Week of the CSA

This past week was Spring break at UF.  A good friend of mine, Alexis, is a member of a local organic CSA (A CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farming operation where the growers and consumers share the risks and benefits of food production. CSAs usually consist of a system of weekly delivery or pick-up of vegetables and fruit).

Since Alexis was planning to be out of town for spring break she generously offered to give me all of this weeks fresh fruit and veggies.  I was so excited because I hope to someday become a part of one myself and I thought this would be the perfect way to sort of test it out and see how I liked it and what I thought.

I would have LOVED to have had the chance to pick everything up myself but I had to work during pickup times.  I sent my dad who works just down the street to pick everything up for me.  First big mistake: I'm sure the farmers told my dad exactly what they were giving him but since my dad knows nothing about vegetables most of it went over his head.

By the time the produce got to me all my dad could tell me was "spinach and strawberries... and a whole lot of other green stuff."

My dad usually rides the bus home but since I made him pick up all my veggies I thought it would be mean to make him carry it all home on the bus so I picked him up from work.

While I was waiting for him to come out I watched this gorgeous sunset... which looked way better in person

Then I got bored.

My dad takes 13408234 years to actually leave work.  It doesn't matter how many times you call/text him telling him you're on your way, you're turning thus and such corner, you're almost there, you're in the parking lot... he will still take at least 15 minutes to come out.  This is why I usually refuse to pick him up from work and I have no sympathy for him when he misses the last bus.

Well I had to entertain myself somehow

The crazy person stuck in the car look is a good look for me, no?

This is my "if my arm was this skinny I would look super muscular" pose.  Hahaha, obviously I am seriously deluded.

He finally came out and my crazy photo shoot was cut short.  Thankfully... ;)

When I got all the veggies into the light I started to play a guessing game trying to figure out what everything was.  After some google sleuthing I decided I had: Romaine lettuce, swiss chard, collard greens, spinach, strawberries, cilantro and... maybe more cilantro?  Something parsley looking.

So now the challenge:  Use everything up before it goes bad without spending any more money.

The strawberries were easy.  Gone by Tuesday morning.

The spinach was also relatively easy.  I used most of it up in olive oil pasta which I made twice.  Then I used the rest in my green monsters.

Yesterday I used up either the cilantro or parsley or whatever it was along with the collard greens.  The cilantro/parsley/mystery green smelled gross and made my stomach turn and I didn't really think it did a thing for what I put it in but it wasn't bad and I'm sure it was great for me so no complaints there.

I give you permission to make fun of my food photography.  I was obviously not cut out to be a food photographer.  This is the stuffing before it was wrapped in the collard green leaves.  Onions, mystery parsley thing, grated carrots, garlic, barley, wheat germ, salt and pepper.

I made stuffed collard rolls with a few changes and next time I would change even more.  Number one on that list is the tomato sauce that the rolls were in.  It just didn't do anything for me - kind of bland and a little too sweet.  The rolls are actually pretty good but for some reason the collard green wrapping turns me off.  I think I would enjoy the collard green better if it was just cooked and cut up as part of the stuffing.  I sort of felt the way I used to as a kid eating vegetables.  The only way I used to be able to get them down was to turn off my mind completely and try not to think about what I was eating.  I'm ashamed to admit that I sort of have to do this when eating these rolls. 

If I look at the roll it doesn't look very appealing - apparently I need to go to food assembly school because it doesn't matter how delicious a food is, when I make it the food usually looks pretty unappealing.  This is no way to sway non-vegetarian's opinions on non-meat foods.  If I don't think about the way it looks and just eat it the roll is pretty good.  It's not phenomenal though, it's not a food that I think I would ever crave. 

Hopefully I'll like what I'm planning to make with the swiss chard a little better.  Tonight I am planning to make a Swiss Chard Torta.  This particular recipe calls for eggs, parmesan cheese and Gruyere cheese.  I don't plan on using any of these and will have to fudge these ingredients a bit.  I'm thinking flax eggs, nutritional yeast and maybe some daiya or almond cheese (which sadly isn't actually vegan, it has milk casein).  Wish me luck!

After that I'll just have a bunch of leftovers to finish off.  Normally this wouldn't bother me but I have a whole list of recipes I've been dying to try and I can't try any of them until I clean out the fridge a bit.  Time to get eating!

After my week experience with being a part of a CSA I am not as excited as I had been about the prospect of actually being a part of one.  It would probably be a weekly struggle to finish off all of the veggies that I got and it would also be hard feeling like I had to use up vegetables that I didn't even particularly enjoy (ie: a bunch of greens).  If we were talking potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips, etc (read: any vegetable that is not a leafy green) then I think it would be a lot easier to eat everything.  I have thought that I could just start making a whole bunch of green monsters but if I'm going to pay $300-500 for several months of produce I want something other than leafy greens.

I'll have to do some more research and talk to Alexis about what she typically gets and how the heck she uses it all up by herself.

Crowd Support

OH.MY.GOSH

If I could bottle up a day and replay it over and over again (weather wise at least...) I would save this day forever.

I had such a great run! 10 miles down in 1:22:20.  I don't record my time consistently.  My watch does but before I switched to the Garmin it was kind of inaccurate.  I would stop at a light or take a bathroom break and there was no way to stop it without completely resetting the workout so I would just try to keep track of how long I stopped and subtract all the stops at the end.

Anyways, the whole point of all that is just to say that I have been recording my times lately and I have three recorded times for 10 miles.  Today's recorded time beat my first recorded time by 10 minutes.  For someone who has only been running for about 10 months this kind of time improvement is really encouraging.  I feel like Boston Qualifying actually is possible at some point. 

The best part of my run?  Okay, it's a close tie between the gorgeous weather and the great "crowd support"
An older man out walking his dog told me I looked "really good out there."  Who knows, maybe he was being creepy.  I thought it was really sweet though. 

Later I caught up to a woman who I see out running a lot.  I scared the pants off of her.  I know exactly how she feels: even when I know a bike is approaching behind me and even if I'm out of the way when they shout "passing on your right" I jump about a foot up in the air and move even further to the left onto the grass.  When she caught up to me at a stop light I apologized again for scaring her and we chatted for a few minutes while we waited for the light to change.  I really enjoyed out short chat and of course what I enjoyed the most was when she told me I had a great pace.  At the back of my head I kept thinking of all the incredible people I know who run WAYYY faster than me but you know what, I'll take it.  :) Day made!

On top of those two comments I got way more honks than usual... and let me tell you I was not lookin hot today.

I had on the most unflattering, unformfitting, unrevealing little outfit that I've probably ever worn before.

That being said, I took every honk as someone telling me I was doing a great job and to keep going.  Wishful thinking I'm sure but whatever it takes.

On the subject of honking and people in cars paying attention to you:

On Sunday when I ran with my brother he said people threw stuff at him all the time.  I'm talking starbucks coffee and eggs.  Yes, EGGS. What the heck?!?

I am SO glad I have not experienced this.  I told him I would probably just stop and cry.  I'm not even kidding.

I'm hoping that because I'm a girl they won't throw anything at me.  Who knows.

And back to honking: seriously, what do you expect me to do?  Run after you and throw my number at you?  I can't even tell if you're a guy or a girl, let alone if you're around my age and attractive.  Even if you are my age and attractive if you're honking at girls running on the side of the road it probably wouldn't work out between us... there are a lot of girls that run along the road.

I wore my new BIC band today

Super cute, didn't slip, matched with my ugly shirt... which does not mean it is ugly

I love it!  I ordered two and they just came in the mail yesterday.  I will definitely be ordering more of these and not just because I am a headband addict.

I've never used sweaty bands but apparently they are similar but cuter and more affordable - plus, a dollar is donated for each BIC band purchased.  Check them out!

I fueled up afterwards with a "green" monster which wasn't really green because I used blueberries.  It does have a bunch of spinach in there though! Promise!

Water, coconut water, apple, blueberries, spinach, hemp milk, lemon juice.

I'm off to babysit for awhile and be super productive today.  I plan to spend most of my day OUTSIDE in this gorgeous weather. 

Hello? Florida, is that you?

It's March and the low today was 31 degrees.  This is not the Florida I know.  I am NOT complaining though.  I am excited for what will be a chilly run today but I'm sure by the end it will be feeling glorious!  The craziest part of today?  It started out at 31 but it's supposed to get up to 63.  Florida is crazy crazy.

Last night I got crazy and stayed up til 11 creating a profile on Match.com.  I'm only half way finished and I'm not sure if I'm going to go through with it.  I started thinking the other day about how I really have no way to meet any potential marriage partners.  I've graduated college and now I spend most of my days with children under the age of 10 (usually they're younger than 5) and when I'm not around kids I'm out running or hanging around the house.  I'm facing the truth: I am destined to be a cat lady.

Sadly, there are slim pickins on Match.com.  Either that or I am just WAY too picky.  Is it too much to ask for a vegetarian/vegan friendly partner who is a bible reading, God loving man who also has a job and some kind of ambition in life?  Oh, and it would be cool if they liked exercise too.  Hmm... this could be the reason why my search only turned up about 15 guys and they were all losers.  Booooo =/.

This morning I started watching "Food Matters" on Netflix watch instantly.  I really really like this movie.  It makes me think that I should really pursue some sort of career in Nutritional Healing.  I believe this stuff whole heartedly.  Did you know that a handful of cashews have the same therapeutic effect as a dose of Prozac - why is it so hard to believe that God's medicine is more effective at curing diseases than the drugs that we produce?

I was planning on it anyways but the documentary has inspired (more than I was before) a trip to Mother Earth today.  Yeah, my little small town is not cool enough to have Trader Joes or Whole Foods or any of those fun stores.  We have two little dinky Mother Earth stores.  They're okay but they seem a little dingy to me.  They're pretty small too.  I think I could run across the store in 30 seconds.  Maybe 15.

Anyways, I'm off for a nice morning run.  Enjoy your day!  Happy Friday :)

Oops...

Yeah, so I just remembered that I promised to blog at least 5 times this week.  Oops.

I also promised myself I would run a ton.  Oops.

I had the most fun running I've had in a long time Sunday night.  My brother who is away at college (lives 20 minutes away in a dorm but never comes home to visit) ran 6 miles with me.  He ran cross country in high school and I used to think he was super badass.  Well, he is.  What he is not is a distance runner.  He ran 6 miles fine though.  I think we were running a lot slower than he usually runs but he was really vague and told me "I might run slower than you and I might run faster than you but I'm keeping it a mystery."

I usually run solo and don't me wrong - I love this time to myself.  I love that I can run without headphones or with headphones, that I can slow wayyyy down if I want to or I can run really fast if I want to, that I can take 6 bathroom stops if needed or just run straight through.  All of that said, I really had fun talking the whole way, it really made the 6 miles fly by.  As much as I love running by myself I bet if I had a running partner I would actually accomplish the mileage goals that I set.

Rachel has been away on spring break this week and I miss her like crazy.  My workouts miss her too (ie: I haven't done stadiums at all this week!).  I promised myself I would run a lot instead... but so far I've only gone for one run.  10 miles on Wednesday.  As of now the plan is 10 tomorrow and 10-15 Saturday and if I only run 10 on Saturday then I'll do 4-6 on Sunday. 

Enough of running, I'm sure I am boring all of you to death.

A friend of mine, Alexis, gave me her CSA share for this week.  I got several bunches of all kinds of mystery greens.  At pickup the farmers actually did say all the names but I was at work and sent my Dad to pick them up.  He is not the vegetable eating kind of guy and he probably hasn't even ever heard of any of the vegetables that they gave out.  He was able to tell me "strawberries and spinach" but that left about 6 other items a mystery.  After some google sleuthing I think I have Red Chard, Collard Greens, Romaine Lettuce, Cilantro and Parsley.  Now what the heck to I use all of these in?  I paid $15, I'm getting my moneys worth out of this. 

I found a few recipes that look promising but I've been so hooked on this olive oil pasta that I haven't wanted to make anything else.  Tomorrow is cooking day: it's on!  The race before everything starts going bad...

Alright, well, enough is enough.  Honestly this post was just so that I could get one of 5 out of the way.  I promise tomorrow will be better!

A Whole New Level

Guess what's new to Netflix watch instantly? 

Jersey Shore, Season 2

I can't believe I am watching this garbage.  I feel dirty watching it.  I don't even mean because they go to gross clubs and bring home trashy girls every night... no I mean I feel like their house is gross and they never take showers.  I'm sure this isn't true but I feel like I need to take a shower after watching it.  You're probably wondering why I'm even watching it if I feel this way.  Like I said, I've reached a whole new level or maybe I should say a whole new low.

Yesterday I skipped my long run and went back to sleep and slept in til 2:30.  This is insane.  I NEVER sleep past 9.  Usually waking up at 7 is late for me.  I was in a funk all day, I didn't want to do anything.  Rachel finally made me run stadiums around 6.  I'm finally out of the funk I've been in the past couple days but when I went to go running this morning it was raining.  Foiled again =/.

The good news is that next week I have tons of time to get caught up on running.  I will make this happen!

I really want to get on a normal posting schedule too - goal for next week: at least 5 posts.  I can do it!  Quick recap of the week:

Today is A's dedication at church.  I love this little girl, I can't wait :)

Monday with my girls - check out those chubby cheeks.  She has the best kissing cheeks in the world!

I had a great start to the week - 7 miles on Tuesday night after dance, 10 miles on Wednesday in my new SkinnyRunner shirt "It's not about vanity, it's about sanity"

Does this mean that I worked hard or that my shoes don't fit?

I'm using the same exact shoe I've been using for months, just a new shoe

Does that even make sense?  I bought several pairs and just switched pairs.

I think this just means they need to be broken in.  I sure hope so...

Three days of early stadiums this week.  You can tell I'm tired.  Mornings are obviously not a good look for me ;)

I've bought a lot of hummus this week.  Can you tell I like hummus?

Mmm, these are all so gooooood.

I played with L twice this week.  He is hilarious.  He just turned two and he talks up a storm!  If he doesn't want to do something he says "No way" - I realize this shouldn't be funny but I think it's so funny!  I tell him "yes way" and then make him do it.  Whenever his parents come home he clings to me and then cries when I have to leave.  I won't lie, this makes me feel really good.  His parents are probably not too happy though.

This little guy was fun...

And by fun I mean he cried a lot and spit up so many times I had to use several burp cloths and changed his outfit twice.  He's usually super laid back so this was a little out of the ordinary.  His mom thought he might be teething but after I told her he seemed to be throwing up more than normal she thought he might have something like reflux :(.  I hope not but whatever it is I hope they figure it out soon.  It's no fun to have a crying baby that won't calm down no matter what you do.

I love cuddling with this sweetie!  When I first started watching him he was only a few weeks old and slept constantly.  He still sleeps a lot but I've had about an hour of him being really alert which was fun.

Baby A has the sweetest little kissing cheeks but Will for sure has the best little kissy lips.

I had a great week last week.  Super busy but fun.  I love kids and I had a lot of fun with all of them last week but I'm excited that I'm not babysitting everyday this up coming week. 

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?

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!

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! ;)

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!