WTF Wednesday

Welcome to my random world! I present a hodge podge of topics for your enjoyment today. Try to contain your enthusiasm.

1. We decided to take a group photo at work today. That's a lot of estrogen in one room!



I'm on the far right. And for some reason, my boobs look huge in this pic!

2. A 15 page letter containing doping charges was presented to Lance Armstrong yesterday. I honestly don't know how I feel about that. If it's true, then I'm seriously disappointed in him as an athlete and a human being. But I also have no idea if it's actually true, so I'll wait until all of the facts are in before I decide. But you can read about it here.

(source)

 3. Ahhh. Goofy Challenge.

Registration for the Tinkerbell Half opened yesterday. I think Tink is my favorite Disney race. I posted that on the Running At Disney blog and she asked me why it was my favorite. I answered her in several paragraphs, so I suppose that would be a good blog entry later. Last year, there were two weeks between WDW Marathon Weekend and the Tinkerbell Half so we managed to do both events. It was moved to the weekend immediately after WDW and I just don't think I can pull it off, which is bumming me out. Luckily, it took no effort at all to convince Tara that we should do Wine & Dine in November next year, so that will be cool. I can only go so long in between Disney races. I would also like to do Princess again, but that will most likely have to wait until 2014. Or until I win the lottery. Whichever comes first.

I bought this key chain at Disneyland to keep me motivated.
 Mostly, he just mocks me all day at my desk.

4. Last night I went to a new restaurant called the Windsor. It's in central Phoenix and pretty cool. The food was great and so was the atmosphere. And the entire back wall is lined with cassette tapes. I want to do this in my hallway at my house...if I still had any cassettes, that is.

Love this!

 5. This super cute dude was waiting for me this morning.

6. This is what I had for dinner. Oh yes, I did. Now I'm just waiting for it to cool down so I can go run some of it off.

 That pretty much sums things up for right now. Have a good night!

Love Is Weird

I love, love, love this.

(source)

You can even get it as a bracelet! I want it!

Neil Patrick Harris once again rocked my socks off hosting the Tony Awards.

(source)

And the Les Miserables trailer is out. OMGOMGOMG.  So freaking excited!

Enough randomness. I'm exhausted and off to bed. Good night!





Rock 'n' Roll San Diego Half Marathon June 2012

If you missed it, I wrote about our first day in San Diego here and our Sea World Adventure here.

After a long day on our feet at Sea World, I was not ready to get up at 4:00 to get ready for the race. Friends were picking us up at 5:00 so that we wouldn't have to attempt to fight the crazy traffic and parking at the race, which was awesome. Since I had driven us to San Diego, I would have been driving and I was a little apprehensive about the logistics of getting to the race.

Once we arrived, we made the obligatory trip to the port-a-potties. Then we headed to the starting corrals, where we saw this guy:

He was juggling in the start line. I wonder
if he juggled throughout the race...

Almost to the start...

There are so many corrals at Rock 'n' Roll races that it takes forever to get to the start line. Since Tara and I had been doing low HR training, we had talked about running this race together and keeping it on the slower end of running. The problem was that at the rate we had been training, it would have taken us about 3.5 hours to finish, which is ridiculous. Even for us.

We decided to start off slowly and see how it went. We waited so long in the start corrals that I had to go to the bathroom AGAIN less than a mile in. No one was lined up in the port-a-potty line that early, so I said good-bye to Tara and Mara, and went to the bathroom.

The course starts on the edge of Balboa Park, so the beginning of the race is really cool.

I have no idea why, but I had to pee a second time at this point! Fortunately, I followed a couple of other runners into a public restroom rather than wait for the next set of port-a-potties that would have a mile long line.

There was even a line here, although it was not nearly as long as what I saw later at the port-a-potties. At this point, I'm adding extra time left and right with 2 bathroom breaks and all of my picture taking that I just decide I'm going to have fun and take as many pictures as I can because I finally have something other than my crappy cell phone camera to use.

How gorgeous is this building?

Next we ran past the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. They had an organist out playing as we ran by, so I popped out my ear buds, but the music was annoying, so I just enjoyed the sights, took a few photos, and went merrily on my way.

I didn't take that many more pictures after leaving Balboa Park. The route wasn't overly scenic, but I enjoyed the gloomy overcast weather. I see enough sun living in Phoenix, Arizona, so I was happy with the clouds.

There was a long - at least a mile long - stretch where the course was pretty steeply downhill. Score! I think that's why I liked this race overall better than the America's Finest City that ends rather than begins at Balboa Park. That course goes up a similarly steep hill at the very end and it's brutal.

Running toward Cabrillo Bridge

I think that running under Cabrillo Bridge was one of my favorite parts of this race. You can't really tell just how tall it is until you run right under it.

Around mile 8 or 9, I actually managed to catch up with Mara and Tara! I had been running faster than I originally planned so that I might make up for the fact that I had stopped twice and took a million pictures. I considered pushing myself and trying to make up time, but in the end, I ran the rest of the race with them. That's not to say that they are slower than me. Tara was actually following our low heart rate plan.

I'm glad I stuck it out with them because it was infinitely more fun to joke around and have fun than be by myself for the next 5 miles.

My usual mile 10 photo

We ended the race over 3 hours, which is annoying, but considering all of my stops and the fact that we are supposed to be slowing it down so that we end up faster, I was okay with that. I definitely feel stronger as a runner, so I guess there's a method to our madness.

After crossing the finish line, we grabbed some Jamba Juice and did some stretching. I iced my knees, which didn't feel too badly, but I felt like I should cool them down.

 I also took an amazing photo of Mara.

Jessica, Tara, Me and Mara

I would totally do this race again. While America's Finest City (recap here) is a much more scenic race, this race is a lot easier on the body.

Pretty cool medal, too.

After the race, I left Jen and Tara with Abby and headed out to spend some quality time my wonderful friend, Julie. I tried to steal her dog.

I was very sad to head back to AZ after a mega packed and fun four days in San Diego. I guess I will have to head back as soon as possible.

San Diego - Sea World

This year's Rock 'n' Roll San Diego entry included a free pass to Sea World. I don't know that I would have made a special trip to Sea World, but since it was free, of course we had to go!

We didn't get to the park until after 1:00, and the very first thing we did was get fudge. You know, pre-race fuel and all.

I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of Sea World, it turns out. It was somewhat dirty and very crowded. I also found the animals depressing, despite the fact that I couldn't tell if any of them were actually unhappy. But how do you tell if a whale is unhappy? Oh yeah, they kill their trainer...

We did see some cool stuff, but we also noticed the lack of Disneyfication of Sea World, meaning that it just didn't have the same kind of magic.

After splurging on fudge, we scoped out a show called Cirque de la Mer. It was a water themed cirque style show, which was pretty cool.

We also visited the turtles. Jen dubbed them the Honey Badgers of the Sea because they "don't give a f**k." Then she did her turtle imitation over and over. Which, of course, we found hilarious. And we weren't even drinking...

They're really pretty cute.

I can relate to this guy...

We also took in the Shamu show. I'm so, so glad we did not sit close to the tank. They call it the "splash zone", but seriously, everyone in the bottom section of the stadium got completely drenched. It was way too cold to be soaking wet in San Diego.

I'm so glad I invested in a new camera!

Me, Tara, Jen, Abby & Mara (pic stolen from Mara)

Next we checked out the shark exhibit. I spent most of my time inside the exhibit trying to figure out how to use the settings on my camera, so all I really got was this pic of the jaw of a prehistoric shark called the Megalodon. I already knew a little about the Megalodon from getting sucked into Shark Week every year on the Discovery Channel.

Damn, those are some serious teeth.

Next we caught feeding time for the sea lions. Wow, are they aggressive. If a visitor had fallen into the sea lion tank during feeding time, I have no doubt that person would have been eaten. They may look cute and cuddly, but they take food very seriously.

This guy is NOT messing around about his food.

We called it a day early, since we needed to eat real food and go to bed at a decent time for the race the next day. Of course, we couldn't resist this photo opportunity on the way out...

Me, Jen and Abby

Tara and me

We left to have an amazing Greek dinner. Kudos to Abby for coming up with such a great place. The food was so good, I think that I over did it. I'll chalk it up to pre-race fueling. I didn't take any pictures of our dinner because I was too busy inhaling my food like I would never eat again. I will say that I discovered that I love dolmades, which I had tried once before and didn't enjoy. These were so good. I also learned that baba ganoosh is better than hummus. I never order that. Now I have two new favorites when I go have Greek food.

Next up is my race recap. Here's the link for Day 1 of our San Diego adventure.

I'm Drinking to Celebrate National Running Day!

So, yes, I realize that yesterday was National Running Day. I did have the best of intentions of running yesterday. Really, I did. 'Cuz I'm a runnah. Sort of. Whatevs.

But my outside rep, Kim, was in town and well, I ended up drinking a lot of Cherry flavored vodka instead. (Thanks, Tara, for getting me hooked on flavored vodka!)



I am in love.  (source)



My work BFF, Tiana and moi

 Since this is a running(ish) blog, after all, I figured I should at least add my own contribution to the tons of runners that are blogging, tweeting and facebooking about their awesome National Running Day long runs. I celebrated your awesomeness by having several mixed drinks in your honor. It was the right thing to do. I took one for the team.

Now I just need to locate this awesome stuff for my next drink-a-thon. I think it would be amazing in coffee.


If I can't eat gluten, I should at least be able to drink it!

I still have to finish my recaps from San Diego, but if you missed the oh-so-exciting Day 1 of my recap you can read it here.

San Diego, here we come!

San Diego - Rock 'n' Roll Expo

Not so long ago, I randomly decided that I was going to do the Rock 'n' Roll San Diego Half Marathon. Well, not entirely randomly. Tara was already going and I wanted to visit a friend that lives there, so I signed up. Also, this year a free pass was included in the race entry, so how could I resist? I haven't been to Sea World since I was maybe 8, so I was excited to see a theme park other than Disney.

Lucky for me, my father is neurotic, so that means he would rather let me drive his fancy new Range Rover rather than have me traipsing through the desert in my beat up Toyota Matrix that just went over 100,000 miles. Woot. Score. That thing is decked out and everything is computerized. I think it's capable of doing my taxes if I ask it nicely.

On the road again...just can't wait to get on the road again...

Since we love adventure, we decided to stop in Dateland, AZ, which is located between Gila Bend and Yuma. Dateland is known for growing dates. And not the hot male kind of dates, but the fruit. You can stop at the gift shop in Dateland and buy all sorts of date related treats including a date milkshake, which is so amazing I sucked it down like a Hoover. Then felt sick for the rest of the day.

Lots of dates and other crap to be found here! (source)

This is what it looks like from the I-10:

Yup. A bunch of palm trees. And nothing else. In the middle of the desert. I think
I saw a Criminal Minds episode filmed here...

Now don't be fooled. I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, what the hell does anyone want to do in Dateland, Gila Bend or Yuma, Arizona? Well, they have resorts there! And there's a McDonald's and fuel.

Okay, so not really a resort. But one day, I'm going to stop here and eat at the diner.

We continued on to San Diego and drove straight to the expo. I meant to take more picture of the expo since I'm a wanna-be blogger, but I forgot. Oops.

The biggest news of the expo was that Tara and I officially signed up for the Goofy Challenge in January 2013. For those that don't know, the Goofy Challenge is participating in the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend by doing the half marathon on Saturday and then doing the full marathon on Sunday. We got a $20 discount and a cool back pack.

                                          I'm a total sucker for bags...                  (source)

After the expo, Tara, Jen and I joined up with their friend, Abby, for a fabulous Mexican dinner at El Indio.

Of course, we then had to shop for booze after dinner and experienced a two story Von's grocery store, where they sell $500 bottles of wine.

We did not buy these, despite the screaming deal...

Not sure what's happening here...

We bought whipped cream flavored vodka instead which led to this gem of a pic:

Jen and my new friend, Abby in the background.

So day 1 in San Diego wasn't overly exciting, but stay tuned for my Sea World adventure and the RnR San Diego race recap.

Glad I spent money on a new camera!

Turtle speed

Having a wonderful time in beautiful San Diego! Just a quick update from my phone from Sea World. The weather could not be more perfect.
Here's a pic of me getting ready to race tomorrow: