Five for Friday and an Everything Cake

Exercise: 30 minute easy circuit workout

1. Fridays over in these parts have become baking days. Last week I was craving chocolate like mad and so I whipped up some chocolate frosting and decided I might as well bake a cake to go with it. It's annoying when that time of the month coincides with a race but at least there's chocolate to make everything better ;)

Cake Gremlin agrees

2. My friend Natalie made some incredible carrot-zucchini cupcakes with vanilla rum frosting for dessert last night. Soooo tasty. 

These little babies inspired me to make a cake with some bananas that needed to be used. And then I added in some other produce that had to be gone today including a zucchini, a very ripe peach and the end of a bag of shredded carrots. Basically a banana carrot cake with boozy cream cheese icing. But there's also some whole wheat flour, almond flour and the kitchen sink. 

YUM! Moist and delicious!!! Thanks Nat! BTW Nat also makes her version of a ratatouille that she calls Natatouille, ha. I'll try to wrestle this super tasty recipe from her.

3. I've been thinking about training a lot lately. I had planned to run the Pasadena full marathon in May but I just don't think it's possible. I'd need to build up my mileage so much in the next few weeks I just don't think it would be any fun. And if it's not fun I don't want to waste my precious time. My plan now is to gradually up my mileage, do more trail running and reevaluate where I am in July to see if doing the Bulldog 50k is in the cards. There's always the 25k and I have years ahead of me for long races.

4. I just sent out the invitations for Little Man's 2nd birthday party. 2 years old!!! Whoa! Music Man really wanted an easy party. We had agreed upon the theme being 'Birthday Party'. Remember when the party was the theme and you just had friends over with cake and balloons? I don't. Ha. But I appreciate the simplicity of it. But then when we were looking the the Evite designs we found a Lego brick theme one and both Music Man and I immediately decided we had to do Lego/ building brick theme. It's a natural choice since it's one of Little Man's favorite activities. 

I still want to keep it simple but here ius what I have so far:

Cake: Building Blocks Cake

Activity: We have a trampoline, water table, sand box and slide/climber thing but I was also thinking of putting out a huge blanket with a big box of Mega Bloks we have so the kids can play there too. 2 year olds can't really do directed activities yet

Snacks: lego sandwiches- pbj, and jelly & cream cheese for kids

            small regular sandwiches for adults

            mango, strawberry, melon kabobs

            chips, veggies, dip, guac, hummus

            I don't want to do a bunch of candy but maybe some m&m's or lego fruit snacks

            and maybe some lego pops for fun- maybe I could do it healthier with fruit?

Decor and favors: lego plates and cups from party city or there's also these which could be cool

            I also like the lego wristbands and crayons for favors

Balloons: dot balloons

I'll let you know what we choose. So fun!!!

5. Saw Hunger Games and thought it was pretty fun. It was definitely aimed for a younger crowd but was still entertaining. I do have to say I found the book to have more depth and more suspense. There were some really cheesy moments in the movie that weren't depicted that way in the book. But it gets a thumbs up from me.

        

The Lair

Exercise: 8 mile run- 9:50 avg pace

My run this morning was poop. I felt heavy and just plain tired the whole time. I had also planned on doing a seven mile run but realized I had to extend my route because a little cut through I was going to use was wet and super muddy. Having to up the mileage didn't help my outlook any, but at least I finished without stopping to walk.

Music Man has a few days off so after my run we both got ready and took Little Man to the zoo. It was a pretty successful trip. They have a new reptile habitat he was totally smitten with. He was basically an angel for 20 minutes straight while we were in the reptile lair. That's like 3 hours in toddler time ;)

Yesterday we took a field trip to the fire station with the MOMS club I belong to. Of course my son was more interested in the treadmill than the firemen. I should have gotten video because he was trying to run on it.

Of course he liked the fire trucks too.

It's been a nice week having Music Man home but I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. DATE NIGHT!!!! Hunger Games!!! Margaritas!!!!

I hope your Thursday is fabulous.

Valley Crest Half Marathon

Exercise: 5am strength and cardio circuit- 50 mins

Immediately after exiting the Hollywood Half Marathon expo I called Music Man and told him I was never running a big race again. I was so fed up with huge, crowded disorganized races. So he was pretty surprised when I told him I signed up for the Valley Crest half Marathon yesterday. It's a popular race but not a big one, so it doesn't count ;)

The best part is that it's super close to my house. I do my hill repeats on the trail head! It's where I hiked 3 days before giving birth.

And it's where Music Man mountain bikes daily.

The race has a decent start time of 8am which I am truly looking forward to. That way the fam can drop me off and see me finish. This wasn't really possible at the Hollywood Half.

I'm really looking forward to more trail running too. I've spent the last few years really pounding the pavement and can't wait to get back out into nature.

I'll do my first training run Saturday but it will be short because I'm running a 5k on Sunday with a few friends. I don't plan on PRing, but it should be a good time.

Hope you're having a great week.

15 Things You Should Give Up in Order to be Happy

This article changed my outlook on today. Sometimes just seeing these things in writing can be all you need

http://www.purposefairy.com/3308/15-things-you-should-give-up-in-order-to-be-happy/

Hollywood Half Recap

Exercise: 6.5 miles-9:13 avg pace
In all honesty, after attending the expo the day before the race I was certain the race was going to be a disaster. My experience with the expo was that the venue was WAY too small to accommodate the amount of runners racing. And the parking was beyond nightmarishly horrible. I waited over an hour to exit the parking garage and I had Little Man in tow. I thought arriving to the expo early was a good idea, apparently not. So my expectations for the race plummeted.

I hate to sound greedy but the loot bag was pretty lame for a $100 race. I expected more than prunes and vaseline ;) (I did pay extra for the tech t shirt and it is excellent. I wore it on my run this morning and it performed great. First time I've ever run in a race tee.) So I left the expo feeling unimpressed and underwhelmed.

For the race itself, I have to admit I loved it! It started at 6am and I arrived a bit after 4 and parking was perfect with an easy walk to the start. There were plenty of porta-potties, the corrals were easy to navigate and there was even a waiting area with heat lamps for runners to huddle around. I thought the 50* temp was perfect though.

The race was a wave start by corral and it was one of the quickest big race starts I've experienced so it was great. The nearly 3 mile downhill start is another story. I found it really hard not to go out too fast so I ran the first 3 miles at an average 7:55 pace which is way too fast for me. But even at that pace running down hill I felt like I was constantly putting on the brakes. When we got to the flats and the beginning of Hollywood Blvd my pace increased so this was definitely not a negative split race.

The flat portion had a few small inclines and plenty of water stations and it was pretty pleasant.  I had focused more on the elevation of the route rather than the map so I didn't realize I would get to run through Silver Lake and all the cute shops. That was really fun. And I tried my best to keep a conservative pace on the flat portions to save my strength for THE HILL. For the first 6 miles my pace was below 8:30 min miles but that all changed.

The course was an out and back route and unfortunately what goes down must then go up in the running world. The second half was difficult to say the least. The last 6 miles had a slowly increasing incline until the last 2 miles which was a 5% grade. Luckily we didn't have to run all the way back to the start because there was a much steeper hill on the way down.

Although my pace slowed with every mile the last half, this is what I trained for. That became my mantra as the hill became steeper and steeper. "This is what you trained for" was spewed from my lips with each achy exhalation. And when those around me started to walk I plodded along. I did not push 50 pounds of stroller 2 miles up hill during training for no reason. And I killed THE HILL. It hurt but I loved it with every bone in my body.

I finished in 2:07 which I'm pretty happy with. I keep thinking the time is too slow, I should have trained more, I should be faster. But I ran the whole thing and completed it so that's what matters right?

I was reading a lot of complaints on Facebook and although I agree with some I wanted to offer my opinion because it's my blog and I get to do that ;)

1. Water stations- I heard they ran out of cups towards the end. This was not a problem for me because I always run with hydration, just in case. But a race of this size should not run out of cups. I'm sure that will be changed for next year but maybe some of those people should also rethink their hydrating strategies... Just saying
2. THE HILL- some people want the course changed because the hill is too hard. Umm, maybe you shouldn't be running half marathons if you don't want running to be hard. Personally, I liked THE HILL. I felt hella ;) accomplished after finishing it. There are definitely some things that need work but for an inaugural race this one was pretty great.

Half Pre Cap

Exercise: soon to run 13.1!!!

I woke up at 3am after not getting to sleep until after 10. I was in bed before 9 but nerves and barking dogs had me awake too late. I tried to get back to sleep for a bit but I woke up super eager so I guess that's a good thing.

It only took 20 minutes to get ready and take care of business so I was out the door before 4am and arrived here about 15 minutes later. Driving in LA is awesome at 4am!!! And I'm so glad I got here early because there is now a line into the parking garage and I got the space closest to the exit.

I never before worried about getting a specific parking space because I rarely mind walking. But after waiting for over an hour to exit the parking garage from the expo (with a toddler) yesterday, I learned my lesson.

Now I have an hour to figure out where my corral is, use the potty, and get situated.

Here goes...

All Kinds of Sweaty

Exercise: Sunday-8 miles 9:31 avg pace
              Monday-Rest and trying to look after a sick Little Man
              Today- 4 miles tempo 8:28 avg pace

My Friday run went a little differently than I had planned. The first little hiccup was that the Little Man was going to be joining me. This is fine on most days, even speed work days when I feel that my slower speed is just due to added resistance; but pushing 50 lbs of stroller and toddler up a steep hill multiple times seems like, well...torture.

So I changed it up a bit, which is totally fine. One thing having a toddler has taught me is to adapt to change. I'm still learning ;) So instead of 3 800 repeats I did 6 400s straight up with short walk breaks in between. It was probably for the better because it more closely mimicked the 2 mile hill in my half next week. In all honestly it wasn't the most fun I've had but I felt like a bad a$$ running up that monstrous hill.

I completed my last good run today and will do a few shake out miles Wednesday and then I'm taking 2 full rest days in preparation to race. It's been a long time since I've taken 2 rest days and haven't been sick. (Cross your fingers that I don't get sick because Little Man is!) I also plan to really focus on nutrition and proper fueling this week. I am not looking forward to it but that means easy dairy, onions, fiber, etc all week and absolutely none of those irritants Thursday or Friday.

One last thought, kinda TMI but whatevs. Any mothers out there ever dealt with night sweats? I have been having horrible issues for the past few months and I'm still a couple decades from menopause. So don't suggest that because I will cut you. I've done some research that suggests cutting out sugar, alcohol, fat and caffeine...and anything else that could give you pleasure ;) There are some other herbal remedies such as black cohosh and b vitamins. I'm doing it and we'll see if it works. Anyone have any other remedies?