A Few Milestones

I've got a combo post coming up -- so consider yourself warned. No matter what the topic though, it appears that I've reached a few milestones...

Run Report: My knees are still bothering me, but I haven't let that stop me. This week, I ran the most number of miles/week at 28.3 miles! Monday and Friday were easy days and I just ran 5.1 around my neighborhood. Wednesday was my return to speedwork. I was really worried because my last speedwork session, a 4 mile tempo run was dreadful! I did a 1 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down and the the 4 mile tempo was supposed to be at an 8:47 to 9:10 pace (according to the McMillan Calculator.) I hit my tempo time with an average pace of 8:45 m/m but it was torturous! As soon as I hit the 4 mile mark, I had to stop and walk for the first minute of my cool down. Not cool! Anyhow, I was worried that with 2 weeks away from speedwork, I would have a repeat performance but I didn't! I didn't even look back to see what my target time was supposed to be. I figured I'd just go out and base the run on perceived effort and how erratic my breathing got! And guess what -- I did my 1 mile warm and 1 mile cool down and my 4 mile tempo run at an 8:25 m/m pace! AND, while I was glad to be done, it didn't feel nearly as bad as before! Yeah!

To finish off the week, I had my long run on Saturday. I was shooting for 11 miles, which would be a new distance PR for me. I plotted out my run via MapMyRun.com and headed out to the bike path. Miles 1-5 felt pretty good. As soon as I hit mile 5, which is where I turned around last week, I started to keep my eyes open for the 5.5 mile mark -- my turn around for this week. The trail isn't marked at all for distance -- I was just using landmarks, a big pond in this instance. Well, the trees had really grown on the path, so I couldn't see a pond at all! I just kept going until I felt I had gone past .5 miles and until I could find a different landmark so that I could least map the run once I got home. I turned at a sign on the path and hoped I had gone far enough. The remaining miles felt decent. I had some muscle strain occasionally, but nothing that lasted long. In fact, I only had pain on the downhills. Good thing this wasn't a hilly course. Oh yeah, I only had one other dilemma -- I was dying of thirst! I've been lucky so far in that I have never had to carry water with me on a run. I don't really get too thirsty, and as long as I have a good drink of water before my run, I'm generally pretty good to go. Well, not this time! Apparently, 10 miles is my limit! It didn't help that it was probably 80 degrees outside and the sun was beating down! I didn't have anything with me and I was dying the last few miles! Daydreaming about reaching my water bottle in the car is what got me to really move the last 30 minutes!

Well, anyway, once I got home, I went back on MapMyRun to see how far I had actually gone. And guess what -- I definitely had a new distance PR: 11.9 miles! Whoa! If I knew I was that close to 12, I would have totally gone .1 more! Oh well. So then I went to total my miles for the week and saw that I had a new record (but I already said that,) but then when I totaled the miles up from when I started running again back in February, I see that I am SO close to another record! I'm at 298.5! As of tomorrow, I'll be over 300 which means, time for new shoes! Thank you Mizunos for carrying me this far!

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Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD): As you may have read, I am starting a new baking adventure this week. I have joined a group of baking bloggers who choose one recipe a week from this book called, Baking: From My Home to Yours. The blog name is Tuesdays with Dorie, from now on only referred to as TWD. Anyway, as I mentioned below, this week's recipe is a double crusted blueberry pie. Okay... I have never, and I repeat never baked a pie in my life! Working with dough (and let me clarify -- dough that needs to be rolled) is NOT my forte! In fact, it is the bane of my baking existence... the constant downfall in my quest of dessert domination! Okay... you get the point. So anyhow, tonight I will start my attempt at beating my nemesis into submission. I will start with the dough tonight and try to bake this thing tomorrow. Wish me luck!

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I've Been Tagged! Well Jen from Jen's Birthday Challenge AND Kai from See Kai Run, See Kai Eat have thrown down a double team tag! They have both challenged me to list 6 random facts about myself. So... here goes:

1. I'm very particular about how I eat certain candy. Now, this only applies to candy that has different flavors in one package like Skittles or gummy bears. Here's the thing -- I can NOT mix flavors of candy in one bite. Whenever I get a bag of these candies, let's use Skittles as our example, I first sort all of the candies by color/taste. Then I will only eat one color at a time. For example, I'll eat a red Skittle with another red Skittle -- NEVER a red with a green. This becomes very challenging when trying to eat Skittles in dark places such as the movie theater, but what can I say?!

2. Going along with #1 -- I can only eat candies in even numbers. This is to prevent a disequilibrium in my mouth -- you see, if I eat in even numbers, I can have the same number of candies on the left side of my mouth as the right. That way, each side is equally happy! Now if I have an odd number of candies -- 3 red Skittles we'll say -- I'll simply bite the third Skittle in half so that I can chew 1.5 Skittles on the right and 1.5 on the left. Odd, but true!

3. Totally off the candy subject now... I have a weird foot thing. I only like looking at pretty/cute feet -- unattractive feet totally gross me out! I'm really crazy about that too! I almost didn't go out with my DH because of his feet. When I first met him, we were at the beach. He was wearing sandals and I was thinking, "Oh no, those won't do! I know socks and sandals are a no-no, but this guy needs an exemption!"

4. The first concert I ever went to was New Kids on the Block! I was totally in love with Joey McIntyre at the time and just couldn't believe I was in the same room with him! I am slightly stoked that NKOTB has reunited and yes, I do jam out to their new song "Summertime" when I hear it on the radio.

5. My mom is from the Philippines and while she didn't make a huge effort to impart her culture onto me, I miss even the little things. I miss hearing the language, I miss the food (which I make myself sometimes), I miss having that culture in my life. Every year I feel like it fades a little more and that makes me sad.

6. When I am sad, I cheer myself up by going to super cute websites like LOLcats. Or sometimes I'll go on YouTube and watch those videos of cats doing silly stuff. Here's one now!



Okay, that's it for me! Now here are the rest of the rules to the challenge:

1. link to the person who tagged you.
2. post the rules on your blog.
3. write six random things about yourself.
4. tag six people at the end of your post.
5. let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
6. let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Okay, I accomplished rules 1-3. Now here is where I get totally lame. Both of the people who tagged ME and the ones who I would have tagged! I really don't follow too many blogs, so I don't know who else to tag SO, if you are reading this and you have a blog, consider yourself TAGGED! Can that count for rules 4-6... pretty please? :-)