Monthly Archives: November 2011

Christmas Lights

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On Friday night, we all piled up in our car, stopped at Starbucks (and got a lovely grande Christmas blend brewed with two pumps mocha) and… piled back in the car to drive down the boardwalk! The boardwalk is set up with like a biljilion lights and we drove underneath them while listening to Christmas music! It was really cool to see the beach lit up like a Christmas tree and listen to the beautiful Christmas music. It was such a relaxing drive. The most entertaining part about the whole thing was the girl dangling out of the window in the car ahead of us attempting to get a photo of every single light structure. She was standing on her seat shooting over the car and almost fell out several times!

We didn’t spend the whole time laughing at her. Not at all. Right.

THEN- on Saturday (just in case we didn’t have enough Christmas Spirit pumping through our veins) we went to the Christmas tree lighting at Virginia Beach Town Centre! It was a warm and balmy 65F outside, and we merrily found our favorite local coffee shop, Daily Grind, and got our yummy lattes! BONUS: a church was handing out cookies in front of the coffee shop! YES!

We hung out at the 30 foot tree for like an hour and watching the children walk up to Santa’s knee… it made us kinda want to have kids for a couple minutes. Then one started screaming and we changed our mind. We’re allowed to be independent for a couple years, right?

 

 

Tyler’s brother had come along and took in the incredibly flattering photo you see above on his iPhone…
it was such a magical evening, and we had such a great time getting in the Christmas Spirit! I’m so excited to set up our tree on Black Friday between shopping and eating, string pop-corn for the first time, and drink hot tea or chocolate.

I love Thanksgiving and am excited to celebrate my first one with Tyler as my husband! We have so much to give thanks for this year!

Weekend Run

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Saturday I did a great 3.3m run in about 27 min as I ran to the LuluLemon store for my pilates class. I didn’t use my RunKeeper app because I was using my map to figure out how to find the store, but that’s my rough figure. When I got there, I had to immediantly start my class, and I could hardly sit up straight, my hips were so tight! After some serious stretching and a lot of pain, I was able to FINALLY touch my toes (which is never a big deal to me), and I felt MUCH better!

I LOVED the piliaties class, and will probably sign up for for enough classes to get me to Christmas.

Then on SUNDAY, I went running with a girl from our run club and she matched my slower-I’m-going-to-run-6-miles-pace perfectly! It was a glorious run with the most perfect weather ever, and we just kept running. My goal was to run SEVEN miles, but I started dry heaving at SIX so I did what it took to get back to the car. Safely. And not throw-up in front of the new girl. Unsuccessful. Embarrassing.

I know this is discusting, but it’s not the first time I’ve thrown up from running. This time it was obviously from running too soon after lunch, but I’ve done it before from over exerting myself. What I’ve learned to listen to my body, and walk when it’s telling me to walk.
During a race, yes, I will do what it takes to get the best time I possibly can, but I’m not going to bring myself to throw-up again because of a run. It was horrible. After I got home, I threw up straight for 30 minutes and felt like crap the rest of the night.

But while I was miserable, I basked in the pride that, today, I ran further than I’ve ever run before.

Going to beat my record and run SEVEN miles next weekend!

Morning runs

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Last night we watched the biggest loser, and ran to Skinny Dip before hand so we could eat ice cream (or frozen yogurt) while we watched people lose weight!

I haven’t been consistantly running since our race at the end of October, and since the time change I decided to start running in the mornings. Since marrying Tyler, he’s pretty strict about me not running in the dark, so I was starting to get frustered since it wasn’t light until 7:15am! There was no way I could run, shower, and be even remotely on time for work, so I’m (of course) thrilled to have my morning run back! :) I hit the road this morning at 6:44am and ran for 4 miles in 41:14min. It really isn’t great, but morning runs are always a little slower for me.

My goal is to do it under 39:00 min tomorrow!

The fog this morning was glorious, especially over the lakes I ran by. I was able to rest my mind and really think about the things I’m grateful for… which is a long list!

  •  I’m grateful for Tyler’s really good job. I can’t even tell you how happy I am.
  • Getting to take a class this semester. I’ve got 10 classes to finish once I’m done this semester and I CAN’T WAIT to graduate.
  • The gloriously cool air, esp in the mornings when I run. I love running under the trees and enjoying their magnificent color.  
  • It was our 3 month anniversary last week (Nov.6), and it was so amazing to realize that we’ve been happily married for a whole 1/4 of a year! Tyler pulled me into a hug and informed me, “today is the first day towards 6 months!” A tear rolled down my cheek… it was so precious :)

I love clearing my mind during my runs, getting ready for the day, and not allowing the things that worry me to drag me down. I love running.

Wicked 10k!

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It has literally been WEEKS since I updated my blog! So much has been going on, that you deserve a quick update!

Two weekends ago (on Halloween weekend) my husband and I ran in the Wicked race. It’s a 10k race (6.2 miles) where everyone is supposed to dress up and run along the boardwalk. It was supposed to rain and be the nastiest day in the world, and the night before Tyler and I even talked about not going. But there was going to be Blue Moon beer served at the end, and we all know Tyler will run for beer :) . So we drove the 3 miles from our house to the convention center, and stood in our corral. We were in Corral 3 which means that we aren’t AMAZING runners, but we don’t really suck either! It was still freezing out, so I crouched down so the wind couldn’t get me… Or I held onto Tyler for dear life to keep me warm!

We finally started running and I was so distracted by the costumes that I forgot how cold it was, how much I hate running in general, and that I’d much rather be snuggled up next to Tyler in bed on a blistery cold morning.

In fact, I didn’t ever stop my stride until mile 4 when I had to pull my hair into a pony-tail again because the wind ripped it out! I was doing so well, Tyler didn’t even leave my side until mile 4!

That’s when he hit a really great song and took off in front of me :) But I kept up my pace and ran down the boardwalk with freezing cold  and didn’t even break my stride! In fact, I only came in about 35 seconds after Tyler :)

When I got my results on my phone later that day, I was so stoked: I placed 152 out of 833 for my age group “Female 25-29″. I discounted it by saying that all the girls in my age group were probably walkers… but I’m still pretty proud of us! I finished the race in under an hour which was one of my October goals!

After the race was over, we headed over to the food (which was chili served in a bun) AMAZZZZING and then over to the beer tent. Which is precisely when the forecast-ed rain storm hit! We were warmly sipping Blue Moon while the slow walkers were drenched by the monsoon. =( Sorry guys!


We seriously looked like little Wicked 10k advertisements walking back to our car dressed like this: Our technical shirts, runner bibs, metal and running caps! I’m extremely proud of us, and we are well on our way to running the 1/2 marathon in March!