training

Getting Old…

| cheriarmour

Let me start this off by saying that I feel absolutely ageless. I’m 26 years old, and I don’t feel a day over 27.

Jk, but I think between the working out, and spending most of my summers with high schoolers, I’m kind of a young spirit.

But there’s something going on inside of me that indicates that I’m getting a little hold.

So, when I was training for my first marathon over a year ago, the Shamrock Marathon in VA Beach, I started “reading” books on tape, especially during my long runs when my partner, Jenny, couldn’t make it.  During that time I tried to read some crappy book that my religion professor told me was good, I read Kathy Griffins memoir, and I read Tina Fey’s Memoir.  All awesome.  Like, falling-off-the-sidewalk-laughing-so-hard funny.  Kathy Griffin surprisingly isn’t all piss and wind the way she makes herself out to be, she actually had some pretty sketchy things happen in her immediate family, suffered with binge eating, and suffered with a terrible end to a marriage.  Tina Fey is perfect so…

So anyways, now that I’m not really training for much, I’m kind of in my groove where I run anywhere between 3-however many miles a day, and I discovered the best thing ever to help pass the time.  I found comedians on Spotify.

photo (7)Now, I LOVE a good comedian or comedienne.

My faves are obviously Tina, Chris Rock, and Kathy Griffin.  (I can’t sand Chelsea Lately cause I think she’s not funny and really racist, and I hate that she has that little person running around her show like he’s some kinda of novelty item when he’s a human being.)  But as I was listening to a Chris Rock album from about 2005, I could not help but be a little uncomfortable in response to some of the ubiquitous swearing.

Trust me, I can swear with the best of them.  But my speech, in general, is not peppered with offensive words because I don’t want to sound like a dumb dirty idiot.

The older I get, the more offended I find myself getting with profanity, especially ubiquitous profanity just thrown in there for shits and giggles.

I kid.  But anyone else starting to feel this way?

 

Sometimes ya just gotta make out in public.

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photo 1-1 photo 2Sike, when is this EVER okay?  Like, EVER.

Austin, his sister, and I went to the best sushi place in all of Raleigh for dinner to celebrate his sister’s almost-last class in her rotation at Pharmacy school.  She’s really cool, and noted this really odd couple at the bar – an older gentleman and a younger girl, maybe my age.  They flat-out refused to be normal and made out for like 70% of the night, making everyone on the bar side of Sushi Blues uncomfortable.  Cool….

Anyhoo, despite shattering my thumb into 10,000 pieces, I’ve been a able to at least keep up with my runs for the Nike Women’s Half this weekend, and got a run in some friggin beautiful weather in prep for the big race.

Race Prep

I’m so excited for the Nike Women’s Half for a few reasons.  One, having a race to run motivates me to keep up with my running and my fitness.  I work out a ton in real life, but having something to work toward, imagining cruising and ticking off miles on Sunday morning is what has kept me going over the last few weeks.  It’s cool because I get to do it with a million (okay, closer to 15,000) other women, I get to meet other bloggers in a meet-up on Saturday morning before the race :), and I get to spend time in the city that I really am in love with.

So now that I’ve blathered on and on about what my plans are for my weekend in DC, what are you looking forward to this weekend?

 

Imodium

| cheriarmour

First, a big preemptive congrats to all my friends and running family that are running Boston on Monday.  It is so exciting to see everyone’s posts, and I hope that one day I will work hard enough to be there, enjoying the expo, and exploring the expo.  I’m so inspired by my friends who are there, and heading that way now.

Onto the gross stuff

I know this is literally so gross, but I have to talk about this.

The runner’s trots.

Trots refers to the thing that happens when you run long distance, your stomach starts killing.

I did some reading up on it, and there’s an actual reason for it.  So evidently, when you’re running your body focuses on sending blood to other areas of your area, so your digestive system gets neglected, meaning that halfway digested and undigested food gets shot through before it’s supposed to, which attributes to the cramps, the stomach pain, and in extreme times, the pit stops that have to be made during the runs.

Between that and my gastritis, my stomach has been really sensitive, and I’ve had to be really careful about putting things into it.  That includes gels, and things even in the week leading up to a race.

So, before Rock ‘n’ USA, I was really considering playing with Imodium, because of the experiences I’ve had, and I didn’t really do it because I hadn’t tried it throughout my training.  So around miles 9 of the race, I was hit with some pretty gnarly cramps, and pushed through to the end, but I really wasn’t feeling great in the stomach department after the race.

So for Rock ‘n’ Roll Raleigh, I paid really really great attention to what I ate in the week leading up, and the evening before, I took a full dosage of this stuff after sending Austin on a hunt for the pill version the night before…

Image via Amazon
Image via Amazon

And despite my concerns about using something like this (was I blocking my body from its natural functioning, would it stop me up, so to speak,) it was great. There were never a moment during the race that I was concerned about my stomach, and it really really helped my shift my focus from my normally-upset stomach to actually tearing up some of the hills.

So, what do you think? For my folks with upset stomachs, would you consider swigging a little bit of Imodium?

Racin’ Up in Vegas

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tumblr_lyvu7d1kIp1qzbagvo1_500See how I did that?

Play on words? Wakin’ Up in Vegas, Katy Perry’s second big single/my next big race?

Okay, let me clear up the confusion.

So, in addition to wearing Bondi Bands, as a blogger, I applied to be part of their Ragnar Team in Vegas, which means I was only responsible for airfare.  I was chosen for one of their teams, and will be running with 5 other girls on one of their Ultra teams over a two-day, 200-mile period, and I cannot be any more thrilled.

The best part?

After I told Austin that I was planning on embarking on this ridiculous endeavor with 5 new friends (and then blogging about it), we decided to take a mini-moon to Vegas in November, and then plan our “real” honeymoon for late in 2015.  Now fun question for today!

I’m thinking Bora Bora or Hawaii.  Where should we honeymoon?

I don’t know what to say.

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The race was awesome.  The course was hot and hilly, and I was a little scared going in because of how ill I had been with my allergies all week, but I crushed it.  It was no PR, but the race was crushed.

Race Flex ) .png
Pre Race Photo

And then after the race, a cloud kind of drifted over our post-race celebrations, after we’d grabbed our free beer and headed out to a local bar (with terrible service) to grab some more non-free beers. After checking Twitter, our friend Jess found out that WRAL, the presenting sponsor, was reporting that two people had died at the race.

I don’t want to be funny, or silly, or crazy right now – I want to extend my deepest and most sincere condolences to the families of the two men who lost their lives today. I will catch you all soon ❤

I wrote a real thing.

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I kinda forgot that I wrote this thing for NPR a few months ago, so when I got a call from a really cool Carol Jackson,  I sorta had no clue what she was talking about for like 10 seconds before I remembered I’d written a little something something.

Screen Shot 2014-04-11 at 11.57.28 PMClick through to read the article. 🙂

 

So a Haitian, and two Argentinians walk into Fleet Feet…

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Kinda sounds like a joke, right?

Well it happened.  Except I made a rookie mistake and I didn’t snap a selfie, so I just have to tell you what I was doing with an Argentinian camera crew.  So enjoy today’s favorite gif instead.

So a few weeks back Competitor Group, the group that puts on Rock ‘n’ Roll contacted me – ESPN Run, a division of ESPN that’s really big in Latin American countries needed a local runner, me to like, do what I do and let them film me doing it.

You would think that would make you feel like a boss ass bitch –

boss assBut really, I felt horribly dorky the entire time.

It was like…

…run – but run slow

…stretch slowly so we can see your muscles

…breathe into this mic

…stand still for three minutes, and stare in the same spot.

I’m really excited to see how this footage turns out, and I will snap a quick pic for you all tomorrow, because the guys are coming over tomorrow to film me making breakfast – through the magic of editing, they’re going to make it look like I’m prepping my breakfast in the minutes before the half, without stressing me out and actually following me around on Sunday morning.

So….what are you guys up to today?

The project is still in progress –

Weekend recap.

| cheriarmour

I hope you had a really really good weekend.  I would say that not only was my weekend good, but it was really really productive, and it’s high time that I’ve been productive on a weekend.  Unfortunately, that means that it kinda feels like I didn’t stop working all weekend, but at least I got shiz done, right?

So Friday night, I’m pretty sure I told you guys that since I went to body pump early, that I went to bed pretty much when I got done with work.  That was that.

Saturday, I headed down to Elon, about an hour away, to teach at Elonthon, a 24-hour Dance Marathon that benefits the Duke Children’s Hospital.  To say it was nuts (in the best way possible) would be the understatement of the century.

DSC_0214Since I get sort of nervous before I teach any class, walking into this group of spirited college students made me a little nervous.  But I hopped on stage, and as soon as I started my first song, I felt he nerves sort of disappear, and launched into 30 minutes of a class, that I hope pumped everyone else for the last 4ish hours of the marathon. As always, Elon kids continue to do amazing things, and I’m impressed by their spirit.

I managed to continue my little personal tradition, and go for a short little run around Elon’s campus, and as I was doing that, I couldn’t help but wonder if I looked old, and if folks could tell that my old ass didn’t belong there.

I’d planned to stop by the wedding venue since it was right down the street but as usual, I overbooked myself, and I didn’t have time to stop anywhere because I stopped by a few art stores to grab more buttons for a project that was to come later on this week.

And, to wrap up Saturday I headed to Raleigh Beerfest to drink, and to hang out with my hubby and his friends.  I drank enough until my old self was ready to go home and go to sleep.  God bless you folks out here in these streets who was able (proper southern grammar) to keep the party going after Beerfest, my hubby included, but that was not me.

10171077_10100299026849773_1888318097_nBeerfest!

And then on Sunday, once I woke up, I scrubbed the apartment (thanks to the foster Beagle, I had to scrub a few really ripe spots in the carpet), and then set out to getting down to wedding stuff.  Do you guys mind if I give you a little sneak peek into Wedding Wednesday?

10151197_10100299276958553_1782262188_nI spent a few hours creating a practice bouquet that will act as a template for my girls.  It took a while, but I’ve given myself enough time to make a unique bouquet for each and every one of my girls, and one to throw, so that they will have something to keep as a token from their time spent with me.  What do you think?

Okay loves, how was your weekend?

 

Stuff I need (ugh, want).

| cheriarmour

I worked at Fleet Feet this past Saturday, which means, quite unfortunately for my budget, which we’ve talked about here, it starts to feel threatened and starts shivering.

For months and months, I drool and daydream about various pieces of technical running gear, until finally, I feel comfortable enough to actually purchase it without feeling guilty.  As soon as I walked into work yesterday, I spotted a few items that will  need to be made into little family members in my growing collection of running stuff that I’ve acquired over the past few years.

Nike-Pro-Sparkling-Sunburst-Mallas---Mujer-632280_709_A_PREMThis photo has been popping up on my feed in celebration of the Nike Women’s Half Marathon, and went on sale for 90 euros.  Now, I’m not the bomb with math, but that’s not looking too good for the running budget.

DSC_0187This was staring at me when I walked into the store on Saturday, and I’m a total sucker for anything that’s a 3/4 tight, and textured.  It probably does nothing for making me look svelte, but I really don’t care.  I love how fun a textured tight looks, and I’m sick of just running around in my basic black 3/4 tight.

DSC_0188And I totally wish that I could let you guys touch fabrics through the blog.  This top was lined with a really light fleece, and I think since it’s starting to get warm, it will be on sale pretty soon.

But alas, this is just a wish list.

Anything you’ve seen that you wish you could just stick in your closet?