Almost Made It…

Oh right… this is a pic of my new hair color, if you’re still interested…

My friend Laura came to visit this weekend.

On Saturday, while getting ready to go to a party, she made mention of how she enjoys Chicago visits because she knows it’ll be a relatively healthy weekend when she spends it with me.

I patted myself on the back for that one.

Veggies and humus were the snacks on hand.

After spending Friday night in, we got up early to workout.

Laura may or may not have wanted to work on building her mileage for a destination half marathon we hope to do together next summer.

I may or many not have just really wanted to look good in my skinny jeans that night.

To each their own.

We did everything else right, too.

Chicken and veggies for lunch.

A long walk along Michigan Avenue to take in the Christmas light festivities.

Choosing to eat in vs. deep-fried bar food.

Drinking plenty of water to stay hydrated between drinks at the bar on Saturday night.

Club soda as a mixer instead of sugar-filled soda.

All smart choices.

We did so well.

I even skipped out on the late night 2am chow time. Which is a rare occurrence, if we’re being completely honest.

After Laura left, I continued the long walk trend in the nice weather for a couple of hours.

But then…

I guess it was food envy from when the rest of the crazy kids got mexican the night before.

That styrofoam carry out container was licked clean.

Skinny jeans be damned.

Not Thinking

As my personal and work lives both continue to be a whirlwind of activity, when I finally am left to myself, it seems I prefer doing things that don’t require any actual brain activity.

Like catching up on my DVR. The long list of unwatched shows gives me serious anxiety.

Or when working out. I’ve been dull. Jillian has guided me along the process once or twice a week, which is greatly appreciated. And after discussing all the joys of running outside, I’ve surrendered to the Chicago weather and have been a zombie on the treadmill/stairs/elliptical all week.

This morning I actively tried to combat boredom with speed intervals, but it’s clear there are no races in my near future. Which is a good thing. My heaving after approximately 4 miles of speedwork is disturbing.

Mental note: add race searches to the list of things to look into next week during Thanksgiving break.

That and cooking.

Wait… what’s that again?

Don’t fret- I’m still eating well. This boy I know keeps acting like he enjoys my company around dinner time. Which reminds me- I think there should always be mirrors in booths of places that serve ribs.

Just sayin’.

And even if I’m still picking dried BBQ sauce out from under my fingernails, it’s good this is happening, other than the immediate benefit of my mood being elevated when he’s around. I mean… if we weren’t going out, every meal I have would look like this:

Which is similar to every other meal I’ve had for the last… uh… two weeks?

I swear even the people working at the grocery store have recognized and are now smirking at either my disgusting “grocery shopping” sweats, or my recent eating habits.

Which I personally find offensive. What’s so wrong with wanting to be comfy while being a responsible consumer and purchasing wine and deli sandwiches… everyday…?

Nevermind. Answered my own question.

Let’s pretend I’m just making room for Thanksgiving.

And just so my mother isn’t nervous I’m spending Thanksgiving in front of the television by myself with a turkey lean cuisine…

Apparently the shindig I’m attending is a big deal. I even have my own customized name plate for the occasion.

Fancy!

And until then… moooooore deli!

Happy Friday, kids. Get silly. And have the pizza delivery number in your phone before heading out to the bars. It’s easier that way.

KBYE!

30 Degree Swings

Seriously kids… how gorgeous was it where you were this weekend?

Yesterday, November 10th, it was almost 70 degrees.

And here I thought I wouldn’t get to run outside again until March.

After passing out on the sofa at maybe 10pm Saturday night (party animal!), my neck was completely screwed, but the rest of me felt more refreshed than I’ve felt in a long time on a Sunday morning.

Out the door I went.

Running through the neighborhoods and the lakefront is way better than my routine during the week in the winter months when I usually take to the treadmill. Because instead of just staring stupidly at the crappy videos playing on one of the generic music stations at the gym, I’m actually thinking about stuff.

Important stuff. Like recent news headlines. Or what to wear next weekend.

Or today, where I did think about the two things mentioned above (I’m so indecisive on boot decisions…), but also what I’ll miss as it slowly becomes frozen and buried under snow.

Ok… so I won’t miss the random homeless guy peeing in a bush at an intersection. But the other things- like how pretty the lake is, the amazing skyline that slowly unfolds before me, or the random art that shows up around every other turn.

Ooooohhhhhh prettttyyy colorrrrsssss….

4 miles done. 4 miles that reminded me I’ve slacked since the last half marathon and I’m already somewhat ruined by my lazy treadmill runs. But 4 miles, nonetheless.

Today is supposed to be approximately 30 degrees cooler than the weekend. I’ve prepared by breaking out the extra comforter and sexy sweatpants. The roommate and I have reclaimed our crock pot after it being held hostage for 8 months at a friend’s house (still bitter). We’ve stocked up on pasta and wine.

We’ve entered hibernation mode. But that’s ok. I’m ready for it. There’s always the liquor store down the street in case I run out of wine.

Bring it on, Chicago.

Happy Hour Happenings

I’m not quite sure what it is, but whenever there is a need to share important information, a happy hour seems to be one of the favorite ways to do it.

Who can resist drink specials and bar food?

Anyway, I haven’t been able to join Lauren and her Team Challenge group for their weekly runs recently. And since that’s the time we use to gossip while the rest of the group logs hard-core mileage, we decided maybe we should just call it what it is and sit on our butts to chat instead. And eat pizza. Obvi.

Lauren said she was picky. And then proceeded to list off my favorite toppings as the ones she’d eat. Black olives, mushrooms, and pepperoni. Love.

Storytelling is way easier that way.

Which reminds me, I believe we’d both like to publicly apologize to the people in the booth behind us. You had no warning of the things you’d overhear. It wasn’t fair.

Anyway, after all the pizza and garlic knots (um… yum), it only seemed fair to get physical activity in this morning.

Which, after half-priced bottles, isn’t always the greatest. But then again, if I continue to have dates and happy hours every day of the week, I’m just going to have to suck it up and deal.

Being a social butterfly. It’s like totally super hard. #firstworldproblems

So yes, I had my first run this morning since the half marathon. 4.9 miles outside because this randomly warm weather will never last and I’m determined to take advantage of it as much as possible.

It feels weird to not have a race in the pipeline. But since I’m still seemingly motivated to get up before 5:00 to do something productive, I’m just going to enjoy the lack of stress from not having an end goal.

Freeballin’ it, ya’ll.

We’ll see how long it lasts.

And being as how I can’t seem to connect one thought to another in this post, and figuring out a way to eloquently wrap this up is not going to happen, I should just quit while I’m ahead and consider scheduling in a few nap times over the weekend.

K, bye.

ZOOMA Great Lakes Half Marathon: The Neverending Hill

The most well-deserved after-race medal/award I’ve ever earned.

Truth.

This last weekend, us ZOOMA ambassadors reunited, along with a few more awesome Chicago bloggers/runners in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Our weekend had finally come- The ZOOMA Great Lakes Half Marathon.

We rented a lake house, officially dubbed the party house, and had ourselves a good time.The house was amazing and we easily fit 14 ladies comfortably for the night.

All we had to do was supply the food.

ssshhh… don’t tell the rest of the healthy living bloggers we may have had more candy than vegetables on site…

If only we didn’t have such a rude 5:00 wakeup call.

Twinsies! Or at least until I became a total baby and decided I was too cold to not dress in layers…

I hope you like bagels and peanut butter… because that’s what you’re eating…

Luckily for me, our breakfast was what I normally eat for prerace. Sometimes it’s awesome us bloggers can be so cliché with our peanut butter.

Because it was a point-to-point race, we met up at the Abbey Resort to get shuttled out to the start line.

Kelly was super pumped we were the cool kids on the back of the bus. Or at least we were self-proclaimed to be. Still counts.

Two hours after waking up, the sun finally starts to rise. So many things wrong with that sentence…

The view was lovely, but the temps were not as nice. We all shivered and shuddered until the start. I opted to keep my long sleeves on- something to be thankful for every time there was a brisk breeze.

So how was the race you ask?

Well.

We were warned about the hills. But even the warnings were not enough to prepare me for what was about to happen.

Turn the first corner, oh hey- a hill.
Congrats, you’ve hit mile marker 2.  Go run up a hill.
You’ve been running on a flat surface for a quarter mile. This is too long, so go run up a hill.
You just finished a subtle incline for a mile. Go run a steep hill.

I truthfully believe I was running uphill for 75% of the race.

The worst was near the end- mile 11. At that point, I was just keeping my head down to avoid the soul crushing inclines ahead of me. But at that particular spot, I looked up. Not one person was running up the hill. It was THAT steep. I attempted my arm-pumping, look like I’m running but in all actuality am barely moving, run. For about 20 feet. Screw this, I’m walking.

I would have cried, but it’s dangerous to dehydrate yourself like that in a race.

So after the half mile from hell (I don’t think it was this long, but that’s what it felt like), we ran a little longer and turned around. To go back down it.

Now, I’ll go ahead and say my love of the stair machine at the gym probably saved my life going up those hills (because we all know I wasn’t training for them on the treadmill). But the downhill? It was so steep. And it took so much energy to slow myself down as I was barreling down, that every time my foot hit the road, my body got a shock to the system. Everything vibrated. With every step.

“This is going to hurt sooooo bad tomorrow.”

But that was about the end of it. Which was good. I was taking a beating. My endurance somehow held up. But my joints weren’t going to take much more.

2:00:04.

10th in my age group. A small race, but I feel it important to throw that out there, anyway.

Some of the ambassadors post race. Smiling. Because it was over. Whew!

And with that, I finished my 5th half marathon.

Check out the sweet compression socks. It’s how a lot of us ambassadors were able to see each other in the distance. And they kept us warm. Duh.

Thank goodness there was wine at the post race. That’s all I have to say about that.

And thank goodness my parents were there to take me to lunch afterwards.

Because I wanted to eat EVERYTHING.

A local brew called Spotted Cow to go with my turkey burger. Because I like diversity.

Oh and more food…

Why yes, the tree of broccoli was quite delicious with my mahi mahi. Thanks for asking.

So yeah. That was my ZOOMA experience. Not my best race time. But not my worst. And with all the hills? I’ll take it.

Plus, I got to see my parents and hang with a bunch of pretty awesome girls for the weekend.

Wine. Jewelry. And a solid girls weekend.

Worth it.

Now excuse me as me and my sore thighs limp on out the door to work…

Laters.

Friday Facts About The ZOOMA Half

Facts revolving around my upcoming half marathon weekend:

1. My ZOOMA Women’s half marathon is tomorrow. I have not trained adequately for it. My hopes are that the efforts put into the Chicago Half Marathon in September will at least halfway carry over. Or just a smidge.

But in the meantime, I’m packed and super excited!

Sometimes it pays to raid your mom and dad’s house over holidays for all the good stuff.

That’s where I got my old jenga game from middle school, not the wine. I can buy that myself now…

2. I am riding with the lovely Meghan to Wisconsin for said race. We have met once and ran into each other while running on the lakefront once. If I disappear for an extended number of days, you know what happened. SEND HELP.

Just kidding, Meghan. I totally trust you.

But just in case, guys…

3. My parents are meeting up with me in Wisconsin to watch the race and take their first official trip to Wisconsin. I’m going to introduce them to cheese curds the same way I was almost two years ago. With good beer in a bar. This may be disastrous.

4. The state of my nails are atrocious about 90% of the time. However, for the time being, they are rocking the blue. Not ZOOMA blue, but close enough.

I really love that it’s time to break out the dark polish again. Makes me feel so bad ass for no good reason at all.

Even if I’m really awful at giving myself manicures. Points for trying?

5. Some of us girls are staying together to make it a super fun, estrogen-filled weekend. We decided to potluck it out. I made cookies.

You’ll hear more about those later. But feel free to drool. They are delicious. I should know. I had no less than four last night and intend to have one with my second cup of coffee later on.

I have a sugar addiction problem. Send more help.

6. There are no set goals for the race itself. Just to finish. Which is technically a goal, but stop getting so technical on me. This is mostly due to all that hill training I planned to do never happening (shame), the furthest I’ve ran since my last race was 8 miles (shame), and my cold apparently got a second wind and lingered until about two days ago (not my fault).

This is just not going to be “my race”.

But whatever. The weather seems like it’ll pull through, Wisconsin is supposedly quite pretty at this time of year, a lot of great girls are running it, and I get a necklace at the end.

And wine. Lots of wine.

My parents should probably find me at the finish sooner than later.

Did I mention there’s wine?

Where was I?

Oh yeah… so that’s my projected weekend in a nutshell. I hope you all have an equally fun time. Or at least get to drink equal amounts of wine.

Did I mention there’s going to be wine?

Wait… where was I again…?

Firefly 5k Chicago

I’ve ran races in the evening before. Not a problem.

But in the dark?

Considering my track record of being the biggest klutz of all time, I must have been concussed when signing up for this thing. It’s the only explanation.

Actually, there’s another one.

It was my roommate’s first 5k. And what better race to start out with than one that requires glow sticks?

Totally brings me back to high school. My friends and I thought they were so cool to wear on road trips (because there are SO MANY PEOPLE to see you while driving on a gravel road in the middle of nowhere). Or thrown in a Bacardi bottle because it was preeeetttttyyyy.

Now that I think about it, that was really dangerous. What if the glow stick leaked? I’m sure there’s something on the package about not digesting the contents inside the tube.

I was living on the edge and didn’t even realize it.

Wait… something shiny… what?

Oh yes… So the Firefly 5k…

I absolutely love how creative organizations are getting with theme races. Undie Dash… Elvis is Alive… and now this?

It makes the race a little more fun. Plus, I really like wearing obnoxious colors.

Bailey’s reasoning behind wanting to try a 5k was basically “there’s no reason why I can’t” and I’m so proud of her because she rocked it!

Especially since it was a rough course. Definitely not an “in it to win it” kind of race. Because you will hurt yourself.

Word to the wise? This would be a good street race. The random holes or loose gravel in the trail were seriously dangerous. Because the only warning you got was if the person in front of you said something as they almost sprain their ankle or bite it.

Plus, my legs still are kind of angry at me for last weekend’s half marathon.

And I really just wanted to see Bailey finish. So we ran it together. The whole way. No stopping. I felt like such a proud lil’ mama.

I don’t know my official time. Because, for some reason, it’s not in the results. Which is weird and mildly annoying. My chip must have been defective? However, since Bailey and I were together, I’ll assume it would have also been just over 31 minutes.

Yeah. Her first 5k in 31 minutes. Nailed it!

(Oh and we still have the blinking arm bands. Who wants to go rage?!?!)

Clearly we had to go out and celebrate afterwards.

You’d think we’d be tired. But you’d be thinking wrong.

Our victory outting lasted until the wee hours of the morning and ended with a lil’ party at our pad at 3:30 in the morning.

So you can understand why I’m a wee bit tired still on this Monday morning. The marking of a good weekend.

Carry on…

Chicago Half Marathon Surprise

Everything that could go well did.

That’s what happened.

Well. Except for the wrong turn made on the way. And the wrong turn or two or three on the way back. Considering the race started in south Chicago, this wasn’t the most ideal of situations.

Thank goodness my aunt owns a Prius and gets about 50 miles to the gallon. Or we surely would have been screwed.

But nevermind that. When it comes to the race, everything was peachy.

My morning started with the usual.

Peanut butter toast. One piece already demolished. Also, did you know Friends is on at 4:30 in the morning? I watched Phoebe get married as part of my prerace routine.

I never ever ever stray from this routine. Like ever.

We got down to the race site about an hour early. Considering the wrong turn, this was surprising. My two cousins and I gave my aunt (from out-of-town) the lay of the land to give ourselves some peace of mind and so she wouldn’t be lost and frantic after the race was over.

And then we were off. To our respective corrals. I started in “F”, which was at about the 1:55 group. This was a comfortable spot for me. Going into my “training season” for Chicago Half and ZOOMA (in October), my secret goals was to PR in at least one of the two. However, because I never quite made it over 10 miles for my long runs, my new goal was to finish under 2 hours and face plant into some pancakes afterwards.

Simple enough.

The race started exactly on time (woah) and I was thrown into a first mile of dodging and ducking others. The first mile or two is always the worst for this and makes me a bit stabby.

The stabbiness subsided, however, after about the 5k mark when I saw the clock and realized my pace was sub-8:30.

“Hmm. I should chill out a bit before I crash and burn.”

So I zone out a bit, and casually observe my surroundings to keep my mind off of all the running.

Word to the wise- if you must wear running tights that are semi-see through, do not wear neon yellow undies that say “I can do anything!” underneath. Unless, of course, you wanted 10,000 runners to see them. Then it’s ok.

Made it to mile 7 under the hour mark.

“OMG I NEED TO START PAYING ATTENTION.”

Because there was still a wee bit of time to think about things, I started breaking down the math. 8:20 pace. Shit.

That’s when I made the executive decision. Which was “Screw it. Balls to the wall. Let’s just see what happens.”

And 8:20 was the pace I kept almost exactly for the next 4 miles. How? Magic, I suppose.

Then came mile 11. Mental breakdown. A bit past the marker, there was a water station. I took a cup and started a walk. I needed this.

“Come on Amy, don’t stop now.”
“What are you doing, Amy? No walking! Keep going!”

The kids at the water station were yelling at me (our names were on our bibs).

Seriously?

Well fine. If I’m gonna get yelled at. Geez…

At this point, the math in my head (as mediocre as my capabilities are), informed me that I was going to beat my old PR unless slowing down to 10-minute miles happened.

That was a really good feeling.

And so was hitting mile 13. The end was near and I was so spent. However, I like to think that the sweet new laces my friend Laura gave me:

and the recent download of tunes from the Project X soundtrack (thanks to Mary for suggesting that movie last weekend) were my good luck charms that did it.

1:50:21. 155/1583 in my division. 2117/12105 overall.

Killed my old PR by almost 4 minutes.

This took me by complete surprise. My long runs were fine, but nothing seemingly stellar. My pace for all of my mid-week 4-milers and such weren’t anything out of the ordinary.

But I’ll take it.

And since I accomplished my original goal of a new PR, this takes a little less stress off of the ZOOMA Women’s Race next month. A good thing- because I hear the hills on that course are challenging to say the least.

However, I did not accomplish the second part of my goal.

We hit one of my new favorite breakfast spots in the city- The Breakfast Club.

And by the time we were seated and ready to order, I went a non-pancake route.

They had me at chorizo.

But now I kinda want pancakes.

Sigh.

Guess you just can’t win them all…

Anyway, thanks to everyone for all the awesome comments and tweets this last week. You have no idea how motivating you can be- it is very much appreciated.

Much love on this Monday morning,

Amy B

A Different Approach

My friend Laura is coming to visit this weekend.

This means a few things are going on.

1. A few days this week, I went to bed smelling of various cleaning products. The windex and laundry detergent scents were fine. But the one night of reeking of clorox was troublesome to my REM sleep.

I also may have had nightmares from what was collected in the dustpan after we moved the sectional couch.

On the flip side, I was super psyched to find 2 missing jenga pieces. My life is once again in balance.

2. The Trader Joe’s workers are sure to know my name as I’ve been there 3 times over the last week to pick up food for our weekend. And wine. Obviously.

However, I’m still going to drag Laura there again at some point because I thought more was on reserve. One bottle of wine will just not cut it.

3. My half marathon training long run was last night.

Yeah. On a Thursday.

Now I’m sure I could have snuck out tomorrow morning before Laura wakes up. Throw down a 10-miler, get home, shower, and have breakfast ready by the time she sits up and stretches and comments on how glorious the morning is.

But that would have been awful. An outting full of dance party shenanigans is planned for tonight and maybe even a trip to a favorited late night mexican spot. The combo of lack of sleep and 90 minutes of fitness would have made me a zombie for the rest of my Saturday.

Given the choice of that scenario or sucking it up and doing the long run on a Thursday?

I’ll pick Thursday.

And it worked out alright. Woulda been better if the trains weren’t delayed and I didn’t get home later than usual. But we don’t have to dwell on that.

We’ll just talk about the run.

After a long day of sitting in an office, it was rough getting into it. Yeah, I’ve run a little here and there after work, but that was knowingly attempting a mile or two. Not 10.

The brain takes a while to comprehend something like this. So the first 2 miles sucked a bit.

The next few were when I hit the lakefront trail. So I was busy trying to not get ran over by all the cyclists. That got me through a few more.

My best miles? The last 2.

10 miles were in the plan, but a range of 7-10 was going to be considered acceptable. We’ll be 100% honest on that one. I didn’t think I’d get the entire way through it.

However, after leaving the lakefront, I was in the zone and shufflin’, shufflin’.

This was the first time I felt really positive about this half marathon coming up in a few weeks. The last 2 miles were calm, steady, and decently strong. I can do this.

9.6 miles total.

With the crazy schedule I have, the after-work long run is a choice to be made more than once. At least it will work when it has to.

And now? I don’t have a thing to worry about come Saturday morning.

Well. Maybe one thing I’ll have to apologize to Laura about…

PARTY TIMMMMEEEEEEE!

Long Run Sunday

It has been over a year since I’ve participated in pre-wedding shenanigans.

Which is unfortunate. Because girls’ weekends are fun.

Plus, I get to wear dresses. I like dresses. There needs to be more occasions where I can wear dresses.

And more occasions where I eat good food.

Low lighting at Rosebud Prime Steakhouse in The Loop makes it hard to see my crab and gruyere-stuffed tilapia. Dang.

I like good food.

And being silly. And gossiping. And big sleepovers in nice hotels.

All things that happened this weekend.

All things that keeps a person super busy. And makes them a bit neglectful in half marathon training.

Don’t get me wrong- I knew it was happening. It’s not like I just totally forgot to run 10 miles on Saturday.

No one ever goes “whoops… how did I totally forget to run for 90 minutes yesterday? How silly of me!

No. No one ever does that. And if they do? Well. That’s weird.

I mean, I’m weird. But that’s super weird.

We’re getting off track here. Let’s rewind.

So I was neglectful. And all of a sudden it was Sunday afternoon.

Sunday can’t always be a day of rest, folks.

Some people like running later in the day. I’m usually more of a morning person, but the weather was being gracious, so it could have been worse.

My usual theory on the long runs are just to get them in. No worries about pace. Just hit some big mileage and be thankful you can make it that far. No matter how much wine and cake was had less than 24 hours beforehand.

Some runs are easy. Like last week. And some are hard. Like this week. Until they all become easy (doubtful), I just have to keep truckin’.

Which is probably what I sounded like by the end of my afternoon run. Neat.

10 miles didn’t happen. This was assumed going into it. I did 8 instead.

Two of which were an attempt to run along the lakefront because it was such a nice day.

But the Air and Water Show was going on this weekend. And people kept stopping in the middle of the trail to just stare at the sky.

It would have been hilarious had this not caused a few almost-collisions.

Post-run fuel. I swear it’s the last of the cake pops. For now.

To make myself feel better about not hitting the full 10, I made sure to get up and do a solid 40 minutes of cardio on Monday morning.

Long run redemption.

Don’t tell me otherwise.

Hey ladies! If you’re still looking for a good race this fall, check out the ZOOMA Women’s 5k/Half Marathon! Enter “GLAMB1″ to get a discount!