Running with Pixie Dust

Oh, kids... I believe I will be taking before and after pictures of me reading this book, because I think it will go from mascara on my eyelashes to mascara dripping down my face pretty quickly.  It's a book about a blind cat.  Teaching a woman to love.  Seriously?  It's like Gwen Cooper got in my brain and found the exact specifications for an all-out cryfest.  I don't know if I've mentioned this on this blog before, but I love cats.  I mean... I really love cats.  To the point that I understand how this girl feels...

plus...

and who can forget...

All super awesome things... okay, maybe working a ton wasn't all that awesome, but having money is splendid.  But I can't believe I left my blog hanging, especially since I FINISHED COUCH TO 5K THIS WEEK!!  And it was splendid.  But I will post more on that later, because right now I want to hang out with my Pops and celebrate Father's Day, and then I need to pack because I leave tomorrow morning for this...

So that I can see this...

and do a whole lot more of this!

Luckily, D-Money has insisted that I blog regularly while in California... mostly because he wants to read them.  So the fact that he can't get enough of me works in your favor.  And mine :)

Glorious smoothie-in-a-bowl refreshment on Saturday morning.

Rockies game this afternoon with my whole family, complete with pictures taken with my awesome new hipster-y photo app.  Sorry for not making my dad squish in there with us... he was crazy and wanted to, you know, actually watch the game.  Weird.

And then... the most exciting part of the whole weekend... bringing home this gorgeous girl.

More on that to come, I promise!  For now, it is bedtime.  Well... maybe ice cream sandwich and then bedtime.  A big weekend deserves a little something!

Yes, under that frizzy curly mess is me.  You thought I had naturally straight hair, didn't you?  No, no... I was luring you into a false sense of security during our honeymoon phase together.  Now the frizz comes out, kids.

I think the highlight of the run was actually the last few minutes.  I know, that sounds a little weird coming from someone who struggles with pacing, but I actually did a fabulous job with pacing today.  I ran in my hatefully hilly neighborhood for the first time in about a month, and honestly, it was so rewarding to realize that the hills that used to kill me were less challenging.  I did a whole three minute running interval up one of those long hills, and I kept a 12 minute mile pace or under the whole time!  And afterwards, I gave myself a slightly longer walk break (a minute and 20 seconds instead of just a minute) and kept on going.  

Because of my pacing, I was able to just push through the last 5 or so minutes of the run and end feeling wonderful.  I actually really entertained myself using some positive visualizations (doubt not, unsure ones).  As I came up to a stop sign near the end, I figured I had about two minutes left.  I told myself that when I turned at the stop sign, I would be facing the finish line of the Disneyland half marathon (one of my dream races).  As it turns out, I had about 4 minutes left, and so what started as a simple visualization to keep me energized turned into an extravaganza.  Here, I give you a glimpse into my mind...

Jessica's brain:  Okay, you can see the finish line... you're so close!  You can get there!  (looks at Garmin)  You're almost there... look!  There are Mickey and Minnie waving you in!  And Donald and Goofy!  Even Stitch is there!  (looks at Garmin)  Oh, look, there's your family!  Mom is crying with pride, Dad and Lauren are cheering... and there's David!  And what does he have?  A DIAMOND NECKLACE?!  But you have to cross the finish line to get it, and you're getting closer every second!  (looks at Garmin, wonders why legs are still running)  Now there is a Cast Member from every land, and they all have something in their hands... it's a Fastpass!  Wait, it's multiple Fastpasses!  IT'S A FASTPASS FOR EVERY SINGLE RIDE IN DISNEYLAND!  And they're yours as long as you cross that finish line!  But wait, what's that sound?  They're starting Wishes in the middle of the day, just for you!  But why?  (looks at Garmin, getting slightly desperate)  Wait, where is everyone else?  Oh snap... YOU'RE WINNING THE DISNEYLAND HALF MARATHON!

That was it, more or less.  And I'm honestly not making any of that up right now.  That all came into my tiny, endorphin filled brain as I looked at my Garmin and wondered if time was standing still.  But I'll tell you, it was amazing.  I officially love visualizations.  I would be lying if I said I didn't throw my hands up in the air several times during this whole thing and yell "I'M WINNING!  I'M WINNING!"  I'm sure my neighbors think I'm special.  But I don't care because I'm the prettiest princess and I won the Disneyland half marathon today.

... seriously.  The endorphins.  See what they do to me?

Only much sweatier.

It ain't pretty, kids.

But I never want to be the Debbie Downer.  I might whine about my workouts sometimes (erm... nearly every day), but I'm still grateful for them.  And at the end of the day, even if my run sucked and I handle heat about as well as a polar bear, I have a great family, great friends, the most supportive boyfriend ever-of-all-time, and enough nail polish to keep me happy for eternity.

I mean... if you're reading this... you clearly are okay with reading about my inability to wash my hair and resist Oreos, so you must be okay with mere mortals.

And speaking of my inability to wash things... while I am seriously loving the Mission skincare line, how the heck do you wash this stuff off?!!  I just spent a good half hour in the shower trying to get all of this sunscreen off my face, and my face is still sticky.  Also, I think I just found more of it behind my ears.  

So who wants to hang out with me today?!

This is me feeling bad.  This is also a nasty picture, just not sweaty.  So it's part of the equation.  You're welcome.

But today, after feeling bad about myself all freaking day (more on that later) and thinking I was a blogging failure, I told myself to suck it up and POST SOMETHING ALREADY.

So here I am.  And yes, that is the color that my iSight camera currently thinks I am.  I'm a pretty girl.

So, catching up...

Saturday's run:

Couch to 5K Week Eight, Day One

3.0 miles/42:38

Today's workout:

Bob Harper fail and P90X Shoulders and Arms

494 calories/1:16:21

Saturday's run was another great trail run.  Not a whole lot to say about it - felt great to be outside, and I got out when it was still pretty cool out.  Apparently I'm just a trail runner - looking back on the last few weeks, all the runs that I felt great about were on the trail, and all the runs I felt iffy about were on a path near my house.  So now I'm looking into more trails to run, and possibly even some trail races.  Maybe I should get some trail running shoes?  You know I love a good excuse to buy shoes.

Today's workout was kind of an adventure.  As you know if you've been following my tirades about cross training, I'm kind of stumped on strength training.  I did P90X last summer and loved it, but since I want to focus on training for a half marathon for the next few months, I don't want to restart P90X completely and overtrain.  Plus, I felt I needed a break from it.  So I've been searching for alternatives, and thought I had struck gold when I came across Bob Harper's Pure Burn Super Strength.

With 85 reviews and an overall rating of 4.5 stars on Amazon, I thought this was a great idea.  It's advertised as an hour long full body strength routine, and people LOVE IT.  The Amazon reviews regularly say that it's a tough, but great workout, that it delivers great results, that Bob Harper is awesome... the reviews that won me over were from people who had done P90X and said that this workout was better and harder.

These people were all either lying through their teeth or total morons.

I hate this workout.  I got through 15 minutes of it before I was so irritated that I turned it off, apologized profusely for ever doubting P90X, and fell back into the supportive, rippling arms of this man.

You know the Bob Harper workout is annoying if I immediately saw Tony-loudmouth-Horton as refreshing.

Seriously.  Don't buy that Bob Harper workout.  And if you do want to buy it, buy it off of me.  Please.  Because I spent $15 on it at Barnes and Noble, and since I made the mistake of opening it, now I'm stuck with trying to peddle it on eBay.  I don't know why it got so many great reviews.  It's a chaotic workout - he gives you zero time to change weights, and maybe I'm just weird, but I like a different weight for squats, bicep curls, and shoulder presses.  My manly legs can handle more weight than my girly biceps.  But you don't have a spare second to change weights.  And good heavens, the editing of this thing!  If it was going for an Oscar, it might have a chance, but as a workout, it's crazy.  No joke, less than 15 minutes in, one of the girls on the side is grunting and grimacing, and they keep doing freeze frame shots of her scary faces in black and white.  I haven't seen overacting that bad since Tom Cruise went crazy on Oprah's couch.

But I digress.  So I did the P90X workout.  And felt like I was kind of going through the motions.  I burned about 400 calories, so it's not like I was wasting my time, I'm just kind of looking for something new.  

Which leads me to my question for the day:

I've seen her videos on YouTube before and came across the website this weekend for some reason and I'm intrigued.  I mean, who wouldn't be, look at that girl!  She's crazy hot!  I'd be okay with looking like that in a bikini, let's be honest.

Remember to tune in tomorrow for Triple Tangent Tuesday!  And I've still got a post I'm working on about the scale, which I plan on getting up tomorrow... I was newly inspired to finish it after reading this post from Cely at Running Off the Reese's.  

Sleep tight, fellow bloggers!

See?  See?  It's CLEAN!

Sending out a little love to all my fellow bloggers tonight.  You guys rock.

Add in my cute boyfriend and you pretty much have perfection.  Well... and cake.  Obviously.

Highly recommend!  It's also the only reading material I have the brainpower for right now.  Well... that and my old Nate the Great books.  Did anybody else read Nate the Great?  Totally off topic, but they were kind of the bomb.  Any boy who loves pancakes is my kind of boy.

Really, I just like bringing David up so I can show off all the adorable pictures of us in Disney.  Do you like how we're in two different climates here?  I need a lot of layers to hang out with this boy.

... hide them in my BELLY!  HA!

... ironically enough, I lead my very first Weight Watchers meeting tomorrow morning.  I will not be mentioning them, even though the topic is breakfast, and these are clearly the breakfast of champions. 

Don't judge me.

Baby geese!  I got to this little park right at the end of my run - this was a nice surprise.

The bitter goose in the forefront was not a nice surprise - he tried to attack me for taking pictures.  I hereby dub him Britney Spears.

... I wish I was kidding.

Shockingly, when I couldn't find my Garmin for my run on Friday, I never thought to myself, "I wonder if it's tangled up in my bed?"  Yup, that's right everyone... I slept with my Garmin for several nights.  It's love, it's real and it's deep.

Poor David, the jealousy must be killing him.  That's his blanket that the Garmin has been lounging in after each sweaty rendezvous.  Shameful.

In other news having nothing to do with my new GPS lovaaah, I've decided to have a little "do over" and restart Turbo Fire tomorrow.  I realized today that I'd done almost two weeks of Turbo Fire workouts along with my running and honestly, I hadn't noticed a single change in my body.  But then, I also realized that I hadn't actually taken before pictures or measurements so I really had no accurate way of knowing if there had been changes.  Oops.  So I'm starting over tomorrow and taking my before pictures and my before measurements like a good little Beachbody addict.  I'm also going to follow the 5 Day Inferno Plan that says I can "get hot for the weekend."  Yowza.  I'm not exactly 100% on what that means, but hey, I'll play.  I'm even following the nutrition plan for the five days, and went grocery shopping today for everything I'll need.  It's going to be a little rough because it combines long Turbo Fire workouts every day with a 1,200 calorie diet, but we'll see!  Depending on how terrifyingly pale I look in the before pictures, I might post them tomorrow.  Avert your eyes now.

And... just in case you've been looking at too many of the pictures in this blog...

I really do own makeup.  And a hairbrush.  And jewelry.  I mean, it's just that one necklace, but that's enough, right?

These dumplings are incredible.  A Saturday morning summer tradition for me.

Then I went off to a local running store in search of cross trainers... Turbo Fire is very high impact and while I don't want to use my current running shoes for it, I can't really wear my beaten down ones either and except to still have knees when I'm done.  It was nice to go to this store though, since it is where I had my gait analyzed and was fitted for my first pair of running shoes for my first round of Couch to 5K - it brought back good memories.  While I was there, I found a fabulous top that I fell in love with (not so much in love with the price tag), and the perfect shorts for my Home Run for the Homeless 5K tomorrow...

HAHAHAHAHA!

Luckily for you (or unluckily, depending on your point of view), I have a sense of humor...

These things are terrifyingly short.  For your sake, don't zoom in on the cellulite.

I should be on America's Next Top Model.  But not for hand modeling, clearly.  For manly calf modeling.

Now I know 2 miles really isn't that long to go without water, but it's getting hot out, and I want to get used to having water with me for long runs.  And I did pretty much polish off those 22 ounces easily. I put the Cytomax in that bottle and drank it during the run, and I swear it made a huge difference.  I didn't feel like I worked as hard, yet I burned more calories than I have in my recent runs, and at the end of the workout, even though I pushed hard through the last interval, I felt like I could have kept running.  I haven't felt like that in several runs, so I'm sold.  Cytomax is my new friend.

I also made another new friend on my run, which let's be honest, is part of why it was so awesome.  I wish I'd gotten a picture of my new friend, but it was a soaking wet chocolate Labrador who bounded towards me every time he saw me.  Which was twice.  Really - bounded.  Dragging his owner along behind him.  His owner said that he never reacts to people like this, but he really seemed to like me.  I said he obviously knew that I loved chocolate Labs.  Which I do.

Come on, how could you resist this face?!

I got home, had some lunch, and then threw myself right into Turbo Fire.  Of the three I've done so far, Fire 30 is definitely my favorite.  It's full of really fun combos, and it's a good length of time - the hour long class I did yesterday was awfully long for high intensity and high impact work.  But today's was great.  It made me sweat more than Lindsay Lohan in court.

Awkward "check out my sweaty collarbone" face.  Hot.

You really should see how badly matched I was today, though, it's splendid.  There is a reason that I mostly work out in the privacy of my own home.

The top = deep purple.  The shorts = black with orange stripes on the side.  The shoes = turquoise.  The face = inexcusable.

Somebody is going to nominate me for What Not To Wear if I keep posting things like this.  That picture also shows the cross trainers that I bought today... and that I will be taking back sometime this week.  Sad day.  I liked them okay in the store - if I was being completely honest, I'd say that I mostly bought them out of desperation.  I have really struggled to find cross trainers in stores that I can try on, versus buying them blindly online based on reviews.  I looked at Dick's, and they really only had Nike, which I've never had great luck with.  These were Asics, and since I like their running shoes, and since the woman who showed them to me assured me that they would provide great lateral stability and support for high impact movement, I trusted them.  Mistake.  Apparently "great lateral stability" and "support for high impact movement" means shaky ankles and sore soles 5 minutes into the workout.  Now accepting any and all suggestions for good cross trainers!