So I’ve never considered myself a foodie. I don’t even think I fall into that category now, but I love yelping different places and trying new things lately. I guess I’m living in the moment and that moment isn’t my normal food that I eat at home and doing nothing. When we were down in San Diego for the expo for work I was yelping a place to eat dinner when I found R Gang Eatery. It had good reviews and after seeing the menu it looked like something that my co-worker and I would both like. We left the expo and were pleasantly surprised to find no wait and a genuinely fun place to eat and had AWESOME food. We started off with the House made Cheddar-Chive Tater Tots with Ketchup & Chipotle Ranch Dip. Looking at the menu now, we never got the ketchup, but man we didn’t even need it. They were AMAZING. The Chipotle was delicious and these were just fantastic.

Then we both got the Smoked Gouda Mac n Cheese with Toasted Butter Cracker Crumb Topping. I could not even speak while eating this. It was THAT good. I was totally in heaven and it was just delicious. There were so many great things on the menu but I knew if I didn’t get the Mac and Cheese I would regret it and boy am I glad I did. It was simply awesome.

There were so many great options and looked like there were also some awesome drinks that we didn’t partake in because we wanted to save the rest of our tummys for dessert, in which we traveled to Babycakes, a gay cupcake bar. Another epic cupcake win! We got two drinks, the grasshopper and a coffee and then three cupcakes. Yea, a little over the top. We got a red velvet with the rational of ‘well you have to try every cupcake shops red velvet.’ Then we got the peanut butter and jelly, because it sounded like the most amazing thing ever and then the Lemon one. Starting with the peanut butter and jelly, I was shocked how it tasted just like my favorite sandwich! It was awesome. Then the red velvet was a great one and we ended on the lemon one. It was like the pickle that ended our meal. Simply amazing!

Demmmmolished!

So that was a highlight of the expo for sure! If you are ever in San Diego, I totally LOVE R Gang Eatery and recommend you eat there! Babycakes is also a sweet treat! Alright, no more foodie posts from me for a while!

xoxo

So this weekend I was on the go-go-go the whole weekend. I started it off with a great Thursday evening run which got me out of my running rut. Friday morning I overslept :( and couldn’t do my long run that morning before leaving for San Diego for work for the AFC Expo on Friday and Saturday. We left at 9:30 am and got to San Diego right at 12 when the Expo started. Met some great people and finally left the expo at 7:15 pm. We ended up eating at one of the best places I’ve ever eaten at, more on that tomorrow, and hit the hay at 9:30. Had a horrible nights sleep since our hotel room was next to the elevator. All night long. Ding. Ding. Ding. We woke up at 8 am and headed over to the expo with a delicious trip to Starbucks and worked until 5:00 pm and then started the lovely 2 hour drive home. Got home at 7:15 pm, ate dinner, watched Jersey Shore and went to bed at 9 pm, to wake up at 4:00 am to head back to work the OC Fair 5k.

To say the least, my weekend was not really a weekend. Sometimes I look forward to working during the week and sitting at my desk all day one day so I can get caught up on all my emails and just sit for a while.

So after working 8 hours Sunday morning at the Fair 5k, I traveled home, sat for a while and ate lunch. It was actually very warm out so I waited for a while to start my long run. I started at 4:30 pm and made it 10 miles before I was just pouring in sweat and thirsty. I even wore my fuel belt and my water bottles were bone dry. I got picked up by a friend on the side of the road. It wasn’t discouraging, but I am just so busy that it’s hard to make training my priority right no, which is exactly what I said it needed to be on Thursday if you want to reach your goals.

From now until December, my life is going to be completely crazy. I have events basically every weekend. I love it but it does hinder my training a lot. This morning I walked the dogs for a mile and a half and really thought about my goals, my life and the upcoming races I hope to run in. I was hoping to possibly try to qualify for Boston in Camarillo in October. I realized that even thought I want to qualify, right now, I’m not going to have the time to make this a realistic goal. I thought about all the training runs I’ve had and how I feel great, but I’m not at the speed that I want to be or need to be. I also know that I run for me and that’s the bottom line.

It’s hard to realize that right now I don’t  WANT to qualify for Boston enough to put in the training that it will take to get me there, nor do I have the time to put in the training.

I have talked to many other runners about this but I have a theory that if you ran competitively previously in high school or college, it’s harder for you to train now to “compete” if you are running for pleasure. I feel a lot of the ‘training’ that I would be doing, would be exactly what I did in high school. It’s interesting to hear so many other people who have the same background as I do say many of the same things about how the feeling of “running for fun” is exactly that. Running for fun. If I start training like I used to, it would become work, like how it was then and I’ve already done that whole thing. It took me a long time to be okay with just ‘running’ for fun. I like racing, I like running but I’m not running like I used to in high school. Where I trained year round and ran competitively and constantly was criticizing myself and pushing myself to the limit. It’s an interesting thought that I consider that I’ve already ‘ran that hard’ and ‘raced’ in my life and now it’s just for fun for me.

Bottom line: Do I want to go to Boston? Yes. Do I want to go right now? Do I REALLY WANT IT? No. Which makes me believe it’s not my time to qualify. I’m just being honest with myself, it stings a little but it’s honest.

I want to have an awesome race in Camarillo. My goal is go to sub-4 again. I want to have fun and have an awesome race in Malibu again. I want to enjoy some half marathons and have fun running. I want to be able to go out and run and enjoy it. Which I’m doing  now.

I have a 20 miler this weekend and I know I’ll get it done since we don’t have an event on Saturday, but with vacation next week and North Carolina in two weeks, and then work getting more and more crazy as our ‘busy’ season is just starting, I know my rigid training would be the first thing to suffer. It’s like setting myself up for failure, but I want to enjoy running like I am now. So I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.

So that’s what I thought about on my walk with the dogs this morning at 6:30 am. Who knew?! :)

xoxo

So this weekend started off with setting up three events on Friday for work.

We set up flags for about 4 hours and then we went into the office for a while and then back out to take down one event that was finishing up. But not before I flew a kite at the event!

I haven’t flown a kite in forever. I tried to earlier in the morning. And Failed. Really badly. Who knew it was so hard to fly a kite!?

Friday after work it was pretty crazy because there ended up to be a baby opossum in our backyard! WHAT THE HECK! So we are not so good with “wild” animals, and we had no idea what to do with it.

Then it crawled up in our lazy boy that we have in the garage. So we fenced it in. Little did we know that it would soon walk right through that fence! He wouldn’t come out of the chair, and so we let the dogs at him and he came right out and played dead. We thought he was dead for about 2 seconds and then saw him breathing so we just fenced him in and got him in a box and released him to the wild at the park the next day.

Ha, ha it’s all wet around him because we sprayed the dogs to let him go. We didn’t need opossum guts all over our backyard, and we didn’t want to kill him. We called animal control at 6 pm when we found him, but they didn’t show up until the next day until 11 am. Awesome guys. So he was released at the park and seemed to be happy when we released him!

I did a fast 5 miler on Saturday and ran a ‘naked’ (aka garminless) 8 miler on Sunday. I also went to the gym both days and am really feeling a lot stronger, and sore! I have really been working my arms and back a lot and I think they are getting stronger and I’m feeling better and much more healthy adding in some gym time.

Then Saturday I got to go to the crawfish festival for work.

It was really good! With the ticket you got 2 lbs of crawfish. I’ve never had crawfish before but it was delicious, but perhaps a little more work than I thought. They are kind of like baby lobsters. It was overall a great weekend, and I even saw the movie Flipped and thought it was just adorable. I know I should have run more, but oh well.This week I’m finishing up my new schedule for the ‘final’ section of my training. After working so many weekend events though, this is kind of a bummer.

I also visited my friend’s grandma who had surgery a while back, who is now on home hospice care. Really puts life into perspective and how short it really is. I’m lucky to be able to walk, run and talk every day. I’m thankful to have so many people in my life that I love.

xoxo

So I always think the what’s in your purse posts are fun. So does Page, but that has nothing to do with anything besides the fact that I realize that I do also take the most random crap in my gear check bag and maybe perhaps someone thought it would be interesting! I’m totally one of those people who takes a ton of crap in my gear bag to the point where I think it’s going to explode. I’m also all about the lovely ‘backpack’ type bags that races have been giving out lately. LOVE them. Most of the stuff I throw in my gear check is for AFTER the race. :) Enjoy!

Deodorant, since after running however far I’m running, I’m probably a little stinky. Therefore deodorant makes me feel better and fresher and I’m sure all the people I’m hanging out with after the race appreciate it.

Everyone loves a little body splash. Just like the deodorant it masks the smell  just in case I’m doing anything after the race or hanging out with friends for lunch or something. I just don’t want to rot while I’m eating.

Rainbows are my life! I love these flip flops and they go everywhere with me. I pretty much almost wear them everyday to work as well. They are the perfect post race footwear, if I decide to take my shoes and socks off.

Just in case it’s shark week. You never know when your going to need it. Just take into account my first full marathon. Blah.

Baby powder for the hair. Sometimes I put this in my hair to absorb the grease and sweat. Gross, yes, but it makes it look a lot better!

So I don’t put my WHOLE wallet in my gear check bag, but I do put some money and my drivers license if I’m not carrying it on me in my iFitness belt during the race.

I love this chapstick. Basically am obsessed with it. It travels everywhere with me and I think it’s the perfect way to start feeling better after a race since usually my lips are a little chapped at the end of the race.

Sunglasses are clutch! I am caught wearing mine ALL the time and can’t be without them for long. I make sure that I don’t put in a good pair, but instead a pair from Forever 21 or something, just in case something happens. Who am I kidding, almost all my sunglasses are from Forever 21. I can’t resist 5 dollar sunglasses.

I have a gum addiction, so therefore I must have some gum. Also, sometimes before a race I’ll pop in a piece to chew as well.

I pack a new little outfit for after the race. Usually my comfy shorts and a gym t-shirt.

I pack a sweatshirt or jacket of some type. Luckily I had my work sweatshirt which I love wearing since it has a hood and is a little larger. And since it’s fairly new, it’s so soft inside still!

I pack another pair of socks just in case I want to keep my shoes on and I can still change my socks.

Lastly, I pack some hairspray, because there is one rule while running. You can never have enough hairspray!

Do you pack a ton of random crap in your gear check bag?

xoxo

So this might just be me, but when I run in the summer I feel like I’m getting so much more out of it. I usually do not like sweating, but when I work out, I want to sweat. A lot. I feel like it’s working better then, so bring on the summer months. If they say girls glisten and glow and don’t sweat, they are simply crazy. Some of my best runs  have been when I come home completely drenched and my shirt stuck to me. That’s just me though.

Then I have the conundrum of my laundry. What to do with laundry. Do you leave your sweaty clothes out to ‘dry’ for a little bit before putting them in the hamper? Do you put all your stinky sweaty laundry in with the same clothes that you wear normally? I used to just combine everything together that but I started to realize that things were getting overwhelmingly stinky! Thus entered another hamper!

I put two hampers next to each other in my closet and now wha-la I have one stinky yucky hamper and one regular clothes hamper. The thing I do to also help keep things a little bit cleaner is instead of just throwing super gross stuff RIGHT into the hamper and letting it rot in there, I try to air it out a little bit in advance, hanging things over the door handle or a hook for a couple hours and then throw it in the hamper. It seems to help out.

So therefore after a run, my bathroom always looks like this:

I’ve also tried the special ‘sports’ detergent, numerous kinds, but I honestly don’t feel like it doesn’t anything extra that regular laundry detergent doesn’t do and with the prices that it goes for, I’d rather just stick to the regular stuff.

What do you guys do with your laundry? Does it hang out to ‘dry’ for a bit or just go straight in the hamper? Do you find the sports detergents work? Does sweating more make you feel like you are getting more out of the workout, or am I the lone freak?

On the running side, I wasted 3 hours of my life last night watching the Bachelorette finale and After the Final Rose. Worthless! I couldn’t wake up early this morning so I’ve got 8.5 ‘hard’ miles after work today. I’m actually looking forward to it. I can’t believe it, but I’m almost onto Phase Three of my training for Camarillo, and it’s only 61 days away!

xoxo