Love. Laugh. Live. Run.

How is a girl to spend her 25th birthday? Doing whatever the heck she wants!!

On Tuesday night, I decided that I would do whatever made me happy on my birthday and this definitely included a good birthday run. I stayed up a little too late making sure the house was clean so I wouldn't be tempted to clean/organize and took a little something to knock me out. I slept in until 9, made myself eggs and toast, and put on my running gear. I headed to Coronado to run on the beach and was ready to do as little or as many miles as felt good. I started out on North Island, ran by Hotel del Coronado, and past the security guard to run on Gator Beach. It was delightful! I ran pretty slowly, but I didn't care. It was a beautiful day and I was content. I even laughed when I was shoe-deep in the mud and water! The beach was littered with shells and rocks from all the recent storms and I stopped to pick up a few on my way out. When I was 3.5 miles out, I laid down and just enjoyed the view. On my way back I got kicked off the beach by some little man with a fake, orange gun. I had to detour up on the road for about a mile, but then I ran back down to the shoreline. I hit the mud again, this time I went way past ankle-deep, but I still laughed. As I was crossing a small cul-de-sac, I came upon this...This made my day! I met The Coronado Sandman. I told him it was my birthday and he added my name to the cake. (Don't know about the "I love you" part, that was there when I came back for a picture.) I was beaming as I ran back to my car! I picked up Panera Bread for lunch and headed home. I was planning to sit and read at the beach the rest of the day but I had a last-minute assignment for a job interview the next day that I needed to get started on.

I thought all my fun was done after lunch, but it really just began. The assignment had me writing a 2-page memo and prepping for a 5-minute oral presentation - all in regards to policy. I turned on the TV to catch a bit of the State of the Union and realized I was in heaven! Writing a memo AND the State of the Union?!?! I was giddy like a policy-school girl! This was a birthday gift from God, I'm sure of it!

Thanks 25 for being so sweet to me today! Let's hope the rest of the year is as successful!

I woke up Saturday morning and headed out for my 15-miler and nothing felt right. It was one of those days where I felt tired, achey, and out of breath. It wasn't going to happen so I got 5 miles in before returning home. I told myself I would try a good run on Sunday, but after a night of drinking and dancing with the girls, I wasn't even able to make it to church (Sorry God!).

Today was a beautiful day so I was thrilled to get out in the sun and soak up some Vitamin D. I'm not gonna lie, my biggest concern wasn't training, it was TANNING! Hey, I'm a multi-tasker! I sure did get my tan, but my training? Eh, not so much. My quads were BURNING! Apparently, I was really getting down the other night! It was a 7 mile run/jog and my poor quads really hate me.

I've been reading up on tips for the last month before a marathon and I think I might switch things up a bit. A lot of sources recommend focusing on intensity over mileage. Here are some of the reasons why [taken from Peak Performance]:

• Shorter runs let muscle fibers recover by gradually reducing their weekly dose of impact forces
• Research has demonstrated that intensity is a much more potent producer of fitness than mileage
• Intensity expands blood volume to a greater extent than slower running; the increased blood volume ensures both better fuel and oxygen delivery to muscles during the marathon and a superior supply of blood to the skin for cooling - and also reduces the risk of dehydration.
• Intensity enhances nervous-system coordination of the gait cycle, improving running economy and therefore lessening glycogen depletion during the marathon.
• Intense running makes marathon pace feel much easier by comparison (while slow running makes marathon speed feel comparatively harder)

I'm not a complete believer, but I would like to integrate some of the advice into my schedule. This will probably consists of doing more runs at marathon pace and Crossfit. I will definitely taper the last 2 weeks, but I can probably continue CF for 3 weeks.

I love experimenting with my running. I'm pretty certain that Pasadena will not be a PR race for me, but I've been trying a lot of new things this time around. The running list (pun intended) so far includes: switching shoe brands, training with a Garmin Forerunner, making my own training schedule, sports-drinks over water and GU, and intensity-focused last month. I'm hoping that I will learn a lot about training and I'll be ready to start improving my time based on my own experience. I'm going to analyze it, with science.

[Watch this clip for the inside joke.]

Rain. Lots of it! We got three storms in one week! Until now, we had only had about 5 days of rain all winter and now this!

Now, I love the rain. First, it reminds me of living up North. I miss the crisp air and how green and lush everything was. Second, rain is the perfect excuse to stay in your PJs and drink tea all day long. It's like a free pass to be lazy. (Yes, I know, I'm unemployed, this sounds like everyday around here, but I just don't feel as bad when it's raining.) Third, California really needs the rain and everything will be pretty when the storms pass. Yes, I love rain days.

But.....I hate the rain. First, I can't leave the house because I hate the awkward run/walk to the car and I don't like being cold. Second, I can't run outside. Third, did I mention I hate being cold? Yes, I hate rain days.

Also, the marathon is one month away! Eeks! Now, how am I supposed to get my training in with all this rain? Treadmill, you say? Fine. Yesterday I drove down to Coronado to get some miles in at the gym on base. It sucked. Aside from the gym being 20 minutes away, the treadmills are shit and not so great for someone who gets running injuries all the time. I was so paranoid. Is that my foot hurting? Oh no, it's my 5th metatarsal again? Wait, what's this I feel in my calf, crap! Is your knee okay? Shoot, we should have brought the brace. Crap! And there is such a thing as treadmill tolerance. Once you stop training on one, it feels ridiculous to be on it for any longer than 20 minutes. I'm going to make one last effort tonight. I have 15 miles to run....on a treadmill. Yeah, I can see where this is going.

**EDIT: The weatherman says tomorrow will be dry so I'm pushing back the long run. Thank goodness! I'd rather run 15 miles in the cold and mud than on the DREADmill!

I love running. It's what I do. It's what I need when I'm stressed. It's my life right now. With Husband away on deployment and no job, running is all I have. Sure, sure, I've got family and friends, but they can only hang out with you for so long before they have to get to work or have a child to attend to. Between looking for a job and running, I've got lots of spare time! Enter PROJECTS!

I've got a new love affair with decorating projects around the house. I know, it sounds simple enough, but I'm not happy with buying some art or painting a wall. I'm going all out. I should mention, I've always loved projects. In college, Lara and I were always coming up with crafty things to make (including a changing curtain in our dorm room). I lack patience though and I have lots of trouble executing the ideas in my head. I'm working on this. It all started innocently enough after spending hours at my desk.

Project #1

I live at my desk, really. I dreamed of a desk for months and was thrilled when Husband finally indulged me. There's a nice big shelf on the left for the printer, but it's such an eyesore! It was really driving me crazy. I saw a picture of a computer monitor riser, simple enough, and decided I would make something similar to hide my printer. Voila!Isn't she a beauty? I bought a big piece of MDF for about $6, had them cut my three pieces, painted them (with paint I found in the garage), and used wood glue to put it together. I'm planning on putting up a little curtain in the front too once I get my sewing machine up and running.

That's all I can show for now, everything else is halfway. So for the next 2-3 months, which is usually THE WORST part of deployment, I have all sorts of projects to keep me company! Yay! (That was a bit sarcastic, the next 2-3 months will still suck, but at least the house will be all sorts of pretty when Husband gets home.)

This is supposed to be a running blog, huh? Well, no running news today. I bailed on this morning's 5K because of the rain. It's my day off anyways, I'll be back tomorrow after a 10 miler.

Well, I'm back to my little corner of the internet dedicated to running. I started this blog almost two years ago to document training for my first marathon. It wasn't public, I just needed a way to write down my training and keep me accountable. After Carlsbad, I quit the blog and didn't start up again for marathon #2 (mostly because Husband was home and we all know I quit the world when he's around). Now that I'm attempting marathon #3, I needed a forum for training notes because I'm doing things differently and I have some BIG goals. I only have five weeks until the race, but what the hell? Better late than never.

Today seemed to be a good day to start blogging again because I did my first 20 mile training run. I tried out a few new things today and I'm happy with my "research." Here are the new training techniques:

1. I stuck to proteins yesterday. I'm big on carbs and have been known to stockpile bread before a race. I've never had any issues with this, but for the sake of science I tried to keep the carbs at a minimum yesterday and loaded up on protein at lunch and dinner.

2. I stuck to sports drinks on the run. I didn't bring any GU with me and avoided the drinking fountains I usually stop at. I read an article about avoiding mixing sports drinks, GU and water and wanted to see if sports drinks would be enough.

3. Drinking more on the run. I can usually do up to 15 miles without water or GU, even though I know it's not a great strategy considering I ate/drank ferociously throughout my first marathon. I brought both bottles (10.5 oz) on my fuel belt and followed the "drink when you're thirsty" advice. (That sounds like common sense, but oftentimes during a race you grab the cup of water or GU because you think it will make you feel better and you'll do anything to distract you for a few moments.)

Today's run went better than expected. I've been sluggish lately from all my bouts of illness so I didn't know if I could complete the run. I started off pretty fast, closer to a 9:00 pace, and didn't get tired until about mile 10 when I was hitting lots of hills. At about mile 11 I took a little walking break and had about 6oz. to drink. For the next 4 miles, I was perfectly fine, like I had a second wind, despite the really big hills at this part of the course. It felt really good and I was really surprised. I stopped at home around mile 15 to drop off my arm warmers and my fuel belt and headed out for a few more miles. I felt much lighter without the belt, but I was really tired. I turned around at mile 17 to head home and I was shuffling all the way home. It was sloooooow. I was starting to feel every footstrike and I even got dizzy when I stopped at a light. I eventually made it home and quickly proceeded to fall apart. Thank goodness for protein shakes and ice baths!

In my opinion, all my experiments seemed to work really well for me. My performance was far better than it should have been (based on my training lately). I think the biggest one was sticking to a sports drinks. I know I will get hungry during the marathon, but I really want to avoid the sugar (and potential sugar crash) of GU so I have a few ideas to try on next weekends long run. Thank goodness I survived today, although I will be feeling that run all weekend long. Fun.