I remember running every day after school, doing insane workouts that now I can’t even imagine running. I remember how fun it was being a part of a team and how I enjoyed everyone’s company. I still have the shoebox that holds all my medals tucked away in my closet. I remember how excited I’d be race day when the gun went off and how we all had matching bows in our hair. My senior year we even all got racing flats with our school colors. They were awesome.

Then I am also reminded what a LOSER I WAS! HA! I had such bad acne and I ran all the time. Most people made fun of the cross country team and we tried to rationalize our running with sayings like, ‘Our sport is your sports punishment,’ which looking back, didn’t help anything. But man, it was a great time. I was a dork with asthma. But then again, I ran my fastest time in high school in the 5k at 19:57. Knowning now how in shape I was then, I wish I would have recognized it!

Alas, I leave you with a picture from my cross country days.

Can you find me?

I’m 5 in from the right hand side. Gheesh! I wouldn’t ever want to go back to those days!

xoxo

I was contacted by the kind and generous people at Outdoor PR and they sent me some awesome shades to test out from Ryders. LOVE. They are straight up amazing! I, like usual, was skeptical when I first tried them out. I thought they would for sure slip down my nose when I showed the first sign of sweat. They fit my head well and never flopped around when I was running even on longer runs and now I can’t imagine running without them. I also totally love the color and shape, and best part ever… They LOOK AWESOME! It was simply amazing to know that I didn’t look like a grasshopper while running! I wear the Dutchess.

I love  how big these are. The look fashionable and totally can be worn when I’m not running as well. They are really dark and the best part is that now I can stare at everyone when I run like a creeper and no one even knows I’m staring! The only hard thing was trying to figure out which ones would best fit my face online while searching for them on the Ryders Website.

I really like the side view of the glasses as well. They are super comfortable and I’ve run with them so much that I can’t imagine them not blocking the sun from my eyes. They really protect my eyes since they are really dark and have UV protection as well. Quite a change going from nothing to these bad boys.

The key to them staying up on your nose while running is the little nosepads that the glasses have. They are awesome and stay up even on long runs when I become a sweaty mess. They don’t get fogged up either and really are fantastic. I was surprised when I never had to push them up ever.

Here’s a close up of the nosepads. They make a huge difference and make the sunglasses super comfortable as well.

Ahhh how I love these sunglasses! I do have like 10 pairs of regular ones that I don’t run in, but these seriously are perfect for working events, running and anything active. The best part is that they are only $39.99! That is something that I could pay and wouldn’t be devastated if they somehow got messed up in my gym bag, or I sat on them or something. I love these glasses so much that I wear them often even when I’m not running!

Check our Ryder’s Sunglasses here. The ones I tested were the Dutchess!

Since they rock, they also sent me a pair to giveaway!

Here are the ones that are up for grabs!

Please ignore the fact that I can’t close my mouth because of a giant coldsore. :/

Enter by leaving a comment on this post about your favorite thing about this summer. My favorite thing? Vacation in big bear last week and I know I’m going to just have a BLAST this weekend at my friend Nina’s Wedding in North Carolina!!!

Also, get another entry, if you tweet about the giveaway. Include @chicrunner in your tweet and include http://www.chicrunner.com and something creative about the giveaway.

Good luck, I’ll pick the winner next Monday!

xoxo

And yes, tris have crossed my mind. Don’t get all crazy just yet, it will be a while till I get there. C’mon I need to plunk down a solid 2 g for a bike first!

I now introduce you to the hopeful future love of my life

The Giant Avail

I rode this bike before on a test ride and fell in love. It was so quick and clean and I loved the way it felt! The componets that it has are really awesome as well, for the price, which is a rough $1,500ish, not including the helmet, water bottle holder and trainer that I would want to get right away. Also, I love how the bike is very clean looking and I know that some pink handlebar tape would just be the perfect touch on here. :)

Le Sigh. One day. I’ve been creeping around to see when the 2011s come out as well. Perhaps I’ll be able to get one after taxes come back next year! I am saving up now for it and hope that I can possibly get a bike that I love after Christmas to join the roadbiking cult.

It’s funny because just the other day I went into a brand new bike shop after a run that just happened to be on my way home. Not one word was said to me as I perused the shop. They were all huddled in the corner over some bike in their spandex. Very weird. I just know I will be a nice girl with pigtails, none of this douchey, no-wave, I won’t even look at you unless your on a bike stuff. I’m just not that tough!

xoxo

Here’s the schedule for the remainder of the weeks until race day!

I’m already down the one twenty mile on there, and have 10 miles to run in Big bear this next weekend and then 13 when I’m in North Carolina and then back up to one more 20 and I’m just in taper mode after. I also have to remember that I’m planning on running the Malibu Marathon and that having this base is really going to be helpful for all my races next spring too. It will be fun to run all those races, even though I know my schedule will be crazy. Totally worth it especially since a ton of my friends are running the races with me.

I still have decent weekly mileage, and after Camarillo, I’m going to cut it back to three days a week and more cross training to tone up. I have been feeling really good lately while implementing cross training so I know it’s important to keep it in my schedule. I love having a loose schedule that I can play with a little bit and gives me leniency. That’s the key to helping me not  get too burnt out.

xoxo

I gave myself little things to look forward to throughout the run. I got to eat some sharkies at mile 6 and I drank water every mile as well. It was an out and back route. I find that if I run by myself and go 10 miles out, once I turn around I have a little pep in my step because I tell myself “I just have to get back to my car!” As I got to the 10 mile turn-around, it was already really hot and I made sure to drink a lot of water throughout my run. Though I was getting tired, I knew I just had to make it ‘back to the car!’ Finally I got to the upper mileage and kept telling myself 6 more miles, 5 more miles, 4 more miles, then I only had a 5k left!

Finally I made it back to the car, with more awkward tan lines and a rumbling stomach. On my way home I could literally feel my muscles tightening. It seemed that I couldn’t get into the icebath soon enough! I grabbed a bag of ice at the market and hopped in the icebath to freeze for ten minutes. Seriously, icebaths are a weird miracle thing that make you feel 100 times better. After the icebath I really thought about how I fueled and the miles that I put in. For the lack of miles I’ve been getting in during the week, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to get in another 20 miler. With Camarillo quickly approaching, I know that these last miles in my training is important and I have to keep up my consistency.

It’s easy for me to get really tired and overwhelmed with training, and lose focus on what I’m training for, but right now I have about a month to go and I really have to keep up with training and finish strong.

41 days!

xoxo

The best part about the Keahou IIs? They come in pink! EEEE So excited. And they are the perfect amount of pink, not like someone threw up pink on my shoes, but nice accents.

All the pretty shoes! I’m wearing the new Keahou IIs in this picture too. I just think they look so nice. I seriously am in love with these shoes, and I don’t care what anyone says! Okay, that sounds weird but you get the picture.

So then after some awesome trying on shoes and talking running for a while. We snapped this last picture before we left.

Love both those guys! Can’t find better runners than either of them. :) Thank you again Bryan for having us at the store so we can see all the cool stuff, and I’m still jealous of your teal and orange shoes! :)

Then Billy, knowing that I’m a blossoming low-class foodie and my insane love for caprese, took me to a delicious Italian sandwich place, known as Bay Cities Deli! Instalove! I got the caprese sandwich and it was to die for!

The balsamic vinegar was amazing and it was the perfect amount of tomato, heaps of delicious mozzi and then just a little touch of basil that finished it off perfectly. I know, another food post right? Sheesh. I’m working on that FYI, so no more food posts from the Chic Runner!

Talk about a way to kick off the weekend. Well the day before the weekend. Awesome time up in LA And so glad I got to go up there and eat bomb food AND get new shoes to run off those calories in said bomb food.

This weekend we have an event on Sunday but I’ve got a 20 miler to kick off the weekend tomorrow morning. Luckily, it’s with my new la-la land lover, Maritza who is moving down here TODAY! I can’t wait to kick off her time down here with a long run together. Hooray for me having someone to run with!!!

xoxo

Big Bear Vacation -3 days

North Carolina Trip for Nina’s Wedding -14 days

Camarillo Marathon -45 days

My Birthday -48 days

Long Beach Marathon -59 days

New Mexico Trip for Kelly’s Wedding -65 days

Malibu Marathon -89 days

Dana Point Turkey Trot (Thanksgiving) -97 days

LA County Half Marathon – 114 days

Christmas -127 days

So basically until the end of the year, I’m busy ALL the time! I can’t believe it that it’s already the end of August basically! I remember when I started my new job that our ‘busy season’ being now until the end of the year, seemed SO far away! I didn’t realize how quickly it was going to creep up and be here. Everything in October is awesome. It’s by far my favorite month of the year!

Yesterday we went out to LA County to ride the course for our half. It was ridiculously hot and a few of us were getting nauseous. It was 101 degrees and I have even more terrible tan lines to prove it. It was a fun day though and we did get a bunch of neat pictures, which will make my job much easier.

This weekend we have one more event and a 20 miler that I have to work before vacation next week. I can’t wait to do some awesome running up in the mountains and just relax with friends. It will be a great week on the lake where I can get some good sun and maybe get rid of my flip-flop tan.

What are some things you look forward to? Do you do countdowns? I think it’s fun to countdown to things, especially races!

xoxo

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

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

It’s when you are accountable to people, you show up. You run. You have to. You said you’d be there. As soon as I started running I knew it was going to just rock. I was feeling great, I had some great jams on and though I’m not much of a ‘group runner’, since I do 99.9% of my running alone, it was a fun little group and everyone kind of did their own thing.

I fell right into stride and before I knew it we were at the turn around. The sights out there were just amazing and I easily fell right back into where I was in July, getting in great mileage and happy to be running. So my rut is gone and I’m ready to tackle the rest of training for Camarillo now. In July I had a record high of 106 miles. This month I’ve only logged about 45, which a few were run without a garmin, but that is a-ok and I’m glad I got my groove back. I have 15 this weekend where I’ll have to squeeze in somewhere, most likely Sunday evening, since I’m working all weekend.

If anyone is running the AFC half, I’ll be at the expo both days! :) Also the OC Fair 5k, perhaps I will be doing some of this again!

I’m just glad the rut is gone. I was pumped to be running. Like cross country racing pumped and it felt good. Thanks to Sydney and Bill and Dominic and Matty and Jessica. :) You guys kept me accountable and I am glad I met you all! Hope to see you all again soon

xoxo