How do you interwebs?

Sorry about the blog quietness!  I have been having an issue with spam.  No, not the delightfully curious canned meat, but the kind of spam that is millions (ok, dozens) of weird comments attacking my blog with links for Viagra and discount Marc Jacobs bags.  Having a base level understanding of the interwebs to begin with, I really don’t know (also, don’t care) where to begin to stop that nonsense.  So, I shall embrace the spam, and celebrate their rogue comments.  At the very least, they are at least trying to understand and replicate my vernacular by drawing my attention with comments like “what’s up awesome friend” and excessive exclamation point usage.  You get me, spammers.  You really get me!

So here’s a quick recap of what the past week has been like.

•        I ran a few times with Matt.  It’s been weirdly hot though, and it tends to make us grouchy.  Matt also somehow became ensnared in a burr bush.  It wasn’t a great running week for us.

•        It’s been too hot to run with the dog, or even let her rock out at the dog park in the evenings, so we have been hiking in some of the forest preserves with her.  They have some off leash hiking areas that have a secret perimeter fence, so waffles feels like she’s free, and I don’t have to worry about her ending up 30 miles away.  It really has been too hot though!  She kept flopping down for breaks, and finally Matt just had to carry her, Congo style.

FREEDOM!!!

Freedom is exhausting.

•        OMG – we went in a CANOE!  THIS GIRL!  AND THAT DOG!  Matt did all of the paddling, while waffles and I cowered in the bottom of the canoe.  Then we realized the canoe was actually pretty hard to tip, and were brave enough to peek out.  And of course drink as much lake water as possible (her, not me)

we float in giant water bowl?

•        I got holographic nail polish!  I am so good at this whole being 30 thing.

The picture does NOT do this 99 cent nail polish justice.  It is much sparklier in person!

•        We saw Cheap Trick at Ravinia!!  AHHHHH!

•       And invented a second use for running shoes - wine holders!

•          I have bangs now.  I do this every couple of years for no reason.

•          I survived this mega storm!  It ruined my run, but at least I made it home in time.  I even managed to get my car into the garage for safe keeping (a first for me!)

•          Diana Nyad.  I love you.  I cheered her on all weekend.  For real, you make me want to run an ultramarathon. <3

So that was my week in a nutshell.  I actually have much to talk about in upcoming days.  None of it’s interesting, but it will definitely be words that you can read.  Or not read.  And pictures of my dog.  Hurray!

Two sick puppies.



Poor Matt.  If i was him, i would have run screaming from the infirmiry our apartment has become...



What is the worst thing that could possibly happen 3 weeks before your marathon?

The flu.

Ok, its probably not the very worst thing that could happen, so I should probably shut up before I jinx myself.  But, I am slightly less than pleased that during what is probably the most crucial week of work outs in training, I have been completely side lined.  The only redeeming thing in my illness is that Waffles has been sick all week too, and has been my constant cuddle buddy. She is having an IBS flair-up, (a particularly nasty one at that) so she has been having digestive problems for the past week (a nice way of saying explosive diarrhea.) 

Between the germ-ridden travel, the stress of cramming 5 days on work into 3 days, the emotional havoc of two days with a bunch of Huntingtons Disease people, and not having continuous sleep since March (Thanks Waffles, you poop monster….) has really caught up with me.  I have a friend (who just ran the Paris Marathon, Congrats Jess!!) that would always function at 110%.  She would get more done in a day than most people got done in a week, and I am still in awe of how she managed to do it.  I have a low tipping point, and whenever I try to go “Jess-mode,” the stress and exhaustion gets to be too much, my whole body shuts down.  My never ending drive to do all the things has left me side-lined on the couch (once again) with Waffles doing NONE of the things, other than eating plain rice and napping.



NAPPING.   Like a Boss.



We did walk down to the park this weekend, since we were both too sick to exercise, but wanted to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.  It was really funny, because all the dogs, hyper as they were, would take a break to calmly come over and lay by my feet, like I am some kind of dog whisperer.  It’s weird the way that animals can sense sickness, and care for you in your own way.  Sometimes I think I am better around animals than people – they just get me. 

***I am still working on my DC post – the whole thing was much harder and more emotional than I thought it would be.  And now I feel like crap on top of it.  Waffles is spending the day with the vet.  Sadly, she doesn’t have the meat on her bones that I do, so where as I can stand to not eat and lose a few lbs (ok.  10 lbs.  I should probably lose 10 lbs.) she is so tiny to begin with that they need to keep her hydrated. 

The really hard part is that I feel guilty.  Guilty that I didn’t run 20 miles this weekend (even though prolonged standing is making me dizzy at this point).  Guilty that I didn’t run yesterday.  Guilty that I am not running right now as I type this.  Guilty that i can't take care of my stupid dog.  Guilty that i can't write a coherent blog post.  I know that it’s batshit crazy to feel that way, but whatevs, it’s how I roll.

Do you get running guilt when you’re sick?  What about marathon flu?  (this will be the 3^rd f***ing time I have gotten sick a few weeks before a marathon….what the heck?)

Kindred Spirits

Have you ever seen people that look like their pets?  I have had a few people at work comment that Waffles kind of looks like me.  The main reason being that she has an auburn colored coat, and i have red hair.  We also both have long narrow noses, and skinny, underdeveloped arms.  (I like to think that i have ears that are much more proportional to my head though...)  There are a few good examples out there, but other than maybe matching hair colors, it's hard to find a dog to be your doppleganger.  

While i may not really look like my dog, it is becoming more and more apparent that we have similar personalities and living styles.  It might be because i have raised her since she was a pup, but we definitely act alike.

We are both hating winter.  We just have no tolerance for the cold.  It's nice for running, but pretty much nothing else.  Our daily walks have been shortened because we are both miserable, and salt burns the pups feet.  I usually end up having to carry her home.  We are waiting for summer!  A 90 degree day SUCKS for running, but is awesome for everything else.  We are anxiously awaiting the warmth.  We both are picky about our food (Hey!  We're classy gals that deserve the best!) and love our sleep.  We radically sway from running/playing tirelessly for two hours straight, to napping on the couch all afternoon.  We are super active and super lazy simultaneously.  We also both get overwhelmed in social situations.  Too many people/dogs make us uncomfortable, and i deal with it by drinking and saying awkward things, and she deals with it by snapping at unfamiliar bigger dogs that approach her.  We're like two peas in a pod!

Hooray for running and watching TV after running - our two favorite activities!

Do you share any traits with your pets?  Would you seek out a pet that matches your lifestyle?

Marathon Training: week 4.

Shits about to get real.

Miles: 26
Martinis: 3 (plus a few caipirinhas, or brazilian martinis, as i called them.)
Overall outlook: This week was another fail, but i have high hopes from here on out.

Whats my deal?  A huge factor has been air quality. I had two runs end in asthma attacks last week, which is scary.  Even with the inhaler, you aren't going to finish a run once that happens.  I have also been waking up with bloody noses, whatever that means, other than that i am just too cool for words sometimes.  I'm not sure what i can do other than just carry on and deal with it.  I failed on a lot of levels last week in that i totally let stress interfere with training.  However, in the midst of that stress, i made some awesome plans to keep myself on track.  We'll see how they pan out this week.

I also excited to attempt speed work again.  Pete was finally able to break it down for me in an understandable way (i.e. drinking.)  I'm gonna be all fast.

Either way, my marathon is in 14 weeks, so it's business time.  

During this weekends long run, which was 13.1 miles, i realized how glad i am that i didn't sign up for any races in January or February.  I'm just not up for it right now.  And those 13.1 miles were painful.  So have fun out there, suckers.  (I'm just kidding, good luck to everyone running F^3 this weekend, i will be out there training, and running much slower than all of you.  It's how i like to roll.)

This weekend i also took waffles to the dog part before the deep freeze.  

She is the curly tailed one that is head butting all the other dogs trying to get them to chase her.  She ran around for 2 hours!  Thank goodness, because with a wind chill of negative 9 night now, its too cold for her to even go on walks.  She goes potty and then sprints back to the door.  

We also did a major cleaning on Sunday, but Matt took it way too far when he decided to scrub the grill in the sub freezing temps.  Obviously, all the water just froze to it instantly, so now we have a quarter inch of ice on the grill.  

I  got really excited this weekend because i found a Le Creuset ceramic pie pan marked down to $7 at home goods.  

I mean $7?  Thats a steal!  only upon further research, i found out that while not labeled or publicly communicated, Le Creuset started outsourcing in recent years to:  You guessed it, China.  Only their cast iron is still made in France.  I wanted to throw the damn thing off the balcony in protest, but Matt intervened due to his love of potato and gruyere gallete.  So, the stupid dish will stay with us, but i am writing an angry letter to Le Creuset just the same.  

Today is a little too cold for me to run outside until i get this asthma situation in check, so sadly, i will be vanquished to the treadmill.  I really don't mind though - i mean days these cold days are few and far between.  My only real complaint about the cold is spontaneously needing to pee.  The second the cold air hits you, it's like BOOM!  and very few bathrooms are available on the outdoor running paths.  
I foresee many humorous public urination incidents in the near future......

Are you weirdly affected by cold?  

3 day weekend?

My obvious absence from the interwebs yesterday was the direct result of taking a personal day.  Every once in a while, i just need to nap all day with the dog, and power through season one of Lost.  It is known.
So i did absolutely nothing yesterday, but here are some other notables from the weekend.

Waffles got to have her "Birthday Party" at Krisers.  Seriously, i recommend you register your dog's birthday.  She got a homemade PB cupcake and a huge packet of treat samples.  Sadly, she was so excited by everyone pampering her, that she got explosive diarrhea, and we had to return home in shame.  I also learned i am not ready to deal with children.  I hear they poop and vomit on things all the time.

Luckily, she rebounded quickly, and was soon able to eat her pupcake.

Matt and I also decided to go for a run.  It reminded me how fun Matt is to run with.  When neither of us is training for anything.  I hope he will run with me again soon (HINT HINT, I KNOW YOU READ MY BLOG!)

 I also tried out My Brooks PureCadence's.  It's too soon to know if they are the shoe for me, but I had no problems on the run.  And, Matt also runs in PureCadence, so we got to be "that couple"

 And Sunday, we indulged our OCD, and cleaned the apartment like there had been an Ebola outbreak.   The inside of the couch was vacuumed, the fridge was scrubbed, and every piece of furniture was moved and cleaned behind.  The only problem was, when Matt moved my 8 year old Ikea dresser so that we could sweep behind it, the whole freaking thing collapsed.   It was completely unsalvageable.  Oh well.  I suppose 8 years for Ikea furniture is really like 50 years.  You served me well, old friend.....

This dresser collapse forced Matt and I to go through all our clothes and consolidate. Needless to say, about half our wardrobe is en route to salvation army.  We managed to fit all our clothes into Matt's dresser, with the exception of one last Ikea drawer of running clothes, which Waffles managed to up-cycle into a new puppy bed for herself.  

I realized that this clean sweep was just another way for me to avoid dealing with the unavoidable approach of Christmas.  It's coming, and there is no amount of cleaning I can do to avoid it.  I should probably start my Christmas shopping.....

On a side note, i apologize that I have been completely alienating myself from all forms of social media lately.  I am seriously the grinchiest grinch that ever grinched.  I assure you, i will return to my booze-fueled, marathon running self in a couple weeks.  Until then, Bah Humbug.

Happy Birthday, Waffles!!

Can you believe it?  My little baby is a year old!  I think that means she is like 13 in dog years, which explains her terrible behavior lately. In honor of my pup turning one year old today, here is a billion pictures of her, being all cute while thinking about new ways to terrorize me.  I kid.  Sometimes.  

Seriously though, she can be very trying, especially as an energetic puppy, but i love her to death and couldn't imagine having any other dog! Happy Birthday, you monster!  :)

                                 

And - for any other Chicago pet owners, i encourage you check out Krisers, and put your pet in the system.  They have an awesome selection of food and toys, but most importantly, this weekend i get a discount on anything i buy her because its her birthday.  They also have saturday "birthday parties" so she can play with other dogs that have birthdays around this time for the afternoon.  I approve.  

And if you want to hear something about running go check out my Q&A on Carolyn's blog here!
http://www.iheartrunning.com/2012/12/saras-blog-run-ginger-foxxx-run.html

TGIF!!!!!

Weekend Synopsis.

You know, because things happen.

1.  Waffles the hero dog found a purse!  She and Matt were walking and apparently spotted a purse that had been dropped.  Also, that purse contained tons of money for some reason.  Matt was able to locate the owner with the help of some neighbors who helped him track down the house of the owner.  It turned out to be an older woman who was recently widowed, and had lost her wallet the week before, forcing her to cancel all her credit cards and carry around a shit-ton of cash.  Losing your purse twice in two weeks?  I feel for this lady.

Anyway, she was so happy to have her purse returned with all the $$$ intact, that she insisted on giving Matt and Waffles a $50 reward!

Waffles was super proud of herself for all of 30 seconds...

And then she tried to eat the $50.  Luckily i have cat-like reflexes.

Since waffles has little need for cash, and we have been supporting her ass for the past year anyway, we went out to a nice dinner!

2.  We also went and got a christmas tree!  It was slightly weird though seeing as it's been 60 degrees all weekend, and will be almost 70 today....

3.  I also started doing some minor, at home strength training.  I have high hopes for not being a lazy and rapidly expanding blob in December.  I don't remember planks being so hard though....

4.  I had a dream that i was doing speed training on a track, and it was awesome and really fun.  I think i'm finally ready.

5.  The washing machine blew up.  Smokey smell and everything.  I managed to at least get it to drain so i could rescue the clothes trapped and drowning inside, but i don't know that i actually fixed it, so i am a little afraid to do laundry. Score!

6.  I kind of want to do some sort of holiday 5k.  It has to be a small one though, as holiday anxiety has already set in, and i don't expect it to leave until the new year.  

2012 Dan Gibbons Turkey Trot!

Sorry this is late - suck at most things.  Running, Blogging, and Photo-documenting included.  

Every year, i run the Dan Gibbons Turkey Trot in Elmhurst with my cousins.  This was my fourth turkey trot!  The first year was ridiculous in that i was seriously wearing chuck taylors and sweatpants.

I've come so far.....

This was Matt's 3rd time, and Waffles very first one!

I wanted to get us turkey hats, but i couldn't find anything, so we had to settle for antlers.  I think it was a wise purchase though, because now i can wear them for any christmas runs i might attempt!  We drove to my cousins house the night before, and drank ourselves stupid late into the evening.  Waffles was smart enough to stick to water, but she did play all night with my cousins dogs, Cubby and Wrigley.  She normally goes to bed around 9:30, but she was up until 2am!  The race starts at 9, but Waffles was so excited that she decided to wake up at 6am to try and sneak in some more play time with Cubby and Wrigley.  She was very quiet, but they both weigh 80-90 lbs, and made so much noise they woke everyone up, and everyone was pissed!  We got to the race early so i could get our bibs and t-shirts, and so that Waffles could do business before the race, and hopefully settle down

She went potty, but there were so many dogs she was freaking out with excitement.  We let her play with a few dogs, and she finally settled down to scope her competition

I love the dan gibbons turkey trot, but it has gotten huge the past couple years - over 8,000 runners this year! We started with the walkers, which ended up being a huge mistake.  It was so crowded that we had to carry waffles because she kept getting stepped on (her own fault.) Next year we will start with the runners in the back.  Before we even got to the start line, we had to be moved to the sidewalks to make room for the winners, whom were 2 minutes away!

We finally crossed the start line, and things began to clear up.  We stayed on the sidewalk where there were less people for waffles to trip.  Luckily, within the first half mile, she spotted a bloody mary station! Last year, they had changed the course to accomodate all the extra people, and i had missed the bloody marys.  This year, i am pleased to say there were not one, but TWO bloody mary stations, a screwdriver station, and a jello shot station!  Who needs water!

Apparently, Waffles does.  We had to stop a few times so she could pee.  We totally neglected to stop during the race to give her water, so when she finished, she ended up chugging TWO (mini) BOTTLES!

Waffles did very good in the race, and even ran the whole time! (minus the potty breaks)  She had a lot of trouble finding the right pace - she has a slow pony trot, and cheetah style sprint.  She kept switching back and forth trying to find the best approach.  She seemed to find her groove after the first mile.  She still has a lot to learn about race etiquette though, as she weaved a lot, and kept tugging at the leash whenever she saw another dog.  Or a squirrel.  Or a stroller.  Or people.

In the end, we were very proud of her!  She averaged a pace of 10:40, which is very impressive for a first 5k, and considering all the stops.  

We went back to my cousins house victorious, and had more bloody marys.  Waffles spent all day playing with the other dogs, and following around my little cousin Emily, who somehow had convinced Waffles she was also a dog.  Waffles even managed to get some turkey.  No comment.

I will of course be running the Dan Gibbons turkey trot next year, rain or shine, as will Waffles.  Hopefully she will be a little better at running form by then.  This race is very fun for the casual runner or walker.  There is a lot of booze on the course, costumes, and everyone is super friendly.  It is untimed, so the competitive edge is taken down a notch.  On the plus side, dogs and strollers are allowed!  On the down side, dogs and strollers are allowed.  If crowds and chaos annoy you, this isn't your race.  If you are trying to PR, not your race.  If you get annoyed by 8 year old walkers starting in the very front - not your race.  If you like booze, running casually, costumes, dogs, dragging your family along, etc, then this race is totally for you!

On side note, if you are HYPER competitive, the York track team and alumni compete every year.  the top three men usually run sub a sub 15 minute 5k, and the top three women under 17:30.  SO, if you think you can compete with that, it might be worth it!