=)

For almost 4 years, I've neglected that department of my life...

C.M.F., thanks for persisting until you broke down my wall =)

Chocolate Milk = The Perfect Recovery Drink

A couple months ago, I had written about how coconut water was all the rage with runners and exercise enthusiasts these days. Well, I've got another "natural" nutrition rage for you. Chocolate milk is now becoming runners' favorite post-run recovery drink. Seriously, I looked around at the Bagel Bin where all the HCS runners hang out after our Saturday runs and over half of them were drinking chocolate milk (Bagel Bin better start stocking up on more chocolate milk on Saturdays!). Chocolate milk apparently has the perfect blend of carbohydrates and protein to rehydrate the body and help muscles recover/reduce soreness.

Everyone who knows me knows that I always have random chocolate milk cravings. I always feel like such a kid drinking from a milk carton or out of a bottle with a huge picture of a bunny on it. Well, now I have a legitimate excuse for drinking chocolate milk all the time! And I must say, the chocolatey yumminess is quite satisfying after a long and tough workout!

Dreaded Druid Hills 10K and Bel Air Town Run 5K

This weekend was my first attempt at double-dipping with races. I ran the Dreaded Druid Hills 10K on Saturday and the Bel Air Town Run 5K on Sunday. I would someday like to do the Disney Goofy Challenge (which is a half-marathon one day followed by a full marathon the next), so it is good to test what back-to-back racing feels like. However, I guess this time doesn't count for much since I didn't run very hard at Dreaded Druid Hills.

Dreaded Druid Hills 10K:

This race is known for its brutal hills. The description on the website reads: "Most memorable quote so far: I love running hills, but that was mean and totally uncalled for. - Finisher in the chute, 2002." I love a challenge and have seen my fair share of nasty hills, so I had to see for myself just how bad this course was.

Unfortunately, I was hit with food poisoning mid-week and spent two full days in bed. By Friday, I was recovered enough to eat full meals again but still took a full day of rest from physical activity. I thought I was fully recovered and back to full running form on Saturday morning, so I started out at a decent pace and ran the first mile in 8:49. Then, the same stomach pains that had me lying in bed for 2 days came back in full throttle. I felt like I was about to hurl and told the friend that was running with me to go ahead without me because I needed to slow down. Although I was able to still keep somewhat of a running pace for the 2nd mile, each time I sped up or climbed a hill, my stomach would hurt more.

When I got to the 2nd mile, I couldn't ignore the pain any longer and had to stop and walk for the full mile. I felt so defeated! With the exception of JFK (which required walking), I have never walked in a race. My goal for my first marathon was to be able to run the whole duration of the race, no matter how slow or fast. But here I was, walking a 10K. After one mile, I decided it would take too long for me to finish if I walked the whole second half and started running again with some intermittent walking. When I reached the last mile of the race, I was finally able to ignore the pain and speed up. Thinking about how I don't belong this far back in a race kept me motivated and I passed a lot of runners who were out of gas from all those hills. I finished in 1:12:16.

Besides all of the stomach issues, I actually enjoyed the course. I thought it was rather scenic and although the hills were pretty brutal, I think I would've managed ok if not for the food poisoning. If I am free next year, I will definitely come back and redeem myself. I guess the lesson learned here is that no matter how much you prepare, there are so many factors that play into whether you are going to have a good race or not, be it the weather, injuries, sleep deprivation, digestive issues, pre-race jitters, etc. It's how you deal with all of this that makes you a better runner.

Bel Air Town Run 5K:

This year, I am competing in the RRCA State Championship series to try to win my age group. Basically, this is a series of 10 races throughout the year all over Maryland amongst several running clubs. Each club hosts a race and you get points based on your finish time. You have to run at least 4 of the 10 races to qualify for an award. The Bel Air Town Run was the 3rd race in the series and was hosted by Harford County's running club, RASAC.

I couldn't get any of my friends to go all the way out to Bel Air to run 5 km with me (it was weird driving that far north on 95, I am so used to driving south to MoCo for my weekend runs), but I knew a few HCSers that were doing it and was able to hang out with them before the start. It was such a hot and humid day that I was already sweating from just standing and waiting 5-10 min at the start line. I knew it was going to be a rough run. Luckily, the course was pretty forgiving as it was mostly downhill with only a couple uphills towards the end. A good number of supporters came out to watch and some even took their hoses and sprinklers out to cool us down.

I didn't experience any stomach pains during the race or any other sort of issues, so that was good. I wasn't really able to speed up or slow down much, so I basically just kept the same pace throughout the race. I pretty much just remember it being so hot and humid (which made me contemplate why I am doing the Annapolis 10 Mile Run at the end of August again) and just wanting to be done and glad that was only a 5K and not a 10K. I crossed the finish line with a time of 24:21.

I cooled down and hung out with my HCS friends for a while afterwards but I had to leave at 9:00 AM to get balloons and decorations for my mom's surprise birthday party. They hadn't announced the awards yet by the time I left, but apparently I came in 3rd place out of the 48 females in my 20-24 age group. However, since the overall female winner was 22 and you cannot win both the overall and age group award, I got bumped up to 2nd place for the AG award. This is my first running award ever! Too bad I was not there to claim it. Hopefully they will mail it to me, so I don't have to drive all the way back up to Bel Air to get it. My friend said the awards for this race was trophies too! Yay!

I went from feeling defeated and walking for the first time in one race to winning an award in another all in one weekend! A lot of firsts this weekend: some good, some bad. I need to get faster (or find races where the fast girls don't show up), so I can win some cash awards to make up for all of these race fees.

***UPDATE***

Drove up to Bel Air after work today to pick up my award. Here it is:

Not the best picture, but it is hard trying to take a picture of a piece of glass! When I turned the flash off, the glass reflected everything back.

A Day with Taylor and Joshua

Spend the day with a 2 year-old and you'll be reminded of the sweet, simple, and pure innocence of childhood! This past Monday, I had the pleasure of helping my mom babysit Taylor. Boy is she a handful! Where the heck does she get all the energy from when she hardly eats?

Her dad dropped her off at my house in the morning and she was a little scared at first, so my mom took her down to the basement to find some toys to play with. She excitedly took a few balls upstairs and ran around the house calling out "Dada?" (who had left when she was downstairs). She then tried to open the door, exclaiming "It stuck." When I wouldn't open it for her, she had a frightened look on her face that her parents had just abandoned her and screamed out "Mama!" I quickly took one of her balls and threw it and that was all it took to distract her and make her happy again. It's amazing how short of an attention span kids have and how easily amused they are!

My mom had to run to the grocery store, so we took her with us. She wanted to take all the balls with her, so my mom took out a little Victoria's Secret bag for her to put them in to carry. In the car, she yelled out everything she saw. I can't remember the last time I've seen her, but her vocabulary has expanded so much since then! When we got to the store, she exclaimed "A train! A train! Choo choo!" pointing at the shopping cart with the kiddie car attached to the front. So we put her in the little car and she went around the store saying "Choo choo," "Beep beep," and pointing at everything else she saw in sight.

Choo! Choo!

Dia Oi and Melissa were at my house when we got back. She walked up to Dia Oi with her fist out and went "Bump! Bump!" Dia Oi was confused, so I had to teach her how to fist bump. I thought this was the funniest sight ever! Dia Oi fist bumping Taylor! Hahahaha. And she kept asking Dia Oi to do it too!

We then took her to the mall while my mom went over to pick up March and Joshua to meet up with us. We had a Chick-fil-A lunch and while sitting at the table waiting for my mom, March, and Joshua to get there, Taylor exclaimed "Ball! Ball!," pointing her little finger and trying to get up and run to where she was pointing. I looked over in that direction and didn't see any balls before realizing that she was pointing at a lady holding a Victoria's Secret bag. Hahahaha. What a smart little girl! I did not want to see either of their reactions if Taylor actually did run up to the lady and try to take her "balls" and was relieved when the lady passed and Taylor gave up her efforts...that is, until another lady passed by holding a Victoria's Secret bag. Again, she pointed and screamed "Ball! Ball!" and tried to get up.

My mom, March, and Joshua arrived and Taylor excitedly yelled, "A baby!" and showered Joshua with kisses. It was so cute because she kept trying to fist-bump and high-five Joshua and was disappointed when he didn't do anything (Melissa and I have made a mental note to teach him to fist-bump when he's older). We took Taylor to the playplace for a little bit while they ate. It was amusing to watch her climb all over the slides, especially since she was the littlest one in there! The rest of the time at the mall was spent pushing Joshua around and chasing Taylor! Taylor acted very big sister-ly towards Joshua, holding onto the stroller and making sure he was ok in there, even giving him her blankie.

Taylor looking after Joshua, who's as big as her!

Taylor and her mismatched socks!

We finally called it an afternoon and took them back home, where Taylor proceeded to not nap and instead ran all over the house, hiding from my mom and yelling out "Boo!" whenever my mom found her.

What an amusing and exhausting day!

Joshua

Count Your Blessings

Nashville was hit with devastating floods. Oklahoma with tornadoes. Arizona with dust storms. All the places that we passed through on our cross-country road trip. Our 5-day drive through these cities/states consisted of sunshine, absolutely no rain, and no traffic save for 30 min through Tennessee because of road work. I don't think we could have gotten any luckier... My heart goes out to those who are suffering from Mother Nature's wrath.

Also, I think I am the only person who can actually say getting laid off turned out good for me. Although I've been working full time for the past year and a half, I am in a casual position with no benefits. They've been trying to get me on a full time position and was finally able to push the grant through by telling the sponsor they were letting me go unless the funds came through to support me in the new position. With the department low on funds, all of the laboratory workers were laid off and I am the only one that has a position lined up after our last day because it requires a Bachelor's degree, which the others don't have. In addition to that, my hours were cut back in May to 3 days/week. Although it sucks to have my pay get cut, I am very much welcoming the much-needed break from the normal work routine before finally officially starting on full time in June.

Pike's Peek 10K

Every running program has a graduation. A race where you get to see the progress you've made and the product of all that hard work and dedication over the last few months. For FTM, graduation was the Marine Corps Marathon. Hai and I opted for an early graduation with the Baltimore Marathon, where we exceled, and then used MCM as a celebratory race for our success. For SDP, graduation was the Pike's Peek 10K. This race also bears the weight of being what they use to assign you to a pace group for FTM. There's a lot riding on this little race, which made me all the more excited about it before I took those 2.5 weeks off leading up to it.

All winter long, we trained (even with all the snow!). Track on Tuesdays and long runs on Saturdays. Those track workouts were rough, but I always went home feeling great knowing that I had put in a lot of hard work. By the end of February, I was already beginning to see how much I had benefited from this program. I was running more comfortably at faster paces and killed my previous PR's by over 5 minutes at the RRCA 10 Mile Challenge and National Marathon with not as much effort as I would've expected to make those times.

Then came April and traveling sidetracked my running. I managed two runs total in the 2.5 weeks leading up to Pike's Peek and made it back from Cali the night before the race. Being on Pacific Time was not very fun at all, especially considering that I was sleeping in til 8-9 am instead of getting up at my usual 5 am over there. I spent most of the night away counting down the hours I had left til I had to get up.

The weather was cold, rainy, and humid that morning. Although most considered this weather ideal as opposed to hot and sunny, I did not appreciate it as it made me feel groggier than I already was from the lack of sleep. Hai and I got into the 7:00-8:00 min/mile wave start with a couple of other people in our 8:00 min pace group. I tried to follow Coach Tom's advice and start conservatively. Although I thought I was running at a comfortable pace, Hai caught up to me and told me I was doing 7:15 min/mile for mile 1.

It all went downhill after that. The effort and ease of running fast that came to me in February and March as a result of those tough track workouts had escaped from me with that long April hiatus. I struggled through the rest of the race not focusing so much on time as on watching most of my peers from the program pass me.

I learned a very valuable lesson that if you don't keep working at something, you will lose those abilities very quickly. Although I still PRed by almost 4 minutes from last year's race, I guess I was disappointed in my performance because I had been looking forward to this race for so long and know that I could have done a lot better and with less effort had this race taken place before my 2.5 week hiatus. I was one of the slowest in my 8:00 pace group and when we shared our finish times with each other and I told them mine, one of them had a shocked expression on his face and asked "What happened?" I couldn't help but laugh and think "My thoughts, exactly!" Regardless of the circumstances, I am still very proud and thankful for what SDP has brought out in the runner inside me. Hard work DOES pay off! I am excited for what this summer's Experienced Marathoners Program has to offer and hope for some positive results in my fall marathon, Steamtown.

Road Trip to Cali

A road trip from MD to Cali is something I've always wanted to do and now I can finally say I've done it. Driving cross country really gives me an appreciation for just how big and diverse this country is. I loved experiencing all the different climates and cultures/people/accents (if you haven't already noticed, I have a thing for accents!). I also realized that I need to brush up on my U.S. geography!

Day 1 (Sunday):
We jam-packed all of our things into Vi's little car and headed out on I-70W on Sunday morning. As we hit the C&O Canal and surrounding area, I was fondly reminded of that crazy 50 mile race I did back in November on those paths. Good times! We sliced into a tiny piece of Virginia before going into West Virginia for a short period of time and then it was back into Virginia coasting along 81 for what seemed like a very long time (perhaps because I've seen Virginia enough times and had no interest in it). I was very excited to reach Tennessee, as it was the first of the four states (TN, AR, OK, NM) on this trip that I'd never been to before. We stopped in Nashville for the night. We drove down Broadway St. and I was surprised to see/hear how happening this street was on a Sunday night with all the live music (no wonder they call Nashville "Music City").

Day 2 (Monday):
We stopped at The Parthenon in Centennial Park before heading out. It was a very pretty park, I saw a group of runners and was very jealous of where they got to run. We passed right by Memphis and I could see St. Jude Children's Research Hospital from the highway. Ever since volunteering in the Pediatric Care Research Unit at Hopkins in 2004, I have always wanted to work at St. Jude's, although 1) I don't want to live in Memphis and 2) that would be an extremely depressing job. I don't remember much about Arkansas except a lot of open fields and cows. Sadly, I did not even know that AR neighbored TN and OK. Next up was Oklahoma! We stayed for the night in Oklahoma City with Amy and John (thanks guys!). It was nice to see their place and meet Holly. She liked me (Amy said she likes pink) and I wasn't even wearing any pink! Must've been her pink intuition! The only thing I know about Oklahoma is the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. I did not know that they made a memorial at the bomb sight, but that was very cool to see.

Day 3 (Tuesday):
On the road again with the next state being Texas. Technically, I have been in the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport for layovers, but I guess you can't really count that as a visit. The highlight of our brief encounter with this state was seeing tumbleweeds rolling across the roads, it was just like in the cartoons! Next, we hit New Mexico. There are a lot of Indian reservations in NM. We reached Arizona and stopped in Flagstaff for the night. It was colder than I had expected and I was surprised to see a good amount of snow still on the ground.

Day 4 (Wednesday):
We took the day off from driving and went to see the Grand Canyon. This is definitely something worth seeing in person, as pictures cannot even begin to do this place any justice. It was also nice to take a break from 11 to 13-hour days of driving, although the driving did not seem as bad as I expected it to be. It had been a full week since the last time I had run or done any form of exercise, so I was really anxious to do some form of physical activity. Vi and I were really excited to use the hotel's "fitness center" until we turned on the treadmill and realized that the speed would not go pass 3.6 mph. WTF?! By this time, I was beginning to lose track of dates and times altogether, especially with crossing all those time zones.

Day 5 (Thursday):
We decided to spend another day playing by visiting the parks in Sedona, AZ. We visited Slide Rock State Park, the downtown district of Sedona, and Red Rock State Park before deciding we had had enough of red rocks and continued onward with our road trip. No wonder why Arizona is always symbolized with a cactus, there were cacti everywhere and they were huge! We decided that if we headed to Phoenix, it would be too early in the day to want to stop driving, but if we tried to make it all the way to San Diego, we wouldn't get there til past midnight. So we chose a random city in between: Blythe, CA. Just over the border between Arizona and California, Blythe was pretty much in the middle of nowhere and basically seemed like a "pitstop" kind of town. Also, why does California make you stop at their border for inspection and make you throw away all your produce?

Day 6 (Friday):
Just a couple more hours before we reach our final destination. The drive out there seemed to happen so fast, that I didn't expect it to be over already. Everything went so smoothly, the weather was sunny the whole way, and we only hit traffic once for about a half an hour in Tennessee. The first place we hit up upon reaching San Diego was apartment complex choice #1. This place looked very appealing and almost seemed like a resort. We checked out a few more places and then checked into our hotel on base at Camp Pendleton.

Days 7-13 (Saturday - Friday):
We spent the weekend in the hotel and then moved to the beach cottage on San Onofre Beach during the week. Saturday was spent doing more apartment hunting before Vi ultimately decided to go with choice #1. We then proceeded with the moving process by going furniture shopping over the next two days. We also took multiple trips to Super Walmart (or as Vi's GPS calls it, "Wooooowwwmart") for numerous exchanges, returns, and forgotten items. There was hardly any free time with all the chores to do and waiting around for furniture, the cable guy, and the Navy movers to arrive. Vi unfortunately had to report to work right away on Monday, but was lucky enough to get Thursday and Friday off. I was able to get in one run on the beach and one around her neighborhood (life without humidity is so great!). We also went to Mission Beach, Coronado Island, and Santa Ana. I really like the place that Vi chose to live, Oceanside. It's so close to plenty of stores and a lot of good food! Avocados are cheap there, only 50 cents each!

Day 14 (Saturday):
The end of the trip =(. Let's just say I was glad to be riding a 4 1/2 hour plane back to MD rather than driving all that way back!