Blooming Cherry Blossoms

How is it halfway through March already?! I guess I'm just not very motivated with this blog anymore, hmm?

The sun has been coming out more and more lately!

March 3: 5 Miles, 9'39" average pace, 50 degrees, sunny

Chai tea latte art

March 6: 4 Miles, 9'46" average pace, 55 degrees, cloudy

A much needed massage - a christmas gift from the in-laws!

March 7: 6 Miles, 10'18" average pace, 55 degrees, sunny

love seeing the cherry blossom trees :)

Total Miles for March 1-7: 15 miles, a 0% increase from the previous week.
Total Yoga Classes: 5 classes: 3 Power classes, 2 Renew classes

March 8: 7 Miles, 9'40" average pace, 62 degrees, sunny

I've been going to a lot of yoga lately and it's been really refreshing!

March 10: 4 Miles, 9'33" average pace, 55 degrees, partly sunny

March 12: 3 Miles, 9'27" average pace, 64 degrees, partly sunny

Total Miles for March 8-14: 14 miles, a 7% decrease from the previous week.
Total Yoga Classes: 6 classes: 4 Power classes, 1 Renew class, 1 Yoga Sculpt class

JW played a gig at Chateau Ste. Michelle, a winery in Woodinville, and we had a blast! We got a bottle of wine and I got to dance the night away, which was awesome! March is going well so far- before I know it, it'll be April... crazy!

Decompressing with Busy-ness

Introducing my character in Death By Chocolate, the play I'm acting in for most of February and March:

Georgia Gore!

She's a rather unfortunately named food critic, and I wouldn't wish her fate on anyone. Dun dun dunnn! Rehearsals have been going well so far - I haven't needed to be in very many, which is good considering the rehearsal space is about 30 minutes away without traffic (so, an hour away - one way - with traffic).

Other than those rehearsals, I also went to choir rehearsal, a voice lesson, a 6 hour choir retreat, and last but not least I co-hosted a Dinner Detective show.

I had to unwind a bit...

Since my friend Chelsey's birthday is on New Year's Eve, I was invited to come out with some of her girlfriends and celebrate her day of birth, just a few weeks late :)! You may remember Chelsey from last summer when we ran at 5:15 in the morning, and Larissa from the Bellingham Bay Half Marathon!

I'm so glad I had time to visit with this group of fantastic girls! I definitely need to make more time to hang out with fantastic people such as these ladies, because I certainly don't do it enough.

I also hung out with JW and my sister-in-law Rachel to watch The Imitation Game, which was fantastic. I'm trying to watch all the Oscar nominees before they air on February 22nd!

And can we please talk about THE SEAHAWKS???

YAAAS!! I thought it would take a miracle during the whole game, but what do you know!! They pulled it off!

And, finally, last week's summary of runs:

January 12th: 3 Miles, 9'28" average pace - partly sunny, 50°. Started too fast at 8'55" and slowed down almost a full minute in the second mile, then finished the third mile at 9'41". Felt pretty bleh before I ran - but of course, felt much better after I ran.

January 13th: 4 Miles, 9'48" average pace - sunny, 43°. Sun!!! Felt SO good during this run in the sun! Though it was colder (it was 33 that morning), I didn't mind it that much. My first mile was the fastest at 9'27" and then I slowed progressively (to 10'12"), and then back to 9'30" for the last mile.

January 15th: 4 Miles, 10'39" average pace - partly sunny (sunrise), 36°. So cold! So early! I did this run at 8am (so, no real fuel either) and ran on my most difficult route, with over 138ft in elevation changes. Started downhill (per usual) at 9'43" and just got slower and slower, til I bottomed out at 11'24". Yikes.

January 16th: 7 Miles, 10'05" average pace - partly sunny, 50° . Very pleased with this long run pace, compared to last week's long run pace of almost exactly a minute slower! I started fast but ended faster, which is what I always want to strive for. I was the slowest during the 6th mile at 10'36" but that's as slow as I got. Yippee!

January 17th: 2 Miles, 11'09" average pace - cloudy (before the sunrise), 40°. I didn't get enough sleep the night before, and I ran this at 7:40am, my earliest run in a while. I felt a little sick throughout the whole thing, and was happy when it was finished.

Total miles for January 11th-17th: 20 miles, 10% higher than the previous week.

I didn't make it out to run with the Seattle Green Lake Running Group, but that's because I had to move my long run to Friday- so, maybe this next week I'll be able to make it out??

I was pretty busy last week, but I don't think I would have it any other way - in a weird way, it helps me relax! Hopefully everybody else's week is off to a good start.

December Running in Dallas

From mildly cold weather (46-48)...

To really, really nice weather (55-70)..

And back to actually cold weather (37-41)...

Can't Texas make up its mind??

Clearly I'm on a sort of running streak with the end of the year fast approaching. I did the math and figured I can get 600 miles by the end of the year as long as I run 15 miles total by the 1st. If I run 5 miles a day for the next 3 days, I can do it!

Hope everybody had a good Christmas! I sure did!

December Running in Bellevue

December has been cold and rainy, much like one would think a December in Seattle should be. But honestly, I've hardly had time to sit back and reflect on it- since the Seattle Half Marathon, which was on the last day of November, I've really kept myself busy.

First, running in nearly perfect weather:

And then not-so-great weather:

And back to awesome again:

I really love all the happy faces! Usually I've got a few "so-so" run in there, or even a miserable run, but not this month so far! I feel great about the amount of running I've been able to fit in, and the weather hasn't been terrible. Even the 4 miler in the rain (December 11th) was kind of refreshing.

In other news...we arrived in Dallas on Wednesday night for the holidays! It's the first time in two years that I've been able to come this early. It's wonderful - I'm taking in the Dallas holiday spirit (and Mexican food) as indulgently as I can.

Before I talk about Dallas, though, I have to talk about December in Seattle. I:

• attended 6 auditions
• ...and was called back for 3 shows and got cast in all three! Two were at the same time, so I had to chooe, but now am already cast in two shows for 2015! 
• took 3 voice lessons
• went to 7 yoga classes
• got a massage (much needed, after the half marathon)
• performed in two choir performances
• was a seated actor in a Dinner Detective show
• was an reenactment extra on a show called "Ghost Adventures", on the Travel Channel
• had to go to the car dealership to get my windshield wiper fixed
• saw A Christmas Story at The 5th Avenue Theatre with JW
• attended the Bellevue Presbyterian Worship by Music service with JW
• witnessed our doors and windows being installed (finally!)

I'm exhausted just reading over all of that! It was tough, but worth it.

I'm sure at some point I'll make a resolutions post, like I did last year, but for now I'll just keep on keepin' on.

Feeling Unmotivated

Well, this was inevitable - the motivation slump that comes with training for a race. I'm not sure what caused it... maybe the fact that I planned two races in a row? Maybe the fact that the Seattle Marathon 10K didn't actually fit well into my training plan, and I just kind of shoved it in there? Truthfully, I shouldn't even be running it, since I was supposed to have the Columbia Winery 10K on that Saturday, then run 13 miles the next Sunday, then run another 10K on a Saturday. Instead, I scheduled the 10K the day before I'm supposed to run 13 miles. I'm smart.

I did get new shoe inserts, though! Look at the difference!

I had the ones on the right for just about a year. Now these are shiny and new! Looks like Road Runner Sports got into the insert business, huh?

I completed my run a little reluctantly on Monday - only 6 miles, and it felt sluggish. 

At least it was beautiful weather?

Then, I was supposed to do an 8 mile tempo run on Wednesday, but COULD NOT get myself out of bed. Our bed is so comfortable and our bedroom is so dark that it's truly difficult to leave it in the mornings! I can't even imagine how it'll be once it starts getting cold - I'll never want to get up, ever! 

I pushed that run to Thursday, but what I had scheduled that day was just a 7 mile run, and I figured... well, I'm really not supposed to be doing any kind of interval runs or speed runs the week leading up to a race, right? So I just deleted the 8 tempo miles from my calendar and completed 7 miles in the afternoon.

Of course my right hip started acting up again during this run? But then I also got a notification that I need to get new shoes, so hopefully once I do that, it'll fix the problem. It's nice that the Wave Rider 17s lasted 8 months, I guess. 

The two days between these two runs, I wrestled with myself on how unmotivated I was feeling. On Tuesday, I welcomed the rest day. I felt like I was still exhausted from Saturday's race with Monday's 6 miles piled on top. So Wednesday came and I just could not find the energy. But, I was still eating like I was running 8 miles that day... ugh! 

Once I get into a training cycle of running, and fueling post-run and pre-run, I kind of stop counting calories as diligently as I usually do since I'm ultimately going to burn them off. But when I don't run, or take a little break, or taper, I turn into a crazy monster of eating ALL THE THINGS.

Hopefully that'll subside once things calm down, but who knows. I'm trying to just listen to my body and "honor my hunger", as they say. 

How do you honor your hunger? 

Wearing Hats Keeps Me Cool

For these three runs, I wore my UT hat to keep myself cool. We've been having some really warm weather in the PNW lately, and I needed to protect the sunburn I got going to JW's gig last Saturday, lest it get any worse. It's not a bad sunburn by any means, but it's right on the back of my neck, so an easy target especially while running.

During this run, a biker came up behind me on the trail and slowed to my pace, and I took out my headphones because I saw he was clearly making some comment to me - and he was asking, "Did you go to UT?" and I smiled and said I did, and he asked when I graduated - and I laughed because this guy was clearly my parent's age, if not older, and I told him I graduated in 2011 - and he told me he graduated in 1978, and got his master's in 1989, and his sister and niece and someone else also went to UT - and here I am jogging along trying to keep my pace, listening to this guy go on and on about his family... and though I do appreciate the random act of kindness, I was kind of like, how is this conversation going to end?? But he was perfectly nice and said it was nice to meet me, and I laboriously said "Nice to meet a fellow Longhorn!" but he was gone by the time I got to "Longhorn", so anyways. That was the longest run-on sentence ever, but okay.

This run was clearly on a very beautiful day - I tried to enjoy every minute of it - but I got started later than I wanted to (it was Saturday! so hard to get out of bed...) and basically broke up the run into 3 segments of 4 miles. At the end of each segment, I stopped for about 5 minutes to wrap my mind around the next segment.

I was on my last segment, and someone biked passed me with his head turned towards me, clearly saying something - and I only caught the last of his comment, but it was something along the lines of  "Nice hat!", so that was kind of cool. I always get a little jolt of adrenaline when a stranger on the trail encourages me or gives me a thumbs up or compliments what I'm wearing... so that's always nice.

92 degrees... my own fault. I wanted to get up early, but apparently if there's nobody else getting up with me, I have no motivation. So, I chose sleep and ran this after I got my new car title transferred to my name, in Issaquah. I ran this while listening to Harry Potter and without any of the voice feedback on each mile, only at the halfway point so I knew when to turn around.

The trail was pretty empty (re: 92 degrees), but there was this one guy who was running towards me in the other direction, who seemed to be struggling - and I wasn't doing that great either - but in the moments before we passed each other, he gave me a thumbs up, and I gave one back. I love those moments!! It really does make it so much better for me to have people, or even just one person, cheering me on.

So, I guess wearing a hat makes me cool. :P

Longer Runs

Hallelujah! Seattle has finally gotten the memo that it's still July, and therefore still allowed to be summer. It's been warm, sunny, and almost hot this week - and I've loved every minute! It really reminds me of how short this beautiful time is, and how quickly it'll return to gross, cold, dark Seattle.

Jimi Hendrix rocking out in the sun this weekend

Strictly Seattle, the dance camp I was attending, wrapped up last weekend and it went really well. I loved dancing every night, but I won't miss rolling on my shoulder every night, multiple times a night, or abusing my face with heavy eye makeup.

our performance piece. yep.

I looked like a zombie. Neat!

The end of Strictly Seattle also meant I had enough energy to go back to yoga! I've gone the last two nights and it's been glorious. I forgot how much I love that hot room, and how limber I feel afterwards.

On Monday, I ran 4 miles with Chelsey down a new path - down a huge hill, around a lake a few times, and then back up the hill. Then I ran 4 miles on my own, the usual way.

the 11 minute mile was getting back up that hill!

The first half was glorious - I felt really fast with minimal effort, at least except for when we got to that hill. Even the second half was great- I listened to my running playlist for the first time in a while, and that seemed to really help keep my pace in the low 9s. There were some spectacular views that morning!

This morning, Wednesday, we ventured out for another run - 3.5 miles with Chelsey, and 3.5 on my own. We went the usual way - around the same loop twice (for me, at least) - but it was so hard. I felt so sluggish and my legs felt like sandbags.

Ugh! My pace definitely reflected how tired and unmotivated I felt. It was even worse when I was alone - bleh. Sometimes you just have to get through those "junk" miles!

We move into our house TOMORROW and I couldn't be more excited! So that means tomorrow is my last early morning run with Chelsey. I'm honestly a little sad about it! It's been so nice to get the run out of the way (and sometimes I even get to go back to sleep when it's finished, so how bad is it really?!) and having Chelsey as a motivator has really helped me get out of bed at 5am.

I figure I'll find a new trail near our house, but I won't be going out at 5am on my own for safety reasons. Maybe I'll aim for 7am?? Who knows. Anywho, I'm ready to finally move into our HOUSE that we OWN - eee!