Major Award(s)

I have received two blogging "awards" in the last couple of weeks.  I'm a slacker and try to ignore them, but I'm not going to anymore.

First: Candice "nominated" me for the Versatile Blogger.  I accept.

As part of this award, I must share seven things about myself.

1. When I was in the ninth grade, I cut ALL of my hair off.  The hair on the top of my head was not even 2 inches long.  It took until my senior year of high school to grow it out to my shoulders.  And I vowed NEVER to cut it that short again.

2.  Also in the 9th grade, I went out for the high school track team.  I thought that I could do hurdles.  Um no.  Then I thought that I could be a sprinter.  I'm not going to tell you how many times I almost came in last in every heat that I ran.

3.  I have been salmon fishing in Alaska.

4.  I was a singer in a blues band.  And even though I say "blues", I mean classic rock, blues and a whole bunch of other random songs.  It was me, my dad, one of his buddies from work, a friend of that guy and a neighbor.  So, men over 40 and then me.

5.  I can not say "No" to homemade chocolate chip cookies.  And I never will.

6.  My husband told me that he loved me and wanted to marry me on our second date.  We were officially engaged three weeks later.  Sometimes, when you know - you know.

7.  I truly believe that Disneyland is "the happiest place on Earth".  I absolutely love it!

Second blogging award that I've received is the Cherry On Top from Amanda.

And I must answer this question: If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?

The only thing that I would change would be to go back to high school and take the college level courses, that gave you college credit.  And then after high school, going first to the community college, instead of jumping into the univeristy level that weeded me right out of college.  I probably would have "stayed in school" if I would have approached it differently.

Oh!  And I would have joined the cross-country team!

So there you have it.  Both of these blogging awards have gone around and around the internet, so I'm not going to pick more people to do them... because pretty much everyone already has!  But thank you for choosing me!  And for reading my blog.

May the force be with you.

Jamba Juice Virtual 5K

"Race day" started with a breakfast of Multigrain Cheerios.  I got all strapped into my tummy support belt and pinned on my race bib.

The "starting line" was basically in my backyard.  The husband walked over with me... and there was someone hogging the course!!  So I waited... and my husband got on the recumbent bike.  5 minutes later, the treadmill was free and I got myself ready to go.

The gun goes off.  And I flip the channel to the Animal Planet (there really isn't much on TV on a Saturday morning, and I didn't want to watch an infomercial for the Magic Bullet again).

10 minutes into the race, I decide to try jogging one more time.  I lasted 4 minutes before it hurt too much.  I just need to accept that I'm not able to run anymore.

Halfway point my husband hands me his water bottle from the bike.

.6 miles to go... husband is done on the bike and heads for the house.

3.13 miles in 49:58.  15:58 minute mile.  Not so great... but hey - I'm 7 months pregnant!

After the "race" I went to my local Jamba Juice and treated myself to an Aloha Pineapple.  It was yummy.  But did I remember to take a picture before I had slurped the whole thing down and thrown the cup away?  Of course not.

Virtual Race

I'm "racing" in a virtual 5K tomorrow.  I will be walking.

I am VERY excited.  And I think it's because it's a "race" (and I wasn't planning to race again in 2010).

I even made myself a bib.  Because I'm cool like that.

Full race report coming tomorrow!  I'm still trying to figure out a "course".  It will most likely be the treadmill.

Tour of Utah

For anyone that has ever watched the Tour de France coverage, I met Bob Roll over the weekend.

I also watched Levi Leipheimer win the Tour of Utah.

My dad is a cyclist that runs (he is currently training for the St. George marathon in October).  We went to two stages over the weekend and got to meet a couple VERY COOL cyclists. It made him very happy.

Which makes me happy.

We're Walking, We're Walking...

Yes, I'm still walking.  Every night this week as a matter of fact.  But that doesn't mean I'm going to make 80 miles in August.  As of today, I'm 21 miles behind.

But you know what's awesome?  I've stayed at the same weight for the last 2 weeks.  It's very exciting!  I was gaining weight pretty fast for a couple weeks and I'm happy to see that the scale hasn't continued skyward.  (I know that weight gain is essential and healthy during pregnancy, but as a woman, it is very hard to see your weight creep up every couple of days.)

In other news, I'm happy to report that we bought our very first furniture piece for Baby's room.  A dresser.  Now it just has to get here, and it should within a week or two.  Then I'll have SOMETHING in that room, besides boxes of diapers and wipes... and the ironing board... and my old Super Nintendo.  And boxes of junk (that we plan to get rid of this weekend).

I think that my husband has entered his very own "nesting" stage.

I like it.

To Dream the Impossible Dream

I'm not going to make my goal of 80 miles for August.  It just isn't going to happen.

Honestly, I don't know what possessed me to think that I could reach this amount of miles when I'm not running... and when I'm in my third trimester of pregnancy... and when it's hot.  I'm already too hot.

Even though I have been walking (almost) daily, every time that I get online, I see that I'm falling farther and farther behind my goal.  And really, I don't have the time to walk even farther every day to try to catch up.  Do you realize how long it takes to walk 5 miles?  I'll tell you, it takes (me) an hour and 40 minutes.  And after an hour of walking, my feet and back are aching, so I'm not planning to add another 40 minutes to that.

But if I'm walking for two... does that mean that I can double my miles?

Less??

I've been walking for the last 3 nights in a row.

This morning I got on the scale and it shows that I'm down 1.5lbs.

Unexpected?  Yes. 

Motivation to keep it up?  HECK YES!!!

65.4 miles to go.

F-A-I-L

I give in too easy to any excuse to not exercise these days.  It is the "monsoon" season here in Utah and what it means for our desert is afternoon/evening thundershowers.  Sorry, but I'm not walking in a thunder shower.  And while, yes, I could have gone over to the clubhouse treadmill... I didn't.

As of this morning I am 12 miles behind.  Poop.

But I did get out last night (it wasn't stormy) for 2.5 miles.

It's a new week and I will try again.

Accepting a Challenge

Tall Mom posted a challenge for the month of August.  Walk, jog, run... 80 miles.  And I've decided to go for it!  I'm going to confess right now, I have NEVER hit 80 miles in a month.  Isn't that kind of sad, with how many half marathons I've trained for?  Yeah well, obviously I'm not really good at training.

The challenge goes until September 2nd... and if you started on August 2nd, then it equates to 2.5 miles per day.  I have no idea if I will be able to do this, as I will basically be walking all of the miles.  But I'm going to try!

Really, how hard should this be?  There is a treadmill at my clubhouse that I could get on every day for an hour and crank this out.  I'll expect you 35 readers of mine to keep me honest and motivated.

More Hot Fudge, Please

I've been using pregnancy and the heat of the summer as an excuse to sit at home all evening and eat ice cream.  And now it's starting to show on the scale and in my face.  Excellent.

NOT.

So I made myself get off the couch tonight (after the sun had gone down) and went for a 2 mile walk.  And I decided to test out jogging with my 6 month belly.  I think that I might have jogged for a total of .4 miles, but that's better than nothing, right?  And the fact that it was UPHILL jogging makes it even BETTER, right?  Right?

By the time I got home, I was sweating to death and had a few bug-friends attached to my hair and shirt.  I got in the shower before bed, blew my nose and found another bug-friend that I snorted during the walk.

6 months down... 3.5 to go!