1 Year Anniversary!

Today, Chance and I have been together for a year! 

So, to celebrate, we went out to RA Sushi at La Encantada! So yummy. :)





Then, we grabbed some Gelato. Mine is the bigger one with strawberry and margarita flavors, while Chance got blackberry.

We bought some Starfruit beforehand and wanted to try it out. Very cute and delicious!



And later we rented Pandorum, which was not cute. It was absolutely terrifying and I loved it.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I plan on a run tomorrow morning (my 5k is in a week, EEK! More on that later...) and then Chances family is taking us down south to the San Pedro river and we're "taking a stroll" (Chances words, he won't tell me exactly what we're doing...). 

What's Going On?!?

I can't figure out what's wrong with me. There definitely something wrong...but what??? My 5k is next Saturday. NEXT SATURDAY. And I haven't gone running in almost a week! Ahhh!

I wake up and tell myself to get dressed and get out that door and GO RUNNING. I always want to. Like, really, really badly. I think about how I'll catch up on my miles after work, or tomorrow morning, or something like that. I always think about how I'll work on my new breathing exercises next run, or how I'll beat my previous time, etc...

Why does my body hate my mind? My head is telling me get up and practice for next Saturday, and my body is like NOOOOO.

It has been very hot recently, so I partially blame that. But jeez, my name is HEAT Runner. Not cold runner, or nice weather runner. Heat. Runner. 'Nuff said. I just got to do it. Seriously.

Also, having to wake up earlier for work doesn't exactly inspire me to run in the mornings, and I'm always beat up by the time i get home. UGH.

I'm lazy. I'm a slacker.

...

Okay. I needed to ramble a little about my laziness this week. I'm kicking myself for not being as awesome as I was 2 weeks ago. And I was awesome. Believe me. 5 AM wake up calls to drive faaaar far away and run. That was sweet. Note to self: Let's do that again.

I'm not being the inspiring blogger I hoped to be. I apologize. It may take a couple more months (years?) before I get to that status. For the time being, blogger friends, you are my inspirations. Keep Inspiring! :) Thanks. 

Meet Me At Maynards

Hey all! I've been busy again, but not with running, unfortunately. But, my 5K is on the 5th so I better get cracking! Last night, I wanted to try out the weekly social run/walk called Meet Me At Maynards, so my mom and I went together. However, we arrived a little too late to walk with the group, so we walked the course downtown by ourselves. It was a great time to be walking! The temperature was perfect and walking alone had some benefits, such as being able to take pictures incessantly. Which is what I did. :) I'll only post a few though. 

I found this mirror randomly on the side of a building. It suits me. :)

me and my mom. awwww. :)













The snake bridge is crazy! I love it. The first one is it's insides and the other is it's head. It's a diamondback rattlesnake. There's even a rattle at the other end. It was built because the bridges previous to it were continuously getting knocked down from trucks that were way too tall.



We ended up right across the street from the Rialto, at the Cup Cafe. I'll have to get some good photos of that later. Hopped you enjoyed your tour of downtown Tucson! :)  Next Monday we'll show up on time and show you that it really is an event and I'm not making it up. 

Apartment Searching is Stressful!

Sorry for the lack of blogging again. I've been stressed, looking for apartments. I didn't think it'd be so tiring! Either one place is too expensive, or they have hidden fees, or in my case, we found the perfect place (location, price, etc.) but there is a bad case of cars getting broken into. UGH! These apartments are in a great part of town (River and Campbell for my Tucson bloggers) but since it is right on the river (okay...a large wash), they are prone to people walking up from anywhere down the river right into these (and other) apartments! There should be extra security or something. This is the only downside to these apartments. I don't normally leave anything in my car so I don't have much to worry about, I just don't like the idea of my stuff being touched and violated. It angers me and makes me feel way uncomfortable, even the idea of it happening. Hence the stress.

Because of this, my running is nonexistent this week. Chance and I ran down to Broadway on Sunday night, but other than that, I've been laying low. My breathing was really weirding me out on that run. I need to work on it. It seems to be really bad some days, and other days, I have no trouble breathing. *shrug*

On another note....


I got a blank fortune cookie! Completely...blank. UNFORTUNATE! That must be the word of the week.

Maybe the rest of my week will start to look up. *crosses fingers* I'm planning for a morning running run with Kali on Friday. I'm looking forward to it! :)

Late Night, Last Minute

My last final of the semester is TOMORROW! Woo-hoo!!! *jumping around the room*
So, tonight is late night, last minute studying. Of course. College wouldn't be college without it.
But, I got distracted and decided to show you some essential things I need for a night like this:

First off, I need my tea. Coffee is for the morning, in my opinion, and tea is great for late nights because it doesn't make you jittery. Mine is Mango Black Tea (yum). My Chu Totoro, Chibi Totoro and a wee, little dust sprite are telling me to get my homework done.


Then, I rub some Stress Relief and Mental Clarity Instant Aromatherapy on my wrists and breath in deeply.
Even if this stuff doesn't actually work, I still really like the smell of it. :) It's from Bath & Body Works. Go get some. They also have stuff for headaches and sleep.


I need my fuzzy, comfy socks to lounge around in, of course. My apartment is always so cold to me, especially when I want to get something from the kitchen and I have to walk on the tile...burrr! Which brings me to my final necessity....


Junk food! I know I know, I shouldn't be eating this crap. But I do. And I love it, especially when I have to stay up late studying and I don't have any time to cook. 

So there you go, the studying habits of Jamie. Considering I'm doing this instead of something else....oops. :)

Okay, time to get crackin! 

Give a Guy an Inch, he takes a Mile.

The entire workout this morning I was thinking the same thing over and over: I'm SO blogging about this when I get home!

So, here's today's story. Kali, her guy friend (who shall remain nameless) and I went to Sabino Canyon (yet again, I know, we'll change our scenery soon) this morning. We were planning on watching the sunrise, but we got there too late for that. That was my fault, and we realized we need to wake up waaaay earlier to see the sunrise. I was pretty sure we were doing about the same run we did on Saturday. So, I got into that mindset. Does anyone else do this? I feel that a mindset for running is extremely important, at least for me. Some people just get up and go, but I need to take a little while and visualize what I'll be running and how I want to run it.

Anyway, while we were in the car, he decided we should try a different route. I was okay with that, I just wanted to run, so I went along with it. It turned out to be the back way to Sabino Canyon, which is what I wanted to run in the first place. We drove a little farther past the main entrance and up a dirt road to the beginning of a trail...that went up. Okay, I know I need to work on hills, but I was already weary about starting on so early in the morning (6:30). But I did it, and it kicked my ass! He was bounding off, up the hill, leaving Kali and I behind. we were definitely struggling! The whole leaving us behind really got to me. I feel that if you go to run with someone, you need to stay with them, despite you being faster. That's the whole point of training with a partner. And if you don't like your partners speed, find a new partner! Am I totally cruel in thinking this way? I just feel it's running buddy etiquette.

We finally made it to the road after .5 miles, and that was all uphill, rocky, nasty-ness. I HATE ROCKS. We then get to run down a big hill. Kali and I pick up our pace so we're not trying to slow ourselves down. I thought to myself that we'd have to go back up the hill, and I wasn't very excited about that. Kali's friend was way ahead again, but then all of a sudden, he slips (because he was weaving, back and forth, while running) on some gravel and starts to bleed from his hands, knee and arms. You think this would stop someone. But no. He jumped up and started up again. So we continued to follow him.

We were getting closer to the road we ran Saturday and I was getting excited because I wanted to run farther back into the canyon. However, he had another idea: a trail that went, surprise surprise, uphill. But this trail was smaller and rockier, not my idea of a good run. It got so hard that Kali and I had to walk/hike this trail. So basically, we were hiking now. Woo-hoo.

Now, I don't mind a little hiking mixed in with my training. But this goes back to the mindset thing. I wasn't ready to hike. I was ready to run. And that's what I prepared myself for this morning. We continued up this trail until we came to a small waterfall, which I'll admit, was very pretty. But I didn't want to hike!!! We ended up hiking along a stream for what seemed like 20 minutes. Definitely cutting into my running time, and the sun wasn't getting any cooler. I told Kali this and she seemed to be feeling the same way. He was way ahead of us again, so he didn't hear us. Don't worry, I'm not rude. The worst part about this "hike" was the lack of a trail. We couldn't even run. It was just rocks. I swear. The big, boulderly kind. Awful stuff, even to walk on. My ankle was hurting and wanted to get back to the road. We kept yelling at him to take us to the road, and eventually we scaled a small cliff (with many prickly stickers and plants that got caught in our socks) and got to the road. I was about ready to run away from this guy. And finally, we got to run. But it was so hard. I had lost my mindset, and all of that stopping really didn't help.

Total: 5.74 miles
Avg Pace: 10'28"

I always stopped the watch when we were "diddly-dallying". And let me tell you, we stopped a lot. I don't dislike the guy, he was very nice and just wanted to go on an adventure. Which sounds awesome, but on another day. I love Kali as a running partner and we would love to invite more people to our Sunday runs. However, I won't be inviting this guy again; or, at the least, if he really wants to come again, then Kali or I will be taking control of where we run and hopefully he'll get the hang of it.

Well then! That's my rant for today. I just had to get that out, it seemed so ridiculous, I just had to share. I have a cultural anthropology final in 30 minutes, so I need to get going!!! Have a great Tuesday everyone! :)

An Early Sabino Canyon Run

On Saturday, I got up super early (5:50 AM!) and went for a run with Kali. We decided to give Sabino Canyon a try and we loved it!! It's absolutely beautiful, especially for a morning run. The hills are tricky though. When I signed up for the 4 miler that's coming up in September, I didn't realize how difficult hills are. Oh, but now I know. However, there is a good side to hills: going down. :)

This is in the parking lot. Surprisingly, there were a lot of people here. And there was even a training group for the Phoenix Rock 'n' Roll Marathon. They had signs, t-shirts, everything. I bet that group costs a lot to join. No thank you.

This is the beginning! Kali and I took a trail instead of starting on the main road, which is where we eventually ended up. I really want to talk about how I'm getting into trail running, but I'll save that for another post.

I'm going to buy a cheap point-and-shoot camera so I take it with me and get some photos inside the canyon. I love running in Sabino Canyon, despite the amount of gas I use to get there. I love it so much, I have decided to make it a weekly thing. Kali and I are going for another run there on Tuesday. Hopefully, Saturdays/Sundays (whichever happen to work out better) will be "running in Sabino Canyon day"! That is, until I get bored with it and need a change of scenery. I have also planned to run up Wasson Peak, which is in the mountain range west of Tucson. That one is entirely uphill, so I need to work up to that. Heck, maybe one day I'll be running up Mt. Lemmon! :)

Oh! I also discovered what was wrong with my Nike +. Well, okay, nothing is wrong with it, it just doesn't have the feature I want it to have. I've been posting my paces of each mile, but they're wrong! so ignore those. They're not really my pace/finishing time for that entire mile, they're just the pace I was running when I hit that mile mark. :( I'll have to figure out a new system to get my pace. Or I could just continue to complain to Nike that they need this feature, immediately! Either one. :)

Also....Happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there! Especially my mom and my sister! We went to Maynard's Market for a very yummy brunch and then lounged around the house. It was a good day. :)

*I stole this picture from my sister's blog.