As of late

You know it's been a while when both of your parents email/call you needing to know I'm still alive. Granted we live half a globe apart, but I took that as a sign that it's time for an update!

Well... an "update" would be an overstatement. I haven't been up to much lately, to be honest. I'm still not "training" yet, although I have been diligently working out; putting time on the bike, on the run, and working on those 'muscles.' We just began new classes at school, and also began a new internship which is getting interesting.

A couple of weekends ago, we celebrated a very special occasion.
James' sister got married in Newport, OR!
It was such a fun, romantic, sweet wedding, and I very much enjoyed getting time to spend with James ;)
Since photos are more fun than my rambling on and on anyway, here goes in no particular order:

Instead of a wedding cake, they had wedding cupcakes. How cute is that? They had Red Velvet Cupcakes, and the groom's sepecial recipe "Ghost Pepper Chocolate Cupcakes." They were both yum!
I can't remember the last time I got all dressed up?
The happy married couple!
James found his heaven at the Rogue Brewery. Have you ever heard of it? They seriously have like, a bajillion beer flavors. I don't even like beer, but even I have to admit their beer was pretty tasty. We ended up going to three different Rogue Brewery locations in three days. Obsessed much? haha
And I found my heaven at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

They have Squeaky Cheese Curds.

Need I say more? :)

I was serioulsy like a little kid in a candy shop. Instead I was an awkward quarter life crisis girl in a cheese shop. hahaha. Oh well. One of these days I will be way more awesome I promise.

In terms of training, my ride this weekend looked like this:
Pretty much glorious.

As for now, I need to um.... sweat off my "holiday weight".... eeeek! My Half Ironman training will start very soon. This weekend I have a local 5K that I am running, along with the monthly Triathlon Club Mixer, and next week I am running a 5K and 10K. Lots of running in my future!

I guess that about sums it up... just more quater life crisis stuff and training stuff.

How is your week going? I hope every one is having a great week. Oh, three day weekend coming up! wooooo hoooo!

Lazy A$$

I did something bad yesterday.

I took a day off from training.

For no real good reason other than "I was tired." and "I was not inspired". I mean, I wasn't even THAT tired. I have no excuses.
I ditched a work out.
What did I do instead?
I went home and cooked and ate and cooked and ate and ate and ate until I couldn't breathe. haha.

Oh well. Today is a new day.

At least I busted out 7.25 miles on Tuesday, which I was able to do at my goal-ish pace. It was the longest run I had ever done alone without an iPod. And guess what? I didn't really miss it at all! I had so many thoughts and emotions to keep me company that I didn't feel lonely one bit.

I spent the run thinking about how many miles I had left to go. I also thought about how I would describe the run on the blog, and actually had a lot of good ideas that I no longer remember, now that I am actually writing. This happens to me all the time. I'll think of some clever thing to say on a run, but by the time I'm finished, I've forgotten all about it. Stupid brain!

I finished the run strong, in about the same time it's taking me to run 6 miles, so I was very pleased with my pace. I am really hoping to beat my PR for the 10K this Sunday. Not gonna lie, I'll be quite disappointed if I am slower. If I can beat it by even 10 seconds I will be a happy camper.

On Tuesday night, James and I got all ready for the Gregory Isaacs concert. I even put on make up, did my hair AND put on a dress! A real flippin dress! But alas, the concert was cancelled when we got there. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good outfit, we continued our date night at a nearby restaurant/bar. I got a coconut mojito and a futuristic dessert:

what Is that?

That, my friends is a flan on fire. The server lit a shot of brandy on fire and poured it over the flan. And yes. I got drunk off half a cocktail and a burning dessert. I'm telling you; SUCH A GRANNIE.

This dessert, the container of ice cream James and I polished after we got home, and the fact that my pants are even tighter still has got me thinking it's time for another nutrition reassessment. I think my problem is snacking too much. I've been making myself snack more, even when not hungry/full, because I am worried of not getting enough calories. But I think this can stop/be reduced, becasue obviously, if I'm still gaining, I'm in no worries of coming up short. I also need to cut back on the sweets yet again. I have been allowing myself A LOT more junky food this past two weeks cause I have been feeling kinda sad (like, about the interview and such) But gosh darn it, it's been two weeks already, so I have no more excuses to continue this behavior. With only 4.5 more weeks till I leave for Hawai'i, I really need to jump back onto the healthy bandwagon. Wish me luck, and please feel free to smack me across the face and tell me to stop eating that third waffle for dessert! Oh, and feel free to leave advice as well :)

I hope everyone is having a pleasant almost-Friday. I really hope to catch up with everyone's blogs in the next couple of days. I have not had time to read/leave comments, and I am having withdrawals! I need my bloggy-blog fix! :) haha.

Happy running!

First Training Run=Fail

T-68 Days till Maui Half Marathon, and I have a record to beat! My goal is to slash 6 minutes off my previous record. I think this is very do-able, as this will be a flat course. 

But that is besides the point. As you know, I started my marathon training yesterday, but didn't have anything to report as it was Rest Day. Well, I have been looking forward to my first training run today for two reasons. 

1) It marks the beginning of my training. (Obvi)

2) My Garmin Forerunner 305 arrived today! I FINALLY GOT ONE! :)

I was really stoked on the Garmin to help with the training. My plan for today was 8X400 meters at 8:09-8:11 pace. I completed the run. So how did I fail, you ask?

Truth be told, it was the long-awaited Garmin that messed me up.  I have no idea how to use it to my advantage. I uploaded all my personal info, and even figured out how to get it to beep every 400 meters (0.25 miles) I am pleasantly surprised at how accurate the Garmin spits out distance. OK, now the problem lies in Pacing. It kept jumping from 11:24 to 8:34 to 7:09 to 6:59. I was even running sub 6:00 at one point. WTF? I am usually a 9 minute pace person. I could not figure out how fast I was running for the life of me! The pace just kept changing on me all the time! I ended up running all my repeats WAAAAAAYYYYY too fast and hurting my knees. I am going to be sore tomorrow! And at the end of my workout, which was a total of 4.5 mile run and .5 mile walking cool down, I could not figure out how fast I ran each mile. 

PLEASE ADVISE: What am I doing wrong?

Am I supposed to press the "Lap" button every time I do a repeat? How am I supposed to know how fast I'm going? How do I make sure I stay within my pacing zone? Why does my pace keep jumping around all over the place?

...woahhhhhh so many questions! I know, I know. But I am not the most technologically savvy person, so I would love some help in that department from all the pro Garmin users out there. Because right now, I am contemplating running on the dreaded dreadmill for my repeats, because at least I can keep a constant pace on the tready. So please. I beg of you. Help me!! >_<

Well besides the fact that my pacing sucked, the run was good; I was surprised that I actually had some sort of speed in me. I'm so afraid of running fast because I am so paranoid about injuries. The 4 miles literally FLEW by! I ran fast for .25 miles, and did a slow jog for .25 miles, and repeated that 8 times. It was actually kind of fun! (except for the fact that I ate a snack right before I left for the run and almost puked. Note to self..... DIGEST!!! haha)

I am also going to be posting my training schedule on the right-hand sidebar.

Oh and another thing; I am trying to lose the 5 pounds I gained while I was sick a couple of weeks ago, before I race in Maui. I was hoping it was water weight, but clearly, it was not water. I've got about 10 weeks till Maui, which translates into a 0.5 lbs loss/week, which is pretty sensible. This will get me back to the weight I was for the half marathon I ran in May. I think losing 5 lbs will help me reach the 6 minutes I'm trying to slash off my time. Clearly I struggle with the nutrition department, though I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong. Oh well. Good bye chocolate chip muffins! Hello celery sticks! 

Tomorrow is bike day and date night with James. We always try to plan something for Wednesday/Thursday so that we have something to look forward to during the week. It makes the week so much more fun knowing you don't have to wait till the weekend to have a good time. We are going to a steakhouse, so I am very excited :)

Well, again, please advise me on the Garmin issue. I would really appreciate feedback. As for me, I'm off to read my new issue of OXYGEN magazine to read about fat-blasting recipes!

See ya runners!