I was taking my summer vacation in Las Vegas. 4 days in Sin City. Plus I was on a work out streak which I kept alive thanks to an easy workout schedule and sheer determination. Here are some highlights
This looks like two pictures. It's not. I don't even know how to do that.
I will only fly this cattle prod airline to Las Vegas, LA, and Seattle. That's it. But they got us there on time and didn't lose our luggage.
We stayed in the Venetian and had this great suite. IT was a great room with 3 tvs. Also it hosted the Teen Ms. USA Pagaent
The Heat was ridiculous
Look at this beautiful magical sunset.
I could go to this bakery every single day many times a day.
The Bellagio Fountains
Delmonico's because I love Emeril and didn't get to go to New Orleans
I loved how the bakery made no apologies. So Good
The Michael Jackson show was so amazing.
When it is 108 degrees -you should definitely watch a fire show.
The streak is alive
The Giants are on a slide and so I went to Emerill's stadium -ate AMAZING Pizza and watched the game on FIVE tvs. I'll be back on Vegas for a short trip in October. I will eat more Carlos cannoli's for sure. Also I won $170 on the Willie Wonka Slot machine I have to go back to work and I'm on season 12 of Grey's Anatomy. Just a few more episodes and I will have completed 294 summer run of a show I swore I would never watch and ended up really loving. Back to work and keep on running.
Let's talk about Wharf to Wharf. It's special. It was my first ever race! Look at me there crossing the finish line. (this year there was not one single picture of me at all) That's okay. I have this picture of traffic on the way to the race.
I'm not sure if this is the best thing to eat and drink the night before the race but it didn't seem to hurt
I'm trying to keep balance.
So Rob's not running and he was my support. He dropped me off at the shuttles and met me at the finish and was totally pissy because he can't run. So I'm firing him from the marathon. But let's talk about training!
I have a coach this training cycle. I have a coach because I never thought I would run again after this.
I cried the whole week because it hurt so bad. But I got into the NY Marathon-my dream race and I needed someone to get me through training this time. So coach puts me on this heart rate training where I sometimes ride a bike and sometimes run. All by heart rate and minutes training. And I'm not going to lie. I'm stubborn and thought this is a joke because I'm running so easily and slowly.
But here are some things that are happening!
I was on the way to running/riding every day in July when I realized probably it's been since June and it has. 33 days straight and still going (my goal is to see how long this goes) This is a thing now
I am running my fastest race times in years
I feel less stress running because I'm not killing myself
Nothing is hurting
I actually have a race pace now. I've never had that.
I'm fitter and stronger than ever
Now I'm not kidding myself I know the training will get hard. It hasn't even started yet. But I know what's coming and I know I'll be ready
So Wharf to Wharf? It was awesome
On another note summer vacation is almost over. I'm sad.
And I have no song....
But here's another book I read this summer. People swear this book is life changing. My life was not changed. But I tend to be shallow in the summer.
Today was a super easy 20 minute run day. I don't really mind those. They are slow and necessary and that's fine.
I'm not one of those runners who stops and takes pictures. It's a pain. I have to stop my phone, stop my watch, stop my feet. But today I did. I stopped because right there on my route were these guys
They saw me-I saw them and we ran toward each other like Lassie and Billy. Look at those faces!!!! There was a baby goat too but by then the dogs were going crazy and I needed to get out of there. But really ! Those faces! Today's songs were the love section. Those could be sleepers. Since I was running slow I didn't really need Kanye or JayZ so the love songs were kind of nice.
I could pick Love is a Battlefield. But I went with this real oldie. I have a soft spot for Linda. She dated Jerry Brown when he was cool (er) -hey he still has swagger. Her songs bring back to a fun time. And Linda has parkinsons just like my grandpa So She's brave too. And holy goodness she could sing. I also took myself out of my self induced seclusion to go to Santana Row and meet up with friends from my Master's Program. I love these people. We are bonded for sure. It was nice to meet without laptops too.
It was worth it to hang out with them. And drink a mule. I was telling you I read a lot of books. I mentioned at the end of the year party that a book club would be fun. I came up with this book by one of my favorite author's Isabelle Alande
It's a good story but it was hard to read because her paragraphs were soo long! Really long. Like a whole page. But it was not bad. You should read it. You could join our book club! SaveSave
Today's run was 5 miles. Well it was a timed run and keeping the heart beat pace is hard. But it was a great run on a beautiful morning.
I have this thing I do where if a car on Hillcrest moves over to give me room I wave thanks. They always wave back . They see me and they get it-they are so awesome.
Some refuse to move over. In fact they aim for me. They are usually white pick ups. To them I simply say "jackass". Did you think I would give the finger? I can't do that I'm one woman running by myself. Simply saying Jackass puts the words out there and they never notice.
The Losing section of my play list I was sure was going to be terribly depressing but it wasn't. There were so many good songs. There was
Lose Yourself-classic
Lost in the World -Old Kanye with a driving beat
Losing My Religion-I always find meaning in this song...still
But I've been in a Coldplay mood these days and Lost worked for me.
This summer for me is only one month. I'm in self induced seclusion this summer so I've spent a lot of time on the hammock with the dogs reading books.
I've read so many books. Like 10. All of a sudden I can read a book in two days. So let's start from now and go backwards.
I was given this book by our new superintendent and it's required reading. I LOVE it. It's totally going to transform our year. Here's a snippet.
I'm the girl who made it through grad school and the credential program without really reading anything. But this book? I've even made notes in the margins.
Also of note-EYE DOCTOR appointment. My eye doctor is super expensive. It kills me. When I retire I'll probably go blind because I won't be able to afford him.
But there was an earthquake. And because I was with the doctor I couldn't scream. I was COOL
Woo Hoo I'm back! I've been finishing the work year and then it took 18 days to feel normal. But...... Marathon Training has begun! I think.....
I
I say I think because I have a coach who has been gentle with his coaching. He's trying to make sure I get to the finish of NY without hurting myself.
That's awesome because last year......
That was just last year people! Just last year!
So now when I run especially this year when I run right now this week I am especially happy happy runner.
So today I was especially noticing that all the cars wanted to run me off the road. Why so cranky I thought? Probably because they were going to work and I was running. I would be mad too.
Anyway-I didn't even mind waiting for my car oil change for two hours. I didn't even care!
I don't have a song of the day. You know why? I'm on the lonely letters. But there was the snappy song from the voice that made it on my list.
I thought it was Darius Rucker. I thought wow this guy's having a bad day. But my resolution was to listen to country so I had to.
90 minutes on the trail. On a beautiful morning. One of my favorite things. For the first time since surgery I made it to the bridge. That sounds like nothing but it's a huge huge thing.
Don't be silly. Not that bridge. I'm adjusting to that heart rate training. My resting heart rate really is coming down and I'm able to run at a lower heart rate too. That's right I'm not always running at 95% right now.
Crap it's not that good is it. Bust that balloon. There wasn't much on the agenda Sunday because I had a lot of work to catch up on around the house. But I took 3 THREE naps lasting between 30 minutes to an hour each.
I wish I could sleep like a puppy. But this puppy who is now an old man woke me up at 5AM both Saturday and Sunday. He's roommates with Danny and Danny was out of town. I didn't love him this weekend. He wanted food, to go out, and also to play fetch.
Now he's on the naughty list. My playlist stalled at the Christmas Section. That was painful. I had to skip through a full 20 songs to get to something not holidayish. And Cleaning out my closet by Em? I have 4 versions of that. 1 is great enough.
Friday morning was an easy treadmill workout. I liked it. I really did. It's quick and I don't feel like i'm going to fall off of the thing.
I haven't actually begun training for this you know. I'm anticipating training to be a breeze. But in the meantime a lot of things happened in two days.
That right there is inspiration for you.
Well for me.
My work can be stressful. But sometimes funny things happen. Like the 8th grader who decided she would join every group that passed by at lunch. It was like a scene out of Jimmy Fallon or David Letterman. She would just jump into a group right in the middle and start talking to them. For a few steps and then come back and do it all over again. I loved it. It's what middle school kids should do.
Just a reminder of who is really the best super hero. The day also included a dinner for administrators. It's the annual dinner. I went because my superintendent won an award. He's retiring and he's a really great leader. I'm sad to see him go. The food was good. We were really late. And there was no card for us to have a table sitting.
If we had left at 3:30 like this says we would have been on time. But school was still in session so that couldn't happen. Yesterday's podcast which I listened to while running had to do with going beyond tolerance. Do what you will with that. I felt like it was interesting anyway. I practice tolerance all of the time. I feel like anyway.
4AM I'm awake at 4AM because rob's alarm went off and I was awake but I waited for the alarm to go off so I could go to the gym for my quick little treadmill workout.
But I did go to the gym for a 20 minute easy run and guess what? I actually kept my heart rate at the correct pace and took 2 minutes off my pace. That's awesome. It's working! I knew it would
I was flying! It was a fun day at work. Testing is coming together nicely and there was another roach in my office and now I can say I HAVE SEEN A ROACH. Hurray for coworkers who save you.
Proof my heart rate used to be lower. I'm wondering if my time in Ireland lost all my fitness. I did take my heart rate after jumping around seeing the bug. It was a little higher than this. Anyway-there was cake involved because one co worker is retiring and one was teacher of the year. And there were egg rolls and chow mein and enchiladas. It was really really great.
No clams or zucchini though Anyway then it was off to the teacher of the year ceremony where I had those great cookies. You know the ones. And then I laughed and laughed with some very dear friends . Oh yeah and I parked in the parking garage. My town has a parking garage. Weird. I had to go to the third cherry level to get a spot and yes it was creepy. I was told that no big deal they have cameras if you get mugged.
Today while working out I listened to a podcast about people who can't forget anything. They hate it because it's a real burden to remember every single detail. Like what day the oscars were on 25 years ago.
Running through my entire play list A-Z has been fun. I went through the section about breathing
Remember the drought?
Anyway then came the can't section. Neither of these are really good for running. Songs about losing your breath and can't doing things don't help your mental state when you are trying to keep your heart rate low.
But now I'm going through the change section. All the songs are about change. Which is okay I guess. I also got to hear some songs about chains and champions. Those were good too.
I'm obsessed with my heart rate and this watch. Obsessed with all of it. Today some one called at work and I answered what have I done wrong. The kind person on the other end said why do you think you've done something wrong and I said. I'm doing 500 things statistically something is going to be wrong.
Imagine if these guys threw the fish wrong? They could have and you would be full of fish heads . Running was better today. I ran faster and was able to control my heart rate a little better. Patience is the name of the game.
Truth
Song of the day. Chapel Song We are The Augustines. I've never heard of it before and I don't know how it is on my playlist. But I'm liking this.
