Anyone wanna carpool?

Happy Wednesday everyone! So what's the price of gas in your neighborhood? On the way home tonight gas was already up to 2.98, it's been running around 2.58. Crazy. We had started shopping for a smaller, more fuel efficient car a while back and I really wish we had already unloaded the Expedition. Brent and I work for the same company about 2 miles from here, and we've talked about starting to carpool just to save some gas money. We're also thinking about possibly buying an older small car that would get better gas mileage to scoot around town in, and keep our Expedition and Jeep Wrangler. Hopefully everything in the Gulf will get straightened out and gas will go down soon. All the looting and media coverage I've seen of New Orleans is crazy. I can't imagine being in a situation like that, where the best place you can think of to go and be safe is on interstate overpasses.

Tonight we ran 3 miles. Since we ran yesterday we normally would have gone to the gym, walked the dog, or played some basketball but Brent wanted to run. He's been keeping track of his mileage and he needed 2.5 or so to make 60 miles for the month. I was more than happy to jog along since it was a beautiful day here (which I feel pretty guilty about saying since it's the result of the terrible hurricane). It felt like fall today with nice breezes, it would have been a great day to play hookey from work.

It's Rock Star Inxs right now, baby! At this moment JD is singing his INXS song. Man, I hope he goes home! I can't stand his attitude!! I'm rooting for Susie and Mig now. Susie has really come around, her version of Bohemian Rh. this week was awesome. Once JD is gone I think it's going to be so hard to watch one of them be voted off. They're all such GREAT singers. I'm so glad they got really good singers instead of crappy American Idol type people.

Well, it's been a great August everyone and here's looking forward to a cool September! I'm going to start keeping better track of my mileage and start adding length to my long runs. There's a couple of local races I'd like to do later in the month, but until then it's just the local courses for me!

See ya tomorrow!

Rachel

Exercise - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 3 mile evening run and I'm about to do my toning stuff once Rock Star goes off. Priorities people!!!

Hold on to your hats

Well, we survived 'Hurricane Katrina' in Nashville. All the schools shut down for a whopping 3 inches of rain. They didn't even show Good Morning America here because they had all their 'storm team' member out at every Bradford pear tree that was down across the city, and out interviewing everyone named Bubba to see if they had been able to get any bread, milk and batteries at the grocery store. Granted, the past 24 hours the weather has been gross but the media blows everything about of proportion. I would have much rather seen coverage of the areas actually hit by the REAL storm. Today's mostly been a slow, steady drizzle with some gusty winds. Pippin has NOT been happy about it!! The little dog hates the rain and when he sees me grab my jacket (to throw over my head) he tucks his ears under and reconsiders whether or not he really needs to go out. He's perfected the art of balancing on three legs and hiking his leg off the edge of the driveway so he can pee in the grass without ever leaving the comfort of the driveway.

The rain was most mostly over by the time we got home from work today. After a yummy dinner of chicken soft tacos we got geared up for a rain. We had both worked late today, so it was 8 before we had headed out. There were still a lot of big poofy clouds rolling by at a fast clip, and some seriously strong headwinds pushing against us. Sometimes the gusts were so strong I had to hang onto my hat and I couldn't even hear my music. Something about it just made it fun, I think I finally got the wish for a stiff breeze I've been asking for all summer (maybe some of it will stick around for this weekend!).

Well, I guess I am NEVER going to know what my results were in the Run for the Party last weekend. They have a letter on their website today stating something went wrong with their chip system and they were only able to recover the top 3 people in each age group. They didn't even provide their time so I have no clue if I was even close. They said they're already make modification to make next year's race go off smoothly, but I don't think I'll be participating next time. If anything I'll be a spectator and enjoy the costumes without the stress of a poorly designed course (at time there was traffic moving right next to us so you never knew where you could safely run!). Check out the letter from the race director here.

I was able to book a hotel room for the Memphis Half-Marathon last night. It's in December, and I only signed up for it a week or two ago. I was in no particular rush to book the room until they announced a Rolling Stones concert there the night before. So, I wasn't very surprised that it took me SEVERAL phone calls until I found an open hotel downtown. The reservation agent (at the Doubletree Memphis Downtown) was very nice and when she asked me if I she could help me with anything else the first neurotic thing that popped into my head was to ask if they had available toasters. She kind of laughed, and then I did, too and told her before a race like that I have to have a bagel with peanut butter. She admitted no one had ever asked her that before and was nice enough to connect with the actual hotel and ask them. It turns out they don't, so I'll just bring my own. I guess we all get pretty crazed with our race day traditions and this will be my first out of town race so I'll a little nervous about making sure I get all the right sleep and feel refreshed before the race. Oh well, I still have 3 more months to obsess about all the things that could go wrong!

Have a great night everybody!

Rachel

Exercise:
4.25 mile evening run, 20 minutes toning/stretching (focus:abs)

Hurricane Time & Ways Ppl Find my Blog

Hey guys!! I guess I've survived another Monday so I think I'll make it 'til the weekend. After Sat night's race we went and pigged out on Mexican. Nothing beats a hard day of racing than a big plate of nachos with beef. Sunday we rested and got a ton of errands and shopping done. Just as we were getting home from grocery shopping the rain started to pour down. It was really humid out, and I was planning on a good night run so I wasn't particularly upset about the rain. I never thought I'd be the type of runner who would like running in the rain but it's actually one of my favorite times to run now. This was a big thunderstorm with tons of lightning and some pretty strong winds so it carried on for a while. Once it had just about died down (and gotten dark) Brent and I geared up for a run. I swear I'd probably cut my time in half if I didn't carry so much crap with me. I've got my Nike CV10 pace/distance watch, mp3 player, FuelBelt, camera phone (in the pocket of my FuelBelt), my Dazer and sometimes I carry my pepper spray, too. Our initial plan was to run 5 miles, and Brent thought he'd join me for 4 depending on how his knee was feeling. Man, it was a PERFECT night for a run. The rain had cooled things off and it was actually **a bit chilly**, for the first 1/4 mile or so anyway. I have no idea why we felt so great but we did, it's like everything was perfect in the running world. Brent's knee was behaving itself so he stayed with me for five. As we got near the end I asked him if he wanted to go for one more mile and so we did. Then near the end of Mile 6 Brent asked me if I wanted to go for one more mile. So we did. It was starting to get late then and we'd drained the water we brought with us so we headed back. It was an awesome run - great weather, the music on my mp3 player was perfect and it was nice to have the company! Some nights I like to run alone with my thoughts and other nights I love to have the company. I don't think last night's run would have been nearly as much fun by myself.

Anyway, today was raining and dreary and gross. We're on the leading edge of Hurricane Katrina. Yup, I live 7-8 hours from the beach but we get to 'enjoy' a big chunk of the rain the beach people get. I wouldn't complain if I could also enjoy the beach! There has to be a trade-off, right?? They say the heavy rainfall will start around 11 and continue through 1 tomorrow. I just hope it's finished before I'm ready to run tomorrow night!! People around here are already freaking out as they're predicting 15 inches of rain. They've actually closed schools here for tomorrow!! Crazy. We don't get much (if any) snow here on an annual basis, so they look for any reason to shut schools down. If they so much as predict a snowflake schools will close. Last year we had 1 snow with less than an inch of accumulation and the whole city shut down.

What's even crazier than that madness is that there are STILL no results from Sat night's Run for the Party. Crazy!! I've had several people end up on my webpage today from google searches for the results, so at least I'm not the only person wondering. What does bother me are all the people who end up here on the search "watching Denise Austin's butt". Seriously. You wouldn't believe how many people end up here using that search. I have NEVER said those words together, but sometimes I work out with here DVDs and sometimes my daily target is the 'butt' and I'm sure I've watched something (like ROCK STAR INXS, baby!!). I'm a little worried about all those people searching for butt pics of Denise Austin. If I were going to search for someone's butt (and I was a guy) it would probably be J-lo, or Beyonce, but Denise Austin???

Have a great night!!

Rachel

Exercise:
Fri - 1 mile am walk with Pippin
Sat - 5K am run, 5K pm run
Sun - 7 mile run, 20 minutes yoga/pilates (focus:butt, mine - not Denise Austin's!!)
Mon - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 20 minutes yoga/pilates (focus:arms)

Weekend Race Pics, Part Two

Here are some pics from this weekend's Run for the Party!


The very crowded start line! The guy in the brown shirt is one of Channel 2's Promise to be Fit ppl who has signed up to lose weight with their help. Every Monday morning they workout at a different place doing things like dancing, boot camp, etc. I love it and plan my blow-drying around it!!








Here's a view of the Finish Line with downtown Nashville in the background.





Here are some of the costume contest people - Prince and the Raisin tied for 1st place.















And.... the Raisin! Here's a pic from my camera phone of him just ahead of me, before I caught up to him for the finish line sprint!! And later here he is walking around...










Here we are 'enjoying' the post-race martinis, and here's the race director with a couple of Titan's cheerleaders.

Weekend Race pics

Hey guys! Just a quick post to put up a few pics from the races this weekend. Brent will have more on his blog so be sure to check it out.

Smyrna Parks 5K -

Here are a couple of pictures of the great costumes worn by some of the high-schoolers! You know you have to be young and confident to pull this off....

Here's a pic of the crowd and me getting my trophy!

I Ran For the Party but I'm not sure why

Whew! Today's double-header is finished and in the history books!! I don't think I will ever run two races in one day again at the request of my left knee, left calf and my right hip. I'm not sure why, but two 5Ks is feels more difficult than the half did! I think it's a combination of trying to keep a good, fast 5K pace and the humidity this time of year.

The first race of the day was the Smyrna Parks 5K race. I think this is its 27th year or something. It's been going a while! It's always a fairly large race and this year they ended up with 466 participants. We were running a little behind getting there, so they only had L and XL shirts left. That's a bummer because they have the best shirts, and it's a long sleeve shirt too boot. We preregistered several weeks ago, so it always gets me why they don't order more S & M shirts! Not to be mean , but this race is always around 500 people and there aren't that many L & XL people out there participating in stuff like this!! This course is really flat and fast, but a tad dull. You have to repeat a big chunk of it and it's basically a paved trail around ball fields (not exciting in the least). Last year it was downright miserable because it was SUNNY and HOT and there is very, very little shade on this course. Luckily we had a lot of rain yesterday and this morning was still very overcast (prob has to do with the hurricane in FL). For some reason I really didn't 'feel' it today, mentally. We lined up and all the sudden, with no warning, the gun was sounded! We inched up the line and off we went. This race is in conjuction with the local high school track teams, so it's packed in the under 19 age groups. The down side to this is that these kids like to run in packs about 4 wide. It's such a pain to get around them, so it's about impossible to keep an even pace for the first mile until the crowd thins out. My left calf has been bothering me since Thurs night's run (I guess I got a little too excited about running with my new Dazer) so I didn't feel like I had a lot of gusto. The up side to a big high school turn out is a decent amount of crowd support. I know they're cheering for their kid beside me but I channel it for myself. The other up-side are the great costumes the kids wear. Last Saturday's cross-dressing guys were this Saturday's Chippendales (they had little bow-ties on with no shirt and black shorts). There was also a group of guys dressed in Egyptian outfits with headdresses and gold wrap-around skirts on. When I crossed the line I looked at my watch : 26:37! The exact same PR I had set last week. I guess that's just meant to be my pace for now. I really didn't feel like I had a shot of placing what-so-ever. Last year I placed 13th out of 24 in my division with a time of 28:07. They did a great job starting the door prizes soon after the finish and they started the awards. The race director called each division out backwards - 3rd, 2nd, then 1st. When he got to my age group I was hopeful, but I really didn't feel like it would be possible. Whaddya know - I got third!! I couldn't believe it!! A little 3rd place trophy for me. I got 3rd out of 16 people in my division. I still can't believe it! My actual chip time ended up being 26:33, so I actually shaved 4 seconds off my PR, which was my main goal for today's races. Even though it's only 4 seconds I'll take it! Brent also shaved quite a bit of time off his run, but I'll let him talk about all that in his blog tomorrow.

So we headed home very content and ready to rest up for the next race. We stopped at a couple of yard sales, pulled some weeds from our garden (AND Dazered our annoying neighbor's dogs who won't shut up every time we're in the yard. It worked great!! They stopped barking and went back inside. Normally they'll bark non-stop for up to an hour, seriously), and headed to Logan's for some grilled chicken and carbs! We took a short afternoon nap and headed back out to the Race for the Party. This was it's 1st year, so I did expect some chaos but NOTHING like it turned out. The premise was that it was to be a fun race, costumes were encouraged, ppl with August birthdays got free registration, and they were giving out martinis and beer after the race. The race director's claim to fame was painting himself blue for the CMM. In all honesty, he seems like a fun guy but that doesn't necessarily make one a great race director. Walkers were also encouraged to participate. I have to admit, I have a little of the runner vs walker rivalry. I have NO problem with them if they start in the back, problem is they usually don't. They were told to line up quite a distance behind the runners, and faster runners in the front, slower runners in the back. Maybe some people don't really get what 'fast' is. This was the worst, slowest start of any race I've ever been in. Elbows were flying and people were all over each other. It was a mess. It started near the Musica roundabout on Music Row. This is a very pretty area, but starting right next to the roundabout was not the best idea, the road is very narrow and with the curve people were all over each other. I ended up cutting through the grass and running down the sidewalk (instead of the street) to get out of the total cluster$#%#. Doing so caused me to burn way more energy than I needed to. The first mile was packed with people, and had a serious amount of uphills. It was rough and my legs were SCREAMING at me. Once you thought you were done with a hill another one started. My 1st mile split was 8:40, the last few races I've been averaging between 7:40 and 8. Mile Two was a lot better, but Mile 1 had already taken a lot out of me. I was SO glad I was wearing my FuelBelt. The first mile was so tough I drank a full 8-ounce bottle! They didn't offer water until mile 2, so a lot of people were fading. Mile 3 wasn't bad either, it did have one big uphill that slowed everyone down to a near walk. Even though it was nice and overcast today it was HUMID, and still really warm and the mix of the humidity and constant hills took a huge toll on people. All of the sudden I was back at the Musica statue and headed downhill (for a change!) to the finish. I saw a guy dressed in a raisin costume right in front of me so I got my camera phone out and snapped away. Then I decided to catch him so I could be in all the photos people were taking of him (why not!) So I bumped it up and finished next to a raisin. My unofficial time is 28:12 (I knew it would be bad!) The timing clock was behind a bunch of people so this is the time I stopped my watch at. My real time is probably 5-10 seconds better. I ran back to cheer Brent on and then we headed over to the 'party area'. We went over to get our free martinis and complimentary plastic martini glasses. If there's one thing I really don't want after a race it's a martini. It was way too tart or sweet or something. I had drained both my fuelbelt bottles during the race so I was out of water. The ONLY water they had at the race were large coolers with tiny dixie cups and the line was out of sight. No fruit, no bananas, martinis were the central focus. You were supposed to only have 2 martinis per person, but the crowd was in control and people were getting whatever they wanted. Finally they started the costume contest (Prince and the raisin won) and next they did door prizes. Instead of the EEOC method most races use he called out random numbers from the bibs he saw. This led to lots of crazy shouting and one woman repeatedly jerking on his shorts to call her number. He gave in and she walked away with a gym bag. He told us results were coming, results were coming, results were coming. For some reason only a certain number of people got chips. I have no idea if they were trying to reconcile the non-chip ppl with the chip ppl but for some reason results weren't happening. Much, much later he came back out and awarded the overall top 3 male and female finishers and that was it. They didn't know their time and they didn't award the divisional awards. WTF?? I've never been at a race and been told to 'check the website in a few days and go to the local Fleet Feet and pick up your award if you got one'. That's messed up. I think there ended up being around 1200 people but lord knows if we'll ever know for sure. I doubt I'll do this race next year, it was too big of a mess and I can't stand loud, annoying drunk people. It was a great concept and I imagine the race director envisioned a much younger, hipper crowd than the loud, old Jimmy Buffet fans he ended up with. Oh well, it's just one more for the stack of race bibs. I'm pooped!

I'll post race pics tomorrow!!

Rachel

Exercise:
Fri-1 mile am walk with Pippin
Sat- 5k race am, 5k race pm

Dazed but not confused

Today was the big day! When I opened the mailbox after a long, long day of work I was very excited to see a USPS Priority Mail package inside. It was my Dazer! This product was recommended by Jon, who if his blog didn't say he lived in Michigan I'd swear he lived in my subdivision. The fabulous Dazer is said to repel dogs and is 'perfect for runners, walkers, etc.'. That's a huge promise but I'm sick of having to alter my course due to attacking dogs. As I was opening the package I wasn't sure if it came with a battery or not, so I pressed the button to see if the red light would come on. I was in the kitchen and Pippin was around the corner playing in the living room. When I pressed the button I heard him stop! I had vowed not to use this great product for evil, and Pips is a great dog. He came around the corner and looked at me sheepishly. I just had to try it one more time. I walked away from him and pointed it completely out of his direction. He sat and turned his head! He didn't cry in pain or anything like that, he just got his crazed face like when we're playing loud music. Very interesting. When Brent got home he was just as fascinated as I was, so he went upstairs, shut a door and pressed the button. Pippin heard it and turned his head! Crazy. So we ate dinner and got ready for our run. My plan was a mid-tempo 4-miler and I was going to go where I KNEW there would be dogs, PC. PC is one subdivision over and there are ALWAYS aggressive, loose dogs. The Dazer has a belt clip so I clipped it to my FuelBelt and off I went. PC is about 1.5 miles from my house, so I had a little while to get my plan together. Once I got into the heart of the subdivision I turned down my mp3 player and got ready. Before long I heard the tell-tale jingle of a dog collar and the barking started. I unclipped the Dazer and pointed - once I got close to parallel the barking stopped and the dog quit advancing. That NEVER happens in PC. I finished the loop up and when I was headed back I got ready for the dog - he started to move towards me but never even started barking this time! Unbelievable! I dazed a few other dogs on my way back in and it worked like a charm every time!!

In other news, I'm going to have to book the lodging for the Memphis 1/2 Marathon in December soon. They just announced that the Rolling Stones will be playing the night before downtown! Lodging prices just went way up..... That will be their only concert appearance in TN.

This weekend I've got a double-header on Saturday. Saturday am is the Smyrna Parks 5K. This is really one of my least favorite 5Ks, but since it's the only one in my suburb each year I feel like I have to do it. It's a FAST race and there's usually about 500 participants. They also have a high school team challenge, so there are a ton of younger runners. Last year it was unbearable;y sunny and hot, and the trail has very little shade. Saturday pm is the 1st annual I Run for the Party 5K. This race will be down on Music Row, where most of the country music recording companies are located. It's being sponsored by a guy who painted himself completely in blue paint for the CMM. He's got costume contests and all kinds of cool prizes like martini glasses for the participants. There's a big after party as well. It should be a lot of fun and will hopefully become a Nashville tradition!! I think there's about 500 people registered so far. I plan to push myself more in this race than the A.M. race and I'd love to come back with a new PR!

That's it for tonight! Have a great weekend and good luck to all the RBF-er's racing this weekend!

Rachel

Exercise-
4 mile evening run, 1 mile evening walk with Brent and Pippin (I just could NOT get out of bed this morning and it's my fault if Pippin doesn't get to exercise so we walked tonight after my run)

Another reason not to live in the South (as if you needed one)

Has Tennessee ever gotten positive press? I think it's all been downhill for us since Elvis died, and since that was about 2 months before I was born I guess that makes my whole life suck. The latest 'fattest states in America' study has just been released and surprise, surprise, the South reigns. I guess if we can't be good at reading, writing and arithmetic we'll just be good at eating. I think they said on the news something like 61% of Tennesseans are overweight. This doesn't surprise me at all with all the meat and threes and Cracker Barrels on every corner. Do you guys even know what a meat and three is? I can't imagine them being a nation-wide thing. It's basically gross 'home-style' cooking, like meatloaf, turkey & dressing, roast beef, fried chicken served cafeteria style with a selection of 'vegetables' on the side. I put veggies in quotes because fried okra, macoroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy really AREN'T vegetables. Congrats to all you RBF-ers up in the Northeast for not being as fat!

Anyway, tonight instead of heading to the gym we decided to take advantage of some cooler temps and take Pippin for a walk. He loved it! When I started to put on some work-out clothes he ran and got a toy (as usual). I looked at him and told him we were going to go for a walk, and he dropped his toy and let out a squeal! He knows the word walk! I accidentally used it one day when he was standing on the treadmill and he got all excited so we've learned to watch what we say in front of him. We had a nice walk and he got to play with his fave gal pal, the big Lab Abby. He LOVES her and she's about 10 times bigger than he is.

Here's my other gripe for the day (this is why I avoid the news). Smyrna (my suburb) is plopping down $220K for a 'splash' park. This is basically a little park with a lot of different showery type things that kids can run around in in the summer. This would be a fine use of my MASSIVE taxes if it weren't for a couple of things like the fact that they cancelled the annual fireworks show due to a lack of revenue and they decided not to build a $500 dog park because it's really the owner's responsibility to find a place for the animals to play. WTF?? How about parents find a bath tub for their kids to play in and save me some money. The hospital has 3 big fountains - take your kids there, plenty of other people do. I can't wait to be mayor.

Rachel

Exercise -
1 mile am walk with Pippin, 30 minute evening walk with Brent and Pippin, 20 minutes toning (focus-upper body), 20 minutes yoga/pilates (focus - thighs/legs)

Another reason not to get married

As if life isn't depressing enough on its own here's another reason to be happy you're single : http://women.msn.com/47328.armx. On this laptop (my work laptop) msn.com is my home page and this was the big feature article. Married women are fat! I guess it is partly true. During the first year of our marriage I certainly gained weight. I don't think it was marriage necessarily. I had just gone from a really active college life to sitting on my bum and screwing around with spreadsheets all day. My fingers were probably about the only toned thing on my body! That was almost 7 years ago now - and in October Brent and I will celebrate the 10th anniversary of when we first started going out. Thanks to running I've dropped 35 pounds in the last 1.25 years! I've gone from a size 14 to a 4, and I feel stronger than I ever have.

Tonight I did a slower tempo 4-mile run. I'm not exactly sure how fast though since I forgot to start my watch until about .5 mile in! Oh well, not a big deal. I don't normally look at my watch too much when I run anyway, usually I just use it for historical info. The temps were a little cooler tonight and there was a really nice breeze. A lot of other runners were taking advantage of the (slight) cooldown so there were plenty of people out to keep the run interesting.

I've taken the advice of Jon and I've ordered my very own Dazer. Thanks to the joys of priority shipping it should be here in the next day or two! I can't wait to take it out this weekend. I haven't decided which annoying dog I'm going to zap first. I'll probably head through Yorkie Alley first (where there are two Yorkies on opposing sides of the street who will rush you), then head down to the evil cocker spaniel Molly, and then over to the two enormous chows. I can't wait!!

That's it for tonight, take care everybody!

Rachel

Exercise - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 4 mile run, 20 minutes toning and stretching (focus: legs/thighs)

Workout Rituals

Hey! After all my insanely long posts lately you'll be glad to know I don't have much to talk about tonight. Since I've got two more races this weekend I'm still in a bit of a 'taper' mode to save something for Saturday. I have no idea why all the races near me are crammed into two of the hottest weeks of the year, but for some reason they always plan it like this.

Tonight I thought I'd share one of the weirdest workout rituals I know of with you. For some reason EVERY time I go to change into workout clothes Pippin tries to figure out a way to get my attention. As soon as I go get socks or pick up some running clothes out of my massive pile of workouts clothes he runs to find a toy. It's usually a ball, or some kind of rope tug toy. He'll put it on my feet, or ram it into my knee until I either toss it or hang on for some tug of war. When I sit down to put on my socks and shoes he takes it up a notch. Then he'll climb into my lap with his toy and start tossing it at me. It gets even worse when I do my toning exercises on the floor. He'll usually chase my legs during leg lifts, sit on my stomach during crunches for some added resistance and he's even been known to jump on my abs during a stability ball workout. The worse is when he starts licking my face during push-ups or during some strange yoga pose. He's an odd little dog!

Rachel

Exercise:
Mon- 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 20 minutes elliptical at the gym, 25 minutes racquetball with Brent at the gym, 20 minutes toning/stretching (focusing on thighs)

Walking into bathroom doors

Hey guys! So it's Saturday night and another great weekend comes to an end. Crap. After a 3-day weekend I really, really do not want to go back to work. Really.

Anyway, after getting cleaned up from Sat am's race Brent and I did some shopping and errands around town and then headed home to veg out. While we were out we looked at some bikes at a local bike shop. The kid who waited on us there was so friendly and knowledgeable about bikes that if we do decide to buy we'll definitely buy from them. I think biking would be a great way to cross-train, I'm just not sure how much I would like to sink into a bike and how often we would use them.

Sat night we watched Wedding Crashers. I thought it was pretty funny. If you like Old School or Dodgeball you'll like WC. Vince Vaughn has such an offbeat sense of humor and I love it. Owen Wilson's nose could use some work though (has he been in a freak accident or something?). Of course Will F made a short cameo. Old School HAS to be one of the funniest movies ever. I think I wept while watching that movie the first time!

So, on to what the title of my blog is all about today. After long runs or runs where I really push myself my inner thigh, about halfway between my inner thigh and outer thigh can get pretty sore. I wasn't feeling all that great last night as a result, and the heat had taken a LOT of me so I pretty much passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. As we were brushing our teeth for bed this weird little red & black flying bug was scooting around the bathroom. It wasn't much bigger than a mosquito, but the odd coloring of it made him much more intimidating. We tried to kill it but never could seem to catch the bugger. We did what all responsible people did and shut the door to the bathroom and went to bed. I drink a LOT of water. It's like I'm a cactus saving up for the drought or something. I mean a LOT. As a result, I pee a lot. I get up every single night, like an old lady or something. So, about 4 am I woke up and had to go. Since this is a nightly ritual I usually do it with my eyes closed, literally. I guess I don't even have to say it. I walked SMACK straight into the door. Brent NEVER wakes up, but this time he heard the smack and we both started laughing. What can you do??? It didn't get much better when I got up. I was still really tired and half asleep and somehow Pippin and I got a little tangled up. He always waits outside our door on Sat and Sun, and when he hears me get up he gets pretty excited. So when I opened the door he proceeded to jump up and greet me and somehow get his dog tag tangled on the hem of my pajama pants. Great. Again, I was half asleep and I'm not even sure if my eyes were open. I'm trying to unhook him and nothing's working and he starts to panic. At this point I was even trying to rip my pants just to stop this torture. I end up getting pulled down on the ground and banging my shoulder into our little dresser/TV stand. Then I started calling for help and Brent got up and untangled us. To recap the past 7 days I've managed to vacuum up the laptop cord exposing the bare wire, cut a major portion of my thumb nail off while chopping an apple, walk straight into a shut door and get so tangled with my dog's collar that I can't even stand up. I'm ready for the retirement home.

Tonight we headed out for a 7 mile run. It was so unbelievably hot today, and even close to sunset it was still in the mid-upper 90's. After about 4 miles I was finally starting to adjust to the conditions and get in the groove. Crazy!! Due to some freaking, annoying loose dogs I had to take a detour. I HATE loose dogs. I'm going to order one of the dog repeller things Jon discovered. I'd prefer to just do the southern redneck thing and shoot their asses but I guess I should stick with the legal alternative. At least in the daylight hours. Anyway, it was a pretty good run and it felt good not to be racing and just keeping a slower, steady pace.

Does anyone have any suggestions on a good speed-distance watch? Right now I use the Nike CV10. I don't care about the heart-rate tracking. Wearing the chest strap makes me a little sick (I have a weak running stomach - I can't do Powerade or Gatorade and I'm starting to try out some GUs and see how that goes...), so I don't care about that feature. I'm sick of calibrating the CV10, it only works well at slower paces and forgot about trying to mix your pace up. At my 5K Sat morning it said I went 1.1 miles!!!!! Not exactly the piece of equipment I want to trust when I start long runs for marathon training! I'm thinking about the Garmin Forerunner 201 but I'd like to hear your opinions.

Also, Brent's putting up pics from this weekend's race on his blog. Be sure to check them out, they should be up sometime tonight. He did a great job capturing the race and got one of THE funniest pictures I've ever seen from a race about the lengths some people will go to not to be last.

Rachel

Exercise:
Fri - 5K race
Sat - 5K race
Sun - 7 mile run

2 down, 2 to go!

Hey everyone, happy Saturday!! I've had a GREAT race weekend. Thanks for all the well wishing comments. I luv the RBF! It's so cool to read everyone's race reports and it's so motivating!!! I loved reading everyone's post the past week and seeing how just about everyone had at least one cool, rainy evening run. I am so ready for fall temps.

Ok, enough rambling and on to the important stuff. Our day off yesterday was awesome. The perfect day to me is sleeping in and running. The really, really perfect day would be sleeping in and running in a beautiful, exotic place. Pippin was feeling a little under the weather Thurs night so we let the little booger sleep in the bed with us. He's never successfully made it through a whole night in bed with us. He snores like an old, 500 pound man who could wake the dead. However, he did last 4.5 hours which is a PR for him. I've been blogging too much lately, because in my dreams I was typing a post about someone and saying 'he is snoring so loud. he has THE most deviated septum ever. i can not believe how loud he is snoring'. So then I woke up and dumped him on the couch. He repaid me by barking like the house was being broken into precisely at 5:40, the time my alarm USUALLY goes off. Uh, thank Pip but WE HAVE THE DAY OFF!!! So, I went back to bed for a few more hours until he came prancing through at 7:30 to let me know he needed to go out. Luckily we went out precisely when the school bus was going up the street. I looked gorgeous with some crazy hair, in my skimpy PJs and Pip's peeing on the mailbox. Hey, this is the South. I see worse on a daily basis.

The rest of the day was great, we got some things done around the house and rested up for Friday night's race. It was a HOT day. I don't know what happened to the nice, post-thunderstorm temps but they are GONE. We (well, Brent really) made some Chicken Marsala. He could open a restaurant and only serve CM, it's that good. The race started at 8 pm in Lavergne. LaVergne is approx 2 miles outside of Nashville, on the SE east side. The 'burb I live in is 4 miles SE outside of Nashville, so this was a nice, close race. We got there with plenty of time to spare and picked up our swag bags. This was the first year for this race, and they really had a cool gift bag. It actually had the race name and date on it and lots of cool goodies inside. Besides some various Tylenol and energy bar samples there were little glow sticks you could wear. How cute is that?? This race was the Howl at the Moon 5K, since it was a full moon. The first place overall trophies were little wolf statuettes. It was so incredibly hot. Our high yesterday was 100 degrees. I've tried to find a website that had the actual race time temp on it, but it seems like everyone stops recording temps around 6. At 6, the actual temp here was 99 with a 'feels like' of 108. When we pulled into the parking lot the our car said the temp was 91. I tried to pretend like I never saw that. As they lined us up they told us about the race course. We'd be running out of the park and up Murfreesboro Rd (the main road of LaVergne which continues on through Nashville into downtown), turn around at another park and head back. They warned us to run on the shoulder because they were going to do the best they could at containing traffic, which Brent and I found a little alarming. What's the best? Only 2 or 3 runners mowed down during their night run?? I guess that's why they gave us glow sticks! So, with this important warning we were off. Since this was a new, smaller race they didn't use Chip timing, they used the classic color coded sticker system. All before the race we wandered around looking for fellow dark-blue stickers and sized them up by their leg muscles. I picked one girl out who would be my main competition, and Brent found a couple to be his. We raced on out of the park and onto the main road. The police had traffic completely stopped, and the "friendly Southerners" really weren't shouting very friendly things as I passed. The first mile went by pretty quick and I was shocked out of my socks when I reached mile 1 and the lady shouted out 7:41. What the ##?? That's way faster than I ever run! So I journeyed on mentally trying to figure out what my time would be if I could keep that up. Pretty damn good is the best my quickly overheating mind could come up with. So, on I went. Did I mention how hot it was?? Running on the hot asphalt, after a 100 degree day, next to miles of backed up cars, most of them which stink and run on fumes around here anyway isn't the ideal race situation! I pictured myself as a crazy Badwater UltraMarathoner with my shoes melting below me. I had decided to run with my FuelBelt so I could hydrate as needed, and man, was I glad! I took 2 8-ounce bottles, just in case. Right before the 1.5 mile mark my main competition passed me. I decided to stay close so I could (hopefully) sprint and beat her in the end. Then, we approached the one and only water station and she STOPPED. Totally stopped and walked driving her water. She was history and I was headed onward. The heat slowed me down and I finished mile 2 at 16:something. Then came mile 3. OMG. I knew it was coming, though. Mile 1 was a nice gradual downhill. That mean mile 3 was a wretched, dragging uphill. A lot of people stopped and walked it. I bore down and ran it slow and steady, savoring the smell of pizza as I passed the local pizzeria. I focused on my tunes and watching for the heads in front of me to disappear back into the park towards the finish line. The run back into the park was so dark you really couldn't see the people in front of you, and I knew no one was close behind me because I could hear them letting cars go after I passed. I saw the finish line and gave what little I had left and finished in 26:54, a new 5K PR for me!

I walked back and waited for Brent and cheered him on to the finish line. It was a tough, hot, race for us both. Normally in a 5K I would drink 1 8-ounce bottle. Last night I finished off both 8-ounce bottles I had! As we waited for the awards I ran into some former co-workers who had also run the CMM 1/2 Marathon back in April so we chatted awhile about our summer runs and some upcoming races. Then, the moment of truth! Get this - I got 1st in my age group! 1st PLACE!! I now have a trophy that says I was 1st!!!! It's the coolest. I love it. Brent got second in his group, so we're a trophy family! Do we care that there were only 80 or so people in the race? Nope. I still beat all the other girls in my group and that's all that matters. They had a ton of food afterwards including pizza, sandwiches, good ole TN Moon Pies, and much, much more. For their first time they did a great job putting on the race and the traffic was WELL contained. We had no worries and no one was run over. We headed home and I got in bed around 11 to rest for this morning's race!

I figure I had about 11 hours between races. I tried to drink plenty of water last night to re-hydrate and instead of 1 piece of whole wheat toast with low fat peanut butter this morning I had 2. Race time was 7:30 am in Murfreesboro, at the local university. We got there about 20 minutes 'til race time and got my chip, T-shirt and bib #. This was a much bigger race with 540 runners. They have a big high school turnout and it's always interesting to me to see what these cocky kids will wear. I'm not sure what school this one group goes to, but they always wear the most hilarious outfits. Last year the girls wore tu-tus and tiaras. This year they all wore neckties and the guys wore sports bras and girly shorts that had random things like 'sleepover' across the butt. You gotta love the kids. It was another hot one and off we went. I focused on staying steady and just making it through. My legs felt great, even after such a short break from yesterday's race. I was really glad I was wearing my FuelBelt again. It was slightly overcast and the course was mostly shaded so that really helped. Brent didn't run this race so he was out on the course snapping pics. It always helps to have a fan club!! I pushed myself slow and steady all 3 miles. Mile 1 was 8:2? something, Mile 2 was around 17:?? something and I finished in 26:37! A new 5K PR!! Near the finish line I was pretty steady with a young middle-schooler. I heard her parents yelling for her and saw her pick up her pace and was determined NOT to let her beat me! We raced each other straight to the finish, full-out. I think we tied, the pics show us landing on the mat in a dead heat. Then I thought I was going to die. Have I mentioned how hot it is down here???? Brent got pics of people throwing up right past the line, people who LOOKED like they were about to throw up, and one guy had to be carried off and have paramedics check him out. Gotta love August in the South. I always TELL myself 'you're almost there, run hard, you can pass out when you finish' but when push comes to shove if I felt THAT bad I really would slow down. Anyway, the top guy finished in just over 15 minutes at a 5:02 pace. CRAZY. My legs would fall off at that pace. Literally. I headed over to grab some water and a banana and I thought I smelled cookies. They had cookies!! So I tossed the banana for later and had some cookies. We hung around forever for the race results. One thing about this race is the inordinate amount of door prizes. The awards lasted for over an hour due to the door prizes. They would draw a name for a hat, then a mug, then a T-shirt, and on and on and on. The natives were restless so they cut in with the awards. Even though I had a new PR I ended up 4th in my division, so no prize this year. Last year I was 5th, so I guess next year I'll be 3rd! I was pretty disappointed, but I should be happy that A) I have a new PR! B) I did not pass out from a heat stroke and/or vomit at the finish line C) be happy that I was 4th out of 19 in my division and D) be glad that I'm blessed with a body and spirit proud enough to finish the race strong. But a trophy would have been nice. =)

I've got lots of pics to post so I'll do that later! My foot's asleep because this blog is SO long. Sorry for the 'marathon' of a post! Have a great rest of the weekend!!!!!

TGIF!

Hey everyone! Happy Friday (for me anyway!). Brent and I are taking tomorrow OFF from work and vegging out at home. Hallelujah!!!

Ok, I hate spam commenters. You have no idea the immense feeling of joy I get when I have a comment. I love comments, even if they're 'hey, you ramble so shut up already'. Anything shows you care. I usually get 12-15 hits per day, some from other runners who have me linked, some from the Running Blog site, and some from my friends. Yesterday, as a result of NIT I got 69 hits. Whoa! Then, blogspot gave me a ton of hits. I don't understand how it works, but for some reason every once in a while I get a lot of hits from people who hit the 'view the next blog' thing up at the top. And that my friends, is where the SPAM came from. I don't want to turn off anonymous commenters completely, but I guess I'll have to if it keeps up. Any suggestions???

So, on to exercise. I hate tapering, I really, really do. I'm all about burning as many calories as possible so it's hard for me to save something for this weekend's races. Tonight we went over to the corporate gym to workout. I did the elliptical for a while, then did some weights. I really wasn't feeling the weights because all I really wanted to do was RUN! Brent had gone downstairs to play some solo racquetball so I ventured down to watch and ended up knocking the ball around with him. I am such a natural. Not really, but it was fun. I only got hit by the ball twice and I think I only squealed and covered my head three or four times. I used to play tennis after school every day in high school with one of my friends (only to pick up guys) so it reminded me of those long ago days when I was younger and perkier in all the right places. It was fun, and I think Brent was proud of me. He knows how freaked out my obsessive compulsive self can be in a small, loud room with a whizzing ball flying around.

Ok, now some more important stuff. Rock Star INXS. FINALLY Jessica got the boot last night. I'm for Mig now, I think he's great and would be perfect for the band. We also saw a new show on Bravo called Battle of the Network Reality Stars, or something like that. It was pretty good. It's based on some show from the 70's where the network stars competed against each other in various challenges. It's got all the classic reality people, Richard and Susan from Survivor, Heidi from Apprentice, the midget from Amazing Race, and a bunch of other people you'll recognize but had completely forgotten about. What's better than seeing all these has beens knock each other around with big foam sticks? Running, but that's about it.

Ok, that's all for today! Wish me luck in tomorrow's race! Good luck to everyone racing and working on their long training runs this weekend.

Rae

Exercise:
1 mile am walk with Pippin, 30 minutes elliptical trainer, 15 minutes weights, 15 minutes racquetball, 20 minutes yoga/pilates focusing on the back

A Great run???

Hey everybody! It's been a busy day and I've got a lot to share. First of all I am officially registered for my next half marathon! Last night, in honor of the King, I signed up to run the Memphis Marathon, Half & 5K on December 3, 2005! I'm excited! I don't feel as nervous as I did when I signed up for the Country Music Marathon back last spring. I think because I have one under my belt I feel a little more comfortable.

Next, my blog ended up on a blog about Nashville blogs, events and other stuff. Brent and I feel like quasi-celebs for making this website! We've gotten a lot of hits today from this site, so drop us a comment about absolutely anything if you're out there readings our posts! We love feedback!!

Today I discovered podcasts for the first time. Susan had recommended a podcast by SteveRunner, so I checked it out at work today. It was so hilarious!! He pods while running, which I think is great! Then I started downloading all kinds of podcasts, from the Harry Potter one to various other pods (from itunes) about running and fitness. It's such a cool thing, I'm going to have to get my own podcast!

This afternoon we had yet another afternoon thunderstorm/hurricane. Right at 5. Of course that creates all sort of office chaos because what in the world do you do during a major downpour right at quitting time!!! Everyone wants out, but who is going to be crazy enough to be the first one out the door to see if the winds really are strong enough to blow someone away?? It's pretty humorous, the things that can amuse people in the office. Storms are way up there, right along with big bugs and new hairdos. And cute shoes. It was still raining a little after 7 when it was time to head out on a run. Tonight I wanted to run a faster clip in prep for this weekend's races. You never know, it could be raining this weekend! The rain was light, but steady, and not a bother at all. I took off nice and fast, I had stop a little way in for a car to cross the road, and after that I never could get my pace back. I felt like the last mile was a struggle, like my legs were concrete and I just couldn't get into the groove. I thought my time would be terrible and I was so ready to be disappointed in myself. When I stopped at the end of my 3 mile track I looked down at my watch, ready to punish myself, and I couldn't believe the time - 26:16. That's the fastest I've ever run 3 miles. My former PR was 27:22. I still can't believe it. Brent did great too, and came in sometime in the upper 28's. It just goes to show how hyper-critical we are of ourselves!

Well, we're watching Rock Star INXS, it's elimination night!! Have a great evening!!

Rae

Exercise:
1 mile am walk with Pippin, 3 mile run, 20 minutes toning (arms) and flexibility

Props to the King

Hey guys! Happy death day for Elvis! I'm originally from Memphis, so I've been around the Aug 16th 'celebrations' in honor of Elvis' death. In his honor, once I finish my blog I'm going online to register for the Memphis Half Marathon in December. I think it'll be a lot of fun to run through my old hometown and see what's changed in the almost 7 years I've been gone.

Today I'm still tapering down for this weekend's races. Tonight I did 40 minutes of yoga/pilates and light aerobics. No running, and that's so tough for me because we had more strong storms this afternoon so the evening temps would've been ripe. It was really a hurricane outside this afternoon, so much so that everyone was 'prairie dogging' in the office to catch a glimpse. It's sad when the excitement of the day is watching the picnic table umbrellas flip inside out. Makes your life really feel worthwhile!

Here's more of the weekend recap: Sat after going to Cheekwood we went to the ONLY Subaru dealer in Nashville. You know you're going to get a great deal from the ONLY dealer in about an hour and a half's drive, NOT! I was immediately drawn to the new Subaru Tribeca SUV. It's the largest Subaru with an accordingly large price tag. We were wheeled, dealed and sweet talked. I really hate car shopping. It's a GREAT car, so we went through the motions of seeing what the price to us would be. I have a 00 Eddie B Expedition, 59000 miles, and EVERY option imaginable. The BB trade in value is $15K, resale value of $17K. They had the nerve to offer me $9K after a 30-minute speech about how there are too many used cars in the market right now. As if!!! They offered me a 'great' deal with a $500 note for the next five years! I don't talk much about my work life, because it's a bore to me and I don't want to scare anyone off, but I'm a CPA and a CIA. So, I'm pretty focused on maintaining good finances here at home, and we've socked away a lot of money. There's no way I would spend that on something that doesn't appreciate. We'd like to move into a great neighborhood in the city next spring, in a great older type house with a lot of personality (not our current suburbia!!). THAT makes financial sense, not a massive car note!! Anyway, after enduring more sales pressure we thanked him for his time and left and ate some Indian food. I LOVE Indian food! This time we went to Cuisine of India on 21st, near Vanderbilt. It was awesome, as always.

After that we came home and watched the Machinist. This is the one that has Christian Bale at an ungodly weight. He lost over a 100 pounds for this movie, I think he was down to 135. It was neat in one of those weird thriller ways, kind of like the Village or Sixth Sense. You know there's going to be a weird twist at the end, but you just don't know what it might be. It was good, you should give it a try!

Well, I'm going to go register for the Memphis half marathon! I'll talk about our Sunday at the dog park and post some pics from it tomorrow! Have a great night!

Rachel

Exercise: 2/3 mile morning walk with Pippin (I slept in a little....), 40 minute yoga/pilates/toning

AAARRRGGGHHHHH!

I had just written the longest post - seriously I typed for half an hour, and the internet died and it's all gone. Just my luck today! I was already having one of those days, and Brent had gone out to the store to pick up some cookies! Now I really need them!

Well, I am really not in the mood to retype everything I had so I'll spread it all out over this week now. This afternoon so t-storms came through and really cooled everything off. They were strong enough to knock down a lot of limbs and even an entire tree down onto the path at the hospital we run at a lot. We did a slower 3 mile run tonight, my energy level is just not there today so the nice cooler air, and getting to jump a few hurdle helped!! (Until the stupid internet crashed!!) It was even a little **chilly** at the start of our run tonight!

I have 2 races this weekend, so I'm trying to save my legs a little for the weekend. Friday night is the 1st annual Howl at the Moon 5K. It's a full moon Fri night so they're building the race around that. Pretty cool! There are very, very few evening races here so I'm pretty excited about the race. Sat morning is the 2nd Annual Fenton Payne and Fred 5K at a local university (MTSU). I ran it last year and it's a nice, flat course with lots of prizes.

Well, I used all my energy the first time I wrote this out!!!! I'll talk more about the weekend later this week when I'm not so angry! Check out my hubby's new blog at www.150mgofhappiness.com!

Rae

Exercise
Sun - 40 minutes toning and stretching
Mon - 1 mile am walk, 3 mile run, 20 minutes toning and stretching

Running the Inferno

Hey everyone! I hope you're all having a great weekend so far and had great training runs and races yesterday.

Friday night was a night of complete indecision. I've decided I'd like to trade my massive Expedition in for something smaller. I'm tired of 12 MPG and having to shimmy out of my car in all these tiny parking spots. Forget trying to maneuver around in it downtown, either. Problem is I LOVE it. It's so comfy and it has all the bells and whistles. So, we've started the process of shopping for a new car, which I HATE. I just want to know the price and to be given a fair value for my trade-in. I do realize that is a completely unrealistic goal. On our way to trying to figure out what we wanted to eat we stopped at the Chrysler-VW-Jeep-Hyundai dealer in Murfreesboro. We went to look at the Pacifica, but when I realized leather wasn't even an option (?????) that car was ruled out. I've already ruled out the TrailBlazer,Envoy, & Equinox because they don't have enough cupholders. We ended up test-driving the Cherokee, but I wasn't crazy about the feel of it. The front window was a little small and I felt a bit claustrophobic. All the options are really nice though. After that we went to dinner at Don Pablos and had a good meal.

My plan was to wake up early for a 6-8 mile run. I really hate getting up early!! I got up around 8, and by the time I had a bowl of cereal and whole wheat toast with peanut butter and changed around some of the songs on my mp3 player it was close to 9! When I first got up it was cloudy and not terribly hot, but of course as soon as I took off the sun was out and had burnt ALL the clouds off. It was unbelievably hot but my mind was strong and I wanted a long run. The new music on my mp3 player really helped keep my mind on track and off the heat . I saw a lot of the usuals out on the street, and I even saw bandana girl. I used to see her every Sunday afternoon when I was training for the CMMarathon. She would fly through the track at the hospital, and she was flying up the sidewalk yesterday morning, too. I ran past the park and through a subdivision, running through every sprinkler going and then sometimes I'd turn around and go back through them again. I am not too proud!! Most of my path is not very shaded, so any portions that were I'd turn around and repeat for any sort of relief from the sun. By mile 2 both of my frozen FuelBelt water bottles were completely melted, on an evening run that normally takes about 4-5 miles! I was really careful not too push myself too much and to stay fully hydrated. I ended up going somewhere around 7.5-7.75, not bad for a unbelievably hot morning run. I checked the felt like temps from my run time when I got home and it was 95-97 degrees. Jeesh. Yesterday's actual high was 97, down from the 102 and 100 we had earlier in the week.

Once I got back we showered and picked up some subs and headed over to Cheekwood. Brent bought a Canon 20D digital camera back around Christmas, so we enjoy going out and taking some photographs. We had a nice picnic lunch and then started walking around the grounds. Wouldn't you know it would start thundering as soon as we started exploring?? It hasn't rained here in over 2 1/2 weeks!! So we ran for shelter to their Art Museum and walked around looking at painting of dead, rich Nashvillians. We got sick of that and the rain was down to a sprinkle so we headed back outside. It sucked that the sun never came back out, but we still had a lot of fun. They've got some beautiful gardens. I would love to have a yard with a beautiful Japanese style garden. A few years ago while on vacation we visited the Japanese gardens in Portland, Oregon and they were unreal.

Well, that's enough blogging for me this morning. I'll finish the rest of our Saturday later!

Rae

Exercise:
Friday - 1 mile am walk with Pippin
Sat - 7.5-7.75 mile run, a lot of walking (3 hours) at Cheekwood

Crazy Bear Man

Happy Thursday everybody! This week has gone by pretty quickly (thank goodness!!) and I'm ready for the weekend! Hopefully I can get a long run in and we've talked about going to the local botanical gardens to enjoy the beautiful gardens and summer flowers. We really don't have much in the way of firm plans this weekend which is pretty nice. We have a ton of movies we haven't gotten around to watching so maybe we can do some of that.

Tonight we ran over at Smyrna Rec Park. We got an earlier start this week than last week so we weren't running in complete darkness. It was 100 degrees here today (literally) but it wasn't that hot or humid by 7:30. There was a nice breeze and the fireflies (or lightning bugs as we call them down here) made for a great run. I ran about 9:30 minute miles, which is an improvement for me from earlier this year when I was running 10-10:30 miles. I get so mad at myself when I'm finished because I know I could push myself harder but the mind is so much weaker than the legs. I have a lot of 5Ks coming up over the next few weeks so I'm hoping for some PRs.

Brent has informed me my blog would be better if I started including more links and explained what the crap my titles mean. Yesterday's title refers to Rock Star INXS. Susie was in the bottom three even though she gave (in MY opinion) the best performance of the week, therefore she was robbed. Today's title has to do with PrimeTime Live (that I'm watching right now). They're talking about this man who lived for years out in Alaska with the bears, and was ultimately killed by a bear which he captured (Audio only) on his video camera. From all his clips he seemed a little vigilant and unstable.

I added some new links of blogs I enjoy off to the left and I've added a section for upcoming races, too. Drop me a comment sometime, I'd love to hear from you!!

Have a great weekend and good luck to everyone who's racing this weekend!

Rachel

Exercise:
Thurs - 2/3 mile am walk with Pip (we stopped and talked to some old ppl so we didn't have time for our final lap), 4.25 evening run, 20 minutes toning/stretching focusing on abs

Susie got robbed!

Hey everyone! I really don't have much to talk about today. Today was sort of one of those ho-hum days that passes you by and nothing interesting really happened. I went back and posted some pictures on yesterday's blog and Monday's blog so make sure you check those out.

In my 'blah' mood I decided not to run tonight since I ran 5 yesterday and I'd like to do 5 or 6 at the park tomorrow. I really didn't want to work out at all, but I knew I would beat myself up if I didn't so I spend some time on the elliptical and then doing some toning/stretching. I hate doing weights on my arms. I have no strength there and the slightest number of reps wears me down. I'm fine with biceps and triceps, it's the over the head and "dead" lifts that kill me.

Is everyone else in America hooked on Rock Star INXS? I hope they are because that show is great. Since we have TiVo we watch nothing live! It can be hard not to hear who got voted of Survivor, or the Apprentice, so we try to make loud noises and change the radio/channel if any talk shows start talking about stuff like that. Tonight Brandon got kicked off. He's a great singer but he really isn't right for INXS. Skynard, definitely. Our faves are Mig, Ty and Jordhis. There are VERY few shows we're watching this summer and that's one of them. Overall TV sucks. Alias, 24, Apprentice, Amazing Race & Survivor are about the only things we ever watch. I used to want to be Jennifer Garner 'when i grow up', until she started seeing Ben Affleck and became impregnated and then married to that spawn of Satan.

Enough rambling for tonight, it's Harry Potter time!

Rae

Exercise:
1 mile am walk with Pippin, 40 minutes elliptical training, 40 minutes yoga/pilates focusing on thighs and arms

The big day!

Today is the big day! Pippin's 2nd birthday. Right now he's happily tearing apart a toy I just spent $10 on. Gotta love it. If it's plush with a squeaker in it he'll have the squeaker and all the stuffing out in 15 seconds flat. That's why I usually buy him rawhides and Kong toys, but for his birthday I thought I'd blow a few extra dollars and make his day. We gave him his cake a little while ago and he loved it! He licked and licked on the icing and then I cut a few little pieces off for him. He loved all his new toys, especially the little lamb he's ripping apart now and a new ball made of these little knotty ropes. We took a ton of pictures so I'll post them on my blog tomorrow.

For exercise I ran 5 miles tonight. It was a great run. It's starting to be a lot cooler in the evening, but it's also getting dark so much earlier and so much quicker! There were a lot of walkers out tonight and our stupid neighbor's dog attacked us as we were heading out. This retarded dog chases cars all the time, and tonight it thought we looked tasty. You'd think they'd get a clue and keep it on a leash but it's owners really DON'T look like people who have a clue about anything.

Have a great night everyone!

Rachel

Exercise: 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 5 mile run, 20 minutes yoga/kickboxing/pilates with Denise Austin

How long is this trail?

Hey! Well, we all made it through Monday so I guess we're well on our way to surviving another week. Sunday we did a lot of housecleaning (as if you could even tell) and then we headed over to Percy Warner Park to do some trail running. I've never run trails before so this was a pretty exciting event. We had only been over there once before and it's a HUGE park so we were still a little lost. For some reason a huge amount of the park was blocked off, so we couldn't get over to the trailhead. We ended up parling at the top of the large stair entrance and heading off on a trail. It started off straight up, so I knew that was a bad sign! It was a tough course, but a fun challenge. We ended up walking up two steep hills, but we ran the rest of the way. The trail we had landed on was 2.5 miles, and it was definately the toughest 2.5 I ever did. There were a few spots along the trail where a tree would be over the path and we had to hurdle over it. At 5 foot 2 I don't think I'll ever be a hurdler, so this is about as close as I can get! After that trail we ran part of the horseback riding trail to end with a total trail mileage of 4 miles.

Tomorrow is Pippin's 2nd birthday! I can't believe it! We got him around 10 weeks old, so it's still a few weeks until the 2nd anniversary of his life here with us. For tomorow we have a cake and a bunch of new toys for him. His cake is a peanut butter banana cake made for dogs. It has some sort of icing on it, but it's not made of sugar or preservatives. It smells really good & I know he's going to LOVE it!

Cya later!

Rae

Exercise:
Sun-4 mile trail run at Percy Warner Park, 20 minutes Denise Austin workout focusing on aerobics, abs & stretching
Mon - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 15 minutes stairclimber, 10 minutes elliptical, 20 minutes weights, 20 minutes Denise Austin workout focusing on aerobics, abs and stretching

Why can't every day be Saturday?

Hey there! I hope you're all having a great weekend so far, we are and I can't believe it's already Saturday night. Last night we went to eat at Peacock's, a Vietnamese restaurant on West End avenue in Nashville. We always buy the Entertainment book each year from kids selling it raise money for their schools so we can try out all kinds of restaurants throughout the year. It's a lot of fun and it's helped us really learn our way around the city and also try places we would've never thought to try. Anyway, we had several coupons for this place so we gave one to our friends Phil & Sarah so they could get the discount, too. The food was REALLY good, I had chicken in a sauce that had cinnamon in it (along with some other stuff I don't remember). It was excellent and all of us really enjoyed our food. We went to pay and were told we couldn't get our discount because we had not told the server upfront about our coupons! Whatever!! They showed us a tiny note on the front of the cover - that was sideways - that said you had to tell them before ordering. As if. Our server (who was very nice and friendly) was a company man and refused to give us the discount but did ask the manager to come over. She was not overly friendly and gave us a total line of bull about why they have this policy but in the end we did get our discount. It would have been a perfect experience if it wasn't for the whole checkout debacle but I did enjoy it and I would recommend it to anyone wanting something a little different.

Eating took a while, so it was about 8:30 by the time we got out of there. We were headed to an improv comedy show (Uncle Sonny's Pudding Parade) a co-worker of ours is in that started at 8. We weren't really sure how to get to the show, so a few wrong turns later and a detour through the ghetto we made it to the show around 8:45. We wedged into the back and had a few good laughs. We still got to see about an hour of show. From there we stopped to visit Sara's cat Emma & then had some Starbucks and went to see Phil's new house. It was a lot of fun and we didn't end up getting home until around 1. Pippin was so psyched to see us he actually was able to jump up into our bed (which is RARE). For his accomplishment we were going to let him sleep in the bed with us but he kept trying to sleep on my back so he got the boot at 3 am.

Needless to say I wasn't about to get up for an early morning run! I woke up around 8 and had a light breakfast and headed out for a 4-miler. It was bright, sunny, and hotter than hell. It felt great to be running, but I had a tough time staying hydrated. I couldn't drink enough water. It was a tough run and certainly not a PR but it felt great to be out burning some calories.

We had a ton of errands to run today. Since we were gone last weekend I had several things I needed to return to stores (I classically buy everything I like and then end up taking back half of it when I get home). We were going to go to Cheekwood (the local botanical gardens) so Brent could do some photography but it was really hazy and looked like it was going to rain so we decided not to go. We ended up in the downtown area near Music Row. I'd hear of Otter's Chicken Tenders before so we stopped there to check it out. All of the restaurants in that area have outdoor patio seating so we decided to enjoy the cool evening. We were sitting there eating when two guys walked up, and Brent said 'hey, isn't that one of the guys from the Real World'? Sure enough it was MJ from the Philadelphia season. I can't believe Brent recognized him since neither one of us watch that wretched show. His hair has gotten a little longer, but it was definitely him. He was a Vanderbilt graduate, so I guess he decided to stay in Nashville. Lucky us. (The picture below is him leaving the restaurant.)

That was all the excitement we had today. The evening was so nice when we got home we took Pips for a short walk. Now we're watching some old 80's movie called War Games. Brent says it's a classic, so it must be! Matthew Broderick looks like a baby.

See you later! Hopefully tomorrow we'll get to do some trail running at Percy Warner.

Rachel

Exercise:
Fri-1 mile am walk with Pippin
Sat-4 mile am run,20 minute workout with Denise Austin focusing on intervals, arms, butt & stretching (1 reference to burning butter), 1.5 mile evening walk with Brent and Pippin

Toenails are for whimps

Hey! TGIThursday! All day long (until about 5 or 6) I kept thinking it was Wednesday, so imagine my happiness when I remembered it was really Thursday so tomorrow's Friday. Yee haw!

It was a tough day at work for Brent and I (nothing new there), so I was really looking forward to a good workout. Brent had plans to play some racquetball with the husband of one of my coworkers at the corporate gym, so I planned to go along and workout there tonight. He really enjoys racquetball but it's just not my sport. A small room with a speeding ball frightens me. It's so much easier to run for an hour or two. =) So, I did the elliptical for a while chatting away with my coworker Amy about all the fabulous things we love about the working world, along with other bits of woman chatter. It made the time fly by and the program I had set had already cut off before I even realized it. After that we had time for some weights and then it was closing time at the gym. Membership is really cheap, but they close each evening at 8 and aren't open on the weekends so it's not the most convenient but WAY cheaper than a real gym. It's also deserted most of the time. We came home and I did today's Denise Austin workouts (focusing on abs) and had a good stretch with her. I've seem my flexibility go WAY up since I've started spending a few minutes most every day working on some stretching.

Brent is the first member of our fam to suffer the 'black toenail' caused by running. While training for the CMM 1/2 marathon I was lucky enough to not have any foot ailments worse than some nasty blisters and callouses under my feet. Since switching to my Mizunos the condition of my feet has really improved. We think his toenail prob is a result of bad socks and his shoes might not be quite long enough. Tonight he had to drain it and the nail will probably go anytime now. Today he sent me a link to a picture of a guy who had done the Badwater Ultra and I have NEVER seen feet like that. It made my stomach hurt! I have serious admiration for the ultramarathoners, they are amazing people!

Tomorrow's Friday!!!!!

Rae

Exercise: 1 mile a.m. walk with Pippin, 30 minutes elliptical, 15 minutes weight machines, 40 minutes Denise A workouts focusing on abs (and she only references butter once!! Today she focused on taking vitamins and eating your fruits and veggies)

Night Running

Tonight Brent and I ran over at Smyrna Recreation Park tonight. Pretty much all our runs are on the same couple of paths through our subdivision and the nearby hospital track and a small nearby park. To change it up a bit we went over to check out the track of the main park in Smyrna. They've recently added some new tracks and updated the park. We headed out around 7:50, and I knew it would be dark before we finished our 4 mile run, but I hoped there would be some street lamps along the track. It was a neat path that took us through the stewart air force base, along a creek and through a little wooded area. The way out was beautiful, the fireflies were out and a small plane was landing at the airport. The way back got pretty dark. So dark in fact that we really couldn't see the track. At all. At one point there's a tunnel you run through under the road and Brent stepped on some brush and I started yelling thinking we were being attacked by some kind of animal. Nope, just a limb. All in all it was a great run and a nice change from our usual jaunt.

Well, I guess we'll be going to work tomorrow. We usually play Powerball once a week but not this time! We stopped at Publix last night after we worked out at the gym and then stopped for some groceries. I gave Brent $2 to get out ticket. He didn't have any ID on him so they wouldn't sell him a ticket!!!! You have to be 18, and even though the woman thought he looked 25 (he's 28) she wouldn't sell him a ticket. Crazy.

Later!

Rae

Exercise:
Wed-1 mile am walk with Pippin, 4 mile run with Brent, 20 minute workout with Denise Austin focusing on stretching and thighs

Strategic Planning

Hey there! TGITuesday! After two days of mega long posts today is going to be a short one. While we were out trekking the Appalachian Trail Brent and I decided we should really hike the whole thing. Yeah, the whole 2,100 miles. Why not?? How many people can say they have walked the whole AT. At this point I am so burnt out on working (in general) that a six month sabbatical would be heaven. It's not that I hate my job, my boss, etc, I just feel like I should have a greater purpose in life than to do spreadsheets and make rich people richer. All I really want to do is run all day. That's it. Unfortunately I don't think Mizuno or Nike are going to call me for a sponsorship deal anytime soon. So, I have a plan to try to get a sponsorship deal to hike the AT and then write a book afterwards. I did some research on the book out there written about thru-hiking the AT and they all seem like crap. Anyway, I'll keep you posted on that and some other business plans I have working in my head.

Tonight we headed over to the gym at work to do some weights. Since we had been gone for the weekend our run schedule is a day off so yesterday ended up being a longer run day and today being more of a rest/weights day. I was able to add an extra weight to each machine, so I was pretty happy about that. Then I came home and did one of my daily Denise Austin workouts from TiVo. (God bless TiVo). I've gotten pretty behind on them so it's pretty overwhelming to see them all on my TiVo now playing list. Tonight we favorite oddball quote of hers was "We're working on your Gluteaus Maximus to make it your Gluteaus Minimus'. I bet her husband cringes every time she opens her mouth. She only made two references to burning butter, which is probably a PR. She has a serious obsession with butter. If it were me I'd talk about cake.

Have a great night!!

Rae

Exercise:
Tues: 1 mile a.m. walk with Pippin, 20 minute stair climber, 20 minutes weights, 20 minutes aerobic and ab workout with Denise Austin

Does anyone know a good fishing spot?

Ok, so here's the remainder of my post about our weekend trip. We had so much fun relaxing and kicking it in the cabin that we didn't end up going to bed until around 2 am. We had to be out of the cabin by 10, so unfortunately we had to get up a little earlier than we liked. We both slept like rocks after our long hike. We got up and cooked another big breakfast and packed up our stuff. Pippin started to get REALLY anxious that we were going to leave him behind. He slipped out the door once when we were packing the car up and got in the car. I'm not sure why he has such anxiety. He was so attached to us that he FINALLY climbed up the wooden stairs to the loft of the cabin. All weekend he had been too scared to go up there.

From the cabin we headed over to Lake Blue Ridge. At the bait shopped we asked for the best fishing spot. They told us above or below the dam. You couldn't get above the dam due to construction, so we went below the dam. That was THE worst fishing spot I've ever been to. It was rocky, so every line I threw out got stuck on rocks. It was terrible. Plus it was crowded with kids who wouldn't give you your own personal space. So, we headed out of there and tried some side roads to try to find a better spot. We found a neat, deserted area on the side of the lake and set up camp. We even found a nice area for Pippin to splash around at the edge of the lake. He loved it! I think I got a few bites, and then we started watching a storm come in. Story of the weekend, right? It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. You could literally see the storm line moving across the lake. Perhaps we shouldn't have been so mesmerized because we got SOAKED. Pippin started freaking out and tried to get under the car and I couldn't get the worm off my hook. We decided it was time to start heading back towards home. Along the way we stopped at a little BBQ place for lunch, and then we headed over to the Ocoee Whitewater Center (home of the 96 Olympics whitewater contest). They've turned it into a really nice park with a lot of trails and places for your to splash around in the water. Of course, once we got out of the car and headed out it started raining. Why wouldn't it??? We got 100% percent soaked, but we didn't care because we were there to have fun. We stood in the rain and watched the rafters and kayakers. The rain stopped as we moved further down the road, so we stopped one more time on Lake Ocoee and grabbed a book and sat down next to the lake and enjoyed the great breeze until - you guessed it - it started raining again.

All in all we had a great trip and I highly recommend the area to anyone looking to get away for a few days. There's so much to do outdoors there. They're having a half-marathon on the Ocoee trails in September. I'd love to do it! It sounds like it would be nice and challenging.

Tonight I ran 5 miles. The weather was nice, it was still hot but nearly as muggy. I had a great run, and had a good speed going. In the middle my right foot fell asleep, but it seemed to actually make me go faster. Go figure!!

See ya tomorrow!

Rae

Exercise:
Mon - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 5 miles evening run