Friday, April 24, 2009

Tinseltown, here I come!

Off to Los Angeles this weekend for the Los Angeles Literary Festival where I will meet authors and turn pages and pages of beautiful books full of inspiration. I've been writing my book and no doubt this weekend will liven my spirit with people who have achieved success and possess infinite literary skills. I absolutely adore bookstores. They are one of my favorite places to spend time.

Looking forward to seeing my great uncle, family friends and eating delicious birthday cake. My birthday will be spent in the glorious city by the water: Newport Beach. Shopping, brunch with pancakes that taste like cake, and good friends. What more could a girl need?

On my birthday, a long run is in store for me. So I'll be up early, but I'll work off the cake before I eat it.

So this weekend, I'll have my cake and eat it, too.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Earth Day Recap

I ran the Earth Day 5K last evening and it was...hell. How ironic is that? First of all, it was 99 degrees during the race and actually seemed to get hotter. I'm sure it was just my temperature going up from running. Second, it took me a long time. I spoke with some people after the race who said that it was measured incorrectly and was actually longer than 3.1 miles. I need a GPS system. I think I may go buy one soon, especially for upcoming marathon workouts.

So then I went to the grocery after the race and the conversation with the bagger at the checkout went like this:

"How are you doing today miss?"
"I am doing great. It's Earth Day."
"Is plastic okay?"
"Yes."

Shoot! Of all the days not to use plastic bags. I even received one of those organic shopping totes at the race expo and thought "I will always use this shopping now. Now I can be hip and trendy and environmentally correct and save myself $.10." But alas, my attempts to be loving to this earth were for nothing.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Happy Earth Day!



Today in celebration of Earth Day, I will be running in the 2nd annual Earth Day race. It is 99 degrees and probably will be about that temperature during the race. Lucky me! Global warming is upon us and all of us out there today will definitely feel it.

Yesterday I ran just under 9 miles in hot temperatures. It wasn't so pretty. I had to walk more than ever. I am a bit worried at this point in my training. I signed up for a marathon for Memorial Day weekend with only 1 1/2 months to train: 45 days total for training. I figured I would just do it slow and stop and take pictures along the way. It would be more of an experience than a race. Although I think I will end up caring about my time, which is too bad because I don't think it will be a good. But now training is harder than ever with this blistering heat. I have to make sure I'm hydrating properly and not hitting snooze when my alarm goes off. It is better to get out running early. Although I am quite tan now. It's a joy to look at this stranger in the mirror. I also discovered spray on sunscreen. It's the best thing for a desert lover since sliced bread.

Happy Earth Day! Happy Administrative Professionals Day! and Happy 5 days till my birthday!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

It's like a heat wave




It's not even the end of April and temperatures are soaring to 102. I ran 9 miles in the morning at 96 degrees. I long for Seattle right about now. Ended up walking quite a bit.

Tonight is The Real Housewives of New York City. I swear it is reality show soap opera and I eat it up, which is so totally terrible. Ramona is an idiot. Simon is just plain weird. The countess thinks she is better than everyone else. Who is she to give class advice? She has none, so really? What makes her an expert?

On a sad note, I was not selected for team Bear Naked today. I had really hoped I would be a chosen athlete for them, but it wasn't meant to be...but I was selected as the running columnist for an online publication. So I will be writing lots of articles coming up and I am most excited for this side gig. I could have given Bear Naked press with these articles, but I'm sure they don't need it, as they are a really great company. Unfortunately, I won't be a part of it.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Swag



I am beginning to get emails with free stuff for my birthday in one week. Free burger at Red Robin, free entree at Gordon Biersch, free sample at Sephora, free scoop of ice cream at Baskin Robbins. I am going to go to LA for my birthday and eat brunch in Newport Beach.
The weekend



This weekend was packed full of activity. Saturday I arose early to participate in Pat's Run. It is a short 4.2 mile run honoring Pat Tillman and raising funds for his foundation. I averaged just 8 minute miles, but there were so many people it was hard to run. Over 20,000 runners on the course and so many were getting trampled on. I saw children go down, adults fall over. Pretty crazy and hectic. But it was a nice day and I had a good run. I finished in the top 5% of female finishers.

I then took 4 beautiful young girls to go see the new Hannah Montana movie. Surprisingly, it wasn't as cheesy or as lame as I had expected.

Sunday I arose at 4:45am for a triathlon to raise money for breast cancer: Tri for the Cure. When I got to the parking lot and was putting my bike together in the dark, I had difficulties. The screw holding the brake pads together had come loose and now my tire was sitting on my brake pad. I was worried I wouldn't be able to do the race. I had three people try to fix it and luckily it got fixed in time. Unfortunately, it was a pool swim, which meant one swimmer after another after another. We all had to be out of transition by 6am, preferably by 5:30am, yet my number wasn't coming up till 9am. This meant a lot of sitting around and waiting and waiting and the temperatures just kept getting hotter and hotter. They started with number 1 and I was number 463. I finally got to start the swim at 8:59:30. So I had already been there since 5:15 and was just starting the race, which ended up only taking me 58 minutes to finish. I placed 18th out of 89 in my age group. I think I finished 91 overall. There were a few DNFs. I finished around the 20% mark for both my age group and overall. Not exactly where I'd like to be...I need to swim faster. I placed okay in the bike and run, but my swim was really slow. I see I have a lot of work to do. The unfortunate part of the race was all the waiting around. I think I would have done a better race had I not had to wait for hours and hours, which screwed up the nutrition and temperatures were racing past 90 degrees by the time I got to the run. I did manage to run just over a 7 minute/mile pace for my quick 2.25 mile run, despite the heat.

I don't think I'll be doing any more races by this company. Many competitors told me that this is what happens with most of their races, just wait and wait and wait. I did do a triathlon by this company back in 2005, but it was an open water swim, so different story.

Well, it's getting hot here. Temperatures are hovering near triple digits, which means no more afternoon runs...getting up very early to beat the heat.