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

4 Miles and Back to Training!

After not working out for almost a week as directed by my Dr., I was going crazy! So yesterday after work I decided to walk two miles and monitor the pain in my back. If I felt good walking, I would try running the next day (today). The two brisk miles felt great, so before bed I set my alarm for 5:15am to get my 4-miler in before work. My alarm went off this morning, I had an espresso, laced up my shoes, and decided to run on my treadmill for more cushioning. I walked the first mile at about a 13:45-15min pace, then picked it up for the next mile and a half to about an 10-11min pace. I was feeling great! Then after those 2.5 miles, my back started to seize up where I had injured it. So I took it down to a brisk walk and alternated the last mile and a half between walking and running. I did more running than walking, and it felt so great to get back into training.
San Fran Countdown: 47 days!

xoxo

*Happy National Running Day!*

Happy National Running Day!

In honor of today, I was planning on running 4 miles.  It was the 4 miler I had on my plate yesterday, but due to a car accident on the way home from work, my 4 miler was postponed until today.

Well, like I said, yesterday I got into a car accident.  I was driving home from work and was stopped at a red light.  The guy behind realized it was a red light and slammed on the breaks, and stopped just short of my car.  Welp, the guy behind him was not paying attention and SLAMMED into the guy behind me who then crashed into me.  I tapped the car in front of me, but there was no damage there.  No one was hurt thank god, but I did end up spending a good portion of today at the Dr. office due to the onset of back pain.  Looks like I pulled my back, so my Doc prescribed me three meds and said tomorrow should be the worst pain but then it should get better.

Here's the kicker...I can't run for 2-3 days!!!  That didn't make me happy.  But life happens and sometimes rest is best.  So, in honor of National Running Day, I will be sitting on my bum reading my novel "Once a Runner" by John L. Parker Jr.  A girl's gotta do something running related, right?  ;)

Have fabulous runs and remember to *run happy!*

Happy National Running Day :)