procrastination wins!

this is what i feel like doing today.
but instead i have been researching biology for hours and hours.
i should be doing it right now, but i'm not.
i'm procrastinating.
{i'm very good at that}
i feel like i'm getting no where on the research front.
it probably wouldn't be so bad if i didn't feel like the class was pointless and i didn't have exams to study for in my classes that actually do matter.

oh well, such is life and it must be done.
only like, 4 more weeks of school though!
woohoo to that!!

speaking of 4 more weeks.
the next 4 weeks of my life are going to be crazy busy.
but crazy fun!
10 mile race this weekend.
in cousin's wedding the next.
thunder over louisville the next.
derby half marathon the next!!!!
and then school is done! woohoo to that!
i can.not.wait.

speaking of cousin's wedding.
my favoritest cousin is getting married on april 10th!
i have a goal on my 23 things list to spend a girl's day with her before she gets married.
we had it planned, but it got snowed out.
so, it doesn't look like that will be happening :(
hopefully after she gets married though!!
i picked up my bridesmaid dress for her wedding last night.
right after josh and i did 2 hours of spin class, i took a shower and then tried it on.


it fits! :)
don't mind the towel on my head or my pink bra straps.
neither of those will be making an appearance at the wedding ;-)
i hope bra straps aren't offensive in bloggy world?
the dress comes with optional straps, so if you're offended just pretend they're the straps to the dress.
just a different color.

okay... enough procrastinating.
i am off to my next class.
and thus ends the most pointless blog post of the day.
you have now successfully wasted 5 minutes of your life reading it.
you're welcome.


i think after class i'll play ball with kosmo.
instead of research biology. shhhh.

happy tuesday!

a walk through the park & other weekend happenings.

Unfortunately, spring break is officially over in less than two hours. Even though we didn't go anywhere, it was nice not to have to worry about school, do school work, read school books, check school e-mail, or think about school at all in general. For a whole week. Bliss. And I'm not really looking forward to going back because I'll have to hit the ground running with a test in every class this week {one being a take-home exam which = harder than an in-class exam}, plus I have to start researching for a biology project. Blahhh. Do you know how much I've studied or researched? None. Remember? Nothing to do with school for a whole week and now BAM. This week should be fun. Oh well, I don't have to think about it for another 11 hours until I go back to my first class.

Anywho. The weekend was nice. On Friday Mr. B and I ventured over to Louisville.


Our first stop was the Bats Stadium. Some of our friends work over there and they're busy getting ready for opening day on April 14th! It was pretty cool to get to see the stadium from that point of view. I can't wait for baseball season and big Kizito cookies!!!! Fun side story: a Bats baseball game was mine and Josh's first "real" date. :)

Then we went on a walk to the Waterfront Park. On the way there we ran into none other than the official FINISH LINE FOR DERBY!!!!


I had to take a picture with it, you know, just in case I don't make it there again... ;-)

negative thoughts be gone! I will TOTALLY make it there again!!

Then we took pictures with these birds:




When your boyfriend is experimenting with his new camera, sometimes you stand around and scratch your head and say, "You want me to do what?!" while he snaps 50 photos to get all the settings right.

"Uhhh...?"

Then you find out he wants you to jump, which sometimes works out well, and sometimes leaves you looking like a wannabe grizzly bear or something.


RAWR. I iz gwizzly bare. ?

Moving on. On Saturday, I woke up o'dark thirty again and went to running group. This time my running buddy Erica was out of town so the 9 mile run was pretty dang boring. I tackled HH {hellacious hill} a few times though, with only minor soreness in my knee afterwards. Hooray! I can't believe the 10 miler is this weekend! I might have just had a small panic attack and doubted if I was really capable of all this running!!?! ZOMG.

After running group I went straight to the Y where Josh was a cute little race official for the Tri-at-the-Y.


He had a flag and everything. AND they had my favorite post-race Panera bagels there, so I was pretty stoked! :)

Later in the day, Mr. B bought me a blender! He sure knows the way to my heart. ;-) I have been wanting one for awhile now because I love making smoothies and miss having the option to include them as a staple in my daily diet.

This was at around 9:30pm while we were making spaghetti for dinner. Then we stayed up til 3am watching Hoarders and doing photography experiments in the bathroom.

I'm going to let Mr. B edit them before I show the final products, but here are a couple previews:



Marge Simpson hair, anyone?

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!! :o)

How about another HMTU?

It's been awhile since I've posted a real half marathon training update. I'm now less than a month away from my first half marathon!!! YIKES!

Training is getting harder and this week was kind of mixed up because of spring break and running groups. Being on spring break allowed me the option to either go to gym classes that I can't usually go to or to running group that's usually hard to make it to because of class. I would have loved to fit it all in, but I had another obstacle:


I've been battling some awesome allergies this week. And by awesome I mean dreadful, awful, horrific, sick-nasty, you name it. My head has been all stuffy, I can't breathe out of my nose and I sound like a man when I talk. It's been fantastic, let me tell you.

On Tuesday I went to my old favorite Crosstrain class that I usually have to miss because of school. So that was nice. Then on Wednesday I could have gone to Turbokick, but I went to running group instead since I didn't have class. I thought these lovely allergies were going to be awful on the run, but actually I probably felt the best I did all day while I was running.

The weather was perfect for a run, and Erica and I tackled my favorite hill in Cherokee Park that I affectionately like to call the Hellacious Hill. And by favorite hill I really mean least favorite hill of all time. It's seriously killer and always slows me down tremendously, but at least we didn't stop! I'm going to have to consult Gertie the Garmin and see just how much elevation it actually is. I wonder if I even want to know.

I also finally ate some Sports Beans before this run. They didn't upset my tummy or anything like that, so I guess that's good. Maybe that's why I felt so good during this run even though I have the head cold from hades? I actually almost felt guilty eating them because they tasted just like regular jelly beans.

Oh yeah... my speed work this week? EVIL. I decided that 10 quarter mile repeats are in the dictionary next to the word evil. O.M.G. I thought I was going to die. I always feel so good about myself after my speed work though... even if they are slower than Josh's warm up runs. Oh well. I still feel good about myself. Probably because I'm just ecstatic that my legs are still attached to my body.

Thoughts this week:

• 10 quarter mile repeats = evil
• hooray for running up hellacious hill without stopping!
• allergies blow!!
• I hope I can breathe for my long run this weekend {tomorrow}
• 8 days until the 10 miler....29 until the mini!!!!! GULP

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."

- Steve Prefontaine

some photography experiments :)

Even though I generally just take "every day" pictures to document life, it's fun to experiment with different photography techniques, which is what Josh likes to do. A few weeks ago we gave water drop photography another shot {you can see our first attempt here}.

Josh took the first 3:

His are definitely better than mine, but it was still fun to do!



We've also been working on speed photography with the Kosmo. I can't take credit for any of these pictures, Josh took them all. But I did stand at the end of the block and bribe Kosmo with a treat to make him run fast :)






I love his face in the last picture!!

The last thing we experimented with is called light painting. I thought it was pretty neat!



These pictures aren't photoshopped! And yet there are multiple Joshes! He's been cloned!! We have some neat ideas for light painting pictures so hopefully we can try them out soon!

Warm today, cold tomorrow.

Today the high temperature is a chilly 45 degrees and the forecast predicts cold rain. On Saturday the high was 68 and it was absolutely beautiful! Welcome to Southern Indiana's crazy, un-predictable weather. Hello, allergies.


Anyway, back to Saturday. I had fresh flowers on the table and the windows were open, a breeze was blowing in and you could hear the birds outside. It was wonderful and almost made cleaning the house for 3 hours fun. :) Just kidding, it actually was pretty fun because Josh and I cleaned it together and plus it's always nice to have things clean and organized.

Of course, we don't usually clean for 3 hours for no reason. We're not that ambitious {or clean} apparently. We were having friends over for dinner.


I think we should have friends over for dinner more often because we eat better food when we do. We had grilled turkey loin, grilled sweet potatoes, and green beans. Who wants to come over tomorrow night?? I love the smell of the grill and I hope the summer months mean more grilled dinners!

Eric & Katie brought over their miniature schnauzer, Jackson, who is twice the size of my little Tobey!!


I had to take a picture of him next to Kosmo for comparison. Here's a picture of Tobey and Kosmo from November:


Crazy how much bigger Jackson is!!! I think Katie said he weighs about 25 pounds, and Tobey is a measly 12.

The dogs played really well together... minus Bogey who was too fat lazy to come down the stairs and play!


Speaking of Bogey, we are dog-sitting him again. You may remember him or his coat from back in January.

Bogey finally made it down the stairs, but only after Josh carried him. He then just kind of stood there and wondered what he was supposed to do. Silly, fat, little Bogey.

Dinner was delicious {all thanks to Josh... except I slaved over the stove for those green beans!} and Katie shared some of her favorite wine with me, which I now can't remember the name of. It was good though! Happy Spring!

Good day, good food, good friends.
Life is good :)

Leg 2 of the Triple Crown... 1 to go!

Yesterday I ran my first 10k race which just so happened to be on the first day of spring! It actually ended up being a day full of firsts!

Race morning started off like any other race morning: too freakin' early. I woke up at 5:45am and ate breakfast {half of an english muffin with cinnamon butter on it... because I'm still not entirely sure what I'm supposed to eat for breakfast on race days}. Apparently that wasn't enough though because I was starving by the time we got there. I packed some Sports Beans and was planning on eating them either right before the race or during the race in order to try them out, but I never got around to it. So I'm still not sure if I like Sports Beans. Oh well.


I met up with Erica before the race so we could run together! This was the first race that I've ever actually run with someone. Or rather, tried to run with someone.. but more on that later.

We warmed up a little bit and then got in line to start. My mom wished me good luck but Josh had wandered off so I didn't even get to see him again until the end. Finally the gun went off and off we went. I think it only took a minute or so for us to cross the start line... not bad considering there were over 8,000 people running.

Mile 1 {10:22}
We started off doing 9 minute miles, but we didn't want to start off too fast and burn out later so we tried to stay between a 10:00 and 10:30 pace. According to Gertie we were going 7:45 at some point. Oops.

Mile 2 {10:35}
Even though Josh originally told me the course was flat, there was actually a hill in mile 2. It wasn't huge and nothing like the ones in Cherokee Park but we all know how I feel about hills.

Mile 3 {10:37}
Sometime in this mile I started getting a pain in my chest. It wasn't side stitch, it was different than that. It was at the top of my ribs and it just kept getting worse and worse and radiated pain in my back. I'm sure I was running like Quasimoto and people around me were wondering if I was having a conniption fit or something. I've never felt anything like it before. I was hoping I could just run it out like I normally do when things bother me. I ran with it for close to a mile trying to change the way I was breathing, applying pressure to it, etc etc.. anything to try to make it better but it was just getting worse. Finally I realized I still had over 2.5 miles to go and there was no way I could run like that for that long. I told Erica to go ahead and I'd try to catch up.

Mile 4 {11:08}
I stopped to walk so I could actually get a breath. I'm not sure how long I was walking. I'm sure it was less than it seemed but I was so disappointed in myself. I knew I could run the whole distance so having to stop was discouraging. I still had the pain in my chest but I put on my music and just decided to go for it. I really tried to make up the time in the next 2 miles. Also sometime during this mile, the race suffered its first casualty. I saw it coming and I kept telling myself, "Road kill up ahead! Don't look at it, don't look at it! DON'T LOOK AT IT!!" and then I looked at it. It was a bunny. Poor bunny. I wish I had not looked at it :(

Mile 5 {9:58}
Finally the pain in my chest subsided and I was feeling much better. I had a nice little pace going and I was hoping to still meet my goal {to finish between 1:02 and 1:06}. It was during this mile that I saw something else I'd never seen before: the first time I saw someone poop their pants during a race. I've heard of this happening {though usually at marathons, not at 10k's}, but I'd never seen it in person. Now, I know running makes your body do crazy things and maybe the poor girl couldn't help it, but they did have porta-potties set up along the course. And if she was slow enough to be anywhere near me then she obviously wasn't going to win the race anyway, so why not take a 2 minute potty break?

Mile 6 {10:09}
I don't really remember too much about anything that happened during this mile. I was trying not to look at my time because I didn't want to psych myself out if I wasn't going to make my goal. I just kept telling myself I only had a mile left... just one mile, I can totally do that. Even with my ribs still feeling like a toothpick was poking them {which was better than the knife from earlier} I can totally run another mile.

Final 0.29 {2:33}


At this point I was running an 8:45 pace, according to Gertie. My best was 6:50. I think I was just ready to get it over with and plus I was super thirsty. As I rounded the corner to the finish line, I heard someone yell for me. It was my friend Crystal, who obviously had already finished the race. I saw Josh there and I think maybe my mom? I gunned it to the finish line and later found out that the entire stretch after that turn was a small uphill. Apparently my super- sensitive hill spotting senses don't work quite as well when a huge FINISH LINE is staring at me. I didn't even know it was an uphill until we went back down it on the way to the car!

I finally crossed the finish line in 1:05:24 and immediately felt like vomiting. I hate that feeling right at the end of a race when you just abruptly stop but it feels like your insides are still going and are about to jump out of your body via your mouth. I was happy with my time, although I wished I had been closer to 1:02. But considering I stopped and walked I was expecting it to be a lot later than that, so I was happy with how much time I made up! And I still came in under 1:06, which I was very happy about.

I then proceeded to walk down the longest cool down walkway ever. It was gated on both sides so I couldn't get out of it. Walking, walking, walking. Just kept on walking. Luckily at the end I found Josh and my mom.



Did I mention this was the first race I've run that Josh didn't also run? Poor Mr. B is fighting a sinus infection, shin splint, and bad ankle so he decided it would be best not to race. I agreed.

There were also delicious cinnamon bagels from Panera Bread at the end like there were at the Anthem 5k! I hope these little babies continue to show up at races because I love them!



Aaron loves them too! Apparently we were going for the pensive look with this picture... I didn't get the memo.

Overall, I really enjoyed the Rodes City Run 10k, minus the debilitating pain in my chest. I liked the course a lot though and am still proud of the time I finished in... and now I have a time to beat next time!! :o)

Next up: The Papa John's 10 Miler on April 3rd.. just one race stands between me and the mini now!!!

Stats:

Rodes City Run 10k

March 20, 2010

Distance: 6.29 miles

Time: 1:05:24 / 10:23 pace

You know your boyfriend is a runner when...

• he thinks you are the epitome of sexy after a 5 mile run in the A-MA-ZING 70 degree weather. Sweaty hat-hair and all. If I look this sexy after a run in the 70 degree weather, I can't wait to see how sexy I'll be come summer. Oh my. Josh won't be able to keep his hands off me ;-)

{my wonderful boyfriend recently dropped lots and lots of dollars on fancy camera equipment and here I am posting pictures from my BlackBerry again... what's wrong with this scenario? In my defense it would be a bit difficult to run 5 miles with a DSLR strapped around my neck...don't you think?}

• you show him your ugly, calloused toes with an ever-so-slight blood blister {your first one!} and he gives you a high five! This means you're a hardcore runner now apparently, and OH YEAH he likes that!

{Here's a super HQ photo of my nasty running feet. Perhaps I should have used the low-quality BlackBerry to photograph my feet and the nice detailed camera to photograph my sweaty dome. Okay, I guess neither one is model quality, but my sweaty face is probably the lesser of two evils, no?}

You can't even see my blood blister in this picture, how about a closer look? Yeah, I can't believe I'm posting pictures of my feet on here either. Fun side story: I used to be really self-conscious of my feet. But you know what? They look exactly like my daddy's and they carry me places I never ever thought I could go, so I'll show them off proudly these days..


I know they're not pretty... and you probably didn't come here to see pictures of my nasty feet... but yeah I'll admit it, I'm a tiny bit proud of that barely-visible ugly blood blister. I know, I know.. it looks more like dirt between my toenail, but I assure you it's not. I showered and I swear I always wash my feet. I know a lot of runners' toes turn black and sometimes their toenails even fall off but I guess I'm not THAT hardcore yet, just enough for a teeny tiny black spot on the side of my toe. But I'll wear it with pride, it's my tiny little badge of honor.

In other news, Gertie and I have been spending lots of time together outside lately. So far this week ALL of my runs have been outside!!! No more treadmill for me!!! At least until next week when it snows. Yes, snow. Welcome to the Ohio Valley. Hopefully they're wrong... we'll see.

Tomorrow I will tackle some previously un-chartered waters: a 10k race! The most I've ever "raced" is 5 miles {not that I am fast enough to actually race anything}. Don't worry, I've run almost twice as much as a 10k, but never in a race... we'll see how it goes!! I'm debating on testing out some of those Sports Beans, but I know you're not supposed to do anything different on race day, so maybe I'll just stick with some GU even though I've only used it once and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet. I guess I better figure all of this out in the next 1 month and 5 days. That's when the half marathon is, in case you're wondering. Not that I'm counting or anything....

Minty little green miracle.

Today on twitter, Runners' World mentioned a Shamrock Shake, so I knew I had to find one. I wasn't sure what it was, but it sounded fun. I mean, I knew it was a milkshake of sorts but I wasn't sure what it tasted like, especially if it tasted like shamrocks. Plus, I'm always down for a good milkshake and I figured if Runners' World recommended it, it couldn't be that bad for you, right? No? Well that's what I told myself. I mean really, if Fatties of America recommended it that would be a different story. But Runners World is all things running, so I must do as they say in order to be a good runner. Or something.

Anywho, hope everyone's wearing green!!!! I love this holiday! Mostly because green would be my favorite color if I had one.

♣ Happy St. Patrick's Day!!! ♣

P.S. Sorry for the photo quality.. taken on the BlackBerry.

steak & ice cream cake

Yesterday the handsome Mr. B {that's what I call him nowadays} and I celebrated our 7th monthiversary! It would have been nice if I had brushed my hair for this photo. Oh well, the messy look is in anyway, right? Humor me and say yes. Okay, good.

Anyway, we were going to go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and hit up the mall to try to take pictures in the photobooth again, but by the time we got done at the gym it was pretty late so we settled for the local Texas Roadhouse. Nom nom nom steak! Highlights of the dinner included: Josh eating almost half a jar of those peanuts they put on your table and I ordered my sweet potato "loaded" because I thought that meant I got the butter & cinnamon & brown sugar and whatever else is normally on a sweet potato. Little did I know it also came over-flowing with marshmallows AND a charge of an extra dollar.

We also celebrated with ice cream cake {which is my most favorite kind of cake ever} compliments of the neighbor's weekend birthday party! Thanks, Brian!

Happy 7th Monthiversary, Josh!! :o) Here's a kissy face just for you: