Pugoween

Back in October, we had Ollie's favorite holiday: Pugoween. This year, I wanted her to be Pughetti. I picked up some fabric, yarn, giant styrofoam balls, and brown spray paint. Kyle contributed two nights before by spray painting Ollie's meat balls.

The night before Pugoween I set about constructing her costuming. Essentially just hot gluing everything to the fabric. It took maybe ten minutes to make. That's a far cry from the hours my mom has spent in previous years of constructing her costumes. Sorry mom!

I found one of her smaller sweaters and attached the fabric to it with safety pins. She tried it on and looked amazing. We fell asleep with Pugoween costume championships dancing in our heads.

 

For anyone that questions whether Ollie has fun dressing up or not, I present to you Exhibit A. All the smiles, on the tail wagging. All the cute. She tied for first place. So our streak continues!

 

This picture just cracks me up. A hot dog sniffing the butt of spaghetti.

There's No Place Like the Library

For Halloween, my co-workers and I decided to dress up as characters from the Wizard of Oz, being the only brunette that works full time at the branch, I was given the roll of Dorothy. Wahoo!

Interesting fun fact: I used to sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" every night before bed when I was a little kid. A lot of my co-workers are anti-costumes, so I was pretty proud of them for what they pulled together for the day. And the kids loved it.

We just happened to have a Wizard of Oz themed program the previous weekend and had a yellow brick road photo background made. It made for the perfect photo backdrop for us.

The Tinman and I. I hope we get to take many many co-worker costume pics together Emily!

And me, with my ruby red children's sized 5 slippers that killed my feet. All in the name of Halloween.

Happy Halloween + Pug-O-Ween

Happy Halloween! I absolutely LOVE holidays and dressing up, so Halloween is one of my faves! Kyle is a bit of a fun hater when it comes to holidays so I haven't gone "all out" for Halloween since we started dating. Gah! Not ok. Last year I sported this froggy look for a Halloween race.

Ollie and my favorite unofficial holiday is Pug-O-Ween and it was this past Sunday! I like to use all my costume enthusiasm on Ollie's costume (see 2012: chiapug), but this year I didn't know if we'd be able to go until the last minute so I didn't want to spend a ton of time and $$$ on her get up. I found her a cute secondhand toddler ladybug costume at Savers a couple of weeks ago, and realized that I had all the makings of matching costume in my closet. I found some wings and a headband and the Ladypug duo was formed.

A trio of adults dressed as pugs won the group contest, but we took 2nd for our efforts.

And even cooler, the @pugsofinstagram account picked up our photo and it's safe to say I'll never get that many likes/comments on a photo EVER.

Here are some pics of Ollie having fun with the other puggies.

Group contest line up.

Pretty lady. Pug.

There's a lot of butt sniffing at pug events. FYI.

We're dressing up at work today too, so stay tuned for more pictures!

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen + tempo run + psychology lesson

So the reason I was in such a hurry to get the 11 mile long run done was so that I could get on with HALLOWEEN! My old running buddy, Matty, and I had made plans to put the final touches on my costume and do some quick shopping to finish his costume. We had a tight schedule to follow, obviously. :)

Matt went as Bret Michaels (the singer). Some of you may know him better from the crappy show Rock of Love. Anyway, he actually kind of looks like Bret Michaels, so the costume was a HUGE hit. I will take full responsibility for his awesome make up application. In return, we both learned that he is somewhat of an expert at fake eyelash application. Who knew, right?

After spending a little time at one of his co-workers, we headed out to the bar, knowing we'd run in to the rest of my friends. And they were decked out as well. The newlyweds represented their own crappy reality tv show, by going as Jon & Kate Plus 8. Mel's wig is probably the sweetest thing I've ever seen. :)

I love that they look super pissed off and annoyed. Yes, Barry should've had an Ed Hardy shirt on, I already gave him crap for it.























One of my other good friends went as a toilet. Which was awesome. Especially because I got sick of walking all the way to the bathrooms to relieve myself. Don't mind if I do!

I have no idea who this guy is, but while standing at the bar I looked at him, and with sheer glee in my eyes whispered, "Oh my God...are you Dexter?!?!" He put his face mask down and was super excited that I got it, since most people didn't. Of course we had to take a picture. My grin proves how excited I was by his costume.

And finally, Mr. Taylor dressed up as a doctor. Of course I had to steal his stethoscope to check his vitals. Ahhh...just as I suspected....heartless.

:) My god I'm clever.

Any guesses as to what I am? Prior to going out, Matt and I had determined that 5 people would be able to guess my costume. The final result: 1. :( Oh well. Anytime I can rock the sexy but clever costume, I absolutely will.

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The aforementioned festivities left a not so pleasant Sunday for Miss JerBear. We're talking mondo tummy pains. :( I still made myself get out the door for my 6 mile long run. However, because of the time change and the Packers game (oooooooh so sad, btw) I didn't get out to run until well after dark. Again probably a good thing because my stomach was still PISSED. I decided to run by my old stomping grounds, because I feel comfortable running in that neighborhood after dark. The only downfall is that there are some serious hills en route to the stomping grounds. Oh well, hills make you strong, right?

P.S. I would also like to point out that even though it was well after dark, I was WEARING SHORTS. Yes. November. I'm in shorts. Can I get a loud and proud, heck ya? Ok, enough of that.

The run felt really good and it was nice to hit up the old 'hood. It was even nicer letting the legs get some air. :) I did 6 miles in 52:51 for a pace of 8:49. My goal pace for the tempo miles was 8:23. Average tempo pace 8:30. Whoops

1. 9:41

2. 8:42

3. 8:38

4. 8:22
5. 8:19

6. 9:05

To be honest, my legs kind of felt like crap from wearing heels all night before, and my stomach could've emptied itself at any moment. Mental note, do not leave any tough runs for Saturdays/Sundays just in case you are inspired to go out on the weekend. Uff.

October in Review + Halloween long run

Halloween morning I woke up and dressed up in my first costume of the day: Cold weather runner. And set out to do 11 miles. In keeping consistent with my long run theme, I didn't eat anything before my run. Shocker. I have noticed that when I eat PB toast my stomach goes in to revolt almost immediately after, and I just didn't have time to deal with that.

Instead, I took my first Gu at mile 2, and it seemed to work just fine. I swear I am going to get some GUNS from toting around my handheld water bottle through the winter. Wowsers. My arms get tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired. About 5 miles into my run I see a huge gathering of people....oh ya! There was a Halloween race that I was going to enter. This must be the start. :) I came running in the opposite direction minutes before the start. I ran another half mile up the trail and then turned back around to do the remaining 5.5 miles.

Another mile and a half to two miles in, I started to see some of the racers making their back route of the race. I cheered the front runner on, told 2nd place to go catch #1, and cheered like hell for chick #1 and #3 overall. Then it kind of got funny, as the leaders of the 10k started to pass me in the opposite direction...they started cheering for me! Thinking I was in dead last (by at least 2 miles....). The volunteers kept trying to hand me water and shaking their 5k & 10k turn around signs. I just had to laugh....I was keeping a really strong pace and WASN'T wearing a race bib, but apparently they didn't get it. Oh well, that's the most crowd support I've ever had for a long run. HAH.

I ended up running really strong, and having a really strong finish. It was also super fun to see all the costumes. I'm for sure going to do the race for fun next year in costume. One of my favorites: fourth place (when I saw him) in the 5k was the marlboro man. He was wearing a cowboy hat (that he was carrying in his hand), red flannel, jeans (OUCH!), and had a ciggarette dangling from his mouth. Too funny.

I did 11 miles in 1:38:51 for a pace of 9:00.

1. 9:07

2. 9:04

3. 9:08

4. 8:56

5. 9:04

6. 8:56

7. 9:01

8. 8:56

9. 9:04

10. 8:51
11. 8:39

And with that, my month of October came to a close.....which means.....OCTOBER IN REVIEW. I know you've been patiently waiting for it as always, I completely understand. :)

Total Miles: 115.1 up 14 from last month. Sadly should've been closer to 140-150, but being sicky sick took its toll.

Time spent: 17:41:15 Up almost 2 hours from September.

Total Runs: 20 which averages to 5.75 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 10/12/2009 — 10/18/2009: 30.0 Mi/4:34:50

Favorite run: Um...any I didn't have to do indoors on the treadmill.... jk. Let me think. My easy 6 miler with awesome music. I got some serious clarity about life on this run, and it was just awesome.

Most hardcore run: My 4x800 m repeat workout in which I ran my first 800 at my 400 pace and couldn't figure out why I was dyyyyyyyyyying. :)

Favorite Race: USF Community 5k. Even though it was cold and a crappy course, it also wins by default because it was my only. Not sure how I went from racing every weekend in October, to just once. I'll chalk it up to, it's too damn cold! Anyway. :) I placed 1st in my AG, 5th for chicas, and 11th overall. Plus the clock time was 1 second faster than what I had, which is always a win! :)