Back from the Dead

I'm still here! The last few weeks have been terrible in terms of work and school, but I'm back now! Let's see...what's happened since the last time I posted?

• Two 5K races
• One 5 mile race
• Three  PRs (because I haven't done a 5 miler before)
• Some swimming (but not enough)
• LOTS of wonderful foam rolling. My calves are happier than they've been in a loooong time. 

First was the Chesterfield Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, which I ran with B. I broke 23 after a slow start. There were more than 3000 people there and many, many people lined up way too close to the starting line. I had never run a big race without corrals! It was lots of fun though.

The 5-miler (the Believe in Girls 5M race) was on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I placed well but wasn't trying to race hard. My goal was to keep an even pace with good form. I held consistent 8min/mile and finished at 39:59.

Yesterday, B and I ran another holiday-themed race, the Santas on the Loose 5K in Webster Groves. Everyone who entered was given a beard and a santa hat. I elected to forgo the beard because I always get way too warm when I run. It was 60 degrees! St. Louis has been burning up lately.

There were cookies and hot chocolate at the finish line, yum! This course was also hillier than expected. I don't think I've been giving Missouri enough credit, I thought it was flat all over. WRONG!

Small hills,yes, but they just kept coming! 

But - amazingly - I PR'd with a 22:28. I didn't feel like I was running that hard, but the start was much smoother than the Turkey Trot so that certainly helped. I don't love the 5K distance, but I don't want to swear off it until I break 22. I think I'll be able to do it pretty soon with a flat course with a good race plan.

So - that's been my schedule for the past month. I can write up some individual recaps if anyone is local and is interested in doing these races next year.

As for my life outside of running....
I made Thanksgiving cookies, using this awesome blog as my inspiration.

Oh yeah - done with our Christmas shopping! And see those golden star gift tags?

I made them! They were super-easy. I made some salt dough (like you'd see on pinterest), cut out stars with a cookie cutter, made a holly pattern with a big rubber stamp, and painted them with gold paint after they were done drying. 

Carly getting into the Christmas spirit...

Of course, I've been working a LOT. Here are the fruit flies that I stare at all day, e'ery day:

Well, I think you guys are more or less caught up on my oh-so-exciting (not) life. I tried out a few recipes that I'll be sharing over the next few days, including the best butternut squash soup everrrr. And marathon training officially starts tomorrow!! Very excited over here in the AIDIH household.

Have you done any holiday races this year?

Procrastination is the Name of the Game

I started today with one of THOSE mornings. You know the ones - when you really really want to get out of bed and be productive, but your covers hold you hostage and your pillow whispers sweet nothings in your ear. Blah - it was bad. I usually pop out of bed at 6:30 to walk the dog and get some work done watch the news, but I was up too late last night and was feeling lazy. I got my butt out of bed just long enough to take Carly outside and hear the Today show music, and then I konked out until 9AM when I (again, begrudgingly) headed out the door. I had a review session for an upcoming cell biology exam...I appreciated the review, but yikes! Scheduling it on a Saturday morning was a killer.

I got back around 11 and headed to PetSmart with B to get some food for fuzzbutt. There was an adoption drive going on and we were thisclose to coming home with another dog, i.e. I considered stuffing one of the puppies into my hoodie and bolting for the door.

Died when I saw her. Beautiful. 

We made a pit stop at Target because I needed a peppermint mocha fix and because we were out of oatmeal. I've eaten oatmeal for breakfast every day for....three years?... and we haven't had any in the house for FOUR DAYS. I'm amazed the earth didn't explode.

Can anyone go to Target and only buy one thing? We looked around for a bit and ended up getting some egg nog, hot chocolate, and a hat for our upcoming Turkey Trot 5K. B desperately wanted to run in something festive.

Pumpkin as stand-in for B's head

This hat was only two dollars! It's our first thanksgiving away from our families so we're planning on drowning our homesickness in sweat in the AM and turkey/green beans/mashed potatoes in the PM. I'm looking forward to our first low-key holiday but I'll miss my grandma's annual 20-person blowout.

I really needed to get studying after shopping was over, but I thought a nap was a better use of my time. I have NO idea why I was so tired today! After another hour with my true love (my bed), I decided to test out the calves with a short little run. My goal was simple: don't push too hard, no more than 3 miles, and listen to my body. I felt awful in the first 200 yards and almost went home, but I loosened up after that. I took a few breaks to stretch and massage my calves whenever the pain got too bad, and was able to do a safe, easy 2.5 miles. I held a 9:08 pace, which is slower than I normally run but was perfect for today. I would have been thrilled with 10:00min/mile this time last year, so I'm just thankful for how far I've come since then. I have to keep reminding myself that this injury is only a temporary roadblock...unless I get in my own way and prolong it by doing something dumb.

I was so proud of myself for staying within my limits that I went down to the gym in our building for some celebratory arm work

The gym is really nice for a high-rise, and I love the variety of cardio machines. There are a few key exercises that I couldn't do here, but it's a great place to go for a workout in a pinch. B and I probably wouldn't have joined a "real" gym if it weren't for the fact that we needed a place to swim.

Earmuffs still on from earlier....dork

I did some tricep pulldowns and lat pulldowns, but unfortunately ignored my biceps as usual. Swimming works your triceps much more than your biceps, and so my tris are quite literally larger and stronger than my biceps. Thus, lifting biceps depresses me, so then I don't do it and just perpetuate the problem. Note to self: add bicep strength to list of "stop being dumb" goals.

Dinner was a junk salad, i.e. a mixture of all of my leftovers on top of lettuce. That bad boy had butternut squash, roasted onions, almonds, raisins, feta cheese, black beans, pinto beans, and some balsamic vinegar on top. It was ok, but didn't knock my socks off. The gingerbread tea I had along with it was also suprisingly blah.

The rest of the night was foam rolling, studying, and enjoying the first glass of eggnog of the season.

What's your favorite seasonal drink? Eggnog, cider, hot chocolate, peppermint anything...? For me, this would be like trying to choose between my (non-existent) children.
Do you have pets? Obviously I am Carly's babysitter/snack-giver/ear-scratcher, but I've had four other dogs over the course of my life. I've also had a few fish and an ill-fated hermit crab named Pickles.

Halloween and Getting Back in the Pool

Did you guys have a fun Halloween? B and I always had swim practices or meets on Halloween so we've never really gotten excited about it (except for the candy, of course). This year, we were invited over to a friend's house to pass out candy and enjoy some cider. We were so out of touch with the rest of the world that we didn't realize we needed costumes until 15 minutes before we left...oops.

We were in a rush so we didn't take pictures...he just wore a batman T-shirt with black jeans and I wore an LMFAO Party Rock Gym T-shirt with pink leggings and crazy sunglasses. Their song "Sexy and I Know It" was a popular choice for swim practice playlists, so their songs make me weirdly nostalgic.

Oh, and there was gold eyeliner involved. 

These are new friends so it was really great to tour their gorgeous house, meet their dogs, and get to know them a little better.  I had some of the adult cider, it was a little strong for me but it was warm and that was all I wanted! We didn't get many trick or treaters :( I was bummed. I grew up in the woods so no one ever came to our house, and little kids in costume are so cute!

Now, if you've been paying attention to the last few paragraphs, I'm really missing my old swim team. I told B that I was kind of sad about it, and he said that he feels the same way. Well, big news: we decided to actually do something about it!

We joined a gym with a pool and got back in the water for the first time since the 2012 NCAA championships (me) and the 2011 conference championships (him). It hurt, it wasn't pretty, and we didn't get as much done as we would have liked...but it was a start. I usually bounce back pretty quickly after time off, so I'm feeling optimistic about the next few weeks. I'm experiencing the perfect amount of total-body fatigue right now.

Oh chlorine-hair, how I've missed you.

Random: we got passed in a no-passing zone on our way to the gym. This lady was FLYING. Then she started honking her horn at the person in front of us and flipping off everyone on the road. It was so crazy. Aaaaand she ended up going to the same gym as us. AWKWARD. The end.

Hermann London Halloween 5K

B's parents are visiting this weekend! His mom was one of the people who first inspired me to get into running competitively, and now B is showing a renewed interest in the sport. We toyed around with the idea of running a race together, and it was a done deal once I found out about a local Halloween run. Racing PLUS a costume contest? We're there.

After several phone calls to both of our parents, we decided to try for the "best group costume" prize and go as a shark, a swimmer, and a surfer/victim. Sharks have always been my favorite animals and this wasn't the first time I dressed as one for Halloween! B's parents stopped by my mom's house to pick up my shark costume from yearrrssss ago, and they schlepped that thing all the way to St. Louis. Meanwhile, we got our "surfboard" (old foam boogie board) ready for the race.

It was actually the first race that B and I ever ran together, so it was pretty special. He's usually my bag holder/jacket giver/man slave before races, and he hasn't competed since high school cross country. It was fun to see him get excited about running again!

Sleepy breakfast time!

We arrived an hour early because we bought our race entries from Living Social (great idea, by the way) and were worried that our registration might have been messed up. It all worked out great, though, and we used the extra time to drive back to our apartment to pick up the boogie board that I had forgotten. Brilliant.

Lots of people LOVED the shark costume. B wore a very realistic bloody T-shirt (thank you, gel food coloring) with goggles and a swim cap, and his mom wore a swim suit with goggles around her neck. We decided to all run together because I couldn't see a thing and the course was open to traffic. Nothing could possibly go wrong!

We ditched the boogie board 5 seconds after this picture was taken.

The course was a lot hillier than we were anticipating, and we lost B's mom early on. I, of course, took each hill as a personal challenge and sprinted up as fast as I could. B stuck with me and was a great guide..."car on your right...pothole...parked car on your left...hey, let's pass this lady!"

The mesh covering my face turned to steel wool sometime during the second mile, so I'm currently sporting a nice red nose. Not gonna lie - running in that thing wasn't a ton of fun. It was hot and I couldn't see, but it was neat to wave at little kids on the course and to pass people who weren't in costume. 

We finished at a 26:16 - not nearly as fast as we could have gone, but we were pretty happy with our times under the circumstances. I heard one guy at the finish line say to his son "Hey, you see that shark? It beat me!" Chomp chomp. 

We didn't win the costume contest, so it was obviously rigged. For what it's worth, the race director's wife came over to us said that we were her favorites! They had hot dogs and chips for the runners, so we hung out for a little while and listened to the band play. This was my first 5K - I gravitate towards the longer races - so it was a nice way to recover from last week's half marathon and have some fun with my family. 

Have you ever raced in a costume?