Las Vegas Half Marathon

Good Evening!

So, after an abnormal Las Vegas weekend, I have returned home without luggage - and my pilot light is out...

So lets start from June 2009:

I signed up for the San Jose Half Marathon and the Las Vegas Half Marathon, hoping that I would train and run with my Team in Training friends. Well, I did train for the SJ Half, but unfortunately (given the passing of my Mom and a fall that I had on the beach in Monterey) I did not run San Jose this year. SJ was on Oct 4. Then I did not run in October. That's right, no running. So November 1st comes along and I ran the Apple HILL 8.5 mile run. I beautiful run with a capital H-I-L-L!

So, I did some here and there training through November, knowing that there was no way I could finish Vegas if I didn't get some training. But, as it was, I did not complete my 'Long' run and held my runs to 3-6 miles. Not a good training schedule.

Needless to say I was nervous about the Vegas Half.

Jump to this past Friday. After work on Friday, Jeremy and I headed to the airport and flew to Las Vegas. We spent Friday and Saturday attending the Expo with friends and just relaxing - preparing for Sunday morning. At 4:30 am on Sunday, a bunch of us headed to the outside of the Mandalay Bay hotel to start our Half Marathon.


Brrr.... Cold! (35 degrees)

So, the race went well. I ran the first 4 (ish) miles with Heather. Then I caught up with Lindsay and Bethany. Then ran miles 5-13.1 and finished the race with Lindsay. We were pushing for a new PR for me, which I thought was 2:45 or 2:50, and we got in at exactly 2:46. BUT then I found out that my Half PR is 2:39... oh well.

Overall the weekend was fun, the race was one of the best ever, and I really enjoyed the weekend with Jeremy and all of my friends.

Catch up in pictures...

Alright, I give up. Big time. I am not posting daily this month, which you already know.

Moving on. My October and first half of November have been eventful... so here we go.

First the girls and I started running/training together over the last half of the summer, which was great. We also started dinners out and in October we had dinner at The Counter in Walnut Creek. It's a build your own burger restaurant and it was yummy.



Also in November, Jeremy and I volunteered for the Teen Retreat, which is a weekend away for teenagers who have Juvenile Rhematoid Arthritis (and like diseases). It was so much fun. The first night we met the teens and had a nice dinner at the hotel. Then on Saturday we went to the Academy of Sciences in SF.





The next day we went to the SF Zoo...






Next was the Nov 1st Apple Hill 8.5 mile run through the Sierra foothills.




There was more, including making apple butter and coq au vin, which will be posted soon.

Hope you enjoyed my little update.

C

Already falling behind...

So I make this plan to blog about something each and every day of November, and then I miss the very next day. :) Awesome! In my defense, I was getting into bed last night and I grabbed my laptop to post and even send in some pictures, and once I got the window open it rebooted. So, I had to pop the battery out and let it rest.

Anyway, Happy Thursday Everyone! Looking forward to this evening and this weekend. More to blog about it later... back to work... :(

C

Why aren't people blogging?

Hello. :)
So, I staulk many blogs, primarily of people that I used to know or grew up with, who are doing fun things in various parts of the country. Usually at lunch, or at home at night, I will pull up a blog or two and hope for a new post.

About a week ago I found myself getting frustrated and thinking, "Why aren't people updating their blogs?", at which point I thought... hmmm... it has been a little while since I wrote an entry. So, it took me about a week, and I am not on the correct computer, so I don't have any fun pictures, BUT I am here and I am blogging.

Also, I have been reading about this NaBloPoMo (I think I got it right...) which stands for National Blog Posting Month and even though I have missed a few days (Nov 1st & 2nd), I might just try to update with something daily. We will see... I am all about good ideas, but not all about execution of those ideas.

Anyway, I have some great pictures to post, which I may or may not get to tonight, of our Apple Hill adventures, among other small (yet exciting) adventures... not to mention the excitement (stress) of the impending holidays...

Alright, today is a crazy work day for me, but I thought I might post something to show that I am still doing this whole blog thing... Back to work. I will try to get some pictures posted soon.

Thanks for reading - oh and on a side note - as I only have three followers and one of them just had a birthday yesterday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIE! I hope you had a great day and I am so glad that I have gotten back in touch with you. :)

C

Catch Up Time

Good Evening! It's Sunday and I am soooo not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Alright, that is out of my system. I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but if you know me, then I am sure you understand. If you just stumbled upon this blog, let's just say its been a tough couple of weeks.

I am going to use this post to catch up on some pictures:

1) Remember the Jam/Canning Session I talked about?: (warning - these are backwards)







It was a GREAT afternoon of canning and Bahar and I had a great time hanging out... and I think my mom enjoyed having us so active in the kitchen for the afternoon.

Oh, and we also made Banana bread.:) yum.




Then there was the Brad Paisley concert with Nick & Emma - it was crowded but SOOO much fun. We were sooo far away from the stage, but I have some blurry pictures of the big screen...





To those of you who have been so supportive over the past few weeks, THANK YOU. It means so much to know that people will be there for you...

Alright, I will try to update more frequently. :)

TTY Soon - C.

Happy Thursday evening! I have so much to report... But no pictures, quite yet. Hopefully I will be able to post some on Saturday.

Let's see, last Saturday night we went to see the Opera at AT&T park. It was a simulcast from the War Memorial Opera House in SF. So, it turns out that I am not really the Opera type, but I gave it a shot and it was fun to hang out with our group. :) Oh, and I also had my last long run before my half marathon on Oct 4th. We ran 11.25 miles on Saturday morning and topped it off with coffee and shopping at the farmer's market. It was a wonderful morning with the girls. I would have taken pictures but we weren't very pretty after the long run. :)

Next was Sunday and I spent the day at my parent's house. We had breakfast and then Bahar came over and we made Strawberry Jam. :) I do have pictures of the Jam Festivities, and I should be able to post them on Saturday.

Monday was the last night of Bocce for this week, which is bittersweet because I will miss seeing everyone and playing, but it will be nice to have another evening available.

Also, Monday was the night that my new car spaz'd out on the freeway and then died at the gas station. Turns out it was out of gas, which many people got kind of a kick out of - a hyrbid running out of gas. But the more I find out about the problem, it turns out that it is a malfunction in the design of the car. Anyway, there will be more to come on that topic as I go through the complaint process and decide what the next step is.

Alright, I am going to go watch Project Runway with my mom. Have a great night.

C

Follow up pictures for my posts...

Hello! I am finally blogging from by old 'pc.-o-crap' laptop (the spacebar doesn't really work so I have to hit it superhard). Ok, so now that I am on my laptop, I have pictures... so here you go:

This summer I have had an increasing obsession with learning about how to cook foods, primarily from scratch, so here is my first attempt at baking my own bread - without anything but my hands and the oven (no processor - turns out we don't have one... yet! muah-ha-ha!)It turns out that bread doesn't turn that nice brown color unless you bake it on a stone, which I did not have. I have, however, purchased one since then and willuse it next time... Until then I will stick with non-rising loaf bread...



We also went to Emma and Nick's wedding this summer (Early September) and it was BEAUTIFUL!!! Here are a few pics - you will see the reception was held in a barn that is over 200 years old...




Here are a few pics from the Bocce tournament in Monterey this past weekend... and the guys napping between games... glad I brought the blanket. :)





Alright, I am hoping to post more picture blogs, so we will see how that goes...

Thanks for visiting...

C

Happy Monday! The last few weeks have definitely been busy! But I will start with yesterday and work backwards.

Yesterday we celebrated my grandmother's 90th birthday! There were about 80 people at her house and it was an amazing opportunity to gather all six of her children (and their spouses), all but one of her grandchildren (I think there were 10 of us - and the one who was missing gets a pass - he is on a tour with the British Army in Afghanistan)... AND both of her great-grandchildren were present for the event.

It was wonderful to see my dad's side of the family, and meet some new significant others... :)

Anyway, I think my grandmother had a nice day, though I could tell (and she told me) that she was pretty worn out by the end of it. My mom also went, which was really great.

On Saturday morning we headed down to Monterey for Jeremy's Bocce tournament. I have a few pictures, but not on this computer, so I will have to post them soon and in another post. Incidentally, my camera died half way through Saturday and so I was unable to take photos of the rest of the trip and the party on Sunday, but there were tons of pictures from the 90th birthday, so no worries.

In other news, I have my second to last night of league bocce tonight, which is bittersweet. I look forward to having my Mondays available again, but I miss playing when we are not in season. Oh well, there is always next year. :)

Also, all of my shows are starting back up. Biggest loser, 90210, The Hills, The City (yes, I am a 15 yr old girl inside of this 30 yr old body). On that note, I love that the fall is starting - AND that we have actually had some rain this weekend... imagine that, rain in September, in Northern California. Anyway, we are loving it and it is fun to hear everyone talk about what they were doing when they heard the thunder and saw the lightening on Saturday morning - as if it was a natural disaster or something... we are so funny.

Also coming up I have a fairly empty weekend and I am really looking forward to doing some fall cleaning and some cooking. :) I just had the most amazing pumpkin bread (with no nuts) and I think there may be some zucchini bread in my future...

yummm... :)

Alrighty, back to work... have a great day!

C

Hello & Happy Sunday!

Here I am hanging out at my parent's house for the day. This day is some housework, cooking (both of which I don't seem to mind, even though I don't feel as good about it at my house - weird), and a few little things that I forget to do during the week. Usually, I can easily convince my mom to change the channel from CNN, her favorite, to The Food Network - which I love.

Anyway, two notes about my days here, which are kind of connected. First, we LOVE the Food Network and every once in a while we watch a show with a new recipe and get to make it... and usually that comes out easy. Strangely enough, with my love for watching people on TV cook, and even cooking when I am at my parent's house, I cannot seem to get myself to get excited about cooking at my house. Now, do I have a nice kitchen? eh, No. Do my parent's? ABSOLUTELY. So that could it be, but I still need to finds a way to translate my love for cooking to my personal/solo life. Also, on a side note, it is obviously easier to cook for 3 then just for 1. So that's another issue all together.

Second, I am slightly obsessed with reading blogs. Sometimes they are people that I know, or have known in the past... sometimes I find myself reading about someone that I do not know. The reason that these a tied together is that I have landed on a blog about preparing lunch (not really cooking, but it mixes bringing my own food to work with trying to be more environmentally friendly - which is another goal of mine).

So the other blog is called Bento Lunch , and is written by a mom who sends her children to work with Bento Box Lunches. This seems like an easy way to make lunch - and make it healthy, rewarding and we rounded. So I might give it a try for my work lunches. Then I need to start planning out meals that can translate into lunches the next day... maybe not always as leftovers, but maybe the ingredients could work for lunch also... who knows.

So, it seems easy enough, I just need to get in the mode of planning my meals again - something that I did before but it only lasted a couple of weeks, as schedules got crazy - I know, story of my life.

I am going to try to blog about how this goes - trying to be budget friendly, health friendly, enviro-friendly, and to not stress myself out too much... though I will admit I am a little stressed out just thinking about it.

Alright, away we go... Have a great week...

C

Happy Wednesday! I hope this week is going well for everyone... For me? This is week 1 of August, so I am busy closing out July a work... which just means high stress and anxiety. But I have an uneventful weekend ahead of me - which makes me happy. It's gonna be a whole lotta sleeping, visiting my parents, cleaning, hopefully some scrapbooking :), farmer's marketing, YOGA!!!, and gardening... :) See, uneventful. :)

Last weekend, well, last Wednesday, Sarah and I drove down to Orange County to go to Disneyland and my Creative Memories Scrapbooking Showcase. Our day at Disneyland was AMAZING, obviously, though I got the WORST pass picture EVER!!! (Yes, this sentence does require that many exclamation points) :) Imagine a picture of me smiling. Now make all of the creases in my face upon smiling, a nice blank color... now imagine I just finished eating an entire bag of Oreo cookies... and smiling... Yup, you get the picture. The funny thing was that she took the first one, didn't like it, and then ended up with this one... I mean seriously, how bad could the first one have been?

Ok, I am breathing and moving on. :)

Disneyland is my happy place, though spending 14 hours there (non-stop) after a 6 hour drive, separated only by about 4 hours of sleep... let's just say that it was not my happy place for the WHOLE day! :) But I did have fun.

I will post pictures, but not now because I am on my Dad's computer and my pictures are on mine, at my house. Soon, I promise.

The weekend before that Jeremy and I spent the weekend in Santa Cruz, CA. It was the weekend after our 4 year anniversary and so it was nice to spend a little time together. We had a wonderful Saturday shopping in downtown Santa Cruz and even had Woodstocks for lunch, which I have not had since my days in Chico... :)

Then on Sunday I got to run my first Wharf to Wharf 6 miler from Santa Cruz to Capitola and I got to run the entire thing with Heather!!! It was a GREAT and so great to be able to keep up with Heather for the whole 6 miles. It's so rare that we get to have a challenging (and fun) run with a good friend and see all of the sights and listen to all of the music that the course had to offer. Also, it was a great chance to get my next (shorter) run in after completing the Seattle Marathon at the end of June.

I have a few pictures of the trip to Santa Cruz, which I will be happy to post shortly. :)

Alrighty, I have got some dinner dishes that aren't going to do themselves... :) Have a great night.

C

This weekend was full of fun and a trip to Santa Cruz/Capitola - for, really the only reason I travel these days, a run... Anyway, yesterday Jeremy and I drove to Santa Cruz and spent the day touring around down town. The main strip of Santa Cruz is actually very nice with wonderful shops and unique items. I got a new pair of earrings and will have pictures to put up soon... probably.

This morning I got up ridiculously early and Heather and I ran the Wharf to Wharf, a 6-mile run from Santa Cruz to Capitola, CA. It was Beautiful!!! (Again, pictures will be posted soon)

Side note: I got to eat a slice of Woodstock's pizza, but neglected to get a photo... oh well - but it was tasty!

Last weekend we went to the Kenny Chesney concert (though I really went to see Sugarland and Lady Antebellum, until Sugarland cancelled because Jennifer Nettles lost her voice... :( boo!

Here is a picture from the concert:



Anyway, I will post the pics from this weekend soon. :)

Have a great week! :)

C

Happy Tuesday. I had a busy day at work, a nice run (welcome summer team!!!), dinner at Rubio's....mmmm.... and yogurt with my teammates. Tonight I am hanging out at my parents for a little while and writing a blog, apparently. I just showed my mom the Kittens Inspired by Kittens, SO CUTE! :)

I am tired. But there is a big week of work in my future :) I might go out and see a movie tomorrow night (mid-week movie, weird) but I am looking forward to a change from our normal Wednesday evenings... hopefully work will go smoothly this week and I will not have to work any long long hours to get the report out on Friday,

Alright, tired. Goodnight.

Cindi

Happy Monday blogworld,

What a weekend! :) Friday night I had an impromptu scrapbooking session with some friends and I am still looking for my cropping drive. It has been a slow couple of months of no scrapbooking and I am ready to get started again. I just wish I could get organized so that when I sat down to work on a project my brain and interest did not run in the opposite direction! argh.

Saturday I had a wonderfully challenging 6 mile run. I ran with Shannon and she kept me moving quickly. We ran at a faster pace than we usually do, and took hydration breaks approximately every mile. It went well and we made good time. :)

That afternoon I spent with Wanda and Jeremy ironing out the details for the shower next weekend. It should be a nice event. I also got to take a Saturday afternoon nap, which is almost unheard of for me. VERY exciting!

Sunday I was treated to breakfast at Lois the Pie Queen (Wonderful Place for Breakfast), and then I headed up to Vacaville and Napa with my parents for the day. We did some shopping in Vacaville and then drove to the Napa County Iris Garden, which was beautiful, though mom didn't care for the bumpy and windy road to get to the gardens. I got three Iris plants for my courtyard (I will try to post pictures once they bloom, and once I get my courtyard in viewable condition) and my Mom got two plants. I later learned that she is intending to give one of them to a woman she knows who is giving one of her kidneys to her husband (mom knows them from Dialysis) and the other one she gave to me... I am excited to see how it comes out as it looks beautiful in the pictures.

After the Iris Garden we went to lunch (well, late lunch) at the Rutherford Grill, which was VERY nice and they were very accomidating to Mom's wheelchair. We had the best Spinach Artichoke Dip and I had rotiserrie chicken and mashed potatoes colconnan, which were very good. They are a great spin on regular mashed potatoes.

After lunch we made our way home, unloaded the car and I was off to my place to clean for the remainder of the evening. I also watched Daisy of Love, which is a stupid show, but it was on and I couldn't find anything else to watch. Also, I attempted to watch Rachel Getting Married, but it was hard to get into. I will try again another day.

Alright, now it is another Monday and next weekend should be very busy between the Shower and Mother's Day. Both of which I need to prepare for this weekend sometime, probably Wednesday.

That's it for now, it was a very nice weekend.

C

So, I am going to try to give this whole blogging thing a go. :) I am going to try to keep up with blogging about my marathon training and hope that that will get me hooked. :)

I have signed up for my third season of Team in Training and will be training for my second marathon. Last spring I ran the San Diego Rock 'n Roll marathon and it was the most difficult physical challenge I have ever endured. But, I couldn't let it beat me... so here I am again. We have had two coached trainings and things seem to be going great.

Yesterday we ran between 2 and 7 miles. I completed 6 miles. The run took place at Inspiration point and it was FREEZING! :) and very hill-y. But the run went well and now, 24 hours later, I feel great. Which reminds me that I am capable of running another marathon, which I had at one time doubted.

Anyway, that is my TNT experience for this week. I will try to be more exciting next post. :) Have a great week.