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.

Girls Gone Wild or Just Camping

*Playing catch-up with this post.

I haven't been spending nearly enough time with the girls. This weekend we packed up the Escape and drove to Lake McCounaughy. Sarah and Lisa spent the night on Friday night because we were getting up super early to head out. Rache arrived around 5:45 am and by 6:15 we were on the road. Everyone was pretty groggy until we got to Ogallala where they go their coffee fix.

Once Thalia, Melinda and Sheila arrived we headed to the lake. We tried the spot where we spent the 4th of July. There was a huge family camped there and the water was above where we camped last time. I could not believe how high the water was.

This is where we had our first adventure...Thalia's car got a little stuck going back up the rough sandy road. Luckily with Melinda behind the wheel it made it up. I followed right behind. I was super nervous taking the new car up it but we made it on my first try!

Final we found a spot in Arthur's Bay and got all set up. It was almost 100 degrees and the water was the only place to be.

Note to self...97 degree temps, pink panty droppers, and nothing but a granola bar in the stomach are a bad combination. After a small incident and a nap in the sand I was refreshed.

We drank, we swam, we laughed and lounged. By dusk we were ready to eat and relax. Smores...mmm so good!

As is the trend there was another huge storm. We could hear the rain approaching as it crossed the lake which was pretty cool.  The next morning we took a dip in the lake to get the sand off, packed up and headed into Ogallala for some deliciousness at Valentino's.

We were the first customers there.  After we were stuffed to the gills we headed home, but not before we got Thalia this awesome mustache and mini Blizzards from DQ.

Good girls weekend for sure!

On the road again

By 4:10 am on Saturday we were on the road headed to the Westminster Park-N-Ride to catch the SkyRide to the airport.  I think I was nervous about the car purchase because I could not sleep at all the night before. Our flight was uneventful and we landed without incident in Dallas a few hours later. Mitch from Classic of Denton was there with our new car to pick us up! There it is, our new car! Of course it's not brand new, it's a 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid.

We headed to the dealership and after a few hours of paperwork and listening to the finance guy ramble we headed out towards home.

We were starving when we hit Bowie, TX. We made it to Main St. and saw this cute little place named Nostalgia Antiques & Soda Fountain that said they had fresh sandwiches.  I have never been to a place quite like it. It was a restaurant and soda fountain inside an antique store.  My Grandma Walker would have LOVED it!

We got our sandwiches, chips, drinks and desserts for only $23.  Love that all meals came with dessert. So tasty. I definitely recommend it if you happen to be in Bowie.  Don't forget to write on the inside of the phone booth.  We jumped back on the road and headed towards Amarillo.

We drove through small town after small town before we reached Amarillo early evening. The one thing all these towns had in common...Dairy Queen. The smallest one was under 500 I believe, yet they all had a DQ. Texans love their ice cream apparently.

First stop in Amarillo...the Cadillac Ranch of course! It had been raining off and on all day so of course it was one huge mud puddle. It was much easier to walk in barefoot.

We cleaned up in a nearby puddle and headed back out on the road. We had only made it a few miles before a big red barn caught our eye. 

Yep we ate dinner at a steakhouse called the Country Barn. It was delicious. Quite possibly the best apple crisp ever. It also had awesome sinks like this:

Only in Texas.  We were planning on staying in Dalhart, TX which was about an hour and a half away so we needed to get back in the car. Of course we had to stop at a western store.  You know it's going to be good when this is out front.

I had no idea that cowboy boots and hats were so pricey! I don't think there was a pair of boots under $200 and we saw a hat that was over $1k! 

Man it gets dark on 287 through rural Texas.  Of course we were too busy playing with our Sync system to notice that we were suppose to turn to get to Dalhart.  Figuring Boise City, our back-up wasn't far we continued North.  Yeah, Google Maps lied to me.  Boise City was not only not in Colorado, but it only had two motels and neither one of them were that appealing.  Here's where we ended up:

It may not have been so bad about 40 years ago but it was gross...totally rundown. At least the sheets were clean. Both Josh and I checked before setting foot in them.  I kept my flippy floppies on at all times outside of the bed.  Needless to say we never need to go to Boise City, OK ever again.  We got outta there asap.

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  We made room for the new car in the garage. My poor little Honda was kicked to the curb.

I did a quick run around our neighborhood. There was a bit much indulgence this weekend.

Time: 31:09  Distance: 3.29 miles  Avg. Pace: 9:28 min/mile

Total stats for the week:

Time: 2:19:55  Distance: 15.04 miles   Avg. Pace: 9:18 min/mile

I almost forgot! We went up to Ft. Collins to pick up our chickens from the farm. 

We are part of the Jodar Farms CSA so we get four fresh, natural, cage free chickens a month. Yep, I held a chicken.

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. 

Time for Vacation Yet?

Well of course not.  Nope, not until September. Even though the month of May is flying right by, September seems so far away!  It's only 3.5 months away which means October is only 4.5...I have got to get back on the road. I may have to start a countdown. One of the days until our trip to Paris and London (yes, we're going on another fabulous vacation this year. Yeay!) and the other one for the days until the Denver Marathon. 

Still going strong with the challenge and my body is feeling it.  I don't know that I really see any huge changes except that I can get further into the poses than when I first started. The number on the scale has dipped slightly but I think that is because when I get home from a sweaty session at 7 or 8, all I really want is a green monster and some peanut butter graham crackers.  That combo definitely does not replace a real meal. Last night Josh and I forced down some steak and veggies so that we got enough calories for the day.  Last week ended like this:

Wednesday-50 minutes Elliptical+Bikram
Thursday-Bikram
Friday-Off (first day in weeks)
Saturday-75 minutes Elliptical +abs
Sunday-Bikram

This week has started off pretty well though I'm taking today off to grab a beer at Lefthand after work and PT.

Monday-55 mins Elliptical+abs+Bikram
Tuesday-Bikram
Wednesday-Off (I've forgotten how awesome rest days are)

Sarah G. came up to do the class with Brenna and I on Monday. She was suprised at how much of a workout it is. She's going to come next Monday too. I swear the studio should be paying me to do yoga there since I'm bringing in so many newbies. 

Well, lunch is over and it's time to get back to work before I head off to PT this afternoon. Update to come.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I’m packed and ready to go. Last night was a very busy night. I stopped by the store and picked up a new ice pack that I can strap around my leg…awesome and some Tylenol since IB Profin is a no no. As soon as I got home I was running around and talking to myself like a crazy person. After wearing my compression socks for basically 3 days straight it was time for a wash. No I do not have stinky feet. Load of laundry in, it was time to get together all of my race day stuff.

Race Day Gear:

• TNT Singlet
• Running skirt
• Sports bra
• Moisture wicking sock
• SHOES
• Garmin (fully charged)
• Fuel belt (don’t forget the water bottles)
• Gels, Nuuns and Oatmeal
• Gatorade mix
• iPod (fully charged w/ new earphones)
• TNT information packet
• Josh’s Speedo sandals for post-race
• Throw away jacket

But let’s not forget the most important things. I’m going to go ahead and call this my injury repair kit. I should market this idea…seriously. Mine includes:

• Travel foam roller
• Compression sleeves
• KT tape
• Shaklees Muscle and Joint Cream
• Herbal tendon and muscle recovery gel
• Extra Strength 8 Hour Tylenol
• Warm around ice pack (Not pictured because I was wearing it)

Oh how I love you all! Well not really the foam roller because it hurts me until I have tears coming down my face. But you know it hurts so good.

After packing the important things it took only a few minutes to pack the rest of my gear for the weekend which was great because I still had work to do at home. The camera is charged and ready to take pictures in Nashville. Maybe I will pick up a disposable to carry with me at the race. Eh, I’ll probably get sick of holding it and toss it. I may as well save myself a few bucks for some ice cream.

Calf/Ankle Status Update: Both still a bit sore but feeling 10x better than they were last week. Currently sporting my nice, clean compression socks and icing with the new ice pack for 20 minutes at a time. Fingers, arms, legs and toes still crossed for race day.

P.S. Totally hoping to bump into some stars in Nashville...like Keith Urban (hot) and Nicole Kidman.  Just casually getting coffee.  I'm sure all famous people are hiding out during the crazy weekend but a girl can hope right? I will be armed with my camera while exploring the city just in case.