It’s that kinda relationship…

So I think mine and Ryan’s relationship can be summed up in a total of 2 photos. 

I believe they explain everything perfectly.  As you can see he’s overjoyed to have to spend time with me out of the office. But I digress….

I haven’t run in a full week now… I’m kinda depressed about this. My motivation level for actually getting out and doing it is zip!  Honestly, I’m willing to not push it and force myself to go run even though I don’t want to.  I know that’s not the response my coach would like to hear, but my response to him right now is-tough luck.

I know that the off-season is the time to really train and step up on everything, but I’m trying to finish up the semester and get everything done.  In addition, I have to do my internship stuff, along with work over the winter break.  So I’m going to attempt to get back on track with my running in the next few weeks but at the same time I’m not going to beat myself up about it.

Also, I’m getting more heavily involved with my student rights ideas.  In how the administration at SUNY Potsdam goes about punishing students who violate the student code.  Sometimes it is warranted and necessary, while other times it isn’t.  And not only is it not necessary, but the way that it is done is abusive. But I digress….. mostly because you don’t want to get me started on my long-winded rant.

On the plus side I JUST signed up for the Plattsburgh half, for those of you who are new to my blog- I run it every year for the past couple of years.  And…. *drum roll please* the Ottawa marathon in… Ottawa. Go figure.  I decided to forget the Lake Placid Marathon this year- my legs still haven’t quite forgiven me.  In the attempt to find a flatter “nicer” course. And I believe Ottawa is it, plus my mom said she’ll rent a hotel and we will have a lovely time of it together- there’s a 5k the day before the marathon she is possibly going to do.

Looking at the website again its more of a full running weekend with the 5k and 10ks on Saturday and the half-marathon and marathon on Sunday.  Well this should be fun and interesting!

I hope she does the 5k that way I can yell/encourage her the day before my race.  And then we can drink together Sunday night! Because by May I will be 21- obviously my birthday is in January…..

Anywhoser, that’s it for now…. starfish….. so until later, TTFN.

Lake Placid Marathon Recap.

Ok so sorry it’s been a few days after the marathon but things have been a bit hectic, but I will explain that later.  So I shall start at the beginning and go to  the end.   Sunday morning started off with a lovely wake up alarm at 3:30 am.  I kid you not.  This is what I like to call my ‘I just got up, don’t expect much’ face.

As we can all tell…. Not pretty.    But after a lovely hot cup of coffee with a bit of food in me I quickly turned into;

 a very serious Sara.  It’s my; “It’s 4:40 in the morning, do you know where your kids are‘ face.  Personally, if I had kids I’d be wondering where they were, but I don’t so I don’t care.

But let’s get for reals.  I quickly got down to business and was pumping up my jams to get into the mood for my race.  Plus, I got to wake my mom and brother Tim, who would be coming with me, up at 4:50 in order to leave by 5:15.

So perky Sara is up and ready for action!

In between my eating, drinking coffee, and getting pumped up I remembered to write on my arms.  Remember how I mentioned before since I wasn’t going for time I wanted to write thinks I was thankful for on my arm? You don’t? Well you know now. Anywho, I had to use both arms.

This was the first 13 miles.  And the next 13.2 miles were done on the other arm.  The ones on my left arm didn’t come out quite as neat as these ones, mostly because I’m not left-handed. 
Anywho, I found during the race that they turned out to be very good motivators for the first 1/2 but I managed to get sidetracked during the second 1/2 to the point that I wasn’t focusing on what I’d written quite as much.  So here’s the second 1/2;

As you can see I have a lot of motivation, and truthfully during the race the writing was smudged and sort of sweated off.  But I shall not dwell on my nastiness.  Moving along…

The car ride was pretty much uneventful.  All I really did was eat a bit more food, drink some water, and tape my feet to keep my blisters from rubbing raw and bleeding again.  Look at my handiwork;

Beautiful aren’t they? Anywho, we got to Lake Placid a tad before 6:30, because I’m anal retentive and made sure we left on time/early for the race.  Plus, this way we found a lovely parking spot, the registration, and most importantly- the bathrooms!  I shall now show you some scenic shots of the area where the start/finish was.  It was right next to the Olympic center in Lake Placid.

And the finish line;

This was actually in the outdoor speed skating oval. They had the last tenth of a mile on this track.  And in the center green were the registration tent, medical tent, massage tent, and food tent.  All very important once you finish.  Alas, I would not see the Finish again for several hours once the race started.  

Personally, I really enjoyed seeing the flags of all the other countries up around the oval.  But I digress… I checked in and got my number on, my number to marathon greatness!

Or I guess you could say number 31.  But that’s besides the point.  My mom and brother Tim did a great job of creepily following me around all day.  Which was very nice of them considering they could’ve gone to the beach or done some shopping.  Instead they decided to stalk me and keep me motivated and for that I am extremely grateful.  But we shall move on to their stalker-esc type pictures now. 

I think this is between miles 2 and 3, no wait.. I’m sure this is between miles 2 and 3.  I was still feeling good so I was smiling.  You know how misleading long runs are into making you feel fantabulous.  
Depending upon what loop this was I’m thinking either mile 5 or mile 14.  But it’s a toss up as to which loop so I don’t really know. 

When I get really delirious or in pain I like to make faces at people to distract myself.  Or to scare people away.  It depends. 

Oh lord! This is my main man and I.  he’s in the green shirt running next to me.  We legit became Besties during this marathon, we ran together for at least 6 miles and I learned his life story.  Haha I loved him! I never caught his name but he was straight up adorable and he kept me motivated which was nice.  

Sidenote time: My mom ran with me from mile 14-15, which was awesome cuz I was in a bad place mentally at that point and really needed that boost from my mom.  Well at the end of the race my brother came and found me with a mile left to go.  He came up next to me and asked: “May I have the honor of running this last mile with you?”  I almost starting crying it was so sweet.  So he helped keep me going to the end, which was nice because the last mile was pretty much all uphill, the race organizers just like to torture me. 

I don’t have any of my official finish right now, depending upon when the official pictures from the race are ready I’ll have some later.  But my mom took this after I finished.  My brother gave me a huge hug, which was nice because it kinda kept me standing to be honest.  Then of course what’s the first thing I want to do?  Well eat of course!

Mom! Stop making me pose with my medal when I’m attempting to stuff my face with as much food as possible!

Another Sidenote: I have a book that I write in all the things I want to accomplish before I die.  Well, I was looking through it before this weekend and I found #201. Run a marathon.  Well I’m happy to say that that goal has now been checked off, take a look for yourself; 

So that’s pretty much it for my epic journey of a marathon.  I ended up running it in 5:43:17, which I’m pretty proud of considering I learned after that it was one of the hardest courses not only because of hills, but because of elevation change.  So I figure if I can run/complete this marathon I can run/complete any marathon. 

Besides that, I won’t lie- I walked a bit during this race and I’m completely ok with it.  If you’re not, oh well, I don’t care.

Oh and I might have a stress fracture because hey when I run a marathon I do it right. 😛 

And I’d like to take a moment to say that my friend Justin was right, this was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done both physically and mentally.  I hit a lot of low points during the race and I’m damn proud of myself for not quitting.

But I won’t worry about that till I see the Dr.  for the rest of this week its rest. Both because I want to and because I have to. 
You see I had eye surgery on Monday to take care of a droopy eye lid I’ve had for over a year now.  Hence why I didn’t blog about my race yesterday.   Because well… this is what I looked like; 

Yes I am smiling even though I can only see out of one eye.  Why? You ask, well that’s because I like the nickname Cyclops.

Anywho, I got the bandage off today and so I shall show you a picture of me today.  It’s not to bad, a bit swollen and bruised but that is to be expected. 

So that is all I believe I have to say.  I think I’ve talked myself out for now and I hope all y’all are appropriately satisfied since you had to wait a few extra days for the recap. 
So that’s it for now, until later TTFN.

The Secrets to my Success

Piggybacking off of my post the other day, I’ve decided to describe how I’ve been able to train and become faster and come to enjoy running even more <– is that possible??? Anywho if you aren’t interested…. well I don’t care it’s my blog I’ll write what I wish.  First off, I’ve gotten rid of my watch.  WHAT?!?! You’re probably saying. Get rid of my watch? But yes, I did just that.  Not caring about what my time or splits are makes me feel so much more free.  Also, I run however long my body wants to run, 2o minutes, an hour who cares? I ran the other day in a thunderstorm for 50 minutes.  It was so much fun!  As runners when become fixated on training for races, improving our PR, etc.  We forget what it was like to run for fun, like when we were kids and it was simply a way to get away from the person who was it in a game of tag.  So that’s basically it, I’ve given you the secret: I let go.   I stopped caring as much, don’t get me wrong I still want to do well, but I’m learning how to just have fun when I run again instead of worrying the whole time about distance and time.

So now that I’ve let you in on my secret I’ll give you an update on my preparations for my marathon next week.  Well my feet, they’re still in shambles from the blisters, my band-aids fell off during a run yesterday and rubbed them raw again.

Take a gander at the beauty that is my foot, lovely isn’t it? Well for the next few days I’m going to be experimenting with different bandage techniques so that my feet don’t completely bleed during my marathon.  So that it one thing I am preparing.  Another thing I’m preparing is fuel aka  food!

These beautiful little suckers are amazing to me.  I love them they give me energy and are delicious.  I’m hoping to not have to tap into them until like 10 miles.  I did my half-marathons without food and minimal amounts of water/Gatorade so I’m hoping that I can not use these for as long as possible.  Though I do know that I will need them eventually if I don’t want to cramp up and die.   This brings me to my next point. We all I’m not going for a time since this is my 1st marathon.  Well I’ve been reading this book called Mile Markers by Kristin Armstrong.  And it is about what we run for, in one of the chapters the women write for each mile something they are thankful for on their arm.  So I’ve decided that I’m going to do that.  I’ll be thankful to get through the marathon and I’m going to give thanks the whole way.  So that’s my new plan.

Moving right along, I have a race tomorrow.  It’s a 5k and if any of you are from the Albany area you will know it, it’s the Freihofer’s run for Women.  This will be the 3rd year my mom and I are running it.  So I’ve decided to put together a spectacular outfit to run it in. 

Isn’t it beautiful? I thought what better way for my family to find me during the finish but to be in neon color clothes? So I’m wearing the neon green shirt from last year’s give away, neon pink shorts I just bought, and my pink bra (no one will see this, but it’s my lucky bra).  Anywho, I’m very excited and I can’t wait tomorrow, especially since I get a free box of cookies, that’s what I’m really in this for. 😛

Anywho, that’s it for now.  I’m going to go try taking care of my feet and I’m going to finish getting some things ready for tomorrow.  So that’s it for now, Until later TTFN.

Oh, and I’ll leave y’all with a question or two:

1. How do you get fun back into your running?
2. Any suggestions for bandaging my feet?

Sometimes you just need to…….enjoy.

So I’ve had a lovely few days back at home so far.  Friday night my dad and I managed to make it home in time to see my brother all dressed up for his prom.  And then he left and the unpacking began.  I’ve been unpacking for 3 days straight.  Mostly because when I don’t have a lot to do, the little I do have to do gets done very slowly.  Sorta like this blog.  Sorry guys for taking so long post anything new!

I shall recap my past few days.  Let’s start with Saturday, so Saturday I woke up, went for a run with the mommy.  Mind you it was a pretty decent run, but it took FOREVER! My mom runs slower than I do, but it was fun to run with her and I guess I pushed her because we did like 5.38 miles and she said that was the farthest she’d ever run.  So I’m quite proud of my mommy. Also, I continued to unpack and then putz around.  And finally, the big adventure of the day……… FARMER”S MARKET!  I was so excited, I wanted to go like all during finals week, and I kept bugging my mom.  I shall now photo bomb you with pictures of what I bought…. and ate.

Some delicious baguette, that I ate with some cold cuts we had and some of the cheese I bought, and my pickles!

I got 2 cheese.  One is some cheese name that I dont’ know and the other is a goat garlic mozzarella cheese that I put on my burger when we had them for dinner.  Shhhh, don’t tell my family it is goat cheese, they don’t know and they wouldn’t have eaten it otherwise. Tehehe I’m bad :P.  Anywho, I had to eat some lovely fresh homemade pickles with my delicious sandwich.

But…… apparently my picture of my pickles isn’t working so you are just going to have to take my word that they were delicious.  And what better way to wash it all down but with apple cider? I don’t think there’s any better way to wash it down!  I mean I love apple cider and my younger brother Tim does too, he bought himself 2 of the jugs of apple cider- JUST FOR HIMSELF!  But hey, he likes the stuff so I guess I can’t argue.  And also I bought my Dad and I 2 lbs of mussels for dinner, they were delicious and they weren’t sandy or anything they were pretty much perfect.

They were super fresh and still smelled like freshness when I brought them home.  And most importantly they were delicious.

So that was my Saturday.  My Sunday involved me going to church and then going for a bike ride with my dad which was a lot of fun, he doesn’t really wait up much though… he’s kinda a super champ on the bike where I’m kind of like a 5-year-old with my ability to bike well. But I digress…

Also, I continued unpacking, yes I know it takes me forever to unpack, but I will defend myself by saying that I also clean my room/get rid of anything I don’t need while unpacking.  So I say that is the reason why it takes so long.

And now today: Monday.  So far, I haven’t done much to be honest.  But I kinda like not doing very much because I’ve been doing so much for so long.   So what better way to start off my summer, but with pancakes?

I mean c’mon.  We all know that I love pancakes.  I kind of burnt them a little, it’s going to take me awhile to get used to this new kitchen and stove.  By the end of the semester I had perfected making pancakes on my townhouse’s stove and now I have to start all over.  Oh well.  I’m going to for a run in a few hours then probably veg out and then my mom and I are going to go for another run after dinner.  So a day jam-packed full of running-Epic!

So that’s it for now, until later TTFN.