New and Improved Blog

I finally decided that I'm ready for a nicer looking blog. Come check me out over at my new and vastly improved blog:

http://milehighjess.wordpress.com/

New pages, new info. It looks so much nicer! I still have some formatting to work out on some of my other posts but that will be where all the new updates go from now on.

I Have a Problem

Hi, my name is Jessica and I am a travelholic. Not kidding, I am obsessed with finding vacation for Josh and I to go on. I know he said that we should take a break from Europe but Espana is calling.  I can hear it loud and clear. Probably doesn't help that Josh's good friend Jeff is over in Madrid right now preparing for FOCUS to participate in World Youth Day.

I get emails all the time with the latest travel deals. I think my problem is that once we had fabulous vacations in Italy, Paris and London (yes I'm still working on those posts 2 months later), I just wanted to keep doing it. Here's what on my list for the next few years:

Spain
Costa Rica
Hawaii (Josh has never been)
Germany (Visit my uncle and meet all my cousins)

Now if only I had more vacation days. We're pretty good about figuring out how to time vacations with work holidays so that I get an extra day off. We don't have any real vacations planned at all right now. So I figure maybe I'll just start tenatively planning one in say May.  You never know maybe I can talk Josh into it.

Fingers crossed an unbeatable deal comes up for a last minute vacation over New Years. Might not be as great at it was ringing in 2010 but I could go for a vacay to ring in 2011.

Two Years

Two years ago today I was just waking up on my wedding day.  I woke up sick and it was cold and rainy, but the best day of my life.  Illness, weather, none of it could have ruined our day.

I cannot believe how fast the past two years have flown by. It's been an amazing two years and we're ready for whatever the next 50 have to bring. I'm so lucky to have found the love of my life. I love him more every day. We spent the weekend celebrating and enjoying each other after Josh's work trip to England. I'm so glad he was home just in time to celebrate. Tonight we'll dance to our song, At Last by Etta James, just as we did two years ago. :-)

Happy Anniversary Lobster!

Working on It

I keep telling myself today is the day I give the trip updates, etc. but there are just not enough hours in the day lately.  Couple bullets before I get my butt in gear:

-Trip was great. Paris is awesome and super romantic. Would totally go back for a third time.  London eh, kind of like being in America. Didn't dislike it but didn't love it. High Tea was a big highlight.

-Training has gone down the drain. Still doing the Denver Half but it's going to be sloooooooow. That's ok I think I'll be running it for fun with Shanna and her friend from out of state. Ran 12 miles on Sunday...slow but then again I wasn't really trying.  Ankle currently hurting even with insoles.

-Saw awesome concert with Rache, Josh and her friend Amanda. Darius Ruckers and Brad Paisley put on an awesome show! Few tears when the Justin Moore sang a song called "Grandpa."

-Got a promotion at work. Yeay!

-PAID OFF MY STUDENT LOANS!!!!  I can't believe it. Thanks to the sale of the Subaru and Josh's parents sending us a check for trip expenses I am now student loan free! Now we just have Josh's to contend with.

Little teasers for all of the update I need to do. I'm going to try to get them all done before Josh and I celebrate our 2nd anniversary this weekend (super excited for that!).

I'm Home!

But not for long.  Lucky and Josh greeted me at the airport on Sunday night. I was so excited to see my boys! This trip was the longest that Josh and I have been apart since before our wedding. Crazy right?  That night Josh's friend Peter and his new girlfriend came over for dinner. They are in town visiting from Minnesota.  Once they left I crashed hard. I am so exhausted in every way possible.  In fact I've had to take a nap every day after work just to get through the rest of the evening.

My training schedule is totally off. I did another hilly run in California on Saturday morning and ran a solid 5 miles on Tuesday night.  Luckily it wasn't too difficult to re-adjust to the altitude though it did slow me down. 

California Runs (3 total) Stats:

Distance: 10 miles   Time: 1:28:34   Avg. Pace: 8:51 min/miles

Stats (for Tuesday):

Distance: 5 miles    Time: 48:02    Avg. Pace: 9:38 min/miles

It's been a whirlwind since I arrive back in Colorado.  Tuesday was my downtime night for the week. Last night we enjoyed yummy food and great company with Ryan and Claire. They were nice enough to make dinner for us. Tonight my FIL Jim will be in town. We're going to eat at our favorite restaurant in Longmont, Martini's Bistro.  Mmmm...key lime cheesecake.  Tomorrow I'm partaking in a little surprise and then Saturday we're heading to Denver to celebrate Claire's birthday. Busy busy.

So glad it's almost time for vacation! We will be on our way to France a week from today. I can almost smell the cheese and taste the wine already.

Freshman Year

After a long week, it was nice to wake up at my Mom's house this morning.  I scheduled a few tweets for work and headed out for a quick run before getting back to the grind.  It was a hilly run that looked like this:

Even with the hills I was able to maintain a pretty good pace.  Gotta love the 4000 ft elevation drop. I'm totally off of my training schedule but I figure I can get in a couple good long runs before we head to Europe in 13 days!

Time: 36 mins   Distance: 4.05 miles   Avg. Pace: 8:53 min/miles

After getting cleaned up and some work done it was time to take my little brother Riley to freshman registration.  It totally brought me back to when I started high school. I vividly remember going to my registration, even what I wore.  As I watched the kids in line, unsure of themselves, with anxiety and excitement taking their school pictures, trying to open their lockers and getting their class schedules I was thankful I was all done with that.  Though I did meet two of my BFFs Sarah and Lisa that year. 

Riley is playing freshman football this year which I think is great.  It's also a great way to get to know some of the new people that he'll be going to school with and being confident heading into the new world of high school.  He is also quite the ladies man. Every time we walked somewhere on the campus there were girls waving and calling for his attention. It was so cute.

After registration I took he and Emma for a celabatory frozen yogurt treat.  We stopped by FroyoLife.  It was delicious!  I basically tried half the flavors and had fun with all of the toppings.  Between the three of us we ate 2 lbs of froyo.  Delicious.  It was awesome getting some one on one time with my Californian siblings.  They are getting so big and are just great kiddos...ok teenagers.  I will be 30 years old when Riley graduates in 2014.  Man I feel old!

We headed home and so I could get some work done before Mom and Mike got home.  We had a nice evening talking, eating a delicious chicken, caper and artichoke dinner Mike made and hanging out.  It's nice spending some time with them not in heavy duty grieving mode.  Tommorrow my Uncle Ben, his girls and my Aunt Jan's family is coming over for a little BBQ. 

The Luckiest

I'm the luckiest. I have such a wonderful husband. Look what he sent me just because...

Oh yeah and after happy hour with some of my favorite ladies I went for a run. Not going to lie my ankle and calf hurt the entire time...not horribly but I could feel them like a sore muscle. First time I felt like I could have just kept making laps around my neighborhood.  It really is amazing the difference between dreadmill and outdoors. I think I finally settled into a pace that was sustainable for me...at least for now. Need to bump it up to reach my half marathon goal.

Stats:

Time: 39:45 mins.   Distance: 4.14 miles    Avg. Pace: 9:36 min/miles

Tempo Tuesday

I did my first tempo run in months last night.  I was pretty stoked about it. Josh and I headed to the gym because it was about a million degrees outside and in our unconditioned house. Even our humid gym felt pretty good. I wasn't planning on doing a tempo but after 5 minutes on the dreadmill I knew I needed some variety to get me through my 4 miles I planned to do.  I was one of those people last night....yes I ran in just my sports bra.  Well and of course shorts, etc. It was just so hot after the first mile and weighing passing out and being flung off the back of the dreadmill into the elliptical machines vs. showing some skin, I figured it was the lesser of the two evils. Here's how it went:

Mile 1-10 min/mile
Mile 2-8:57 min/mile
Mile 3-8:57 min/mile
Mile 4-10 min/mile

Distance: 4 miles    Time: 37:55 mins    Avg. Pace: 9:29 min/mile

Amazingly I wasn't even dying running a sub-9 min/mile. There may be hope for me yet. I picked up my orthoditics yesterday. I was instructed not to run with them until I can walk in them comfortably for 7-8 hours at a time. When we got back to the gym I put my sweaty feet into my need to be retired Asiacs and wore them for about an hour. I figured some sweat should help me break them in a bit faster. Now I understand why I shouldn't just run in them right away. They feel strange and are kind of hard so the bottoms of my feet were not happy.

Bit on the sore side today.  Knot in calf has reappeared and my ankle is tender.  Tonight is a cross-training day so Jillian Michaels is on deck to kick my ass.

A Newsed Car?

We're thinking about buying a new car. This weekend was a good example of times when an SUV would just be much more convenient and useful.  We spent the 4th soaking up the booze sun at Lake McConaughy. It was at 100% for the first time in more than 10 year but more on that on a later post.

Josh's Subaru was great for the dirt roads and we were able to get it down to our beach campsite. The real problem was the lack of storage space. Had we been able to fill it to the top of a hatch we may have been able to fit Lisa back in our car so Shanna didn't have to drive to our house to drop Lisa off.  Oh well.

Of course our primary requirement for the new car would be it cannot be a HUGE gas guzzler. Now SUV and gas guzzler are basically one in the same but the new hybrids do open the options a bit.  We'll also be buying a used car. It just seems silly to buy a brand new car which loses it's value as soon as it's driven off the lot. Our top two contenders:

Toyota Highlander Hybrid

My Dad and Liz have a Highlander that they bough a while back and I really like it. I've heard it's like a minivan on stilts (Russell) but I don't care. It gets good mileage for an SUV and optional 4WD. I'm not really worried about the recall that happened this year. Most of them should have been fixed right now and if not, maybe we'd be able to get a screaming deal and then just get it fixed on our time.

Ford Escape Hybrid

This one gets even better gas mileage than the Highlander but it's still a Ford. I know they are have been working really hard to improve their quality but I still remember when Ford stood for Fix Or Repair Daily. 

Of course since my little Honda gets great gas mileage (awesome for my 81 miles/day commute) and it's worth basically nothing as a trade-in we'd be trading in Josh's car.  This would also mean Josh is the primary driver of the new one...boo...but on weekends and in bad weather it would be all mine.  This weekend we may venture out for a test drive to determine which we like better. Then we'll shop until we find the right one at the right price. There are about a million other things we could spend money on right now (hello air conditioner) but Josh's car is starting to wilt and we may as well trade it in while we can still profit.

Rolling with it

This week I found out my friend Heather is getting married! Yeay! She met her fiance Dan just a few months before Josh and I started dating at a house party we went to. I remember going back to the sorority house that night and talking about that cute guy she met. Last year they had their beautiful daughter Kylie and unfortunately I was unable to go to her baby shower since she lives in Boise...sad. Needless to say as soon as I got the date for her wedding I booked my flight to Boise!  I'll be heading there the weekend of Sept. 17-19th...yep the weekend after getting back from Europe. I'm going to be one tired chica.  It's also the same weekend as the Crossroads Half Marathon.  As excited as I was about the race, Heather's wedding is way more important.  So my next half won't be until October.

Last night I took to creating a training plan for myself with thoughts of training for the Arizona Rock N' Roll Marathon which is in January.  Not that I really want to go support the state of Arizona and their ridiculous, racial profiling, anti-immigration law, but it's an available winter marathon. Anyway, it's that or Vegas which is in December but I won't have vacation time until the start of the new year.  So I set out to create a training plan which is almost done. Heather just ran her first half so we'll see if I can talk her into heading to Phoenix for the race with me. My plan is based off of the Runner's World Less is More plan which has only 3 days of running. One speed workout, tempo run, and long run. It's all about quality and not quantity which works well for me. I'm also going to continue to cross-train and take a couple rest days per week.  We'll see how it goes.

Josh and I ran around our neighborhood last night. I have to say it was not my finest run.  It was only 3 miles but felt like eternity. It was my first outside run since Nashville and I could feel it. The treadmill is awesome because it keeps you at a steady pace. Last night my pace was all over the place. I ran as slow as 10 min/mile pace all the way up to 8:43 min/mile pace. Yeah, all over the place and panting the entire way. I'm not sure if Lucky's tongue or mine was hanging out further.  I felt so out of shape. Of course Josh was there to remind me that I've been injured and I'm out there doing it. It's going to take a little while for me to regain all my fitness. At least that is two runs this week for a total of 7 whole miles. Haha. I'm considering trying to get in a run early early tomorrow morning before we head to the lake but I'd have to be out the door at like 5, not sure that's going to happen.

Orthotics. They're not just for old people.

Yesterday I got fit for my customized orthotics. I cannot wait until they're ready!  Bob, the owner of my physical therapy practice worked with me to determine what I needed. He had me run on the dreadmill for a few minutes to see my gait in my running shoes. Then he had me lay on my stomach so that he can play with my sweaty feet. He said mine were nothing compared to the ones he used to work on while he was with the CU athletic department.  He drew on my a little bit and was happy to see that my feet line up with with my calf.  My problem is that my foot is just deformed.  Haha. Not really but it isn't shaped quite right for it to land in line with the rest of my body while I run...or even walk.

My new orthotics will add some padding under my toes on the rightside of my right foot as well as some support near the back of my arch. He said that he is confident that having these orthotics will help me run pain-free.  That was music to my ears! He was also nice enough to temporarily adjust my shoe to hold me over until the orthotics come in.

After the gait analysis and fitting it was time for my weekly PT session. It was the first session in a long time that I almost teared up doing therapy.  My tendons and shins have all sorts of knots and build-up. Every time Ryan hit certain spots on my ankle and shin my entire leg started shaking it hurt so bad.  Needless to say I was not going to be running last night. I'm hoping to get in a good run this weekend. I'm still super sore from PT yesterday and meeting Tawsha for a cocktail tonight so I think I'm taking the night off. It's about time, I haven't taken a day off since last week some time.

Oh and it looks like Josh may have gotten pink-eye. Flashback to preschool right?

From two legs to two wheels

I'm considering taking up a new physical hobby...cycling. Now I'm not what you would call a cyclist. I didn't even learn how to ride a bike until I was 7. Thanks to my friend Whitney who let me practice on her bike until I could ride it on my own.  Since then I've had a couple of bikes including my pretty pink cruiser than is collecting dust in our garage.  It got a lot of use when we lived in Ft. Collins, but since we moved and there is not Old Town to ride to it's been sadly neglected.

Anyway, I've been thinking about doing a sprint tri for which I'd need a bike other than my cruiser.  Yesterday Josh and I stopped at a shop in Longmont so that I could try out a road bike.  I was really nervous about the super skinny wheels.  Once I was on and actually pedaling it wasn't so bad.  Of course it will take some getting use to but I think I can do it especially the whole leaning over and the weird braking. I will definitely not be keeping up with Josh anytime soon or using toe clips. The last thing I need to to have my feet stuck to the pedals. I'd be the person at the stop light like this:

I'm not sure if I'm going to love it so we're going to keep our eyes peeled for a used bike. No sense in spending $1000 on a bike until I know whether or not I like riding.  It will be great crosstraining exercise.

Any tips for a newbie cyclist?

By the way, running is not going great. Last week I ran twice for a total of 7 miles. I was going to run 7 on Sunday but I took a few steps and the shooting pain returned. Luckily I have PT tomorrow.  If I can't run three times a week in the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to seriously consider dropping from the full marathon to the half.  Booooooo.

The Results are In

Tendonitis. Yep, still tendonitis. I'm happy that it's not a stress fracture that's for sure, but come on. Who has tendonitis after not running for over a month? This girl!  Plan of action: physical therapy at least once a week, custom orthoditics and ice on a regular basis. Oh yes and tylenol. Definitely lots of tylenol before running. IB Profin after.  Basically they don't know why I'm continuing to have pain. My deltoid tendon is irritated but that shouldn't be causing continuous pain. Ugh, so irritating.

And just like that, I'm giving myself permission to start training. It's going to be slow and steady. I've definitely lost conversation pace speed, but that's ok. I'm going to start off with the three day a week plan.  After a few weeks or a month if I'm feeling good, I'll start adding in speed and tempo workouts.  So happy I don't have to be in a boot!

Look out trails of Boulder County, I'm coming for you!

The Sinking City of Venice

*Only five month late*

To Review the Rest of the Trip:

Rome

Florence

Pisa

Cinque Terre

Bologna

Verona

I've said for years that I had to get to Venice before it was completely under water. Now of course I know this will not happen in my lifetime, but each year it does sink and I wanted to make sure I got to see it before it was a huge mess. 

Can you see the excitement on my face?  Yes, I was freezing.  This is the only day on our trip that I felt the weather was almost unbearable. It was snowing and really cold.  I was really wishing I hadn't lost one of my gloves in Florence.

We road on the water bus to San Marco and ventured down this extremely narrow street to get to our hotel. 

Check out the classic Venice decor.  Eek. 

We didn't really have any plans so we just headed towards Piazza San Marco. Pizzaza San Marco is the main square in Venice. It's home to St. Mark's Basillica, the Doge's Palace, the a super cool clocktower.  It also is the most likely to flood portion of the entire city.  When we got there the raised sidewalks were setup and there was about 3 inches of standing water. By the end of the day it had subsided. Here are a few pics:

We were chilled to the bones so we went to find something warm to drink.  We had been looking for a cake shop that was in our Time Out Guide, but of course it was no where to be found. So we stopped for some delicious treats and cioccolato caldo.  This was not just any hot chocolate, it was literally like a Cadbury bar had been melted and poured into the cup.  Had we known how to say whipped cream we would have.  It may have been easier to drink or eat with a spon.  We drank what we could but we were both on serious chocolate overload.  I know you're thinking wow, too much chocolate for Jess..amazing.

The second part of our day we headed to the famous Teatro La Fenice.  It's burned twice and been completely rebuilt.  Here's a couple pics we snuck. 

We were disappointed that there were no shows going on, but I suppose we could always go back another time. After quick nap we headed to dinner at a local restaurant by another theater.  It was the first restaurant that didn't look shady and was affordable.  It wasn't so bad.

The next day we went to Verona which you saw the review of already.  On the way there we cruised through this great outdoor market.  Wouldn't it be nice to get this fresh of food all the time?

Our final day in Venice coincided with the celebration of Befana Festival.  It is a celebration of the Ephipany.  The morning started off with a very special boat race.  This race's competitors are all middle aged men that dress up as witches.  They looked pretty great.

At the conclusion of the race they brought a large stocking and hung it from the Rialto bridge.  To Josh and I this seemed like a combination of Christmas and Halloween.  Good kids get candy from the witch and bad kids get coal. 

We were cruising around town and happened apon a gondalier who was willing to cut us a deal.  So off we were on our Venetian gondola ride.  It was pretty cool cruising around the Grand Canal and seeing the amazing buildings from a different perspective.  We even had tourists taking our pictures.  Here are a few of our favorites from the ride.

After our ride we continued to cruise around town. We headed across the Grand Canal to Dorsoduro.  We got to see Piazza San Marco from across the water and another beautiful church, Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. I also walked the path of part of the Venice marathon.  I don't think that it would be much fun, very narrow streets, occasional standing water, and tons of ramps over all of the bridges.

What's the best way to savor your last evening in Venice?  Starting it drinking a cafe and Prosecco on the water watching the sunset. 

Beautiful.

We enjoyed dinner at a tiny little place on one of the canals.  It took us almost an entire hour to find it again and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the place so I couldn't tell you the name of it. It was pretty delicious and the staff was hilarious! 

And like that our trip was over. 

Women, Food and God

Several weeks ago while Claire and I walked around MacIntosh Lake she told me about a book she had seen on Oprah, Women, Food and God. It sounded interesting to me as we had just been discussing body image issues, etc.  When my mom called and said she was reading it and love it, I thought, ok I'll give it a shot and picked it up at Target. 

I've slowly been reading it, and though it is interesting, none of it has really applied to me because I'm not overweight and I typically eat what I want. That is until we got to the chapter on indulgers and restrictors. I eat healthfully and exercise regularly, but I do tend to flip flop between the two types of eaters.  I rarely will pass up something sweet or my favorite dip because really, life's too short to not eat at least a bite or two of your favorites.  It's better than binging on it later.  I do however find myself being really selective when choosing what else I'll eat that day or the next to make up for my splurge. Just to make sure I'm not worrying anyone, I never skip meals.  Food fuels my body. I do however, choose what I put into it.

Josh and I have totally changed the food we buy. We've eliminated as many processed foods as possible. We get bread from Great Harvest (only a handful of ingredients and it tastes amazing), our chicken and meat from the Farmer's Market (raised naturally eatting better than we do), we're growing our own veggies and when we buy fruit/veggies from the store they are all organic. We're trying to take in as few pesticides, chemicals and hormones as possible.  I'm even looking at the labels when selecting condiments to avoid high fructose corn syrup. Of course we still go out to eat occasionally so we can't control what's in their food.

You'd think this would be making me feel great, but I have been struggling with my own body image lately. Between not running, traveling for work (a recipe for over indulgence) and all sorts of social events going on, I feel like my body is going soft.  Full disclosure, at the height of marathon training I weighed 126-128 lbs.  I was eating a ton (1800 calories-3800 (on long run days)) and was feeling great.  Now I'm 130-134 depending on the day. This is not a huge difference, but to me it is.  My clothes still fit but feel more snug. My once almost visable abs are fading and the light of day I saw in between my thighs is all but gone. I'd love to say it's muscle but ha, who am I kidding.  I've been trying to look in the mirror and tell myself something positive every day, but I'm still feeling heavy and disappointed in my lack of willpower.  I wish I was one of those naturally thin people, but I'm not. I have to work really hard to stay in shape.

I'm nearing the end of the book and the beginning of training again. Hopefully I can get my head on straight and stop being my own worst critic.

What a weekend and training

This was a busy weekend and it flew right by.  Highlight of the weekend...of course other than seeing Maegan be so happy saying I Do to Ahearn...running! Yes, that's right, I ran again. I knocked out 6 miles at a 10 minute pace. My ankle hurt, it felt like a constant pinching sensation but I did not once have shooting pain up the side of my leg or my shin.  I'm jonesing for some speed work but know that I need to not push too far too fast. I think I may even try to do a short 3-4 miles tonight after work. For now I'm sticking to the dreadmill because it has some play to it which helps reduce the hard impact. 

On the running note, now that I'm running, well kind of, I'm starting to think about marathon training plans. I'm going to create my own using a hybrid of a couple of different plans.  I'm going to refer to my TNT schedule from last season (abbreviated since I will not be training for 19 weeks this time), the Hal Higdon plan and Runner's World's Less is More. I think running three-four days is the most my body can handle for training. I'm definitely going to continue crosstraining as well. I cannot wait to get my orthoditics and get out there. I refuse to train for a marathon on the dreadmill!

Back to the weekend, Saturday we watched the USA vs. England World Cup game with Ryan and Claire. I decided I liked the game because there were zero commericals until the half and there was always action going on. It was kind of anti-climatic without a winner though.  After that we headed to Denver for Maegan and Ahearn's wedding. She got the same crappy weather or her wedding day that we did. Boo. But it was nice anyway. We caught up with some of my sorority sisters I hadn't seen in years!

Sunday we did an Indian cooking class. Needless to say we were stuffed when we got home!  If anyone is interested in going to the class in August, let me know! It's only $18 and you get tons of food. I bought a cook book and am ready to try making some of my own Indian food at home.

Being Still is Hard

So is waiting. Yesterday morning I had my MRI on my ankle. I haven’t ever had one before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. All I knew was that I couldn’t have any metal below my hips which was no problem. They laid me on the bed and packed my foot in. They were also nice enough to put a blanket and headphones with XM radio on me. They said the machine was loud and they were not kidding! Man the noises it made were so loud it made the entire bed vibrate. I was totally paranoid I would ruin the pictures because they said even the slightest movement can skew them.

About 15 minutes in my legs began twitching of course. I was focusing so hard on holding still I’m pretty sure I could have made myself levitate with the same power of thought. The entire thing took about a half hour. They handed me a disk of images and sent me on my way. The orthopedic surgeon should have received them yesterday. Now I just have to wait. I tried looking at them to see if I could tell what was wrong, but of course everything looks all jacked up to me. I assume I won’t hear from the doctor until Monday afternoon sometime. I’m trying to be patient.

My ankle is sore from my PT rubbing on Wednesday. It hurt so good that it bruised me a little bit. I got all set up to meet with the owner of my PT practice. He’s going to do a gait analysis and get me fitted for custom orthotics. $200 ouch! So worth the money if they help me prevent future injuries.

I’m starting to think about my training plan for the Denver Marathon. I think I’m going to have it start 4th of July weekend. I should have my orthotics by then and with several weeks of PT under my belt, fingers crossed, I’ll be ready to run my little heart out. That is pending the MRI indicates it was only tendonitis.

I’m ready for a super busy weekend after two weeks straight of work. Tomorrow Ryan and Claire are having a party for the World Cup and my friend Maegan is getting married. It’s going to be a fun day! Sunday Josh and I are doing an Indian cooking class which is a fundraiser for LLS. I’m excited. I love love love Indian food. At least I have distractions while I’m waiting for the doc to call.

I'm 26, are you sure?

Well it’s been 26 years since my terrified parents became my mom and dad. Contray to what my mom may say, I was not a beautiful newborn.  Yeah that's me with the conehead.  Luckily it is now normally shaped and I have hair.

I cannot believe I turned 26 today. I am officially at an age that, even at 22, I thought was old. Now I’m not saying I’m old, because I mean come, 26 isn’t even close to the midpoint of my life. I just cannot believe that I'm not officially closer to 30 than I am to 20.  How did the time fly by so fast?  I swear I was just graduating from high school like five minutes ago.  Even more strange, I feel like my parents just turned 26 not that long ago. In fact, when my stepmom Liz started dating my dad Lmost 18 years ago, she was 26.  What a brave woman to take on a man that had a 8 year and 5 year old.  It's just crazy scary to think that at my age my parents had kids in elementary school. 

My mid-twenties, yes Josh I’m still in my mid-twenties, have been awesome so far:

Age 24-Married my lobster
Age 25-Ran my first marathon and went on an amazing trip to Italy
Age 26-????-We'll see what the year brings.

What I do know is that I’m just a super lucky girl woman. I have wonderful friends and family. I even have wonderful coworkers, case in point, Lisa who brought me this delicious and super cute cake for my birthday. (Thank you one last time!) Nothing better than the smell of cake in the morning when you arrive to your cubicle.

This year is going to be great I know it! How could it not be? I’m happy, healthy (well almost), I have a job, a house, a wonderful, loving husband and dog. Bonus-I get to go on another fabulous European adventure to Paris and London in September, two races already scheduled (hopefully I’ll be able to do them), and all sorts of surprises that are going to pop up. Yeah, it’s going to be good. ;-)

Thanks for all the love and support!

Josh took me out for an amazing dinner at this tiny little restaurant called Praha.  It was one of the best meals I've had in a long time.  I had the Pepper Steak "Galleria". So delicious and beautifully presented. I should have taken a picture but felt silly. Excellent birthday!

P.S. I scheduled my MRI today. I know I wasn't going to do it, but I tried to run again last night...no dice.  It hurt bad.  I have PT on Wednesday and I'm going to order custom orthodics.  MRI is scheduled for first thing on Thursday morning...booo.

Bikram Challenge: Complete

Well my month of Bikram is over. I totally slacked last weekend with Friday being my only class for the entire weekend. Oh well. I did 22 or 23 classes, I can’t remember. Not bad for a newbie.

Thoughts on Bikram:

-It is hot! No, kidding right. But some days when I walked in the room the heat was like a punch in the face and I’d start to sweat instantly. The more people that were there the hotter it was. On days when I was tired after work, I almost always started to drift off to sleep while waiting for class to start. The heat was like a nice warm blanket.

-I’ve never sweat so much.

-I’m not flexible at 5 am.

-Balance, balance. The standing series of poses is an hour long. They were my favorite of the entire class. They really helped me with my balance, leg and core strength.

-I could hear my heart. Some days more than others but there were times that I would lay on the floor for savasna and could feel and hear my heart pounding. I wouldn’t say it kept my heart rate up the entire 90 minutes, but it got it up from time to time which leads to more calorie burning.

-My ankle hates some of the floor poses. Though yoga had no blunt impact to make my ankle hurt, one pose in particular made the pain flare right up every time. I had to do a modified pose to avoid the pain.

-It’s very repetitive. Bikram developed his practice so that one pose lead to the next. That means every day we did the same 26 poses, in the same order. Though it was nice to do the same poses and see improvements each time, it got kind of old. I began to learn which poses I didn’t like and began to dread them when I knew they were coming up next.

Body Changes:

No major body changes. My weight continued to have its normal fluctuations of 2-4 pounds. I do think that my leg muscles have gotten stronger as well as my shoulders and abs. I’m still not seeing a six-pack but I’ll settle for a flat stomach. The changes in my measurements were pretty small, nothing worth publishing really.

To Continue or Not to Continue:

At this point I’m taking a break. I’m heading to Tampa for several days and have a really busy June. So I thought I’d wait to use my discount until the end of June or July. I think that I’ll continue with the practice on occasion but it will not be my primary form of exercise. I think the longer I do it, the more benefits I’ll see. Plus I do like the people at the studio.

I’m considering trying out some other forms of yoga in the mean time on a drop in basis.

So there is it, a super brief review of my month.

I Ran!!!

That's right, I ignored advice of the doctor and my own better judgement and ran.  I smiled the entire time too!  Friday afternoon I was heading to the gym before yoga and decided you know what I should try it out.  The first few steps on the treadmill sent shooting pain up my calf but once I got in my groove I was ok.  I ran an easy four miles before I decided I should not push myself right out of the gate.

Time: 40 minutes    Distance: 4 miles    Avg. Pace: 10 min/miles

Not too shabby considering I haven't run in more than a month.  Now, several days later I'm still hurting though. My ankle hurts every time I walk.  I've made the executive decision to skip the MRI and just start intensive physical therapy.  I didn't really like the orthopedic surgeon at all and I don't really feel the need to work with him or spend money on the MRI if he thinks it's just tendonitis. 

Hopefully I can get into PT before I leave for Tampa on Saturday afternoon so we can get this show on the road.  My month of yoga also ended this weekend....it did not go out with a bang but more on that later.