The only thing better than Mizunos are free Mizunos

Remember a long time ago I gave away a Mezamashii run project invite ?

(An opportunity to order a free pair of Mizunos!)

Yeah that was awesome.  But what's even more awesome if that they are doing it again.  x10!!!!!

I have 10 invites to give away - all on the blog.  Which means that if you enter, you've probably got a decent chance of getting a free pair of shoes (I'm estimating chances at about 10% - edited to say: dammmnnn this contest is blowing up!  I'm gonna have to drop odds to 5% :(  ).   Time to try out that hot racer you've always been curious about. 

Next Year's Elixir.  Holy Crap Beautiful

Here's how you play: 

One entry: Leave a comment on this post.

Another Entry: Tweet to @mizunorunning and to me (@fasterbunny) about the giveaway and follow Mizuno running.

Another entry:  Leave (another comment) about what you're loving about running this fall.
Bonus entry if this statement is an alliteration.  (example: Frequent fall foliage falling freely). 

So it's possible to have your name in the pot four times!

Additional details:  You must have a shipping address in the US to win.  Giveaway ends a week from today (the 29th of October at midnight PST.).  If for some reason you are shy and don't want to publicly comment, you can email me as well and that can count for your entry.
*Also, if you don't have a blog, please leave enough of your name (or email) so that if you win, I can find you.

Cool?  So play!  I hope you enter!!  Obviously, I love these shoes and I hope you can try them and love them too!

*One more edit.  For some reason, Blogger is not publishing the comments beyond the first couple hundred.  I don't know why (trying to figure it out) but I am getting all of them through the interface and they will be counted!!  

Trolling Trolling Trolling

Can we talk for a minute about how every woman's race is guilty of the worst stereotyping in the world? 

According to the world of running women like:

1) Chocolate!!!!
2) Giant Medals or Jewelry for average level completion of a task.
3) Princess costumes!!!! 

Women don't like: 
1) Competition.  No pressure, it's all about the fun!  Yay you finished.
2) Logistics.  It's ok if they suck!   

Women don't care about: 
1) Money!  Charge me $150 for a half marathon!   Sounds good to meeee!

I mean what the heck?  Is this really 2012?

On the same premise, if people made a race just for Greek people they would serve us Gyros and bad economic principles.  

Stereotyping at it's best!

Anyways I'll stop for now :).   Here's the main post.

Beach Path Surprise Tempo

Today, I went running on the beach path again.  I'm really enjoying running on the beach path around Venice.  It's really pretty.

I decided I wasn't up for a workout so I took the pace pretty easy.   About 40 minutes into the run, I came up upon some dudebro running along at maybe 10 minute pace wearing cargo shorts.  

I internally chuckled about how uncomfortable his fashion choice must be to run in, and passed him on the left, maybe at around 8:30 pace. 

I was surprised to see that about 30 seconds later, he sped up, came back out of my left and passed me back. 

What??? 

I try to keep my competitiveness to a minimum on easy days, but a huge pet peeve of mine are dudes who clearly almost never run, who speed up so I can't pass them.   It's obnoxious.

So I figured I'd mess with him a little bit. 

source

 Instead of letting him go, or even passing him back, I stayed almost exactly 10 feet behind him.  For the first couple minutes he didn't notice anything.  Then he started looking behind him, and speeding up more, as an attempt to lose me. 

I kept my 10 foot distance.  My stride behind him went "Tap tap tap tap".

He quickened his stride further and started running the tangents of the curvy beach path.  I refused to run the tangents out of principle as I didn't want to appear to be racing.  My guess is that we were running about 7:15 / mile-ish.  Things had gotten serious. 

About 8 minutes into my trolling, the dudebro veered off the beach path onto the straighter pedestrian path a few yards to the left.  I think he figured he had a better chance of losing me on the straight path. 

So I decided to run exactly parallel to him, keeping his exact pace.  By now I'm pretty sure I was running 6:50 pace or so.   I was getting pretty tired, but I was confident I would win our silent war (or die trying!). 

A couple minutes down the road, the paths went to intersect, and dude bro almost ran exactly into me.  I turned and looked at him, exasperated and said "Do you want to race?". 

He was all like "Nah, it's not like that.". 

Suuurrreee it wasn't

And finally....I passed him and ran home to start my Monday morning.  On the plus side, I got in a good workout.  On the minus side, I'm kind of an overly competitive jerk. 

Was it a little immature to troll this random dude on the beach path?  Sure...but...I maintain that it was fun. 

And he started it. 

Fire Up Old Sparky

I've had a tiring week, but pretty much only because I'm badly addicted to Downton Abbey and I've been staying up late watching it.  It is fantastic. 

Honestly, I'm pretty sure that Mitt Romney wants to cut PBS funding because he's jealous that Ann's got a major crush on the Cousin Matthew. 

I mean...I get it girl.  I have a crush on him as well.  I mean...hello?

Sorry.  I know that if you don't watch that show, that was totally boring. 

In case you were wondering, I have been trying to run more and I even put in a 55 mile week last week.  I'm still slow though.  I can't believe that taking only a couple weeks off (and a couple months of half-assing) has had such repercussions on my speed.  I probably shouldn't be surprised though.  Running doesn't lie.  And not working hard for a couple months doesn't lie either.

I'm going to try to regain as much as I can before NYC/Ragnar.  Fingers crossed. 

I've also managed to do several electricity / fire themed things in the past week. 

1)  Set My House On Fire.

You know that "storage area" underneath stoves?  Yeah.  Turns out for a gas stove, it's not exactly storage.   Or at least not for my gas stove storing a sandwich maker and a still unidentified additional now-melted appliance. 

There go my dreams of hot sandwiches at home. 

Last Sunday night, I wanted to bake a Butternut squash.   I started pre-heating the oven, like a normal human being would, and I noticed some white smoke coming out of the oven.  Since the place is new, I figured maybe there was something random down there that needed to burn up, so I turned off the oven and waited.

However, the smoke kept coming.  And there were some small flames at the bottom of the oven.  I figured they would go out.  Go out they did not.

I went next door to ask my neighbour what to do, and he didn't know either.   It didn't seem like an emergency just yet.  So we just stood there staring at the stove.  And then black smoke started coming out. 

"F it I'm caling 911!!!" 

My hands were shaking as I dialed 911 and as the fire in the oven grew bigger and bigger.  Then the alarms throughout my new complex started going off as the sirens of the fire-trucks approached. 

"Holy shit", I thought, as I frantically moved boxes out of the way of the growing flames. 

But thank god for emergency services - those firemen were there and putting out the flames in no time.  They pulled out the remains of the sandwich maker (with melted plastic everywhere) as I apologized profusely for my mistake. 

"If you wanted to see us so badly, why didn't you just come down to the station and say hi?".  

Haha.  All's well that ends well though, and nothing got damaged.  My night just ended with me feeling a little bit shaken and under a lot of ashes. 

Pretty crazy and embarrassing though.  A banner way to introduce myself to the new neighbours!  

2) The Gaslight Anthem I only mention this part because of the irony.  The night prior to setting a fire in my gas stove, I went to go see the band, the Gaslight Anthem at the Honda Center in Anaheim. 

They were pretty rocking and I love them. 

I mean... I guess it would have been more funny had the band's name been the "Gas Fire Anthem", but you get the idea.

3) Compex Electrostimulation Machine:  As you may have heard, our ultra relay is sponsored by a company called Compex (along with Pro Compression.  Woot!).  Compex makes electro stim machines that basically serve to help build muscle as well as to help recovery. 

Frankly, I'd never heard of a machine like this until I mentioned our sponsor to my boss (a former ridiculously good track athlete) and a couple other people who have gotten physical therapy.  They were all jealous that we each got a machine!   Apparently this method for recovery is legit.

But the thing is...I am too dumb to use it.  Tonight I followed all the steps in the manual and I'm still not sure if it worked.  I'm also kind of scared to put it on anything but the lowest setting (uh after I nearly burned the house down).  Here're some pictures of the attempt:

I don't know about you, but the cartoon of the naked man with socks on in the middle diagram is enough to make me keep using this machine. 

In all seriousness, I am really excited to learn proper usage because I don't recover well from workouts and this could be a great tool.  If you've ever used one of these, tell me about it!  I'd love to hear more.  

Also, if you've ever set your house on fire, perhaps you can tell me about that one too.  I'd like to think I'm not the only one who has burned up a sandwich maker in a cloud of black smoke. 

Trackpassing

It's my first week in the new place and in running-speak that means "OMG WHERE CAN I RUN THAT DOESN'T SUCK???".


I've been to find decent running routes without a ton of stop lights, and of course, a track.   Decent running routes are more or less taken care of since I'm a pretty short run or drive from the Venice beach path.   In fact, this Saturday I ran for three hours while getting a contact high and seeing a man dressed in a Nun's costume.  The best part is that he was looking at me like I was crazy.

Very LA. 

A few days back, on a lark, I tweeted asking about open tracks in West LA in hopes of getting some good information.

And someone wonderful (I can't find the tweet anymore!) said that Venice High School has dirt track I can check out.

"Dirt Track in West LA???"  Way to spend money on schools, California.  

But...I figured that a dirt track sounded better than no track!

Of course, finding a track and finding a track that is open, non-sketchy, and otherwise decent are two different things.  I needed to do pre-workout reconnaissance. 

I ran to Venice High School early yesterday morning to scope it out.  The scene looked promising.  There were students milling around waiting for school to start, but it looked like the track was accessible and the gate was open.  I eyed the fence gating the perimeter of the track, and figured it was climbable if the gate happened to be locked tomorrow.   I figured I'd need to get there earlier tomorrow - before students arrived for school - if I wanted to avoid looking like a creeper.

The next day (this morning!), I woke up bright and early and all excited for my track adventure!  I ran down to the high school but the fence was locked.  Crossing my fingers, I barely was able to slip through the fence as my ipod went on and off blaring songs as it pressed against the metal bars.

No one was inside on the track except a few seagulls.  "Sweet", I thought as I drew a line in the dirt to mark the start and end of each lap.

I had no workout plan beyond 'Do speedwork", so I figured I'd just see how my body was feeling since I've really fallen off the bandwagon when it comes to speedwork lately.

I took off, and my first 200 meter split was a 52.  Yikes.  Guess this is a long interval day.  I figured I do the first repeat mile 7 minute pace and then drop it from there.  Unfortunately my legs felt like lead and most miles were right around 7 minute pace.    It's weird because 7 minute pace usually feels more like a cruise type pace, not a speed pace, if it's only for a mile or two.

I'm still unsure if I am really out of speed shape or if running on a dirt track is really slow.  Honestly it's probably both.  Good, humbling experience.

6:56.  6:54, 6:58 repeat times.  I kept the recovery short to a 200 meter jog.  I comforted myself , thinking that it's normal to not be able to run the times I want after skipping any consistent training.

By 7:15 AM, high school kids started showing up and I figured it was just a matter of time before some gym teacher showed up to yell at me.  I wasn't ready to drop and give anyone 50 pushups, so I called the workout done and slipped back out of the fence as quietly as possible.

As I ran through the high school grounds, I thought how removed I feel from high school.  Or even from kids in general for that matter.  Who are these random almost-adults and their skinny pants?  Did any of them think their track sucked too?

Bottom line, I'm happy I found a place I can run - at least temporarily.  While this venue has a little too much dirt and sneaking around for my taste, it'll do for now.   I'm just happy to be back on the workout bandwagon, and that's making LA feel a little more like home.

Running...Cowboy Style

You guys.  I really have wanted to update you on my running but I have been too busy to blog.

I am so so busy.

My life is totally full... 

FULL OF WATCHING THAT K-POP GANGNAM STYLE VIDEO THAT IS!!!!

I've been watching this video 10x a day.  I am probably 60% of the 210 million pageviews.  If you haven't watched Psy dance yet, get on it right now.   And then teach me the dance!  Because it's deceptively hard to master and I'm tired of looking like a leprechaun when trying to learn it.

Heeeeyyyyyy.  SEXY LADDYYY!

#PureJoy. 

Alright.  Now that I got THAT out of my system, I can talk about running.

Running Events

The good news is that I'm loving it again!  I haven't truly enjoyed running since last spring, so it's great to feel...good about it again.

I'm loving it enough to even go to running-type events.  Today, Kristina and I went to Road Runner Sports "Ladies Night Out" at the store in Costa Mesa.

Basically Ladies Night Out is an event where Road Runner Sports locations have drinks, candy / cupcakes, tons of free stuff and prizes.  I went last time with Sarah and won a sweet hat/socks combo.

I'm kind of a running shoe geek, so it was fun to hang out at vendors booths like Asics, Mizuno, etc.  Kristina is looking for a shoe to replace her Brooks Launch so we spent some time learning about other lightweight trainers.  One guy manning a booth was even friends with Ryan Hall!   Either that or he is a great liar.  Hard to say!

As if I needed another reason to go bum around a running store....

So next time come with me and let's be best friends.

NYC Marathon Update.

Beyond just hanging out at running stores, I have been easing back into workouts and long runs after my vacation.  Basically I'm not in the shape I need to be at this point to run a decent marathon in NYC, but I think I'm ready to make some effort to get there.   Which for me...is often half the battle.

I don't have a marathon training plan, but I am going to do the standard "long run on weekend, one long tempo, one interval session" per week.  When I was training for Eugene, I did a lot of fast finish long runs.   I felt like it destroyed my body for little benefit.  So this time around, I'm going to let myself take it easy on most of my long runs and see what happens.  I also want to build mileage.

I'm not going to take NYC as a "goal marathon" - meaning that I won't have the training in place to do my best.  However, marathons are weird and if it seems like things are going well in the next couple weeks, I'll definitely try to gun for a PR.  Why not, right?

RELAY

Uhhh yeah.  So remember when I ran the Eugene Marathon right after running the Southern California Ultra Relay?

Well I'm kind of doing that again.  And you have the right to tell me I'm an idiot, because frankly...maybe I am.  Bottom line, I REALLY wanted to run with my friends in Vegas and I REALLY wanted to do the NYC marathon. Rather than turn one down, I've opted to do both.  

Here's the team, as stolen from SarahOual's blog!  That girl is a graphic genius. 

I'm one of the slowpokes of this team, so I'm hoping I won't let anyone down!

We've got two sponsors this time around, who are Compex and ProCompression.  They are both recovery-type products, which will be MUCH needed between the marathon and relay!   I'll talk more about them later, because frankly, this post is already random enough.

Bottom line, it's going to be a crazy November, but I'm really excited for both the relay and the marathon.  Now time to get serious with the training. 

Missed the Boat

It's been a while since I last wrote a blog entry.  That's because I went to Greece for two weeks and every time I thought about attempting to blog, I immediately felt too lazy to do it.  I didn't even reply to your sweet comments about my move stress until about...5 minutes ago.   Thank you for them!

Bottom line, anyone who said "let's meet up in LA" or "I want to visit you"....in the comments of my last entry....let's do it!  Drinks, running, surfing on my coach.  You know where to find me (electronically).  

As I thought about this blog entry in a jet-lagged stupor, I considered bombing you with happy beautiful photos, Facebook style.  Because...it was a glorious trip.  I got to spend time with family (my aunts and cousins live in Greece), see amazing places, and really get away from it all.  I even got to trail run a bit!

I've returned happier.  But ya know...all that family album stuff isn't really my blog style.  So here's a story from my trip....

Missing The Boat

My vacation to Greece was going awesome so far.  We were five days into our trip.  My brother, sister-in-law, boyfriend, and me toured around Athens, Meteora, and now back to Athens again for two days.  I figured it would be nice for Anthony and me to have some time as a couple, so we decided to take a day trip to Hydra - just the two of us.

My guide book told me that Hydra is an island off the coast of Athens and is known for it's charming atmosphere, mansions, and the fact that they don't allow any vehicles (including bicycles!) on the island.

Wonderful, I thought.  Even better, we got to take a ferry to the island.  I love ferries.  My brother warned me that the Greek boat system can be confusing if you're not familiar with it, so we took extra care when buying the tickets and got to the dock super early.  A couple Frappe's later, we were off!

Anthony and I settled into the boat and watched an episode of Breaking Bad on his ipad.  The boat stopped at the shore and we hopped out.

We got some lunch and started walking around the Hydra.  It was a little weird because there were definitely bikes, cars, you name it, on the island.  But my Greek language skills sucked too bad to ask the natives about the change so we just rolled with it.  Neither Anthony nor I had done much research on the island so we wandered around from shop to shop.  It was awesome.  I even made a video log to share how beautiful it was!

(yes, I do always sound like I'm on drugs). 

Our tickets back were for around 9:15 PM so we got some dinner right by where the dock was.  And I made another video.  Because "I'm like Meryl Streep".

At some point, we started getting a little suspicious.  No one else seemed to be gathering for a boat.  In fact, we were the only ones hanging out at the dock at all.  I asked several people about the tickets, and they assured me we were in the right spot.  I figured hey...it's Europe...they do things on their on time scale here.

After waiting over an hour, I found a guy who told me to talk to some lady, who then informed me that our tickets were for the wrong island.  My heart sank!

I told her that was impossible because we got here on the same tickets.

And the it dawned on me.  The ferry made multiple stops.  We'd spent the entire day on a different island and had no idea!  We'd even checked in on Facebook into "Poros"!

How is it possible to spend 9 hours in one place and think you're in another? 

All the random things that didn't seem quite right throughout the day (like there being motorized vehicles on the island, etc.) started coming back to me.  Damnit!

The next boat back to Athens didn't leave until 7:30 AM the next morning, so we got a hotel, and Anthony chilled and drank with the random Greek family that owned the hotel.  They were crazy nice and fun. 

And I did what any Kardashian in my situation would do.  I made a another video.

All's well that ends well.  We got back to Athens the next morning safely and only a few Euro's lighter in our pocket.   Ok fine like 100. And maybe a tiny chip off my ego as well.

Learn from my rookie mistake.  If you're on a boat in Greece, remember, it may make multiple stops.  And you may be stuck for a long time.  But hey, even if you're not on the right island, you're still on a Greek island, right?

I'll  see ya next time, Hydra!
::face palm::

(PS:  If anyone is wondering "uh isn't this supposed to be a running blog?".  It still is.  I just haven't been doing that much so I don't want to write about it yet.  But I will soon, because I need to get my butt into gear for NYC!)

Adventures in Rentals

I'm moving to Los Angeles.  West LA to be more specific.

That's just an hour from where I live now, but to me it feels big and crazy exciting!

Also, and I'm afraid to even write this because what if something goes wrong but Anthony is also moving from Sacramento to LA.   I guess if he changes his mind I can buy ten cats to hang out with me instead. 

This will mark the end of 2 years of long distance.  Frankly, there was about a .001% chance of me getting a decent job in Sacramento given my field, so it's a pretty big relief that he got a good opportunity down here.  I'm also relieved because my travel schedule just got a hell of a lot easier.  I love flying, travel, and airport bars are the best but being unable to commit to anything for two consecutive weekends gets old after a while...

And I won't lie, it's also scary.  Any big change brings nervous butterflies. WAHHHH! 

I'm moving in about a month.  Please let me know if you live up there and want to be best friends.  Also let me know if you want to do track workouts or go to a public pool for laps.

The Hunt: I've spent the last two weekends apartment / condo hunting which has been painful to say the least.  It been about ten degrees hotter than a lava pit and my thirteen year old car's AC is less than stellar.  Also, rental agents in LA appear to operate on a time scale that is indecipherable to the rest of the population.

"Hi I'm here for the open house at 1 PM?"

"Oh we're going to lunch, come back at 2PM" 

"But...but...you said..."

::Rent agent goes back into her Cold War style bunker and locks the door::

Additionally, in a phenomenon that appears to be exclusive to Southern California, most places don't have refrigerators.   This blows my mind.  Who the hell travels with their own refrigerator?  I will happily use an old refrigerator the last tenet used.  Just Windex that shit down and I'm good to go.

Between the rental dude that yelled at me "NO PETS!  YOU DON'T HAVE PET!  NO PET!" and the lady who was showing me the place at the same time as she was trying to manage a cockroach extermination at the same place, I've wanted to smother myself with a pile of rental application several times.


Hoarders:  I've moved four times in since 2008 which is a good thing because I am forced to get rid of most of my stuff.   And I am too cheap to pay for professional movers.  So I own like nothing.  I've been living off roommates stuff since college which has worked out pretty well.  Usually someone already has a couch they want to use...and I'm happy to sit on it rather than insisting on using my own.

Still, despite the fact that I buy nothing substantial, my place without fail ends up resembling an episode of hoarders.

"Those pipecleaners I bought for a stupid costume five years ago?  Don't throw them out, I might need them someday...".  
  
Basically, in order to avoid being a TLC special, I'm going to have to continue moving on a yearly basis.

Who's to say what's next!

LA Fear:   I've lived in LA before when I went to UCLA for grad school.  I wasn't very happy.

I had no friends, parking sucked, and I had no money.  Also, as someone who loves to chat up everyone (like cashiers at the grocery store, etc.), I found LA pretty unfriendly.

But I'm trying to be really excited for LA this time around.  I'm moving pretty close to the beach and to an area that's just between urban and suburban.   Target accessible and fun bar accessible all at once.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to let the cashiers get away with not talking to me this time around.

"HI RALPHS EMPLOYEE HOW IS YOUR DAY GOING TODAY???"

"TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR LIFE AS YOU CHECK OUT MY GROCERIES!!!  OR ELSE I'LL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT THE 5K I JUST RAN INCLUDING EACH 400 METER SPLIT!!"

...and so it begins.... =)