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.

Just Not My Day

I'm not having the best day.  I woke up about 3:45 this morning with a stomach ache. I though that it was probably just from being hot or hungry so I got up and went to the 5 am yoga class.  Bad idea.  I had to leave the room early for fear of vomiting.  I got showered and dressed, still feeling like total crap.  I walked out to my car and something seemed a bit off. I walked to the passenger side to discover that my window had been broken out.  A rock had be thrown through the window so hard that it totally shattered my window and hit the opposite door, knocking off the light cover.  Seriously?  At this point I started tearing up. I already felt like total ass and now this.  UGH!

At this point I decided that I need to let Pete and Lisa know I was going to stay home.  I almost tossed my cookies right there in the parking lot.  I picked the glass off of my seat and drove home.  I still haven't cleaned it up yet.  I just got off the phone with the police department. They informed me that there have been 20 Honda Accords stolen lately and the 1997 is the preffered model.  Flipping fantastic.  She said to take every precaution.  Well duh, I already lock the doors and park in crowded places.  Short of never leaving the garage, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.  I guess it's good that the car wasn't stolen.  There is my positive spin on the situation.

Oh yeah and PT yesterday, also bad news.  They referred me to an orthopedic surgeon.  Now not to worry, it doesn't seem that I'll need surgery on my ankle, but they are almost positive I have a stress fracture.  I have an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon on Monday.  First I'll have to get x-rays.  If they do see the stress fracture, I'll have to wear a boot.  Booooo.  I was given a range from anywhere in between 3 weeks and 8 weeks.  That would mean I'd basically be limited to the pool for exercise which is just a total bummer.  It could be worse, I'm not fighting for my life like Jason.  Who by the way, is making some really positive progress but is not out of the woods yet. 

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Until then I'm resting, trying not to get pukey and cuddling with Lucky.

No Turning Back

It's official, I am definitely running in Nashville. Last week I sent in my recommitment paperwork, today I bought my airline ticket.  In 50 days I'l be at the starting line of my second marathon. I am super excited and nervous all at the same time. I did it once, so why not again right?  I should be feeling confident, I was able to go 18 miles on Saturday without a problem...well except for the upset stomach, but I think that was from the pizza.

My ankle is aching but I think there is a good chance it will be all better before race day.  My knees are hanging in there for now. Hopefully they'll continue to put up with my craziness.  I've taken it easy since Saturday.  I did a mere 40 minutes of exercise while in Oregon which is so unlike me.  To my credit, I was working for 10+ hours a day and on my feet most of them.  I've gained 6 pounds in the past two weeks...eek. That may seems like nothing, but I'm just not used to that. I feel sluggish and like I'm losing my fitness. 

Last night I dragged my ass to the gym even though I was completely exhausted from being on the go since 3.30 am.  Half hour warm up on the bike, squats, lunges, arms and abs then a 20 minute stint on the elliptical. I was thinking about running tonight but may just hold off until my quick 12 mile run on Saturday. I'm sick to death of the dreadmill but hey, that's so much better than no running at all right?

My biggest fear is that I've been taking it way too easy with training and one of these days I'm bound to have a really shitty run. I'm just hoping that it's not marathon day.  Canyonlands is just three weeks away.  I'm not really focusing at that race at all, just looking at it as a training run. After all, I will have run 20 miles the Saturday before...13.1 is a lot shorter distance!  The marathon is what's on my mind every day.  Will I make it to the finish line?  Will I get injured again? Will I be able to run faster than the first one?  Is a 4:30 marathon a real possibility?

Apparently I need someone to help me quiet the critical thoughts and doubts in my head.

Wedding Industry Happy Hour

I've decided that every Monday should end with cocktails, cheese and cupcakes.  What is better to end the second to worst day of the week?  You may ask, what's the worst day if it's not Monday...why Tuesday of course. It's like a repeat of Monday but worse because you're not significantly closer to the weekend.  Anyway, I met Tawsha and Heather to head down to a wedding industry cocktail hour at Baur's downtown.  We were the first to arrive and immediately ordered drinks and determined the best table to sit at for optimal networking opportunities.  Tall bar tables are always the best choice because people can stand or sit and not feel like they are looking down or up at your.  Write that down.

People started filtering in shortly and the networking began. I met all sorts of awesome people, even one who works fashion week and got to oil up the male models...that's hot.  I even saw Alaneyer who worked with Josh and I on the catering for our wedding.  I did my best to talk up My Big Day Planner and get Tawsha, who is actually shy on occasion, to loosen and not feel intimidated.  It amazing how many different wedding vendors there are. A lot of them I remember from when Josh and I were selecting ours a while back. 

Check out this little piece of heaven.  This snowman was probably one of the most delicious sweets I've ever had.  Chocolate cake mixed with cream cheese, covered in white chocolate and topped off with a Rolo.  I ate every single sinful bite.  We had these thanks toRachael who owns Intricate Icings in Erie.  Mmmmmmmmmm.  That was just the top of the sweets tower. I probably over indulged a bit.  Lots of cheese and finger foods that Footers Catering provided.  Everything was delicious and it was awesome getting my feet wet in my first official networking event for My Big Day Planner.

Few things I learned, when drinks and food are involved, people will come.  Drinks also lesson the tension for vendors in the same area and everyone can be friends.  Lastly, Twitter is the new Trekkie club. OMG, most of the people had to introduce themselves by the Twitter name last night. It was hilarious.  Everyone new eachother but were strangers.  Now I have not joined the cult yet, but obviously it's awesome for networking and meeting new people.  Since Tawsha is already all over it for MBDP, I'm going to go ahead and let her have at it. Maybe I'll snoop around sometime.

Snot Very Pretty

This weekend was just not my weekend. I'm hoping that I just had a bad one because I have such a fabulous vacation in just a few days.  I can also taste the gelato it's so close.  But back to the bad weekend.  So I've been sick, thanks Lobster, for about a week now and though it's slowly getting better (I'm pretty much like a leaking faucet instead of one turned all the way on) I still feel generally crappy.  Which lead to me having to cancel on two of my favs Sarah and Lisa on Friday night. 

Now this was just the start.  I was already feeling down about that when I went to meet with Erin, my new nutritionist at Momentum Health.  That appointment was actually super helpful and informative and I'm very grateful for Erin working with me. So you ask what went wrong here?  Nothing major except somehow in the past three months, I've replaced 2 lbs of muscle with fat.  How this is possible I'm not sure. So regardless of what the scale says, I am in fact getting fatter even though I'm holding a steady weight.  Man I'd rather gain weight (muscle of course) than been losing and gaining fat.

Well then it was time to have some dinner.  I was just chewing a piece of pizza when one of my teeth decided it had been used quite enough and broke.  Seriously?  I mean WTF, who loses a quarter of their molar eating pizza?  Must have been a sign from the diet gods that I should not have been eating pizza in the first place. Of course do I have a dentist in Longmont?  Ha...

First thing Saturday morning instead of running with my team, I was at Comfort Dental in Boulder numb for almost 3 hours.  The verdict, apparently my last dentist didn't fully drill out a cavity before filling it. So it continued to grow and caused the tooth to break. Right now it's been filled so that I can head to Italy with a complete tooth. When I get back though it's time for the dentist and a crown.  Boooooooo.  Did I mention I hate dentists offices?  They smell of rubber, tooth dust and gingivitis.  Blah. (No that is not me in the picture.)

Luckily I got in some good laughs with Tawsha during our business meeting later that afternoon.  I'm pretty sure she was more laughing at me and my feeble attempts not to drool and speak normally even though half my face was numb.  Regardless, I can always count on her for a laugh. In fact I think last week my abs hurt from laughing with her so much.  Well that and this stupid cough.  Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?  (Tawsha that's for you ehmmmmmmmmmmm ok?)  I am really looking forward to the Wedding Preview Event even though I will be in Moab running my little heart out during the 1/2  marathon.  I have total faith that someday sooner rather than later, Tawsha and My Big Day Planner are going to be emensly successful. 

I spent Saturday night trying to infect the city of Boulder with my cold.  Aaron, Amanda and Kelsey joined me at Borders to wrap gifts for donations.  We actually wrapped quite a few books and such, the final tally...$38 and some change.  Really?  We had one lady alone who we wrapped 10 items for.  She left $1.  Come on people...it's for cancer.  Speaking of which, I am seriously lacking in the donations department.  I still have a long ways to go, please donate, right after the first of the year is just fine.  Thanks.

Sunday was actually the best day of the weekend.  Other than nearly breaking a toe when my baseboard moved two inches in an attempt to maime some of my poor toes, I finally got in the run I was supposed to do on Saturday morning.  Since I didn't have the team to run with and I was feeling super unmotivated, I just did the loop around our neighborhood twice. 

Time:  60 minutes    Distance: 6.28 miles    Avg. Pace: 9:33 min/mile


I'm not going to lie this was a hard run for me.  I took everything I had not to stop and walk.  I was wheezing, I had snot all over my face and I was hacking like a smoker the entire time.  I was so glad that there were only a few other people on the path.  I looked like a preschooler who had been hit hard by the boogieman.  Yuck.  Once my run was over (Thank God) I entered the house so that Josh could be present for a 10 minute serenade of coughs.  I think he really enjoyed it.  But hey, on the bright side, it makes me feel good to know that even when I'm sick I can finish a 10k in under an hour.  I have come so far from the summer of 2008. 

The rest of the day was spent going to four different stores looking for a new digital camera.  We finally bought a new Sony Cybershot at Wolf Camera.  So glad that's over.  One less thing to do before the big trip.  We headed to Dad and Liz's house for a family dinner before they took off to Costa Rica.  It was a good thing I went on that snotty run because my dad warmed up some Hanky Pankies aka Shit on a Brick and then we had Indian food. Love Indian. 

Weekend is now closed and not a minute too soon.

Happy Holidays from MBDP

Tawsha is awesome. She's been working with me at my office all week which has helped the week fly right by.  Check out this holiday card she created for My Big Day Planner.  Little side note, brides out there you can get free shipping on the book today only.  Also makes a great gift.  Plug over...

Also, the team is having a fundraiser tonight at Chick-Fil-A at Flatirons.

Stupid Cold

I thought that I had avoided getting Josh's cold by leaving town last week.  No such luck. It's hit my hard this week.  With too much to finish at work before vacation I've been pushing through.  I have not however been exercising, which I hate.  But my thought is that if I rest then by Saturday I'll be feeling well enough to do our team run.  Rather than pushing it during the week and prolonging my illness, I'd rather rest and just get in the long run.  So rest it is.  Now if I could only sleep through the night.

Show Success

Man, trade shows are exhausting.  I've been going back and forth from the convention center all weekend/week.  At least I have lovely Christmas decorations to look at. The Bellagio is decked out.

The show is going really well so far.  It's pretty apparent that attendance is down but we've gotten some great leads.  You know what's crazy, I saw my roommate from my freshman year of college at the show!  Anne Elise is in her final year of pharmacy school and was at the show to find a residency.  Next year we're going to have to get together since we both know we'll be there.  Doesn't our booth look awesome?

After a long day of work nothing is better than a delicious meal right?  On Monday night we went to Prime Steakhouse at the hotel.  So delicious!  Josh and I rarely eat red meat but since I was at a steakhouse I couldn't pass it up.  I knew on Tuesday we'd probably have another big meal so after the show I made sure that I got in my run for the day. I had an awesome tempo run.  Here are the stats:

Time: 35 minutes      Distance: 3.7 miles       Average Pace: 9:28 min/miles

For this run I warmed up at 10 min pace for 5 minutes, then did 25 minutes at 9:13 min pace with a 5 minutes cooldown at 10 min pace.  Maybe it was because I wasn't a mile high or maybe I'm just getting faster because the run was a breeze. 

It was a good thing I went for that run because we had a huge dinner at Olives.  I got to eat with our President and the CEO of our entire company along with a few of the sales guys.  It was pretty cool getting to eat and chat up the bosses.  I had the most delicious savoury short rib raviolis with carmelized onions and mushroom sauce. 

After dinner we decided to meet up with a couple other people at Lavo at The Palazzo hotel.  Now that was an experience.  I went with my boss, our CEO of the company, and three other sales people.  It was hilarious and a lot of fun.  I never thought I'd be dancing with the head of my company.  When we got home around 2am I was exhausted and went straight to bed.

What a night.

Now I'm finally home and so glad. I missed my lobster and puppy and my own bed.  Josh was so sweet and brought home some flowers for me.  I think he may have missed me.  :-)  Now making sure I'm sticking to my training schedule of course I needed to get in my interval run for the week, so we headed to the gym.

5 minute warm-up-10:54 min/mile

1 minute- 7:30 min/mile

1 minute-10:54 min/mile

2 minutes-7:30 min/mile

1 minute-10:54 min/mile

1 minute- 7:30 min/mile

1 minute-10:54 min/mile

2 minutes-7:30 min/mile

1 minute-10:54 min/mile

1 minute- 7:30 min/mile

1 minute-10:54 min/mile

2 minutes-7:30 min/mile

1 minute-10:54 min/mile
1 minute- 7:30 min/mile
1 minute-10:54 min/mile
2 minutes-7:30 min/mile
1 minute-10:54 min/mile
1 minute-7:30 min/mile
4 minute cooldown-10:54 min/mile

Time: 30 minutes      Distance: 3.4 miles     Average Pace: 8:49 min/miles

Not gonna lie, this was a bit more challenging than my last interval run.  I was definitely grunting the last sprint minute.

Vegas Baby Vegas

I made it to Vegas and I'm exhausted. The past few days have been super busy. Once I got here on Friday I checked into the hotel and headed straight the convention center for setup. Here's a little peek at my room.

and the view:

Pretty nice huh? After a long day of setup and traveling I was exhausted. I thought I'd just take a nap and head out with the guys from Condit. My body thought that I needed sleep. I layed down at 8:30 and work up the next morning. Oops.

The next day started early. I knew I had a sixty minute long run to do so I got up early to hit the gym. The gym at The Bellagio is bigger than the gym Josh and I go to in Longmont. It was pretty nice, but I have to say it was the bathroom area that impressed me the most. I'll take a picture so that you can see it. I mean it should be nice since it costs $25/day.

Time: 60 minutes Distance: 6 miles Avg. Pace: 10 min/miles

As soon as I finished my run it was time to shower and head to the convention center for a few more hours of setup. I have to say our booth looks pretty awesome. I forgot my camera this morning but I'll take pictures tomorrow.

Jim and Nancy arrived late Friday night for the marathon. I met up with them at Excalibur for a pre-marathon carb loading dinner. I'm pretty sure I ate more than the people running the marathon tomorrow. Apparently I need to carb load for the trade show and all of the walking I've been doing. I think I've been averaging about 4-5 miles/day since I arrived.

The next morning I met Jim to cheer on Nancy while she ran the marathon. We saw here at mile 3 or so and then not again until she turned the corner towards mile 26. She did awesome! She had no problem qualifying for Boston again. Her official time was 4 hours 12 minutes and 20 seconds. I hope that I can become as great a marathon runner as she is. She should be really proud of herself! Josh and I decided that we'll be going to Boston to cheer her on when she conquers the Boston Marathon.

Off to bed, I'm tired and gearing up for the first day of the show.

And I'm off....to Vegas

Last night I had an awesome tempo run. I actually think I need to speed up to really feel the burn  Here's what I did:

5 minute warm-up @ 10:07 min/mile pace
20 minutes @ 9:22 min/mile pace
5 minute cooldown @ 10:07 min.mile pace

Total Time: 30 minutes   Distance: 3.12 miles   Average Pace: 9:37 min/miles

After the nice short run I went home to a sick Josh and made some delicious chicken, black bean and corn enchiladas.  The rest of the night was spent preparing for my trip and spending some time with my boys before I had to head out this morning.

Now I'm sitting in the airport right now waiting to board my flight to Vegas.  Man this morning came way too early!  I knew I had to get up at 4:30 in order to be able to eat something real quick, load the car and get to the airport on time.  Well apparently my brain decided that I should wake up at 2:30 am instead. after about an hour and a half of restlessness I was finally able to sleep for a whole half hour before my alarm went off.  Needless to say I'll be sleeping on the plane. Too bad it's such a short flight.

I'm headed to Vegas for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacy Annual Midyear tradeshow.  This is going to be my first show in Vegas since leaving Sycamore Kids.  It's going to be so strange not having Alan there to enjoy margaritas after a hard day of setup and delicious Indian food from a hole in the wall place that I can never remember the name of, but can always find.  It should be a good time though.  We do get to stay at the Bellagio.  Not to worry, I'll post pictures of my hotel room.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get a room on the fountain side, but I probably won't.  That's ok, I'll still feel like I'm living in the lap of luxury.

I'm the only one out there until the rest of the crew joins me on Sunday.  Josh's parents Jim and Nancy are going to be in Vegas this weekend too.  Nancy is running the Las Vegas Rock N' Roll Marathon with hopes that she'll qualify for Boston.  I wish I were running it, at least the half but I'm making sure that I'm not pushing myself to do too much.  By the end of this year (really in 10 months) I'll have run two half marathons and two marathons.  Anyway, I'm going to tag along with Jim to cheer her on.  I think she'll be able to qualify.  In order to qualify she'll need to finish the marathon under 4 hours and 15 minutes.  That's an average pace of about 9: 45 min/miles.  When she does, Josh and I are planning to head to Boston to cheer her on in the ultimate marathon.  It's the one that every marathoner strives for.  Me, it's not even on my radar yet.  In order to qualify I'd have to be able to run a marathon in under 3 hours and 40 minutes.  Eek!  That is fast.

Almost time to board which means it's almost nap time!