OKC Memorial Marathon

Above is a picture taken with my sister and mom at about 5:30am Sunday morning, right before the OKC Memorial Marathon.

Annnnnnd.... with my official training that lasted one month I finished in 4 hours and 13 minutes. As soon and I get around to purchasing the mid-run pictures, I'll post those, too.

What could have been better mother daughter bonding than running a marathon?

My mom and I ran together up until mile 14 and then I decided I needed to pick up the pace a bit. My mom finished in about 4 hours and 26 minutes, placing third in her age group. She's pretty much a bad motha...

My sister ran the half marathon so unfortunately I didn't get to see her until the very end, but it was pretty amazing to see her as I was running the last stretch to the finish line cheering me on. Her husband and B were true supporters and came out to watch, too.

Above is a pic of my mom and step-dad. Even my step-dad was out running the half. Next time we'll have to throw in my two brothers and it'll be an entire family affair. Aren't my parents adorable?

I'm officially signed up for the OKC Memorial Marathon that is taking place April 29.

I have 25 days to prepare.

With that in mind I started with a 6 mile run on Monday at an 8:45 min pace. Yesterday, I cross-trained with a P90X dvd (core synergisitcs, I believe?) and finished the night drinking Pacifico's and eating a veggie burger at the Garage with friends.

The plan for my workout today is to complete a 6 mile tempo run. (1mile warm-up, 4 miles @ 8:07-8:15, and 1mile cool-down). I'm probably going to head to the track for this one.

I've also decided to challenge myself even more by refraining from eating sugar. Not so easy with bags of Easter candy sitting at home! Luckily, I have volunteers that like free stuff and they gladly accepted my candy during Monday and Tuesday's tutoring sessions. Most of it is gone, but since I'm not the only one living at the house, I didn't think my bf and his brother would be happy with me if I got rid of all of it.

In other exciting news, I will be an aunt on Monday! My little brother is going to be such a great dad and I'm so excited! The soon-to-be momma is scheduled to be induced in 5 days. The photo below was taken after the baby shower. Notice my bro's face is a little scratched up? He had a long-boarding accident...

24 hours in San Francisco

Last week was spring break for OU. Because B is a grad student, he got the whole week off from work AND school. Most of the break he was busy studying for his tests that he has to take to graduate but by Wednesday I had convinced him that it would be a great idea to fly somewhere for 24 hours....

I ended up taking off Wed-Fri because there wasn't much going on that week. The high schools that I work with was closed and, let's face it, most people that I work with were gone on vacation anyways.

Because I had a doctor's appointment Wednesday to get screened for skin cancer (which I'm happy to say that after a biopsy was taken I'm in the clear for any of that cancer business), we decided to wake up at 4am Thursday morning and head to the airport with the idea that we would be flying into Seattle....

Well, I forgot to mention, to keep costs down, we decided to fly standby (my dad flys for Delta airlines so we got B a buddy pass). We got on the plane from OKC to SLC just fine. From SLC we encounter a problem: all planes to Seattle are completely jam-packed full and there isn't a likely chance that we'd be able to get there today, let alone come back the next day.

B and I decided to get creative. We wandered around the terminals looking at the flights that would be leaving in the next hour and see one for San Fran and one for Portland. We decide that San Fran would probably be easier to get around via public transporation and have more to see in such a short amount of time. We check the loads - they look good - and off we go to San Francisco.

By noon, San Fran time, we arrive and have no idea what we're doing. Luckily, the train (aka the Bart) wasn't too complicated and we somehow managed to get to the downtown area from the airport pretty seamlessly. B had an Iphone app that let us locate and reserve a hotel room at a lower rate and our next stop was dropping off our small roller bag full of one days worth of clothes to change into and travel sized soaps and lotions. The people at the front desk gave us some direction as to how to get to the Fisherman's Wharf because we thought, being from Oklahoma and all, we're by the coast so there must be some seafood! And off we went via cable car. Yes, we were total tourists.

Little did we know the cable car would cost $6 to travel maybe one mile and we'd be smushed like sardines next to a woman with a very southern accent shouting out landmarks and several out-of-towners with small children. We were relieved to finally make it to Fisherman's Wharf and eat a crab salad sandwich (pictured below). 

The rest of the day we spent walking...and walking...and walking. We went up hill and then downhill and uphill some more. I soaked in as much of the view as I could because the ability to just see the ocean was pretty amazing. And having HILLS - we don't have any hills in the great state of OK!

After exploring China Town and all the fun shops, we finally got tired from all the walking and settled down for a beer at a pub. B had a friend from high school that now lives in the SF area come meet us and we drank and laughed and enjoyed ourselves until the late hours of 9pm.... (really in central time it was 11pm and we were up since 4am that morning!)

The next day we got up early (again the 2 hour time change helped us out with this one) and had a fantastic breakfast at a local diner and then headed back to the airport.

This is where the fun begins....

The day before, when we had decided on San Fran, the loads on the plane looked fairly good - meaning there was a high chance we wouldn't have a problem getting on a plane home. When we showed up to the airport it showed that there were only 2 available seats on the plane and.... wait for it....25 people listed on standby! B and I were nowhere near the top on that list. We started to panic a bit. We thought, maybe we should try flying to Minneapolis and then try OKC the next day? Should we stay another night in San Fran and hope to get on a plane tomorrow morning? Every plane home for the rest of the weekend looked bad. We even began making plans of flying into Dallas and having family drive us home if getting into the OKC airport wasn't going to happen. Sure, it would have been nice to just stay another night or two and play around in SF, but we're not exactly in the right place to be spending money on hotel rooms and more restaurant tabs. Plus, B was freaking out because he needed to be home to study.

But, there was still a small, small chance we could get on the plane back to SLC - at least. So, we sat and watched as all the ticketed passengers got on bored and then waited to see if our name would be called for the standby seats. My stomach was literally in knots.

Then, something amazing happened.

OUR NAMES WERE CALLED! I couldn't believe it. B's name was called first and then mine. My hands were shaking when the lady at the counter handed me my ticket. Apparently because of the daunting number of people on the standby list, a lot of people didn't show up or decided it wasn't worth the hassle. So we got on the plane, found our seats and then sat on the runway for an hour before takeoff. Typical plane travel....

Once in SLC, we had a 2 hour layover and of course the first thing we did was down a beer in celebration for making it as far as we had. Then we had to go through the whole mess of waiting to get on the plane to OKC because, as it turns out, that plane was full, too! Our only saving grace that time was that we were the only two people on the standby list. But we made it. After every passenger boarded we were finally cleared my endorphines were pumping. You know when you finish a marathon and it finally hits you that you're done? The relief is just amazing and that is what I felt when I finally realized that we would not be stuck for an undetermined number of days in a city far, far away with little to no money to spend and nobody we knew. We were back in our home by midnight that night and the trip finally over. It was definitely an adventure. I would have tried to document the day better had I not been suffering from extreme stress.

New shoes!

I did it.

That's right.

I bought some shoes.

I just broke down and dug into my wee-bit of savings to purchase some new Asics GT-2170s. Oh what a beaut! The color is even called Tahiti which makes my purchase substantiated since, hey, if I can't go to Tahiti for spring break, I'll do the next best thing and buy running shoes in spring break colors....

I just couldn't deal with my shin-splint-causing, over-a-year-and-a-half-old shoes anymore. Unfortunately, I ordered them online so that I could find the best price, which means the old ones will have to be used again for tonight's run because we're having 80 degree weather! I just can't resist letting this beautiful weather pass without making the most of it. Remember the last post when I said I'd boycott until Oklahoma's weather improved? Well, luckily for me Oklahoma weather changes every day. Literally.

I got a 4-miler in last night at an extremely slow pace, but the OKC Memorial Marathon is in the back of my mind and I'm hoping I can at least run the half. Maybe once my new kicks arrive I can get in some really good workouts.

Lately it has been so hard to get out and run. My first problem is that my shoes are almost a year old - ancient in running shoe years - and thus the root of my shin splints that I'm currently suffering from. I really need some new ones, but we all know those don't come cheap and I haven't exactly been able to factor it out of my AmeriCorps salary. I keep thinking just a little bit longer and I'll have an actual paying job which means I can update the ol' wardrobe. And I keep waiting and waiting some more. You know I haven't bought a new sports bran in over 3 years? Unfortunately, car maintenance (my breaks are just about shot), rent and food remain higher on the priority list.

My second problem is the fact that the wind is terrible! Whoever came up with the lyrics, "OOOOOOklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plains" candy-coated what Oklahoma really experiences. It's rarely ever a nice soft breeze; it's the kind of wind that'll knock your own wind out of your chest. It'll kick up all the dirt on the ground and throw into your eyes while, at the same time, your hair gets blown out in all directions. And, if you naively decided to wear a dress? You poor, poor thing.

To make matters worse, it spurs the onset of a relentless bout of allergies. I've been taking zyrtec, allegra, and even local honey, but my eyes still hurt and my whole face feels congested.

Running in this kind of wind is just plain miserable. I decided to boycott until Oklahoma decides to have better weather.

Mustache March

Has anyone out there really heard of "mustache March"?

Didn't think so.

I'm not sure where B got the idea, but now he's growing a mustcache because its March. OHHHH MAKE IT STOP! I tried to tell him that he missed the boat for "no shave November" but he won't listen to me. Mustaches really are a terrible thing. Also, I didn't want to make this known to the public but B has even gone so far as to join an internet mustache club!

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'm going to tell you about some cool things that I've been able to do. I've also had quite a few revelations about myself that I'm pretty excited about.

Since January, I have been a volunteer intern at OU's Office of Development. I'm doing this while keeping up with my AmeriCorps job, which has made my free time almost non-existent, but I really am loving it. This has been a wonderful opportunity for a number of reasons:

1. I get to go to a bunch of cool events put on by OU and the Development Office (particulary the two programs that I work under which are the President's Associates and the Women's Philanthropy Network). One such event included the OU "Teach-In" that brought in 7 well-known scholars/historians/professors to lecture about America's Founding.

2. I've had the opportunity to do PR work for these events including two articles that you can view here and here. In the near future I'm going to be interviewing a WPN member who runs a non-profit in NYC for kids with cancer (its a really good story) and posting that, as well as an OU men's basketball game that I'm going to tomorrow.

3. Because of all these experiences I think I'm no longer "Erica Undecided." Well - at least not completely undecided. All of these things has changed my outlook on what I want to do career-wise, just when I thought I would never figure myself out. Funny how things simply fall into place.

In other news, last weekend my mom, sister and I traveled to stillwater for my brother's baby shower. I could not be a more excited soon-to-be aunt! Below is a picture of the adorable cake and cake balls (that I absolutely could not stop eating!!!!) and me with all of the balloons. The baby is going to be a boy if you haven't been able to tell from all of the blue.

My (semi) new workout routine

A few weekends ago I was sitting on the couch, bored and surfing through the channels on tv. when I ended up coming across an Insanity infomercial. The Insanity program looks - well, insane - so I wasn't about to buy it, but it did give me the idea to purchase P90X. I generally don't buy into infomercial workout videos but I'd heard great reviews from friends about it in the past and this was something that B and I could do together. He won't run with me because he says I'm too intimidating (which I can see since he is not a runner and has no intention of becoming one) and with his full time student and full time job schedule he's always too tired to come to the gym with me.

It's been one full week into the P90X program and I'm happy to say that it's making me do something I truly hate doing - weights. In high school I used to skip out on any kind of weight training because I believed it would make me bulky. I also just hate doing it. I'd rather run extra than do any kind of weight training. So, nonetheless, I've been fairly sore. all. week. long. The women on this program are intense. They are like straight up muscle and can do 20 pull ups. I can't do one. And pushups? OHHHHHGEEEEZ I should video tape B and I trying to master one of these videos, I'm sure it would be pretty comical to watch. I mean, I get a kick out of watching B try some of the fun yoga positions - one of the few things I'm at least sorta-okay at.

Yesterday was our stretch day and I ran for 50 minutes outside in the beautiful weather (Oklahoma has ADD weather, ya'll, now its stormy and cold) and completed the hour long stretching DVD with B. Good stuff.

Also, I've been using the Iphone app called My Fitness Pal and would love to have some friends join me. Unfortunately, I discovered that when I went home for lunch today I ate almost half my days worth of calories. The good part is  that at least this information has become known to me so that I can watch myself this evening, right? Although... I rediscovered ice cream in the freezer last night and have been meaning to eat it before anyone else gets to it - this is the sort of mentality you get when you grow up as one out of four kids.

Hello there. Remember me? No? Has it been that long?

Yes, I suppose it has been a long time. The weather is actually cold and I'm pretty sure in one of the last posts I was complaining about the heat.

Well, to update you on my life... I'm beginning to round out the end to my AmeriCorps VISTA year of service. Funny that when I started this, I was just beginning - actually, hadn't even started. It has definitely proved to be a challenging year. My main project was to create a tutoring project pilot program for some of the high-poverty, low-income high schools in Oklahoma. Sounds easy enough, right? WRONG.

It has taken 10 months to get this thing going and it hasn't been smooth sailing. You see, we are not just providing your old run-of-the-mill tutoring program. We connect college students (the majority being education majors) to tutor a student online. We do it online so that we can provide tutors to the very rural areas. When I say rural, I mean rural. The school to which we are trying to provide tutoring is in no man's land. Deep in the panhandle, Oklahoma. Here, the principal is also the counselor (seriously) and probably the bus driver, gym teacher, and coach, too. So, challenges that I've hit have included students not knowing how to work a computer, computers not working, not having anyone available to talk to to organize the tutoring process, and  teachers forgetting that the students are supposed to be online to get tutored (yes, this one happened today, actually). The school has the technological capability because this is just a small piece to a big grant where we have provided computers for them to use, but we are currently having to teach the kids how to work a simple program from afar and this has been rough.

There have been various other things that I will not get into, but what I'm trying to say is that there has not been anything easy about getting this going. But, the kids in this town NEED this. Most of them have never had a parent/sibling/ friend go to college and just meeting a college student and having them as a tutor has the potential to open their minds to the possibility for them continuing their education after high school. This is why I want it to work and - had I not thought this could help someone - I would have given up a looooooong time ago.

Add all of the stress of getting this up and running with my unsuccessful job search so that I will be employed once my AmeriCorps year has ended in April, and you'll find me with the emotional mood swings of a hormonal pregnant woman. My poor, poor boyfriend!  Happy Valentine's Day to him. :)

about me:

1. I won't eat Chiquita bananas because of their monetary support for the FARC. Actually, I prefer not to eat any bananas from any of the major producers because most do not have a positive history in Latin America, so basically, I don't eat them.

2. I like to drink wine (I'm drinking a glass now) but I couldn't tell ya the difference between a $10 and a $50 bottle. Never had anything more expensive than $50, but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to tell the difference then either. I also enjoy a good brew, too.

3. I have a very "vivid imagination." At least that is what a certified high school counselor has diagnosed my inability to get through horror movies and random spurts of paranoia that erupts from being alone at night.

4. I eat an apple a day- really, I do. My favorite season is thus, fall. In my fridge are Fuji apples, but only because the Honeycrisp ones were all gone.

5. Guilty pleasure: Real Housewives of Anywhere