Sunday, February 27, 2011

Spring Is Here!

Spring and autumn are for sure my favorite seasons.  I think spring tops autumn juuuuust a hair but only because I'm obsessed with flowers.  I'm really enjoying the views on my runs lately.  It's just so beautiful out, it's impossible to be in a bad mood.  These are two of my favorites that I've seen a lot recently.


Red bud tree





And mystery white flowering tree that looks somewhat like this... but isn't because this is an ornamental pear tree.  Random internet images I love you, now if only you could just tell me what the white flowering trees I've been enjoying so much are.

And of course lots of blue skies and sunshine! 

The oooonly problem... and I know I have absolutely no right to complain so please forgive me all you people who live in states that actually follow the seasons (Florida is confused - all the time): it's a little on the hot side for running.

Dear 55 degrees:  My long run and I miss you - Sincerely, Soaking Wet Sharon



This is after my 13 mile run on Saturday

Shirt is completely wet - it's a good thing I was wearing black

It looks like I've peed my pants


I was attempting to show off my soaking wet hair.  You can't really see the hair... but you get the idea

I'm pretty sure it was about 60/65 degrees out when I started.  75 by the time I got back. 

I'm pretty sure I will be running in a sports bra in a month or so.  It will be in the 80s in a few months.  No, not during the day, I mean before the sun has come up.

I'm bummed but I'm sure I'll get used to it.  I know I ran in the heat last summer but my mileage was no where near what it is now. 

I love sweat, I love sweat, I love sweat

I will just keep repeating this to myself and hopefully it will sink in.

I woke up early this morning and went out for a nice 6 miler.  By nice I mean my legs were still tired from the 13 on Saturday and felt like lead the whole way. 

So of course after coming home, showering and shovelling some food into my mouth I forced myself to foam roll.



Hey, you do what you can when you can.  Who says you can't foam roll in a dress before church?  It works just as well...

Okay, so the dress DID get caught up a bit, but I managed ;)

I've been slacking a lot this week on strength training.  I can't seem to work out a system that works well with my schedule.  Some weeks I don't work much and I'm home for a lot of the day most of the days of the week.  What's a girl to do?  Well, I should probably clean but that doesn't happen often. 

 I tend to watch a lot of TV, read a lot of blogs, read a lot of people.com, stalk people on facebook, sell my soul to facebook... you know, the list could go on.  In general I think that exercise, in comparison with many of these activities, is a lot more beneficial and worth my time.  On the other hand, there is the issue of over training.  I think I probably do over train. 

In the scheme of things, I don't really mind - I don't have anything better to do and it's fine as long as I'm having fun and I'm not getting injured.  However, when I have a busy week then I often find myself not wanting to fit in anything at all.  This is a problem.  I think maybe if I didn't plan to do so much then when I was a little bit more busy I would be able to at least fit in something and I wouldn't feel guilty about what I missed.

These are the things I stress over.  I know, I live a sad life ;)

Speaking of busy weeks, I'm gearing up for a pretty busy one coming up this week.  I am in high demand as a babysitter :).

Are there any runners out there who feel like they have to fit in a lot of miles but strength train too?  How do you fit it all in?  Do you just strength train on the days when you're recovering?



Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Week of Lazy

It's only Tuesday and I feel like my whole week is turning into a "lazy" week.

Monday was President's Day - I had a whole day off.  I had zero responsibilities.  So I went on a long run and cleaned my room and finished all the painting that's been left half way done for months, right?  I wish...

I woke up about an hour and a half later than I planned to and missed stadiums.  That pretty much set the tone for the day.  I took a 3 hour nap in the middle of the afternoon, didn't do any P90X, didn't run because I was a little sore from the half marathon on Sunday, didn't teach any dance classes.  So what did I do?  Honestly, I don't even know.  This is why days off are so depressing to me.  The day just seems to fly by and I never have anything to show for myself at the end of the day.  I want a re-do!  I promise I will plan very very well and I will be so on top of things and get so much done... pretty pretty please!

This morning I did wake up in time for stadiums then I spent a few hours with Sophia.





Seriously, cutest girl ever!

I got home early and was excited to get in all of P90X plyo before dance.  I think I did about 20 minutes... and quit.  I planned to finish it when I came home (I also thought I might be able to get a run in... I am seriously delusional).  I never did get any more of plyo done.

Yeah, it's 9PM and I'm considering skipping my walk too and just crashing.  9PM is not bedtime, 9PM is not bedtime.  How many times to I have to repeat this for it to sink in?  If only that worked...

I got an email from MarathonFoto.com telling me that all of my photos from the race on Sunday were up.  This was an unexpected surprise since I was expecting them tomorrow sometime.  I was super pumped.  Then I opened up the link they sent and there was a full page of some random guy!  He finished in 1:22... I wish that was me!  His bib number was 2051, mine was 2049.  I don't know what happened or what the mixup was but I searched through all of the lost and found photos and didn't find any of me. 

I finally emailed them letting them know what happened.  Hopefully everything will get sorted out because obviously I am just dying to see all the photos of me cheesing it up for the camera, looking like I was dying (which is my natural state when I'm not aware of the cameras), or the best yet... gagging after I crossed the finish line.  I don't know if they took pictures of that or not but I'm strangely interested to see if there are any.  I can't believe thay would post something like that... but then again, if they have the photos, shouldn't they let me decide if I want them or not?

I have several photos that my parents took during the race but I'm waiting to do a post on the race - I want to include some professional photography as well :).

Tomorrow I don't have any official plans until 5:30:  Keep me accountable!  On the to-do list - get a run in, preferably a long one.  Stadiums because Rach would hurt me if we didn't get three in this week.  Some sort of P90X so I'm not behind 3 by the end of tomorrow.  Clean or at least straighten up my room.  Change sheets... it's been awhile =/.  Wash hair.  It is sad that this has to be put on a to-do list.  I.Will.Be.PRODUCTIVE!

:)

Please tell me how productive YOU have been to guilt me into being productive.  Or you could just tell me about how lazy you have been - misery loves company!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Party Machine

If you read my blog at all you know that my life pretty much consists of a lot of babysitting, ballet teaching and fitness... and that's about it.  In essence, I really have no life.  I have a big sob story about how all of my friends graduated and moved but it really all boils down to the fact that I am not a go getter.  I am a homebody to the max and I really need friends who will call me and make me feel guilty for not spending time with them.  I guess that means I will eventually need a needy husband to force me to spend time with him. 

Once my friends convince me to leave the house I always have a great time but I never seem to remember this when it comes time to leave the house.  Re-writing goals for 2011 right now - BE MORE SOCIAL - I promise you will love it (speaking to myself)!

What is a little disappointing to me is that suddenly several social activities all pile up on one night or one weekend.  I'm not great with analogies but to me this feels sort of like I've just been given 5 cakes and instead of being able to eat them slowly over time I just have to smash them all in during one day. 

This past weekend I was given "5 cakes" or rather, several social activities.

On Friday I had not one but two parties to attend!  I know, it's unbelievable!

The first party was for Evie, the little girl that I used to babysit almost everyday a few months ago before they moved.

I love and miss this little girl more than words can express so I could not be happier when her mom told me they would be coming back for her 2 year birthday party.

I LOVED seeing her and her mom.  I had a great time playing with her and hugging her and talking to her.  I was a big crying mess when I had to say goodbye to her.





She got to sit in this huge princess chair and was so distracted by everything that was going on that I couldn't get her to look at me for more than a second at the time - hence the pictures that look like she could care less about me :)

After the party I stopped at the health food store and spent a fortune

I didn't eat anything at the party - oh wait, I did have a tiny bit of ice cream.  The foods offered were pizza, ice cream and birthday cake.  I'm not really into any of these.  Pizza, okay maybe, but birthday cake is just disgusting to me and ice cream... eh.  I have a hard time getting away with not eating at parties though.  I get pestered and pestered and I hate to make a big deal out of it and offend someone with explaining exactly why I don't want to fill my body with that crap so sometimes I just cave.  It would be nice if caving meant eating something delicious...

I was so hungry on the way home from the health food store that I opened some of my groceries right there in the car.



Slightly inappropriate image of my eats ;)
Unsweetened carob chips and 85% cacao chips.  I LOVE the carob.  Cacao chips just taste like semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Later that night I attended a housewarming party for a friend of mine.  Everyone who came was supposed to bring a side or dessert.  The main meal consisted of hamburgers, hot dogs and mac n cheese.  Vegetarian heaven?  I think not...

I ate before I went and since I didn't have too much time I picked out an easy dessert and threw it together.  I made Angela's Two Bite Double Down Brownies 
Sooo good.  First of all, I don't think they should be called brownies.  They were not super sweet or moist and that's kind of what I think of when I think of brownies.  They were more like something you would eat with coffee.  I really enjoyed them.  I'm a huge fan of dark chocolate and I loved that they weren't overpoweringly sweet. 



I carried them in my left hand the whole way there - thankfully, they only live about 10 minutes away :)

Unfortunately... none of my friends liked them.  At all.  The girls were very polite about it.  I watched a few of them take a bit and kind of put it aside.  However, some of the guys arrived at the party a little tipsy (to say the least) and they had no problem telling me exactly how horrible these things tasted.  One guy talked for about 5 minutes about how he had tasted dog biscuits that tasted better.  Um... yeah, thank you so much.  How rude can you get?  I will obviously never be friends with that guy. 

I brought them home and made my mom taste them the next day.  She loved them!  Rachel tried some later in the day and also loved them.  So why did my friends dislike them SO much?  I came to the conclusion that these individuals are so used to eating food that is super processed, very unnatural with tons of added sugars and bad fats that they didn't know good healthy food when they tasted it.  I was very bothered by the whole situation.  I already get laughed at enough that I'm vegetarian and people are sort of convinced that I eat food that tastes like cardboard and that I don't enjoy my food.  This is ridiculous.  I love my food and I think it's delicious - I don't feel like I'm depriving myself.  What I really wanted to do was make something that they really enjoyed and then surprise them by telling them it was vegan... FAIL.  Oh well - next time! 

What's there to complain about when I got to take them home and eat the majority of them the next day? ;)

Running in the Dark

Sad but true story: I had to go and look at my pictures to remember what the last thing I shared with you was.

I've been documenting my life like crazy in photos but then I only post a fraction of them.  Maybe this is a good thing.  I love reading blogs with tons of pictures but I could be in the minority.  I mean really, you all probably do not enjoy seeing 10 pictures of me every post.  Honestly though, it's so much easier to blog with pictures, I don't have to use as many words!

I tried out my new watch (Garmin Forerunner 405) on Thursday for what was supposed to a be a nice easy 6 miler.  Holy heck!  Very very hard run.  I'm not sure why I struggled so much but I think it was because Florida has gotten HOT!  I've really enjoyed being able to run whenever I wanted to, it's made it really easy for me to fit in my run.  I could literally go at any time of day.  I think I'm back to early mornings and evenings again.  It is just wayyy too hot to go when the sun is shining.  I almost died of heat stroke but I made it.  I was hoping for a 10 miler but could barely even finish the 6.



Pre-run - demonstrating how large this watch is.  It is really big compared to my polar.



Holy geez it is HOT out there.  Notice Smokey's tail on the bottom right :)

After teaching a ballet class I did something I don't usually do...

I went on a run with Rachel!



We take our running after dark seriously.  I dressed like a tennis player and Rachel dressed like... well I don't know but the purpose of the neon green shirt was visibility.  I wore my fuel belt but not for fuel; I used it to attach a white light that flashes obnoxiously.  Rachel wore the red light that I usually attach to the back.



I used my new shoes for the first time

Like good runners we stretched beforehand



Okay, scratch that.  I stretched.  She played on her new phone.  Tyson stretched too ;)



We ran a good 2-3 minutes slower per mile than I am used to.  It was great!  Nice and relaxing, gorgeous temperature, great company!  I usually run alone and I thought I liked running alone but it was so much fun to have some company for a change.  You know how long distance pace is supposed to be "conversational" pace?  Well how exactly are you supposed to figure out if you're running a conversational pace when you run alone?  I am crazy... but I'm not going to talk out loud to myself while I run.  Poor Rachel, I talked to her the whole time because of course we were running a lot slower than I am used to and I had no trouble at all blabbing the whole time.  We were running her pace though which means it was not exactly easy for her to respond but I kept asking her questions that required a response anyways.  I am a meany...

I'm really enjoying the new watch.  My favorite feature is the pace feature with the auto pause when you stop being a close second.  The other watch just kept counting time when you stopped and I always had a running number going in my head of how much to subtract off of the final time - very annoying.

I'm not gonna lie though.  It's a little depressing to see my pace.  I've been thinking I was a little faster and come to find out I'm slower than I thought.  I am going to have to dive into speed workouts and hills - oh boy!  I am so excited - if you could see my excited face right now you would be totally convinced.

Hopefully I'll get a few good training runs in this week.  I'll race my virtual watch partner! ;)

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Thanks for the dress...

I went to the Fitness Expo today for the Five Points of Life Marathon and Half-Marathon today around 3pm.

The expo went from 8am-4pm so I was there near the tail end of things.

I'm not sure why but I was expected a larger expo.  I don't think there were more than 5 tables set up and they were all selling boring things for too much money.  I'm not complaining, really, I don't need to spend more money.

What was incredibly disappointing:


"What? You ordered a small? I'm sorry, we ran out. How about a medium?"

                                              Thanks for the dress 5 points of life marathon =/

How do you run out of shirts of a certain size when everyone who signs up specifies their shirt size when they order and all of the race numbers have your t-shirt size on them?  Disappointing to say the least.  Even my extra small shirt from the Disney marathon is a little big on me so a size medium is just ridic.  Bummer cause I actually really like this t-shirt design.

It's 7:18pm and I'm super tired.  Ready to get a good night sleep and wake up at an ungodly hour tomorrow for the start at 7am.  I'm excited!  No really, I am!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

I'm really good at... shopping

Last night I got two exciting packages in the mail... aren't all packages that come in the mail exciting?




I think I have a problem.  I have bribed myself more than I'd like to admit to finish a long run.  If I'm struggling at about mile 10 with several more in front of me I start to try various ways to convince myself to finish.  The main one and the one that often gets me through is promises of new stuff.  One time it was a running hat, another time running shoes, more workout clothes - you get the idea. 


Well, my newest purchase wasn't actually a bribe.  This probably means I've gotten worse.  Now I'm just buying things without even making myself work for them.  Oh well, hopefully this one will make me work. 

I got a fantastic deal on this little baby:


The Garmin Forerunner 405 - $177 :)

I've heard fantastic things about it and am soooo excited to have it.  I've been using a polar heart rate monitor that wasn't made specifically for running.  I'll probably keep it and use it to track calories burned during crosstraining activities or I'll give it to Rachel who has been asking (very nicely) to have it when I get a new one. 

I just can't wait to try out the garmin and to be able to know my pace at any and all times during a run.  I think my favorite part will be not mapping all of my runs online beforehand.  It will be so freeing to just go out and run. 



Can you tell I'm pumped?

My other purchases were from forever21.  I will basically never be able to wear adult size clothing unless something crazy happens, I have the body of a 12 year old.  For now I'm taking full advantage of this fact and buying all kinds of cheap clothes from juniors stores.  Forever21 is my favorite.  Sadly, I realize that someday I will still probably fit in these clothes, I'll just be too old to wear them.  Yes, I'm talking about my addiction to headbands with bows on them.  Give it a few years and I'll just look ridiculous wearing them.
Nothing perks you up on a bad day more than some retail therapy. 

I bought several pairs of workout pants/capris for under $13 - not for all 4, each.  One was $7.50.  Seriously, how do you beat that?






















Then I got several of these cardigans for $6.50 - amazing


Not so amazing: my faces... and this pose.  Pretty sure I was trying to demonstrate that this kept me warm... which really it doesn't.  I don't even know. 

Sadly, the pants didn't pass the "bend over" test.  All workout pants should stay opaque when you bend over.  Forever21 workout pants do not =/.  What a rip off.  Except not, since they are so inexpensive.  Oh well, I'll take it. 


More earrings that I will never wear.  Love earrings and hardly ever wear them, so of course I should buy 5 pairs.  All under $2.80.  They better be considering I will probably only wear them a handful of times.  I should change that.  But really, would you take me seriously if I showed up to a babysitting job wearing these? 

No, I wouldn't take anyone wearing five pairs of earrings seriously either.  How do you even do that?

Okay, so I meant just one pair.  Still, they're like baby magnets and I like my ears with holes, not rips. 

Garmin is all charged, it's a nice day out, today is a run day.  I better get this thing done!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

First Homemade Green Monster

I've been drinking Odwalla for weeks now


It's delicious... and super expensive

Well, last night I started to feel super guilty about the large unopened bag of spinach that I had purchased that was on the verge of going bad.

My options were pretty limited:  A bunch of cooked spinach, a large spinach salad... or...

A GREEN MONSTER

I've heard people raving about these things and just haven't gotten around to trying one out myself so I popped a banana in the freezer last night and then this morning...




Mine is nowhere near as beautiful a color green as hers.



Almond milk, ground flax seed, spinach and frozen banana

It was super creamy and kind of... well, bland
I added some Vega chocolate powder and about a tsp of stevia and that seemed to sweeten it up a bit.
I realized I'm not really a big fan of creamy, milkshake like smoothies.  I prefer a fruity, tangy flavor. 



Promise it tastes better than my face indicates

All of this happened yesterday but blogspot is dumb and wouldn't let me upload any photos so I went to bed instead.  After my semi success with the green monster yesterday I was itching to try again, this time with more fruit. 

All I had on hand were some frozen blueberries



I omitted the almond milk this time and used some vitamin water zero instead.  After I blended everything up it still tasted a little bland.  I ended up adding a splash of lemon juice - I think this will be my "secret" ingredient from now on.



I think I may be hooked... on my way home from teaching tonight I stopped at the store and picked up pineapples and peaches.  Tonight's concoction?  I call it Tropical (green) Breeze



Ahhh!  Look at the pretty green color!  Inside: The orange flavored vitamin water zero, spinach, ground flax seeds, pineapple, peaches, banana, a splash of almond milk and a splash of lemon juice.  Mmmm... soooo good.


Well, this week I have done no running whatsoever.  Last week I ran 30 miles - this week 0.  Hmm.  Perfect for the week of a race, right?  Uh, not ideal.  I got something in the mail today that might help get me running tomorrow... I'll share that tomorrow :)

Happy hump day!  Hope the rest of your week is much more productive than the first half of mine has been.  Time to kick it into gear!


Monday, February 14, 2011

I could get used to this

A sunny and clear 68 degrees.  Mmm... if you could just stay forever I would be the happiest person in the world.


Last week I may have gone a little overboard with the running.  I'm not sure why but I'm convinced that my body is able to run 10 miles a day.  Mentally, I'm so there.  My body had different ideas though and on Saturday during the last mile or two of my 14 mile run it said "heck no" and I had a nice walk home.  I'm frustrated that my knee is a problem again.  Especially since I'm running a half marathon next Sunday.  Oh foam roller - we will be good friends this week.

All that to say, I had planned to run today but decided to take it easy for a day or two so I will actually be able to run when Sunday rolls around.  I will be crying on Sunday if at mile 10 my knee stops working.  I'm not even kidding.

So what did I do instead?  P90X Legs and Back?  Uhmmm... not exactly.  Tonight maybe?

Nope, this is what I did:



I'm not really a fan of tanning, I really think it's terrible for you
But I gave in...



Trying to even out some awkward runners tan lines




Friday, February 11, 2011

My Day in Pictures

Cause really, who has time to type it all out?

Lets just say, I did not get everything (or even most) of what I planned to get done today done.  Sad.  Tomorrow and Sunday I better kick some butt to make up for my 2 very lazy days.

Started off my morning the way I always start it:  3 cups of coffee.  Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit.  Usually 2 cups.  It's just so delicious I can't resist.


Slept in make-up from last night.  Also, shirt that I wore last night.  My mom asked this morning "Are those your pajamas?"

My answer?  Mom, the best clothes are the ones that can double as legit clothes that you wear in the daytime and as comfortable pajamas.  I stand by this answer.

But really I'm just too tired (lazy) at night to put on my actual pajamas.



Check out the mess that I sometimes call my bedside table.  This is just out of control.  On my to-do list for today was to clean my room.  Yeah... that didn't happen.  I did clean up my bedside table though.  I guess I should explain, the toilet paper was from when I was sick.  We ran out of tissues.

I started out the day on a good note, things just went down hill after 30 minutes of P90X Back and Biceps



Assisted pull ups - I can actually do a whopping 3 unassisted but these are all assisted



Stopped 30 minutes in to start getting ready to go babysit. 



My latest addiction (today's lunch): Acorn squash sliced in half and baked face down for about an hour



Mashed with a splash of almond milk, a pinch of sugar a pinch of salt and a bunch of cinnamon.  Yummy!



Smokey likes it too.  I swear, this cat was a dog in a past life.  He will eat anything.  I thought he was just going to smell it and I caught him right before he tried to take a lick.



He tried so hard to get some.  At this point I was making him do this but he was doing this before I even offered him some.

The only other semi-productive thing that I did...



I know, I look like I'm being super productive.  This was after an hour of playing outside while waiting for the realtor to come over and show the house.  We were tired.


Tomorrow I will get a run in.  This must happen.  No more planning and then not following through. 

Look, I have friends!

Happy Friday everyone!

Well, after two days of gorgeous sunshine Florida decided to go back to the drizzly mess it's been for the past week or so.


This is from yesterday.  You can't tell but it's raining...
It drizzled in the morning and then again later in the afternoon and in between in stayed pretty gloomy.

I had originally planned to run 6 miles yesterday but I just hate to run in that kind of weather.
So instead Smokey and I just lounged in bed.  I did a few other things but sadly a lot of my day was spent in bed.  Thursday is my day off so I can do that sometimes :)


I love it when he sleeps with his paw over his eyes - so cute :)


Today the sun is peeking out again and I'm looking forward to a run late this afternoon.

Last night after teaching dance class I got to spend the evening with my friend Alexis.  She cooked me a delicious dinner!


Pita bread pizza with fresh spinach and tomatoes.  On the side are some orange glazed carrots.  My favorite part was the carrots.  They were so soft and delicious.  The vegetables were all organic and came from a local farmer.  Alexis is a part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and gets fresh vegetables and fruits weekly from her CSA.  I've been interested in joining a CSA for awhile now but Alexis sold me on the idea.  The only worry I have is that I won't be able to use up all my produce in a week and I would just feel terrible letting good produce spoil.

Alexis also made some sparkling water with lemon and elderberry flower to go along with the meal.  It was delicious!  She has one of those soda stream machines.  You just take tap water (or filtered tap water) and the machine makes sparkling water.  Love this idea and am going to look into getting one.  I think I eat really healthy but one bad habit that I can't seem to break is my addiction to flavored water.  I know the ingredients are not healthy (Filtered carbonated water, citric acid, natural flavor, aspartame, potassium benzoate, potassium citrate, acesulfame potassium, phenylketonurics) and that my body needs real water but I never find myself craving plain water.  Last bad habit that I need to kick...

Alexis is working towards a sustainability minor (business major) and knows all kinds of interesting information on the topic.  We talked a lot about organic foods and buying locally, our interest in vegetarianism and reasons why we ate the way we do.  It's not often that I find someone who can talk for hours about eating healthy. 

After dinner we enjoyed some oranges and strawberries that were absolutely delicious.  We finished off the night with some decaf espresso (which I've never had before).

I meant to get a photo of Alexis and me but completely forgot.  This is from a spring formal we both attended last year.





My friend Kristen, Alexis and me

I had a great night.  I don't get out too much anymore (I know, I'm pathetic).  All of my friends from high school have moved away and now my college friends are all moving back home too.

Anyways, I hope you all have a wonderful day and a great weekend.

Any fun plans for the weekend?