The Wild Frontier

I've been totally MIA from bloggerville because I was conquering the wild frontier.

This outfit screams, "frontier woman" right?

When I say I was 'conquering the wild frontier' I actually mean I was staring at it from the comfort of my cruise ship balcony while sipping on Prosecco. I'm not what you would call, "outdoorsy".

I spent last week aboard the Norwegian Jewel on an Alaskan Cruise and it was awesomely awesome. I'll bore you guys to death with cruise recaps later (unless I get lazy, which is highly possible).

Because there is food everywhere on a cruise ship, I feel fairly certainly that I have gained 10 pounds in a week, but I'm not brave enough to step on the scale to find out. I pretty much lived in running pants for this entire trip, so I didn't have to battle my pants being tight while I gorged myself like a veal calf.

I actually did go running, though, for the first time since the Star Wars Half marathon in January. I even went running twice!

At least I think it was the first time I've been running. I can't remember, but let's just assume that I haven't because it certainly wasn't consistent.

I don't know if you can read the sign, but 5.5 laps equals one mile. I couldn't really keep track, but I was up there for an hour and 15 minutes, so I'm guessing I plodded along for 4 miles.

Brrrr! Super chilly up there.

I felt surprisingly good for not having done any running. And my back held up pretty well, too. I'm glad I took a running break because it actually felt really good to get back at it, even though it was seriously freezing up on the 14th deck. And the wind was horrible. But you can't beat the views!

I'll be back with more pictures of Alaska that will make you want to immediately book a cruise. Maybe I'll even keep running.

A Running Story

It probably doesn't seem like it, but I have been actually running. I just haven't blogged about it. I mean, how many times can I blog about how I dragged my sorry ass out to run, it was hot, I was miserable, the end?

Last week, I met my friend, Lara, at this mountain trail we run usually once a week. I will preface this little story by saying that if it weren't for Lara, I would get pretty much no running done at all. I do tend to get super cranky toward the end of our runs because if you've ever run with someone much faster and in better shape than you, then you know how hard it can be to keep up, even when that person is slowing themselves down for your sake. So, thank you, Lara! You're my running rock, or as I affectionately like to call her- an alien billy goat.

Pretty much...

I fully believe that Lara is impervious to pain, heat, and bad attitudes, which I can fully appreciate...as long as I'm not suffering. But I'm always suffering on runs because I hate running. But I like racing and I have to do a few training runs occasionally to pretend like I'm an athlete.

So anyway, last week, we met at the mountain. I hadn't done any running for a week and a half prior to that when on a 10 miler, we were attacked by vicious Mosquitos in the middle of the desert. Shouldn't that be illegal? I mean, it's the desert for sobbing out loud. I could practically feel the West Nile Virus attacking my cells.

The mountain trail is 4 miles out and 4 miles back, but I have a hard time doing the full 8 miles before it gets dark. I have no problem running in the dark, per se, but I do have a problem with the horrible footing, which Lara prances over like a magical unicorn, and the possibility of rattle snakes. More on the snakes later.

The first mile of that trail is steadily uphill and a total bitch, because you feel winded before you've barely started. Lara asked me, as she always does, "how far do you want to run today?"

My standard answer is 5 or sometimes even 6. The problem is that if you decide to go 6 miles, the last hill is to the turn around is brutal. I'm not capable of running up it. I pretty much crawl up it, huffing and puffing and cursing Lara. So in an effort to avoid that scenario, I always bring my iPod and cheerfully tell Lara, she can run ahead and it won't hurt my feelings. Then I can plod along like the slug that I am and post pictures on Instagram, which is the real reason why anyone runs in the first place.

So much for not running in the dark.

So, pretty much every run on the mountain goes something like this:

Lara: How far do you want to run?

Me: four, maybe five miles. (I try to keep her expections low)

Lara: Okay. (She likes to pretend she's okay with my answer.)

Somewhere around mile two:

Lara: Are you sure you don't want to do six?

Me: I'm good with five, but it's fine if you want to run ahead.

Lara: how about we run to 2.5 miles, then I'll go on and do 3 while you just walk in that direction and I'll catch you on the way back.

Me: hrmph, fine. But I'm not doing that horrible hill up to mile three.

Lara: (no answer)

When we hit the 2.5 mile mark where she was going to run ahead...

Lara: I know, how about we take a different route back that is more downhill and more direct?

Me: okay, but I'm not doing that hill.

Somewhere close to 3 miles in, I realize I'm halfway up that fucking hill.

Me: Damn it, Lara!!! I said I'm not doing this hill.

Not only did I have to make it to the top of that God forsaken hill, we had to climb even higher to get to the trail to take us back.

I was pretty cranky at this point. Now, I'm a big enough person to admit that it's probably good for me, blah, blah, blah, but I didn't get my way, which is the real crime here.

Me: NO MEANS NO, LARA!

Lara: You're being dramatic.

Anyhoo, I survived, but I'm sure I was unpleasant to be around. Also, we ran into a rattle snake. At first, I thought it was the cicadas getting really loud as they tend to do when it's going to rain, but nope. It was a rattlesnake, rattling away at us and letting us know we were not wanted. I can't remember the last time I had a scare like that. And as much as I would have loved to Instagram that sucker, even I have my limits.

And they lived happily ever after, until the next run during which, I also complained the entire time.

The end.

 

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Signing Up For A Half In Three Weeks Means I Should Maybe Do A Long Run

I went for my first long run in probably two months last night. Thank God for my friend, Lara, otherwise I might not ever make it out running at all. She's immune to my whining, sniffling and complaining. I'm pretty good at all three of those things, so kudos to her. Also kudos to me, cuz I really wasn't feeling like leaving the sweet cocoon I made on my couch. There was a Law & Order SVU marathon on and everything. Yesterday, I signed up for the Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Half in three weeks, so maybe a run longer than 4 miles is in order, especially considering I've only got a week before I should be tapering.

I met Lara late in the afternoon and went for an 8 mile jaunt. The first 3 miles sucked. Like sucked a lot. I really need to always run longer than 3 or 4 miles because I can't seem to get into a groove until about mile 5. I suppose that's a good thing, considering I'm a distance runner, but wow. I spend those first few miles hating running, hating myself and pretty much hating life in general. I don't know that I'll ever be good at the 5K distance.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really good at any distance. I'm slow even by the standards of slow runners. But I stop hating the world around mile 4 or 5, so I guess I'm meant to run distance.

In fact, when I was training with Susan Loken (the nicest lady ever and the fastest runner I know), our Team Chances coach for the 2012 NYC Marathon that never happened, she said to me, "the marathon is your distance." Something about slow twitch muscles versus fast twitch muscles. Apparently I'm a slow twitch kinda gal.

That's probably more true for the half marathon distance, but the idea of labeling myself as a runner at all, let alone a marathoner, still makes me laugh. Like I pulled one over on the world and tricked everyone into believing I'm a runner. Haha, world! Jokes on you!

I don't even mean that in a self snarking way. It just takes me by surprise sometimes that I'm an actual runner. Especially considering that my love of sitting far outweighs my love of moving. But I like going to races. They're like horse shows only everyone gets a prize and I don't stress out over them. Win, win!

Anyway, we did 8 miles. There was plenty of walking, but when we ran, we kept a pretty quick pace for me. Not for Lara, but it was speedy for me. And there was a nice sunset.

For the rest of the night, my glutes and lower back were killing me. It hurt bad enough that I actually got up a couple of times during the night to do pigeon pose yoga stretch.

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Now, I'm not really into yoga. I totally should be because I can get myself all wound up and tight like a champ. But it's never appealed to me at all. Until I start hurting. Then I'm all over it. I need to add stretching to my list of resolutions for the new year.

The pigeon pose is a form of self torture that could get a prisoner to spill their guts. It hurts and feels terrible and I can barely do it. But I have to admit it works. I'm finding that a lot of joint ailments can be relieved by various stretches. Once I had some serious pain in what felt like a joint in my foot. I started stretching my calves a ton and it went away.

Oh and by the way? I look nothing like the woman in the picture when I do stretch. My hips are way too tight. I look more like I tripped and fell and now I'm stuck that way. Nobody wants to see that shit. That's another reason I don't go to yoga- I look ridiculous. I've also found that sitting cross legged really helps my hips.

Does anyone else have any amazing stretches for tight hips?

This is post is brought to you from me and my writing staff.
 

Serial Killers, Killer Mountains and Unicorns

I have a two story townhouse that is technically a condo. I don't really know what the difference is, but when I was signing the millions of pages for my loan, I saw the word "condo" like a every other sentence. But it's important to this story that you understand that my condo is two stories, because there is a possibility that a serial killer has taken up residence in my guest room upstairs.

I use the term "guest room" lightly because, in reality, this is a giant storage room. Therefore, there are plenty of spaces for a serial killer to hide. 

My house is the middle unit of three attached two story condos. On one side, my neighbor is out of town a lot and the unit on the other side of me is vacant. My complex is really quiet, so imagine my surprise when I hear a giant crash upstairs coming from the vacant condo.

So I did what any normal person would do, I grabbed The Stick and ran upstairs to investigate.

When recounting this story for Tara, she said, "you grabbed The Stick, but it never occurred to you to grab a knife?" Hmmm, yes, she has a point. 

So I ran upstairs and searched for anything that could have crashed into wall. Nada. I went back downstairs and slept on my couch clutching my "weapon" all night. 

I know I didn't imagine the crash, it shook the wall next to me. And my other neighbor was, of course, gone. I considered calling the police but I never heard another peep.

Anyway, I've determined that there are ghosts, monsters and/or Hannibal Lechter in the vacant unit next to me. 

But this is not a serial killer blog, despite my new obsession with the show Hannibal, it's a running blog. And I ran trails again this Tuesday. Lara has decided this is going to be a regular thing. This is how I feel about running up a mountain when it is 105 degrees outside.

Also, Louie is now a unicorn. 

Fail, Fail, Fail

I swear I was getting back on the running wagon, but life can be so distracting! Especially when there's other things I could be doing that don't involve going out into the blistering desert heat.

I went out with some friends Friday night and had a fabulous time. I didn't get home until well after 11 and had to ride bright and early in the morning. Plus, Prince Charming forgot to give me my wake up call.

It's impossible to run during the day in June in Arizona. It was 109 yesterday and 110 today. So even though I had a friend's 40th birthday bash last night, I tried to limit my sangria (which was the best sangria ever) to like 7 glasses because, by God, I was going to get up and run in the morning.

So I get home from the party and even get all of my running stuff together including remembering to charge my Garmin. I set my alarm for 4AM because I figured if I left by 4:30, I could be back by 6 and sleep for a couple of hours before heading out to the barn to take care of the horses. (I'm in charge of the horses at my barn on Sundays because I participate in a sport which I can not really afford and therefore I work off some of the expense.)

My alarm went off at 4AM. At least I'm assuming it did, because I have no recollection of that taking place. Instead, I became vaguely aware of pushing snooze at around 6.

That's right, I pushed snooze on my phone for 2 freaking hours. I could have gone running and been back in bed by 6 if I had just gotten up when I was supposed to. I guess I need something more motivating than Prince Charming to get me out of bed. Something a little more...life threatening.

That's not my only fail. I had briefly considered doing Juneathon awhile ago. But then I decided that it was probably a little too much to take on. I also had planned on doing a 365 challenge where you do sit-ups and push-ups every day for a year, increasing the number by one every day until you reach 365 on the last day of the year.

Then I totally forgot to do one itty bitty push-up and sit-up yesterday. So now I've totally screwed up my whole year!! I'm thinking that I will just start with Day 2.

Because I'm lame. Sigh.

So all my running shoes did this weekend was help me muck out horse stalls.

At least I got some form of exercise because running around the barn all day is exhausting.

Now I'm off to do a couple of sit-ups and push-ups. I hope I don't break something.

Trail Running - Not For Wusses

I thought I'd change it up a bit and actually talk about running on my running blog. I know, right? I'm as shocked as you. Anyway, after a 3 week running hiatus (or was it 4?), I was back in business this evening.

A few weeks ago, my friend Lara, suggested we form a team for the new Ragnar Trail Series here in Arizona. We show horses together and she was on our Ragnar Del Sol Team this year. I saw her at the barn this morning before work and she asked if I wanted to meet this evening and try one of the trails for the Ragnar Trail Relay.

Agreeing to run many hours in the future typically gives me ample time to create a wide variety of excuses to bail. But that Lara is a super dedicated runner. So I wasn't getting out of it.

Spoiler Alert: Those hills may be little in total height, but several of them are straight up. That shit ain't easy to run up if you consider a speed bump a hill. Just sayin'.

Whew! That's enough hill work for me!

I dutifully showed up at our meeting place to carpool out into the wilderness for this trail running adventure. Let me just reiterate that I abhor running hills. I can feel when I am running up a .ooooo2% incline. But I figured this was good for me.



Look how chipper she looks. That's not normal.

The trail Ragnar consists of 8 runners to a team and 3 loops at McDowell Mountain Park. Each runner runs each of the three loops. We decided to try the "easy" loop. If that was the easy loop, I'm scared to find out what the other 2 loops are like.

 

It's worse in person, trust me,

 

 

 This terrain is difficult to navigate because the loose gravel makes it easy to slip. Some of the hills were so steep that I had a lot of trouble controlling my speed on the downhill. And my toes are a little sore from being jammed against the edge of my shoe.

 

I'm dying.
(Also not sure why I have fuzz on the brim of my visor)

I better start adding some hill work into my routine because this kicked my ass. I ran as much as I could, but sometimes I would have to stop at the top of a hill to catch my breath. Not walk, but stop. Not feeling super athletic after this!

 

But stopping did allow me to take some pictures.

 

 

I think I ended up running (and I use that term lightly) just over 3 miles. Lara had planned a longer route and didn't make it back before dark. So now we're out in the desert alone and I'm starting to freak out a little bit. Rattle snakes come out at night here. No joke. (Also, spirits and ghosts come out at night, too.)

 

But just as I was getting ready to rally a posse to find her, she appeared. Whew! Crisis averted.

 

So I finally ran. I'm exhausted and now must sleep. Good night, all. 

 

 

 

 

Thursday Adventure Run

I know it's hard to believe, but I've actually been running a lot. So weird considering I don't have any long distance races coming up until Dumbo Double Dare which is over Labor Day weekend. Last year when I started training for the NYC Marathon in May, I had pretty much done nothing for most of the spring. This year, I would really like to be ahead of the game, so I've been running at least 4 days a week with a few friends to keep my motivation going.

We decided to try something new on Thursday. Road Runner Sports hosts an Adventure Run on the first Thursday of every month. Check in is at 5:30 and the "race" starts at 6:30. There are about 10 locations within a few miles of the store and the runners try to hit as many as they can within an hour.

At each stop, you get raffle tickets and at the end they raffle off a ton of stuff. If you wear your adventure run shirt, you get extra tickets at each stop. The best part is that it's totally FREE! (Well, except for the shirt I needed to buy...)

Neon yellow really isn't my favorite color...

I went to Road Runner Sports immediately after work and it looked like a small expo was set up in the parking lot.

Right before the race starts, they post the locations on a big map. I'm pretty sure the locations change each month.

Tabatha and Tara planning our route.

Right at 6:30, we took off. Several of the stops were located within the the shopping center, which is pretty large. We used our phones to figure out where we were going.

Mona, Kimberlee and Tara

I think we made it to 8 of the 10 stops and then had to get back for the drawing by 7:30. We covered about 3 miles by the time we had returned.

Lots of tickets

Unfortunately, I didn't win anything, but Kimberlee did! I don't remember exactly what she won, but she won twice.

After the drawing, there was an after party across the street at Elephant Bar where the Adventure Runners took over the bar. They honored happy hour specials and had more drawings for those that attended the after party. I won a fascia (fascial?) massage gift certificate. I'm excited, but also a little scared because I know that it's gonna hurt!

I'm glad we decided to check out the Adventure Run. We had a lot of fun and it was a great way to change things up a bit. I highly recommend trying one.

Has anyone else done anything like this before? Was it fun?

Out And About

So I've been a super motivated runner, can you believe it? Neither can I. I really don't know what's come over me, but I've been running pretty regularly these days.

Tonight I met my friends, Kim and Mona up at Kim's house. She lives in an interesting neighborhood. I love it. We took it pretty slowly since none of our runs have been under 5 miles in the last few weeks. We did an easy 3 miles doing walk/jog intervals.

We saw some interesting sights. such as this place where nothing happened, but needed to be commemorated by a plaque.

Okay...good to know...

We saw an interesting bubble house...

There's even a bubble guest house.

And a beautiful sunset.

Since I'm an athlete and Kim is the world's best enabler, I ended up hanging around her house with Kim and her husband drinking wine and champagne and eating chips and dip until after 11:00PM. Isn't that what everyone does after a run?

I'm still wearing my CamelBak. Classy.

That pretty much sums up Work Out Wednesday. I basically ate and drank more than I worked off. Oopsy.

That Time I Accidentally Ran Nine Miles

I mentioned before that I'm sort of helping (I say "helping" because I'm not really in a position to coach anyone, but I do have a lot have half marathon experience, so I'm basically just tagging along and shouting out some not so helpful advice every time I open my mouth.) two newbie future half marathoners.

We've decided that Tinkerbell Half is the goal so we have a lot of time to get trained. Saturday morning, we headed out to a local trail to do 6, maybe 7 miles.

It was quite an adventure, let me tell you. First, the trail we run is part of a local sports complex called Reach 11. It's popular with runners, walkers, cyclists and horseback riders.

We all run at different speeds and have different endurance, so we started out very leisurely and walked two minutes and jogged 90 seconds. A few times, I put on my iPod and ran a ways ahead so I could get a little extra mileage in. When my Garmin read 3.5 miles, we turned around.

On the way back, we ran into a group of riders doing a poker ride. There were little tents set up and when the riders would ride by, they would get a card. At the end of the ride, the rider with the best hand wins. Pretty cool, right?

Then we ran into a guy riding a mule and leading another one. The second mule spooked and tried to run off. Luckily, all three of us are horse people, so we attempted to assist the guy in catching his loose mule. Let me just say, that guys was not appreciative at all, and pretty much yelled at us that we were doing it wrong.

Siiiiiiiigh.

Okay, buddy, catch your own damn mule then! We stuck around anyway just to make sure the more mule did get caught and then we went on our way.

It's really cool to run under the freeways. I don't know why, maybe it's just because they are so massive.

By the time we were about a half mile from the parking lot, I realized that somewhere along the way, I dropped my iPod. How can I possibly run without my iPod?!?!

So I ran back a mile and a half to the over pass and there it was. I think that's the fastest mile and a half I've ever run in my life.

There you are!

So that's how I ended up running 9 miles. I was so hungry by the time we were done, that we went to a late breakfast and inhaled our food.

That was an adventure run for me! Hope everyone had a good weekend!

WTF Week

Last week was a crazy, crazy week, so I'm pretty behind with blogging and basically everything else in my world.

Last Friday, I went with a few friends to a new restaurant called Brat Haus in Old Town Scottsdale.

This little van makes me look tall...which I am not.

It's not gluten free friendly, but I just ate my brat without the bun. I also had wine instead of beer. But Tabatha had this:

Now, that is a beer.

I certainly didn't want to drink too much or stay out too late because I was meeting Tara for an early morning 7 mile run, that actually turned into a 7.4 mile run. Man, was it hot, hot, hot and humid. Blech.

My first few picture attempts were of me grimacing
because it was so gross outside.

That night, my mom had a belated 4th of July party, which was pretty fun. My sister, the baker, make a cake that looked like a hamburger. I'm pretty sure we're not actually related because I never bake anything.

How cute is this?

And because she is the awesomest sister ever, she also made some gluten free cupcakes for me.

Ah-maaaay-zing

Sunday, my sister, her husband, and my mother took me to see Grease at the Arizona Broadway Theatre Company. They serve dinner before the show and our table was literally right up front against the stage. It was really fun. I definitely want to go back and see something else there.

Monday, my horse tried to kill me. Seriously. He's got some issues, and every so often, he goes off the deep end because something hurts. I've always assumed it was in his jaw, since he's had surgery on his TMJ joint, but one of my clients told me that when they have severe reactions to things, she finds it's usually in their neck. Great. Like this horse doesn't cost me a zillion dollars to fix on a regular basis. He almost flipped over on me, so after he attempted to launch himself to the moon, I bailed and landed HARD on my side and arm. Then he made matters worse by limping around afterward, so I'm a little concerned that his his foot is re-injured. Last year, he was off for 6 months and I finally had to have an MRI done on his feet to fix him. That shit ain't cheap, in case you were wondering...

Of course, this was sent from Tara...

I thought about taking pictures of my bruised, ripped up arm, but never did. Instead, I made multiple attempts with my crappy phone to get a picture of the two of us while I iced his foot.

Bam Bam was not cooperative at all during this process.

On Tuesday, it was my actual birthday, and I got a Starbucks from my work BFF, Tiana, which is always a great way to start my day. My outside rep, Kim, Sent me flowers:

One of my accounts sent me an Edible Bouquet, which was not only delicious, but super cool of them!

So, that's what's been up in my world. I didn't run much because my body was really sore after Bam threw my ass in the dirt. What a monster. I made up for it this weekend, though, by doing an incredibly difficult 10 mile run this morning with ridiculous hills. More on that soon.

Oh! And I finally joined the iPhone cool club.

I. Love. It. I'm not sure how I was able to convince myself that my Android was good enough. Because it definitely was mediocre compared to the iPhone.

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