My Running Wish List

A while back, Katie posted her running wish list on her blog.  I loved the idea so today I am going to copy Miss Katie's idea and post my running wish list :)  Let's get to it!

1.  Peace Love Run BibFOLIO (pink of course):

2.  13.1 Bracelet: 

3.  Spirit of the Marathon DVD:  

4.  Lucy Propel Short in Azure:

5.  Lucy Propel Tank in Very Berry: 

6.  iDeclare! Double Stacked Runner Necklace with "Run Happy" and 13.1 shoe

7.  Flats to Go...thank you FitBottomedGirls for bringing these to my attention!

8.  Foam Roller in pink!

9.  Spri stability board:

10.  Safety first!  Pepper Spray.  I used to have this exact one, but I lost it :( 

I am definitely going to buy the bibFOLIO because I have my race bibs taped on my "running inspiration" board on my wall and it's getting out of control!  Haha.  And I really like the 13.1 bracelet and necklace, but do I need both?  I can't believe a year ago I never imagined that I'd ever run a half marathon, but in February I ran my very first, Surf City!  And in two weeks I'll be running the San Francisco half, followed by the Long Beach half in October, then the Disneyworld half in January!  That will be FOUR half marathons in 11 months!  I definitely have the bug and I love it :)

And tomorrow I am running the All-Star Game Charity 5K which will be a blast!  It supports 4 awesome causes, one of which I am super passionate about...breast cancer.

Speaking of which, tonight my friend Amanda and I are hosting a poker tourney to raise funds for our 40-mile breast cancer walk in September.  We walked two years ago together and it was so inspiring and very humbling.  I wrote about it last year here <3  Hopefully tonight we can raise a lot of money for breast cancer!  If you'd like to donate, you can visit my Walk page here.  Every dollar counts :)  Thank you thank you thank you!

Have a very happy Saturday!

10 miles on the 4th of July + Running shoe poll

I can’t believe the 4th of July came and went so quickly! Where did the first half of 2010 go?! My fourth of July weekend was so much fun and incredibly relaxing, just what I wanted. In a nutshell I spent the entire weekend with my boyfriend and our families and friends. It was full of the beach, BBQs, watching fireworks and lighting our own, and movies. I did get my 10-miler in on the 4th too and it was terrific (for the most part haha)!

Sunday morning, July 4, I woke up around 7am to get my 10-miler in before the sun popped out and the BBQs began. I ate ½ a peanut butter Clif bar, drank an espresso, put on my new Nike top that I got for my birthday, laced up my shoes and was off. I had mapped out a nice 10 miles on mapmyrun.com around the marina to the beach, and around a park and home. It was completely overcast outside, quite cold, and even a little windy. The first 5 miles were a cake walk. I kept a 10-11:34 min/mile pace and was very comfortable. Unfortunately around mile 5 I felt a hot spot on the arch of my left foot. No scratch that. It was on FIRE! I stopped and took off my shoe to check it out and found a massive blister on the bottom of my entire arch. OUCH! I called my brother, who has been kicking booty in his SF training (he decided he was going to run it and started training for it only 3 weeks ago!) and asked what he would do. He said if I couldn’t walk then he would come pick me up. It wasn’t that bad, so I decided to push through. What’s another 5 miles, right? I got through to mile 7.5 and the pain just got intolerable. I ended up walking/jogging the last bit home where I stretched and soaked my feet in a heavenly peppermint foot bath.


Despite the gnarly blister on my foot, I had a great run! I knocked out several hills with ease, and for the first time, I never really felt exhausted. It was a wonderful feeling! If it wasn’t for my blister, it was the feeling that I could go on forever without ever stopping.


My shoes, however, have reached the end of their lifespan. I have been running in Adidas Supernova Glide2, and I absolutely love them. I would buy them again, but I think I want to try another kind of shoe. What kind of shoe do you run in?

If you have any recommendations, I’d appreciate it!!

23 Days Until the San Francisco Half!

Lately I haven’t been diligent with my blogging, mainly because nothing exciting has happened in my running world.

I had a couple of short runs this week, but honestly, I have not followed my training plan this week at all. FAIL. With San Francisco in 23 days, I need to be diligent with my workouts and really push myself. I don’t know why I’ve been struggling this week though. Maybe it’s because my brother and his wife just had a baby and I’ve been so preoccupied with my new adorable little nephew? Maybe it’s because I’ve been coming into work extra early and haven’t logged the miles in the AM like normal (then after working 12 hours I’m “too tired to run”)? Maybe. But that’s no excuse, especially with three weeks to go! Albeit my lack of running, I did do several aerobic classes…Monday I took a class with my cousin that was like a combo of Bikram Yoga (hot room) + Kickboxing + Pilates, and man was it intense! It was non-stop high intensity for the full hour using TRX machines (pulleys using your body weight), bosu balls (running over them and jumping on them too!), resistance bands around ankles while running, and so much more! IT WAS A BLAST!!! Then on Tuesday and Thursday I did a CrossFit-like workout that was 45 minutes non-stop of cardio, strength, and abs. My arms are sore today from yesterday’s workout. It’s a good sore though :)

So anyways, I am getting back on track with running starting today. According to my training plan, today is a “rest” day, but given my lack of running this week, I am going to run 3-5 miles today after work. As for this weekend, I am going to squeeze in a 10-miler sometime around going to the beach and hanging with my family, bf, and friends for the holiday weekend :) But the 10-miler will happen no matter what!
What do you guys do to stay on track? Any words of wisdom?


Have a healthy, happy, and safe 4th of July weekend!!!

You Know You're a Runner When...

A while back I found some "You KNow You're a Runner When" online and posted it here.  Well today I was reading Morgan’s blog and she has a great series of posts called “You Know You’re a Runner When”.  The one that caught my eye was her Office Edition.  It’s classic!  Working in an office myself, I can relate to every single line item she posted.  It’s brilliant.  So I decided to compile some of my own from personal experiences.


You know you’re a runner when:

• You go shopping for work clothes and weekend outfits, and end up buying new running shorts and tanks.
• You go to a party and drink water, but you drink it from the red party cup to spare being made fun of for drinking water.You keep The Stick in your desk drawer at work.
• Your coworkers want to go out to lunch but you opt to get a quick run in during your lunch break.
• You’re driving home from work and along the way rubberneck at runners to scope out their running form (stride, posture, etc.)
• Most of the packages sent to your house have a return address label of “Nike” “Roadrunner Sports” “Lululemon” etc.
• Your dark toenail polish usually masks your bruised toenails (I love OPI Lincoln-Park-After-Dark)
• Your training schedule is posted in your cube at work in addition to being taped to your mirror at home.
• Your listening to the radio and you hear a new song and think “This has an awesome running beat. I have to download it for tomorrow’s run!”
• You get an invitation to a wedding or birthday party and naturally think about what race that date might conflict with. No Salinas Valley Half Marathon for me this year :-P
• You lose a toenail and you almost feel a sense of accomplishment.
• The magazine you most look forward to receiving in the mail is Runner’s World.

Feel free to leave me yours in the comments box below!

"In running, it doesn't matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, 'I have finished.' There is a lot of satisfaction in that."
-Fred Lebow, New York City Marathon co-founder

There's a First Time for Everything!

Yesterday I had a couple great “firsts”:

1.  I ran 9 miles – when I trained for the Surf City Half, I never did log a training run beyond a 10-K…FAIL. So outside of the half marathon itself, I hadn’t ever run longer than a 10K! Accomplishing my 9-miler yesterday felt so great and gave me a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Yay!
2.  I ran with a water bottle – I don’t like to run with anything in my hands, let alone a water bottle. First of all, like I said above, I never had a training run longer than a 10K, and any race I’ve run (including Surf City) had a plethora of water stations for me to hydrate at. Second of all, the swishing of water in my bottle as I’m running makes me have to pee. When I ran my first 5K, I held a water bottle to share with my bro…I ended up having to stop and pee at mile 2. Yesterday’s 9-miler route didn’t offer many drinking fountains so carrying my own water was the only option and it worked out pretty well (although I did stop to pee at mile 4…cest la vie!).
3.  I took my first ice bath!!!  I have read about the benefits of ice baths in running magazines, on blogs and in tweets, and seen it plenty of times in movies. Doing some of my own research online informed me how it restricts the blood vessels and decreases metabolic activity which reduces swelling and tissue breakdown, I decided I would try it after my long run yesterday. And believe me, after the cramps I was getting at mile 8, all I could think about was getting home to stretch and ice bath. So I ran ice cold water and filled the tub with ice…and guess what…I LOVED IT!!! Crazy, I know, but it felt so good and I knew instantly I wouldn’t be sore the next day (alas, today is Monday and I’m not sore!).
I’m so happy with my run yesterday and my “firsts”. You know what they say, “There’s a first time for everything!”

After my morning run, my mom and I cooked my dad breakfast for Daddy’s Day, and then my dad, brother and I watched the US Open all day before cooking a delicious dinner. Pebble Beach is quite the killer course…if you play well, the course rewards you, but if you make a mistake, the course will eat you alive. I’m very happy Graeme McDowell won. He played very well, was consistent, and is such a personable guy you just have to love him! And it doesn’t hurt that he’s Irish with a beautiful Northern Ireland accent :)

Happy Monday!!

Lakers 2010 Champs + Angels + 5K Fun Run!!!

I am on Cloud 9! Congratulations to our Los Angeles Lakers, 2010 Champions!!! Back-to-back titles…I love it! What an exciting (and nail-biting) series it was!

With basketball season over, I can focus on baseball and the Angels who are on FIRE!! Joel Pineiro pitched a gem on Wednesday against the Brewers, and Bobby Wilson hit his first career homer! Nothing says summer like baseball [and hot dogs and beer].
And speaking of the Angels, if you’ve ever wanted to run the bases at Angel Stadium, your chance has arrived! July 11 @ 7:30am is the All-Star Game Charity 5K & Fun Run benefitting four wonderful charities: Prostate Cancer Foundation, Stand Up To Cancer, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and City of Hope.
Running + baseball + supporting awesome causes ??? Who can say no to that?!
And Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser will be there too! Woohoo!! It should be fun!
Tomorrow I have a hill workout with Lisa and Sunday a 9-miler!


*Happy Friday*

Oh The Places You'll Go!

Over the past few weeks, my work weeks have been insanely busy and then I've spent my weekends traveling, which has left me with little to no time to blog!  This is what I've been up to:

First I was in Napa, where Sean and I visited several wineries, enjoyed the sun, and hiked some pretty cool trails.

Then we went to San Francisco where we saw the Giants slaughter the D-Backs.  Don't be fooled by my Giants attire...I am a born-and-raised die hard Angel fan, always will be.  But it was free hat night at AT&T park, which by the way is one of the most beautiful ballparks I've been to.  We sat in the outfield on the bay side!

The next weekend, a couple of my college roomies were flying to Vegas from NY so naturally I met them!  Hey, we're sisters @ heart!  So off to Vegas we went.

Finally this past weekend my family and I drove to beautiful Santa Barbara for my baby brother's college graduation.  Baby bro is UCSB c/o 2010!!  We cruised up early Friday morning and spent the entire weekend lounging at the resort pool and going out to celebrate my bro's graduation with the whole family!  Saturday morning Sean, my dad, and I got a good long trail in too, and it felt good to get out and run.

I couldn't be more proud of my brother!  When he was born I was convinced mom and dad had him just for me (I wasn't yet 3!).  And now he's a college grad going to Law School in the fall!  I'm such a proud sis!

Anyways, I have been asking him fervently for a long while to run the San Francisco half marathon with me in July.  His answer has always been "No, I don't have enough time to train."  Now, he is SUPER athletic and could train for it in a month.

Well, he moved back home yesterday and first thing he said to me when I saw him was, "I'll do it with you Sis, sign me up!"  I was overcome with excitement that I ran to my laptop and immediately registered him.

Now not only are my best friend and cousin running the San Fran 1/2 with me, but my baby bro is too!!!  I am so motivated to keep training and I can't wait until July 25!!

Two more exciting things before I sign off:

1.  I start grad school in the fall!!!  I will be attending Chapman University, Argyros School of Business and Economics for my MBA!!  I CAN'T WAIT!!!

2.  I ordered the new iPhone 4...it comes out three days before my birthday, so it's my present to myself :)  I have been waiting for Apple to release a new one...so excited for June 24!

That's all for now!

<3