What a weekend

We packed a lot in this weekend, or else we are extremely lazy other weekends.
Friday night - Phoenix! All I can say is if you get the chance to go, GO. It was one of the best concerts I have seen. Definitely made up for not seeing Cake. It didnt make up for not being in Hawaii, but you cant win em all.
Saturday night we met some friends out for some mezcal tasting. And some grasshopper tasting. I thought they were roaches at first, but was quickly corrected. Here he is all innocently fried before I go in for the chomp.

My friend and I (me)? I forgot my English grammar.

These are much better. Alfajores! Our friends found a new store that opened with these Argentine sweets. YUM.

After a night like that, Sunday's run was rough. It started out bad, and continued along much the same, but it was full of entertainment. I forgot my water, so I had to stop and get some at 7/11. After I had paid and walked out, I opened the bottle to realize that it was mineral water. Gross! I dont drink it normally, but especially on a run it wasnt going to help. Every time I tried to open it I got spewed on by the unsavory crap. After a few miles I realized that I couldnt go faster than a walk and looked up to realize that I was behind a huge group of people in a protest walking through downtown. If I had been all there mentally, I would have figured out a way around them, but I wasnt, so I got in line behind them. I found out we were protesting bull fighting after hearing the chants over and over. Finally we got to my turn so I left my protesting friends and headed back home. When I got about 2 miles from home I saw another group of people stopped and realized that there was some sort of motorcycle convention. I am not lying when I say there was 2 miles (from this point home) of streets (and sidewalks) flooded with riders. I had to dodge the crazies on the sidewalk all the way home. I have never seen anything like it and wish I had my camera with me so I could show some evidence of the parade.
Once I was totally over the run I realized I was almost home. We finished the day with some home made sliders, onion rings, queso, guac and salsa. And a saints win! It ended much better than it started.

Sad

So I just saw that Cake is playing on Oahu. This is yet another of the many times that I am sad I am no longer there. Maybe the Phoenix concert tonight will make up for it. A little.

WTF?

That is all I have to say about the Lost 2 hour premier. I got to work this AM and had an IM from my boss saying to call him to discuss Lost. We talked for a good 15 minutes about our theories that are probably both wrong. There is tons of stuff on the internet about other peoples' predictions who are smarter than I am, so I may jump on one of their bandwagons. here is one of the longer ones I read. i also hear that the writers do not plan to wrap it all up and will leave us hanging on to our own ideas of what happened, sort of like they did in the Sopranos. That. is. just. great. I have been waiting 2 years to find out what is going on here and I may never know for sure.
Day 2 on the treadmill was no better than day 1. I know I have a tendency to not run in a straight line, which is why I try and run on the street lines. It is also one of the reasons I have to run alone. This happens when I walk too. I remember one time I was walking with my mom around the park and I kept getting mad at her for bumping into me when I realized I was the uncoordinated one not going straight. I work hard to go straight, but apparently 2 weeks off made me forget everything. I couldnt go on a straight line today. ON THE TREADMILL. You know what this means? Every 12th or so step was half metal/half moving part causing me to lose my rhythm. I am hoping one day very soon I remember how to run.

Week one - check

It was my first week back last week, although I still didnt run. I started p90x and biking and oh holy hell my body hurts. I am one weak woman. I like feeling like this though, because I know my body is working. Hopefully this gets easier soon and I get a little stronger. Yesterday was a holiday, so I had three days to do nothing but trainer ride, p90x, watch tv, and cook. Chris and I made a much needed trip to costco where we proceeded to buy out the entire store. I then spent the next two days cooking good meals and baking some very bad for us peanut butter and chocolate cookies and banana cake. Thankfully Chris is at home during the day and will hopefully finish the cake and cookies before I get home. Sunday night was a relaxing night with a good meal and the grammys - by far my favorite awards show. All the others I watch the red carpet and nothing else.
Today marks the end of my no running term, and I plan on easing back into it with a 45 minute easy run*. Although I am not sure I could do much more than that since my legs are so sore. A busy next few weeks are on tap - three sets of visitors, the premier of Lost (finally I can end my obsession after this season), and lots of running. I cant wait!
*Update - I went on the treadmill at lunch today and I think I forgot how to run. I hope I remember soon. Glad I was the only one in the gym, and VERY glad noone had a video recorder.

Starting back up. Sort of

I took an entire 8 days off and it was great. But coming back, even from just a week off, has been really hard. I tried every day this week to get up early, but when I have been used to going to bed at 11 and sleeping until 7, 5:30 comes really early. So the workouts are happening after work, and the first one was yesterday. I am doing the p90x program with daily cardio, but I am not doing any running until either next week or the following week (depending on how my ankle feels), so the trainer is going to get a lot of my time. I did abs and shoulders and back yesterday and an hour and a half on the trainer. I could barely get dressed this morning. Surprisingly my legs are hurting more than my arms are. I trust that I will get back somewhat quickly since I didnt take off too much time, but my body is not happy with me today.
I will be posting before and after pics from the training program, but not until the "after" happens. Happy training!

RR and Finally off season

Finally I have had time to get to the race report. I was hoping to run between 7:55 and 8:10 pace for the race and was doing well until about mile 6. I had skipped almost all of my long runs because of work and other conflicts, and really hadnt run any hills or off the treadmill except for once a week, so I wasnt sure what to expect. And good thing I didnt expect too much. I have never hit a wall so early in a race. Literally I passed the 10K mark and immediately started to see my turnover slow down, and I couldnt do anything about it. It was like they were full of lead. My pace slowed down almost a minute and a half per mile for the last 5 miles and all I could do was laugh at the end. I think my face says it all here.


I now know what I need to work on - strength training here I come! Lungs wise I could have gone all day, but my legs werent having it. The race was fun as always. I saw lots of friends on the way thanks to the pink arm warmers, and had zero stomach issues. Thanks for the suggestion on Hammer Perpetuem Beth and Maggs- it worked wonders! I have now ordered a huge bin that I hope my mom remembers to smuggle over to me next time she visits. I wanted a much faster time, but squeaked in under 2 hours (nothing to brag about I know). At least now I know what I need to work on for next year, and where I will be starting from. Chris, who ran a total of 5 times this year (3 in races), came in at 1:37 in his first ever half. Maybe I'll try his training regimine.
Now it is 2 weeks off of running which I havent had in over two years, and I must say I quite enjoy it. Im sure next week I will be itching to get back, but for now it is nice. It also couldnt have come at a better time because we are all in Cancun for our 2010 kickoff meetings, and running is the last thing on my mind. Here is a little taste of what we are doing :). Life is rough!

I am still trying to finalize 2010. I was going to run Miami, but a little thing called work got in the way and I “have” to be in Cancun for the week prior, and Cabo after that. I tried to make it work, but it was too hard and expensive to swing a trip to Miami. Next year maybe. That means Houston is the last race until things start up again here. I tried to find some races in January and February, but they still have 2009 races up. I have to remember we are on Mexican time here which is even slower than Hawaiian time. After Houston I am taking 2 weeks off of running. I am starting to dread it again and want to be fresh for a new season. I am going to try and do some strengh work with P90x (anyone tried it?) and some more yoga and pilates. More means at least 1 class since I havent done anything in that area for over a year. Then it is back to running.
Some of the races I hope to do are the san diego marathon, Mexico city half marathon and either the NYC or Chicago marathon with some other races scattered here and thre. I hope I finally get to meet my superstud blogger friend Beth while I am in SoCal.
I am only signed up for one tri - the timberman half ironman. And it will be really interesting if I cant find a pool. I would normally do others to train and because I love them, but there arent any here and I dont have enough money or vacation days to travel around the world doing other races. We are renting a house with a big group, so it should be fun after we finish the race.

Hopefully things come together this weekend. I have my last run in mexico city tonight and I am hoping after 2 days of rest I feel better. I have packed already – yes I pack a week early – and it all fit in my smallest suitcase. One New Years reso down! I have about three different potential outfits to wear depending on the weather and all of them include dorky hot pink arm warmers. The race supposedly starts at 40deg. and ends at 60 and I hate wearing anything on my shoulders. So arm warmers it is. I wont be hard to spot - I will be the one who looks like a brown haired rainbow bright.