Tag: shopping

Different Kind of Marathon

After Tuesday’s run debacle, actually it was more of a phone debacle than a run debacle, I was anxious to get over it. After work on Thursday, I had planned on running there but the wind had picked up and I did not want cold ears. Seriously, why do my ears get cold so easily? I went to the park instead. Once there, I found that it was super busy. Well, there were cars everywhere but when I got on the path, there weren’t a lot of people.

I set out for three laps of the lake. With the construction still going on, I decided to walk that section every lap. I figured with my luck, I would trip over an orange cone. I tried to keep my pace as steady as possible while still focusing on my form. Why is that so hard? It was a pretty good run. I kind of looked forward to the little walk break each time it came around. I finished out my laps and checked my Garmin. My pace was faster than planned and I didn’t feel like I was pushing too hard. Sweet! If only it be like that all the time. 🙂 There was some big shindig going at the park, so as I was walking out all sweaty, I had to walk through groups of people all dressed up. Oops!

Hey, that's pretty good :) — Hey, that’s pretty good 🙂

At work on Friday we had a sandwich potluck. We were celebrating the arrival of a new coworker and anothers birthday. It was fun and a healthier option for a potluck. Well, not counting the onion dip, that was just tasty. Plus it wouldn’t be a Friday without my usual Friday breakfast- healthy food fail.

I had 8 miles on the schedule for today. I knew my mother and I were heading into SLO to go shopping early, so I figured I would be running them in the evening. That was until we were shopping and running errands until 7:00 pm. Does a marathon of shopping count? Yeah, I didn’t think so. We hit a few stores before lunch. Lunch was Firestone as usual. I enjoyed my usual kid’s burger with bacon wrapped in lettuce. I’m such a grown up. 🙂 But guess what this grown up did? She didn’t order any fries!!! I think that’s a first, they have awesome fries.

That is when things got a little busy. A Homegoods recently opened in SLO and we had been waiting to check it out. So had the rest of the county apparently. The place was packed. Plus the store isn’t really set up for carts but you need a cart to carry your haul! There is so much to look at, we were there for a while. 🙂 The line to check out was freaky long but actually moved pretty quickly. I behaved myself and spent under 40 bucks. From there, it was time for the Running Warehouse.

I did something that I have never done before. I returned a pair of shoes. I tried, I really did, to like the Adrenalines but I just couldn’t. They felt like bricks on my feet. Plus, they had so much cushioning that the first few times I wore them, I had troubles feeling the gas pedal. At the SLO Marathon, I think I counted more than 10 people wearing them. I wanted to grab them and ask why???? What was I missing? I haven’t even worn them in a month. I have been wearing my old pink Inspire’s even though they kind of hurt and my Waver Rider’s. I felt kind of weird returning them. The service was awesome as usual. The only questions asked were what didn’t I like about them. Then we discussed the replacement. Thankfully, he said what I had been thinking. My pronation is similar in minimum support shoes and moderate to max support shoes so I may as well go with what is comfortable. So here is my shiny new pair of… Wave Rider 17’s.

Yep, second pair. Now I just have to decide if I want to use these just for races (after breaking them in) or save them for when my current ones are worn out. I was leaning towards the race idea but then I remembered that my next 2 races are on the beach. They will get wet and dirty. But no, they’re too pretty!

So all that combined with the usual Saturday errands turned into a Saturday of no miles. 😦 But there’s tomorrow right?

How was your Saturday?

Anyone have a race?

Should I save the shoes or just break them in?

My First (real) Expo

I took a vacation day yesterday and it was nice. I slept in, met some friends for lunch and finally followed through on some errands. Who has time for the dry cleaners anyways? I spent most of yesterday pretty relaxed so I am not sure why I slept so crappy last night. 😦 Maybe the nerves were starting to kick in?

Lunch with the girls :) — Lunch with the girls 🙂

Once I finally managed to make myself move this morning, I got ready and headed for SLO. My mother and I were planning on lunch before heading to the expo. It was super yummy.

Carb loading right? That is a burger at the bottom corner

Parking was fairly quick and painless. From there it was just a short walk to the expo. While it may have been small by some it was the largest that I have been too. It also had the most vendor’s. The vendor’s were local shops and bakeries or other races.

Packet pick up was fairly easy, and then it was off to pick up my shirt. This was the only awkward bit, the shirts were being distributed on the other side of the tent, through the crowds of people shopping. It wasn’t a huge thing at all, just seemed awkward. The shirts varied by race. Full marathon shirts were an orange color and long sleeves. The half shirt was blue and long sleeved and the 5K was pink and short sleeved. All were technical shirts.

Really wanted to but it all... restrained myself to lower left corner — Really wanted to buy it all… restrained myself to lower left corner

Mom's favorite color — Mom’s favorite color

From there it was shopping time. I came prepared with money and plastic but didn’t really have anything I needed to buy. Famous last words. The trouble spots were the booths for LeftLane Sports and Left Coast Shirts. Leftlanesports.com is an online sports stores that offers things at pretty awesome discounts. Plus when I have ordered from them, the shipping was awesome fast. If you haven’t checked them out you should. I left that booth with a new pair of compression socks and arm sleeves. Left Coast put a serious dent in my pocket. Everything was just so cute! I could have spent much more. I picked up a shirt and sweatshirt for me and an early Mother’s Day gift for my mother. I actually left without buying myself the sweatshirt but ended up going back for it after the meet and greet.

After that all the shopping, there was still time before the scheduled meet up. So we headed to the car to leave everything there and get out of the wind a bit. This area has been having some freaky strong winds lately. My work town got up to 54 mph gusts the other day. Luckily the weather reports says that wind should be calm for the race tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

The meet and greet was great. I had the chance to meet most of the other ambassadors. It is a great group of people. We hung out and talked and met some other people. The SLO Marathon has a challenged athletes team. We also met a person who traveled all the way from Australia for the race and a former local who will be completing his 100th marathon at the race tomorrow. 100!!!! I won’t lie the jacket was pretty awesome too 🙂 The only thing that threw me was the interview. I’m horrible on tv! My voice sounds so funny. Even my mother remarked that it sounded odd after she played back what she had recorded as well.

We headed out after the meet and greet. We took some time to drive a portion of the course. Oh my, that’s a long slow climb right at the start. Mile 1-4 is all incline, maybe I should have just been surprised! It ends with a small downhill, so yay for that! I felt like we drove too far and looking at the map again tonight, we did. So woo hoo for that! Then it was time for a little carb loading before heading home.

My gear is all laid out for tomorrow and by bag is ready to go. The plan is to be dropped off about 1/4 mile from the start line. I thought about changing the planned outfit to match my new socks but chose to stick with the original.

And now it’s off to bed for me and hopefully better sleep than last night!!

How was your Saturday?

Award Season

Last week felt like the longest week, granted that was probably aggravated me trying to knock myself into next week. 🙂 Friday was stressful but I knew if I could get through I had a whole weekend ahead of me! I briefly thought about trying to get a few miles in after work but my head was still a little off and hearing my boss exclaim at how bruised my head was, I decided against it.

Saturday I was up earlier than I would have liked but that was ok because I spent the day shopping in SLO. The weather was great, there was a storm coming in but it didn’t get windy until we were leaving. The food was super yummy and I didn’t do too much damage to my bank account. 🙂 I managed to get in a few miles when I got back to town, but man they were rough. It was like my brain forgot how to work my legs. I managed to bring the pace down by the end but my body was rebelling. Even though it was harder than I would have liked, I loved that I was out and moving. Especially when I consider that I am now less than 28 days from my next half marathon- SLO!!!!!

Moving on- I call my blog Slacker Runner for a few reasons, one of which is that I am a huge procrastinator. If I can do it later, I will, usually at the last minute. I am the exact opposite at work, but in most other aspects of my life, I am a Slacker. I was recently nominated for some blog awards and I am just now following up. Sorry!!! So time to rectify that –

The Versatile Blogger Award-

Suzan over at Welcome to the Nuthouse sent me this shout out last week. Thanks!! She’s awesome and if you haven’t checked out her blog, you should go do so! And I found out that we both just completed our 6th half marathon last Sunday 🙂

Now, there are always rules-

1. Thank the person who nominated you for your new award, and be sure to include a link back to their site in your acceptance speech. DONE!
2. Share 7 random facts about yourself– hmmmmm
3. Pass on the award to 13 other versatile bloggers.—- that’s a big number

7 Random Facts–
1. My mind just went blank. it does that sometimes.
2.   I have a freaky memory for numbers and some things. Sometimes I can’t decide if coworkers and customers are impressed or scared.
3. The list of childhood movies and cartoons that I haven’t seen is pretty large.   Actually some popular movies too. I get a lot of shocked faces. Like The Sound of Music and A Christmas Story or any of the Matrix Movies. Never seen them.
4. I worked at a Taco Bell for 10 years.   Spent most of those years as Assistant Manager before I left.   Oh the stories.
5. I went stag to my Senior Prom. My dress was borrowed and in recollection was a little more scandalous than I thought.
6. I got through the City to Sea half marathon by listening to Hannah Montana songs. No not Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana.   And I am not ashamed.
7. I love owls. I have necklaces and ear rings and artwork and decorative pillows. My boss even bought me an LED one for station at work.

Now for the nominations-

Life-Everyone Has One

Close to 13 right?

Thanks again Suzan!!

So, with my slacker-ness, I make no guarantees that I will message any of you before you read this (if you read this 🙂 ) so consider this your notification and run with it! If you’ve been nominated before, congrats! Just take this as further confirmation of your awesomeness. If these awards just aren’t your thing, well that’s cool too. You’re still cool. Oh and another random fact- my lingo is still in the 90’s. 🙂

The other one is The Liebster Award by the lovely Jenni on the Run, but that will require some thought and deserves a post of its own.

How was everyone’s weekend?

Now, I’m off to order a new gear bag, any suggestions?

Let the taper begin

Happy Monday!!

Saturday I was hoping to do an 8 mile dress rehearsal run. Last longish run before my race and I was planning to wear everything that I want to wear for the race. The perfect dress rehearsal would have been to run it in the morning but I had an early tire appointment and was still so tired from the week, that I slept as long as possible. It wasn’t enough. I was still dragging when I made it to the tire place. After 10 minutes of running around, they informed me that the tires I had ordered never arrived and no one bothered to call me.

I have been told by family, friends, coworkers and former employees that I have a “resting bitch face” and sometimes I can make them feel like a bug that I am about to squash. Yeah, those were their exact words. 😦 I have worked hard on improving my expressions over the years, especially since I work management in customer service. I feel I’ve done a decent job, but Saturday I was tired and cranky and this was not the first time this tire place had messed up. I think the bug squashing face came back because I left there with 4 new tires for the price I had been quoted (2nd quote because they lost the 1st one) for the 2 tires I had ordered.

Saturday's work view — Saturday’s work view

I fit in a few errands and lunch with my mom before I had to head out for a work function. With drive time and the function itself, it filled up my afternoon. It was good getting to see everyone and put faces to names and voices on the phone. However put a few hundred people in the foyer of performing arts center and the acoustics make the din just shy of unbearable. The headache I had for a week came back with a vengeance. The auditorium itself was much quieter. 🙂 It was a good afternoon. Plus on the way down I was able to swing by the Running Warehouse and pick up a few supplies-

I made it back home by 5, changed and ran out the door to get in my 8 miles. I knew I was tired so I was aiming for a steady pace. My legs felt horrible; it was hotter than I would have liked and I was just so tired. I lost track of how many walk breaks I took. I have no pictures of the run because I was afraid if I stopped, I wouldn’t get started again. A former coworker drove past me and I thought about flagging her down for a ride home. I should have just done 6 and called it a day but I am not the smartest and pushed to the full 8. 8 miles with an average pace of 10:22. Which for a long slow run is ok but I was just beat. I tested the new handheld on my run too. So not a fan, I wanted to throw it. I am going to try again just to make sure that’s it wasn’t just user error. 🙂

I rewarded myself for completing my run by watching the new Veronica Mars movie. Cue the inner nerd girl squeal! Sunday I slept in, yay!!!! I thought about taking the puppy for a walk but I ended up helping my mother move rocks. She is redoing their landscaping. Let’s call that cross-training. Lots of squats and bending and lifting. Plus chasing errant rocks down the driveway before they went into traffic. The backs of my legs ache in interesting ways today, haha.

They made the music for tonight's run — They made the music for tonight’s run

Today marks the beginning of taper week. After work I headed to the lake to get in a few miles. I was torn between 4 and 6. I figured I would just start running and see how I felt. My legs were stiff from yesterday plus breaking in the new boots I picked up over the weekend didn’t help. I also made this my “uncomfortable” pre-race run. Brand new shirt and shorter than normal shorts. I like to try to prepare myself for wardrobe malfunctions on race day. 🙂 My shorts were actually from Abercrombie’s new “active” line (haha) and I just figured they would be cute summer shorts but not actually good to run in. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. They were light weight and airy and they never moved, never rode up. Wow, I have never had a pair of shorts do that, I may have to try running in them again.

I started off a little stiff and told myself during mile 2 that I was just doing 4 miles. Around mile 3.5 I finally started to loosen up, so I kept going. Mile 4 was a little looser, mile 5 felt pretty good and 6 felt better. I finished out a full 10K and walked back to the bars that I like to stretch on. I knew I was looser and quicker towards the end but I didn’t know how much until I looked at my Garmin splits. Negative split? Sweet! Or should I call that a good progression run?

What makes me laugh about this Garmin data is that I ran the opposite direction on the path tonight. I usually go clockwise but tonight I decided to go counter-clockwise. It felt soooo much harder. I tried telling myself that maybe the elevation was slightly different the other way. Who am I kidding? The average elevation gain was 6 feet. 6 FEET!!!!! Seriously, I must be a big baby.

This should have been up earlier, but the nerd girl in me again was yelling at the tv while watching Teen Wolf.

How was everyone’s Monday?

Who else has “crazy” elevation?

Heart & Soles 2014 Race Recap

I was originally planning on running the Buzz 1/2 marathon today but scaled back to a 10K in SLO for a few reasons. Now, I am completely bummed because I just saw that Run Eat Repeat ran it and I could have tried to track her down, except I am slow, hehe.

Anyways, on to the race. After my great run on Wednesday, I was super pumped but I also knew I had pushed harder than planned, so I ended up taking Thursday and Friday as rest days. Friday was also a vacation day for me, so woo hoo! I made sure to spend some time stretching and working with my foam roller yesterday so this morning I felt pretty good and ready to go.

Heart and Soles is a series of races put on by the Cal Poly Triathlon team. It works as a fundraiser for them and the local food bank. The race takes place entirely on the college campus. They offer a 5K, 10K, and 15K and a kids race. I was a little concerned about hills as the campus is pretty much on the side of a big hill, but there weren’t any big ones thankfully. I really wanted to do the 15K but thought the 10K was a smarter choice. 😦 This turned out to be a good choice, because I would not have finished a 15K, at least not running. Maybe crawling.

The race had 9:00 AM start so I didn’t have to leave until after 7:30. My race photographer (thanks mom!) and I headed out. Getting there was easy, finding parking was a little trickier, luckily runners tend to move in herds! Check in was fairly quick, picked up the bib and goody bag and headed back to the car since it was a bit cold. While not required, a Valentine’s themed costume contest was suggested. My mother had fun laughing at some of them, including the pace bikers. The 2 males were dressed in diapers and wings…and that’s it. Just like Cupid. One thing about a college race, I felt old. I won’t deny stalking last years race results to make sure I wasn’t the oldest one. As it was I was running solo in a couples race. Luckily it was mostly other solos as well. 🙂

All 3 races started at the same time so the start line was a little congested. A guy stopped to play with his girlfriends iPod, I went left to avoid them, and 2 people behind me ran into me and I into the first couple. Oops! Maybe that was when the problem started or I just hadn’t noticed because I just started running. A quarter mile into the race, my left lower calf was so damn tight it was painful. I figured I would run it out around mile 1. No such luck. I actually considered turning around at the 5K mark. But I kept going. I was so happy to hit the first 10K turnaround. The course had two out and backs. I kept running but the pain was turning into my couples partner for the race. I told myself if the pain ever got above a 4 to take a walk break. The first came at just shy of 3 miles. Mile 4 was the roughest, not only did I take a walk break, I stopped completely and tried to stretch it out. The end of this out and back had a little loop on a dirt path and my leg felt better there. After that if I could run on dirt by the side of the road I did. While we were in the Ag section this was possible but once we were back in the center of the school, it was all roads and sidewalk. 😦

I felt like mile 6 had the steepest section of road but my Garmin disagrees. It was a little past mile 5.5 that my leg finally loosened up. Seriously? Now? But there was no way I was sprinting to the finish, I was just trying to maintain. I hadn’t really been paying attention to my time because I was more focused on breathing through the pain. All in all, I took 4 walk moments plus that stretch. I was so thankful to see that finish line. I was done. Apparently it showed too, because my mom said I looked gimpy coming up to the line.

Once I caught my breath, I let my mother know how close I was to texting her that I was chucking it and walking the damn thing. Then I checked my Garmin, 55:44. I’m sorry, what?!!? I flippin’ PR’d on what may or may not have been my worst feeling race?! I checked Nike to verify (Yeah I used both), and it agreed. I was a little shocked. Once I processed that, I was super stoked, still hurting but excited!! I was brought a little back down to earth by the first 15K finisher crossing the finish line 4 minutes later.

Other than my stupid leg, it was a good race. With all three races starting at the same time, I was concerned that it might be easy to be confused by the route. But they had people at every corner and turn around who made things very clear. The finish line was clearly marked as well. All in all, I would run it again, maybe the 15 next year?

I stretched as best as I could before leaving the campus. After changing and eating a yummy lunch, we did a little shopping around town. I kept my compression socks on and hoped that the walking would help ease the tightness. It helped a little but most of the evening has been spent RICE’ing. Tomorrow will probably be a day off as well, I have to see how it feels in the morning. I am not sure what set it off, if it was tennis practice yesterday or maybe the fact that I sat cross-legged on the floor for most of last night. I just want it to go away.

And as per usual, I was unable to leave SLO without purchasing some new running gear, now if only my legs weren’t so pale!

How is everyone’s weekend so far?

Who else raced?