RnR SF Kick Off Party

This week has been pretty busy. My little sister moved in on Saturday afternoon. She just got an internship in the Bay Area and is going to be hanging out on my couch for the next 4 months. Our little one bedroom apartment is a little cramped, but I think it's all going to work out.

Naturally, being new to the city, I decided she needed to see the sites. So last night I dragged her to the Rock n' Roll San Francisco official kick-off party at one of my favorite places - Sports Basement. I mean, who wouldn't want to go there. Seriously, it's one of my favorite stores.

Last night was one of those times that I really wish I had my own car. Getting to the Presido from downtown isn't the easiest. I was feeling lazy and didn't want to take the bus, so we called Lyft - better known as the car with the pink mustache. I've used this service a few times and love it, but last night led us on quite an adventure. We only missed our turn about 3 times and then almost got on the Golden Gate Bridge, but in the end we arrived.

The kick off party was small, but awesome. Sports Basement offers such a great community setting for local athletes. There were a few vendor booths set up (Mizuno, Gu, Gatorade, MarathonMatt), free snacks and beer....yes, free beer....does it get any better? There was also a raffle, although I didn't win anything, but I scored these beautiful Mizuno Wave Inspire 8s for $65!!

Ooooh, so pretty! 

Didn't win the raffle, but the guys at the Mizuno booth saw I was getting shoes and gave me a pretty sweet water bottle. Score!

Also got a cool poster. The iphone pic doesn't do it justice, it's super cute.

I think the race is only 12 weeks away. I'm pretty excited, not only is this the inaugural Rock n' Roll marathon for San Francisco, but it's also my first Rock n' Roll marathon. Can't wait to see the course details - hopefully it's not as hilly as the US Half was in November. That was killer.

Have you run a Rock n' Roll Marathon? Was it awesome?

Fabulous Run

The Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon is just 4 weeks away, so naturally it's time to really start upping my mileage. This will be my third half marathon and my first race of 2013. My goal is to PR and I think I have a chance. In December I posted my highest mileage ever and I've noticed my pace has been getting stronger, faster.

My plan for today was to run 9 miles. I got off to a late start as I could not get my new Garmin Forerunner 10 to find my location. After 20 minutes I gave up and decided to just us the MapMyRun app on my phone. I guess the frustration was a little fuel to my fire as I set a lot of unofficial PRs this morning!

Mile 1 was knocked out in 7:08! Probably wasn't too smart to start out a long distance run and post that kind of pace at the very beginning, but it didn't feel like I was actually going that fast.

I'm usually pretty happy when I get in 6.5 miles in the first hour - but I hit 6 miles at 51:27 - which meant it was possible to get in a 7th mile in my hour time frame. I made sure to make that happen and hit 7 miles at 1:00:16 - yay!

I was still feeling good about mile 8, so I decided I was going to make this a double digit run this morning, so I ran around the block a few extra times at the end so I could hit 10 miles. I finished 10.12  miles in 1:27! I so hope I can keep this up, if so I won't just set a new PR next month, I will crush my previous times. I plan to work hard the next few weeks so this can be a possibility.

Hope today wasn't a fluke - 'cause I'm on cloud 9 right now! Here's a recap from MapMyRun

Did you run today? If so, how'd it go?

Welcome 2013

Wow! Where did 2012 go? I feel like it went at warp speed - is that really what happens the older you get? I remember being in junior high and counting down the 100+ days until summer and thinking that was such a long time, I feel like now 100 days goes by in the blink of an eye.

2012 was such a great year, I'm hoping 2013 will be even better. I have a list of resolutions, or goals rather that I'm looking forward to in 2013.

Health & Fitness Related

1) Run a half marathon in 2:10:00 or under (I was just 3 minutes shy of this last year)

2) Run 800 miles

3) Survive the Tough Mudder in February

4) Make an effort to eat healthier - including bringing my lunch to work a minimum of 3 days a week (this will save $$ and calories)

5) Try a new class or sport (last year I tried Spin, Running and Bikram Yoga (all of which I LOVE! Wish there was more time so I could do all of these every day).

6) Find some running buddies

7) Write more and grow my blog

Lifestyle Related

1) Be a better me

2) Pay off all credit cards / Save more

3) Read more books

4) Continue with and progress in German-language studies

5) Volunteer

6) Move to Europe (this has been a long time dream for my husband and I - hoping this is the year)

2012 - Year in Review

2012 was a pretty incredible year! In January I made a commitment to getting fit and healthy - for real this time. With a wedding in July, I had finally run out of excuses. Well, it's now December, and I have to say I am happy with what I was able to accomplish. I am in the best physical shape of my life and feel good! Looking forward to setting some new goals in 2013. After all, I have to work off the hundreds of cookies I ate at my mom's house last week on vacation - that might take a while.

The first half the year I really focused on my gym workouts. I was going to Boot Camp twice a week and throwing in some spin classes and doing some more generic workouts with the husband-to-be and brother-in law.

In July I married my best friend and tomorrow we celebrate 6 months of marriage! I was able to fit in my dress with no alterations and a single try on that was 2 months before the big day. Whew.

We had a destination wedding (highly recommended)! We got married on a Carnival Cruise, and then invited our guests to sail away to the Bahamas with us! It was a blast. Seriously, the best.

After the wedding, I decided to refocus my fitness efforts on training for a half marathon. I've never been a runner before, but I found a training plan and got to it. In September I finished my first half marathon - and in November my second!

My sister came to cheer me on for my big day. 

Showing off my race swag after finishing the US Half. 

December has been a great month as well. After the Turkey Day 5K, I saw a post from @RunnersWorld on twitter about a RunStreak that was taking place from Thanksgiving to New Year's. I had never considered anything of the sort, but I thought what a great challenge. I had already knocked out a run on Thanksgiving, so I thought to myself, I can do this. Well, 3 days in I got the flu, so the official runstreak was ruined. When I was back on my feet, I decided to start over. My goal was to run every day in December. I am happy to report that I succeeded. I knocked out 93 miles this month, making it my highest month of mileage ever - and I'm topping off the year at 404 miles. (Check out my dailymile profile to see all my runs).

Hope you accomplished all you set out to do in 2012. Happy New Years!

Bikram Yoga - I'm in LOVE

About a year ago, I got a great Groupon deal for 2 months unlimited classes at a local Bikram Yoga studio (Funky Door Yoga). I thought this would be a great way to get in shape for the wedding. Well, it's now December and I've been married 5 months and I recently got a reminder email to use my Groupon before it expired.

After putting this off for about a year - I was kind of dreading / nervous about trying out "hot yoga" - but I didn't want that $40 to go to waste. I've tried a few Yoga classes at my gym over the years (not recommended), and I was never able to get into it. But I told myself - you just need to go to 2 classes and the deal will have paid for itself.

Fast forward 1 week - I've been to 4 classes and I'm in love! Bikram Yoga is nothing like regular yoga, in my opinion. Sure I find myself twisted up like a pretzel every so often (see pose #4), but it's quite a different experience from the crappy yoga at the gym.

Lights on - the teacher has a mic and gives detailed instructions on every move - and it's 100 degrees in the room. The class is 90 minutes long and is composed of 26 poses. It's best to wear as little as possible in the class - because you will get sweaty! And no need to be self conscious - no one is looking at you - they are all focused on themselves...for reals.

Pose #13 is one of my favorites - especially after falling over like a fool attempting to do #12.

Needless to say, I am going to take serious advantage of my 2 months of unlimited classes. Obviously I can't go every day - but 3-4 times a week should suffice. I'm so happy school is over until mid/late January - that clears up 2 extra nights a week - and there are late evening classes so I can go after work. Kind of bummed that I'll be missing out next week when we're in Arizona for Christmas. I already have days picked out for my post holiday sweat.

Have you tried Bikram yoga - or a regular yoga studio? What do you like most?

In other news, I hit day 17 of my runstreak today! The beginning of the week was a little rough, I was getting pretty tired, but I find that the yoga has really helped loosen me up and my runs later in the week were pretty good.

It's been a while (about 6-7 weeks) since I've done any longer distance runs (anything over 4 miles), but I'm thinking about signing up for the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon on February 3rd - which is right around the corner - so I had to officially kick off training. Yesterday I knocked out a 10K (close enough, 6.14 miles). The run started out good - but I was slowing down a little after about 3.5 miles - but then found myself on some holiday race route being chased by a few dozen runners in Santa suites. This was good motivation to pick up my pace. I wanted to make it to 7 miles, but decided not to overdue it and finish strong.

I was super happy with my finish time - about 55 minutes - giving me a pace of 9:03/mile. This is phenomenal - my finish time for the US Half Marathon left me with a pace of 10:00+/mile. If I can keep this new pace during training the next few weeks - I might be able to PR, which would be a great start to the new year.

Tough Mudder training has been on hold for the most part over the past 2 weeks. My brother-in-law had a guest in town and then was sick this weekend. And I'm sure the holidays will mess up the next weekend or two. Don't get me wrong - I have done something active every day for the last 17 days - sometimes doubling up with 2 workouts in one day - but none have been super focused on strength building for the TM. Although, last weekend, I was able to do my first unassisted chin up. It was awesome! I felt like a badass. And I know you're probably thinking, seriously, she's getting excited over one chin up?! Really, don't knock it until you've tried it...it's hard. Hoping by Tough Mudder day, I'll be able to do several - otherwise, someone is pushing me up and over the wall.

I think that's all for now. I know I've been slacking on the posts lately, going to try and pick that up. Having next week off should be a good motivator.

December Runstreak

After the Turkey Day 5K and a day of cooking, I spent the evening surfing twitter posts and came across the Runner's World Runstreak. A challenge to commit to running at least 1 mile a day from Thanksgiving to Christmas. What a great challenge to keep the holiday pounds away (have I mentioned I have a serious cookie addiction). I haven't tried anything quite like this before and I'm all for trying new things, so here goes.

Well, I made it 3 days before I ended up with the stomach flu. Not cool! Not to mention a totally crappy way to end a 4 day weekend and ruin off my RW runstreak. Damn!

I was sick for 2 days and then took an extra 2 days to let my body completely recover - I think this was a wise idea. I didn't have a proper meal over those 4 days, so I probably wouldn't have made it far without collapsing. So after all this the end of November had arrived...instead of scratching the runstreak, I decided I would adjust the plan and run every day in December. Run at least 1 mile a day for 31 days. Challenge on!

Today is the 6th and so far I'm on track. I went for a run on the 30th, so my streak hit 7 today. This is a new milestone for me, it's small but it feels good. I feel confident that I can make it through the month - and come January who knows...maybe I'll keep it going.

What's your longest runstreak? I've read some blogs and twitter feeds about runners on streaks well over 100 days. Seriously impressive!

Turkey Day 5k Recap

This year was the inaugural Lifetime Turkey Day 5K in San Francisco. Since we were home for the holiday, we thought this would be a great way to kick off a day that would be followed by face stuffing.

I got a great deal on registration - there was a Groupon a few weeks back - 2 entires for $29! Can't beat that. My husband and brother-in-law agreed to run with me. They may have regretted that decision when I woke them up at 6AM on day off.

I was pretty impressed with the organization of this race considering it was the first year. We arrived about an hour before the start to pick up bibs and such. It was a little chilly, so we spent a good half hour bouncing around and goofing off to keep warm.

The race started a few minutes late as they were checking in the last of the participants. We were pretty much at the very front of the start line. The three of us started out together, and then Sean bolted off and we didn't see him again until the finish. Dan and I ran together for the first half, but somebody (eh hemmm) had a little too much fun Wednesday night and started to slow down...so I let him eat my dust! (Sorry babe). I was running at a pretty comfortable pace - didn't have my earphones in so no MapMyRun app beeping in to tell me how fast I was actually running. My goal was to finish under 30 minutes...but was really hoping to come in around 27 minutes....

Welllll....to my surprise I finished in 24:20! Holy cow...how the heck did that happen. I did not feel like I was running under an 8:00 minute mile - I mean at that pace, you're pretty much flying right?! Well, it happened, and I am damn proud. Obviously that was a personal best for me...in finish time and pace. I usually struggle to run a few miles at 8:30 - how I finished a 7:50 pace is beyond me. Guess I really wanted to work up an appetite for our afternoon feast.

Sean finished under 20 minutes. Beast! And even Mr. Slowpoke finished in an excellent time - somewhere around 27 minutes. I swear these boys were trying to show me up. Well, your efforts worked fellow - made me push myself a little further. Thanks!

This is my last race of the year, now the main focus is tough mudder workouts and not gaining a metric ton from eating too many holiday cookies.