Christmas Highlights

We are finally back from a whirlwind week in houston that consisted of a lot of eating, drinking and the occasional run. Lots of fun with family and friends was had. Some of the highlights are below.
Before we came in town my mom promised to stock the house with plenty of food. My favorites were the clemintines since we dont get those in Mexico. By myself I ate almost four of these boxes. At first my mom got mad since I wouldnt leave any for the rest of the family, but then she started to worry that there was something wrong with me since I couldnt stop eating them.

One of our favorite parties was the white elephant party that our friends have. Here is the winner of the dirty elf outfit. The requirements of this gift is that you have to wear it the rest of the night and then come the following year dressed in it again in order to give it to the lucky guy (or girl) who will win it.

And the winners of the couples Christmas sweaters. So cute.

Christmas eve dinner is always with the same family. These are just the appetizers.

I hope everyone's holidays were full of lots of fun with family and friends!

Training was just extended two weeks

So apparently it only takes one glass of wine to twist my arm into an unplanned activity. Actually I hadnt even finished the glass when I agreed to run the Miami marathon. It is two weeks after Houston, so I am pretty much just going to suffer through January. I can take time off in February. Maybe I will be able to skip a hard training on Valentines day and actually hang out with Chris for once. I have no clue what I just agreed to do, but I am in Miami now and it is close to 90 degrees and 90% humidity, so I am in for a world of hurt. At least it will be another state for Chris to check off his list. I think I would have much more fun just doing a repeat trip at the W and watching the race from the bar. I was at dinner tonight with our agency when the talk turned from marathon to reality TV and I found another girl who knows as much as I do about the trash. She did give me some info that I am sure I would have learned from Perez if I werent on a plane last night. Kourtney with a K had her baby last night. I have no idea why I care. I also care that I missed the premier of Keeping up with the Kardashians. I am hoping that the BF didnt stop DVRing it to opt for the football games, but I can imagine he did. Especially since Bridezillas was recording at the same time.
On a better note, I was downloading the photos from NYC and realized I apparently didnt take nearly as many as I thought I did. I think it was because I was in charge of the camera this time and Chris wasnt. I actually only have three.
Fighting with my mom about taking off my sunny gs while trying to take a nice scenic shot in front of the park and holding my gap bag filled with our race tshirts.

Here is the only shot of the race. Apparently Chris and my mom thought I was running much slower than I was, so they missed me. They did catch my bro. Although he is mighty hard to miss standing in at a whopping 6'4" and wearing a Vandy hat that looks like a 1940s football helmet. I actually have the same one, but it is reserved for the house and races where I really want to get noticed.

And finally here is the tree shot. Chris's first time to see it. Probably because I was still trying to finish the race.

Im off to bed now so I can get up early and run along the beach. I miss the days when that was actually a normal occurance. Now I have to get up early so I can beat the traffic to get to the gym on time to run on the treadmill.

Cat's out of the bag

Earlier this year I was planning on running the vegas marathon. Chris signed up for the half and I signed up for the full. Work got in the way and I decided to push it back to the half marathon as well. Then around october when I sprained my ankle, my brother invited our family and his wife's family up to NYC to celebrate her 30th birthday. I hesitated for about 5 seconds while I contemplated the following: Half marathon in Vegas that I couldnt really train for properly because of my ankle, or great time in NYC with our families. It was a surprise that we were coming, so I couldnt post anything and sort of just stopped talking about vegas all together. I didnt get to run Vegas (I hope to run it next year) but we did run a 10K in Central Park. The race was rough for me (hilly and frrrreezing) and I was a little hungover from the birthday festivities the night before. But I managed to put on mulitple colored layers (picture running jacket over hot pink arm warmers) and get my butt out of bed to run. I ended up running a 51 something. Not great, but the hills were killing my legs at the end. After the race I finished up with another 8 miles to complete my long run for the week. The rest of the time was spent eating and shopping and I promise to post pictures later.

Turkey Week

I was without internet all week and therefore unable to post anything. We bought a router while we were in town so my mom could finally move out of the 90s and into the 2000s with some wireless. Well after 30 minutes of heaven the whole thing shut down. Apparently comcast does suck as much as people say. I have thankfully been spared until now.
Anyway, since I still havent uploaded any photos, I decided to steal some from facebook to post until i can do more later. So here was our week in photos.
Chris and I celebrating the week of vacation we are about to start with a cuban cigar and some tequila. We are still in Mexico City so those cigars were purchased legally.

On Friday we headed to my favorite city in Texas - Austin. I would love to move there one day as it has (in my opinion) the best lifestyle of any city in Texas. Maybe Chris will pull off a job at Dell one day please please. Since Chris had never visited Austin before I had to show him some of the sites.



Then we headed to the tailgates. Chris is prepared, stache and all.

At the game - everyone with their horns up

And post game - after UT kicked some Kansas ass.

I woke up early sunday to get in a long run on town lake and reminded myself why races in Austin (triathlons and otherwise) are some of the best I have ever done. I will be back in 2010 for some more of them. After the run it was a quick stop at Magnolia Cafe for some amazing blackberry pancakes.

The rest of the week was spent in Houston where Chris earned the nickname porn star. Thankfully this upper lip leech is gone.


We all managed to get up in time to run in and complete the turkey trot. Boys did the 10k and girls did the 5k. I was going to run the 10K, but I was worried about the ankle giving out three miles in, so I did the 5K and got 5th with 21:22. Not too bad considering the night before was a beer filled mess. And here we are at Thanksgiving dinner where, among other things, I am thankful that I didnt need depends in the turkey trot and that we had three turkeys at dinner - 1 fried, 1 smoked and 1 baked. Yes we can put down some food.

Where did you go?

My legs have officially left me today. I have a high mileage week and had a hard 14 miles to do yesterday right after a 12 miler on sunday. I normally dont do two longer runs in a row like that, but Sunday's was really easy and I had to adjust my schedule for Monday's holiday. My legs were feeling it. Today was an easy 4 miler on the treadmill and after 2.5 miles I couldnt go anymore. My legs were killing me. So I switched to some core and arm workouts and will try again tomorrow. I am hoping tonight to get in a 45 minute easy spin to see if that helps and I will be sleeping in the oh so sexy compression tights. I hope they show up tomorrow.

Look alike

We found Chris's celeb look alike, and coincidentally his name is Chris too. Although the famous Chris is way richer, can sing, and his wife looks nothing like me. My mom doesnt think the two look anything alike, but I think they are pretty close.


Today was a 14 mile run, but the store had no grapes, so I had to go back to water and M&Ms. It didnt work. My stomach started acting up at mile 10 and I had to walk the 11th mile home. I am about to head out for round 2 to finish it up. I dont like to divide my long runs up, but I couldnt do the last 3 miles feeling like I was going to throw up.

Another long weekend

This is a photo my friend took of doggie school in our neighborhood. I love the great dane that is posing in the background. Señor (our driver/dog walker/mr fix it) said he is scared of Liko who is about 1/10 of his size. Come to think of it, he was probably looking our way to make sure that Liko was safely on a leash.

Our little terrors are not this advanced yet. I would try and put them in, but last time we were in an obedience class Liko fell in love with one of the other little dogs and barked his way through every class. I think he only graduated because the teacher didnt want to have to deal with him for another 8 weeks.
Every run this week has been on the dreadmill with the trusty brace, but things are starting to feel better. I am going to try my long run outside this weekend and hope to avoid all potholes for the entire 14 miles. The pace is still on the slow side but each day I am able to get closer to where I want to be. I am still debating on the turkey trot distance too. Chris is doing a trial run this weekend to see how far he can go before he decides. He has given more effort to his tequila tasting than his running, but who can blame him. My little brother has committed to the 10K. I am going to wait a few more days and see if the ankle heals. I can do a 5K fast with the ankle now but I dont know if I want to suffer through a 10K. Especially on my favorite holiday of the year.
Since it is our 2nd of 3 long weekends in November, Monday will be filled with a whole lot of nothing. I am starting to feel like a slacker.

Trying to get back

After my failed attempt at a treadmill run, I biked for two days and tried an easy run again on sunday. Since I was going at snail's pace, I had plenty of time to take photos and take in some of the randomness that occurs in Mexico City.

Instead of NYC, it's Mexico City, instead of Macy's it's Palacio de Hierro, and instead of traditional Christmas decorations we have a manger scene made out of Legos. At first glance I thought it was Han Solo and Leia, but I dont remember cows in Star Wars.

Here is one of the better known "buildings" in mexico city- it is shaped to look like a horse, hence the name.


And as I was running the last few miles, I saw this street festival. Random street festivals are not uncommon here, but I have no idea what this man was doing. Sort of like the poor man's Cirque.




I am proud to say I made it 12 miles, albeit very very slow and was able to do a fatigue fighter run on the treadmill today without very much pain. So I am still planning on repeating the turkey trot but I cant promise I will do well. I may hang back and gossip with Polly.
And totally unrelated to running (like about 90% of the blog), a friend posted this website on facebook today. It is now my new favorite.

I have cankles

It actually isnt as bad as I thought. However something is wrong because everytime I take a step I twist it again and wince in pain. Although that could be due to lack of strength since I haven't lifted weights in oh I dont know, 13 years. I will be sure to get on that right away. I do think something is a little off, but I can walk at a normal speed with a brace. My mom always gets on me for not throwing things away, and I am sure she would have recommended me throwing away my ankle brace from highschool, but then what would I do now? It probably needs a run through the wash since I played many a soccer game in this. I just havent had time to do that in the last day, and I think it gives it some character. I hope I am not smelling up my office. Looks professional doesnt it?

Since I am feeling invincible with my newest accessory, I decided to test out the leg on the dreadmill today. Dont worry I did an easy walk at a high incline. I tried to crank it up to a whopping 5.5, but it hurt too much so I backed it down to 4.5. Luckily the workout today was an easy 60 minutes. I am going to try a trainer ride tonight. And hopefully by next week I will be at least able to hold a slow jog. The only bad thing is that I am going to have to stick to running on the treadmill for the time being since apparently I have trouble avoiding large holes in the street.

Dangers of Running

I am the world's biggest clutz. Back in highschool I hurt my ankle pretty badly (doing something really stupid) and was on crutches or in a cast for 9 months. I had a surgery where the doctor, post surgery, told me you better not mess this up - it is the best work I have done. I have been living with rubber and screws in my ankle since then and it has been good as new through years of soccer, track, triathlon, etc. A few years ago I broke my heel bone doing another stupid act (this time alcohol was involved) and went right in to see the same surgeon. He checked the ankle to be sure I didnt mess anything up before he checked my heel. Then he told me I was lucky I didnt break my neck. I was again in a boot for a good three months and out of running for 6. This morning I actually might have messed up the surgery. I was running along and took one step into a hole and heard my ankle pop. I limped across the street and sat down. I was trying to figure out how to get home and 5 men in business suits walked right by me without so much as a peep. Assholes. I realized I couldnt walk so I crawled the three blocks home. I think it hurt more that I only got in two miles before this happened. I am not sure what I did, but I am going to give the same surgeon a call and let him know the ankle might not be perfect anymore. My mom told me not to go to the hospital here since it is full of swine flu. She is right. Swine flu trumps sprained ankle.

Our first Mexican Halloween

I am finally finished with our meetings from hell. My week last week consisted of 3 4:30 AM days that ended at 11PM and by friday I was a walking zombie. I did hit all my runs, although I felt like crap doing them, and the only way I remember running is going back to review my training schedule. This weekend we celebrated dia de los muertos. I think the people celebrate by offering flowers and allow the dead spirits to visit. Or something like that. Our driver said he had to spend the night in the cemetary next to his family, something I try not to do on a regular basis. I prefer our way of celebrating - drinking tequila, eating good food and sighseeing.
We walked through the neighborhood park and it is full of colors. I dont think it will last long. I have seen people use these same flowers in the offerings.

Here is one of the offerings to the people who were assassinated in politically motivated manners. Notice the flowers that were probably at one point in our park.

And here are some dead lady spirits coming to visit their families.

Since it was a work free holiday, I did eat some sugar. In my mind no work = free eat day. Here I am post ice cream and all smiles.

There was an exibit of Alebrijes along Reforma. They were made of paper mache and since it rained this was one of the only ones still together. One of the other survivors was a two headed dog that was eating a skull and the heads were exact replicas of our monsters. Hopefully they dont take a cue from the statue and eat us in our sleep. No comments about my shaggy dog look. I have had three haircuts here in Mexico (one of them may have been self inflicted) and all were disaters, so my bangs arent getting cut until I am back in the US over Thanksgiving.

We have some Honolulu friends in town. They dont normally look this scary.

Here they are not as scary at The St Regis for a drink.

On our way to the hotel, we saw this. Didnt everyone have a parade in their honor for their 15th birthday?

Sunday morning was spent watching the NYC marathon and watching an American win finally! It was great. Although Chris continues to tell me that the US has to recruit all of our athletes from other countries in order to win. Whatever, a win's a win.

If it's good enough for Michael Phelps..

I finally uploaded some songs to my new blue ipod and in addition to my go to 80s hair bands, I added some Lil Wayne. I read that the fish listens to him before his gold medal races, so I figured he might get me through some harder workouts. It worked for my long run today and hopefully the fact that he is going to jail wont bring me bad mojo. I also tried out a new fuel. I went with something that Bree used to use - fresh squeezed grape juice and some sea salt. It. Was. Awesome. I have still been having some major issues with the nutrition during runs where I have to have something other than water, and have been trying anything and everything (sometimes more than once), and this really worked. I am going to keep using it and hope that it stays good to my tummy. Thanks Miss Wee! Today's run was a 2 hour run and as I got in the elevator my garmin decided to die on me, and I was too lazy to go back. Even though I knew it was dead, I kept looking at it to see how much time had passed or how far I had gone. Seriously, even after 10 times I kept forgetting. During the run I saw a new all time low. There was some guy running the 1k loop smoking a cigarette. Not smoking post run or pre run (which would have been gross too), but he was running WHILE smoking. I couldnt stop staring at him as he was running around the loop. I was dying to take a picture, but once again I left the house sin camera. Hopefully I will see this guy again before he has a heart attack.
Chris and I decided that our younger dog is getting too fat, so I made him take the dogs running. They made it two miles before they had to stop and when they got home they were in this position during my entire 3 hour trainer ride. Either they were really tired or the site of me riding for hours put them to sleep. Probably the latter as it almost put me to sleep. I would have passed out had my ass not hurt so bad. It is still not ready to sit in the saddle for that long.

In over my head

I have been severely ignoring the blog. I am only slightly less ignoring my training. Today I still feel a hint of calf ache so I can tell I have worked out in the last few days. That or they ache because I am totally out of shape. I will not be gone forever, but I am smack in the middle of budget season (like many of the rest of you out there) and work is killing me. Next week the division comes to town and after 4 days of straight meetings that most likely wont go that well, I will be free for another few months until our next meeting. It just so happens that this hell ends right before Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. And we have friends coming in town to visit so it will be a good celebration of budget season being over. Last week I started doing my trainer rides in the morning (usually 2 hours) while I watched whatever I DVRd from the night before. Side note- life has dramatically changed in our household with the arrival of cable and DVR. Can we say worthless saturdays and sundays watching football? I love it. Then at lunch I have been trying to get in my runs. Thankfully lunches here are long so I can actually run longer than I could in the US. By the time I am done with work at 8 or 9 I dont have the energy to do anything but eat, so the evening workouts were frequently skipped. The lunch and AM workouts have been going well and the long runs are left for the weekend. Although we had a tequila fest on saturday for the UT/OU game so sunday's long run was really a long walk to the zocalo to go shopping. This weekend will be better I promise. There have been some minor changes to the schedule for races, but other than that life is plugging along.
Hopefully I will have more interesting things to show next time. Like our friends in their first trip to Mexico City.

These just landed on my desk from my sweet boyfriend. He is in Canada freezing his ass off right now, and since he cant be with my on my birthday this is the consolation prize. I am not going to complain though. Hopefully they will still be this pretty on Sunday when I get back. My mom joined in on the birthday fun too by posting pictures of every one of my birthdays until I turned 8 or so when I seem to remember birthday parties stopped. I guess she got tired of making home made cakes for my brother and me (his birthday is 4 days after mine). I am secretly hoping that this cake is sitting on the counter at her house tonight though.

I woke up early this AM and got in an hour training ride. It wasnt long, but it was hard. This afternoon is an easy 4 mile run. This is my recovery week and I am back at it hard starting tomorrow. I have a 14 mile run through the city of Houston in the morning and a date with some queso for lunch. After that I will sit my butt on the couch watching football and Kona and looking something like this. I may even put on that snazzy outfit again.

And so I can be the first one, happy birthday little bro!

Houston round 2

I must have jinxed myself in my last post when I said I love food more than family because wouldn't you know it, I got food poisoning friday night and spent the entire weekend in bed. Eating nothing. Before the puking started I did manage to make in one trip to eat some mexican food and my love of queso is shown in the photos below.
Arriving at the table...

I am definitely the first to dig in. A friend once said that if queso and the Ryerson kids are at a party noone else stands a chance of getting any, and by the look on my face her, I dont doubt it.

Less talking, more eating

I can almost taste it!


Here are some friends who may or may not have been at dinner with me. I didnt really pay attention to anyone who was there or what was being said since I was eating my first batch of queso. This is huge for me since I usually have verbal diarreah.

And here are some other potential diners with my mom and me.

And that's it, that was the only meal I got. But I am going back for more this weekend. We did manage to get in a quick trip to a bar where we proceeded to run into one of our teachers from middle school (who was the meanest, yet by far the best teacher I ever had) and traded off being the poor sucker that had to listen to him. My dad and Chris were both sports and spent the majority of the time with him. He also proceeded to tell Chris how he is a nudist (this rumor ran rampant in my little private school, yet was never confirmed) and about all his nudist adventures. Not long after we got home the trouble started and I was puking until 9 and not eating really until last night. The rest of the weekend was spent on the couch watching reruns of project runway. No running, no swimming, no nothing. Saturday is my birthday and Chris is going to be in Canada for a wedding that I couldnt make it to, so I am making the little jump home instead. I wasnt planning on doing anything for the birthday (I am saving that up for the big 35 next year on 10/10/10), but it will be nice to hopefully see some friends and relax. And the free meal from mom is always appreciated. BONUS! since my birthday is one of the days I can have sugar, I will be overloading. I. CANT. WAIT. And since this is actually supposed to be a training blog, I hope to get in a long run and a little trot and maybe even a gasp swim. The weather there yesterday apparently felt like 109 but is supposed to cool off by the weekend. If it is still 109, the 14 miler is going to be on the dreadmill. In the few minutes that I am not running or eating saturday I will be sitting by the computer watching and cheering on everyone at Kona wishing I were back on the islands. Good luck to everyone racing this weekend, Kona or otherwise!

2010 Race on the calendar

Today my brother sent out an email to a few of his friends and me telling us to sign up for Timberman next August. The race starts in Gilford NH. I had to look that up on a map to really know where I would be racing, but I went ahead and signed up for serveral reasons. 1) I havent raced a triathlon all year and I am excited to start training for one again, 2) I have never raced with my brother since we have lived in separate cities for so long and that has made it logistically very difficult, 3) from the email strings of the jokers invited to join, it looks like the shit talking is soon to begin, and 4) I really want to beat my brother! I am looking forward to racing and traveling (especially post race) with this group of potential hooligans. Before then I have to find a pool to train in and a weekend bike ride route that is safe from narcos and crazy Mexican drivers, but those are just details.
I am still in Cabo headed to Houston tomorrow to eat some queso! I cant wait. I am excited to see my friends and family, but really I have been dreaming all week about Friday's dinner. And yes, my friends and family know where they stand in importance in my life - just one little step after queso. My body may revolt since I havent eaten cheese in forever, but I dont care. We land at 6 and will be sitting at a table with a margarita and a bowl of deliciousness by 7:30. I had a little bit of free time today to enjoy the scenery and dream about tomorrow's dinner. This is my view from just outside of my hotel room.


And here I am happy to be at the beach again.

Training has been going well this week and I have hit all my workouts, and my legs are screaming. Today was 6 mile repeats at 7:00 pace, tomorrow is an easy run, and saturday I have a 14 mile run. After that starts the recovery week, and I will be enjoying it stuffing my face in one of the country's fattest cities.