Run? More like a wet t-shirt contest.

Friday I skidaddled down to River Boat Days (RBD10) to spend the night with Sheana (BFFF).  I got to town, we gussied ourselves up, and hit the town.  It is tradition to destroy eat many disgusting items of fair food between the two of us.  This year we were classier than previous years, taking down some cheese curds and a funnel cake.  Last year we devoured funnel cake, gyros, deep-fried Snickers (and I'm sure some others that I don't remember).  There was also a bout with food poisoning.  This year was much more successful only in the sense that I didn't almost die. :P  

We got our annual powdered sugar mustache photo.  And throughout the night thought it would be a great idea to take many cheesy senior picture inspired photos.  Enjoy.  :)

After shaking our tail feathers for a spell. :)

The fireworks show was a.ma.zing.  So good!  I have a soft spot for fireworks, but they were really impressive.

Tonight I had an easy 6 miler on the schedule.  It had looked like it was going to rain for most of the afternoon, so I knew I needed to hustle otherwise I was going to get caught up in it.  I changed and ran out the door.  From the time it took me to change out of my work clothes and in to my running clothes, the temp had dropped at least 15 degrees, and the humidity had lifted majorly.  Hey-o!  It started to sprinkle and I was a-ok with that.

The first 3 miles were pretty slow and easy going.  My iPod was dead, so I left it at home, and it was beautiful listening to the rain hitting the trees/leaves covering my head.  When I got to the turn around point, the skies opened up and dumped down on me.  Within a minute I was drenched, and for once it wasn't from my profuse sweating....score!  There was a full mile where I was running in to the rain and wind and it was blinding me.  As much as I love running in the rain, it was kind of a pain in the ass.  My shoes were drenched and were at least 20 pounds each.

I finished up the 6 miles in 59:46.  

Food Poisoning Renders You Incapable of Running; Lesson Learned

For those of you that were concerned that I was dead after a weekend of debauchery, rest assured, I'm still alive and kicking.  I've taken the longest running hiatus since starting up running again in January with Saturday through Monday without a single run done.  When I woke up to a horrible thunder/lightning storm this morning, I thought it was going to be another day chalked up to my slackertude.

But let me back up.  Do you remember the "raging" birthday party I was to attend on Friday night?  The one that I moved my long run for to attend and celebrate?  Um...ya.  Definitely a bit more lowkey than we anticipated.  Most people had 1-2 bevs, and we played board games.  Now I love me some board games (another area of my life where I'm uber competitive, imagine that) but not exactly the kind of evening you would need to move a long run for.  At 10pm, everyone started trickling off to their bedrooms for "sleepy time."  I'm sorry, what!?!?!?  Taylor and I soldiered on, drinking some delish beer and watching Harry Potter 5.  Sidenote:  Any night with HP and delish beer is ALWAYS a night well spent.

Friday night marked night #1 without any sleep.  Taylor's sis has a newborn, and the poor thing didn't feel well.  I think I maybe got 2 hours of sleep on and off.  Let me say this now:  best.  birth.  control.  ever.

Saturday we got up bright and early and got ready to head to Yankton.  For some reason, I totally for about doing my daily yoga.  :(  Fail #1 for the weekend.  I thought about doing some down dogs post-bar, but figured that wouldn't be in my best interest.  We went to Riverboat Days (Yankton's summer time festival) and meet up with my best friend, her boyfriend, and one of Tay's best friends was going to meet us there also.  We spent some of the afternoon wandering around the arts and crafts, and eyeing the deliciousy greasy food.

For dinner, we decided to hit the vendors, HARD.  For starters, I had some cheese curds.  I love me some cheese curds, so I figured they would be worth the impending digestive issues.  Next round was a couple bites of Taylor's gyros.  (Fail #2 of the weekend, as you'll see later.)  Sheana and I decided to split a deep-fried Snickers, my first, but have been craving one (Can you crave something you've never had?) since Glenn mentioned having one not too far back.  It was ok.  I was slightly disappointed though.  The batter it was fried in wasn't that great, so I ended up eating a melted Snickers.  Ha.  Then the boys bought some funnel cakes.  One bite lead to half of a funnel cake.  Whoopsies.  Sheans and I took the annual rbd-funnel-cake-powdered-sugar-mustache photos.  Almost as good as the inaugural year.

RBD 09.

RBD 04.

I had a few drinks throughout the day/evening, but not too terribly many, keeping in mind that I had a speed workout to do Sunday night.  I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst stomach cramps of my life.  I felt like I could've been throwing up while I was going to the bathroom.  (TMI?)  It was horrible.  Usually when I eat dairy and get sick in a somewhat similar fashion, I feel better as soon as the dairy is out of my system.  I still felt horrible after, and ended up make 2 more trips to the bathroom throughout the night.  I was struggling.

Sunday we swung through my hometown to see my pops as it was his 60th birthday.  Whoot whoot!  Happy birthday Papa!!  This is one of my favorite pics of me and my dad from when I was 6?  That's also my favorite dog ever, Buck.  He was my best friend.  Awww.

I had planned on doing my run Sunday night, but my stomach never felt quite right.  Plus, I didn't realize how early it's getting dark-dark out.  9pm it was pitch black out.  Summer come back!!!  Luckily I did manage to do some yoga on Sunday to get back on track for my streak.  I did a heart opening series that left my shoulders/neck SORE.  I must not be doing the poses properly.  A lot of you have asked what I've been doing for my yoga.  I've been downloading YogAmazing podcasts from iTunes.  They're 20-30 minutes long and 9/10 I like them a lot.

Monday was a rest day from running so I did some yoga for neck/shoulders to loosen them up from Sunday.  Taylor started his fall league for softball, so yet another day went by without running.

This morning as the alarm went off, I noticed a huge bolt of lightning outside my window.  That's all I needed to reset my alarm for 6:45am.  This girl does NOT like lightning.  She does, however, like sleep.  After hitting snooze for about 25 minutes I finally crawled out of bed and got ready for work.  Skipping morning yoga.  (Is anyone else seeing a trend here?  Lazy butt!)

As soon as I got to work I told myself that I was running after work, no matter what.  Luckily it looked like the weather was going to cooperate.  I had 6 easy to do today and tomorrow, and knew that would bore me, so I did 7 today and will do 5 tomorrow.  I don't know why I hate the 6 mile distance, but I do.

I started off running and thought I was going at my usual "easy" pace.  When the first mile beeped in, I realized that was not the case.  Who knew?  The legs needed a 3 day hiatus to feel fresh as a daisy.  I decided to run as quick as the legs wanted to without feeling like I was pushing the pace.  I was pretty happy about the results.  Mile 6 my quads started burning, but other than that, I felt great.  I'm guessing I was running with better form (hence the faster time) and actually lifting my legs, causing the quads to be more tired.  Craziness.

I did the 7 miles in 1:01:46 for a pace of 8:49.

1. 9:07 
2. 8:49 
3. 8:57 
4. 8:47 
5. 8:45 
6. 8:50 
7. 8:28 

Now I'm back on track, and have the motivation I need to stop skipping runs:  I have to do all my runs through the end of the month to have more miles than last month.  Can't be a loser for August!

Whoa, sorry for the marathon of a catch up post.