Then I Ate a Huge Burrito

My long run did not happen this weekend. My original plan was to do a two-a-day run on Saturday. After a quick 4 miles with Josh and Lucky we had errands to run and a house to clean before Josh's b-day party. Oh and Husker game to watch. So the second 6-8 miles I was going to do just didn't happen. Before I knew it I needed to get those bacon wrapped dates made, spinach dip going and that baked brie baking.

It turned out to be a bit of a drunk night for myself and our guests apparently. Just goes to show that even though we're on the down slope to 30 we still can get crazy from time to time...evidence of the vomit in the bathroom we found the next day.  I was a total waste of space on Sunday. I basically was hating life.  Note to self...you can no longer drink like you did at 21. I think that is the last time I'm drinking for a little while. Beer isn't that fantastic that I cannot resist it and I'm just not really a big drinker anymore.

Monday was Josh's 29th b-day. I made him dinner, we went to the gym, but since it was his b-day I didn't want to spend hours running. Probably rude thing to do.

Last night was my night to get it in.  I left work and nearly got blown off the interstate. The winds were insane. Rather than do the running man I decided to run on the dreadmill. 

Time: 1:38   Distance: 10 miles   Avg. Pace: 9:49 min/miles

I stopped at 10 miles though I was planning on 12. My knees actually started hurting and swelling so I figured I better stop. Don't want to have to drop from the race in a week and a half.  (Bonus-I drunkenly talked Shanna into running the race with me! Yes!)  I couldn't really find a good elevation chart of the course so I used MapMyRun to make one myself.  It looks pretty flat to me, just how I like it!

After running Josh treated me to the Garden Fresco Burrito with Green Chili from Tres Margaritas...I ate the WHOLE thing. It was delicious. Oh and they made Josh wear a sombrero while they sang to him and gave him a weird red, white and green shot...yuck. Of course the one time I don't bring my phone or camera to take a picture. Drat!

Whirlwind

Man it’s been a whirlwind lately. The past month has flown by. Updates from our trip to come but let’s recap what happened after I got home from Missouri and California.

That evening Josh’s friend Peter and his new girlfriend came over for dinner. Nice to see Peter but after no being home for 10 days all I wanted to do was hang with my boys and veg out on the couch.

Monday it was time to get back to the gym and Tuesday I finally got in another run and tons of laundry while Josh was a golf league. Wednesday we had dinner at our friend’s Ryan and Claire’s house…awesome. I hadn’t seen them in a while and it was nice to relax and enjoy dinner with them out on the patio. Thursday Josh’s dad was in town. We went out to eat at Martini’s Bistro. Of course I had to have some key lime cheesecake.

Friday I had a surprise dinner for my friend Sarah G in Boulder. She was totally surprised which was awesome!

Saturday, another crazy day. I did an 11 miler:

Distance: 11 miles Time: 1:45:36 Avg. Pace: 9:36 min/miles

My legs were a bit on the sore side from that one. Stretch, snack and shower later we were headed to Denver to celebrate Claire’s b-day. We had dinner at Lime which was delicious. Then there was a little of this...

and a little of that.

Great time…not so great hangover the next day.

By Sunday I was crashing hard but started getting ready for our trip. The next few days leading up to our trip were no picnic either. I think this is the first time in a long time that I’ve had something to do every day and night for several weeks in a row. Thank goodness for vacation!

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.

Happy Birthday Lobster!

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has donated to my TNT efforts so far. You guys are so awesome, that in just 2 days we raised more than $1000! If we keep it up at this pace, we'll be to $5000 in no time! Thank you so much for your support.

Happy Birthday Lobster!

Today is my lobster Josh’s 28th birthday. Have you all seen the Friends episode where Phoebe says Ross is Rachel’s lobster (they join claws and mate for life)? That's where the pet name comes from. But I digress. Aside from enjoying some Indian food and cheesecake with Josh’s sister, her husband, kids and family friend, today was mainly spent trying to recover from yesterday.

Let’s recap yesterday’s debauchery. My day started with an awesome 5k run around our neighborhood. I was only planning on doing a slow 2 mile run because it was my first run since the half last week. I was feeling so good at 2 miles; I decided I do 2.5 miles. When I hit 2.5 I was still just warming up, so I decided to just do the 3.1.

Time: 27:35        Distance: 3.1 miles (5K)         Avg. Pace: 8:54 min/mile

After cleaning up it was time to head to Fort Collins for the football game. Tailgating here we come.   A few things have changed since the college days. First of all were in the alumni parking lot not partying with the students on the other side of the stadium, we actually brought food with us, 1/2 of the group consists of married people and we actually paid for tickets. Otherwise it was a flashback to college.

Especially when this came out….

Yes that is a six person beer bong.  Yikes, I know.  Another way I can tell we're not in college anymore...a few people did actually say, what about the Swine flu  while debating whether or not to drink from our old friend?  This was quickly followed by old school reasoning...the alcohol will kill it. 

Anyway, after a game of washers, eating and drinking we headed into the stadium. The Rammies were doing awesome and were even up by 14. All the ladies took turns being thrown in the air every time CSU scored. Not gonna lie, I don't remember it being as scary when I used to be thrown in the air in college.  Either I've become a bigger wimp than I used to be or I didn't have enough beer to make it seem like a good idea.  Regardless, by half time there was no more of this…they gave it away and ended up losing their 5th game in a row.

After some downtime at Kevin’s house it was time to hit Old Town. When we were in college, we would just walk or ride our cruisers down to Old Town and back. These days we don't know anyone that actually lives in Old Town anymore so we had to pile into Russell's big new truck and drive down there. Old Town is definitely one of the best things about Fort Collins. There is always something going on down there. From Brewfest to the Greek Festival that ran out of food the first day of it's inaugural year.  Can you tell I miss living there?

Back to the debauchery. We tried to hit most of the old bars we frequented (that hadn't closed down...Zydeco's what's up with that?), starting with the oldest and smallest bar in Fort Collins, Town Pump (Odells has a special brew you can only get in FoCo named after it) for jello shots and some booze soaked cherries...this pretty much sums it up.

From there it was off to Lucky Joe's my favorite bar in the Fort for sure!  You could typically find us here on Saturday nights. 

I found myself looking around for people I may know, when I realized I don't know a single person that is still going to school at CSU which is just crazy to me. 

While at Lucky Joe's there were two different groups of people out celebrating their friends' 21st birthdays.  I officially felt like an old chick at the bar especially when one of the birthday boys was like hey is that ring real? Are you married? I said yep and he was like wow, how old are you?  Like I was super old.  Sad...at least he didn't call me ma'am like the girl at American Eagle a few months back.  That one hurt.

The Ladies

Liz, Jennell, Myself and Bronwyn

Josh and the Crazy Asian...aka Kevin

Me and Russell-Yes I realize I look naked but I swear I was wearing a shirt.

After a few peanut shells in my deliciously fresh Sunshine Wheat, we headed to a few other places including The Drunken Monkey which has swings for bar chairs:

After a pit stop at Jimmy John's, it was time to call it a night. Once we were able to wrangle Josh and Jason we headed home. 

It was a great time, but now I remember why I don't go out like this very often...ugh, the next day is awful.  Two naps later, I think we are just about recovered and ready to start the work week.  Hopefully this scratchy voice I've developed today will be back to normal tomorrow.

I hope you had a great birthday Josh. I love you!