be ok with that, for the most part, IF… I didn’t have a 1/2 marathon sneaking up on me in 8 days! ha!  What happened is:  I signed up for the Columbus FULL marathon as soon as registration opened because I LOVED my first full last year and it’s cheaper the sooner you register… is sooner a word? lol!  Anyways…  Then I had to downgrade to the half because of everything in #1.  NOW, the race is 8 days away… the farthest I’ve run is 5 miles and that was ooo… about a month or more ago lol.  SO not prepared!  I feel rather pathetic about it, but what can you do? 

If this was your situation what would you do? 
     - Go and try to have fun even though you’d be walking about 3/4 of the race?
     - Go and try to run the whole thing even though you haven’t trained because your
       stubborn like that?
     - Go and try not to see anyone you know.. how embarrassing that you’re walking!
     - Don’t go and sleep in instead?
     - Other:___________________

 

3. So… since blogging has been something I haven’t been doing… tell me what’s been going on with you!  I know some of you have gotten engaged and run races and have had many firsts of things… TELL ME! TELL ME! TELL ME!! :)

 

4. My car has been acting up on me.  One day, I was stopped on an on-ramp (incline) and my car battery died so I was stuck and everyone behind me was stuck unless they could go around… a police officer had to come and push me bumper-to-bumper up the ramp and into a gas station that was in a not so good area.  After the tow truck came, the officer gave me a ride, in the back of his car, to school.  I’m sure you all can imagine the looks I got when he had to get out of the car and come let me out of the caged part of the vehicle in front of everyone! It was quite comical!  What’s not so funny, is that my car also died WHILE I was driving on the Interstate.  My engine just gave out.  I had to ride in the tow truck about an hour to get back home and missed out on my internship that day… Here’s a picture from the passenger seat of a tow truck of my poor car:

 

5.  That’s where the new addition to our family comes in…  My car was going to be double what I paid for the thing in the first place, just to replace the engine… so my husband took me car shopping and we were just planning on looking around, but came home with this new little beauty!  (2013 Chevy Spark):

Wordless Wednesday: Sad, but Needed to be Done

Ready or Not…

In my weekly roundup of last week, I mentioned that I wasn’t completely ready OR excited for the Cap City Half that I’m running tomorrow…

My excuses:

1.  School/homework/activities required to go to for school are taking up SO much of my time

2. I’m working as many days a week as possible and job hunting because substitute teachers don’t have jobs in the summer.

3. My knee pain:

It’s been happening for about a month and a half now and it’s really annoying me!  I’ve cut back on my running and added a little biking for cardio, but it’s been hard because I’ve been trying to train for a half marathon which is running, so running is how you get faster! ugh!  Anyways… even though I’ve cut back on my mileage, my knee still hurts.  It hurts behind and to the inner side of my knee… not really below like “runner’s knee” pain would be and ITband problems hurt to the outside of the knee (or so I’ve been told) so I really don’t know what’s causing my pain.  I’ve been stretching and foam rolling in case it had something to do with tight muscles, but it doesn’t seem to be helping… IN FACT, I feel the pain the most when I stretch my hamstrings doing these hamstring stretches:

               Source Here                                          Source Here

So yeah… I’m probably going to take some time off from running completely after this half marathon… but that’s why I feel like know that I’m not ready for tomorrow.  In fact, I am anticipating a PW and it kinda makes me feel like a loser going into a race unprepared…  I want to feel excited to run because I haven’t run a race since my full marathon in October, but I feel a little disappointed in myself and my knee and I just wish the pain would go away… and that my friends, is why I haven’t been talking a whole lot about this race…

That being said… I’m still racing tomorrow… I’ll just treat it like a long run in the first half and then pick it up if I have anything left and my knee feels ok in the second half… we’ll see… I went to the expo yesterday after school and picked up my packet.

Here’s the elevation for the race:

 

So… good luck to all of you racing tomorrow!!! AND… if you have any idea what could be causing my knee pain PLEASE feel free to let me know how to fix it!!  It would be greatly appreciated!!  Okie doke… I’m off to bed for an early wakeup tomorrow! :)

Three Things Thursday: Freak Out Edition

1.  I’m sitting here eating my cap’n crunch and freaking out!!!  I’m running the Capital City Half Marathon.  My second half marathon is this Saturday!!  As in 2 more sleeps from now!!!  I’m so not ready for this lol… I’ll be running it for “fun” but that's gonna be difficult for me not trying to PR lol… but I know for a fact that I haven’t put in the training or the effort so it may even consist of some walking on Saturday! ;)

Also, I’m now going to Columbus by myself and probably running by myself… long story… I may or may not post it later… we’ll see…

2.  NOW  I’m freaking out because I just said out loud “MY WEDDING IS NEXT MONTH!!!”  EEK!!  I’m so not ready for that either!! lol… I mean I AM ready for it to be here so that I can marry my best friend and never have to say goodnight at the door again lol…. but i have so much stuff to do and a lot of stuff to pay for still and I’m kinda freaking out about that now too cuz tuition is due around the same time for both of us as is all the wedding fees and service fees  (we’re both taking summer quarter classes)

3.  AND now I’m just freaking out in general and I’m gonna rename this post “the freak out edition”   some one please tell me to stop freaking out!! lol…  If, by the time I get home from work tonight, I’m done freaking out… I’ll try to type up my race recaps for you all lol… Hope you all have a great, non-freak out, day!!

Weekly Roundup: April 18 - 24

 

Monday:  Rest
Tuesday:  3.07 miles in 27:58
Wednesday:  5.06 miles in 52:01
Thursday:  Rest
Friday:  Rest
Saturday:  Rest
Sunday:  Pushups/Crunches [15/75]

Total for Week = 8.13 miles; Pushups/Crunches [15/75]
Total for Month = 29.34 miles; Pushups/Crunches [15/75]
Total for Year =  60.36 miles**; Pushups/Crunches [78/475]

**Starting in March since I forgot to keep track, but I didn’t run much in Jan and Feb
*** @=outside run  in=treadmill run

March 31.02 miles

Cap City Half Marathon – May 7th

 
 
Yeah… I’m so not ready… I have tons of excuses… but in the end it’s all my fault because I just didn’t make the time to commit to training properly for this…  When I registered in November I had a goal in my head to run a sub 2 hour half marathon… My last long run was about 3 weeks or so ago… 8 miles… since then, my longest has been 5 miles… I’m in trouble…

Let’s begin with the excuses:

~It’s cold
~I hate running in winter
~I got engaged
~We set a date… what? 6 months to plan a wedding?!
~School
~Work
~Being sick (more than I like to admit)
~Wedding stuff
~Put on wrong medication and made me feel like sleeping 24/7 (Finally got on the 
  right meds last week…

Yeah… all of them are excuses… and I’m taking blame… I’m still going to run it, but it’s going to be more of a “push your way thru, try to finish with a smile” kind of race… I’m not very happy with myself…

Blog Posts From The Week

Wednesday 5 Mile Thoughts
Throwback Thursday:  This One's For Q
Happy Easter!

Registered Races

4/30/11 – Strides for Mental Health 5k
5/1/11 – “I can’t afford the actual race” Virtual Marathon
               (4/17 – 5/1) [8.13 miles done/18.07 miles left]
5/7/11 – Capital City Half Marathon
10/16/11 – Columbus Marathon

Days Left Until I Marry My Best Friend:  62

Make Believe… I’m a Pro!

This past weekend was a bust!  I was sick all weekend starting Thursday, and Friday was supposed to be a great day off… I spent it mostly in bed! I’m still feeling some of the effects but I’ve mostly recovered.  So, due to a couple set backs and thinking things through, I’ve decided not to run the Ashland Half Marathon and I’m ok with that because I have a plan forming in my brain! MUAH HAHAHA!! lol… I’m pretty excited for 2011! :D

Today started out great though because the very first thing, I got a call telling me that I wasn’t needed at work… Ok, so I guess that can be both good and bad, but the weather was gorgeous!! Sunny and about 65 degrees!  I definitely had to get outside and go running!!  Due to being sick, I hadn’t gone running since last Tuesday!

My brother decided that he would ride his bike along with me while I ran and he took some pictures of me before we headed out.  Photo Op!! haha… I felt like a pro! ;)  Take a look at some of my favorite pictures (and then go visit my brother’s photography page on facebook HERE):

 

You can click the pictures to make them larger

Why yes, I did custom make some arm sleeves out of a pair of socks… thanks for noticing!  haha, it was kind of chilly when we set off but i didn’t feel like wearing a long sleeve shirt… they worked pretty well and I ended up taking them off about a mile into my run.  My brother put them in one of his kit pockets for me.

We ended up going 4.28 miles, well I ran that and my brother probably rode about double that because he would coast down hills and then come back to where I was and so on and so forth.  When we got back I made myself stretch because being sick made my muscles tight and then I made one of my favoritest (yes, that word is in my vocabulary) protein shakes and hopped in the shower. 

Since then, I’ve been blogging (and working on the layout of mine), relaxing, crocheting, and spending time with my family…  Today is what my Friday was supposed to be like!  God knew that I needed today so badly!  It was a fabulous break from the busyness and stress of my normal weeks!

Do you ever make believe to be something you’re not, just for fun? (seriously… adults can have fun too!)

Three Things Thursday

Wow what a long week!!  I’m so excited though!  Tomorrow I have the day OFF… 100% completely – no work! :)  It might be spent catching up on blogs mostly in bed as I’m feeling a little under the weather but, we’ll see… the medicine I’m taking is good at it’s job!   Oh, and btw… thanks for all your feedback on my Garmin Quiz post!!  I’m seriously really wanting one now!!  Too bad my bank account is telling me no at the moment!

1.  It’s November!!  I love this time because it’s kind of the between seasons season… make sense?  It’s still fall, but it’s starting to show signs of winter and I love this time of year!  Don’t get me wrong, my favorite season is still summer… but this is a good time of year too!  Especially since we just put our candles in the windows!  That, and I just signed up for a turkey trot ;)

2.  I’m thinking about doing THIS RACE, but it’s 2 hours away from where I live and in December. (brrr)  It’s only 30 dollars though and it’d be my last race of the year… go out with a bang?  hmm… I don’t know if I’m in half marathon shape though… I haven’t been running as much as I would like due to work, but I have a 7 miler planned for tomorrow… any opinions on this?  (PS – Blue and Green is my favorite color combo… is it meant to be? or just wishful thinking?)

3.  The results of last weekend’s 5k are up so I’ll be posting a race recap finally …  let me just warn you… probably the least fun race I’ve been to… but it was mostly my fault lol… stay tuned! ;)

Women’s Running Magazine Half Marathon Race Recap Part 4: The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

 

In case you missed the other parts of my LONG race recap/mini vacation report let me refresh you!

Part 1:  Traveling and the Expo
Part 2:  Before the Race
Part 3:  The Race

Also, I had posted about something very saddening that I saw while I was getting ready to leave the race:

ANY day can be thanksgiving!  Click HERE to read the post.

After I took an ice bath and shower and ate some lunch, my parents and I decided to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. I loved how the windows were like the keys of a piano! so cool!

 

These were some quotes on the outside of the building before you got to the stairs.  You can click the image to make it larger.

 

Here are pictures from inside the museum:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

My dad had said that he wanted to meet Elvis while we were in Nashville and we saw this:

So my dad got his picture taken with Elvis for proof that he met him! haha

    

This is the huge wall of records… there were TONS more I couldn’t get in the picture!

 

The Hall of Fame:

 

Then my dad dressed in his nicest cowboy get up (in the gift shop):

 

After we left, we walked around downtown Nashville for a little bit and saw the Ryman Auditorium but it was getting late, my legs and feet were killing me and we were all tired and hungry so we headed to Red Lobster (all 3 of our favorite restaurant) and called it a day!  What a fun day it had been!

The next day, Sunday, my mom and I headed down to the free hotel breakfast and ate waffles and fruit and muffins… yum!  We took my dad a plate back to our room and then we finished packing and headed back to Ohio.  We hit some traffic right before crossing over from Kentucky to Cincinnati and went about 6 miles in an hour!  I once again whined to my dad that I had to pee.  He told me that we had passed a PortaKleen truck about 5 minutes ago so it was probably just a few feet back and I could go hitch a ride.  Which was funny, and even though I knew the traffic was so bad we weren’t gonna move, there was no way I was gonna ask the driver if I could use the toilet on the back of his truck! haha!

We ended our mini vacation with dinner at one of my parent’s favorite pizza places and my aunt and uncle had said they would join us there.  We didn’t stop all the way back, so when I tried to get out and move my legs, I seriously had issues! lol, i was so sore and I felt like an old woman trying to get my legs to work!  The pizza and salad were amazing and we couldn’t have ended the vacation any better way!

BEST VACATION EVER!!! 

Ok, maybe not ever but I haven’t been on vacation in forever so it was pretty much an amazing weekend and I’m glad my parents got to come with me!

So whats next?

I have registered for another 5k and have 2 more that I am planning on doing this year.  I really did enjoy the half marathon so will be looking for another one to do in the future.  Also, I may or may not be looking for a marathon to run in 2011 and I may or may not be making plans to run it with a bloggy friend!  Nothing is planned yet, or set in stone… just an idea for now :)  But will definitely keep you all posted!! :D