Give me the biggest omelet you got

I ran my first 10K this weekend. It was Saturday morning and I spent Friday night at a Christmas party at a winery in Woodinville. I assured myself going in that I would leave early and only have one glass of wine. That didn’t so much happen. The wine was just so tasty!

I eventually made it home just after 10 pm and downed some water and ibuprofen. Luckily, I didn’t feel that horrible the next morning and my running buddy, Linda, and I ran the 10k no problem. I really wanted to finish in under an hour and we ended up finishing at 1 hr and 33 seconds. I blame this on the fact that I failed to double knot my shoelaces so we had to stop twice for me to tie my shoes. I easily wasted thirty seconds there.

Our pace was pretty good for the first half – we were consistently under a 9:30 pace (pretty freakin’ good for me). Of course this meant that I really struggled during the last two miles. I kept thinking this is just NEVER going to end. Our average pace for the last three miles was probably more like 9:45.

Anyway, I’m really glad I did it even if it was below freezing out. Afterwards we met a college friend of mine for a delicious brunch at a place called Wild Wheat in Kent. I had the biggest bacon omelet EVER. It was absolutely insane. Anywhoodle, I’m already looking for my next race!

Trying to be a runner

I’ve been running regularly for over a year now and have seen a lot of improvement in my speed and form and yet I still don’t feel like I belong to the “runner’s club”. I read other running blogs and runners world forums and feel pathetic that I have yet to run even a half-marathon.

Of course, I know this shouldn’t bother me at all because everybody has to start somewhere. Regardless, when I see other runners out on my run I always feel my pace speed up a little as I try to prove myself.

I went on two runs this past weekend in an attempt to burn off the Thanksgiving calories and they were difficult, painful runs. It was quite possibly the amount of booze I drank on Thursday or the biting wind, but by the last mile of my nine mile run on Friday I was barely able to walk.

And (I warn you – this might be TMI) it was also difficult to run because there was a distinct possibility that I might shit my pants. I know I am not the only one that has this problem on long runs and the best advice I have found on runners’ forums is “Run near toilets”. Great. Advice.

Anyway, as I was walking up the hill toward my car a girl was running towards me with a runner’s belt, skinny runner’s body, and judging eyes. Yes, Judging Eyes. Because I was walking. It took all my willpower not to yell, “It’s because I don’t want to shit my pants! Lay Off Lady!” Yeah, take that.

Pineapple Police

I participated in the Pineapple Classic this weekend for the second year in a row. I was on a team with my friend, Linda; the Sandy Bee-yotches. I know, we’re dorks. It’s a fun race – it’s a 5K obstacle course. There are walls to climb over, tubes to crawl through, and nets to climb across. Needless to say you end the race covered in mud.

Well, this year I was lucky enough to have an asshole following me throughout the course. First, there was the wall that had no footholes and was so tall that even with a running leap I still couldn’t touch the top. As I tried to do a running leap and failed I shrugged and turned to walk around and saw AH give me a distinctly dirty look. I tried to shrug it off thinking I had just imagined it.

Next were the dreaded monkey bars. I didn’t even attempt these last year. It still boggles my mind that I could do this at any point in my life. This year though I at least tried it. It took me three tries to even grab a hold of the stupid bars (in case you haven’t figured it out yet I’m a tad bit shorter than your average female). When I finally did get a grip on them my hand immediately slipped off and I consider myself lucky that I didn’t fall flat on my back in the middle of a mud puddle. So I said, “Screw it!” As AH behind me said, “What you’re not even going to attempt it?!” I answered with the same dirty look he gave me earlier.

So throughout this race every team has to carry a pineapple with them and every time we got to an obstacle Linda would stick it down her pants to free up her hands. And, yes, it was as funny as it sounds. At the second wall as Linda stuffed it down her pants I told her that she didn’t have to stretch her pants out this time she should just throw the pineapple over the wall and pick it up on the other side. AH interjected here and informed us that you are NOT ALLOWED to let the pineapple touch the ground EVER. I told him there was no need to worry we’d already been disqualified multiple times so SUCK IT. I didn’t actually say suck it out loud because I have no balls.

Next was the net that we had to climb up and over. I watched as Linda climbed up it with a pineapple stuffed down her pants and when she had climbed over the top I started climbing up it. When I got to the top I swung my leg up and over only to hear AH yell, “Thanks for not kicking me in the face!” Shouldn’t he have been farther down the net knowing that I was going to have to move my leg that way to climb over the top?!

So…yeah…that’s my rant about AH at the Pineapple Classic. I really did have fun on it and will do it again next year. But seriously it’s supposed to be a fun and crazy race – people running it shouldn’t appoint themselves the Pineapple police, instead, they should be encouraging everyone else. Like the people at the second wall who cheered for me when I made it over because I still had to stretch like crazy to reach the top despite the footholds.

What is with the outhouse?

Usually I’m not a fan of running on the track, but lately I have been jogging on the track in Edmonds partially because of all the snow in December and I got a fancy schmancy running watch for Christmas and it’s been easier to test it out on the track.

There are some distinct advantages to using the track though and it really isn’t as tedious as I thought it would be. First of all, there are no hills and no matter how many different routes I have tried in Edmonds there is absolutely no avoiding crazy hills.

But even better than that is the people watching. Usually there are only one or two other people on the track, but they never fail to be interesting. Last Thursday when I went there was some guy running and the entire time he carried on a conversation over his cell phone. That in and of itself is weird if you ask me, but that might be because I am one of those people who is incapable of carrying on a conversation during any sort of strenuous activity, anyway, if you had assumed that the conversation was over a Bluetooth you’d be wrong – he held the cell phone the entire time. Also, he was such a loud talker I could hear him when he was on the other side of the track over my music. So he pretty much ran two miles while yelling into a cell phone. That’s weird right? He also took a break halfway through to use the outhouse…and didn’t pause the conversation. Yes, he was talking so loud I could hear him when I ran by the outhouse…I guess he could have been talking to himself, but my guess is no.

Strangely enough on Sunday morning another jogger took a break to use the outhouse and all I have to say about that is how bad do you possibly have to go when you’re only running for ten minutes and you live down the street? No, I am not stalking fellow runners I just saw him leave his house because he lived so close to the track.

There also happens to be a skate park next to the track and Sunday morning there were a bunch of little punks hanging out there and one of them was the miniature version of Turtle from Entourage. Seriously, Turtle has a little brother and he lives in Edmonds.

I guess I should also explain The Enemy as there were so many questions about her. Technically, she has never really done anything to me it’s just that she annoys the hell out of me. At first I couldn’t really say exactly what it was about her that exasperated me so much, but I figured it out last night. She’s loud. Now, I don’t want you to get the idea that all loud people infuriate me, in fact, I, myself, tend to be loud, especially when I get excited or drunk and my voice goes up by about ten decibels and I get groups kicked out of campgrounds. But The Enemy is not loud in an “I’m unaware that I’m being loud” way or an “I just have a booming voice” way, she is loud in an I want everybody within 100 feet of me to hear about how cool I am. In my first class in my graduate program I had to sit right next to her and I spent four months trying desperately to block out the sound of her voice and her constant, CONSTANT, talk about her FABULOUS wedding and her FABULOUS job and HOW CUTE ARE HER SHOES?! Not cute, not cute at all. Oh, and unsolicited advice is also her specialty. You see she’s a know it all. See, now you’ve got me started. If I don't stop now this will turn into a ten page rant.

Happy New Year!

I have never been one to make resolutions – mostly because I don’t really enjoy failing at things. I have only made one successful resolution in the past and that was to try something new every month. I could repeat that resolution, but I can’t think of twelve new things that I really want to try. Anyway, my point is resolutions aren’t really my shtick – I usually can’t even stick to them for a day so a year is out of the question.

This year I decided to attempt to make some resolutions and I figured the trick to being successful at keeping them was to be super specific. My first resolution is to be more healthy, specifically by following the training schedule I printed off from Runner’s world, which means running every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday and cross-training with yoga. I also specified only three excuses that were valid for me missing my workouts: 1. I have a test or project due that week, 2. Family emergency, and 3. I feel nauseous. Of course, on Sunday I really didn’t feel like running so instead I pretended I was nauseous – see how well that works! But I haven’t given up – I will run today and from now on NO EXCUSES! Actually, I just thought of a fourth excuse – I really can’t run if the weather isn’t permitting aka no running in snow or thunderstorms, but other than that I HAVE to run. HAVE TO. Do you hear that Megan?! You HAVE to run today. Man, I hope it starts raining…

I also might give up soda at some point this year, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you – that stuff is like crack cocaine to me. Seriously, if for some horrific reason Diet Cherry Pepsi was made illegal tomorrow I would be out on the streets giving blow jobs in an attempt to get my fix. So, yeah, I’d like to think in six months I would be willing to give it up, but I’m really not that optimistic about it.

My second resolution is to be more organized this year. I am quite scatterbrained, which makes everything I do a giant fiasco. My room, car, office all constantly look like they have been recently torn apart by a hurricane. So. I need to fix this, but given my complete lack of focus this is difficult. My plan so far is write everything down in my date book and I mean everything. For example, today I wrote down “Cook dinner” and I followed that up with exactly what I’m cooking because, you never know, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that I would get home and absentmindedly turn on the TV only to discover there’s a Law and Order marathon on and next thing you know it’s 11 o’crotch and I haven’t moved from the couch or it’s possible that I would plan on making biscuits, but then absentmindedly start boiling water for no apparent reason. So obviously I need everything written down since my brain is never focused on what I am actually doing. While I’m at it I should probably schedule in sleeping because this whole surviving on six hours of sleep doesn’t really work for me – I mean yesterday I got on the freeway and had gone a couple exits before I registered that I was going north when I really needed to be going south – see? Scatterbrained.

My third resolution is more of a fun resolution: to be more adventurous with my style. I spend a fair amount of time (and by “fair” I mean ridiculous) perusing fashion mags and fashion blogs like The Sartorialist and Garance Dore and yet my style is way too conservative. I am just so much of a pussy I always go with the safe outfit, but this year will be different. This year I plan on wearing outfits that are “Sartorialist worthy”. Basically my goal is to try more daring and different combinations. Sooo those are my resolutions for 2009 feel free to take bets at how long it will take for me to fail.