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.

Where have I been?

I've missed my blogging, not gonna lie. I've also missed running but my motivation was gone. Literally it went kapoof! That seems to be a recurring theme with me. But who ever said running was easy?

Until the weekend. 

A while ago my mom got me a Nike attachment for my ipod shuffle and I finally decided to use it. On Saturday, I decided to just ease back into the whole running and ran for 3 miles at an easy pace. Then Sunday came and I thought, hey maybe I should go to the university track and see if I can bust out some 800s. Since, ya know, I'm all out of shape and all that turned out to be not so fun. 

Warm up: easy 400m

For my first 800, I was going at my casual, easy running pace until I remembered that this was supposed to be a fast workout and it was supposed to hurt. By the second 800, I was hurting. Third 800 I wanted to quit and go home. Fourth 800 I thought my lungs were giving out... 

Then I did an easy 400m cool down.

Oh yeah, I did 10 burpees in between each set. 

(total: 3 miles) 

Now to the other exciting part of my weekend. 

B went out of town to go to the Rangers game in Arlington, TX with his family. So, I invited two of my friends over and we drank wine (lots of it) and carved pumpkins for Halloween. 

And here is our final product (after emptying about 3.5 bottles of vino) 

Mine is the witch on the far right. I accidentally cut parts that I wasn't supposed to so it turned out to look like it is either playing the guitar or holding a ninja sword. 

Family Slideshow

It is my parents 15 wedding anniversary! Since my sister's wedding, my mom and step-dad have gotten into a slideshow making kick and made this video to celebrate and show how much our family has grown physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.

Featured is my mom, step-dad, sister, and two brothers - oh, and me of course! 

So, here it is, for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.
Oh, and that would be a picture of me trying to do tricks in beer pong- behind the back! Obviously I missed.

New running toys!!!

 Workout today: easy 6 miles in preparation for a long run tomorrow!

This morning I went to my local running store and spent all of my hard earned waitress money on some new running toys! I wonder if people would tip me more if I told them that it was going to such a good cause...

Here's what I bought:

An ultimate direction access waist pack 
which I will test out for my long run tomorrow. And yes, I did get a pink one.

A pink (to match my new waist pack) foam roller made by Pro-Tec that I have just tested out and love. Remember from a previous post that this was on my wish list of running gear?

Oh, and the guy that was helping me out said that this would be one of my best running gear purchases.

And lastly, an assortment of different Gu flavors so that I can test them all out and find out which one is my favorite.





I'm a little weary about the waist pack because I have never ran with one before so we'll see how it goes. Do any of you runners out there use them? I'm used to the old "hide your water in the bushes" tactic but I think its time to get with the new technology.



After my run I ate a PB&J sandwich with some chocolate milk and a banana. Oh and earlier I juiced...
Ingredients: cabbage, celery, spinach, carrots, apple

 Whoa, crazy girl on the loose with some veggie juice! 

 B (aka my boyfriend and photographer) is out of town so I awkwardly took pics of myself. I'm so cool. Especially without makeup.

I didn't even realize that I had my pinky up.

Morning Time

Yesterday: 5 mile (easy) run

Instead of doing 800m intervals yesterday like I had planned, I went with what my Runners World Training App on my phone advised, which was an easy 5 miles. Since I lost my watch a long time ago and am too lazy and too cheap to buy a new one, I've been using the timer on my IPOD Shuffle which is a little difficult to use for keeping an accurate time. So, I clocked in my time somewhere around 42 minutes which wasn't bad since I am very out of shape! 

I was probably the last runner to track my runs with my car...

Also, I discovered a great tool to track mileage on a website called runningmap.com where you can actually route your own runs and save them to pull up later as well as share it with other people around your community! This is WAY better than what I used to do, which was drive around in my car tracking the speedometer.

Blisters anyone?

A second recent discovery of mine that I thought I'd share is an amazing anti-chafe stick that I smother all over the arch in my right foot because I am prone to get the biggest and ugliest blisters there. I'm talking, every time I start to increase my mileage this nasty thing shows up, spreads throughout the majority of my arch and hurts enough to keep me from running for days because its just too painful - even after popping it! - gross. 

When I was visiting my mom, a wonderful lady at Run On recommended this as I was perusing the many different types of socks that are made to keep your feet in running form and I am so thankful she did because my blisters are finally starting to heal!

Speaking of socks, I'm not one to go out and buy all the latest, fanciest running equipment because, first of all, I'm too broke. Second of all, I am somewhat of a minimalist when it comes to my running. I mean, its nice and all to have a sleek looking dry fit tee and all the fun little running gadgets, but when I ran cross country in high school I was running in Soffe shorts, homemade t-shirts that read the classic running quotes, and NO music! Every once in awhile I try to run without the ol' IPOD to revisit days passed but its very rare. I can't resist having some good Lady GAGA and GirlTalk tunes blasting into my ear to keep my pace up.

A couple of running supplements that I've tried

I'll even tell you my funny story of the first time I tried Gu. 

  

yep, this stuff. 

I was running my first marathon and had never tried Gu, never even heard of it! I'm telling you, I'm a minimalist. When I got somewhere into mile 17 or 18 I came across a water station and was looking for a snack. They where handing this stuff out and so, while running, I ripped off the tops and squirted this bad boy into my mouth.... Oh no... I thought that maybe I had grabbed the wrong thing and just ate Vasoline! My mind went to thinking, "how horrible! I've come all this way to potentially be poisoned by Vasoline!" Turns out it was just a really icky flavor.  So moral of the story there is to maybe read the package before eating - or maybe not test out new things mid-race. 

It takes me awhile to learn from my mistakes though. During the half-marathon I did recently, my good friend and long distance running partner (her name is Virginia and she's in some of the running pics from my last post) had these fun little things:

She handed me a few to try out so I stuffed them into my little key pocket in my running shorts to "boost energy" throughout the run. Since I was out of shape for this half, I thought "I need all the energy boosts I can get!", so I waited until mile 5 and popped one in when I realized that it is very difficult to breathe and chew at the same time. The result was me choking while running and that's never fun. I guess the people at Gu and their idea to make it with a Vasoline-like consistency have something going there. 

Photo Montage of Previous Races

Before I head outside to take on the Oklahoma winds for some 800m intervals, I thought that maybe I should post some pics from previous races.

 Here, I believe this is the Dallas White Rock Marathon from 2008 and I am looking oh so hardcore!

 This wonderful photo was taken with some good friends before the Tulsa Run in October. Since this race took place on Halloween day, we dressed up in our best 80s gear! That wonderful guy to the left is John, aka Richard Simmons, and we are his workout ladies.

Another pre-race photo before the Tulsa Post Oak Half Marathon, my most recent race from two weeks ago.

This was taken from the Tulsa Route 66 Marathon in 2008.

My mom (also a marathon runner, ultra marathon runner and Boston qualifier) consoling me after I finished with the family dog, Eisenhower.

Last photo of the day, my little brother, me and my step-dad after the Turkey Trot 8 mile race in Dallas.