Training Tuesday: October in Review

I'll start with a recap of this week, and then get onto the review of the entire month of October.

Monday: Rest (actual: 1.50 @ 8:37 pace)
I often take a rest day on Monday, since it's the day after my long run, but I was feeling ready to run, so I went out for a short, quick one. I felt good (even though it was short!), so it was a confidence booster. :)

Tuesday: Run 3-4 miles at HM pace (actual: 3.1 @ 8:52)
It rained for the entire day on Tuesday, so i was worried that I wouldn't get a run in, but around 10 pm, I decided I was just going to go ahead and run in the rain. It was a decent temp, about 52 degrees, but dark and steadily raining. I put on my insanely bright LED vest, a jacket, a hat, and off I went. I originally told myself that I could stop after a mile, but I felt good, and it was actually quite refreshing to run in the rain, so I ended up doing 5k.

Wednesday: Rest
It rained again on Wednesday, so this time I gave in and took a rest day. :)

Thursday: Easy 4 (actual: 4.03 @ 9:26 pace)
This run felt very hard, which was frustrating. It was rather cold, and I was feeling pretty wimpy, so I wore pants. I knew this was a bad idea because I always get hot when I'm running, but it was the only way I was getting out the door. About 2 miles into the run, I was SO hot. I was able to finish it out, but I confirmed that I should not wear pants while running if it's above 40 degrees.

Friday: Easy 4 1 mile run (1 mile with dog @ 8:34)
I was not excited about running today, so I just decided to do a quick run with my dog, then call it a day. Luckily, she's speedy, so I could at least consider it speed work. :)

Saturday: 12 miles 6 miles (6 miles @ 9:16 pace)
I decided to do my long run on Saturday morning instead of Sunday because I was going to a wedding, so I had 12 miles on the schedule. Unfortunately, I was up late on Friday getting some research work finished up, and we had to be ready to leave for the wedding by 11, so I only had time for 6 miles. It felt ok, but not great.

Sunday: 6 miles
I planned to run 6 miles today so that I at least got 12 miles in over the weekend. After sleeping in a little bit (in addition to the extra hour due to the time change!), we went to brunch with friends who also had been at the wedding. This ended up taking a really long time, and then we had to stop at my parents house to get the dog on the way home--by the time we got home it was already dark, and I had to try to get some stuff done. I decided to skip the run for the day. :-|

Total Mileage: 15.89 :(

I was hoping to have another 25 mile week this week, but I definitely fell short. :( I know it doesn't matter too much in terms of my fitness for the half this Saturday, but I'm still disappointed.

October Recap
I am so bummed about this, but I didn't get 100 miles for the month! If I had been able to do my 12 mile run on Saturday, I would have gotten it, but instead I had a total 95.56 miles for the month. I'm still rather happy with this, but it's disappointing to be so close to getting 100 miles in for 2 months in a row. I am feeling pretty good with a September total of 94.57 and then an October total of 95.56. This is much higher mileage than I have hit in the past and I hope that it shows during my half this weekend! 

Speaking of my upcoming half, these are my goals:
A: sub 2:00: I want to be able to hit this goal, but I'm not sure if I can. I have done several short runs (3-5 miles) in the past few weeks at this pace, and it has felt rather hard. I am hoping race day adrenaline carries me though, but we will see. 
B: < 2:04:27 (< 9:30 pace): I have done all of my long runs at 9:30-9:40 pace, so my secondary goal for the half is to run faster than a 9:30 pace. 
C: PR with < 2:07:26: I don't think that I should have too much of a problem at least getting a PR for this race since I have trained much better than I ever had in the past.

Training Tuesday

Sorry for the unexpected absence on the blog front! I obviously did not complete the streaking challenge--I was never sure if I'd be able to, and once I missed one day, I just lost all motivation to get back on it. I figured a Training Tuesday post was a good way to get started again. :)

Monday: 40 minutes tempo run (4.5 miles @ 8:50 pace, total time: 39:45)
Typically, Monday is the day after my long run, so I will either do a short run or just stretch and do some strength training. This week though, I had moved my long run to Friday, with only a short run on Sunday, so by Monday I was feeling ready to go. I moved the tempo run for the week to Monday and off I went. This run felt really great and I felt quick/strong the whole time. :)

Tuesday: Stretch and Strengthen (Actually just rest)
Since I moved my speed day to Monday, I moved one of my rest days to Tuesday. I was supposed to stretch and strengthen, but really I just took the day off completely.

Wednesday: 5 miles easy (actual: 5.1 @ 10:08 pace)
This was a very strange run because usually I have to force myself to slow down on easy days, but on this run, even when I felt like I was going a little fast, my pace was around 10:00. Not sure if I was still a little tired from Monday or if my fueling was just off, but I guess it was a perfect day for an easy recovery run.

Thursday: 3 miles easy + strength
I intended to run Thursday evening, but instead we went to see The Martian (which is a great movie by the way!), so I did not get any running in. I almost ran when we got back from the movie around midnight, but I decided that was unnecessary and I'd just run a little extra on Friday.

Friday: 4-5 miles @ HM pace, goal: 9:05-9:09 (actual pace: 9:06, splits: 9:15, 9:02, 8:59, 9:09, + 1.4 mile CD)
This run was quite a struggle for me towards the end. It made me very worried about hitting my pace for the half marathon, but we will see. I ended up doing 4 at HM pace and then a 1.4 mile cool down, which I thought was a good breakdown.

Saturday: Rest
I like resting the day before a long run, so I happily took this day off before tomorrow's 11 miler. I did a lot of cleaning during the day, which made me feel productive. :)

Sunday: 11 mile long run (pace: 9:46)
This run felt really good until about mile 8. I took a totally different route than I normally do for my long runs, which I think is good to do, but by mile 8, I was just totally exhausted. I think I was pretty dehydrated, because I ended up having a headache for most of the day after the run. Bleh. I keep trying to remember that a bad long run doesn't mean I'm not going to reach my goals for the half, but it's easy to get frustrated!

Total Mileage: 26.00

Overall, I am happy with my mileage for the week and I think I had some pretty strong workouts. It's my first time getting 25 miles in a week, so I was pretty excited about that. I am on track to get 100 miles for October (again, a first for me), as long as I do my long run on Saturday instead of Sunday (which I'd do anyway because we have a wedding on Saturday evening and I'm not sure how I'll feel on Sunday). Less than 2 weeks until my half!

October 9th: The Trifecta

October 9th has a special place in my life...my mom's birthday is on October 9th...my dad's birthday is on October 9th...AND...their anniversary is on October 9th. I call it the trifecta. When I met Dustin I told him that we all call it the trifecta, but as he started using the term more frequently, I realized that maybe I was the only one who used it. :) It's starting to catch on though. :) Let's talk about my parents a little bit since it is their special day. They are the best parents you could ever ask for, and I know a lot of people say that, but it's really true.

My parents and I in the summer of 2010

 My mom worked at the Post Office for a little over 20 years, and retired back in 2013. I cannot really sum up my mom in one single blog post, but one thing I can say is that she is one of the most generous people that I have ever met. She is always thinking of others, and probably the worst thing in her mind is leaving other people out, or making them feel uncomfortable/unwelcome. She loves making candy treats (hard to explain, but basically candy bars and other forms of packaged candy glued together to look like something like a plane or a train) for any group that I am a part of...when I went to Macy's parade with Purdue's marching band, she made them for all 375 members of the band!

My mom with my niece, Emily

My dad worked at Subaru, and was in charge of any additions or new buildings: he would hire the contractors, watch over them to make sure they were on task (and the project was on budget), and make them fix things if they didn't do a good job. He liked the job a lot because he got to interact with lots of different people, but it was also rather stressful, and in the last few years was requiring him to work a lot of hours. He retired in 2014, and I was very relieved when he did, because the job was really starting to wear him down. I guess the most important thing to say about my dad is that him and I have almost the exact same thought process about everything. I have always been close to him, and when I was in college, I was talking to him almost everyday. He is hilarious and probably the smartest person I have ever met--he is also incredibly social and is great at getting to know people.

Lovely picture of my dad and I :)

Both of my parents have done everything that they possibly could to make sure that I would have a good life, and I am eternally grateful. I feel so lucky that we get along well, that they like D a lot (my dad and D are honestly best buds), and that they are willing to come visit frequently. In fact, they pretty much never miss a performance that I'm a part of (which is no small thing; in the summer I was in a concert almost every single week playing the clarinet), and they even drove the 2 hours last year to watch me and D run the Monumental Half Marathon.

My parents clearly supporting Purdue! :)

I guess all that's left to say is Happy Birthday and Happy 28th Anniversary to my two wonderful parents. Thanks for everything you have done for me...I definitely couldn't have gotten to where I am today without both of your help. Love you!

Wedding Photo

Throwback Thursday: The D & D Edition

Today I will give you the D&D edition of Throwback Thursday. The date was May 19th, 2010--it was one of my best friend's 21st birthday. My friend, Molly, a few other girls, and I started the night out at a local Mexican restaurant where we had wonderful food and giant margaritas.

Molly enjoying her giant margarita while wearing her lovely 21 headband

After the Mexican food, we headed to the campus bars. We started at a bar called Brothers...if you went to a Big 10 school you  might recognize the name, because there are several Brothers locations at various schools. Our friend Laura bought the group 2 shots each, one was a Bazooka Joe (tasted exactly like the bubble gum...), and the other was some delicious shot. Laura took the Bazooka Joe shot, but it was so disgusting that she spit it back into the shot glass. No more than 1 minute later, two of her friends walked in the bar to join us. One of them said, "Is this shot for me?" and grabbed the spit-up shot and took it before any of us could say anything...that, my friends, was Dustin. ha!

I ended up talking to him a little bit that night, but I had a boyfriend at the time, and the night was about Molly, so it was mostly just general introductions. The next time we saw each other was again at a bar (don't judge, it was college ha) with the same group of friends, and this time I talked to him quite a bit. He was about to leave for an internship with Penske Racing in Pennsylvania, which I thought was really cool, and we also spent a decent amount of time talking about my internship which was in the Product Testing department of a medical device company called MED Institute. We realized that we got along really well, and decided that we'd be friends. He left for Pennsylvania soon after, and we started casual texting each other. The summer passed by with us texting back and forth once in awhile, only seeing each other briefly with our main group of friends on July 4th, and all of a sudden school was back in session.

We had pretty much stopped texting completely  at this point since I was feeling weird about texting him while I had a boyfriend (not that it was anything inappropriate, I just felt like we were getting a little too close). One day, my friend/roommate (Molly again!), threw a surprise birthday party for her boyfriend at our apartment. Dustin ended up coming with our friend Laura, and I was super annoyed that he hadn't told me he was coming...after all I thought we were friends (sort of? I guess we hadn't been talking, but I was still offended haha). I went up to him and asked him why he didn't tell me he was coming, and we talked for a bit, then I declared that we were kicking him out. It was in a joking fashion, and he was laughing the whole time, but I actually went around to the other roommates and asked if we could kick him out. We voted, and with a vote of 3-0-1 (Molly wouldn't vote, she stayed neutral), we kicked him out. He left with Laura and a few other people, but I realized at that point that I actually liked him a lot and I was offended because I wanted to be a part of his life and know what he was up to.

About a week later, I broke up with my boyfriend. I had been talking to D on and off, but hadn't told him I was going to break up with boyfriend because I wanted it to be a completely neutral decision. It was definitely sad, but I knew that I wasn't in it 100%, and that I wasn't being fair. D & I continued to text semi-frequently for a few more weeks, until I asked him why he hadn't asked me on a date yet. He said he wanted to make sure I was comfortable and immediately asked me to go out on a date with him. I had a really great time, and I pretty quickly realized that he was special. We had so much fun together, and he had all of the qualities that I think are important.

Halloween 2010...an amazingly fun night!

We became very close quickly, and we decided to take a trip to New York together for Christmas Break. His friend Anthony was also going to come, which took the pressure off a little bit. :) D's aunt used to own an apartment in New York City, very close to Central Park, and we were lucky enough to get to stay in it while we were there.

Us on the Brooklyn Bridge

We got to attend a filming of the Late Show with David Letterman

We watched the ball drop on New Years (although we were like 6 blocks away and could barely see it), and did lots of other fun things as well. After New York, Anthony headed back home, but D and I went to Washington D.C. He actually ended up getting sick, so we didn't get to do too much while we were there, but we did get to explore a little bit, and the road trip was a lot of fun. We continued to get closer and closer during the Spring semester, and eventually we decided to move to Chicago together (I had a job offer in the city, he was still looking for a job). Looking back, I guess it probably seemed like too soon to move in together, but I knew that he was my person and I wanted to be with him forever, so it made perfect sense to me.

While we lived in Chicago, we made friends and had fun times.

Cubs game (I may have thrown this specific picture in because the Cubs just won a postseason game!!!)

Morning bike ride with the skyline in the background

Another Cubs game! Go Cubs Go!

That's it for Throwback Thursday! :) Sorry for the wall of text, I might have gotten a little carried away. :)

New Phone Day! And the Horrible Habit of Putting Things Off

First of all, I got a new phone today!! :) I got an Iphone 5s, which I know is not the coolest/newest phone out on the market, but it was 99 cents, so I couldn't pass it up. Now that I have a phone with a nice, functioning camera, you can expect to see a lot more pictures!

My cute dog got the honor of being my first photo on my new phone :)

The camera issue leads me to the next topic of the day: putting things off. I dropped my phone outside on concrete on January 30, 2013...I remember clearly because it was my birthday, and I thought I had such bad luck to break my phone on my birthday! The front screen cracked in several places, and I was super bummed out. In addition, the camera stopped working (the front facing one worked, but the regular one wouldn't). We were about 8 months away from an upgrade, and it was decently expensive to get the screen fixed, so we began searching around for other options. Eventually, we found out that someone who works in the same building as us fixes iPhones, and the best part--he only wanted $20! We got my phone to him, and asked him to fix the front screen. He pointed out that the back also had a crack, and he could replace it cheaply, so of course we said "go for it!".

He fixed my phone and when I got it back, it looked great! Unfortunately, the camera still didn't work, and now the front camera didn't work either. I brought it back to him and told him my issue and he said he wasn't sure if he could fix the camera because it was a little more complicated. For the front camera, he said maybe the screen was slightly misaligned, which was causing the software to prevent the camera from running. He tried fixing it, but it didn't work, so he just handed the phone back to me. Now I had a phone that looked fixed, but didn't have a functioning camera.

About six months later, my advisor knocked my phone off of a lab table during a meeting (on accident). I just picked it up without looking at it and set it face down back on the table. It had a case, so I wasn't that worried about it. Once the meeting was over, I looked at it, and saw the screen was cracked again. :-| I didn't want to say anything to my advisor because I knew he would feel guilty and offer to replace it, or at least help replace it, but since it had already been somewhat broken, I wouldn't feel comfortable with that. I decided to just live with the phone in its broken state.

Somewhere around this time, we were up for our phone renewal. This was great news, except we weren't sure that we wanted to stay with Verizon, and even if we did, we were considering going back to dumb phones. One day we even went to the Verizon store to talk to them, but they only had about 2 non-smart phones at the store, and both of them were disappointing. We wanted to move away from smart phones so that we didn't feel so dependent on technology, and because we felt like we could save money if we didn't have a data plan.

Somehow, we continued with our broken phones (somewhere in this time period, D's phone also broke, although at least he still had a functioning camera) until today. A few days ago I was feeling frustrated with the lack of a camera, so I just got on Verizon's website and got us new phones, and while I was at it, looked at other phone plans. I was able to find a plan that saves us about $80 a month. Saving $80 a month and getting new phones?!? I'm so mad that I didn't put time into this sooner because we could have saved a ton of money and had working phones this whole time. *sigh* Oh well, I'm using it as a reminder that it is silly to put things off, especially for extended periods of time!

Training Tuesday

I'm borrowing the Training Tuesday topic from Lizzy because I think it's such a good idea to have one day to reflect on the week's training, and because the title is so catchy that I can't pass it up. :)

Monday: Strength/Stretching
Monday is the day after my long run, so I typically just base my running on how I feel. Sunday's run was very exhausting and I felt extremely worn out for the rest of the day on Sunday, so I decided to take Monday off.

Tuesday: 8 x 400 @ 2:05 (actual times: 2:02, 2:01, 1:57, 1:59, 1:59, 1:57, 2:00, 1:56)
As I started to jog down to the local track, I was not excited about doing track work; however, once I got about a mile into the warm up, I felt much better and was ready to go! The only other track workout I have done (well, since I was in track in high school) was 800 repeats, which I wasn't a huge fan of. I really liked doing these 400s though! I think it's a nice distance. I remember in high school I thought the 400 was way too long...who would have thought that I would become a distance runner! :) My goal time for the 400 was my 5k pace, which would be about a 2:05. I was happy that I was able to go slightly faster than that for all 8 splits. :)

Wednesday: 4 miles @ 9:54 pace
I tried my hardest to make this a true recovery run after the speed work on Tuesday. I was pumped that I was able to keep the pace nice and easy--usually I speed up without noticing, and then I feel like I'm not getting a real recovery run.

Thursday: 1.25 miles @ 9:07 pace
Because I had run more than expected on Tuesday (I thought I would be around 4 miles total for the day, but actually ran 5.9), I felt like I could do a shorter run today. This run was with my dog around the neighborhood, which is a nice way to add variety to my runs (she is pretty good at running with me, but if we see a rabbit, all bets are off).

Friday: 4 miles @ HM pace, goal: 9:05-9:09 (actual pace: 8:50, splits: 8:39, 8:55, 9:04, 8:41)
This run felt SO hard for some reason (well, possibly because I was going faster than I should have been). I was having a really hard time with pacing, which was frustrating, and then around mile 3 I started feeling overly exhausted. I guess every run can't feel great,

Saturday: Rest
I was definitely ready for this rest day. I actually almost went for a short run with my dog, but she tends to go pretty fast, and I didn't want to overdo it, so I decided to take the day completely off.

Sunday: 9 mile long run (pace: 9:40)
This run felt great! After my blah Friday pace run, and last week's mediocre long run, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I felt good the entire time. I kept decently even splits, and felt strong all the way until the end.

Total Mileage: 24.38

Overall, I think this was a great week! This was my highest weekly mileage ever, so that was exciting, and most of the runs felt pretty good. I hope to get even more miles in this week. :)

A Case of the Mondays

I had a serious case of the Mondays all day today, which is why I am so late in writing today's blog post. I had homework due for a class, and I put off even starting it until this morning, which is very unlike me, so that just added to the negativity of the day.

The day is [almost] over though, so I'm just putting it behind me and getting ready to have a great day tomorrow! :)

Sorry today is so short--I just want to go to bed! I am not sure if this even technically counts as a blog post for my streaking challenge, but I figured I would get something down on paper (well...on screen) so that I didn't feel like a total slacker. :)

Sunday Funday!

Hello all! I can't believe that the weekend is already over...where did it go?! I started off the day by making pumpkin bread, and within 5 minutes of putting it in the oven, I was off on my long run. I ran 8.5 last weekend, but it wasn't really a great run (I was fine until about 6.5, then just felt really sluggish and ready to be done). Because of that, when I saw that I was to do 9 today, I wasn't sure how it was going to go. Luckily, I felt really great the whole time, and ended up very happy with the run!

I think I'm probably doing my long runs at too fast of a pace, but when I am feeling good, I have a hard time slowing it down. The second that I got back from my run, I had to jump in the shower so we could get out the door ASAP to go to a friend's house for brunch (one of the reasons for making the pumpkin bread!)

Rebekah (in the back) was the one that hosted brunch today

Side note: please notice how my friends look classy and there I am at a bar after a run, wearing a Brooks pullover. I remember thinking that I probably still looked fine despite coming directly from a run, but now I'm thinking I was mistaken haha.

Brunch was absolutely amazing with a menu including: homemade monkey bread (and I mean even the dough was homemade), 3 different types of quiche (also homemade), ham balls, crepes, pumpkin bread (my contribution), fruit salad, mimosas, and mulled wine. What a perfect meal to devour after running 9 miles. :)

Immediately after brunch I had to go to campus to talk to potential graduate students. My advisor had asked me to attend the Big Ten+ Grad Expo today to promote our lab and try to get some new students. I wasn't that excited about it, but it was actually really great: I talked to about 20 potential students! It is fun to talk about your research on a high-level, especially when people are interested (or at the very least, acting interested!). I also got a nice long-sleeved t-shirt for participating, so I was pumped about that.

For dinner, D and I decided we were going to go out to eat, but that we had to update each other with what we've been up to in the previous week. Obviously we talk everyday, so we already generally know what the other person is doing, but it was nice to give details and hear about all of the different accomplishments. It sounds kind of silly, but it was a good way to wrap up the weekend and get back into thinking about school/research for the week ahead. Plus we went to this awesome Irish restaurant and had these delicious goat cheese fritters.

That's it for my day. I am trying to pump myself up for a great, productive week. Our Fall Break is next Monday and Tuesday, so we have a four day weekend, and we are going to Las Vegas to visit my sister and her family. :) 

Orchestra Concert

I'm pushing it a little bit today, getting my blog post out just before midnight. The streak still stands...day 3, ha! :) Today is going to be short, but hopefully enjoyable. I play the violin in the Purdue Philharmonic Orchestra, and we had a concert tonight. Purdue and IU have an agreement about which majors each school can have, so Purdue has engineering, a vet school, aviation, and IU has a med school, a dental school, a law school, (geez, as I'm writing this it seems like Purdue may have gotten the raw end of this deal...), and a [very good] music school. Because Purdue doesn't have a music school, all of our musical groups (marching band, jazz bands, concert bands, and orchestras) are made up of people who truly want to be there and are only participating because they love it. This makes it extremely enjoyable to be a part of! :)

Random picture of Philharmonic Orchestra (not from today's concert)

Since we have been rehearsing the concert music for the past 5 weeks, I constantly have the songs running through my head. I really enjoyed the music that we played for this concert, so I wanted to give you guys some links to listen to these great pieces.

The first is the Overture to La Forza Del Destino by Giuseppe Verdi. This is a short one (less than 8 minutes), so it's easy and quick to listen to as you browse the internet or catch up on your blogging. :) The second piece that we played was The Planets by Gustav Holst. This one is quiet a bit longer, but split up into sections about each of the different planets, so you can break it up if you don't want to listen to it all at once. If you listen to this one, I'm sure you'll hear some familiar parts--this music is used a lot in movies (especially sci-fi movies).

Hope you enjoy the orchestra music! I'm off to bed so I can tackle my 9 mile long run in the morning! Have a good Saturday evening/Sunday morning.

Implicit Bias

Hello all! Purdue has a very active Women in Engineering Program (WIEP)...because we are a huge engineering university, the administration has put in a lot of effort to make sure we are constantly recruiting women and other minorities, as well as making them feel welcome/included once they arrive. I think this is awesome!

I completed my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering, and I think it had a ratio of about 50:50, male:female. I was a part of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and understood that females are not typically encouraged to become engineers, but I didn't directly feel the effects of that. However, once I entered graduate school as a Mechanical Engineer (ME), I saw a different picture. Only about 10% of MEs are female. I had never been in such a male-dominated environment before, and it definitely became something that I was acutely aware of. Perhaps because of this, I became more involved with the WIEP: both in outreach to elementary schools and the Graduate Mentoring Program (GMP).

The GMP is a resource for females who are pursuing a graduate degree in any discipline of engineering. The main activities of this group are monthly meetings where a different topic is explored. We had a meeting last night, and we discussed implicit bias. I thought this was extremely interesting, and although I usually focus on running/fitness on my blog, I thought some of you may be interested in this as well.

The basic idea is that everyone has some level of privilege based on your gender, race, socio-economic status, location, etc. Because you feel some inherent association with those who fit in the same groups as you (e.g. all of us who are runners automatically feel like we share a bond, although that is obviously a positive example :D), you also generally have some implicit bias against others outside of your group. Everyone has some level of implicit bias, but by identifying your personal biases, it can help to address them head on. Here are a few facts about implicit bias:

At Purdue we have a large population of international students, so at this GMP meeting when we broke into groups to talk about the different groups we identify with, and how we perceive those groupings (positive vs. negative, large influence vs. negligible influence, etc), it was interesting to hear the opinions of some students with very different backgrounds than my own. It basically showed that I have privileges in some areas that I don't even notice/recognize--one example of this is being a US citizen.

One neat thing that you can do to test for any personal implicit biases that you might have is to take these online quizzes. These are actually rather legitimate quizzes from researchers at Harvard, not some random Buzzfeed quizzes (not that I don't indulge in some trashy Buzzfeed quizzes every once in awhile ;), so you should check it out. I've done a couple and was pretty happy with one of the results:

Apparently I'm convinced that females are meant to be associated with science. :) Sorry for the tangent today--I just thought it was an interesting message and I wanted to share!

September Recap

Wow! I cannot believe that September is already over...it honestly feel like we just rolled out of August. I am going to try to join Hanna in the October streaking challenge (one blog post for everyday of October), so you should be seeing a lot of me this month. :) I thought I'd kick it off with a recap of my running in September.

Up until about the first weekend in September, I was considering doing an olympic triathlon on September 28, so I had been working out a lot, but not necessarily running as much as I wanted to. On the weekend of the 6th, I decided to put the triathlon off until next year...I have been trying to focus on only doing things that I can put full effort into, and not just doing things to put a check in a box. Anyway, because of that, I had a high (for me) mileage month--in fact, my highest mileage ever!

September Running Recap

If you can read my total down there, you will see that I ran 94.57 miles this month! I was tempted to go out and run another 0.43 just to get it to a round 95, but I figured that would be silly and somewhat compulsive. :)

I have a half marathon on November 7th, so I made a loose plan that is basically a combination of the Hal Hidgon Intermediate Plan and this random plan I found when I was looking for alternate races. I started adding in speed training this week with 8x400. I haven't done regular speed work since I've gotten into long distance running, or incorporated it into training for a half, so I'm excited about this addition. I was in track in high school, and actually enjoy this interval-type training more than long runs. :)

I hope to get at least 100 miles in October which I shouldn't have any problem doing. I did my first half marathon back in November of 2013, and followed the Hal Hidgon Novice 1 plan. I was pretty strict with it, and I probably only skipped a handful of runs in the entire 12 week plan. Last year, however, I was horrible about following the plan (maybe because I was less nervous since I had already run a half before?), and ended up with a slightly slower finishing time, and a monthly total of 36 miles the month before my half. :-| What! I guess I have learned a lot in the past year about running, and how to properly train, because I don't even remember thinking that I wasn't running enough. I'm so glad to be reading so many running blogs and runnit which teach me a ton about running: fueling properly, training, resting, stretching, racing, etc! Thanks everyone. :)

My goal is to finish my half marathon in less than two hours. This race pace predictor thinks that I can do it, so now I just have to have confidence in myself. :)

This or That Survey

I figured since I haven't blogged in awhile, a good way to get back into it would be to do a survey that I saw on another blog. Let's get to it! :)

Chocolate or Vanilla?

Absolutely no question, chocolate. I pretty much love chocolate everything: chocolate chip cookies, brownies, chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream. My favorite blizzard from DQ is Chocolate Extreme. :)

Innie or Outtie?

Innie! I don't have much else to say about this belly button of mine ha.

Hot, Hot Summer or Snowy Winter?

I would go with hot, hot summer because I love the sun and getting to spend lots of time outside. 

D and I taking advantage of the hot summer at the beach (Lake Michigan, not ocean!)

On the other hand, I don't really mind the winter either--I love just after it snows and it's so beautiful and peaceful. 

One time D said we had to test our tent in cold weather...see that snow on the ground?!

I hate being cold though, which is why I guess I'd have to choose the hot summer. :)

Save or Spend?

I think I prefer saving my money just because that's what my parents did while I was growing up, so it's what I'm used to. I try to remember to allow myself to spend money to have fun--one thing I actually enjoy spending money on is travelling!

Elliptical or Treadmill?

I feel like I am not coordinated enough to use the elliptical. I have tried several times, but I just feel awkward the entire time, and end up giving up pretty quickly.

Banana or Apple?

Definitely banana! I get tired of chewing apples about halfway though (this is one of the many things that D makes fun of me for), so unless it's a really small apple, I usually will pass.

Morning or Night?

Night. I really want to be a morning person, but it's so hard to make the switch. I feel so much more productive after about 8 pm at night, and I hate getting up in the morning.

Lip Balm or Lipstick?

Neither--I do use chapstick a lot though, especially in the winter months.

Alone or with others?

I was actually just thinking about this on my run today, how coincidental! I am definitely an extrovert, and I love being around people. However, maybe because I was basically an only child (my sister is 12 years older than me) growing up, I like my alone time too. I love getting alone time in a crowded place...for example studying at a coffee shop or reading in a busy park. 

Coffee or Tea?

Both! I drink coffee more, but I love chai tea, especially in the fall. For awhile I was trying to replace some of my coffee with tea just so I didn't feel so dependent on the daily coffee, but I guess I forgot about that. Maybe I'll focus on that again. :)

Straight or Curly?

It just depends! My hair is naturally wavy, which I usually like. If I sleep with it wet, it curls up a decent amount, and so I wear it like that at least once a week. 

Wavy hair

Generally if I want to look fancier, or if I want to guarantee that my hair is going to look presentable (the wavyness of the hair is really a toss up, so I have no idea what it will do day to day), then I straighten it.

Straight hair and a bonus pic of my sister :)

Three Squares or Graze All Day?

I'm not really a grazer. My husband is, and when we first lived together, I thought it was crazy how much he would snack (basically anytime he walked through the kitchen ha). I have since realized that many people are like this--who knew! :)

Right-handed or left-handed?

I'm right, but D and my mom are left so I'm kind of partial to lefties. :)

Beach or Mountains?

I would say mountains. I love the beach where you can really relax and soak up the sun, but I get bored quickly without having much to do. I prefer getting to camp, hike, and bike up the mountains.

D and I at Yosemite

Mac or PC?

I guess PC. There is a decent amount of engineering software that is easy to install/use on PCs and more difficult on Macs--since I don't know that much about computers, I stick with the easier option of the PC.

Shy or Outgoing?

I think I'm more outgoing, but it definitely just depends on the situation!

Una Boda en la Ciudad de México

Last weekend one of my good friends, Adriana, got married in Mexico City. I was so honored when she asked me to be a part of her wedding, and when I found out it was going to be in Mexico City, I was even more excited!

Adriana and I at my wedding

We flew down to Mexico City on Thursday morning so that we'd have time to settle in before the wedding festivities began. We got lucky and got put in an emergency exit row so we had plenty of room to spread out on the flight. 

Thursday was spent exploring the area and having some delicious food. Friday morning we saw some ruins in the city, and then walked about 3 miles through the area. We ended the morning with the Diego Rivera museum where we were able to see his huge mural--it was beautiful and tells a long story. Friday afternoon we had the rehearsal followed by a dinner for anyone who had made the trip to Mexico City.

The church where they got married

Saturday morning we woke up ready to start preparing for the wedding. They had hired a great team to come to the hotel and do everyone's hair and/or makeup. All of the bridesmaids looked great. :)

Getting my hair done with my cute "Bride's Entourage" shirt

After we were all ready, we walked the block from the hotel to the church. This doesn't seem like that far of a walk, but when the bride has a 5 foot train, it gets a little tricky. :) We all worked together to make sure that she arrived to the church looking perfect.

Preparing for the walk--her dad looks so proud :)

The wedding was half in Spanish and half in English--a beautiful, very unique ceremony. After the wedding we took quite a few pictures with friends and family in the church, and then walked to the large plaza to take pictures with the bridal party.

Bridesmaids with the happy couple in the church

The plaza that we took pictures in is the largest plaza in the western hemisphere. At the end of the plaza is a huge, beautiful church, so the pictures were incredible.

The bridal party with the couple--church and Mexican flag in the background

After the photographers felt like we had taken enough pictures, we headed back to the hotel to wait until it was time for us to arrive at the reception. The reception was only half a block from the hotel, so all of the events of the day were within one block--this was so convenient! Once we entered the reception, the party started! The dinner was incredible; very different than what we expect from weddings in the US, but absolutely delicious. 

Cutting the cake--notice all of the extra sweets for the guests!

Afterwards, the dancing (and tequila shots) started and didn't stop for hours and hours. 

Bridal party taking the first tequila shot of the night

We had such a great time and I am so happy that I got to be a part of the weekend.

Tired, exhausted, but so happy at the end of the night :)