Yoga in the A.M.

5:00AM rolled around way too early this morning. After hitting the snooze button twice, I finally rolled myself outta bed, got dressed in the dark, carefully trying not to wake B. Then I stumbled through the dark house trying to locate my keys, phone, water bottle, yoga mat and yoga towel. 

In the light from the kitchen I did a quick double check. Got everything on correctly. Nothing inside out. Good to go. 

I blasted my spotify to wake myself up while driving to pick up my sister about 10 min away. Coffee sounded so good. I passed by a Starbucks looking longingly, imagining a nice hot cup of brewed coffee and cream. Luckily, my willpower held out. A rare occurrence.

I got to my sister's, picked her up and we made our way to my favorite yoga studio. 

This was my first try at vinyasa yoga in the AM. I usually go in the evening because it puts me right to sleep. I should have known it would do the same thing in the morning.

The room was so cozy and warm. While waiting for class to start, I laid on my mat, closed my eyes and thought of snoozing through the next hour. Hard wood floors had never felt so comfortable.

I kept trying to make myself be "present", at least that's what the instructor kept saying, "be present in your practice". Translation for me: don't doze off. My poses were wobbly, my body was extremely tight, but I still got that warm fuzzy feeling after I was finished. 

Running or even Bikram Yoga is great for getting me up and going in the morning. It could have been the beer from the night before or staying up 30 minutes later than normal to catch the end of on of my Real Housewives episodes that kept me so groggy. Eh, I'll give it another try. It was nice to get it over with in the morning, but I do enjoy those evening yoga classes. 

No running for me today. I was on call at my second job and they're making me work tonight. I took up a second job on top of my full-time job to help with wedding $$$. I'd much rather enjoy this beautiful weather we're having here in Dallas, TX. Its 83 degrees and sunny! 

This was a short post, but I'm getting back in the groove of things. 

I failed to mention that I have 16 days until I become a married lady. 

Tulsa Route 66 Marathon - Boston Qualifier

It's been almost 6 months since I ran my Boston qualifying race, but I thought, if not for my own benefit, it would be fun to do a nice race recap. Ya know, to help me remember. 

To start off, the race was in November. November weather in Tulsa can be kinda iffy and I had been checking the forecast everyday for the week leading up to the race. Sure enough the weather prediction said 26 degrees with the opportunity to get up to 28 degrees. 

Running in 26 degree weather is cold. And icy.

Luckily, with my legs frozen numb, I couldn't feel all the knee pain that I usually get after I cross that mile 13 barrier.

John (the older brother of one of my closest friends from middle school) is an amazing athlete and runner. He, himself, qualified for Boston at this very same marathon the year before and volunteered to pace me. 

I told myself I would stay at an 8 minute pace or faster for the duration of the race. The first 13 miles went by fast and I was feeling pretty good. Around mile 16 I started to hurt. Around mile 17 John dropped off (he had given me a good start!) and I kept at it, checking my garmin often to make sure I wouldn't slip.

Mile 18 I started to drop to about an 8:05-8:15 pace. When I hit mile 20 I saw my friends and wonderful fiance cheering me on and couldn't help myself from getting a little emotional. I must have looked a mess with my face bright red and swollen from the cold with tears streaming. 

6 miles to go. I heard my fiance yell, "you got this, baby!" So, I kept on trucking. 

Mile 24 and 25 I thought I was gonna lose it. I knew I had gone out fast so I had some cushion time, but I hit the point where my legs were starting to give away. I just couldn't get them going. I think my last mile I was at a 10 minute pace. I went under a bridge and something with the light change made me start to feel as though I was going to faint. 

I thought about me having to do this all over again if I did not qualify at this race and decided that I better keep my butt moving! 

At the last stretch before the finish line I literally gave it my all. Oh boy, when I saw my time flash I KNEW I had it in the bag. Literally one of the best feelings. 

Finished 26.2 in 3 hours and 32 minutes. I qualified for Boston.

My fiance met me through the fence at the finisher corral and I, again, had tears coming down my face. But so did he. He was so excited :) 

New beginning

Still cannot believe I waited so long to keep up the ol' blog.

So much can happen in a year.

I moved to Dallas and started all over, completely from scratch. I didn't have many friends and was always getting lost. And the traffic - don't even get me started.

But I survived and Dallas has become my home.


B has and continues to be my rock. My first couple of months in Dallas were a little rough. B had to finish working up in Oklahoma and wasn't able to move down with me. So, I moved down alone in an unfamiliar house with little to no furniture and had to get acclimated to my 45-50 minute commute. OHH that commute - that was torture.

Slowly we fixed up the house, acquired new furniture and B finally moved down. He accepted a job at a nearby university and for the first time, we both had full-time salaries with real, adult benefits. LOVE BENEFITS. I made a point to get checkups for everything: Dentist, Allergy Specialist, Gyno, Chiropractor, Dermatologist, ENT, you name it. It can now be documented that I'm a super healthy girl...I really did have a great benefit package.

Over Thanksgiving B did something remarkable. He completely threw me for a surprise when he proposed to me. I HAD NO IDEA. He, apparently, had secretly planned it out for months. After 3.5 years of dating he was actually able to sneak something by me. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life. 

Springtime brought some more changes. We got a new puppy, I transitioned into a new job (that I love), and we finally agreed on our wedding date. :)

Can't wait for May 31, 2014.

One Year Later

It has been more than a year since I last posted.

OMG.

Here's a year in pictures:


Brent and I moved to Dallas in June 2012 (actually, I moved down in June and Brent moved down in August - he had to finish up his Graduate Research position).

I learned how to drive in traffic.

 

Started a job at the North Texas Food Bank - June 2012



Brent popped the question - November 2012



We lost our beloved puppy on New Years Eve 2012 to a genetic condition.
 

Brent and I adopted this guy - March 2013 (Sampson needed a friend)

 

Accepted a new position - April 2013

 

 

Engagement photos - Check! - May 2013



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.