Not the sharpest crayon in the box...

For the record, I was NOT intoxicated when I went for my run monday night. AND, that is NOT why I almost biffed it! Hehehe.

Last night, Sis and I went for a run at 5pm, shortly after I got home from school. Let's just say running in 82 degrees probably wasn't the smartest thing. But, you live and learn. I couldn't get into the groove of things, but we did it. What I struggled with the most was a dry mouth. For some reason, I had such a dry mouth that it was even a struggle to swallow! We ended up logging 3.32 miles. Atleast there was a slight breeze and minimal humidity.

We had a big dinner, watched American Idol (I wasn't too impressed ... I'm thinking it is time for Lakisha to pack her things), and then we went and played 3 on 3 volleyball. Boy, how I miss our days of volleyball. Another thing I am going to miss this summer. Sniff sniff.

From there, I went home to watch the end of the Twins game. The piranha's pulled it off again and Morneau closed the game with an upper deck home run! Dang, he is good!

And... the Suns beat the Spurs... Nice! 101-81... Gotta love the Nash-meister!

I love this time of year. Things are slowing down with school, NBA playoffs have begun, baseball is in full-swing (no pun intended), the temperature is rising!! Gotta love it!

Tonight, there is a going away party for a teacher. I call a rest day. Happy running y'all!

Hello Spring

Taking a break from a few reflective and thought provoking posts (as well as emotional), I am happy to be posting about running again. I ran last wednesday in the beautiful 60 degree weather with my sister, and then ran last saturday morning in a cool crisp 55 degrees, alone....pounding the pavement.

Last night was the first time since saturday that I was able to get out and get my run on! Besides packing, cleaning, lifting, and moving, I haven't done much running. I got home after school, changed, grabbed Mr. Garmin and my HR monitor and hit the road. Forgot my Nano but that was probably good .... it gave me the opportunity to pay more attention to my breathing and my surroundings.

It's definitely spring. My senses were in overload as I was running. Living at my aunt's, I was able to run on new territory and take it all in. There aren't many parks or sites to run through, like many of you bloggers write about, but I was able to enjoy the new scenery. The grass is already turning green, the trees are starting to bud, the birds are chirping, kids playing in their yards; and people walking, running, and biking all over the place. The sun was shining through the clouds. When I got home from my run at 6, it was 78 degrees! It just seems incredibly warm for North Dakota in April. Hopefully we can keep it around for a while!

After showering and doing some much needed errands, I got a call wondering if I wanted to play some basketball. Sure, why not. It was gorgeous outside. So, I met up with a couple of my good guy friends to shoot hoops. Nothing like playing some street ball with a high school basketball coach and a big guy. With a flat ball. When pumping the ball with air, N got the needle stuck in the ball. So, no dribbling I guess. Just shooting hoops and a lot of traveling. I think they thought I was one of the guys, giving me crap left and right... man-handling me. I am sore today, darnit. They called me Team Defense, because my defensive skills stunk and they were trying to "educate" me on how to position myself ... defensively. I was getting ridiculed for throwing my elbows out there, but I couldn't help it. When I had a 250 pound guy coming after me, I certainly wasn't going to be able to "box him out"! It was still fun though. Lots of laughs.

Once the sun went down, we opted for a cool beverage on the patio of one of the restaurants along the river. How nice it was... and relaxing. Suprisingly, it was still warm after the sun went down, which is odd for April.

Well, this is Team Defense signing off! I will be heading to the cities for a bachelorette party tomorrow! Have a great weekend, y'all!

Overtimes: 1 loss & 1 win

My Tarheels lost in an upsetting overtime against Georgetown. This just didn't play well in overtime. No excuses. Don't worry. They will be back next year. And they will go to the Final Four.

I was able to watch the Tarheel game and the Sioux/Gopher game at a local bar with some friends. This is what a couple of my friends had to say after the Sioux won in overtime....
It's okay though, they are supporting the Sioux in the Frozen Four! They're not sore losers... they were just the only two gopher fans in the bar, and I had to be with them!?!

Posted below is a video I found as a tribute to the Sioux's interesting year. Last fall I was afraid they weren't going to make it this far. But, they have...and we have sooo much more to accomplish.

Something to get used to...

I went out for a run this afternoon with a goal of at least 3 miles. When I got on the road, I didn't have a set plan as to where I was going to run. I just went out there and did it, taking turns where I wanted to. When I was coming back, I could have turned towards my place but went further north a bit since I wasn't feeling too tired. The low ceiling combined with 50 degree weather and +90% humidity was enough to make this girl sweat. I think I was overdressed in pants and two long sleeved shirts. I know I was overdressed. It makes me chuckle when I read posts about people running in what they call a cold temp for them, probably somewhere between 40 and 60 degrees. That is beautiful for this time of year in North Dakota. Don't get me wrong, I know heat, we do get that here... and it's not always dry heat, it can be quite humid at times. But, if I move to the Southeast, the humidity is definitely something to get used to. All and all, I accomplished 4.35 miles today.

I don't know what I am going to do this evening. I have a bit of a dilemna. My Tarheels will be taking on Georgetown within the next half hour 4:45ish, and our Sioux are taking on the Gophers at 5pm! If we end up going out to watch the hockey game .... I can only hope that they have at least one tv showing some March Madness!

What a successful week! I was able to break 100 miles in running and 100 miles in spinning for 2007! Happy running, y'all! Have a marvelous week!

The Suns are Hot

Tonight Sis and I had to pretty much force ourselves to go to spin, both of us feeling sluggish/tired from our back to back runs sunday and monday. We got there and the only two available bikes next to each other were in the front row. Lovely. The first five to ten minutes were incredibly difficult for me. I just didn't have the drive today. But, after a few hill workouts and some frozen spin cycles, I was feeling great and lovin it.. ... even with my hair drippin' sweat onto my legs and handle bars! The end of the spin session consisted of 4 or 5 intervals of zero to ninety ... just ... like... last . ... . week... I pushed myself even harder, watching my cadence go from zero to 125!!!! How awesome that felt! I am just glad we didn't do anything with the imaginary weights today... that would have sent me over the edge! All in all, I accomplished a decent 9 miles!

Where does the night go. I am so completely wiped between spin and school. I am going to finish the night with a couple loads of laundry, the rest of American Idol, and then I will crawl into bed to watch my Timberwolves take on the Suns... I don't know how the game will turn out. I still love my 'wolves, but the suns are hot! (no pun intended!) Especially Mr. Nash! That one's for you Mr. Joe!

I think tomorrow will be a day of rest. Maybe....

Happy running, y'all!

Feelin' Fine...

I woke up to -4 degrees this morning. I didn't want to wait until mid afternoon for the expected high of 20 degrees. So, I drug myself out of bed and went to the gym. There was no spin today, so I knew that my options were pretty limited as I didn't want to do the EFX machine, stairstepper, or bike. I wanted to run, but I was upset I couldn't do it outside. I was teased with the warm weather on monday and didn't want to revert back to the thrillmill.

Once I got to the gym I knew I wanted to do some lifting as well, but didn't want to do it first, as I usually do. I was afraid it would have killed my motivation to run. So, I attacked the thrillmill and did a wonderful 40 minutes... 3.5 miles.... I was feelin' fine! I could have gone farther, but didn't want to push it. I want to run tomorrow as well. After running, I went down to the weight machines and went to town. I think I am going to have to start keeping track of the machines I am doing and how much I am lifting. I wasted so much time adjusting the machines and figuring out what weight to use...

Now I am going to do some paperwork while watching basketball. Don't worry, I can multi-task! I am lucky I have today off!

Happy running, y'all!

Easy AND Fun!

With the beautiful weather (snow melting) and not having class tonight, I was able to get out for a nice run before dinner. Yes, outdoors! Probably the first since my 5K on New Year's Eve! Actually, with the time change, I could have gone for a 3 hour run after school. . . . if I wanted to. That is quite a change from a couple months ago when we were lucky if the sun was up past 5pm. Since it is a rare occasion to run outdoors during winter up here in ND (especially when I have a rule that I will not do it in the dark and when the temperature is below 30 degrees), I had a hard time deciding how to dress. It was 40 degrees when I got home from school. Not the 56 they said it was going to be, but it was definitely nice enough to take advantage of. Eventually, I put on an older pair of yoga pants, one of my running shirts, old Nikes, heart rate monitor, garmin, ipod and then my fleece sweatshirt. Plus, I grabbed my camera. Phew.

I left the apartment and headed north on my 3 mile loop. This is the same loop I did quite often this past summer. I became quite hot real fast, as the sun was beating down on me, but I didn't care. I was actually comfortable outdoors. On the way back, it was a little cooler as I found myself running under trees that were blocking the sun.

There were times where I found myself jumping over puddles or snowbanks. And then there were times I would end up running through puddles that didn't look too deep, initially. Sometimes I found myself running on the street to avoid huge puddles on the sidewalks .... only to find myself being splashed purposefully by some guy. But I was okay with that. I just smiled and waved and went on my merry way. It was nice out. I was enjoying it.

All and all, 3 miles felt great. Now, I need to go work on my brackets for March Madness! Yippee! I can't wait for the games to begin!

Quick..before the storm get's really bad..

I woke up this morning to the sound of my phone ringing. My first though was I slept through my alarm clock. Before answering I checked the time, 5:35?! What the heck. Here it was my mentor calling to tell me school was starting 2 hours late. Great. Let's go back to bed. Then, she called again at 7ish saying that she is playing the role of mother here and telling me to not go if I feel the roads are too bad... since I was driving alone. Okay. Back to bed. Again. 7:30 - phone rang again, school is canceled, weather is too ugly. Back to bed. Yeah, no school. And, we don't have school tomorrow since it was a scheduled day off for High School Girls Class B State Basketball Tournament! Nice long weekend, yeah!

I eventually got up and decided I should do something constructive. I checked the schedule for classes at the gym and the earliest time for spin on thursdays is 4:30. I didn't want to wait that long if the snow kept falling. So, I got ready and headed out the door a little after 11. Oh my. so much snow and so much in front of my garage door. I had to use this stupid little metal shovel to remove some of the snow into the parking lot so I could get out without getting stuck. It was almost up to my knees.

At this point, the roads were decent and it wasn't really snowing. I went to the gym and planned on being on the thrillmill for an hour. I had done this almost a month ago and got in 5.3 miles then. I wanted to see if I could do more. So, 60 minutes later, I looked at my mileage and was pleasantly please.... 5.57 miles! That's an average pace of 10:46 per mile! At the time I was feeling quite tired and so ready to be done. I stretched before leaving the gym, went to the grocery store for some odds and ends, fruit, milk, and frozen pizza. I am treating myself tonight! When I was leaving the grocery store, the snow was coming down in huge chunks of flakes! We still have our Storm Warning in effect until 10pm tonight and then it switches over to a Blizzard Warning from then until 6pm friday night. Wonderful. We haven't had a blizzard warning in a long time. The blizzard warning is mostly due to falling snow and extremely windy conditions along with nasty roads. I don't think I will be making it to the gym tomorrow. That's why I chose to do a long run today. If weather is permitting, I will be going on Saturday morning for a spin session.

Well, I am going to go and watch a movie to relax a bit and then get ready for my cousin's basketball game on tv! It's her senior year of high school and it just so happens that her team is playing the team from the school I work at! Go Lady Holstein's! Yep, their mascot is a cow, the New Salem Sue! What? You haven't heard of the world's largest cow? It's located right here in ND!

Check out the video I posted from youtube.com! I heart the Dixie Chicks and always have, despite some comments made about the war, we won't get into that. I am not saying I disagree with their thoughts or agree. I just love the song though. The lyrics are wonderful.

Head Spinning

Went to spin last night with a weak stomach. Didn't know how well it was going to go, but all and all it was qutie successful and my quads and glutes were quite sore after a near 12 miles! What a wonderful workout!

Sis and I decided to make a nice dinner of spaghetti with some garlic bread! Mmm. That sure hit the spot. Once dinner was over, I waited patiently.

Patiently.

Patiently for the biggest rivalry game in NCAA basketball.

Yep, it was time for the UNC vs. DUKE game.

Let me just say, the first half was really hard to watch. I couldn't beleive how poor they were playing. But the Heels persevered and pulled through in the second half. They were rebounding better, had more steals, and just darn right played better!

79-73 baby! DUKE is going down!

Tonight I hope to get in an easy three miles. We'll see!

Happy running, y'all!

Cake or Beer?

Question of the day: Which would you rather have tossed into your lap, cake or beer?

Ha! Watching the Nuggets game last night had to make me chuckle. One of the players had bumped a beer tender in the process of saving a ball, nocking all drinks onto a few peoples lap! And earlier in the game, a fan had a cake thrown into his lap but the Nuggets mascot! Ha ha. Too funny! (I think I would rather have the beer!)

I HEART Tarheels! Way to pull out another W! Number 1 Baby! And I must give a round of aplause to Georgia Tech! Awesome job on kicking Duke's rear end!

Yesterday's Workout: Didn't happen. I was too tired in the AM with going going going on Monday and Tuesday between working out, school and night classes. So, I designated it as my REST day.

Today's Workout: 3.1 miles on the thrillmill at 5:30 am! Wahoo! 34:49 minutes. How refreshing to start the day off with a good run and a warm cup of mocha! Plus, I am to school 15 minutes early.... thus being the reason why I have a few minutes to write this post!

Tomorrow's Workout: Turbo Jam in the AM! 40 minutes of pure bliss! (pure bliss = sore thighs, arms, and butt)

Oh, and by the way...we are just starting to get our "normal" weather up here in ND.... Woke up this morning at 19 degrees...and it will be slowly decreasing throughout the day...getting down to I believe 5 degrees with a windchill of -25 degrees! Ahh! To top it off, I saw a runner outside this morning at 7am! That's not dedication...that's stupidity in my book! Brrr!
Happy Thursday...and happy running, y'all!