favorite running weather

I set out to do a 40 minute tempo run after work and knew I needed to hustle because my boyfriend's softball team was having their first games of the season and I wanted to be there to cheer him on.  Holy run on sentence.  Oh well.  The weather all day was glooooomy.  Raining on and off and just grey and dull.  When I got home from work, I realized it was my favoritest weather to run in.  It was 57-60 degrees and heavy "spitting" or very light misting if that makes more meteorological sense to you.  It's perfection.  Warm, so that the rain is welcomed, but not drenching which with inevitably leave you freezing.  What weather is your fave fave fave to run in?

Unfortunately I was having some severe side-aches (non related to the ab strain previously mentioned, thankfully) immediately starting the run.  Taylor was a sweetheart (seriously I think he gets 7 1/2 awesome boyfriend points for this week already) and brought me my favorite food for lunch:  bagels.  AND he got me a caramel latte on top of that.  Seriously.  sweet.  Extra funny because the receptionist lady at my work place thought he was a delivery boy and looked at him REALLY strangely when he took a drink of my latte while waiting for me to come rescue him.  ANYWAYS.  Back to the point:  I'm lactose intolerant.  So the cream cheese + melted muenster cheese + steamed latte milk = very upset/pissed off stomach for the rest of the day.  I know.  I'm dumb.  I take lactaid pills occasionally, but sometimes I forget, and sometimes I just don't, and sometimes my body is more "tolerant" of dairy and it doesn't matter.  Apparently yesterday was a not so tolerant day.

About .1 miles into my run, I changed it from a tempo run to an easy 3 which was what was slated for today.  I really didn't want to since it's supposed to be insanely windy today, but it was probably best, as I would've been hurting the whole time.  3 miles in 26:07 for a 8:43 pace.  Which is insanely consistent with yesterday's easy 3 mile in 26:02 on a different route.  Yay consistency.  

My splits (not so consistent but eh?):

Mile 1:  9:11

Mile 2:  8:55

Mile 3:  7:59 (holy speedster me)

During the third mile I may have pretended I was doing the final mile of the 1/2 in September and wanted to finish strong.  Oh.  I don't think I've mentioned this.  The bike trail I've been running on is actually the final 3-4 miles of the 1/2 I run every September.  The last .2-.3 actually goes right in front of my place.  I'm thinking of making myself a sign and putting it in my yard for motivation.  Ha.

Last night and this morning I watched Synecdoche New York.  I have been so excited for this movie as it's written and directed by Charlie Kaufman who is one of my favorite:  Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich.  It was...weird.  I tend to have to watch his movies a couple of times to really get it, so I'll probably give it another go.  Has anyone else seen it/enjoy really effed up movies?

phone call with a 2 year old

I got a surprise phone call from this cutie last night.  My adorable nephew Harrison.  Yes he is rocking a faux hawk in this picture, and looking darn good doing it.  The little tyke lives down in TX with my bro and sis-in-law so I don't get to see him very often, so he "called me" last night. He gave me an educational lesson about noises different animals make, as well as a loud "touch down!!" Can you tell my bro is a little on the athletic side also?  This kid is going to be a stud.  My brother played football in college and was an amazing basketball player in high school, leading our high school to state championships in football and basketball.  His wife is a stud at volleyball and played a mean game of basketball back in the day too.  Secretly I'm hoping he'll be a runner.  ;)  Speaking of, my sister in law has gotten the running bug a bit over the last year and is contemplating running the Dallas White Rock 1/2 marathon with me in December when I come down to visit.  Well, not with me, per say, but with-with me.  Whatever.  Point:  the phone call made my night and I want to go visit the lil tyke NOW.  The terrible twos are my favorite age.  I'm sure that'll change once I have kids and have to be around a 2 year old non-stop, but they're just super fun when they have actual parents to go home to when I'm exhausted/annoyed by them.

My run was fairly tame, just an easy 3 miler.  I ran a regular 3 mile route to see how the Garmin would ping out the mile times compared to where I had "estimated" them at.  They were actually pretty close which is nice.  I also had an insanely strong finish at the end of the run which felt great.  26:02 for a pace of 8:41.

Mile 1:  8:55

Mile 2:  8:48

Mile 3:  8:17

My new running clothes came in the mail and I am SO EXCITED.  The purple shorts that I was somewhat iffy on ended up being royal blue.  Score one for Jeri.  Well.  They're actually that color that half of the population deems purple and the other half blue.  I tend to fall into that blue half of the world, but as long as I think they're blue, it's great.  The shirt is very on the uh..fitted side, but is still super cute.  I'll just have to make sure everything is toned and tight so there's no ab flab flopping around.  Ha.

I also did my ab workout and reinstated the one hundred push up challenge.  I did week 1 (the middle column) 2 weeks ago.  The third day of the challenge was a struuuuggle, and the website said to do the week again if you were struggling.  So instead I took a week off, and then started back up again.  I was nice enough to repay the favor to the boyfriend and do the push ups while he was doing a course online, but I don't think he enjoyed it nearly as much as I enjoyed watching his.  Maybe it's because I don't have bulging arms and fabulous back muscles (thank God, bulging?  Eew).  Or maybe it was because I was doing them in an oversized shirt and sweats so he couldn't see my sinewy (much better descriptive word for my dream muscles) arms and back flexed into perfection.  Next time.

amazing weekend + intro run with Garmin

I think I may have experienced the most fun weekend.  Ok, that's an overstatement, but it was a darn good time.  Friday night I somehow managed to convince the bf to stay home with me instead of going out to the bars.  We ate subs, went to the park to "play," and then to the cheap theaters to see Push.  Which was super good.  Afterward we came home and made attempt 12 at watching Oceans 13.  I really, REALLY struggle at sitting through movies, so we seriously had stopped and started this movie almost everyday for a week and a half, sloooowly creeping through it.

Most of Saturday post race and Sunday was spent laying in bed watching more movies.  Specifically:  Marley & Me (bawl fest), The Italian Job, Journey to the Center of the Earth, as well as unsuccessful attempts at In Her Shoes & The Number 23.  

Sunday I broke out the new toy for my 6 mile run.  It was 45-ish degrees, but super windy and spitty out.  I think that's an official meteorological term anyway.  I waaay over dressed, managed to sweat through a hoodie (???) but had freezing cold fingers.  Go figure.  Plus I think I spent every other second staring at the screen to see what it would tell me.  Finally I just covered it with my sweatshirt sleeve, because the miles tend to draaaaaag on when you're monitoring them obsessively.  Weird.  I've determined that 6 miles is my least favorite distance.  The last 6 miler I did was awful.  5 miles=awesome.  7 miles=awesome.  6 miles=suckfest.  Remind me never to do a 10k.  

1--9:33

2--9:23

3--9:25

4--9:55

5--9:30

6--9:07

 

After my run I treated myself, and the loverboy to AMAZING french toast with fresh strawberries on top.  I've been dreaming about them all day today.  While I was cooking the boyfriend decided (or maybe I threw down the utensils and gawked completely uninvited) to treat me to a push-up session sans shirt.  Yowza.  Great weekend indeed.

Race Report: Washington Pavilion 5k

Attention South Dakota weather:  Please pick a temperature and stick to it.  Seriously.  This week was beautiful/glorious weather.  Wednesday we had a high of 91 degrees.  That's insanity.  This morning at 9am at the start of the race:  38 degrees (probably 30 with wind chill).  LAME.  There is no reason that the temp should be less than HALF of what it was 3 days ago.  With that off of my chest, I would like to continue on.

This is a race that I've never participated in before.  It's one of the smallest races I've done so far, and officially the first one I've done that didn't have a gun at the start.  They really didn't even give people a chance to shuffle up to the starting line (there was a 10 minute stretching session prior to the event) before yelling out "

On your marks, get set, GO!"  Whoa.  Wait.  What?  I don't even have my headphones in yet!!  Luckily I slipped by some people to work my way towards the front and remembered to start my watch at the mat.  The race started downtown and actually ran through downtown for the first few blocks until we got on to the trail.  After the first block there wasn't much congestion, which was awesome.  I felt like I was flying, but in a good way.  

I had meant to ask a volunteer if the miles were marked, but forgot to do that prior to the race.  Something about knowing or not knowing whether to expect the markers helps me out for some reason.  Fortunately there was a 1/2 mile marker, which was technically the 1 mile turn around point:  3:50.  Holy buckets, you need to slooooow down or you won't make it through the race.  I slowed down just a bit, but really wanted to run right around 8 minute miles.  

Mile 1 marker (aka Mile 2 walk turn around point):  9:07.  WHAT?!?!?  Time to pick up the pace a little I guess.  The middle two miles were on the bike trails, which I love.  We got to run over this adorably quaint bridge, which was probably the highlight of the run.  Unfortunately a little over halfway done I started to feel the onset of the ab pain from the St. Patty's Day 5k.  :(  It started off as a dull ache until we started to have some small rolling hills.  Every decline in the trail caused more and more pain.  I tried to run while stretching my side with my right arm in the air, which helped for a few seconds.  Finally I decided to stop and really stretch it to see if that would help.  I stopped for maybe 5-7 seconds and when I started up again I couldn't tell a difference.  I thought about quitting.  Is it worth it to continue to this race where I will undoubtably do bad and further injure this stupid muscle?

Luckily while I was having all this inner dialogue, the time and distance kept passing by, and I decided I would just run as hard as I could without too much pain.  I ran hard up the inclines because my side didn't hurt and just winced down the downhill parts.  I kept thinking that I had to make it to the final 6 blocks or so because I knew by the race map that the end was all uphill.  I pushed it as hard as I could for the last mile and thought that maybe, just maybe I could PR by a second or two.  At this point I would take it.  On the final stretch I could make out the clock 2x:30 (or some odd seconds) with some yahoo standing in the way of the minutes column.  The loverboy was cheering with a block to go and I just sprinted as hard as I could after I saw him.  I crossed the line, stopped my watch, and immediately bent over to ease the pain.

One of my friends had come to watch and cheer for me and brought her two little boys who came running up and hugged me.  With all the excitement, I forgot to look at my watch!  25:29.  ????!!!!!  YAAAAAAY!  Official time:  25:27.  21 seconds off my best.  :)  =  GARMIN.

Now scroll back up to that picture up there and see who's nestled into the picture in between my shoes.  Hello lova.  Taylor got me a post-race latte and took me to the local running store to get my new love.  Unfortunately they didn't carry the green one that I had my heart set on.  The guy said he would special order it for me and even give me a discount, but it wouldn't be here until Wednesday at the earliest.  :(  I settled for the black, because I've waited for too long as it is for this puppy.  PLUS the dude still gave me a discount.

As far as the ab issue goes....here are my thoughts:  I have another 5k in two weeks and the only time I've had this pain is during the last 5k (6 weeks ago) and during two of my interval workouts over the last 6 weeks.  I think I'm going to swap out my remaining interval workout with a tempo run, and then take the six weeks between my next race and the start of my 1/2 marathon training program off from intervals (just inserting tempo runs for my weekly speed workouts).  But this sucks.  That's the single training run I look forward too because I just wanna go FAST.  Hopefully it'll do the trick though.  If anyone else has any suggestions let me know. 

Let's ignore the horrible facial expression here and instead 

choose to focus on my rippling calve muscle.  Um.  Ya.  

Totally makes up for the I-am-moments-from-death-face.

You can never have too many.....

Running shorts. Seriously. I have a sick, sick obsession. Like many/most/all(?) of you, I am obsessed with Nike Tempo running shorts. Every time I read someone's newest race report, it's almost always accompanied by a photo--outfit complete with nike tempo shorts. And each time I see said photos, I think "ooooooooh. I don't have 'em in that color yet!" Key word: yet. Who do I think I am? Who needs that many pairs of the exact same running shorts? Me. Me. Me. Some people buy designer jeans or shoes, I buy shorts.

Those tricky folks at nike.com sent me an email the other day. You know, those emails that you usually delete before even reading and enticing you to spend your hard earned money. Jerks. But it said "take an additional 20% off already clearanced items." Ooooh. I wonder if they have any shorts! Seriously, first thought. And of course they did.

I don't even like purple. It just fell into the category of "A Color I don't currently Have."

And then I thought to myself, that I only have fall-type racing tops and I should just "look" and see if they "happened" to have any for "cheap." Of course they did. Stupid Nike. So I bought this too. :)

I even justified the shirt purchase by saying to Taylor, "Wow. Look how fast I'll look in this shirt." I'm a fool. But a fool with some sweet new running stuff. :)

Last night I had a 40 minute tempo run. I decided to do it outside, which was a bit of a switch up, as I usually do them on the treadmill so I can monitor/adjust the speed so I know where I'm at. I ran the first mile-ish at about 9:40 and kept that pace, or just slightly faster until 15 minutes in. The next 20 minutes I ran anywhere from 8:10-8:30-a pace that is incalculable (but I imagine to be right around there), the last 10 minutes was probably around 9:30. I had meant to do 15 minutes warm-up, then 10 at a faster pace, and then another 15 slowed down, but once I got in the groove, I didn't want to stop. Plus there was a "serious runner looking guy" that I was on the heels of for about 3/4 of the quicker pace, and I just did not want to give up on passing him. He finished before I passed him, FYI. Which means he quit in my book, which means I won (also in my book).

The weather was ridiculously hot. 85-ish? The warmest I've ran in is 66 thus far, so that was quite a shock to the ol' system. I think I may have panted like a dog when I was done for about 15 minutes. However, apparently my body is not equipped in the same manner as a dog's is, because the panting did nothing to lower my body temp. This morning I woke up and did some yoga before work, and now I have nothing planned except some ab work and push ups until Saturday=race day.



Everyone, please send your speediness my way. It should be a good day!! :) And go on, spill it: How many pairs do you own (or just running shorts in general if you don't worship at the House of Nike Tempo Shorts)? Maybe I'll reveal my answer if it's not as bad in comparison. Ha.

Dear Spring, I Heart You.

Today was the most beautiful day ever.  Well....  It ended up being beautiful after a co-worker and I spent 25 minutes bitching about how the weather report was calling for sun shiny amazingness all week, and we had yet to see it.  It's amazing how much of a difference great weather makes for your runs.  I had an easy 3 miles on the schedule and felt like I was effortless flying.  It was great.  I ran 3.02 miles in 25:45 for an average pace of 8:32/mile.  Definitely not an "easy" pace, but I swear it felt easy.  

Speaking of easy paces, that's something I really struggle with and would appreciate any and all suggestions on:  I struggle with what paces to run my training runs at.  Right now I'm training for a 5K.  My best time was about a month ago of 25:48 (8:19 avg. pace).  I would like to get down to sub 8 minute mile pace.  I will be starting my half marathon training in mid-June.  My best time is 2:07, and am shooting for somewhere in the range of 1:55-2 hours for the one I'm doing in September.  When I try to use the Runners World website for training plans with paces calculated they seem really off.  Anyway, any suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated.  :)

In other exciting news,  I was talking to one of the boyfriend's friend's fiance (follow that all right??) about my training and she offered to help me out with some tweaks to my next training plan and joining me for some of my speed work runs.  I went to college with this chica, and she is amazing.  Nationally ranked in cross country for division 2 and the steeplechase, 3000 m & 5000 m for track.  Seriously I wish I knew some better and more exact stats on her, because this small blurb is not even close to doing her justice, but that would be kind of creepy of me to do that without her knowledge, so I won't.  :)  Obviously she has benefited from some great coaching, and is just naturally a gifted athlete, so I'm super excited to use her expertise.  Plus it'll be nice to have someone else to blab about running too.

A Great Long Run + Snapping Turtle

Well I guess that title kind of gives away the content of this post, eh? Saturday I was a wuss. I didn't run. I had a fast 4 miles planned and just did not want to do it. It was raining and cold and windy. And a friend wanted to get Mexican food. All sources were pointing to no, so I skipped it. I feel bad because it's the first run I've intentionally skipped (meaning I wasn't too deathly ill to complete) since I started up training again in early January. Oh well, the amazing fajitas I ate made me forget my remorse immediately.

Saturday night we went to our indoor football team's game, which was awesome. I don't know why, but I love going to the Storm's games. It doesn't hurt that they're ridiculously good (4 peat nat'l champs I believe) and that we have no real pro representation for local sports. Because we got to the game insanely late, the game was sold out. Luckily for us, there was an Army recruiter there who had a bunch of kids not show up, so we got their tickets fo FREE!. Unfortunately these seats were in the nosebleeds. Meaning row 30 of a 30 row stadium. Hah. You could still see the game really well, but jeri+beer=many trips to the bathroom up and down those stairs. My calves were soooooooooore.

Sunday I had a 6 mile long run scheduled. Well technically it was supposed to be a 7 mile, but because I was sick 2 weeks ago, I didn't run, and last week's sixer was horrendous, so I was giving myself a do over. :) I didn't have any internet access to map out a run, and there was no way in hell I was going to do the horrible, horrible 6 mile route from last week, so I decided I would just jump on the trail and run to a street that would be easy to map out after the run, and go with it.

I'm a super super competitive person, especially with myself, so it was really strange to not have any mile markers to check my splits to see how I was doing, but it was strangely liberating. The first time I looked at my watch was 24 minutes into the run. Usually I'm checking it obsessively. I ended up running 35 minutes in one direction before turning around to come back home, so I knew I was running a lil over 7 miles, and was surprised at how great my legs/lungs/everything felt.

PLUS I saw a snapping turtle next to the river. I was pretty excited, because I've never seen a live snapping turtle before. My dad has caught a couple fishing, but unfortunately, they had "expired" by the time I got to see them. I felt all nature/woodsy girl running by the river. It was great, and an awesome change from running on the sidewalks and having to be overly cautious of getting hit by a car not paying attention. I'm super excited to get my garmin so I can just go on the trails for all (or most) of my runs.

Speaking of the garmin, the countdown is on. As I've said before, if I PR in my next (or next-next) 5k, I'm breaking down and buying one. My race is Saturday. Whoo! Granted this is just a "tune up" race for the one in 2 weeks, I'm still thinking I can PR. So fingers crossed everyone. Also, I just checked the weather for this weekend, and there's a big sunshiny orb on each day EXCEPT Saturday which shows rain, clouds, and lightning. Waaah. Oh well, that'd just make a PR that much sweeter.

I ended up running 7.2 miles in 1:07:06 for a pace of 9:20. Tonight I have a yoga session and some ab work in the works, followed by watching Milk. I'm super excited for it, so I hope it's good.

It smells like track season :)

Step outside for a minute. Take a deep breath. Do you smell that? It smells like track season. :) Which is kind of funny since our track season would always start right around March 13th each year, but somehow I must have blocked out what it smells like to run through snow. Every spring I get oh-so excited when this time of year hits because it brings up such awesome memories.

Photo to the right is our 800 m relay team & also our 1600 m relay team after the State Track Meet my senior year. We placed in both events and broke the school record in both. Yay speedsters, I'm the scrawny one second from the left.

Photo below and left is me and Kim's hand off for the 1600 m relay. Look at that sexy leg muscle! Ha. And the 7' tall leggy monster to my left in blue. Yikes.

Brief sport history: I played basketball, volleyball, and ran track in junior high and high school. Basketball was my one true love, but track was a very, very close second place. Come to think of it, the main reason I was good at the other two sports was because of my quickness. Thanks again track.

I loved that track was an individual sport (other than the relays, of course). I loved that you got out of 2-3 half or whole days of school to go to meets. I loved that I got to lay around with my boyfriend at the time at our camp when we weren't running or high jumping (yes, we both sprinted and high jumped, and yes we were precious). I loved that all that was required of the sport was to run--fast. As fast as you could. Seems so easy. I loved losing to a girl in a race one day (not true, I hated and still do, hate losing), and in two days beating her. I loved the medals that were handed out on the bus ride home, especially the gold ones. I loved taking the underclassmens' leftover lunches and snacks on the ride home with the throwers, because we were hungry. I loved being competitive against myself and against the other area sprinters. But mostly I just loved to run.

I constantly have dreams about running high school track again, and am somehow disappointed when I wake up and realize I'm not longer in high school [note: Please notice this only applies to high school sports and not high school in general. The "glory days" if you will.] I guess this is where my love of running comes from. Even if it is much, much, much farther than a 100 m or 200 m dash. :)

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In current running news, I had an awesome speed/interval workout on Wednesday night. Now you may understand why I look forward to the speedy runs so much. Ha. I did 1 x .25 as a warm up and then 7 x .25 at mile pace (roughly) with .10 walk breaks in between. I did them on the treadmill since I'm still without garmin and here were my times/splits:

warm up .25 - 2:16/9:04 pace

.25 1:43/6:52 pace (3 total at this pace)

.25 1:42/6:48 pace (3 total at this pace)

.25 1:39/6:36 pace (just one because 3+3+1=7, man I'm lame)

Last night I had an easy 3 mile run to do after work. Subconsciously, or maybe not so subconsciously, I always seem to try to beat my Tuesday easy run time with my Thursday easy run time. Which is stupid because it's supposed to be an easy run. I 'm an idiot. Either way, I failed. I got done running and felt like I had busted my butt, thinking I was very close to 8 minute miles or slightly slower, I was disappointed to look at my watch and see closer to 9 minute miles. Oh well. For my easy runs, I should be at 9 mm pace, so ha. My legs are smarter than my brain. Wow, that's sad. I finished 3.02 miles in 26:54 for an 8:55/pace.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Insert Clever Title Here

I lost my funk.  For now anyway.  I only had a half day at work today, because I had a doc appointment this afternoon, so I got to be out of the office on the gorgeous day that we were having.  I decided to go for a tan disguised as a jaunt around town, for an easy 3 miles.  The first few minutes of the run had me thinking that it would be craptastic run #3, but luckily my legs got into it shortly there after.  I ran 3.02 in 25:56 for a pace of 8:36.

After my run I spent 3 hours working on an artsy fartsy project I had been gathering materials for over the last few months.  Of course my back is killing me from being hunched over my table.  Of course my stupid batteries died in my camera so I wasn't able to snap a photo of the finished project, so I'll have to post that shortly.

Ok.  Officially lamest post ever.  My apologies if you made it this far.  If I have this boring of a day tomorrow, I'm going to make something up.  Ugh.

I'll leave you with me and Tay's pre-bedtime photo shoot.  Please hit the back button immediately if male nipple bothers you.   One does make an accidental appearance.  Also, my penguin shirt is one of my prized possessions.  I sleep oh so well when I'm wearing it.  :)

Craptastic Weekend Runs....Hehe.

The title of this pretty much explains my weekend runs.  Blech.  I went out with some pals on Friday night and had way. too. much. fun.  Especially knowing I had to do a run the next day.  In my defense, I knew I had all day to run it and it was just a slow easy run, so I figured I could do that after a night out.  Wrong.  I managed to get 4 hours of sleep and just felt like trash all day Saturday.  I finally got off my couch to run at 1pm, headache and all.  I planned my run to end up at my car, since I had left it at the bar the night before, hey at least I'm responsible, eh?  The first two miles were really good, and then I started to get the horrible horrible side pains.  And I kind of freaked out.  I thought my pulled/strained muscle had healed since I hadn't had any pain in 2-3 weeks, but I guess not.  

At this point, I thought about just turning around and going to my car.  But after a quick stretch it was a-ok.  Random.  Good to know though:  the stretches that makes it feel better are the "I'm pretending to stretch" sort of stretches.  You know, arm in the air/side bend, trunk twisters.  I felt a foo'.  After this point I slowed waaaaay down, since I didn't want the pain anymore.  The first two miles were right around 8:30-8:40, total time:  35:44 for a pace of 8:54, which shows you just how much I slowed down.  Yikes.

I had been looking forward to my Sunday "long run" of 6 miles since I couldn't do last Sundays, and I had decided to run part of it on the tail end of the half marathon course (which conveniently ends right at my apartment).  Other than the cold and the 15-20 mph wind gusts, it started off great.  I chicked a guy on the bike trail, whoo!  But stupid me accidentally planned my route to include the steepest incline in town (by my record, anyway).  Although I wanted to stop at least 28 times, I didn't, and was so proud to reach the top.  

Unfortunately at this point, I was only 1/2 way done and deeeeead tired.  Of course the rest of the run was on a busy road that only had sporadic sidewalks, so I kept having to run across the street (sprint) since the Easter morning crazies were in a rush to get to work.  I was just so happy to finally be home when I was done.  Probably my worst run since the 1/2 last September.  Time:  57:41 for 6.08 miles for a pace of 9:30.  

But you know what a crappy run means, right?  A fabulous one on the horizon.  So I'm looking forward to that greatness.  Luckily I got to spend the rest of my day (after hanging up with the fam for easter) snuggled up with the lover boy watching movies, and convincing him to rub my back.  Stupid hill.  Ugh.

Edited to insert positivity:  Mondays are my "rest" days.  I used to do yoga a bunch, but have fallen off for some reason.  Tonight I decided to make time for it.  And it was awesome.  Totally made up for the horrendous runs this weekend (well almost totally).  And my ab work and pushups were great too.  I've been doing girly pushups at 2 sets of 25 one at the beginning, and one at the end of my ab work.  But I saw on someone's blog (crap sorry I forget who) the One Hundred Push Ups Challenge.  I don't know how many times I challenged myself to work my way up to a 100, but failed to do it on my own.  I'm sure my arms will feel like jello tomorrow, but will probably look like madonna cannons, so that's cool.  :)

Photo Friday + Belly Shirt Option

I had some extra time today and looked through the "Unknown Participants" photos from the St. Patty's Day 5k. Heck ya, I found some photos of me. Considering the only one they found of me was this one.  

I was pretty excited. Btw, totally looked up those chicas' bib# and I beat both of them. Muhahah. Um..ya. I'm a little competitive, no biggie.

Hey look.  Here I am, the speck next to the dude in blue shorts!

And here we have my most flattering angle (but seriously) shiny spandex booty?  Heck ya.  :)

Also, here's my super studly running buddy, Matty. As soon as I picked up my race packet, I called him to tell him how super, awesome the shirts were. When he picked his up, he called me, very upset. Something was definitely wrong with the Large sized shirts, because they were large in size, but crazy short (like 2-3 inches shorter than my Small, trust me, I know. I tried them both on at the same time). :) So instead he went to WalMart to get a sweet green shirt for the race. After I showed up at his place, and he showed me his "lame" shirt he found, I was soooooooo mad that he didn't get me one. How sweet would we have looked? Just two leprechauns, running for the GOLD. Hehe. Matt joked that he must have accidentally marked the "Belly Shirt" option on the registration form. The whole pre-race we spent picking out other fellas who had also marked the "Belly Shirt" option. Hilarity ensued.

Last night I did a 35 minute tempo run, and it was nothing short of fabulous. I eeked out 4.21 miles in 35 minutes, which is a pace of 8:19/mile. Coincidentally, this is also the pace of the above mentioned 5k. Does anyone else smell a new PR in 2 weeks? ;) I did the tempo run on the treadmill so it could control my pace for me and the stats are as follows:

5 min at 6.5/ 9:13 pace

5 min at 7/ 8:34 pace

4.5 min at 7.5/ 8:00 pace

2 min at 8/ 7:30 pace

1 min at 8.5/ 7:00 pace

1 min at 8.2/ 7:15 pace

2 min at 8/ 7:30 pace

4.5 min at 7.5/ 8:00 pace

6 min at 7/ 8:34 pace

4 min at 6.5/ 9:13 pace

Afterward, my legs were dead, but in an oh so good, dead way. Today is a rest day. Also I picked up Run Faster From the 5K to Marathon: How to be your own Best Coach from the library yesterday, so I'm excited to see what I can learn. Good luck to anyone racing this weekend, especially Midwest homie MicaPie who is going to tear up her 1/2 this weekend.

TIaRT + 57 degrees + Snow

I find the TiarT topic interesting [This week's theme is ... Running Technology Tips.  Calling all Garmin, Nike plus,iPod, iPhone and all other running gadget junkies.   Share your tips for selecting, buying, and using your favorite running toys that also make your running more enjoyable.]

Personally I'm not too "gadgety" when it comes to running.  The reason I feel this way is simply because I do not fall into the Garmin owner category, but when I really thought about it, that's not a true statement.  I love my iPod shuffle.  The battery died on my 3 miler yesterday and it drove me crazy.  Second is my old school $6 green wal-mart watch.  How that battery has lasted almost 5 years is beyond me.  I use gmap-pedometer.com to map out my runs, and runnersworld.com to keep track of my training log.  I used to have it on coolrunning.com like alot of the rest of you have mentioned, but also ditched out when it switched over.  And then there's the treadmill.  I hate it, I love it.  It's nice to have an alternative to freezing cold/icy streets/30+mph winds/etc.  I also enjoy doing my sprint workouts on the treadmill to accurately track my time and distance.  Many of these items will be replaced once I buy my Garmin (hopefully in 2 weeks, if I can PR in my race).  Runners truly are a different breed.  I won't spend more than $20 on a shirt, but will spend $300+ on a watch.  Too funny.

Yesterday after work, I got my booty outside for a run.  It's been a good week and a half because I really struggle with the cold.  When I left work, it was 57 degrees out, so I decided to swap my tempo run with an easy 3 miles.  While I was driving home, I noticed a runner guy in shorts and long sleeves, and decided that should be sufficient for my run.  No sooner than 5 minutes into my run, I see a chick decked out in sweatpants, hoodie, and stocking hat.  Really?  Lady.  It's 57 degrees.  So I had to chuckle for feeling very B.A.

The other interesting part of my run was also during the first mile.  There was a 2 block stretch that still had snow on it.  Like 4-6 inches of snow.  Hello?  Snow, you do realize it's 57 degrees out right, shouldn't you be melting???  But then I realized that I looked like even more of a B.A. running through snow covering my shoes in shorts.  Haha.  At which point I decided to stop being so cocky because I envisioned myself tumbling down the snow filled sidewalk in shorts and no longer looked quite so B.A.  :)  The run itself was good 3.02 miles in 25:59 for 8:37 pace.  Apparently I really struggle at doing "easy" runs outdoors.  I just always want to go fast (for me that is).

Also, is anyone else a Real World/Road Rules Challenge fan?  It made my evening to see a new drama/hookup filled episode.  Oh when will I ever grow up???

Sickness: DEFEATED (sort of)

I have returned to the land of the well and non-deathly. For the most part anyway. I still have to blow my nose every 7 1/2 minutes and am coughing up delightful little phlem gems, but other than that, I'm a-ok. Plus I was able to get in a run last night. Double bonus. I did a nice EASY 3 miles at the gym. My legs felt good, my lungs felt fine (surprisingly), my hip didn't hurt AT ALL, but my stupid ab on the right side started hurting, so I had to slow down, which is probably good since I struggle with running "easy." Time for run: 26:34.

Tonight I have an tempo run scheduled which I'm very excited about. For some reason I love any run that has speed in it. This is probably due to the fact that I am a sprinter at heart, and only a distance gal because there just aren't very many adult 100m, 200m dash races out there. Strange. :)

In other news, my fish is still dead. Someone suggested I take it back since he didn't last a full 24 hours. Can I do that? It's really morbid to have a dead fish in my apartment, but if I can get my $4 back, I think I might.

Mica at MicaPie sent me this survey. Whoo!!!

The rules are:


1.) Fill it out


2.) Change one question with one of your own


3.) Add an additional question


4.) Send it to 3 people.

1. What are your current obsessions?
reading people's running blogs (um obviously), Pink's new CD, guacamole, Kelly Clarkson's new CD, & cardigans

2. Which item from your closet are you wearing most often? my black and white t-shirt. it looks like old school wall paper. I wear it to work under a cardigan and out on the weekends. Love it.

3. Last thing you bought for yourself?


I bought myself bagel boy for lunch yesterday--2 everything bagels and an italian creme soda, otherwise I bought 2 new dresses, 2 shirts, and a cardigan from forever 21. I have eleventy billion weddings to go to, so figured I was in need of some more dresses.

4. What’s for dinner?


Hopefully big delicious cheeseburgers on the grill with all the fixins. [Taylor I hope you're reading this, I wasn't kidding]

5. Say something to the person who tagged you:


I think your blog is fabulous and I literally laugh at some point during each post. If I lived closer, I would totally invite myself over for dinner, because your culinary delights look deeeeeeeeeelicious.

6. What is one item you could not live without?


my cellphone. I'm lame. That's fine.

7. Vacation spots you must visit before you die?
Everywhere, I've gone nowhere, it's crazy. Germany & Ireland for sure. After watching vicky christina barcelona, I know feel like I need to go there. And am working on convincing the boy to accompany me.

8. Three things to do before you die:
Wow. Deep question. Travel more, run a marathon, be blissfully happy.

9. What are you reading right now?
How to Meet Cute Boys, Nickel and Dimed, She's Come Undone

10. What is the last movie you saw and enjoyed? Rate it out of 5 stars.
Changling 4 1/2 stars

11. What's your favorite season and why?
Fall. I love how beautiful the trees are and the crisp air. And wearing hoodies. But most importantly, it signals the start of football season. :)

12. What are you eating/do you want to eat right now?
I'm actually not eating anything, or craving anything right now. Which is really strange. Now that I've had to think about it, Chevy's chimichangas sound good. Num.

13. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
Cool Blue Gatorade

14. Care to share some wisdom?
my life motto: Passion will make you crazy, but is there any other way to live? [I've heard this quote attributed to several different people, so am unable to give it proper credit, sorry.]

15. Describe one of your happiest moments.
Nerd alert: My best friend (who wasn't actually my best friend at the time, just the beginning of her happy r'ship together) and I were going to the Harry Potter release party for the 6th book. First we went to B&N for the party, and to take photos, and get sweet glasses. Then we went to Applebee's for drinks and dessert where we discovered crack in the form of dessert: maple butter blondie, something or other. Seriously, the best dessert ever, and the after effects have to be similar to a crack-high. I wouldn't know. Then we went to the ghetto-Walmart in town to wait in line for the book (and get the cheapest price in town). It was a great great night. :)

16. What was your best Halloween costume? I dressed up as an Elf one year. Those pictures are probably not blog appropriate though. [Ok just double checked on the photos, confirmed that they are not blog appropriate.]

17. What do you have an addiction to? everything bagels, fettuccine alfredo, ice water, and cheese cake
18. What do you do that you would be embarrassed for others to know about? I'm sure there's something, but nothing I would care to admit on the internet. :p

19. What was your first screen name? jerilee40

20. Do you have a weird talent? Please elaborate if yes: I learned to wiggle my ears. Wiggling your ears is not that special, but the fact that I taught myself how, makes it special. Oh and my eyes change colors with my mood.

I tag:

Cindy at delusions of other people's grandeur b/c she's my newest follower (hurrah!) sorry if you hate these, and don't want to do it, I'll understand. :)

Kathryn at MISSION MKWC: Matt & Kathryn World Conquest but not Matt b/c I don't care about his answers. :p jk darling.

Aron at runner's rambles b/c she had the funniest picture of her pets' loungeday on her blog today

Peace out!

Um...sorry about the weird spacing, etc. I can't seem to get the format to correct itself. Apparently I suck at copy and paste? Awesome.

RIP Iliza Fishinger

Um ya.  I killed my fish.  :(  I came home from work today, all excited to see him.  He had his nose buried in the rocks in the bottom of the aquarium.  I immediately thought he was dead.  But his little fins would move just a little bit every 5 or so minutes.  Since I don't have internet at my house, I called my madre, and she read me some info about beta fish, to see what I could do wrong.  We determined that the water temp had probably cooled too much in my apartment over night and the poor thing was freezing.  I tried to gradually heat up the water, to revive him, but it didn't work.  Seriously I had a beta in high school that I would forget to feed for weeks at a time (please don't turn me in to the Humane Society, I'm a better person now) and who lived in a dirty dirty fish bowl.  Yet I kill this one that I take such good care of.

In running news, I am also near death, so I haven't ran since Saturday.  I'm starting to go stir crazy.  I'm going to try to run tomorrow morning before work, but we'll see how I feel when I wake up.  I literally feeling like walking death.  It sucks to miss runs, especially since I've started to actually ENJOY my runs again.  I just keep telling myself that I'd rather be sick than injured, this'll clear up sooner or later.  Emphasis on the sooner!!!

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like....Spring??

There have been blizzard warnings across South Dakota for the past week. Fortunately they've all missed my area, except for this weekend. I thought I would snap some pictures as the snow was falling. Since I'm a horrible photographer, you're unable to see the ginormous snowflakes, but that's what I was trying to capture.

Here are some post-snow fall, pre-meltiness. It's the perfect snow to make snowpeople in, so maybe I'll have to convince Taylor to make some with me when he gets bank from the gym.

Because I'm a huge wuss, I went to the gym to get my run in. I did 4 somewhat speedy miles at 34:47. It was an amazing run, and I felt like I could run forever at that pace, which was nice. Afterwards, I biked for 6 miles to keep my legs loose.

Today I was supposed to get in 6, but I've been hacking up a lung since I got out of bed, so I'll be moving my run to tomorrow.

When I moved into my new apartment, my mom gave me my old fish bowl from back home. Yesterday I decided I needed a pet. After deciding between 3 different fish for at least 20 minutes, I decided on this lil guy. I named him Iliza Fishinger, after my favorite comedian. I'm super clever, I know. You don't have to tell me that.

Here he is posing for a picture.

TiarT (but a few days late)

This is the first time I've participated in Tiart, and apparently I have to be different and post it on Saturday. TiarS if you will. Anyway, I had meant to do it previously, but didn't have access to internet, then I didn't have access to my camera, now I have both. Please forgive my tardiness.

To preface my post, I thought I would share a picture of all my running shoes. Left to right, top to bottom are my shoes newest to oldest. Apparently I like to throw in an Adidas pair every 5th shoe. Randomness. Ok Here I go.

[Shoes pictured top row 2nd from the right]

Asics Nimbus 7. You are my favorite color: green. You are the most expensive pair of running shoes I have ever purchased ($130) and while I was a poor, poor college kid. But I had to have you. You were with me for my second and third half marathons as well as my two fastest 5ks. When you had reached your mileage limits, I upgraded to the Nimbus 9. But it just wasn’t the same. I missed you. When it was time for another new pair, I started scouring the internet in hopes that some warehouse somewhere would have you, and I could buy 50 pairs to last me to the end of my running days, but alas, I was not successful. I love you green Asics Nimbus 7. You complete me.

[Also, I ended up with 132 words, but with tax, I'm sure it was right around there! Ha.]

My running has been going very well lately. Tuesday I had an easy 3 mile. Wednesday was a speed work, which I l-o-v-e. I had 6 x 400 meter repeats. Thursday was another easy 3 miles. I've been challenging myself to actually do my easy runs at an "easy" pace. For some reason I feel like I have to run fast on every run. Which is dumb. Today I have a 4 mile easy run and tomorrow I have a 6 mile long run. I love that my "long" run is less than an hour. Hehe. Unfortunately it's in the 30s and supposed to be snowing all weekend, so I'll be putting some mileage in at the gym.

OOH. And I got to see comedian ILIZA SHLESINGER last night and it was amazing. My goal was to get her to pick me out of the crowd and ask me to be her new BFFF, but it didn't happen. :( Soooooooo stinkin' funny.

End of March Report

I have been spending waaaaay too much time reading peoples' running blogs and not enough time blogging.  Luckily I have been spending a lot of time running also, so at least that hasn't been lost in the shuffle.

Here are my highlights for March

Total mileage:  66.8 miles.  I tried to look in my old running log for the summer I was training for my first half to see if this is the highest mileage for a month, but I wasn't able to access it.  Without record of it, we will deem it as such.  Ridiculously sad since I was only training for a 5k this past month, instead of a half.

Best (only) race:  St. Patty's Day 5k.  I PR'd by 48 seconds from a 5k two years previously.  And improved 2:30 minutes from my previously most recent 5k.  Yay for speedy Jeri again.

Best training run:  Obviously training for a 5k required many 3 mile easy training runs.  On one particular run, I was cooling down with a walk after the 3 miles were completed.  I happened to glance at the treadmill timer at 3.1 and I realized that even after walking .1 miles I still had a faster time than the last 5k race that I did.  Wow.

Random highlight:  Getting to experience Matty's first race with him.  It was awesome seeing how excited he was after completing the race.  I felt like a proud mother duck.  Er...something.

For April, I plan to run even more miles and hopefully break my 5k PR even further towards the end of the month.  I've been trying to incorporate a lot more ab work with my running, since I actually pulled a muscle during the previously posted race, instead of a silly old side stitch.  And I have had some random hip pain in some runs.  If I'm able to PR again I'm allowing myself to buy a Garmin.  Oooh baby, bring the PR to mama.