TTT! The Super Short Edition!

Yep, short and sweet today, just like my fuse!

1. Our whole house has been sick for over a week. This is one deadly cold and cough! The boys are getting better, but I have almost no voice and poor lil Riley is still hoarse and coughing as well :( Add to that my knee problems, and there is currently no working out going on for me! I am totally killing the gym's wellness challenge (former comment is dripping with sarcasm!)

2. Even with the illnesses, I am still pushing through to get ready for our party tomorrow night! Don't worry, I have been washing my hands like crazy and disinfecting our house like it is going out of style. I have already put too much time and money into this party to call it off now. Plus, I look forward to it all year, it would devastate me to have to cancel it! Last night, Jesse and I even summed up the energy to carve pumpkins. He loves it, could probably carve a million. Here are last nights creations...

3. Tonight is the birthday of my little sister's best friend who just died. She was far too young and it happened so suddenly, I don't know if Melia has gotten very much closure. She wants to go out tonight and do some of her friends favorite things. I hope I don't say or do something stupid to make her feel worse. Please just let me be there in whatever capacity she needs me to be!

That's it, short and sweet. Any good plans for this Halloween Weekend?

Derailed

Thomas and I, comrades!

Neither the ice on my knee nor the Advil pulsing through my veins can alleviate my true pain, frustration! Once again, I have been benched. What did it this time? Pain and swelling in my knees. Jesse thinks it is a pulled or strained tendon or something like that. Apparently, not something to train on. Even walking makes the pain worse! That means C25k is on hold for a week while I take it easy. Just when I was super loving it too! I have never been so excited to go out and run, so it makes me really sad to be hurt. The kicker is, I took things super slow and easy this time. Lots of walking first, and then running super slowly. Apparently my body just hates running! Which of course is no good since I have signed up for my first half in June! Our hotel is booked and even if I have to crawl the whole thing, I am not missing it this year! Ok, thanks for letting me vent! Guess this frees up lots of time to work on my Halloween party!

Four Things Friday! The stressing edition!

My next week and half are going to be so crazy, I am already stressing out about getting everything done perfectly. That is sort of the theme for my 4 things.

1. First reason life is so crazy, my sister, Alesha, and her husband are here from Utah for the weekend b/c my other sister (her twin, Erica) is getting sealed in the Portland Temple on Saturday. I love that they are here, but we have tried to pack a month's worth of activities into a few days. Totally worth it though! She just got married this summer and we don't know our new bro-in-law very well, so it is always great to get to pick on see him.

2. Reason two-I am throwing a grown ups only Halloween party next Friday! In a sadistic way, I love stressing about hosting a good bash. I may be shy, but I love throwing parties so I can make cute decorations and sinful food! Here is some of the stuff I have made so far...

Seriously, I try to find almost any excuse to have a party. It is so much fun. Usually, we do a Halloween families party, but decided this year to take a night to hang out with our friends, laugh, and eat till WE get sick!

3. Couch to 5k is reason 3. Still loving it, but with the company and baking it is becoming hard to find the gym time. I WILL get all 3 runs in both weeks. That is my ultimate goal!

Tuesday's run was fantastic. The plan called for 90 sec running/ 2 min rest, but since I had already been doing a 90/90 split, that seemed like a step back. Coach had me choose between 90 sec run/ 60 sec rest, or 2 min run/ 90 sec rest. I chose to run for 2 min. I feel like I need to cheat and get ahead a bit in case it gets really hard, I will have a little edge. I really never thought I would love following a plan this much. Any beginners out there, find a plan, it is fantastic!

I may have looked like this after the run...

but I felt like this! Totally bad ace and tough!

4. So, this isn't really stressing me too much now, but since I had intended to make this a 3 Things Thursday post ( yep, Thursday got away from me) I only had 3 items in mind and needed a fourth! Both Jesse and I are signed up for Seattle RnR, the half of course. My distance PR to this point is a 10k, and I only went that far once, so I definitely have a long way to go! Jesse is going to be my pacer, but I don't have any grand allusions of a great time, just finish decently and alive! Although, I have started stressing about where to stay. I just don't have the time to put in the Internet research just yet!

So, what is great or stressing you out this weekend?

Wordless Wednesday (5 lil Pumpkins!)

Ok, 3 lil pumpkins, and two big ones! But, all the pumpkins loved it!

Brady could have done this slide all day. He continually went up and did it all by himself!

An expert corn maze navigator.

I love that Peyton totally inserted himself into this photo. His look is so sneaky!

Family photos are tough!

Madison hijacked this one, is she doing a potty dance?

Peyton took this photo. He then took photos of random children.

Cousin Bug on the tractor ride.

Cousin Boo loved it!

Peyton thought it was exciting too!

What's with his tough guy look?

Peyton

My Sister in Law Raya

Me

Brady

The End!

Virtually running for CUPCAKES!

You can still sign up!

I signed up to do Run w/ Jess's virtual race, and even though it didn't really start till today, I took advantage of my one open morning and ran it on Saturday with my sister. The plan was to just use this as my third C25k run, but extend it by quite a few minutes. Spoiler, we finished all 3.7 miles. I am sad to say it looked iffy for a while when my weak tummy came knocking, but we just dialed back a bit and got through. Pretending like it was a real race, I will give you the nonstop action in a mile by mile breakdown.

My sister Erica and I. Made the picture small bc mornings do not become me!

Mile 1- 5 min walk warmup, 90 sec run/ 90 sec walk, drank some water
Mile 2- 90 sec run/ 90 sec walk, tummy came a callin, drank some water, took off my long sleeve shirt (wait it gets better)
Mile 3- 90 sec run/ 90 sec walk, then 60 sec run/ 90 sec walk (what the plan actually called for) drank some water, sister thought we were done (psych!)
Mile .7- 60 sec run/ 90 sec walk, walk cool down, drank some water, checked out watch
Time- 47:28 wow! Truthfully, less than I thought, I was guessing an hour! Using my trusty computer calculator, I have deduced that my pace was faster than that of my first 5k! Ouch!
Post Race-took some bad photos...

All sweaty and red!

Signature Amanda pose!

waved goodbye to admiring fans (confused kids on playground), headed to Safeway, rewarded self with Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate!

yum!

I know it was supposed to be cupcakes, but we were headed to my parents' house to make cookies later so figured the cupcakes were a bad idea! So to recap my recap, I did get tired, but I survived. Despite the struggle I was pleased with our pace and with how sore I felt the next day! Love that feeling. Good luck to everyone else running for cupcakes!

I'm Moving...

Creepy couch right?

from the COUCH to a 5K! Ha, did I get ya! Anyways, tonight I completed the second run of the traditional and famous C25K program. So far, I am loving it. Never before have I followed a plan, so this in itself I am liking. Previously, I would just go out and run. I never properly trained for any race and my times show it! I think starting back at square one is a great idea for me!

The first night I followed the plan to a tee; 5 min warm up, 60 sec run, 90 sec walk, for 20 min. I only did it at a .5 incline and the fastest I went was 4.7. To most of you that probably isn't even moving, you probably stand at that speed, it was even sad to me how slow I was running. I never felt exhausted though, which maybe is a good thing, and I liked that I was able to ease back in to it. It also went by super fast because I was constantly watching the clock and switching it up. However, I knew that even if that was what the plan called for, I could more. Tonight it was supposed to be the same thing, but I did 90 then 90 at a 1 incline. Again, speed wise, I peaked at about 4.8. Still slow. Got about a mile and a half done in 25 min. Obviously I have a long ways to go. But, I am excited to see what my time will be at the end of this if I can stick with it. I am dying to break 30 min. (I know, sad) and would love to be around 25 min at some point. My pipe dream would be to get a 22-23, but that might require some kind of outside miracle or bionic legs.

My third run will be Saturday when I do the virtual race Run 3.7 for Cupcakes with, hopefully, my sister. I told her I will treat for some hot cocoa afterwards if she'll do it. I plan to do the 90/90 for the whole 3.7, is that ok? It is obviously a lot longer than 20 min but...what are ya gonna do?

Ok, so I am loving it. Start slow and build. It is totally manageable right now and I am hoping it will continue to be so. Has anyone done it? Did you like it? Any advice? Alright, time to go enjoy some Thursday night TV!

Running Wild!

I let Peyton play with the camera a lot! One of the winners!

Coach here! Welcome back to me. I know you are all disappointed that this isn't Tressa writing this post, but she's been on me like a cheap suit about writing a post so I thought I should wend my way back to bloggyworld.

This was the second year that I did Run Wild. We really liked it last year because it was a good race and with the entry fee, you and your family gets into the park and you even get a tram token with each racing bib. Plus Mel was nice enough to give us her bib and a nice gentleman was gracious enough to give us his bib so we all ended up riding the tram for free.

So anyway, back to the race... We got there nice and early to make sure we got into the park because they close the park 40 min before the race and don't let anybody in after that. I had plenty of time to get my gear, warm up and let Peyton play with the camera for a while.

Just look at that amazing gu slurping form

I actually warmed up for this race more than I think I ever have for a race. I ran about a half mile, did a good amount of stretching and got sticky with the stick.

I love it when Peyton tries to smile

Peyton got stuck in the turnstyle behind us a couple times

Matchy Matchy Dorks!

We met Mel at the beginning of the race (obviously she heard what I was going to wear that day), posed for a quick picture... and we were ready for race time. As you can see from the picture above, we were nice and loose, pumped, and I need to find a different pose ( I suppose I could do a reprise of gay rooster).

And off we went in a bang (or a weird siren on the race director's bull horn). I had a couple of goals for this race. 1) I really wanted to PR and show that the work I've been putting in with Run Less Run Faster is paying off. 2) I dreamed of going under 20 minutes. 3) I wanted an overall place in the race.

Yes, that ginger did pass me!

Most of Mel's pics are of her butt. I don't know how that happened!

The plan for the race was to take it out a little slower and have enough at the end to finish strong. But like every other race that I do, I forgot everything I had ever known got caught up in the race and started fast like everyone else. The first mile went by at about 6:40 and that was about where the 8k runners split off on their wild adventure and left us 5kers in their dust. After the split I was in 4th place. There was a guy and a girl that were obviously going to smoke me and another guy that had passed me in the first mile and was holding a bit of a lead on me.

We hit the first turnaround and for the first time, I didn't feel like I was going to die and actually ran by a water station (another first). Heading into mile two we made a loop around the parking lot and I caught up to the guy that passed me putting me in 3rd place overall... ok all I have to now is hold onto this place and I've got my placing. So after the second mile went by in about 6:50, I started to pick up the pace.

We headed back into the park onto the animal trails which is really cool because you are back in the trees on the trails. The downside is that there are a lot of tight corners and some pretty steep grades up and down. I joked before the race about having poles around the corners so I could grab them and swing around the corner, and to my delight, one of the corners had a small tree that looked like it was meant for me to grab and rock around the corner. I was like Tarzan swinging from a vine, running from Lions, and talking gibberish.

I had a lot more in me at the end of the race than I did last year, and I was pretty surprised how much I had left. I had a really good kick at the end and I could feel the extra training starting to pay dividends. I was not going to let those kids behind me catch up to me (4th place was a 16 year old). The last mile ended up being about 6:30.

about 10 seconds after that, I was about 70% sure I was going to yack on the girls that come to take off the timing tag.

My final time was 20:42, exactly 1 minute faster than last years race. So I achieved two of the three goals, I ended up in third place and I PRed. Didn't make it into the elusive 20 minute club... a good goal for next year.

Then we watched Mel finish, she looked good but was hurting a bit, dang knee. We also stood around with her during the awards where neither of us won anything good, but I got my award for 2nd place in the Men's (that would be 3rd overall!)

Mel (Tall Mom) and Tressa

Seriously? Thumbs up again???

I don't know quite what is going on here

Elk sparring, pretty cool to see!

The tram ride ended up being pretty awesome, we saw a ton of cool animals up close, including the sparing elk, which the tram operator said he had never seen on the tram before... bonus! Peyton did really well and I think he had a good time. This is becoming a great family tradition. We'll be there next year for sure, hopefully Tressa will be running it too!

Peyton switched back and forth between our laps, but by the end he was pretty tired. We got him the lollipop he wanted and he fell asleep holding on to it in the car, too cute!