running

14 Big Moments of 2014

| cheriarmour

Um.  So 2014 is over?  When did that happen?

So it was a big year, for things both good and bad.  And here, in no particular order, are some of the biggies from 2014.

14.  Coco.  Coco the poodle came to us from a friend of a friend.  She’s an older dog, so she was probably not going to get adopted, so without much thought, we took her in.  It ended up being a pretty sweet deal, because she’s a sweetheart, and a joy to have.  She came to the beach with us, and visited with my mom when she was sick.

13.  We went to Fripp! This was one of my favorite memories. My friend, Kelly, invited me and Austin for a weekend. We drove down to SC, and had a blast of a weekend. One of my favorite memories of the year!

IMG_0913

12.  Snow, snow, snow!  Remember snowpocalyspe that rendered Atlanta crippled?  About two weeks after, Raleigh got a similar storm that left Austin stranded for hours after work.  Melanie, another friend got into a little accident.  And my current boss’s boss had to run home in the storm.

11.  I made this, than caught a stomach flu.  I’m pretty much a straight-up vegetarian, not a pescatarian now.

photo (2)

10.  I modeled a little bit here and there.  I did some shoots for Headbands of Hope, did two shows for a local boutique.  I’m hoping to do some more jobs here and there to help pay off my student loans!

9.  We bought a house!  Which is kind of a relief, we had a few weird experiences renting, the latest of which was when a man tried to break into the girl’s apartment downstairs in the middle of the night to do her some sort of harm for not calling him back.  

Us the first Saturday when we came to scrub the house.
Us the first Saturday when we came to scrub the house.

8.  A close friend lost her mother to cancer.  The experience was jarring, to say the least, and a really painful reminder that our parents are getting older.

7.   We acquired a foster beagle.  After Mel’s mother passed, an older female beagle was left behind.  We are hanging onto her until she finds a new furever home.  If you’re interested….

Beagle

6.  I saw Stevie Wonder live!   And in good seats!  Stevie Wonder announced tour dates in September of 2014, and I went on the hunt to find affordable tickets, which was no easy feat.  Seriously, the scalpers had bought up all the tickets, and I was lucky enough to find tickets that only cost me about $300.  We had seats on the floor, and I feel like I can officially cross seeing one of the greats off my bucket list!

5.  I ran….far…in Vegas!  My first trip to Vegas was not some drunken slob-fest – rather – I ran an Ultra relay in Vegas with Bondi Band.

4.  I literally got my dream job.  I may have told this story here before, but if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, mother effin’ try again.  I’d had my eye on this job as a Group Fitness Director for over 3 years.  The first time I interviewed for the job, I made it through a few rounds, and didn’t get the job.  I was devastated (and remember, this is all taking place back in 2012 when my ego was already wounded from learning that jobs aren’t super plentiful), and I stayed in bed for days.  A few years, and some more professional development later, the job was open, and it sort of fell into my lap.  It worked out probably about a month before we got married.

3.  My sister got engaged, then married!  Deb and Luigi had been dating sort of on and off, and they decided, in the late spring, that they were going to make it official.  They got engaged, then married pretty quickly in South Carolina.  They celebrated with a reception just a few weeks ago.

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2.  My best friend suddenly lost his brother.  Probably one of the worst phone calls I’ve ever gotten in my life was this phone call.  Austin and I made the quick decision that the weekend of the funeral, we would drive to Philly and back to pay our respect’s to Michael’s brother.  I’ve never seen my best friend in pain like that, so it was hard, and I’m trying with everything in me to support him as best as I can through this really really trying time.

1.  We got married on August 23, 2014.  It was the most incredible day ever, and when I woke up on August 24th, I wanted to keep my eyes closed and bottle the feelings that the wedding gave me.  It was elation, happiness, and the joy of seeing old friends meet new friends all wrapped into one.  If you could shoot that feeling directly into an IV and take it, I totally would 🙂

Exit

Serial (OMG!)

| cheriarmour

First and foremost, I hope your Christmas was a good one.  I spent my first Christmas with my husband as a married couple, and it was really very nice!  We were able to sneak in a run downtown, and spend some time with one another, which is not something we get a whole lot of time to do together.  Fun fact:  you would think as a married couple you’d be all up in each other’s grill all the time, but when you both work full-time, and you both work out an have to manage four pets – sometimes spending time can be tricky.  All that to say, our time was lovely and very, very much needed 🙂

So, I’ve taken to listening to podcasts while I’m running.  I love, love, music, and am constantly reworking my running playlist on Spotify so I’m not horribly bored, especially on long runs.  But truthfully, I’m starting to feel like there are only so many times you can listen to Chandelier…

…before you can sing every ad lib on cue, and you can perform the music video, frame for frame, on a long run.  I know this because I did it in Vegas when I was running my first leg at the Ragnar Relay.

So I started by downloading a few of my faves.  Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, This American Life, and The Read, a podcast so funny, that I’ve had to stop myself from falling off of the sidewalk from laughing so hard.  So I started on the hunt for some more podcasts to keep me entertained, especially considering that training for Rock ‘n’ Roll starts in like two weeks.  And I found two that were like omg, the funniest things you have ever ever heard of in your entire life/the most riveting pieces of literature (?) I’ve ever heard.

Psychobabble with Tyler Oakley

So, if you’re into hystericalness, this is the podcast for you.  This podcast is done by Tyler Oakley, a YouTube celeb, with a wicked sense of humor.  Often he and his friends discuss pop culture, his love for Lady Gaga, and the epi is sprinkled with wise little nuggets of feminist goodness – which you don’t think you could typically get from two dudes, but they’re very socially aware.  My only complaint is that it’s only about 30 minutes.

Serial

Serial Logo

I just finished the last episode of Serial, and all I can say is OMG. Slash, I need someone to discuss it with. Slash, what is going to happen to Adnan?

So if you’re a fan of the storytelling style on This American Life on NPR, you will most likely be a fan of Serial, which is an amazing story of a murder that occurred nearly 15 years ago in Baltimore Country, Maryland.  I promise, you will be hooked.

And if anyone is done with Serial and would like to discuss it with me here the comments, please feel free to do so.

So these are the ways that I’ve managed to keep my mind occupied while working out – how to you keep your mind active while you work out?

Did you/have you/are you listening to Serial?  

Weekend Buzz

| cheriarmour

The weekend was absolutely, without-a-doubt, one of the busiest weekends I’ve had in forevs.  I say that all the time, but I totally mean it this time.

Anyhoo, so Friday night, I taught a Zumba ® Fitness party with two other fancy ladies, and we had an absolute blast.  I mean, I completely overdid it in the cardio department, but it was so nice to catch up with the other teachers.  The last time I saw them was at my wedding in August, so SO worth it.

After that, I headed home, and Austin and I decided to call it a night by watching a Disney movie, so we caught The Hunchback of Notre Dame on NetFlix.

Can we talk for a second about how screwed-up that movie is?

To be fair to Victor Hugo, the book ain’t no binder full of knock-knock jokes, but that is one screwed tale, and I’m not sure how or why my parents allowed me to watch it as a child.  A few highlights?

  • Referring to someone as a hunchback in general is not really encouraged.
  • When Frollo murks Quasimodo’s mother and then tries to throw Quasimodo in the well.
  • When the crowd tortures Quasimodo.
  • When Frollo is racist the entire movie.
  • When Frollo gets creepily obsessed with Esmerelda and sings an entire song about simultaneously wanting to have sex with her but feeling conflicted since he’s so racist against her people.

Those are just a few highlights.  But seriously, go back and watch it.  It’s SO creepy.

The craziest, then funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life…

So Saturday night, I was able to convince my sweet husband to take me out to sushi, and then we met some friends for drinks.  Driving around downtown, we saw this Santa bar crawl – so a TON of folks dressed up as Santa, drinking and roaming the streets.  In this one particular group, there was a young woman in a wheelchair also participating in the crawl.  Her friends were like, drunkly pushing her around, and they’d almost made it completely across when they hit the curb and she went flying out of the chair.  I made sure she was okay first (she was) before I lost it.  I have never, in my 27 years of life, seen something like that, nor have I ever laughed so hard.  To be clear, I am NOT a bad person, and I was not at all amused UNTIL I knew that the drunky monkey in the wheelchair was fine.

Following that, I went for a trail run in which I was still intoxicated from a holiday party the night before. Because the trail was actually pretty challenging, I fell (which means it was a real good time), but managed to not break my nose.  Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, because if I were to break my nose, I could get a free nose job and get a nose more like my sister’s.

Now, how was your weekend?

On becoming a fitness instructor

| cheriarmour

First things – I was supposed to come into work super late, but ended up having to come in early because my email was EXPLODING, so to alleviate the pain and suffering I was dealing with from having to answer 65,000 emails, I bought myself an inappropriately large coffee from Dunkin Donuts, and it’s been sloshing to and fro in my belly.  Wanna know how good it feels to have 18 million gallons of a diuretic sloshing about in your stomach?  Not good at all.

But enough complaining, life is wonderful, and I’m not here to talk about my GI issues.

But I am here to talk about a question I’ve gotten a lot since becoming a fitness instructor in late 2009, after I completed my undergraduate degree.

First and foremost, I can, without a doubt say that becoming a fitness instructor completely changed my life.

I’d been taking Zumba® Fitness classes for a number of years, and had always toyed with the idea of teaching, because I loved the way my instructor made me feel.  After a boyfriend made fun of me so badly that I didn’t want to get certified, I finally got up the nerve and took the plunge a few months after I graduated.  I’m still amazed that my chubby ass got up the gall to to to the licensing weekend, but I went and it changed my life.

Before
As a total side note, I was never obese, but I was eating really poorly, and had put on about 40 pounds when all was said and done in college.

 

So my process for getting licensed and certified in fitness goes like this.

Zumba® Fitness ->Schwinn Cycling Certification->AFAA Group Exercise Certification->Body Pump™ Certification

So for those of you interested in getting certified in group fitness and becoming a fitness instructor, here are a few steps that can get you from the process, to getting the credentials needed to effectively teach a class.

Becoming a fitness instructor

1.  This one seems pretty obvious but go to a lot of classes.  What do you like about your favorite teachers?  Start paying attention to their cueing, their mic level, and how they interact with the class.  My strengths are my dance classes as well as my toning, but it made me a much stronger teacher to see how different groups do different things.

2.  Get the basics.  Before you hop to teaching/getting certified/licensed in something crazy or a specialty like Yoga or Zumba® Fitness, look for a group fitness certification through a program like AFAA.  I DID NOT do this, I did it all backwards, but looking back on it, AFAA was valuable and helped to remind me about some of the safety cues we often forget when we’re getting all hot and heavy in a class.  Like I said, I did this all backwards, but an AFAA cert is really valuable.

3.  Sign up for a training.  Whether’s it’s AFAA, Zumba® Fitness, Pound, or what have you, go ahead and sign up for a training.  Once you sign up (early, cause those things can really sell out), you will be sent some materials.  Definitely look them over, and if it’s a training where you will be presenting for evaluation, definitely study.  ‘Cause you don’t want to be the problem child who has no idea what’s going on.

4.  You’re all signed up for a two-day training!  It’s the night before!  Pack your stuff, pack some snacks, and be prepped to be sore.  I am super active, but the Body Pump™ process had me the most sore that I’ve ever been in my entire life, mostly due to the fact that in the span of 48 hours, we took like 5 classes, and did the Les Mills challenge.

So all of this is how you get to become a fitness instructor…stay tuned for info on how to get to teaching at the gym!

 

 

The world’s most unproductive day.

| cheriarmour

So, I am straight exhausted from Thanksgiving.  We hosted our first Thanksgiving as a married couple together, which was awesome because I got to flex my cooking muscles.  Most people assume because I eat pretty healthy and I pretty much hate to eat most things (mushrooms, potato chips, pickles, mealy tomatoes, watermelon sometimes, and the gourds), that I suck at cooking.  But when your options are either hate everything OR starve to death, you get pretty creative with cooking, which is exactly what I did.  All day on Thursday.

Okay, so Thanksgiving was all well and good, but immediately following, Austin and I drove up to Philly for a funeral, and because the death occurred so suddenly, we drove up and back to Philly in a day, not something  I’d recommend.   As a total side-note, as an avid runner and marathoner, I can honestly say that my legs hurt worse sitting in the car all day than they did running 30 miles in the desert last month.

So that said, I went into work for a little while on Sunday night after we got back, to clean out my inbox and work out and get some blood flowing down in my legs, and I formulated a plan to come into work, guns blazing on Monday morning, ready to rock.

Are These The 43 Funniest GIFs Of All Time?Yeah no.

I sent approximately 1.5 emails before the internet at work starting cutting out.  So naturally, I decided to go for a run in hopes that the internet would magically be restored by the time I got back.

No such luck.

I wandered around the branch.  I looked sadly at my iPhone.  I worked out some more.  I contemplated lifting weights.  Decided against it.  Ate some lunch for a while.  Thought about why Nick Jonas’ new single was so good.

I’m still not sure why it’s so good. Why he sounds black. Why he’s so cute. Why he’s playing with my emotions.

And by 4pm, when the internet finally decided it was going to come back on, I had like 1/2 of what I wanted to get done, done.

I ended up having to stay at work hours later than I planned to.

And still.  The most unproductive day ever.

Ah well. How was your Monday?

What I think about when I’m running.

| cheriarmour

Long, long ago, long before I even thought about my first marathon, a coworker causally mentioned that she was running a 17-mile training run.  Prior to me running marathons, and contemplating an Ultra (eep!), 17 miles sounded like an absolutely ridiculous amount of mileage.  So I asked her,

“What are you going to think about for 17 miles?”

I don’t remember her answer, but once I started running those distances, it became apparent that I had to start finding some things to think about while I was running.  So here it is, what I think about when I think about running. 

Austin captured this one close to the finish line.
Austin captured this one close to the finish line of City Of Oaks!
  • Prior to us getting married, I often thought about who would marry us. Neither of us was big in the church, and I worried that we wouldn’t be able to find anyone to do it. That fear was unfounded, because I found an amazing female officiant who was just what we needed, and provided us with a little bit of counseling before we got started.
  • “I wonder if I will be able to wear this bra again without washing it.”
  • I listen to a Podcast called “The Read“.  Do not, I repeat, do NOT listen to this podcast if profanity offends you, but I listen to it a lot on runs, and sometimes it makes me laugh out loud.  Then I think that anyone driving by in their cars might think I look like a lunatic because I’m laughing so hard that I’m falling off the sidewalk.
  • I think about my husband a lot.  Like what he’s doing, or if he might think that I look pretty while I’m running.
  • I think about why my thighs are chafing, especially in the summer when I forget my Aquaphor.
  • “I wonder why my stomach is hurting so badly. I hope I don’t have to stop at the Whole Foods (again) to….well…”
  • “Why are they so mean to the women in Mad Men? It’s kind of gross. And by kind of, I mean, really gross.”
  • “When will Justin Bieber/Rihanna/Ke$ha release more music.  I really like them!”
  • I imagine what it was like if I started touring with Little Mix.  I would be the lead singer (obviously).
  • I also imagine what it might be like if I opened my own coffee shop, called The Skinny Café.  I would obviously be part of the logo.  Winking and smiling.
  • I also imagine what it would be like if I narrated my own episode of This American life.
  • Pasta.
  • Nachos.

What do you think about when you’re running?

Kardashian Anniversary + Weekend Updates

| cheriarmour

So, once again, this weekend was bananas.  Is that what adult life is?  You work during the week, and then you go into your weekends which are packed to the gills with things to do?  I’m starting to feel like it is.

Okay, so first things first, as you read this, Austin and I are celebrating our Kardashian anniversary.  You see, Kimmy K and Kris Humphries were married for grand total of 72 days before they decided to end things, so since we’ve been married, Austin and I have been really excited about celebrating that special day.

Hashtag never forget.

Moving right along…so me and Austin are huge Halloween people, but this year, between the wedding and the purchase of the Merrie home, the holiday snuck up on us this year, and a few days before Friday, I found myself without a costume or without a plan for the day.  After huddling with some friends, and the donation of a costume from a sweet member, I made some plans and ended up as Zoe Saldana’s character from Star Trek.

Star TrekThe costume ended up being a total hit – who knew so many people were secret Trekkies?!  I stayed out way, wayyyy too late, and suffered through Saturday morning’s class and ended the day at a baby shower for my step-sister-in-law.

Sunday?  I raced!  Because of the relay I have coming up, I had to hold back a little and stuck with the 10k.  The start was extremely chilly, and because the marathon started about 20 minutes before our race did, I was able to steal a cheap Hanes sweatshirt from the marathon toss that had occurred, and toss it later.  And luckily, because it was cotton, it was a literal sauna in there.  Cotton is rotten, except, when you’re freezing and you want to create a sauna inside your shirt.  Mile 4, I ditched the sweat, and finished the 10k strong in under an hour.

Here are a few snaps from the morning!

Legs felt strong, and they felt like they could do a lot more, leading me to believe that I am ready-eddy-eddy for this ultra relay end of this week.

My weekend was absolutely nuts.  What were you up to this weekend?

I can fall asleep anywhere.

| cheriarmour

First and foremost, can we all thank my amazing husband (who’s gotten a lot of love on the blog this week), for doing something to my poor laptop to make it run faster?  I have this adorable pink Dell that my dad got me for my Elon graduation in 2009 – I’m trying to squeeze a few more months out of it while I save up for a Mac, and you guys better watch out for the Mac attack because I will be on that thing, editing photos and writing like a crazy person.

Moving right along.

So, yesterday, I participated in Peachy Keen’s fall fashion show.  Remember,  I did their show last spring?

Because of the fashion show (which was a blast) here’s what my day looked like.

The night before, I stupidly drank two extremely large glasses of wine, knowing full well I wanted to be up and ready to go to work by 6am (ish) so I could work for the day and then head to makeup for the show.  So I woke up, feeling awesome (absolutely not) and sobbed through a shower.  Or at least I felt like sobbing.

I worked for the day, got a 5ish or 6ish miler in, and headed to makeup for the show.

The show was Frozen-themed, so makeup was pretty, blue, and ethereal-looking.  And the second I got done with makeup, I laid down on a bench in the dressing room with a tiny pillow, and fell asleep.  I felt nothing, heard nothing, and have no idea how long I was out for, bout it was just long enough to feel refreshed and walk the show no problem.

I don’t want to spoil anything for when the real shots are done being edited and all that fun stuff, so take a little gander at this backstage…

Peachy Fall Show

Makeup was awesome, hair looks good, and the show went off without a hitch.  I even felt myself moved by the spirit, and danced a little on the runway.

IMMEDIATELY following the show, I kid you not, I asked Austin to unzip the back of my dress, and I faceplanted on the bed at about 8:45pm.  The only other time in my adult life I ever remember going to bed that early was once when I had a Zumba training that I went to after a wedding.  I promptly found myself wide awake at 4am, in a mod dress from Loft, wondering where I went so wrong in my life.

But I digress.

What are your guys’ weekend plans, especially given that this weekend is Halloween?  

Me?  Come hell or high water, I will play with this…

LetterpressThis is my new baby that I have yet to get a chance to play with!  I finally got my L-Press from Charlotte, so I would love to break it out and play with it, and in my WILDEST fantasies, get it up and running in time to shoot off some holiday cards.  I can dream big, can’t I?

Does your significant other support your running?

| cheriarmour

I try to keep my husband at a minimum on the blog.  Not because I’m not crazy about him, because I absolutely am.  But more because he didn’t ask for his life to be splashed across the interwebs.  But occasionally, I just can’t help it!

I’m running Ragnar in Las Vegas in less than two weeks, and unlike the typical Ragnar relay, we are considered an ultra team, meaning that instead of 12 runners over 36 legs, we are 6 runners over the 36 legs.  I’m so looking forward to it, and yet, a little apprehensive about running over 34 miles over a few days.

But, despite my apprehension, my body, my mind, and my legs feel strong.

In prep for the race, I’ve run at a few odd times – and last night, it was around 9:30pm.  Luckily, I live close to the state university, and can stay pretty safe running on campus during these odd times, or can call my brother to run with me.  And every time I push off at these strange times, Austin offers me a butterfly knife, and asks if it’s completely necessary for me to run at those times, in the most worried and caring of ways.

And this time, the poor thing was in no position to come with me, because he sprained his ankle terribly playing volleyball at the Y.

Exhibit A
Exhibit A

But I’m taken with how supportive Austin has been of my running. When we met, I was just doing some running for maintenance.  Despite being an avid weightlifter (which doesn’t  classically mix), he ran my first 5k with me.  Then my second.  He cheered me through my first half.  And then stood out in the cold during my first two fulls.  And now, even though he can’t come to Vegas with me, he’s been so supportive, and making sure that in the midst of all my training, that I’m staying safe and happy.

 So how does running fit into a relationship?  How should running fit into a relationship?  For you runners, weightlifters, triathletes, golfers, how does your sport fit into your relationship?  And is your significant other supportive of how you stay fit?  

For us, even though Austin has never expressed any interest in taking on the challenge of a full or an ultra, running has always been something that we could enjoy and do together.  And it makes me feel supported by him, that we aren’t in competition, but that it’s something we can do side-by-side.  Running can be so solitary, and yet, it makes me feel so close to so much and so many people.

You?