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!

Catching Up February

I haven't updated since mid February and I feel a little bad about it! I'm not really sure how to catch up except by doing just a quick little recap of the last two weeks of February.

February 17: 5 Miles, 10'01" average pace
February 21: 6 Miles, 9'28" average pace

Total Miles for February 15-21: 11 miles, a 50% decrease from the previous week. Hmm.

Opening night reception!

 

We opened Death By Chocolate to rave reviews! The process has been great and the cast and crew have been really wonderful. I'm so glad I auditioned!

Saturday Brunch with JW, Rachel, and Chad

February 22: 4 Miles, 9'42" average pace

February 23: 3 Miles, 9'21" average pace

February 28: 8 Miles, 9'50" average pace

Total Miles for February 22-28: 15 miles, a 36% increase from the previous week. Getting a bit better, but still pretty inconsistent. 

Rehearsals begin!

I had two big auditions the last week of February, on Thursday and Friday, along with my three performances for Death by Chocolate and three Arcadia rehearsals. Whew!

I've been walking more, trying to get to 10,000 steps every day - it's so hard! The weather has been gorgeous lately, so I'm happy to get some amazing pictures out if it.

March began more or less the same. I had a performance on Sunday followed by an Arcadia rehearsal (I slept so good that night! So exhausted..). I have one rehearsal for Arcadia this week, and one callback to go to, but after that all I have are the three remaining performances for Death By Chocolate. I can't believe we're almost done! I'm going to schedule my massage soon (Christmas present from the in-laws)- I'm really looking forward to it!

Here's to hoping the weather stays beautiful!

The Beauty of Eating Carbs

I must say, the weather here has been PERFECT lately. There were only a few days that were cloudy/foggy (cloggy?), and the rest were sunny and  bright. The week ended (or began, depending on how you look at it) on Sunday at a sunny 60 degrees - is it early spring or something?!

I think it's obvious that I put carbs back in my diet this week. My paces certainly reflect the extra energy - last week I was absolutely dragging in comparison. It's really interesting to know and see with evidence that my energy level really depends on what I eat during the day. That may sound intuitive, but sometimes I forget, honestly. 

January 19th: 5 Miles, 9'24" average pace - SUNNY, 47°. I felt so energized during this run! This was right after I had an amazing audition - I have literally never before had such a perfect audition where I walked away and wasn't immediately analyzing everything - and I felt so motivated to MOVE afterwards that this run felt like the bomb.com. Do people still say that? Anywho, I felt awesome, my pace was nice and quick especially for the mileage, and it was in the sun as a bonus. I even wore short sleeves for the first time in a while! Amazing, right?!

January 20th: 3 Miles, 9'40" average pace - sunny, 45°. The humidity must have been lower than the day before because damn, I was COLD. I also wasn't really feeling this run and felt like I must be clocking in 11 minute miles, so I was pleasantly surprise when I saw my pace. I wore a lot of clothing - my Nike wide-legged pants (I usually wear these as comfy pants around the house), a long sleeved shirt, gloves, vest, and ear warmers - probably too much clothing for only 3 miles. Oh well.

January 21st: 3 Miles, 8'53" average pace - cloudy, with some sun peeking through, 42°. I wore three layers on top, which was probably too much, and capris - but it was GLORIOUS. It was such a fantastic run, I'm not really sure what made me feel like I had so much energy! I had some oatmeal, flaxseed meal, and a banana beforehand. Carbs, man. I really didn't want to run, either - I had been really sore the past few days - and I toyed around with moving it to Thursday but then knew I'd be screwed if I forced myself to run three days in a row at the end of the week. I'm so glad I ran that day instead of waiting!

January 24th: 8 Miles, 9'39" average pace - cloudy, 55°. This run felt AMAZING, even though it was at 7:30am. I had a full day ahead of me, but I also had food as a motivator - I had a huge meal Friday night (at Dinner Detective), and I had a huge meal planned for afterwards, at Portage Bay Cafe. It fueled me to keep up the pace throughout these 8 (8! My longest run in quite a while!) miles, and I felt great.

Total Miles for January 18-24: 19 miles, a 5% decrease from the previous week. Whoops!

This is the first week since I actively started making sure I increased mileage safely that I've skipped a planned run. I was "supposed" to run 3 miles on Friday, but I went to yoga instead, and never ended up running that day. I figured it was okay because clearly two days of rest meant one of my best long runs in a while...!

January is almost over, and I gotta say, I'm not sad about it. I'm ready for February - my show opens, rehearsals for the second show begin, my friends' shows open.. lots of stuff is going on and I couldn't be more excited about it!

The Last Runs of December

In my last post, I had mentioned I needed to run 15 miles by the end of the year to reach 600. 5 Miles a day was my goal, and I had 3 days to do it. If I missed a day, that meant running 10 miles in a day. Eek!

I ran on Monday, and it was awful. 

I felt so tired and sluggish, and like I was ready to throw in the towel. I couldn't believe I had to do this again for the next two days.

Well, the next day was our travel day - I thought about running in the morning, but I just couldn't get up and force myself to run before 8am, so I didn't, thinking I might once we got home around 4. I would have about 30 minutes before the sun went down, and I figured I'd run as long as I saw fit, and then just do a long run on New Year's Eve.

We landed in Seattle and I felt so tired, (I even slept on the plane a little!) so I figured that I'd run 10 miles on New Year's Eve, just like last year. 

In the morning, I checked my mileage for the year on NikePlus, and it said 589.3. Um. 589.3??? That meant I had to run 10.7 miles...! No way was I going to run almost 11 miles. Why did I think it was 9.7 that I had left? For whatever reason, 11 seemed so much longer than 10. I slowly settled with the fact that I wouldn't hit my goal of 600 for the year, 

A few hours later, I refreshed my page and saw that my mileage had jumped to 595.3. What!? That meant I only had to run 4.7 miles - I could definitely do that! I decided to send an e-mail to the Nike support team just to be sure. The response I got:

I would like to explain why the total miles have adjusted. Sometimes during site outages, runs that are synced sometimes do not apply to the total mileage. When I recalculated your account, one of your runs that wasn't applied to the totals, was just applied, hence the jump from 589.3 to 595. This may have been 1 or 2 runs, but I assure you that this mileage is in fact accurate. 

I hope this shed some light on why everything changed so suddenly! You are so close to 600 miles! Ill give you an early congratulations. That is awesome.

Please feel free to email me back if you need anything, Hayley. I am happy to help.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Nike+ Support

How awesome and supportive is that?! I got a surge of energy from knowing that the random dude at Nike+ Support was cheering me on. Nike rocks. I immediately went out and ran the last 5 miles of 2014.

It felt great! And even more awesome was the fact that I hit my goal of 600 miles for the year (let's ignore the fact that that number was originally 300 miles higher at the beginning of the year).

I'm happy that December ended on a positive note. In my next post I'll analyze the year in detail and post some resolutions!

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.

Givings and NaNoWriMo

Where did we leave off?

Birthday run!

11/19/2014

 

Funny that this run was literally almost the exact same time as the previous one!

Thanksgiving run!

Little did I know that I was training for the 2014 Seattle Half Marathon during these runs... Cliffhanger!

In the meantime, I've been spending a lot of time with family and friends.

I turned 26!

5 days later, so did JW!

We hosted Thanksgiving...

As well as Friendsgiving!

I also won NaNoWriMo and wrote over 50,000 words this month!

Phew! Next I'll be sure to update the decision to run the Seattle Half Marathon on a whim...

Increasing Mileage by Percentage

Hello there! I've been really trying not to overdo it in the running department, though I've surprisingly kept up my running pretty frequent since I last posted!

Running

October 13

This run felt wonderful- 58 degrees was really perfect and I wasn't worried about how slow I was going at all. I started listening to podcasts instead of Harry Potter and I think it's been a welcome change! Harry Potter rocks, don't get me wrong, but listening to it all the time gets a little monotonous!

I felt AMAZING during this run, as you can see by my paces! I just felt like I could fly. I loved that I stayed under 10 min/mile the whole time!

When I started this run, I was originally going to make it a 3 mile run. But it was so beautiful outside (62!!) that I just couldn't convince myself to stop. So, I just ran the extra .5 miles down my out-and-back path to make it an even 4 miles. However, I could tell that my body was fatigued (ended on a 12 minute/mile pace.. yikes) but again, I was just so happy it was sunny outside!

October 19

This run was after a weekend of debauchery, pictured below:

I went to two different shows to see two different friends perform, and then went to parties afterwards - basically, I ate too many sweets and drank a bit too much wine (how can a person resist cookies and wine, though??) so I didn't feel that great on Sunday. But, I forced myself to get outside for a run and felt a little better.

We go to Austin this weekend to attend the wedding of JW's college roommate (and high school friend as well!), and I couldn't be more excited! The high is supposed to be in the mid 80s, and though the Pacific Northwest weather has been more than forgiving, I'm ready for some good ol' Texas HEAT. 

Increasing Mileage by Percentage

I'm really focusing on keeping my running under a 20% increase (ideally a 10% increase) from the week before, and I'm doing well so far!

Week of the Bellingham Half Marathon - 15.1 Miles

10/5 - 10/11 - 7 Miles (had to recover!)

10/12 - 10/18 - 13 Miles (a little more than intended - an 86% increase)

10/19 - 10/25 - projected 14 miles (an 8% increase), to get back on track.

So, sure, I should have run a bit more the week after the Bellingham Half Marathon, but I just didn't feel like it.. so I made up for it in the week after that, with 13 miles total. I know the 10% rule really only applies when you run 20+ miles a week, but I figured it's a good starting off point now that I don't have a set goal in mind in terms of racing.

Congratulations to my sister-in-law, who ran her first half marathon with the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco!!

Holds a special place in my heart, since on this day last year, I ran my first marathon with Nike Women. Lots of feelings about that, that I'll maybe talk about later this week.