My 25th Birthday!

Friday was my 25th birthday and I had a blast. I have such good friends!! Here are some pictures from the night:

Ultimate Hot Chocolate from Panera Bread the morning of :)

Panera Bread Red Velvet cupcake!

BIRTHDAY TIARA!

We saw Thor 2 and it was awesome!

Best. Picture. Ever.

2nd visit to the Cheesecake Factory - they sung Happy Birthday to me!

Birthday chocolate-covered caramel cookie at Lot 3

More friends :)

happy !!!

I may have felt like a 5 year old walking around a movie theatre, a restaurant, and a lounge wearing a huge tiara, but I didn't care. It was an awesome day, I have awesome friends, and it's gonna be an awesome year!!

Cheesecake and Running

Last Thursday, JW surprised me by meeting me at the mall where my rehearsal was and took me to Red Robin where we split a hamburger, and then walked over to The Cheesecake Factory to get some cheesecake. Pre-birthday celebration!

S'mores Cheesecake

30th Anniversary Cheesecake

Then we walked over to Ruth's Chris and partook in their happy hour.

Yummy wine and lemon drop :)

our relationship in a nutshell

The bartender noticed it was close to our birthdays - JW's is on November 20th - so he gave us these Rattlesnake shots, which was Kahlua, Bailey's, and creme de cacao. It was DELICIOUS.

Rattlesnake Shots

After we walked back home, I decided it was a good idea to run 6 miles on the treadmill. Ha-ha! I had to stop 3 different times. Yeahhh.

It was a dismal run. Ugh. Soooo bad.

On Saturday I skipped my 5.5 mile planned run and just went right onto the 11 miler on Sunday. On the treadmill. May not have been the best idea, but oh well.

Felt a LOT faster on this run, and just better overall. I've been really slacking on running lately and I feel bad about it, so I hope to make this week a lot better since next week I'll be in Dallas and tapering for the half. Hopefully the weather will be nice enough that it feels good to run outside. I'm still kind of battling a semi-cold so I'm trying not to push it.

This'll be the first month since July that I'll be running less than 100 miles in a month - why does that make me feel weird?? I keep trying to find a way to fit in 30 extra miles but I mean, come on. That's not gonna happen.

I feel like this week will FLY by - I'm leaving on Sunday for Thanksgiving in Dallas, and until then, I'll just be catching up on work, running, going to yoga, and packing. Eep.

Feeling Sluggish

I feel like I've been kind of sucking these last few days. Not committing to my running schedule OR my yoga schedule (I didn't go from Sunday - Wednesday because of this sinus infection) has made me feel flaky and unorganized. I hate it!!

Yesterday I ran a dismal 3 miles on the treadmill. I suppose I was still "recovering" from the half marathon I ran on Monday, but still. I wanted to run 6, but NOPE. My body barely ran 3. I had to stop and walk. What is going on!!

Ick.

I'm taking a step in the right direction, though. I went to yoga this afternoon and am planning on running 6ish miles today to get back in the swing of things. This'll be the last week where I can get some actual training in before I start tapering the week of Thanksgiving. Can't believe it's almost here!

Tomorrow is my 25th birthday!! :D

A 13.1 Mile Training Run (Instead of Yoga)

So today was strange...

I decided there wasn't enough time to go to my one hour yoga class, so I decided to run a half marathon instead. Let me explain..

First of all, the sky looked like this. Amazing and beautiful and I could see BLUE and sunlight and oh my god it was just gorgeous. I kept thinking, do I really want to be stuck in a dark room with a bunch of sweaty people doing the same old yoga I've been doing for two weeks now? And my heart said no. 

I literally got as far as rolling up my yoga mat to walk out the door when I just listened to what my body actually wanted to do, and stopped myself. I wanted to run. There was no way I was going to ignore the urge to run and let this sunny day to go waste.

I quickly changed into my running gear, strapped on my water belt, grabbed some Clif Shot Bloks, and set my Nike Plus app to go 10 miles*. I thought I would break it up into four 2.5 mile runs. 2.5 miles south, then back up north towards my apartment - to give myself a chance to back out if I wasn't feeling good - and then 2.5 more miles north, and end it with 2.5 miles south.

*From my original schedule, I was behind by 20 miles total, if not more. Most recently, I was supposed to run 12 miles on Sunday and I didn't. I needed sleep and I felt like shit. I didn't even go to yoga that day. Shame on me. I figured since my last long run was 7 miles, that I should instead complete 9 miles on Monday. Well, instead of doing 4.5 miles there-and-back, I decided to bump it to 5 - round it out to an even 10, right?

Ever since I came back from Vegas, I've been skipping scheduled runs left and right. I was following a Hal Higdon plan for marathons that are run 6 weeks apart from each other. Well, hello. I'm not running another marathon. I'm running a half! So skipping a few runs from my rigorous running schedule was bound to happen.

Anyways. I started running until I got to the point where I usually stop and turn around. Well, I didn't feel like turning around. I wanted to see how far the trail went. I knew the I-90 trail was around there somewhere, but I hadn't found it yet. Challenge accepted. So I kept running. And I literally had to go like .1 more miles and there it was!! So I followed it. And I nearly got to go across the whole I-90 bridge, y'all!

At first I considered only going to the 5 mile mark and then turning around to make it the planned 10 miles. But then I realized, hey, I could run 6 miles and totally just make up my 12 mile run that I didn't do yesterday! And then I was like, hey, if I extend it by only .55 miles after that, then I could run a half marathon!! I was feeling good and decided to just do it.

It was so cool. It was hilly and challenging and I made great time. Considering this was just a hilly training run (and I only really decided to make it a half marathon around the 5 mile mark), this makes me SO much more confident that I can break 2 hours in the half on December 1st. Shaving off 2 minutes and 19 seconds seems doable to me. It would be a new record for me! :)

All in all... great run. I love feeling like this!!

The Sweater Dash 5K

I've signed up for another 5K!

I'm doing this with friends and it'll hopefully be different than The Color Run - by that I mean I hope we run the whole time! :) I think I can convince JW to actually train for this one...

For you Seattle based bloggers/readers (the race will be at Remlinger Farms), click here for the Living Social link, and enter in code "VETERANS10" to get 10% off the 50% off Living Social price, if you order by tomorrow, 11/11.

I'm obviously not distinguished enough in the blog world yet to even have to mention this, but just in case, I am totally not being sponsored and had to pay the Living Social fee to sign up for the race. I just thought it'd be fun to pass along! :)

Back into Running

YESSS I'm running again y'all! 6 miles on Friday, 3 on Saturday and they both felt AMAZING. 6 miles was on the treadmill again, yes. But I found this awesome new chart that made me feel better about the discrepancy between what the treadmill says and what my Nike Running app says. Also I just generally feel better about being in denial that I'm only going 10:00 on 6.0mph while I'm on 1.0 incline... bc I'm not!

Somehow 8 seconds of differences makes all the difference. Go figure. 

My new iPhone (5S -birthday gift! Thanks Mom&Dad!) is sooo good at taking pictures!

Then on Saturday, I was feeling super motivated so I decided to go and run outside. Honestly, ever since running outside in Vegas in the neighborhoods, I've really missed being able to bypass stop signs/lights and a lot of cars. There's just no way to avoid it where I live, unless I do loops that are way too hilly or way too short. If it's less than 3 miles, usually I have no problem - 5 is pushing it - and I definitely can never figure out a way to run 6 miles without being stopped. Unless it's like, 6am. But now it's dark at 6am... sooo.

I felt great during this run, despite starting off way too fast - I was feeling good so I kept with it. My mind keeps going to the Turkey Trot that I run with my future in-laws family- I want to run it fast, under 25 minutes, but these times aren't indicative of achieving that goal. (According to this, I would have finished a 5K around 26:34.) I suppose racing mentality/environment will enhance that, but who knows, it could also be super hard. 

So many leaves!!

With that kind of thinking, I'm realizing I'm not even thinking about the half on December 1st. I skipped last week's long run and I'm this close to skipping the long run planned for later today, after my dance rehearsal. I keep telling myself not to worry about it, that I have enough mileage covered over the past few months to get me through it... I mean, I know I'll finish. I just want to finish well. 

Neon colors, not sure why my legs look so dirty..?

I'm thinking of signing up for another 5K in December just to see how fast I could go if I really train for it hard. Hmmm.

The Costumes I Wear

I skipped my run AGAIN last tonight because I'm really not feeling well - sore throat, coughing, etc. etc. Bleh. The weird thing is I always feel fine in the morning but ever since I got back from Vegas, I've been sick at night. Hmm.

So, in the meantime, I thought we might take a little trip down memory lane.

I'm a little late to the Halloween Costume blog post party, but hey, better late than never right?

I used to be a model for a dance costume company called Georgie Girl. I was a cute little sucker.

Circa 1994

Yep, ADORABLE. The costume bug (hah) bit me early.

To clarify, technically it was the dance costume bug that bit me. I dressed up for Halloween when I was trick-or-treating, sure, but I was mainly just a witch or a cat, nothing really creative. I was dressing up in costumes so much for dance that it wasn't really anything new to dress up on Halloween.

As I got older, I participated in musicals a lot, which involved more dressing up in costumes. Ever since I was a freshman in high school, with colorguard, ballet, and musicals, I was almost always in some kind of costume. Halloween became less and less like a cool thing to do.

But, I did occasionally dress up for the random party here or there.

2004: As Christine Daaé, for a friend's birthday party

2006: As a Flapper for the same friend's birthday party

2006: For our Homecoming Dance, it was neon themed... or something

It wasn't until 3 years later, the second semester of my sophomore year in college, that I dressed up again for a party - and it wasn't Halloween, either. It was April 2009, and it was a pirate party. I found all my gear at Goodwill!

JW is playing his part well - he's not this mean :)

After studying abroad and not participating in Halloween (again!), I got back to the states and in February 2010, my new roommate was having a themed party for her birthday. I decided to dress up in my mom's 60s garb and pass myself off as Agent 99 incognito.

Rockin' that middle part

My next costume-themed party was the next month, at a karaoke party at a friend's apartment, where I dressed up as Lady Gaga.

I had to borrow the wig and hair bow from the same roommate, but hey, I still felt pretty damn cool.

It wasn't until later that year that I actually went to a Halloween party and attempted to try to be creative with my costume. It was the last legit Halloween party I could go to while still in college, so I figured I had to go.

If any of you remember Katy Perry's infamous skit on SNL a few years ago, you'll recognize this costume. The episode happened to air right before Halloween, which gave me the idea.

2011 kicked off with a themed Valentine's Day party, where I dressed up as the devil.

You can tell I tried real hard at this costume.

Later that year, I made an even better last-minute Halloween costume as a "teacher".. or something.

From Day to Night in about 4 seconds

And then it wasn't until two years later, this year, that I dressed up for Halloween again - not before procrastinating until October 28th to buy our costumes, though.

So there you have it. All my party/dance inspired costumes throughout the years.

Looking back, I sure do wear a lot of RED, don't I???

Favorite Halloween costume?