HOTLANTA craziness.....and then some

I know I know...everyone has been on the edge of their seat all weekend waiting to find out what the crazy girl did this weekend.....and if she finished..and if shes alive...Please call off the search and rescues in Atlanta....I DID ITTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLLA!!!


ANyway...Friday afternoon I left and drove to FLorida to pick up Danielle. We already paid for the hotel friday night but got in a horrendous traffic jam. We realized we weren't going to make it to Atlanta till 2in the morning (thanks to our dueling GPS's...they literally fought the whole way). Garmin: TURN LEFT
TOM TOM: TURN RIGHT DAMNIT
GARMIN: I SAID TURN LEFT IN 500 FT YOU IDIOT! etc...

so we decided to first have an Air Jam Session to Ray Charles in the Car....with sunglasses on....at 11pm....to create some entertainment for the other cars stuck in the jam. I think I was actually lead singer at this part.... no worries...Danielle was on keyboard. Then we turned around....and had to offroad...and made our way to the Knights Inn. This was the only hotel (if you can call it that) in town that had a room. Apparently everyone got stuck in the jam and scrambled to get rooms. Anyway...this room clearly had mice living in it...we wouldnt even sleep on the bed. We laid our clothes down...and slept on TOP of our clothes as to not touch the sheets. In the sheets we found fur, hair, and sparkles.....if that even begins to give you a clue of our living conditions for the evening.

The next morning (sat) we got up bright and early and headed to Hotlanta. We got there and checked into our beautiful Marriott. While I was in the shower Dani decorated the hotel room for my birthday...it was sooooooo cute!! Then we headed to the expo to pick up some fun stuff @ The Georgia DOme! Don't worry....we were the only girls all dressed up in dresses and such trying to act like we werent athletes. We thought it would be funny to be carrying around the "full marathon" packets and have everyone look at us like "ughh..those girls are running the full???"

Next is when things got a lil Messy. Dani's friends picked us up and took us to "The Grape," an awesome restaurant in Atlantic Station known for drinking wine. We quickly ordered a bottle of wine...and this girl was DRUNK after one glass. EEEEEEEEK!!! Then we stumbled on over to "Dolce" which is an AWESOME Italian restaurant owned by Ashton Kutcher. Me and Jess are pictured below in the lovely restaurant. And this is where we managed to get our carb load on! AKA DRINK WINE AND EAT PASTA!!!! Finally we headed back to the hotel....where they could have rolled us in the doors after all we ate...we went to the front desk and asked for trash bags (due to the rainy forecast). THe lady looked at us funny like why in the world would you need trash bags at the hotel?!?! Dani quickly cleared up the confusion and said "Trash bags big enough to fit a BODY in!!" OH dear...the lady hands us some huge trash bags and I swear turned around and called the police. Finally, we managed to get to bed around MIDNIGHT!!!!!! YES MIDNIGHT!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH! The alarm went off at 4:45....and we were like OH S$*@ We are screwed! It was 40 degrees and pouring rain! EEEEK! So we quickly got ready....and headed to the MARTA. Oh...p.s. we decided to go with the matching HOT Pink spandex.....TOTAL DIVAS! haha Helped make sure we never lost each other. We called them HOT pants! Everyone else on the course had other nicknames for them "Team Pink", "Diva Girls," etcOk so we finally make it to the starting line and................



STAY TUNED!!!

HAHAHA! The TV Stations do it...why can't I? I'm tired folks....tired tired tired. The rest will come tomorrow.

The end of the world as we know it..........

THis is the last post before the marathon....which means it could quite possibly be my last post ever! hahaha jk! ANyway...the weather situation has taken a turn for the worse...it went from 75 & sunny to 52 & rainy. I'm keeping positive and thinking running in the cold & rain for 26 miles might be fun??! no? I'll let ya know how it turns out!
Either way...I don't want a "DNF". I will be so happy to cross that finish line...that I might even actually try to pose nice for my pic instead of sprinting across and looking like a dead cow at the finish line.

So there ya have it. Cheers to good times with good friends and a great city. This will change my life for sure...for better or for worse ... (wow..I sound like I'm getting married...)...and I'm just totally stoked for it!

Then hell begins on Monday again...aka OR rotation and classes. Also I made my spring training plan for triathlons...YEAH BABY! WIth my main goal to do the Chattanooga waterfront tri with Lana! oooooooh man...i better get trainin :) First things first though.....holla!

Marathon Heeby Jeebies

Wow...its less than a week away. Here is the forecast SO FAR. Its lookin pretty good. The ING Georgia will have about 15,000 participants....saweeeeet!! That means a small chance I'll come in dead last. Best part...I get to spend the weekend with one of my BFF's Danielle. We are known as the sexy twins....and when we get together we are CRAZY! Heres some Halloween pics of us dressed as sexy twins :) So yes...we are planning on dressing as sexy twins for the race. Its our tradition! LOOK OUT HOTLANTA!!!!!!!! I just can't wait to spend a weekend with a good friend. I moved to Georgia from Ohio in May and haven't been back since. My parents have come to visit a handful of times (including right now) and my other BFF came once. Other than that...no familiar faces in almost a year. This weekend is going to be really good for me. Any encouraging thoughts before the marathon would be great...I will print them and keep them in my pocket for inspiration when the race gets tough. No matter what though...me and Danielle will run every step side by side. Betcha can't wait for this race report :)

Hope everyone has a great week!

Smokin!!!

Nope...I'm not talking about cigarettes....and I'm not talking about human spontaneous combustion. But apparently after my run this morning...I was literally smoking. We decided to go for an 8 mile training run this morning as my last decently long run before the marathon. We pushed the pace pretty good running about 9:30/mile and by the end we were running 8:30/mile. It was nice to do an intermediate distance and push the pace over a wide span of time. When we finished the run...I took a seat on a curb to catch my breath. My friend looks over and says "OMG!! YOU ARE SMOKING!!" I must have had a really confused look on my face. But apparently my whole body was giving off steam...and I looked up at her husband and his head was smoking too! haha. She said it looked like we ran super fast and were "on fire"..then when we stopped we were still smoking. It looked soooo funny. I felt more like one of those commercials where you can see the green stench steaming off someone..and that's probably more along the lines of what it was. But I'll pretend that I ran so fast that I caught on fire and was smouldering after I stopped.

Update

So far I have survived finals!!!!!!!! I have one more in about an hour.....but I think I'll make it out alive. I spent a total of 30 hours at Panera in the past 3 days...and one hour at Starbucks since Panera closed. I still havent attempted the 8 min mile yet since I posted about it...maybe today. I have until Sunday. And now I'm ready for this....



and this...



Update..........I DID IT!!! 7:33 min/mile...check her out :)

Need for Speed

ANYWAY


In my attempt to start incorporating speed into my workouts....I have a goal of running the mile in under 8 minutes this week. I have all week to do it...and the Garmin will be proof. I know 8 minutes does not sound fast...but I don't believe I've ever run a mile in under 8 minutes before. I'll keep ya posted on how it's going.


Still surviving finals.......although I'm getting a little loopy. I laughed for 20 mins with my friend today at Panera about a "Cat Poo Sandwich on Rye"....dont ask. We were in tears.

Gots my hairs did.....& a Garmin

So funny story. Yesterday I decided to go and get my hair chopped. Made an appointment at a reputable salon...(said I didn't care who the stylist was) and was on my way. Well I'm sitting there and this girl walks in and her name tag says "Raye Ann". She looked straight out of a cowboy boots magazine or something...and I was frightened. Should I lie and say my name is not Christine???? I'm fearing for my hairs life over here!!!


I decide to go through with it...and managed to bite off all my nails just while she was washing my hair. The scariest part was not her cutting my hair...OH NO! It was the fact that she decided to talk about a Peacock crossing the road the whole time. "Wow...I was just so shocked that all the cars stopped to let it cross...".. WHAT????? Seeing a peacock in the middle of the road isn't exactly the green light to hit the gas pedal. I mean who wouldn't stop to let a peacock cross the road?! I was so terrified that this lady could ramble on about a peacock for an hour. Never once did she say "where are you from?" "why are you in savannah?" "what do you go to school for?" noooo....alllllll the peacock. In the end though...she did alright. I'm not too picky about my hair. Here it is! Moral of the story : Don't let someone named Raye Anne cut your hair unless you want to talk about peacocks.

Also I got an early birthday present!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I ended up getting the Garmin 305 since the 405 is barely available anywhere. Also I heard the 305 actually has more options..and a larger screen. I think I'm in love....and I love how its so darn accurate. Man..I transform into a real runner more and more each day. Can't wait to start posting splits. I did a 5 miler with it yesterday and it was fantabulous:)


HAPPY ST PATRICKS DAY!!! I HAVE A CARDIO FINAL AT ONE AND I WANT TO SHOOT MYSELFFFFFFF! WHICH IS WHY I SHOULDNT BE BLOGGING BUT OH WELL!!

The night of darkness

Not sure if any of you heard about the raging tornados that have been blasting through Georgia, but last night we became victims of the monster. Heres a play by play..

I'm sitting at the kitchen table studying cardiopulmonary physiology like a good girl and next thing you know my TV sounds like an alarm clock. (what..most people dont study while watching tv??) I look up and notice the TV is red...and saying "TAKE COVER NOW! DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE THE TORNADO...IT MAY BE TOO LATE" What kind of message is that? Don't wait until you see the tornado??? It may be too late? Like you could just watch the tornado coming at you and have the chance of outrunning it like a game of tag or something. So silly. Next thing you know....Silence & Darkness. Look down at my cardiopulmonary physiology papers and think "perfect excuse to call it a night". Take my fresh made guacamole down to the neighbors with some drinks....and had the perfect candle lit evening. I think it's odd how whenever there is a power outtage or a big storm....everyone decides to party. Since it wasn't actively raining or hailing here, my whole condo complex went out on the doc and got wasted. The power turned on for a second...and the drunkards on the dock described it as "it looked like watching a Christmas tree get lit up"...haha.


So that was my fun evening. NO WORRIES GUYS!!! I Got my run in earlier. It was cool because the wind was so strong...and I decided to do some sprints afterwards. When I ran with the wind I felt like it was going to whisk me away Dorothy style. Also here are pics from that 5k I ran...


Hope everyone had a greattttttt weekend! 4 finals starting tomorrow......eeeeeeeeeeek!

p.s. Why is it called "jewish" rye bread? is there Catholic rye bread? Am I buying the wrong kind???? :P

I did it

I signed up for the ING Georgia FULL marathon. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK! I'm super scurred. The farthest I've ran is 16 miles...and ughh...yeah. So give me encouraging thoughts. Tell me about other people who have ran a marathon undertrained...and just wish me well. I hope to come out without broken bones...and especially without a DNF. I know my time will be sloowwww...I hope I don't disappoint ya'll... I just want to FINISH! Then it is in to triathlon training for a while...and I'm sure I'll actually train for and run a full marathon next winter. If anyone has suggestions or wants to meet me for one..let me know! But for now....this girl will be resting and waiting.....for the 26.2. EEEEEEEEEK!


p.s. the savannah st patricks run was amazing...thats the only way I can put it.

p.p.s go here and bug Danielle to do this with me. She needs a lil push http://danielleruns.blogspot.com/


OK *********************************NEWSFLASH*********************************
DANIELLE SIGNED UP!!! I will now be conquering this obstacle with one of my best friends in the whole wide world. We have been friends for like 10 years...and I can't wait to do this with her. This will for sure be one of the best weekends of my life....OH...and did I mention? Shes more undertrained than me...and slightly crazier. But this is a girl that ran her first 5k in 23 mins and took 3rd place. sooooo highly capable.

Abs of steel contest

Me and Susan are having a 6 pack contest. Basically if you want to join us (which I encourage you to do so) post a before picture this week. In 30 days (approximately April 11) we will have a revealing. Everyone will get a finisher's medal and there may be a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prize, also a MOST IMPROVED award. Write on my wall if you want to be included. Great motivation for bikini season folks..(or in our mind...running in sports bra). No guys allowed (sorry guys...much too easy for you to achieve 6 pack status). Heres my befores... I took two. Obviously one had been after I was studying..you can see the crease lines from bending over staring at the books. The other one I took this morning....nice leopard sports bra eh? haha.

gone crazy

Clearly I have gone nuts. As I have mentioned before...Savannah has the second biggest St. Pattys party in the country (next to Chicago). When I was running this weekend, I noticed our fountains are already green. It looks very strange (note above). Supposedly 400,000 people come into town for this huge party. Also...my Dad was born in Scotland and lived in Ireland and I am very Irish. My Dad walked me down the aisle in a kilt and we had bagpipes and the whole deal. I'm not just one of those people claiming to be Irish...I AM IRISH! However...despite all these things going for me to put on a HUGE sh*tshow this weekend...there are a few things holding me back.


































1) I am in the middle of 2 weeks of finals! HOLD UP WHAT?! The whole city gets off for st. pats and our stupid professors scheduled finals in the middle of this celebration? You have GOT to be kidding me?!
2) I rarely drink much anymore. I like an occasional beer or two, or maybe a yummy raspberry martini, but I barely ever get drunk anymore. Sadly those days ended when I turned 21.
3) I am obsessed with running...


So heres my solution. RUN throughout the celebration. I figure I take a final that morning at 7...and then just head downtown and start running. Obviously I won't really be able to run near the parade avenue, but I figure it would be such a cool way to check out the scene, get a run in, and still be able to go home after a few hours and study (and see straight..). I know there will just be tons and tons of people walking all over which will be so fun. And now that I'm this "runner chick" this just seems like the 'hard core' thing to do. Also! Parking is going to be a nightmare...but since I'm so 'hard core' and run 10+ miles these days...I can park pretty far away and just run in and back.

WOW! I sound sooooooooo lame...so I'll quit talking now. But these are my plans....sadly.

March of Dimes 5k Race Report

This by far was my favorite Race Yet!!! When I ran the half marathon, me and my friend "T" ran the first 8 miles together, until she wanted to stop for a minute. I ended up beating her by 6 minutes. When we ran the 10k, I started too fast and had too much clothing on and was dying the whole time. At one point I wanted to quit,but she kept pushing me along. She ended up beating me by a whole minute. There was nothing worse than that feeling of defeat for a few weeks. It left me thinking that I am no good at short distance, I am slow, and how will I ever survive my first 5K!

Fast forward to last night. I was so excited to actually run at NIGHT instead of when the roosters are crowing. There had been some tornado touchdowns here in Savannah, and when I left the hospital and heard the storm sirens I thought "Theres no way we will be doing this run". We headed downtown anyway and the weather conditions seemed stable. There were 1100 runners running this race...which is a lot for a little 5k. Everyone was dressed up in costumes and green and wigs and blinking things. (If you know Savannah, you know we have the second biggest St. Pattys party in the country...so everyone gets crazy about it. This race was no exception). The grand marshall for the st pattys parade was there (which he as a pediatrician..so definitely had some compassion for the march of dimes)..and we were off.


My race plan was to just hang with "T" and let her pace me. She has run some 5K's before...and last time I started way too fast. Then I was hoping to hang long enough and blow by her at the end like a bat out of hell. However I knew I would be risking her picking it up at the end and blowing by me like an even FASTER batt out of hell.

The beg of the race was super congested...and I got annoyed trying to get around all these people. Plus it was sorta drizzly so I felt like I was running on a slip and slide and at any point was ready to show these runners my best belly flop! But at all times...I kept "T" in my sight. I look down at my watch and it says 11 minutes....but I never saw the 1 mile mark. Are we runnin 12 min miles or what????? T informs me that we had passed the one mile mark and I practically ran into it...but somehow I never saw it. That made me feel good because I knew I was further than I thought. I kept the pace nice and steady..and would even try to pick it up here and there. Not matter what...when I would look out of the corner of my eye...I could see "T". Ugh!

Then something happened. I had really been focusing on keeping my breathing normal because at the 10K my heart was racing and I could never catch my breath. Next thing you know...as if a huge flame was lit under my butt...I just slowly started picking up the pace. I look back....no "T". WHAT? WHERE IS SHE? THAT SNEAK!! THe lephrechauns are disguising her....she has to be here somewhere? NOPE!...


I keep running....and running...and running. Thinking about how crappy I felt to get defeated last time...and how crappy it was standing around shoving donuts in my mouth feeling like a loser. I was NOT going to let it happen again..I want to ENJOY my donuts dammit! haha. (weird motivation eh?) With about a half a mile left..I start slowing down slightly..my muscles feel fatigued...and I'm tired. Next thing you know I see the finishline and just start sprinting like a bat out of hell. Apparently I had the "bad" bat....bc mine was faster than "T"s and I ended up beating her by 30 seconds with a final time of..........27:05! Not too shabby for my first 5K...I can't wait to break 25 minutes next year though.

So there ya have it! It was so cool finishing a race at night...awesome music...free beer...lotsof food...great atmosphere. I definitely enjoyed 3 pieces of pizza and had to remind myself that I had NOT just ran a half marathon...and need to slow down the food intake. Also...every picof me at the finishline is HORRIBLE bc I'm sprinting my ass off. ANd they either catch me in mid sprint...or the "I'm going to vomit all over your face" look as soon as I cross. SO I kept telling my friend that I wanted to ask him for a redo (by this time it was just the stragglers at the end). Well he walks over and says "do you girls want to get a picture at the finishline?" HELL YES!!! A chance for a REDO!!!!! I was too embarassed to ask...but I proudly posed for a chance at a good photo. I might just post this one!

SOrry this was so long and drawn out. I was really excited and honestly didn't expect myself to do anything faster than 28:30 ish. So now instead of being hungry from defeat....I am hungry to triumph again. Now that I've ran almost every race once (except the big kahuna....aka 26.2) I can start repeating them to go for PRs!! YAYYYYY!!


Everyone is having severe weather...I couldn't go on my long run today bc the wind is 50mph. I'll save it for tomorrow. Dont need to be knocked out by a tree branch at this point. Up North its blizzarding...so be safe ya'll! XOXO!

p.s. I got 23rd in my age group and 351/1000 overall YAY!

7 Random things

I have been tagged...so heres some randomness about the duff!

1) I was disappeared by David Copperfield in Las Vegas. DONT WORRY! I came back! But it was a very cool experience.

2)I stole my parents car when I was 13 and got pulled over by the police. I was a bad kid....I used to also shoplift,have parties with my parents gone and rounded up 32 detentions my 7th grade year. Oddly...in high school I got straight A's, had a job,began going to college my soph year, volunteered at the hospital and played sports. Somehow I turned into a little angel over night?!

3) I just got my very first dog this year. His name is Bentley Tyson...and hes my little baby. He got his middle name because in the first 48 hrs we had him, he jumped out and bit my husbands earring (he liked shiny things)...and they had to operate on him and take it out of his stomach. So since Mike Tyson liked biting ears....we call him Bentley Tyson now.

4) I got married to my soulmate May 27, 2007 at an antique car museum in Cleveland Ohio. THe very next day I moved to Savannah, Georgia and on the way my new husbands truck fell apart in West Virginia. It was Memorial Day..and nothing was open. We ended up buying a new truck right there on the spot. FIrst day of marriage!!! Then didn't get to Savannah till 4 am and our flight left the next morning for the honeymoon at 8am. Talk about craziness.














5) We took our honeymoon to Costa Rica. We flew into the airport...rented a 4x4...picked up a map...and basically just took it one day at a time. We went to the Rainforest, live volcanoes, beaches, etc. It was awesome...but kind of a crazy way to honeymoon. No set plans beforehand.




















6) I worked as a bioengineer for Johnson & Johnson designing hip implants. Now I'm putting people to sleep...go figure...I went from hip....to boring. haha.

7) I am possibly going to try running a marathon after training 2.5 months which is completely NUTS! And then plan to get a tattoo afterwards on my foot that says "carpe diem" to remind me for the rest of my life that I can accomplish anything I put my mind to. Which font do you like?

SO I think I'm pretty neat?! what do you think? Tomorrow I have to get up at 4:45 and spend the morning in the operating room. Then I have two tests...physiology and patient monitoring. Basically we turn one in and pick up the next one. Then I have my first 5k run after that!!! Exciting eh? It's a shamrock run...maybe the luck of the Irish will make me run fast (if it doesnt t storm) Have a great weekend ya'll!!!

Crazy thoughts

So My nike ipod+ thing broke this weekend. It will be laid to rest after brief visitation tomorrow. It suffered a head trauma during the 15 mile run after being dropped on the pavement. Luckily the ipod was wearing a helmet, unfortunately for nike+, there was nothing we could do for him. RIP!

So now should I get another one? Or just wait till my b day to get a Garmin. I'm really wanting the Garmin forerunner 405. Maybe I can ask for my b day (April 9th) Because I definitely dont have the $$ for it. Who knows if it will even be released by then...

Also as many of you know, I started this journey by deciding to run a half marathon in May. Due to my crazy nature, I decided May was too far so I would move it up and run it in March. Again...the crazy christine kicked in and moved it up yet AGAIN and ran my first half marathon the 2nd of February. So then I decided to run the half in March since I had already booked the hotel for Atlanta. Also on top of that...decided I would run the full marathon in May (when I had ORIGINALLY planned to run the half). Lately...crazy christine thoughts have kicked in and I started contemplating if I could run the full marathon March 30th in Atlanta. I wouldn't have enough time to properly train. The most I could fit in would be an 18 and a 20 mile run prior. I know this would be totally stupid and I would be risking injury and frustrations....but that crazy side of me is wanting to do it. haha. I would love to get the full marathon out of the way so I can really focus on triathlon training. I really want to be ready for tris this summer....esp since now I am probably going to be meeting up with Lana for one. (She is HARD core triathlete and my inspiration :) The last thing I want to do is show up and embarass myself..haha. So yeah.......crazy thoughts. I wonder if its from all the trace anesthetic gases and nitrous I've been inhaling...makin me crazier than ever.

HARD CORE

So I think I reached hard core status today for 2 reasons


1) I GOT A RUNNING RELATED BLISTER!!! Its nothing big, but it's a start. It's not bloody or gorey or anything. Def not worthy of a picture. Also I might add that I didn't wear running socks. But either way.....I'm Hard Core!

2)I got up at 6 am to do my 15 mile run. Up till this point, I hadn't taken the plunge on sacrificing my sleep to get up early and run. I just knew I wasn't that hard core...and I rather run alone than sacrifice a few hours of sleep. But today I did it. I bailed on going bar hopping last night, eventhough I promised my classmates I would go. And I got up at 6am and met up with a running group to do my 15 mile run. IT WAS EXCELLENT! It's the first time I did any training runs with someone...and boy have I been missing out. We did the first 2 miles Galloway style..then ditched the group and just ran the next 13. It took us 2:30:15. My friend dropped back so I ended up finishing with her Jamaican husband. We stuck it out together! But all in all..the run was great and I think the Galloway style for the first 2 miles helped me take my heart rate up slowly. At one point I joked around about just running a whole marathon today!! Also I dressed properly this time. It was about 60 when we started and 70 when we finished. I"M SO PUMPED! It's my furthest distance yet!!!! YAY!!!


So yes. I'm hard core....no not porn....running. I believe I will be getting up at 6 am again next weekend to run with these great people. Most definitely better than doing it alone. :)