Running with Pixie Dust

Once again I find myself blogging for the first time in weeks... definitely not embarrassed at all.
2.  Falling in love with Jamie, the best boyfriend ever, who cheers me on, lifts me up, and makes me smile every single day.  I am so excited for all of our adventures in 2013 and the opportunity to keep loving him.

It's been almost four months since I last blogged and I would be lying if I said I had a better excuse than "I've been busy."  Well, maybe that I've been busy AND lazy AND my marathon training has been sad enough that blogging about it would be rather depressing.  But I've been reading other running blogs and thinking about my big comeback post for weeks - planning what witty, delightful things I was going to say.  And then I realized I was not going to be able to write a big comeback post because aside from the fact that I still have a cool job, my life is still not that exciting.
So this is my big comeback post - today I ran!  And I was not as pathetically slow as I have been lately!
Let me give a bit of background on why that is impressive... see, since that last post back in August, I've still been following this plan to train for the Walt Disney World Marathon in January.  Yes, you read that correctly - I am a crazy person and signed up to run a full marathon.

1.  I am still sick and have not run at all this week.  I am supposed to run 9 miles on Saturday and I don't know if this is a good decision.  Seriously, why did I sign up for a marathon?!  Unwise.
2.  I am using the fact that I am sick as an excuse for just about anything.  So far, it has worked beautifully as an excuse to eat way too much of all the wrong foods, lay on the couch while dishes stack up in my sink, sleep until almost noon today, and make Jamie go get me breakfast this morning because I couldn't get it together to get out of bed.  By the time I get better, I will probably have gained 20 pounds and Jamie will have dumped my needy behind.
3.  Did I mention that I am supposed to run 9 miles in two days and I just ate roughly the caloric equivalent of two meals in one sitting?  I'm not sure I can see my toes if I look straight down right now. I've never been more proud.
4.  I was sniffling so much at work that I think my Guests were afraid to come close to me for fear of catching what I have, which I can only assume is the Black Plague.  
5.  And then this happened:

1.  Has everyone seen Janae's ADORABLE new baby, Brooke?  GO SEE HER.  She is absolutely precious and I am so happy for Janae and Billy.  What a cute family!
2.  I was planning on doing a 5K tomorrow morning, but I forgot to register before the online registration closed down.  I had planned on just registering at the race in the morning, but I checked the website when I got home from work and learned that the race was sold out.  So I ate leftover Chinese food, way too many Goldfish crackers, and chocolate milk because I was sad.  Let's not even get into the irony of this.
3.  This dog is fantastic.

1.  Today I really needed to do the following: wash my dishes, go grocery shopping, exercise, and work on preparing my audition for a really awesome career opportunity (more on that later).  Instead I got distracted by shiny objects and somehow ended up watching several episodes of Frasier on Netflix, which shocks no one, and playing on the internet.  Welp... there is always tomorrow.
2.  On the bright side, all that internet time included finally taking the time to add all of the runs I have gone on since January into my Dailymile account.  Really, there weren't that many runs to log, so it wasn't particularly hard.  But my total miles for 2012 went from 33 to 166 in about ten minutes, which was pretty spectacular! 
3.  Remember when I was really proud because I finally ran all three training runs in one week?  I haven't run once this week.  I am hoping I can pull it together to do 7 miles on Sunday.  It sounds like death.
4.  Speaking of running (which apparently I need to), going through all those past runs made me realize that my pace is suffering quite a bit.  While I have needed to slow down because I'm running in high temperatures and very high humidity, I'm realizing that I should probably get back on the whole eating right and exercising regularly bandwagon.  I found this Runner's World article about how losing weight can affect your pace.  At this point, I would really like to lose about 15 pounds, which seems so daunting I can barely stand it... but it would mean improving my half marathon time by around 5 minutes.  Will this help me not eat chocolate?  Only time will tell.
5.  In case you're wondering how I'm doing on the whole getting back on the eating right and exercising regularly bandwagon, today I decided not to exercise at all, and I just ate a can of Spaghetti-O's for dinner.  And yes, I am ashamed.
6.  Jamie introduced me to this glorious video, which I have watched several times today, and I am still not sick of it.  I love this kid. 11.  The other day while I was outside at work and trying to wipe the sweat from my forehead in a delicate and ladylike manner, a little girl standing nearby said to me, "You sweat like my dad."  Charming.

Running for Bikinis has now officially become...
Running with Pixie Dust!
The new design is UP AND RUNNING and I am absolutely in love with it.  I worked with the incredibly patient Cindy from Blessed Design Studio, who I would recommend to anyone thinking about getting a new layout.  She put up with all my demands, and finished the whole thing lightning fast.  Plus, her prices are unbelievably reasonable.  I had been looking at different blog designers for a while, but couldn't stomach the costs.  Cindy does awesome work for a great price.  Seriously.  I cannot say enough good things about her.  Go check her out.
So why did I decide to change Running for Bikinis into Running with Pixie Dust?  Because Running for Bikinis was never really me.  Sure, I own bikinis, and I wear them when I have to, and I have been known to think about skimpy clothing in the middle of a run or a rough workout simply to get through... but swimsuits aren't an everyday thing for me, even here in sunny Florida.  And I don't really run for bikinis.  I run to feel good about myself, to de-stress, to get stronger and fitter, and to prove to myself that I can do anything I put my mind to.  Those are all more important to me than running so I can look good in a bikini (but I wouldn't mind if that happened too).
But it wasn't enough to figure out that running for bikinis wasn't my thing.  I also had to figure out what my thing was!  Funny enough, I was going through the same battle in my personal life... realizing that what I was doing and where I was heading were not going to make me happy, and trying desperately to figure out what would.  Which is how I ended up moving from Colorado to Florida for the third time in my life, to go back to working at the Walt Disney World Resort.  So it all came together and I realized that instead of running for bikinis, I should be running with pixie dust.  
What do you guys think?

1.  Last week was week #5 of the marathon training.  It was also the first week that I did all three training runs.  You would think that with my first marathon, I could somehow manage to run three times a week, but that didn't happen.  I didn't feel too badly about it until I watched the running events in the Olympics.  Um.  Yeah.

In case you're wondering, that title does not refer to it being time for me to stop eating or time for me to exercise.  Neither one of those is happening at all tonight.

But seriously.

But for today, I just had to say that this is my new favorite thing ever and I will look at it every time I try on pants and cry (which is more often than I care to admit):

I know... it's been forever.  And now I'm randomly popping up on a Saturday at 9:30 pm.  The truth is that I've been planning on making a comeback for a while now, but for some reason or another, it kept not happening...

• David and I did talk again after my last post, and decided to remain broken up.  We have not talked since, which was my choice - I thought it would be better if we had space.  I'll be honest and say that I was miserable for a little while, and I just kept replaying things in my head and trying to figure out what went wrong and what I could have done differently.  But I healed pretty quickly and realized how right the decision was.  I tried to deny it, but I was dreading moving to Los Angeles, and I can't even explain how freeing it is to know that I don't have to anymore!  I still think of him and hope he's doing well, but I am happy with that decision.
• For most of February, I had no idea what to do with myself.  With the weight of moving to L.A. off of my shoulders, I felt very free, which was a wonderful feeling that left me completely restless.  So I did what anybody living a double life would do - I booked a trip to Orlando to do some seasonal work at Jungle Cruise.  At the risk of sounding cheesy, this trip turned 2012 around for me.  On my last College Program, one of my roommates, Breanne, worked with and became friends with a guy named Jamie.  We had hung out a little and I thought he was really fun, but I was with David and thought that Jamie was in love with Breanne, so I didn't think much of it.  Fast forward to the last week in February when I'm in Orlando, and Jamie and I go out to dinner.  He showed up at the door of my hotel room looking incredibly cute in a button down shirt and smelling way too good, and I have to admit that I got really flustered - apparently I had been so absorbed in being in a relationship to remember how cute he was.  He took me to a little Italian restaurant and I think I barely ate because I was so nervous.  Then the next night, my plans fell through, so we went to Epcot together and then he took me to Jellyrolls, a dueling piano bar, for my very first time.  He held my hand at the bar and kissed me before he left that night :)  we ended up spending a lot of time together, and I came home absolutely elated.  
• In that elation, I realized what restless me wanted to do - GO BACK TO DISNEY.  So I applied for twelve Disney internships.  Yup.  Twelve.  I was on a mission.  
• At the end of March, I went back to Orlando and back to Jamie.  More spending time together, more holding hands, more kissing... and then he asked me to be his girlfriend.  Cue more elation!

So... it's been over a week since I last wrote a thing on here.  Let's go through the week, shall we?  Don't expect any fun pictures or anything... this is going to be a massive pity party.

Last Tuesday (last time I blogged): went for an awful run, realized I was overtraining, and vowed to take it easy for a while so that I would not kill anyone.

Wednesday: took my own advice for once and didn't do anything... including blog.  I was going to write a Triple Tangent Twednesday, but it was going to be a whole lot more like this girl's tradition of WTF Wednesday.  Not a great day, but not horrendous.

Thursday: horrendous.  Felt completely off all day, and the only thing getting me through was that I was so excited for the last rehearsal for Cinderella before we went into tech and dress rehearsals.  Then I got to rehearsal.  And both the artistic director and the show director were eerily quiet until they told us to sit down.  Then came the really horrendous part: they announced that they had gotten a phone call that morning from the licensing company that they worked with asking why the ticket information was on the website.  Turns out they had pulled the rights to the show back in November and notified the artistic director, but she'd never gotten the notification.  So the show was cancelled.  Three months of work and my dream role down the drain.  Cue lots of crying and drinking.

Friday: more crying.

Saturday: more drinking.

Sunday: got into a horrible fight with David that lasted for three hours.  Lots more crying.  Finally resolved everything and went to bed not crying for the first time since Thursday.

Monday: relatively harmless.

Tuesday (yesterday): David and I decided to break up.  This sucks.  I honestly still can't believe it.  We had a lot of obstacles to deal with (long distance, two different religions and backgrounds, different career goals) but I always thought we could get through it.  Part of me still thinks we can get through it, and wants nothing more than to book a ticket to Los Angeles and just show up at his doorstep.  I think that's the only thing getting me through right now, actually... it doesn't feel permanent.  And maybe that's just me and maybe he's thinking something completely different, but I've never had a breakup like this before.  In the past, it's always been very clear that the other person wants out (read: I get cheated on and dumped), so I am just forced to move on.  But David and I didn't break up because we wanted out... we broke up because we weren't sure if it was right.  And while part of me thinks that maybe it's for the best, and he and I will both find someone else who has the same dreams and ideals as us, another part of me is just desperately hoping that a couple months from now, he'll still love me and I'll still love him and we can figure this whole mess out.

So that was my week.  The good news is that I know I didn't keep overtraining, because I didn't exercise at all.  I blew off two training runs.  I'm probably blowing off another run today.  I'm not completely sure that the half marathon is going to happen right now, because while running is often therapeutic to me, I don't think I can face being left with my own thoughts for at least another few days, and I don't want to do the half having missed a lot of training.  I guess that is just up in the air for now, as is most of my life. But I'm trying to set some goals.  I've been toying with the idea of getting my personal training and/or fitness class instructor certification for a while now, and given the fact that I have now lost two of the things that filled my time... I think it's about damn time to get on that.  I'm also thinking about getting my teaching certification and finding a job teaching tiny children.  Or sucking it up and doing another audition to be a Disney princess.  I guess that's the only good part about having your life fall apart at the seams... you get to create a new one.

I decided to splurge yesterday. I woke up wondering what workout I would do, and realized I didn't feel like doing any of the DVDs I had. Yet another example of me being five years old: I get tired of all my new toys quickly, even if they're still shiny and pretty. Um... Insanity anyone? Still waiting for me to hate life enough to give it another shot.


I had some returns to make at Target, and I swear it's impossible to go to Target and not purchase something, even if you need nothing. So obviously I ended up in the fitness aisle, staring at a variety of torture inducing workouts. I finally decided to pick up two Jillian Michaels DVDs: Yoga Meltdown and Ripped in 30. I was a little hesitant because let's face it... She's evil. I've had 30 Day Shred for a long time now and only pull it out every once in a while because I can't deal with it more often than that. Anyone who actually does the 30 days of that thing is a rockstar and deserves a medal. It is a tough workout, and I don't doubt that it is incredibly effective... But she's annoying! And this is from someone who went through the whole 90 days of Tony Horton and didn't punch the television.  So I must have a higher tolerance than I thought.


That being said... I was pleasantly surprised by both workouts. They were both a little rough in their own way (who knew yoga could hurt that much?!) but great! I loved that Ripped in 30 followed the same circuit format that 30 Day Shred used, but I thought the moves were much better. And Yoga Meltdown was exactly the workout I've been looking for lately - a mix of stretching and bodyweight exercise. I struggle calling it "yoga" because... Um... It's Jillian Michaels, and she says things like "who's your daddy?"  Not exactly the typical yogi one imagines.

Love that eloquent title... despite the fact that I haven't felt the need to even attempt blogging in several days, I am still clearly sharp as a tack.  A worn out, dull tack that no one would actually use.