Half-Marathon Update & A Guest Post

On Saturday I ran (attempted to run) The Woodlands Half-Marathon. This would have been #6 for me. I went into this race majorly unprepared. When I originally signed up, I was training, but the last few months I just ran here and there and only ran 3 miles at the most. So, I knew this was going to be tough and I planned to just try to get thru it, even if I had to walk most of it. I met up with some of my running friends from Houston Fit before the race and decided to run it with my old coach, Alan. He was going into with the same mind set as me...just finish, who cares about time. We decided to do 2:1's- run 2 minutes, walk 1 minute. Well, I made it to about mile 8 before I was in some serious pain. Every step I took sent excruciating pain thru both of my feet. My legs felt great; I felt like I was actually going to finish with a decent time, even with my lack of training. But, my feet were in almost unbearable pain. From mile 8-10 I pretty much hobbled and limped thru it still determined to finish. Around mile 10 I noticed the IT band in my right leg was spasming. I could actually stop and look at the side of my knee cap at the bottom of my thigh and SEE it pulsing/spasming. By this point I was pretty sure my feet were bleeding. My coach and I decided it would be smart for me to drop out of the race around mile 10.5. There was no way I could even walk to the finish...I just had to give up and call my husband and ask him to come pick me up.

I spent the rest of the day in terrible pain. I could barely walk because of the pain in my feet. Sunday morning we woke up and I sat down to look closer at the bottom of my feet and whoa, HOLY BLISTERS!!!! These were not your normal, annoying little blisters. The heels of both of my feet, the balls of my feet and even my toes were covered in blisters. No wonder I could barely walk! I had my husband come take a look at them and we decided they all needed to be popped. Fun. So, he took a clean safety pin, sat on the floor and popped every single blister. He definitely wins "husband of the year" award for that! We put ointment on them and bandaged them up after he was done. I walked around the rest of the day in house slippers and tried to stay off of them as much as possible.

This is what I get for trying to run a half marathon without training. So, take note. Thankfully I am feeling much better. The blisters have started to heal and I can pretty much walk normal again.

My sweet friend Jackie & I before the race. She was there to cheer us all on!

Moving on... On Thursday I will be guest posting for one of my best friends, Jen, from Down With The Dearmores ( www.downwiththedearmores.blogspot.com ). So, make sure to check back for a fun "all things green" post! :)

Happy March!!

Hellooooo, March! This is going to be a busy, fun month...get ready! Now for a little bit of a random post...

- On Saturday I am running (probably more walking than running) The Woodlands Half-Marathon! Whohoo! This will be half-marathon #6 for me but this will be the 2nd half marathon that I have not properly trained for. Ooops. I had intentions of training when I signed up 6 months ago but life got busy and I slacked. So, my goal is just to finish, even I have to walk half of it. Luckily I have been working hard to get back in shape...working out with my trainer, doing cardio a few times a week and eating pretty healthy. So I am hoping the theory that "muscles remember" will work for me on Saturday :)



- I finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand last week (I did a post on this when I was half way thru reading it) and if you are looking for a new book to read- READ THIS!! Seriously one of the best books I have ever read.
I finished reading Taylor Armstrong's (from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) book, Hiding From Reality, yesterday. Check back tomorrow for a full review of it!



- Monday morning I am flying to Nashville, TN and will be spending a week in Calvert City, Kentucky, for work! I have not been to TN or KY since I was little so I am really excited to be in both of those states, even if it is for work! But, I will get to see my friend Jon who is in the Army and stationed there, so hopefully I can have a little fun!


- I swear tomorrow I will finish the February Photo A Day Challenge! I turned out to be such a slacker towards the end. But I WILL finish it!

Movies you should see & a Half-Marathon recap!

What was supposed to be a normal 2 day weekend ended up being a 3 day weekend thanks to some Mexican food making me sick all day Friday. So, I had a great excuse to lay around and catch up on some movies I have wanted to see!

First, I watched Water for Elephants. Have any of you seen this movie?!?! I absolutely LOVED it! I heard the movie was really good but sad and that turned out to be very true. There were 2 parts that I had to fast forward through...I could tell what was about to happen and I could not stand to watch so I just skipped those parts. I am not telling you what happens but if you have seen it I am sure you know what I am talking about it and if you haven't seen it but you start watching it, you will know it when you come to it. There are a few parts that are really sad and disturbing but this is such a great movie! I loved Rob Pattinson & Reese Witherspoon together in this movie and loved, loved, loved the ending!! If you have not seen this movie yet, you need to ASAP!


Next, my hubby and I watched The Change-Up. HILARIOUS!!!! Anything with Jason Bateman is funny; I love him! Ryan Reynolds plays a single guy who is living the single life...going out every night, dating tons of women, not a care in the world. Jason Bateman is married with twin babies and a 5 year old and his life has gotten a little boring and very routine. Long story short they manage to switch places for several days and go crazy trying to live each others lives. This is a must see if you are looking for a funny, romantic comedy!



Sunday morning I got up bright and early and headed to Humble to meet up with some of my Houston Fit girlfriends to run in the RunGirl Half-Marathon! It is a small women's only half-marathon sponsored by TriGirl. At one point I planning on running the whole half-marathon but I forgot to sign up and due to the insanely busy past few months I did not train properly. So, my friend Robyn from Goldstein's Growing Family ( www.goldsteinsgrowing.blogspot.com )and I decided to do the relay. Neither one of us were really trained to run a full half-marathon but we really wanted to do this race so we thought the relay would be perfect. The 13.1 mile course was at this beautiful park right on Lake Houston and the temp's were in the low 40's. Robyn ran the first 6.55 miles and I ran the 2nd 6.55 miles. I felt great thru the 4th mile then I started having shooting pains come from my left foot up thru my entire leg. A couple times I was convinced I was running with a broken bone in my foot. The pain I felt the last 2 miles was so severe that I considered dropping out of the race...but, I was almost done and I wanted that pretty pink medal so I kept going :) The 4 half marathon's I have ran before were all 20,000 people or more so this was a really nice change...there were only 1200 people in this race! The course was so pretty...we ran along Lake Houston and on winding roads thru the forest, lined with Fall trees. Everyone was saying that this would be such a good race for someones first half-marathon...so, if any of you out there are training or have ever considered running a half, you should consider this one. The next one is a year away though, but at least you would have plenty of training time!





Whohoo! 5 Half-Marathon's (including 1 relay) done! Next up- The Woodlands half in March :)

Back in the swing of things

What a craaaazy month November has been! I am so looking forward to December. I will not be traveling for work again until January and I just LOVE this time of year!

I have not been able to blog much lately so here are a few updates:

- We are hoping to get an offer on our house this week!! We have 3 couples that are really interested in it and our realtor is expecting an offer to come thru at any time now! YAY!!! Let's just hope it is an offer we like :)

- Our new house is coming right along! It is still on track to be ready in the middle or end of February. We went to see it on Saturday and the sheet rock is up, the plumbing and electric outlets have been installed and it has a roof! This is it as of Saturday morning:



- Chris and I are starting to train for The Woodlands Half-Marathon today! Whohoo! It is just a little over 4 months away. This will be my 5th Half-Marathon and his first. I have been in a major funk with running this past year but I am going to try to get back into it. I always go thru phases with running...I do really well for a few months then I get burnt out and just quit running all together. Maybe (hopefully!) this time will be different :)

- Chris turned 30 last Friday!! We had such a fun day celebrating with his family in Oklahoma then spending the evening with my family in The Woodlands. Then, we went out with about 25 of our friends on Saturday night and had a little too much fun. ;) Pictures to come tomorrow!

- The next couple of weeks are going to be filled with a lot of Christmas fun...I have a couple Pinterest projects in the works, finishing up Christmas shopping, a lot of baking & cooking, Christmas music & scents, parties and family and friends. I. can. not. wait.


Happy Monday!

Denver & A Life Update

Wow, I did not think it was possible to be busier than we were during our engagement, but IT IS! Every single weekend and every single night of the week either I have something, hubby does or we do together. I just saw Chris for the first time in 8 days, yesterday. Ugh. Not fun...

So, some updates.... I got home from Denver on Friday night. I had a great trip there...got a lot done at work, got to spend a couple nights with a friend from High School and visited Columbine High School and the Memorial (pictures to come). Chris left Friday morning to go to Baton Rouge for the weekend to visit his little brother and go to the LSU vs. Auburn game so he did not get home until Sunday afternoon.

I spent the Saturday with our realtor looking at houses in The Woodlands. Not sure if I mentioned this before but, we are moving!! We currently live in the city but are ready to move back to the suburbs, so for the past several weeks we have spent hours on HAR (for those of you that live in Houston), had several meetings with our realtor and spent a lot of time getting our house ready to go up for sale. Well, it will officially be up for sale tomorrow! It will be in the newspaper on Sunday and be on the internet within the next week and Sunday is our first open house. We have found a few houses that we love but we don't want to buy anything until there is a contract on our current house. So, we will see how it goes. I am praying it does not take too long to sell our house! For all you Houston bloggers- if you or anyone you know wants to move inside the loop, let me know :)

Sunday morning I got up super early and met a couple friends by Memorial Park to cheer on our friends that were running in the Houston Half-Marathon. It was so good to see so many friends out there running! It kind of made me miss it, but not really enough to start training again...unfortunately.



I spent the rest of the day running errands and doing some things around the house and making sure it was ready for it's first showing this week. Chris got home and cooked me dinner and we spent more time looking at houses :) This is what our lives revolve around right now. Well, also football...

This week is more of the same... we are going to look at a couple houses tonight, then celebrating my MIL's birthday in The Woodlands tomorrow, Wednesday we have nothing (PRAISE THE LORD!!), Thursday Chris flys to OKC for a meeting and comes back Friday, then Saturday he leaves for College Station and comes back Sunday. CRAAAZY!

Sorry for the boring update but I haven't been able to post in over a week so I felt the need to update you :)

Hope you all had a great weekend!! Happy Manic Monday!!!!!!!!!!!

Half-Marathon Training Update & Weekend Recap

Training has gotten off to a bit of a rough start. My week day runs have been slacking (this is always my problem) and it is miserably hot so my runs on Saturday's have been really hard. With only 4 months until my race I have seriously got to step it up.

I love my new group I am running with on Saturday mornings...I have met some great ladies and have found a group that is right at my pace. We are only up to a little over 3 miles but every Saturday the mileage is getting higher. Tempo runs and hill training start this week. Those are on Tuesday & Thursday evenings. You would think that running around 6:30 PM would be better because the temperature would drop...but, nope, not here in Houston. It is still over 100 degrees at that time of the day...so, no matter what time of the day/night you run- IT IS HOT.

Last week I did do Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred EVERY DAY though =) Whohoo! I was sore all week but it felt great to stick with it. Besides running on Saturday, I did not work out at all over the weekend so I am back at it today.

This past weekend was one of the most uneventful weekends I have had in a really, really long time. And I absolutely LOVED it. We had all sorts of plans for Saturday but literally EVERYTHING fell thru. Friday night I cooked a new recipe I found, Zucchini, Squash & Chicken Sausage Pasta (It was delicious...I will probably post the recipe tomorrow) and we watched a movie. Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30 and ran 3 miles with Houston Fit, got a manicure & pedicure, baked a cake, piddled around the house then laid in bed and watched a movie and TV for hours. It was perfect. Sunday, we did more of the same...had breakfast at Hungry's, went to the grocery store then just hung out at home ALL day. Hubby got a deep fryer recently and he fried some catfish for us last night. It was delicious!

We managed to watch 4 movies this weekend! I don't think that has ever happened before. Here they are-

-Limitless- Stars Bradley Cooper...really good movie, definitely recommend it.
-Just Go With It- Stars Jennifer Anniston & Adam Sandler...your typical corny romantic comedy.
-Hall Pass- Stars Owen Wilson & Jason Sudeikis....HILARIOUS!
-Get Him to the Greek- Stars Jonah Hill & Russell Brand...very innapropriately funny.

Saturday night we had plans to go out to dinner at Benjy's then go to White Linen Night in the Heights with some friends. We were mainly going out to celebrate my best friend, Holly's, birthday but she ended up not being able to come so we just decided to stay home.

Hope you all had a fun & relaxing weekend, too! =)

~Wednesday Randoms~

1. My friend Kim and I signed up for Cake Decorating classes yesterday at Michael's! I have always wanted to take a class there and I love cake so this is perfect. It was cheap and there are only 3 or 4 two-hour classes. So, by the end of August I hope to be a cake decorating genius ;)

2. I am almost done reading Jaycee Dugard's book, A Stolen Life. Some parts are pretty disturbing and some parts a little boring, but it is an amazing story about her 18 years in captivity. She goes into great detail about everything from the day she was kidnapped, to what life was like for 18 years living in a backyard, to giving birth to 2 girls before she was even 15 and so much more. It is an unbelievable story...

3. I started (again) Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred workouts on Monday...OUUUUCH! I am so sore and so out of shape it is pathetic. Running is just not enough so I am trying to add in some other forms of exercise. I love the P90X workouts (I don't know that love is the right word to use...) and Jillian Michael's workouts so I think I am just going to try to do a mixture of those 3 or 4 times a week. I used to be so flexible and in shape; now I just feel like a slob-kabob. Mission "lose 20 lbs and get in shape" is on!

4. For those of you in Houston, have you been to City Center in West Houston?! It is AWESOME! It is at Beltway 8 & I-10. There are tons of new restaurants, shops and it is so pretty. Here are just some of the goodies found here-
-Eddie V's
-Flora & Muse
-Cyclone Anayas
-Brio Tuscan Grille
-Yard House
-Straits Restaurant
-RA Sushi
-Tasting Room
-Studio Movie Grill
-Hotel Sorella
-Sur la Table
-Urban Outfitters
-Anthropologie
-Free People
-Olive & Vine
-Elaine Turner
And much, much more! There is still so much space available too, so who knows what will be showing up over the coming months.
It reminds me a lot of City Place in West Palm Beach, FL where I used to live. All the restaurants have outdoor areas, there are fountains, fire pits, large grassy areas, Farmer's Market every Saturday, and concerts. This is a great place to try if you have not been yet!

5. Looks like there is a Tropical Storm forming close to the Gulf and there is a very good chance it will head this way! This is normally not something I would be excited about but we have not had rain in so long and Texas desperately needs it. So, it would be great if it did not turn into a hurricane and did not do any damage...just bring a lot of good rain :)

Happy Wednesday! We are half-way to Friday!

Week 1 of Half-Marathon Training Round 3 Begins!!

It is official...this week begins my 3rd round of training with Houston Fit for my half-marathon training! Whohoo!! Orientations begin this week and the first group run in Saturday. But, I will be on my way to the beaches of North Carolina on Saturday morning so I will miss that run, but I do plan on doing it on my own. I will officially start running with my group next week. For the first time in a LONG time I am really excited to get back into the training and have a couple goal races to train for. I have ran 4 half-marathons in the past 2 years....2 of them I trained for but really struggled through them and barely finished, the other 2 I did not train for. So, yesterday when my hubby asked me if I was going to do anything differently this time around it got me thinking... First of yall, yes, I plan on doing many things differently. To name a few-

-In the past I did not really focus on the nutrition side of running. I really need to lose a good 20ish lbs and have needed to for the past couple of years. I continued to eat what I wanted and never lost any weight. You would think if you are running 20-35 miles a week you would lose some weight right? Not me...I did not change my diet ( if anything I ate more because I was hungry ALLLLL the time ) so I did not lose weight. This time around I really want to focus on eating cleaner, healthier foods, cooking more at home and FINALLY lose these extra pounds! I need to learn that when I carb load before a long run that does NOT mean I need to eat a giant bowl of pasta and 4 pieces of bread. Duh. So, this is going to be something I really am going to work on.

-Next, in the past I found every excuse under the sun to miss runs....I was not consistent with my week day runs and when I would miss a run with the group, I would not do it on my own most of the time. I got pretty good at saying no to doing anything on Friday nights and used to Saturday morning long runs, but it was the week day runs that I slacked on. Those weekday shorter training runs are just as important as the long runs on Saturday mornings so I need to commit to going to as many as possible and if I have to miss a run, I need to do it on my own instead of just forgetting about it all together.

-Finally, I want to add in some cross-training to my running schedule! Maybe some spin classes, pilates, a couple days of P90X...we'll see. I just know it would help me lose the weight and make me stronger. I used to love working out and I miss that feeling I would get after a good class or workout, so this is definitely an important goal :)

If I can lose some weight and do these 3 things, I really think my training will be SO much better than the last....I will get stronger and faster, feel better about myself and grow to love running even more!

My first half-marathon will be December 11th in Houston. After that, the next one I am signed up for is The Woodlands Half-Marathon March 3, 2012. Here we go!!

Weekend Recap & Some Half-Marathon News

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Mine was good, minus the being sick part...
Friday night we had dinner at El Real and saw "Bad Teacher" with our friends Kim & Chris! El Real is awesome...for those of you in Houston who have not been. It is quickly becoming one of my fave Mexican ( Tex-Mex ) restaurants in the area. The margarita mixed with sangria is DELICIOUS!! Stong, but delicious :) It is very reasonably priced, the service is awesome and the place is HUGE.
"Bad Teacher was good and really funny...definitley worth seeing. It was a little more vulgar that I thought it would be but we all laughed a lot and had a great time. I love Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake and thought they were great together is this movie!

Saturday we attempted to sleep in ( it did not work ), Chris cooked us breakfast and we started our errands & house projects. We went to Hobby Lobby and I finally found a cookbook stand that I have been looking for! YAY! I serioulsy have looked EVERYWHERE and finally found one at Hobby Lobby. That is the greatest store ever. We ended up buying a lot more than we went for and spending way more than we planned...but it was all stuff we needed/wanted for our house :) We went to Macy's and finished buying a few things we needed that we forgot to register for. Thank goodness for giftcards...luckily we got a TON of them so we did not have to spend any of our own money. I started feeling really bad at this point so we went home before doing anything else. I laid down for a few minutes thinking I would feel a little better if I rested and I ended up sleeping for about 3 hours! While I slept, Chris went shopping for new flowers for our little yard and some stones and planted them on his own. So sweet :)

Sunday I had a bunch of random house projects to do so that kept me busy all day. I am going to post some pics later this week on the progress I have made!
My hubby makes the best ribs EVER and I had made a special request earlier in the week for him to make them over the weekend so he made them for us Sunday night and they were amazing, as always!

This was the first weekend we have both been in town at the same time and home since our wedding! It was so nice to have a weekend at home to get some rest, finish some house projects and cook our own meals... hopefully one day we have more weekends like that!

Now, on to the latest running news...I did not get into the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon lottery. :( I knew there was a very good chance of this happening but I am pretty disappointed. I have ran this half marathon the past 2 years and always have a lot of friends that do it, so it will be sad not to be part of it this year. But I am excited for a lot of my friends who did get in and are running their first FULL MARATHON!!! WHOHOO! I will definitetly be there to cheer all of them on!
Now I am looking for a half-marathon to do sometine in January or the beginning of February. I have quite a few options but would like to try to find one that I know people who will also being running in it... So, I will have to work on that.
Since I was sick last week and over the weekend I only got to run 3 miles. So much for that 10 mile goal, huh? And unfortunately, I am still a little sick...I have an awful cough and can't breathe thru my nose. So, I am not going to expect much this week either. I would like to at least walk the Memorial Park Loop a couple times just to get some exercise in but we'll see.

Hopefully this week flys by... I am ready to spend 4th of July weekend out on Lake Conroe.

Hope you all had a great weekend. Happy Monday!

Sick, Sick, Sick....

Ugh, I am so sick =( Chris had it the past week and now I have it. I think it is just a cold/sinus infection, but it sucks. I have no energy and can hardly focus on anything I try to do. BUT, my sweet friend, Sarah, at work shared half of her red velvet cupcake and a chocolate dipped chocolate chip cookie with me...and all of a sudden I am feeling a tad bit better! It is amazing chocolate has this affect on me. The Mucinex might have had something to do with that too....

So, I had a goal of running 10 miles this week. Thanks to this head cold that is not going to happen I guess. I know that may not seem like much to most of my running friends out there, but I have not ran in a VERY long time and the last time I did run, I ran/speed walked 13.1 miles without any training and it nearly killed me. So, baby steps here people. I decided that every Sunday I would make a running goal for myself for that week and do my absolute best to stick with it. On Tuesday I ran 3 miles...well, let's say I ran probably a mile and a half then had to walk the rest of it because I thought I was going to pass out from the heat and how out of shape I am right now. I am hoping I feel better in the next day or 2 that way I can do at least 3 more this weekend or more...anything to get my a little closer to that 10 mile goal. If not, Sunday starts a new week and I will set a new goal and start over. My running group that I am part of, Houston Fit, has a new session that starts in the middle of July and I plan on joining again and starting completely over with training. I will be back to training for half-marathons! Whohoo!! Speaking of half-marathons... Today is the LAST day to register for the Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon Lottery! Sign up before 11:59 PM tonight for a chance at getting chosen in a lottery to run one of these races in January 2012. I signed up for the lottery at the beginning of the month and I really hope I get in. Everyone will know if they did or did not by next Monday. Keep your fingers crossed!!

Happy Running & stay well!