Happy Friday!

Happy Friday and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my DAD!!!   He said there is a Beatles song that talks about how old he is, if you wanted a clue about how old he turns today.  Also as I was getting ready this morning for work (they are in town for my brother's wedding) he saw me putting on my boots for work and said "Oh are those new slippers?"  I had to tell him no I actually wear these in public they are considered boots :-)  Besides it is casual Friday's so anything goes...

So either he's showing his age or I'm showing my total lack of caring for what is ok to wear in public!

You are the best dad and thanks you for everything you've taught me, especially the importance of staying active.  You will recover in no time from surgery and be back at it, I'm sure of it!!!


And to leave you on a funny note here is a video that is making it's rounds:

Tag you are it!

I was tagged by the one and only EMZ

Here are the rules:

1. Post these rules
2. You must post 11 random things about yourself
3. Answer the questions set for you in their post
4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer
5. Go to their blog and tell them you’ve tagged them
6. No stuff in the tagging section about you are tagged if you are reading this. You legitimately have to tag 11 people!H

My 11 Random Things:
1. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was a kid then thought I wanted to be a psychologist in college and now I've settled for HR.
2. I am jealous of my brother's artistic/musical skills 
3. I always said I'd never get married (guess that was the one time I wasn't right)
4. I'm average at most things I try and I wish there was 1 thing I could be EXCELLENT at 
5. I grew up speaking Spanish and English and am thankful for my mom not giving up on that
6. I love traveling and seeing new places but I hate the getting there
7. I've always been scared of spiders especially after being bitten by a brown recluse as a kid, but in the last couple of years have noticed myself getting over that fear slowly
8. Pink is my least favorite color and green and burnt orange are my favorites
9. I had to wear braces for over 4 years and had wear headgear to school that's how bad my overbite was! wow thank goodness my parents had awesome insurance back then! 
10. I've been skiing and running since I was 8 started triathlons at 11
11.  My favorite movies can range from musicals (Grease, My Fair Lady) to action (Die Hard trilogy) to Dark Comedies

EMZs  Questions:

1.  Do you love or hate the treadmill and why?  Hate it!  Get bored and feels like forever, I need to see the end in sight
2.  Describe yourself in three words.Quirky, Trustworthy, Planner
3.  Describe your best friend.  girly, crafty, likes running thanks to me :-)
4.  Text or call? Call
5.  Favorite place to eat? Home or Thai Vegan
6.  Where did you first see your wife/husband/significant other? At the nightclub in a casino
7.  Do you buy lottery tickets? Only through the work pool to be social
8.  The first thing you do in the morning. Call my doggie from the living room to come jump on my bed so we can cuddle for 5 mins. before I have to face the world!
9.  Favorite recovery drink. Beer j/k chocolate soy milk
10.  If you could have any car in the world, which would you buy? Functional, awesome gas mileage that can still get me to my ski destinations..
11.   What do you collect? As a kid I collected pencils I guess now you could say I collect race bibs..

And since One Hour Ironman broke changed the rules I'll follow his lead and it is true I think most people have been tagged on this one, please do tag yourself on this one if you haven't yet answered these and let me know you did so I can go read it!!  :-)

My 11 new questions I would like to see what you guys answer:

1. Would you rather sky dive or bungee jump?
2. Favorite race distance?
3. Have you ever tried being vegetarian or had a "meatless monday"?
4. What is your least favorite element when it comes to weather?
5. Favorite workout song when you need to get pumped?
6. When you are not running what sport do you cross train with?
7. Do you enjoy destination races or would you rather keep your vacation/races separate?
8. Pets?
9. What is your food "kryptonite"?
10. Do you really love your job?  If so what is it?
11.  Vanilla or Chocolate ice cream?

Attack of the tumbleweeds!

Ok Ok so they didn't literally attack us but it sure seemed like they were aiming for us!  More on that in a minute..

I survived my 1st week of training but not without some mishaps, the good news is I didn't let it slow me down.  Well, maybe it slowed me down time wise but I still put a lot of heart into it and pushed through! 

Saturday was this month's running club handicap run and it was a "prediction" run which meant that you were not allowed to wear a watch and you were told the total distance and had to guess how long it would take you to finish.  This was a 2 person team so the team who predicted their time best won.  My friend that went with me had never done one before so I put down our times I wrote her in at 36 mins. and myself at 37 and she looked at me like I was crazy because it was only a 3.4 mile run.  I told her "trust me"  I've ran out here before and the hills are killer.  As we made our first ascent I could hear her behind me saying "wow this is tough you were right!"  As we had to stop and walk up some patches of snow/ice I new I had made the right call.  Now on the downhill I got so excited and was running a little too fast, hit a rock, and went for a tumble!  I'm pretty bruised up, have a swollen hand, knot on my elbow, and my shoulder and hip hurts still.  I shook it off and kept going but it hurt...  Good news is we won the prediction run by only being off by like 30 secs each so the Starbucks gift card helped me forget about my injuries...

1st hill

I'm still smiling after the fall...

The next day I had committed to meeting a friend at the "bosque" trail which is a flat path by the river.  Trust me I probably would have wimped out if I hadn't said I'd be there.  The winds were up to 40 mph gusts with wind chills and I was hurting more than I thought I'd be from the fall.  We still did all 9 miles and thankfully my running buddy was there to get me through the last couple of miles because I was struggling.  The first few miles were in the 9-10 min. range and the last half were closer to 11  I was sooo dehydrated from the wind and a few times I swear the wind almost ran me right into my friend.  Not to mention the tumbleweeds that you had to dodge as the wind blew them over the path!!

So now I'm at work licking my wounds but so happy to have completed a tough week of training.  I start the week off with some weight lifting and plyometrics...

Happy Friday!

I know this video has made it's rounds several times but the way I am feeling this week it seems appropriate!





This week was the 1st week of my 1/2 marathon training which also means the kickoff to my entire 2012 training season.  Now this may not mean much to most but to me it has been amazing!!  For the past year or two I have been just going through the motions, putting miles in entering a few races just to say I raced that year and kind of dreading most of my longer workouts.  So when my dad had asked me to enter IM AZ with him I was extremely hesitant.  When my friends asked me to do this 1/2 marathon in March I was even more hesitant.  After the last 1/2 marathon in Disney I was depressed for a while after I knew I had gone to hang out with my friends mainly and hadn't trained enough but I really felt the extra weight on me during that race and I felt that I wasn't enjoying the sport anymore.  I was devastated thinking I had lost the "joy" in it all.

So I started this week timidly but made myself stick to my workouts because the last two years that has been my biggest problem not sticking to my plan, I would get burned out too quickly and just barely show up both mentally and physically.  So the most exciting part about this week is that I feel like I'm BACK!!!  Mentally I'm all in.  Obviously I'm not back physically yet it's only been 1 week but I can tell I'm ready to get there, I want it back!  I called my dad after my workout yesterday and proudly announced "IronTash is back!!!"  Thanks Dad for getting me back into it and hope you have a speedy recovery so you can join me again soon!!

Week 1 training:

Mon. - Rest Day
Tues. - Treadmill speeadwork 1 mi. warm up, 1x 1200 @ 1/2 marathon pace, 2x800 @ 10k pace, 4x200 @ 5k pace, cooldown
Wed. - 1 mi warm up, strength training
Thurs. - Track speedwork, 1/2 mi warm up 6x400fast w/400 job, 1/2 mi cooldown
Fri. - 2 mi warmup, strength training
Sat. - 3.6 mi. hill work outdoors
Sun. - 9 mi flat course outdoors

It feels so good to be excited about my training again, now I just keep it up and hopefully the results will follow!  How do you stay excited about your training?

Weekend Recap a little late...

Wow what a weekend!  There was great, good, bad and just blah!  First of all one of my really good running friends that moved away (boooo) came to visit (yay)!  We didn't stop talking the entire time she was here we were speed talkers it was hilarious!  We went to a Brewery Run with my local running group where she finished first female and I got lost but found my way back.  What was funny when I realized I was lost and there were no more chalk marks on the sidewalk I looked behind me and there was a about 5 people that had been following me, whoops!

Then we did some speed shopping, seriously I've never seen anyone that can buy shoes as fast as that girl and I'm fast!  On to grocery shopping to prep some delicious food for my girls night as a belated birthday celebration for myself.  Our second workout consisted of dancing with the Wii it was ridiculously fun!  Yes, I just turned 34 but I refuse to grow up :-)  Hey I just realized this is my last year in this age group for races, SCARY!!!

My doggie got to join in the fun!

Amazing cupcakes, I had to eat the one the dog had licked :-)

Chocolate Fondue yuuummmm!

Now to show you how horrible Awesome our dance moves are:


On Sunday I spent the day cleaning and taking pictures for my brother and his fiancee, they are so cute!  But the house was sooooo quiet after such an awesome night that it was a little sad...

Now for the not so pretty... Sunday I went with my friend to attempt to go skiing and everything that could go wrong went wrong here is a list:

1. We were supposed to go to Taos missed the turn off due to the horrible weather conditions covering the road signs with snow.
2. Decided to try Santa Fe since we were back in SF, well the road to the ski area was so bad that people were turning around, I decided to learn how to use my tire chains
3. By the time we mad it up there it was 11 and would be only 1/2 day but the winds were 40-50mph and zero visibility
4. Dropped my glove in the toilet and had to dry it with the hand dryer
5. My friend thought she lost her gloves and we ran around asking if they had been turned in, it turns out I was carrying them the whole time because they looked just like mine and I had stuffed mine inside my helmet.
6. I had my 1st wimp out day EVER in my ENTIRE life, I didn't ski!!  My friend lasted about 1 hour on the beginner lift.
7. On the way back someone slammed on the brakes while everyone was doing 75 and almost caused a chain reaction.