Sometimes I Do Stupid Sh*t

November 8, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Hiya!

We’re having a lazy Sunday morning over here (the best) after a pretty full week of everything.

~~Inda and Loony and~~ Indy and Luna and I went out to the greenway back by the old Wench house on a rather gray day so the dogs could get out some energy.

Pretty sure this is what Pooh and Piglet would look like if they were dogs!

It was pretty eventful since Luna, who HATES water, tried to follow Indy across a creek and got herself stuck. Rather than helping her, which is what kind and normal people would do, I sat there, laughed and took a short video of her trials.

Don’t worry, she figured it out and is safe and sound and was only a little traumatized from the water.

I also hit up the library for some quality ~~people watching~~ paper writing time. Also I needed to try out some of the other kooky chairs. Priorities y’all .

Then, Steve and I decided to go work out. Smart idea right?? Wrong.

Since it’s been a while since we’ve visited the gym, we both tried to make up for lost time by working out extra hard. Bad idea.

I ran so hard I gave myself heartburn and other gastric issues. Apparently 9mph is pretty fast?? Steve overdid it on the leg press and strained his knee a bit. I was going to do a bit of strength training after the run but couldn’t function/breathe so I went and sat in the sauna until I could walk around without dying.

This is my “Oops WTF did I just do” face.

We grabbed some beers with Matt and Lisa decided to not move again for the rest of the night.

How was your weekend festivities?

What do you mean it’s September??

September 2, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

I mean really?!? There is absolutely no way it can be September already right?

September means….

Back to school

The start of pumpkin spice everything!! (how did this become a thing?)

And my fall half marathon/full marathon training starts again

I’m getting ready to run the USA San Diego Invitational Half Marathon (they really need to shorten that name) coming up in November. And, as seen above, I’m following Hal Higdon’s Intermediate Half Marathon training plan, free training plans FTW!

I started up yesterday with a treadmill sesh at early o’clock in the morning for 3 easy miles (target pace 9:00 min/mile). Luckily I had some frog friends to keep me company

They are super teeny frogs in the top left window pane and the one right below that, I have named them Fiona and Fred

I finished up in 27:43 for a 9:14 min/mile pace which wasn’t too bad considering how little I’ve run and how sleepy I was!

Anyways, Steve is getting better every day and Luna is getting bigger every day! I swear she could fit in my hand last week…

Although Steve is making a lot of progress we still have some rough days (this was from a few weeks ago when we made yet another trip to urgent care, it’s a really awesome place for a date)

Look familiar??

Hopefully he’ll feel well enough to help me drive to Alabama for Labor Day fun this weekend.

I gotta go work on homework while drinking a pumpkin spice latte now…Cheers!

The Start of Something New

August 30, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Hi peeps!

Don’t worry, I’m not talking about anything crazy here, just the start of the new semester. Since the summer is officially over (at least here in NC) I figure it’s about time to get on a ~~semi~~ regular posting schedule again. Ya know, in addition to organizing everything else and setting up for the upcoming year

So. Let’s see.

Last week I joined the ASSIST Center at Sourcing at MAGIC (not an actual magic show as in two sorcerers battling it out but a textiles and fashion expo) in Las Vegas!

Our research was being highlighted as the latest in wearable technology so we were front and center of the thing! Here’s a picture of me, taken with a potato, wearing our EKG shirt at a corner of our booth. I may look less than thrilled as this was the last day of the expo and we had just seen……

BRITNEY SPEARS LAST NIGHT!! ❤

Insert girly freak out here

It was everything my 10 yr old self could have asked for and then some! I didn’t have much of a voice the day after due to all the loud singing and such 🙂

We also made a point to drink some obscene slushies every night (can you tell I’m really good at taking pictures with my potato??)

Which eventually led to decisions like this….

Apparently balloon hats are rather suspicious to airport security, although FYI they will let you on a plane with them.

Steve had a great time trying to herd two dogs (the puppy is pretty high energy) with a bad knee, but I’ll let him tell you about that experience.

Anyhoo,

Classes are back in action (I’m taking one class this semester) and it’s weird having to be responsible and make good decisions again…i.e. my half marathon training starts this week…..after not working out for….2 months??….it’s gonna be awesome…..

I’ll be back soon with more!

Beaverdam: I accept my fate as forever being cold and wet.

April 29, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Hi everyone!

The week is in full swing over here and at this point I’m just along for the ride. As I’m sure you already know, we had a pretty ~~cold~~ exciting weekend with racing and Brewgaloo-ing and brunching.

First off, the race!

This was my first triathlon of the season, the Beaverdam Olympic Triathlon (for those who don’t know it’s a 1500m swim, 24 mile bike, and 10k run). I did this one last year also so my main goal this year was to beat my times from last year. And. I. Did. #ballerstatus

This was from 2014. I had a minor panic attack on the swim (my first open water swim with a wetsuit) and backstroked 90% of the thing! I’m particularly proud that my backstroke is as strong as my freestyle/crawl. Although it may also be that my crawl just sucks. But whatever. I

I finished third in my age group that year which was exciting! Never mind the fact that it was 3/6. Third is third.

And these are my results from this year! About 11 min faster! Woohoo! I shaved some time off of each leg 🙂 <–there’s a shaving joke in there somewhere but I’m too tired to find it

Swim:

I actually bought my own wetsuit this year instead of renting one and made sure to get comfortable in the water before I started. Then when we started, I didn’t panic and remembered to breathe! (always a plus) I was able to swim the whole thing and only took a couple of breaks to float and get my bearing in the water. This was a huge success for me.

Now, what’s weird is that usually a wetsuit swim is COLD. Don’t get me wrong, the water was not warm by any means, but it was warmer in the water than out of it! The transition went pretty well although I did have a minor issue getting my left foot out of the wetsuit, but I’ve never had to worry too much about my transitions since I’m used to quick changes from my ballerina days.

Bike:

The bike was freezing. Actually. freezing is an understatement. For some unknown reason, I forgot my arm warmers and toe covers so I was just in my tri kit for the duration of the bike. The majority of my thoughts on the bike consisted of “I can’t feel my feet at all. If I get frostbite from this stupid race imma be so pissed” “I should eat/drink something, wait my hands don’t work. Come on warm up enough to grab a water bottle” Rinse and repeat.

Luckily the bike course changed from last year, so instead of constant rolling hills we had a lot of flat areas and low incline hills. So that was lovely. The rain, wind, and cold was not.

I did have a bike-buddy for most of the race. We happened to have the same pace for the entire ride! So we bonded and chatted it up as a distraction from the weather. Sadly she’s not local otherwise she’d probably be my new bestie. She’s in the purple behind me in the pic 🙂

My second transition was also a little slow. This was more due to the fact that I had lost all feeling in both my hands and feet. Shoelaces are hard. Note to self: get those elastic shoelaces.

Run:

The run was an out-and-back that we covered twice. I love these because it feels shorter than it actually is. It’s like focusing on a landmark when you run and saying you’ll run to that and then walk, only this time the landmark was a water station. My feet were still completely numb for the first 2 miles of the run which had me worried for a bit. I couldn’t control how my feet were landing so I hurt the outside of my right foot a bit. The run course was not very flat, but at that point I was just glad to be off the bike and warming up so I really didn’t care about the hills.

The other awesome benefit of having 2 laps of the course was seeing Indy and Steve a lot! When I was getting ready to finish, I grabbed the leash from Steve and Indy literally pulled me across the finish line. I mean, she took off! I think she was super excited to finish and GTFO of the crazy place with a lot of scary people doing stuff. It’s super scary.

Anyways, I got second place in my age group this year! 2/7 so the field improved in both directions 🙂 And I got my time in under 3 hrs which also makes me happy 🙂

I was pretty cold so we (and a ton of other triathletes) stopped off at Starbucks on the way home for a nice hot drink to finish the day.

13.1, Run and Done!

April 14, 2015 / thievinsteven / Leave a comment

Well, the Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon is over. I finished my first ever half marathon and Amanda got a new personal best time on her run! We went to the expo on Friday and bought some new running gear. The only picture we got was me getting a little overly friendly with balloon running man. I don’t think he minded though.

On race day we got up at 4 in the morning. That’s right.. 4. in. the. morning. It wasn’t so bad really, but it made us pretty silly for a while. The adrenaline of race anticipation coupled with a short night’s sleep made us pretty looney.

We were also very cold! It was pretty windy and we were dressed for running in the sun, not standing around for two hours in the dark so we hopped into a hotel lobby to warm up and wait for the race to start.

I had planned to take it pretty slow at the start, like 11 or 12 minute miles until I warmed up and could tell how I was going to feel for the run but instead I was amped up and excited and feeling good so I took off at around 10 minute miles which is more my typical pace for short runs. I was able to keep that pace going for quite a few miles so I was feeling good about hitting my target time.

A lot of the race is a blur. I was mostly focusing on good running form since I was still worried about my ankle and concentrating on breathing good and maintaining a steady pace so half the time I didn’t really know what street I was on but I do remember the music. The first band was playing Last Dance with Mary Jane. A short while later the marching band blared their horns down at the runners from a bridge over the street. Scattered cheerleaders and other bands and a really cool drum group later in the race.

One thing I wasn’t prepared for is how much the spectators cheering affected me. I remember the girl at the water station in mile 6 who said “I see you Steve! Keep it up!” She was the first one who called me by name and at first I was all paranoid like who are you? how do you know my name? Then I realized it was printed on my bib and felt kinda silly.

A little after mile 10 my foot started hurting. I had run the whole thing so far so I wasn’t about to stop. As I kept pushing on the pain in my foot got worse. To make matters worse, spectators were pretty sparse near the end until you got real close to the finish. I was nearly reduced to power walking status about half a mile from the finish when I heard Amanda yell “Go Steve!” She came out to run with me for a minute and cheered me on and yelled to the spectators “This is Steve!” so then they all started cheering for me and I got a fresh burst of energy that carried me to the finish. I couldn’t stop smiling and in most of the pictures I’m sportin a big delirious smile and look something like this:

If I end up buying the pictures maybe I’ll post one, but maybe not since I look kinda like a doofus 🙂

In the end I finished in 2 hours and 25 minutes when my target time was 2 hours and 30 minutes so I’m pretty happy about that. I never knew Michelob Ultra could taste as sweet as it did. Here we are enjoying our finisher beers! I felt super accomplished and proud to have finished and to have run the whole thing!

Remember to hydrate kids!

And then redehydrate! We went out to celebrate at Cowfish for burgushi and cocktails. We had a sushi foll with rare filet mignon on top that was really delicious. Amanda had a refreshing citrusy vodka drink.

But I had a bourbon drink. It also had some citrus undertones but the show stealer was the candied bacon. As you took a bite you first tasted bourbon dripping from the bacon, then a sweet candy flavor and finally finished off with bacony goodness. I highly recommend it if you have an opportunity 😀

My foot is still hurting unfortunately. I did get it checked out and hopefully it will be better in a few more days but as of now walking more than very short distances is a bit tough. Next race will be easier though 🙂

PhDeviants

Misadventures in grad school, running, and life

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