Monthly Archives: April 2016

Happy Friday!

A policeman knocked on my door this morning, but I just locked it and sat in complete silence. After 20 seconds he knocked again, but I continued to ignore it. The knocks got louder and more frequent, but I was determined not to move in the hope that he would go away.

Then he decided to look through the window. He shouted, “Do you think I’m stupid? I can see you in there, ma’am. Open the door.” I said, “You’re not coming in!”

He said, “I don’t want to come in, I just want you to step out of the car.”

*****

Last night, I sent James a text. Keep in mind, I’m sitting near/next to him the whole time, and he was totally engrossed in the NFL draft pick thing that was going on, so I’m not sure anything other than football was resonating with him. He fell for it and I had tears coming out of my eyes by the time he caught on.

(I’m super good at entertaining myself.) I tried it next on AJ, and he yelled from across the house, “No it doesn’t!!” Didn’t even send me a text. No sense of humor.

It’s Friday, and I’m in the mood to smile and laugh. If either of these little sillies didn’t make you giggle, go visit Tasha at Hit Below The Belt Hard. She’s an expert at Funny Fridays!

Have a fabulous weekend!! And don’t forget to…

Tulsa, Oklahoma

38 Replies

James and I were chatting and getting psyched to start our next training cycle when the subject of our destination fall race came up, and we realized we don’t have one booked on the schedule yet! That set the hamster wheel in motion! Planning, searching, contemplating schedules… but we think we may have nailed it! The Williams Route 66 Marathon in Tulsa!

Pros include:

Jacket as opposed to a tech tee.
700 feet elevation.
The course is running through the historic streets of Tulsa (no better way to see a city).
Half Fanatics perks, such as a VIP tent with private restrooms, gear check and refreshments, a custom personalized club race bib and special club finisher medal.

Cons:

Ummm… none?

The perks and swag are fabulous, so I think that pretty much seals the deal! Look out Tulsa… here we come!!

Credit to route66marathon.com

Anyone ever run Tulsa?
Anyone LIVE in Tulsa or nearby?
Do you ever go for a run, take a shower, and find that you are still… perspiring… when you come out of the shower? 😛

Motivational Music Monday #10

13 Replies

What time is it?? It’s time for some music motivation, of course, courtesy of James over at 50 in 50 Marathon Quest! Go check out his music choice for this week, see if it helps get you get out and get moving! If it doesn’t, then add your own in the comment section! Maybe it’ll get him motivated to get up and get out!!

I think Prince has motivated all of us at one point or another in our lives. He was a huge presence in the midst of my high school years, and I don’t think there was one single teenage girl who didn’t have a crush on him in 1984, especially after watching the movie Purple Rain. My best friend and I watched the movie over and over and over again. My boss and I were talking the day he died, and even she had a crush on him back in the day (she’s 2 months older than me).

It’s really hard for me to pick a favorite song from the Purple Rain album, especially as you can’t access any of his videos on You Tube. However, I actually found one from the 1999 album, and this really and truly is on my current running playlist. If this song comes on, I run to the beat… it keeps me going, believe me. To be quite honest, this has been a favorite song of mine to exercise to since the early 1990s. The following is the edited version…

Prince: Let’s Pretend We’re Married

(Let’s hope it doesn’t get yanked from You Tube)

But I’m not stopping there… without Purple Rain, I may have never known about Morris Day, Jerome, and The Time. I came to love them too.

Morris Day and The Time: Jungle Love

Ahhh, but I’m still not stopping!! For the last one, Kiss! Nothing to do with Purple Rain, but who doesn’t love this video!!

Now go visit Jamesy and tell him Paula sent you!

Race, Recover, Repeat

44 Replies

It’s been a week now since the SLC Half-Marathon, and I have to be honest, I’ve been nothing less than a sloth this entire time. Actually, I’ve been too busy at work to even think about running, even having to bring work home with me for a couple of nights. So I’ve taken this recovery thing to heart. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. However, it all begins again on Tuesday…

That being said, time to focus on the weight loss again and get rid of the winter gain. I eat oatmeal for breakfast and I like to add peanut butter to it for the protein and flavor. But this has a huge detrimental effect on the waistline. Looky here:

190 calories and 7 g of protein for my favorite type of PB. I quite possibly put more than 2 tablespoons in my oatmeal (what can I say… I love PB). And no, I don’t measure it precisely the way I should… ain’t got time for that, so a big ole dollop of this deliciousness ends up in my oatmeal daily, along with all the calories and fat (16 g!!). Let’s check out the ingredients:

A few of those ingredients I don’t recognize (mono and diglycerides? hydrogenated vegatable oil? rapeseed?). Thankfully I have my blogging friends to keep me on the up and up. There’s big talk going around about powdered peanut butter. It took me months before I’d even attempt to look for it in the store just to see what it was all about. And while I wasn’t actually looking, I did run across some kind of PB powder finally.

It’s looking somewhat similar to the protein powder I put in my water-based smoothies. Have a peek at the back side:

Sweeet! 50 calories, 5 g of protein, and 2 g of fat! The sugar content is the same, but 3 g is not too bad. Also, it has a total of 3 ingredients in it… peanuts, sugar, and salt. Just add water and stir (something to keep in mind for the zombie apocalypse? or are we over the zombie thing these days? I’m actually not… I still have a kid who plays Call of Duty). Anyway, this will now go in my oatmeal as my peanut butter, AND, I’m going to plop a couple of tablespoons into my banana smoothies for added flavor there as well. Again, my smoothies are water-based, so I don’t have to worry about sugar or calories from milk or yogurt. I’ll let you know how this plan works out.

Moving on…

Last week in Salt Lake while I was touring Temple Square, Jamesy was hitting the race expo without me. And while he was there, he bought me a present!! Awwwww… he’s awesome! We’re going to be participating in a 6-hour hamster run in August (round and round for 6 hours… how far she goes, nobody knows), and he got me my own Camelbak vest so I can stay nice and hydrated! What a wonderful husband! (How am I going to talk him into buying me those fancy-dancy trail shoes I’m absolutely going to need?!!)

Yesterday was a big shopping day at our house, getting ready for our celebratory karaoke night and all! No worries… we were totally prepared! Costco rocks!

No, we weren’t drinking the Gatorade last night… look one shelf up. That’s Jamesy’s beer supply… but I had to hunt to find the wine supply, hidden nicely in the back of a cupboard…

You may not be able to tell, but that’s 3 bottles deep, plus 2 more in the fridge. Now don’t get all judgemental on me… the alcohol will last us at least until next week! What can I say?! Our karaoke celebration went off swimmingly! No worries… I didn’t record anything on video so I won’t subject you to that torture!

Weekly Stats:

Total Miles: 13.96 (see? I have achieved complete sloth mode)
Total Steps: 31,716
Total cross training: Hahahahaha!

Next up will be Jamesy’s Motivational Music Monday. Will I stick with his “theme,” or will I be the wayward child and go totally off the wall? Stay tuned…

Salt Lake City Half-Marathon

45 Replies

I’m not that great at giving a race recap, so if you want the full 4-11 (do people still say that?), you might want to check out Jamesy’s blog for his race recap later in the week. In the meantime, I’ll give a brief summary of the weekend from my perspective.

If you caught my pre-race freak-out post, you’ll know that we had an extremely bumpy flight thanks to a snow storm. This is us on Thursday not long after that incident… celebrating being alive.

You might have also caught the part where I met up with some family on Friday where we toured Temple Square. A bit of history: My father graduated from Bountiful High School around 1947, so my family “base” is in Utah. I hadn’t been to Temple Square since before my grandmother died in 1981, and it was great to be there. When I was a kid, my sister and I would spend most summers with her in Bountiful. Utah was as much home to me as Arizona was.

The above was the morning of the race. The bright lights in the middle represent the start line. And it was cold. Luckily, James and I had brought a couple of space blankets from a previous Rock ‘n’ Roll event, so we didn’t freeze too much. Starting temperature was 38 degrees F.

The elevation of the course looked like this. While, yes, there is a huge downhill section, there were very painful uphill parts as well. Four of the most notable hills were two in mile 1 (not nice), the one from mile 5 to mile 6 (total energy suck), and a complete ass kicker in mile 7 that was comparable to my Mo-Fo Hill across the street. The marathon and half-marathon runners split up at mile 9, and when James made his turnoff, he went straight uphill yet again; thankfully, I went down. Not only that, we train at sea level, and I’m seeing that this course was between 4300 to 4800 feet. It took a little bit of breathing effort to go up those hills. By the 12th mile, I was knackered. I wasn’t hurt in any shape or form and my feet were fine, no blisters (yay Brooks!), but I was indeed tired. The finish line was such a sweet sight!

Post-race festivities were fabulous. Pancakes with boysenberry syrup. Creamsicles. Yogurt. Beer. Music. They did not, however, have chocolate milk, so we headed to the nearest coffee shop afterwards to get some hot chocolate. It was still cold, but I was thankful for not getting overheated.

Total miles logged for the weekend: 27.59
Total steps: 63,288
Total number of toenails lost: One (literally… it came off while I was slipping on my shoes after the race)
Number of celebratory drinks post race: 4
Post-race dinner: Mexican food.

It was a fabulous weekend and a fabulous race. I’m not hurt, so training begins right away for our next adventure… Rock ‘N’ Roll Seattle in just a mere 60 days! And we are completely primed for that lovely hilly course! I have a beautiful set of rolling hills I’ll be training on to get my quads in shape for it, not to mention I’m going to attempt Mo-Fo Hill a couple more times.

Meanwhile, the karaoke celebratory night is this coming Saturday. Maybe I’ll set up the GoPro and get some random video…. hahahaha, not! Have a great week!

Motivational Music Monday #9

30 Replies

James and I received some super fabulous support over the weekend from our blogging friends in regards to the SLC Marathon, and I’d like to say a great big thank you and let you know I really appreciate all of you!! You made me smile and encouraged me when I needed it most… you are the best support system ever!! Thank you!!

I don’t have the wherewithal to write about the race tonight (I’ll do that tomorrow). It’s been a long travel day, but as promised, I am one sparkly bling richer. And if you know me at all, you know it’s what motivates me! So yes, I finished!! State #5 done! My thighs are screaming at me and on fire, but I finished!

And now it’s time for another Motivational Music Monday song! This is open to anyone and everyone! Go add a link of a song you are enjoying this week and/or a link to your blog at 50 in 50 Marathon Quest. You might discover some new music, or maybe some old music that you forgot about. James seems to have posted a cover song. I’m a Buble fan, so I can think of a million cover songs I could contribute by my boy alone… BUT… I’m going to surprise him and come up with something totally different than my norm.

Smoking in the Boys Room by Motley Crue (originally done by Brownsville Station). It’s still fun to listen to even after 30 years (when did Motley Crue become classic rock?!).

Have a great Monday!! Best wishes for those running Boston! And kudos to all you supporters of runners! You all are amazing!!

Pre-race Freak Out? Nahhhh….

26 Replies

Considering it’s the night before, I’m actually not suffering from my typical pre-race freak-out right now. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t be more relaxed. Which is odd. Especially given how I felt last week. But that could be because I totally lost it last weekend, and maybe once I resigned myself to “whatever will be, will be,” that totally wiped all my fears away. It’s a great feeling!

James and I took a selfie on the plane. About an hour later, we ran into the worst turbulence we had ever experienced, in the history of ever! Apparently we flew right into a snow storm, and wow, wow. We were thrown all over the place. We were totally ready for a drink when we landed, so that’s where we headed… straight to happy hour! At Squatters!

I have a lot of family in the Salt Lake City area, so today was a mini family reunion for me. I spent the entire day in Temple Square with a few of my aunts and a couple of my cousins. (I’m 5th from the left)

It’s extremely cold here to me, so I won’t have any heat issues tomorrow on the course, which I think may be a good thing. But the flowers are out and around the temple, looking so beautiful. I was told that last weekend was spring-like, and next weekend is supposed to be spring-like, but this weekend is supposed to be winter-like… and it is indeed that. Still, the flowers add warmth.

Have you ever seen the SLC Temple up close? A fabulous piece of architecture. I went to a building across the way and got an eye-level picture of it. The sky was gorgeous.

We then finished up the evening at The Spaghetti Factory in Trolley Square for our last major carb load before the gun goes off.

As for Jamesy and I… mentally we’re doing great! No need to really post the picture of Bill the Cat as we are ready to rock and roll!! Next time I see you, I’ll be one sparkly bling richer and sore as hell!! 😉

Have a great weekend!!

Spirit Training

46 Replies

Sad to say, I’ve been a bit lacking in my positive thinking this past week. With 6 days until Salt Lake City, I just can’t afford the negativity… but hey, it happens to all of us every now and again. I started doubting myself and what I was actually capable of accomplishing, and that took me down a very dark path.

It all began with the knee injury at Lake Sammamish. I rested a solid two weeks in hopes that my knee pain would subside, and it did, especially once we figured out what was causing it. But that left me only 3 weeks to come up to par for SLC. Now mind you… I’ve been training steady since last July, so I didn’t think a 2-week break would do any harm. That is, until I actually went on my first run after that little break…

Still, I wasn’t thinking much about it because I was actually running “gentle,” trying to baby my knee and work it in slowly. I didn’t know how my knee was going to react until that first long-run Sunday when I gave it a good stretch. It held up fine… my legs, however, were not so fine. They were feeling a touch fatigued. Okay, more than a touch… they were resisting everything in regards to running after the first mile. And I had the most horrible leg pain at night… twitching, aching… all kinds of stuff going on. One Sunday night, after laying there for 3 to 4 hours twitching and aching, I finally got up at 1 a.m. to take some ibuprofen and magnesium which I had forgotten to take earlier. My compression sleeves weren’t even helping me.

And every run thereafter was more of the same. My legs were tired and I felt as if I had never run a mile in my life. It didn’t stop me from plowing on, but it was causing me some great concern. So much so that I was even contemplating dropping back in SLC to run the 5K as opposed to the half. Jamesy and I discussed some of my concerns, and he felt for my last longish run, I should go out, slow it down just a bit, and then maybe make the decision based on how that run went.

I ran loops around the fields today. This was my friend who cheered me on every time I passed him.

Well, I completed that run today (6 miles). The best news is I didn’t feel an ounce of fatigue in my legs, they felt normal, and they weren’t achy. Score! That brought the spirits up tremendously! And based on that fact, I came home and announced that I would, indeed, be running the half. I’ve never been concerned about my pace or being too slow in the past, and I ain’t gonna start today!

I would also like to thank Jackie from A Cooking Pot and Twisted Tales for composing the most perfect positive motivation saying which came when I needed to hear it most. You can read it here. “Don’t let your dreams die…” Nope. I won’t.

With my little personal crisis being over, onward I go. Five more days until my normal freak-out post. In the meantime, please enjoy this little ditty for Jamesy’s Motivational Music Monday. This is Song 2 by Blur, otherwise known as the “Woo Hoo Song.” And just for future reference, when I comment with a “Woo Hoo,” this is exactly how I mean it!!

Have a great week!! See you in Salt Lake City!! Woo Hoo!!

Lake Stevens

29 Replies

Landscape … The lake was beautifully calm around sundown. I have no words of wisdom for today, just peace.

More This and That

38 Replies

It’s Sunday night and I’m sitting here craving a chocolate moon pie (;D). Does anybody else like them, or is it just me? In my younger years, I would stay with my grandmother during the summer in Bountiful, Utah, hang out at the pool, and after every swim session, I ate a chocolate moon pie. Maybe I just need to go swimming. Or maybe the weather has been so nice here in the Pacific Northwest that it makes me think of summertime. But the real answer is probably because I just read a post that mentioned them.

Speaking of weather, it really has been gorgeous. Today was 70 degrees and sunny. That is indeed summer weather… for these parts anyway. And I completed my long run right in the peak of it. But funny enough, never once did I feel overheated. Okay, well, I took a break after mile 5, ran back by the house, cooled myself down with a wet paper towel and got some ice water, but still, it wasn’t horrible to be out running in the middle of the day.

James and I hit up the REI sale yesterday (it’s a sports store), and he bought me a sweet little FitBit (he got himself the Garmin 235 watch and a Nathan Fireball Race Vest, so he didn’t go without). Just a new fun little toy with more charts, graphs, and apps!

As you can see from above, I was loaded for bear when I went for my run today. I had my Garmin Vivoactive to track and map my run, my FitBit to track every movement that I made including the steps, and my magnetic bracelet for balance that I don’t go on a run without. Overkill? Haha, perhaps… but when you’re a numbers and stats geek, which a lot of runners are, then it’s “the more the merrier.”

We also picked up a couple of Maple Bacon flavored GU gels from REI. Fantastic! Have you tried this flavor yet? I had mine at about mile 5 when I was a touch hungry. I found that after I ate some of the gel then licked my lips, I had added salt flavor! Just like real bacon! (I know some you may be quite grossed out by this… sorry! #runnerslife)

And above was my final long run before Salt Lake City on April 16. See how I did that in the picture? Map from the Garmin, stats from the FitBit. There’s something appealing about seeing 22,000 as opposed to 10 (size matters?). Calories burned were over 2000… I totally have room in my diet today for a moon pie.

It’s almost Monday already so it’s time for Jamesy’s Motivational Music Monday! His particular choice this week has prompted me to post this one… an oldie but a goodie! It still puts a spring in my step! I find it kind of funny that a lot of videos don’t match the meaning of the song whatsoever… ever notice that?!

Hope you have a wonderful week! The rain returns tomorrow for us, but I am so very thankful for the beautiful sunshine we have had just recently!!

Never A Dull Bling

The trials and tribulations of a 40-something novice runner

Monthly Archives: April 2016

Happy Friday!

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Motivational Music Monday #10

Race, Recover, Repeat

Salt Lake City Half-Marathon

Motivational Music Monday #9

Pre-race Freak Out? Nahhhh….

Spirit Training

Lake Stevens

More This and That

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: