So Friday night at work I bit the bullet and signed up for the two races that were on my radar. I was a little nervous doing so since I haven’t had a good long run yet, but I was hopeful that this weekend’s run would go well. So without further ado, I’m all signed up for the LA Marathon on March 20th and the Oakland Marathon on March 27th! I can’t believe it! I am so excited and nervous and scared! So Friday night was low-key early night to bed for my 16 miler on Saturday with Maritza in LA.

When I left my house in the morning, it was SO foggy and I really was hoping for some sun. Thankfully, once I hit Carson, it was sunny and gorgeous. Beautiful weather for a run. We started off in Santa Monica at our normal spot where we park sort of by the finish line of the LA Marathon, and then headed out to UCLA!

That’s right! I even wore my Long Beach shirt. I have never had a bad run in this shirt and I felt like I needed it for my long run to get me through it mentally! It was a GREAT run. Best part of the run? Running down San Vicente and Maritza pointing out…. The guy married to Fergie! Helllllllo Josh Duhmal!

I left the picture huge so you can just drool over his hotness and yes, I was pretending I was texting to take that stalker picture! So back to running, I couldn’t believe how awesome I was feeling and we ran a lot of hills to prepare us for LA as well. I was shocked how awesome I was feeling and when the last two miles came, I was completely pooped and it was a struggle for those last two miles. I also realize this is the longest run I’ve done in a long time and I was glad it was great up until the last two miles because it gave me the confidence in the miles I had put it and the last two miles should be hard when I haven’t run that far in a while. Stoked to feel so awesome especially after signing up for two big races not to far away and having the Surf City Half next weekend!

Then we went to this great place in Santa Monica called Jinky’s and had an awesome time stuffing our faces! We were both famished and this place had such great selection. I got the red white and blue waffle, and was SO hungry, I dug in before taking a picture of the glorious waffle I was dreaming about all morning. It was HUGE!

15 minutes later…

Demolished! It was amazing, and both Maritza and I decided that we need to learn the Oliver food song to sing on our runs to each other. Once I finally got home I knew it was time to ice my ankles for sure. Since I NEVER run hills around here, since there aren’t many, they were a little beat up the last part of my run. I don’t know WHY my feet are so dirty though? I know my shoes let in a lot of dirt but I didn’t realize it was this bad!

It was a great day for a run on Saturday and Sunday I finished it off with a great  gym session for some strength training. It was one of those days when I REALLY didn’t want to go to the gym but I was really glad once I was there and worked out harder than I thought I would. I felt awesome and went home and planned my lunches for the week and really want to work hard this month at incorporating more fruits and produce into my diet and eating at home.  This week is a big hill week for me so I was really glad to kick it off with with a pretty hilly run with M on Saturday. Big training weeks coming up!

xoxo

So I have a confession. I never wanted to be that girl that sported the lululemon gear, well perhaps I wanted to sport it, but I guess I didn’t want to pay the price for it. I always loved it, super cute, fun colors, don’t get me wrong, but capris for the upwards of $100? Are you insane? I have loans to pay off! I lusted after them but another thing that was a little over the top for me is paying that much for something that I will sweat in. It was on thing to spend that much on clothes that I’d get a lot of wear in, but a lot of the capris I bought last season were already in the ‘see-through’ stages. They were not cheap and I can’t imagine paying that much for something that would end up in the same see through boat, and who wants nasty sweat all over your new expensive capris. If I want to buy something expensive, I can tell you that it will most likely be jeans. Alas, I always see tons of people in US Weekly sporting their Lululemon gear.

And I think maybe if I get some lululemon gear, I’ll be featured on the pages running through Santa Monica and getting hit on by John Mayer. Most likely not.

All the bright colors and soft material made me want it. Bad. But I stayed far, far away. I even know everyone says there’s something about it that just makes your butt look amazing. I wouldn’t know though because I never had anything.

That is not my butt. Nor do I know who that butt belongs too. But that little U kept sucking me in. I always wanted to get something and wear it while I was out and about, running, at the gym. Then, one day at work, my co-worker, who does obscene amounts of yoga with her roommate who is a yogi (isn’t that what they call yoga teachers?) brought me a bag full of clothes. Inside were three pairs of her yogi roommates old Lululemon capris. I about died on the spot. I couldn’t believe it. The supplex material that they are made of basically is the most amazing fabric ever, and the whole ‘forgiving’ thing that they say that the capris do, totally true. They suck in everything for some reason and are the most deceiving things ever. I love.

So now I’m that girl. I wear my lululemon around happy as a clam. I put them on when I run every so often, and man. I must say, there is nothing to describe their softness. Le Sigh. I am sucked in. I have taken a little swig of the Lululemonade and I want more, more, more! I peruse their sale section of their site, and if I ever see anything that I must have, I will pounce on it like a cheetah. I still haven’t bought anything yet, but even with my used lulus, I am in lululemon heaven! I never realized that I would get trapped so easily. And now, looking at the price tags makes me wish I never even took a sip. I got one taste of the lululemonade and I am hooked! The sweetness is just to overwhelming and is has overpowered me! I am now a lululemon addict.  I am now guzzling the lululemonade by the cupful! I still rarely wear them because I don’t want to ruin them, but man, I must admit, they are my new love. The way they fit, the fact that I can wear a size small, the material, the way they just suck everything in and pull everything up. It’s like they are magical. Now, just to find John Mayer….

xoxo

So everything was going dandy, I was getting in some awesome runs and then I got a little sick but am feeling much better now. You know what comes with great runs? Pretty bad ones! Last night I took off for my 7 miler and could only get in 4.5 because my shins were hurting SO bad. Bummer, but alas, I headed to the gym last night and this morning and am feeling better. I iced twice and am going to work on stretching them all day today at work today and tomorrow to make sure I can get in my 6 miler tomorrow morning and then my long run this weekend. Talk about setbacks! I know that bad runs come with good ones though, so I’m sure it’s just a little rut and I’ll be out of it soon with a little bit of stretching!

Even though I’m not totally sold on waking up at 5:30 in the morning to be the first in line when the gym doors open, waking up to this is making life a lot easier.

And for the month of January, I’ve already run 59.7 miles, which is the most I’ve run in any month since October! So with the good stuff sometimes comes bad stuff, but I’m liking how training is going thus far and am glad that I am going the route I have worked out!

xoxo

So I had an awesome workout on Tuesday night and was just starting to feel awesome about training again. I hit a great tempo pace (8:15s) and was on target for my training this week. I was just starting to feel consistent and then wha whaaaaaa totally got ran over by the sickness truck and have been dealing with a cold this whole rest of the weekend. I know that I’m a very mental runner and getting sick makes me psych myself out big time. I was really nervous about my long run not being completed this weekend, but I let my nose do all the running and kept myself pumped with drugs.

I thought about doing my long run yesterday but I have run when I was sick before and it makes things so much worse. So I skipped the long run and called half the week a wash and got right back into training this morning with a trip to the gym. I feel much better about it and will go for a 16-18 miler this weekend. It actually works out perfectly too since this is the one weekend I’ll be in town out of the next three weeks. I’d much rather do a long run on my home turf. So this week I will prepare for that and I am feeling much, much better after getting rid of my cold!

On another weird and unrelated note, I’m looking for something to help ‘erase’ my large black under eye circles. Ever since Long Beach, I haven’t been able to recover! I don’t know what’s up but the black bags under my eyes look horrible! If you have any great tricks, tips or products, let me know. I put on some anti-aging cream every night but would love something to get rid of the blackness so I don’t get the whole ‘you look so tired’ all the time. I want to take out my pink peal erasure and get to work on them! Alas if it was only so easy :) So if you have any ideas or tips let me know!

And here’s a little gem from the Carlsbad Expo this weekend with my co-worker and I working our booth. :)

I also saw the movie No Strings Attached last night and really liked it! This morning I got up early and went to the gym and felt great. I know tomorrow mornings tempo run will be great and then I’ll be right back on track. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in what you haven’t done instead of what you have accomplished!

xoxo

I have been working on this review forever! I was asked a while back to review the Sony “W”. Being the skeptical reviewer that I am, I was really skeptical that this would replace my iPod and love for the Apple Family. I wanted to give it a try though, because like so many people I have a problem with the cords and bounciness, etc. etc.

Here’s a picture of me wearing the Sony W at the Camarillo Marathon in October. I got the W in July of last year and have been running with it since then. I love all the features that it has and my most favorite thing? Cordless! When I first started wearing it, I loved how light it was and I was really surprised how it stayed in my ears while running and working out. It was nice not getting tangled up cords and pulling my own ear buds out when I’m running or doing stuff with headphones. It’s really nice to mix it up. Here’s a close up of the earbuds in my ears. They stay in really well and the wires curve over your ears nicely and they don’t fall out at all.

Another great thing about them is the fact that they are pretty easy to use. I have never had a problem updating music on my Mac. I just plug it in and it is simple to drop music onto the player. You can see how much space you have left and all the songs on the player as well. There is a small light that lets you know when it’s fully charged and it’s easy to plug into any computer to charge. The only thing I wish it has was a wall charger since I’m not always around a computer. The only thing that took me a while to learn was how to turn it off. The first few times I used it, I had to let it play until it died because I’m an idiot and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. All you have to do is put the little magnetic pieces together like shown below and it will turn off.

So once I figured that out it was pretty smooth sailing. I do like the wide variety of how loud and soft the music goes and I feel like it gets pretty loud which is awesome for the gym. I also like how I can listen to just one ear if I’m running in a busy location and I know it also has a “zappin” feature, which changes the song about every 15 seconds so you just get little snippets of each song, but I don’t really like that feature because I like listening to whole songs, but I could see it as being entertaining if you had ADD.

The thing that really is awesome about the Sony W is the fact that it’s only $59.95. To me, that is a reasonable price for this product. I really think that it’s a cool product and I’m happy to say that I have shed my iPod for the W! I just love the convenience, and the simplicity of it and how it doesn’t have cords and how portable it is. I also like the price because if it did break, I wouldn’t be heartbroken over $59 bucks. It’s also waterproof and I use it all the time now. I don’t even use my iPod for working out! If you would have told me that I love this little guy as much as I do, I wouldn’t have believed it but I am seriously glad I checked this out and if you are in the market for something new, I would totally put it on your list! You can find out more here! I hopefully will be having another giveaway soon! Here’s another great review as well!

xoxo