Full Moon Friday Five!

Posted by hellyontherun in Books, Family, Link Party, Marathon, Race, Running and tagged with Books, Family, Friday the 13th, Hal Higdon, Jason, Marathon Training, Mexico, Miguel Herrera, No Soda, Run Less Run Faster, Trail Run, World Cup June 13, 2014

I’m linking up again with the DC Trifecta girls–Mar, Cynthia, and Courtney (<–happy weeding weekend!!) for another Friday Five!

This week—Random Edition. Who doesn’t love randomness?? 🙂

Here we go!

1. Happy Friday the 13th!!!!

I’m totally not superstitious nor do I scare easily. I love horror books and films and think it’s fascinating how people think of things like that to write/film. Crazy, really.

I’m an English teacher and I know I’m supposed to love the classics, and I do, but I also like reading fun stuff (I know, horror? Fun?) One of my favorite authors is Jeffrey Deaver. He wrote the book turned-into-big-time-movie starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie called The Bone Collector. If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, do it! At least one of them 🙂 Last month, he was doing a book tour of the sequel to the aforementioned novel. I had been waiting forever for it to come out and was pumped that I’d be able to go to his signing. Except not. I was off crossing the Grand Canyon a couple of times and couldn’t make it that day.

So my husband went!!! He’s never read a single one of his books but he knew how much it meant to me and he got the book signed.

yay!

In celebration of today, my run club is doing a full moon fun run tonight 🙂

–Do you like horror/murder mystery books/movies?
–Will you be celebrating today?

2. World Cup!!! Another exciting thing happening today is Mexico is playing. I’ve been loosely following (really on Instagram) the team’s road to the cup. I’m a Mexico fan because I grew up right on the border of the United States and Mexico. Like right on the border. I cheer for the U.S. when they play and I cheer for Mexico when they play. When they’re against each other, well, it’s tough lol!

Mexico’s coach is hilarious!

–Did you see the bizarre opening ceremony??
–Will you be watching any soccer games?

3. Marathon Training Plan This weekend I’ll be whipping up a training plan for my October marathon. I’m so excited to do this! I don’t know why, but having that sheet telling me what to do makes me happy 🙂

I’ve been reading Run Less, Run Faster and I’m not sure if I want to follow the plan 100%. I’ve been liking a lot of what I’ve read but there are a few things that worry me–I plan on talking about this further in a later post.

I liked Hal’s plan that I used for my first marathon. I’ve been talking with a friend about Hanson’s Method. My run club coach provided me with a plan as well. I honestly think my plan will end up being a hodgepodge of several different methods, who knows! But I am sure that by Sunday, I will have a final product.

Do people still say ‘ermagerd’? I’m so not cool.

–Do you use a plan to train for a race or do you wing it? (I’m not a winger–I stress out too much to wing! lol!)

4. ~~100~~ 87 Days of Summer Thirteen days of no soda.

It has been a super tough week with plenty of thoughts of caving. But, I kept strong and when the going got tough, I texted a few friends doing the Summer Challenge with me for support. It’s definitely helped not having any soda in the house too–my husband is on board with my quest to go sans soda and we’ve decided to both go without it.

It’s interesting because I’ve become super more conscious about what’s in everything I drink. Like I wanted Minute Maid Lemonade and when I read the label thought, wha??! This is really no different than the soda I was drinking! So I’ve been mostly sticking to water–H20 4 lyfe!!

–Do you check to see what it is you’re actually drinking? I never really did til now.

5. and OMG this ❤ ❤

I double booked us on play dates yesterday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and they had so much fun! My husband was out of town so I did my best to keep us busy and we seriously had the best day ever. (Plus, the Heat lost!)

I’ll be taking it easy today and tomorrow–I’ve got my first trail and first night race!

–How was your week?
–What are your weekend plans? Running, racing? (If you’ve got a race, good luck!!)

P.S.
Happy Father’s Day to the dads out there 🙂

❤ ,
helly

A What’s Next Update

Posted by hellyontherun in Race, Running and tagged with 27k, Adrenaline, Aravaipa Running, New Things, Race, Run Steep Get High, Running, Running at Night, Trail Running May 30, 2014

I hadn’t planned on doing any summer racing but my running group advertised a popular trail run that many said they were participating in.

So I’ve never done an actual trail race.

And I’ve never raced at night.

Totally seems like a good idea to do both for the first time together, right?

The race is put on by Jamil Coury, the guy I wrote about a few weeks ago who did the Barkley Marathon. He founded Aravaipa Running and I’ve heard nothing but good things about their races. I’m super excited to finally have a chance at participating in one.

I’m pretty excited about it actually. Nervous too, but definitely more excited. There’s a 10k, a 27k, and a 64k option and I decided to go with the 27k. AZTNT, my running group, has a ton of people signed up for it so it’s going to be a great time running with friends. I don’t have any goals or expectations with it; I just plan on enjoying myself doing something different.

I feel like I need things to look forward to to kinda help the days go by. With this 100 Days of No Soda starting, I’m going to need all the motivation I can get. I plan on also looking around for a 4th of July run. August will be plenty busy with me going back to work (this news will be elaborated on in a later post 🙂 ) and once fall gets here, race season comes with it full throttle.

But for now, this trail race in a couple of weeks has me counting the days. I’ve got my head lamp ready and we’ll just see what happens!

–Have you ran a race a night? What tips can you give me?

–Do you schedule races to have something to look forward to? What’s the method behind your planning, if any?

Have a great weekend! Tomorrow’s the last day to think of something for the 100 Days of Summer Challenge! Keep me company (and help hold me accountable) as I try to go without soda 🙂

The challenge starts June 1st and ends September 8th. Click here for details.

Euro Trip Recap–Spain

Posted by hellyontherun in Half Marathon, Race, Running and tagged with Coca-cola, Macbeth, Madrid, Parque de Madrid, Runcation, Spain, The Hunger Games, Tourist, Travel May 8, 2014

We weren’t in Spain for too long. We got there Saturday morning and went straight to the Expo after dropping off our luggage at our hotel and left the next day a few hours after the race.

But, we did do a little sight seeing so here are a few pics 🙂

I mentioned in my race recap that there was a long line at the Expo:

It wrapped around there towards the right of this pic. It moved along pretty quickly so in about an hour we were inside. The expo was actually quite large with a lot of vendors. I made sure to stop by one of my faves 🙂

After the expo, we headed back towards the hotel to grab a bite to eat. We took the metro and while we waited, I saw this advertisement:

I teach Shakespeare’s Macbeth (it’s my second favorite Shakespeare play) and thought it was so cool to see this play being done in Spanish. I would have loved to see it!

We got off near our hotel and walked a few blocks to it. Here’s a view:

The streets were really crowded; it kinda reminded me of New York.

We ate at a nearby restaurant and was shocked that my beverage of choice, Coca-cola, was 8 Euros ~ $10+ dollars!!! For ONE CAN. It turned out to be like this at most places which really saddened my heart. Even water was expensive at around 5 Euros a bottle 😦 But even though buying a coke broke the bank a little, I had to. I thought of it as a souvenir 🙂

Once back at the hotel, my husband and I decided to check out the roof top. The view:

We decided to take the stairs back down to our room 🙂

We called it a night soon after and the next day, on our walk to the start of the race, we did a little more sight seeing. We passed a bookstore and I saw this:

You might have heard of a little series called The Hunger Games. It was so cool to see it in Spanish–and for some reason, reading the title in Spanish made me giggle.

We reached a main cross street on our walk and came across the main post office.

On our hike to gear check, we found that it was in side Parque Madrid–Madrid’s main park. It was absolutely stunning. The bushes were manicured, the trees were lush, and there were gardens and statues throughout. It was also very big!

We were at the airport a couple of hours after the race headed to Italy so there wasn’t a whole lot more we were able to do. I kinda wished I had carried my phone during the race because I was able to see a lot of the city in 13.1 miles. I’d like to return to Spain someday and spend more time there. I want to visit other cities too–Valencia, Barcelona, and maybe Seville. Regardless, the time we did get was so much fun. I loved being able to talk to the locals and really get a feel for what it was like there.

And the race. The race was awesome 🙂

–Have you seen a play or movie or read a book in another language? (one of my favoritest foreign films is Life is Beautiful in Italian)

–Would you pay $10 for a coke? What outrageous prices have you encountered in your travels?

Next stop, Italy!