More Philly Phall

O.K. people, I know this is a running blog and not my photo blog, however with all this time on my hands and the awe of my first fall in almost 10 years, I can't help it. I haven't been able to put my cameras away for weeks. Unfortunately for you that means I am going to make you look at pretty leaves whether you like it or not.

For some reason, I have been having a hard time getting out for a run this week. I think with upping the mileage last week I am just a bit worn out. I know it's going to be too cold to ride soon, so today I MADE myself get on my bike and ride out to Wissahickon Park for a 16 mile ride to loosen up my legs.

That was fine and dandy until I got a flat tire right when I turned around to come back...8 miles from home...with no pump...or cell phone. UGH! I swear to you, it was the ONLY time I have never had my phone on me (it needed to charge this morning). Anyway, I walked for a mile and a couple of nice bikers came by and offered to help. They just pumped up my back tire and told me to ride fast. Haha. So I got to about 2 miles from my house until I all leaked out and I had to walk again. Oh well. At least it wasn't the whole 8 miles.

For a little while, I seriously considered running next to the bike to get home faster...luckily I didn't have to resort to that.

So while my dumb-ass didn't have a phone OR a pump, I did bring the most important thing...that's right, my camera. Thank goodness. Sigh.

Anyway, I got some nice shots of Wissahickon Park today. This is where J and I will be doing our 14 miler on Saturday. Enjoy.

A Busy Week.

So many thing have happened since I last posted. I'll try to fit them all in as quickly as possible.

• I had three more great runs since the last time I wrote, bringing my weekly milage up to 41.73. That's the most I think I have ever done, or close to it.

• I got a job!!! YAY! Basically I'll be working in the Business School at a local university doing graphic design. It's only part-time which kind of stinks, but I think it will be fun and it may be way for me to start building up more freelance work which is my ultimate goal. Hooray for a paycheck! I start next Tuesday.

• I had to get a drug test for my new job, which was interesting. Not that I was worried about passing it or not, but I just never had to take one before. It was funny. "Don't flush the toilet or wash your hands!!!" Um, ok.

• I also had to get a physical, which I used as an excuse to talk about my achilles problem. After some questions and basic tests he concluded that I did not have any achilles problem (thank goodness) but rather Posterior Tibial Tendonitis. Still not great, but I really didn't want problems with my achilles. I just need to be vigilant about icing, stretching and go get some decent inserts.

• Friday night J and I drove to Atlantic City for the first time to see my favorite band, The Black Crowes play at the Borgata Casino. It was my 11th time seeing them and once again, it was a great show.I wish we could have spent the night, or more time in AC, but until I start getting that paycheck we are trying to not spend as much money. But AC looked like a lot of fun and it's great knowing it's so close. Here are a few shots I took at the show.



















• We ran our first 20 miler of this training season on Sunday. I have to say, I wasn't really feeling this run too much. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't fun either. For some reason I got only about 3 hours of sleep the might before and my stomach wasn't feeling all that great. But, we were right on our training pace the whole time and it was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL outside! The weather was perfect and the leaves are really starting to change now and are beautiful on Kelly Drive, where we do our runs. So basically, I just kept myself busy looking at all the beauty of autumn and reminded myself the entire run, "It could be worse, you could be doing this in Miami right now." which seemed to help.











• After our 20 miler, we came home, showered, ate and napped (the best feeling after a long run). Then we drove around to a couple of different fall festivals in the area. We ended up at the Chestnut Hill Fall for the Arts Festival which was a blast, where we proceeded to wander all the booths, eat Indian Veggie Samosas, drink beer and meet new friends at a local bar.

P.S. Light beer after a 20 mile run tastes very good. Too good for your own good actually. Drink with caution, not with abandon!



Hope everyone had a great weekend too! Great job to all of you who ran races this weekend!!!

Monday, 10/06 - off
Tuesday, 10/07 - 7 miles/1:00:15 - 8:36 pace
Wednesday, 10/08 - off
Thursday, 10/09 - 8:43 miles/1:19:59 - 9:29 pace
Friday, 10/10 - 6.2 miles/57:45 - 9:18 pace, core, weights
Saturday, 10/11 - off
Sunday, 10/12 - 20.1 miles/3:20:51 - 9:59 pace

Total Weekly Mileage: 41.73 (RUN)
Total Weekly Mileage: 0 (BIKE)

Tagged

I've been tagged by Michelle and Leana to give six random facts about myself.

I have done this once or twice before and to be honest with you, I'm only so interesting. So I was wondering what fun things I could share when I realized I could incorporate my "fun with photos" theme this month and answer in embarrassing pictures. Good times for everyone!

1. I lived in Wonder Woman Underoos for about 3 years. My best friend Jackie had the same pair and we often wore them together while reenacting scenes from Grease.


2. I have two older brothers. They are half-brothers from both of my parent's previous marriages. I am the only child from my parents together but since they both had custody of their boys, we all grew up in one house. Therefore, I never thought of them as half-brothers.


3. The only other sport besides running I ever participated in was horseback riding. I rode from the ages of 11-14 (when I dicovered boys and found better ways to spend my time). I started out riding Western, then switched to English and did a little bit of show jumping and barrel racing as well. Here I am on my horse Joker.


4. This is what i looked like in the 10th grade. I am smoking in the girls bathroom and have chains from Home Depot safety-pinned to my wrist. I think the hairspray may have clouded my better judgement.


5. Before I went back to school for Graphic Design at the age of 28, I worked as a bartender for 10 years.


6. As you can see in this picture (and the two pictures before this one) I used to smoke. I actually smoked for 16 years. I started when I was 14 (one year before the bathroom/hairspray picture) and quit the weekend I graduated from art school when I was 30. Right after I graduated I started training for my first half marathon (and posting in this blog) and I credit marathon training for making it easier to quit. I really don't think I would have done it without serious running to motivate me.


There you have it. I am supposed to tag 10 other people but a lot of you have been tagged already, so I'll leave it up to you to play along. I love ALL of your blogs, so I would love to hear from all of you!

P.S. Good luck to all you racers this weekend!! Can't wait to read those reports!

The Family That Runs Together

So, last night Jeremy came in from his 7 mile run, tired yet bragging.

"Yeah, I ran that one a little faster than I wanted, which was stupid. I should have let my legs rest for our 20 miler this weekend. I ran it in 1:01."

Blah, blah, blah...

To which my half-joking, attempt-at-being-competitive response was,

"Well, if that's what you ran it then that's what I'll run it in tomorrow!"

We both laughed knowing that that wasn't going to happen. I just ran a new PR on that route last week which was 1:03:02 and I had no intention of pushing it any further.

So today I headed out on our normal 7 mile route. I decided I would try to push it a little harder at the start and see how I felt in the end. If I needed to slow down, it wasn't a big deal.

But to my surprise, I kept it up the whole time. Normally I start out slow and speed it up the last couple of miles, but this time I ran a steady, faster pace the entire 7 miles. While I felt a little uncomfortable the whole time, my legs felt great and I felt like I could have kept going. And my finish time was...wait for it...

7 miles - 1:00:15!! (8:36 pace)

BOO-YAAA! Suck it hubby!!!

While I totally understand this is not lightning speed, it is definitely the farthest I have ever been able to keep up that pace.

Of course when I told J about my new (faster-than-his) time, he explained to me that he actually had run to the second pillar past the bench that we usually run to. You know, the bench we have run to every time we have run this route?

Um..yeah... Nice excuse. What is this, the Presidential Debate?

Whatever, I win! Who's the maverick now?

The Philadelphia Board of Tourism

I'm thinking about sending my resume to them, because when I am done shoving Philly down your throats you are all going to be booking your flights for a visit.

There is no better way to see the city you live in than when out-of-town guests come to visit. That way you can do all the dorky "touristy" things and blame it on them. I personally have no problems with looking like a tourist but for some super-cool people in my family (cough, cough... Jeremy) it's kind of embarrassing. Therefore, we just invite as many people as we can to come visit us. Not because we want their company, but because we want an excuse to ride a double decker bus and run up the Art Museum steps while choking down another cheesesteak.

A week ago, our good friends Andy and Glenna came to stay with us for a few days (remember, beer and shepherd's pie before 16 miles?). While they were here we got to see all sorts of wonderful Philly. While I was going through some of the pictures tonight, I though I would post some here. There seem to be a lot of Philadelphia area runners visiting my blog since I moved, so I thought they would appreciate it.

This first picture was taken right when they got here. Can you say bad influence? It was 2pm and I had 16 miles the next morning! (I mean I was the bad influence of course!)


Here we are on the Art Museum steps again. Andy is a HUGE Rocky fan so we hung out there for awhile.



*I photoshopped the baby into the picture as a joke to him...

Here I am with Glenna at the "Ladies Entrance", cause we're LADIES, of course...


Here I am at Pretzel Park. Yes, that is a statue of a pretzel. I have no idea why. Pennsylvanian's take their pretzels very seriously.


See?


Here we are eating and drinking again. This is still before my 16 mile run. Smart girl.


Here we are walking through the Italian Market in South Philly on our way to get our cheesesteaks. At least that was after the run.




The Love Statue in JFK Park. The water was blue to honor slain Police Officer Patrick McDonald, who was recently killed.


I love this picture because we used to play Dominos with them for HOURS in Miami.




Like his shirt?


Let's not get too close!!! And you can see now why I am wearing a hat in every other picture. I need a cut in the worst way.




Does anyone else see this? Only in this town do you randomly see Ben Franklin eating lunch somewhere.


City Hall


Spell much?


Here we are in Washington Square at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.




Here we are in the room where they signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in Independence Hall. Look at how much fun J is having with all the touristy stuff.




And last but not least, here we are at one of the cabins in Valley Forge, pretending to rough it old school.


That's all folks. Hope you enjoyed your tour of Philly. I'm sure there will be more to come.

As far as running goes, I didn't get in a workout today unless you count cleaning my house. It's four floors and it took me about 5 hours to lug a vacuum up and down it, so I think it counts for something.

Hope everyone had a good Monday.

Only in Philly

Someone told us when we were moving to Philadelphia that one of the best things about the city is that there is always something going on. He said on any given day you will walk down the street and a random parade will roll by, or a movie will be in production, or there will be an unexpected concert or show. He said no matter what, we would never get bored and that there is always a certain energy to Philly that is contagious.

And he was absolutely right.

I noticed this yesterday more than any other day while J and I ran our 18 mile run around Fairmount Park. In the span of three hours we came across:

• A MILLION other runners enjoying the beautiful fall weather

• Not one, but TWO 5k run/walks that were in progress

• The Schuylkill river full of rowing teams practicing up and down the river

• The Philadelphia International Dragonboat Festival (which looked like A LOT of fun). We actually had friends that were racing in it and tried to find them to say hi (around mile 15 of our run) but decided to keep running.

• A free Bruce Springsteen concert that was being set up in front of the Art Museum on Ben Franklin Parkway to encourage voter registration

Only in Philly. Needless to say, it was a great run.

The best part of it all though, I must say, is the weather. It was one of those amazing fall mornings where the air is crisp and it's clear and the sun filters down through the trees and makes all the colors look more brilliant than they usually do. It was like running in my idea of heaven.

I know most of you must think I am crazy for going on and on about it, but I haven't lived through a true autumn in about 10 years. It's always been my favorite time of the year, ever since I was a child and to have it back now...to have the crisp weather, the beautiful colors, the smokey, spicy smell in the air, the warmer clothes, the crunch of the leaves, the pumpkins...I'm in love.

Plus, it makes training for a marathon sooooooo much easier. Last year when I trained in Miami from June-October, I think my coolest training run was maybe 65 degrees? And that was early morning and it was waaaaay humid.

So far this week these beautiful temps have helped me PR twice on my 7 mile route (1:04:38 and 1:03:02) and helped me run my fastest 18 miler to date (2:59:23 - 9:48 pace). All three runs were great, fun and comfortable enough to make me push myself in the end.

Plus I picked up a great new pair of running capris that I busted out for the 18 miles on Saturday. They were perfect. No more cotton for me! Bring on the cooler weather!!!

Today J and I decided to jump on the bikes for a short recovery ride to loosen up our legs. But once we got out there our 16 mile ride ended up being another ride out to Valley Forge and back. We had a great time. Once again, the weather was perfect and there were a ton of people on the bike path taking advantage of the beautiful Sunday.

Here is a quick shot in VF.


My Sleazy Rider.


All in all, I had a pretty productive week with decent mileage in both running and biking. Now I just need to work on the core strengthening and weightlifting and I'll be set.

Now it's time for Hot Chocolate, the Phillies and the Eagles. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Monday, 9/29 - off
Tuesday, 9/30 - 7 miles/1:04:38 - 9:14 pace
Wednesday, 10/01 - Bike/35 miles
Thursday, 10/02 - 7 miles/1:03:02 - 9:00 pace, core, weights
Friday, 10/03 - off
Saturday, 10/04 - 18.28 miles/2:59:23 - 9:48 pace
Sunday, 10/05 - Bike/31 miles

Total Weekly Mileage: 32.28 (RUN)
Total Weekly Mileage: 66 (BIKE)