Spring Racing...

I haven't blogged much due to all my time being consumed by teaching and coaching. We have 2 weeks left of track season (Regionals & State) and my girls have been awesome this year! I have a great bunch and they have been running so well. My girls' 4x 800 team just took the gold medal at the district meet on Wednesday and I hope to see a lot of PR's this coming week:)

I decided with all this hard training we've been putting in, to do a couple shorter races of my own and see where I'm at. 2 Saturdays ago I ran Pat's Run which benefits the Pat Tillman Foundation. It is a 4.2 mile race that finished on the 42 yard line of Sun Devil Stadium (in honor of Pat's number, 42). I had done it 2 years ago and not only is it a great cause, it is also a HUGE deal out here. Over 19,000 people did the race this year. I had a great race and beat my previous time by 4 minutes. During the run, I looked at my Garmin (trusty GPS running watch) at the 5k point, and realized I had beaten my 5K PR during the 4.2 mile run. The next day I thought, "I need to run a 5k".
I found a small 5k downtown for May 2nd and signed up. I told the guy I coach with, since he was looking for a 5k as well. He told some of our runners who aren't running the Region Meet this week (JV runners) and they signed up as well. We met up this morning and had a great race. The guy I coach with won the whole thing, at about 15:30. Ridiculous. The boys did great too. They all finished in the top 20 and ran great times. I ran a great race and beat my PR by about a minute and 30 seconds. I did not use my watch, which sounds like nothing, but it was kind of a big deal for me. I didn't realize how much I look at it and rely on it to gauge my effort and pace. I ran the race mostly by myself (it was a small race and there were only 2 women in front of me...not really a "pack" to race with). I just tried to run what felt like "hard" to me.
It worked. Our little North Canyon group did well and we got lots of medals :) Onyx has become quite popular with the kids on my team. I bring her to practice whenever I can (which isn't that often, since I usually run the workouts with the kids...) but she comes to all my races with Keeper. She loves being included. She loves making friends with everyone (people and dogs). And she's just so freaking photogenic:)

Fun Visit

Time for some blogging....

Last weekend, Keeper's mom flew out for a 3 day visit. She hadn't been to Phoenix since the first Thanksgiving we were out here (2007) in our other apartment so we were excited to show her the new place. We spent Saturday at the Phoenix Art Museum looking at the Ansel Adams exhibit. Very cool. We went to lunch at Pita Jungle (one of my all-time favorite restaurants out here), relaxed in the afternoon, then went to The Main Ingredient for happy hour. TMI (as Keeper and I like to call it) is a new place that opened up a few miles south of us on 7th street. They have a small menu of great salads, sandwiches and appetizers, and a good selection of beer & wine. The restaurant is a house with really cute outdoor seating. We like the mixed crowd of laid-back people and chilled De La Soul music playing...we've gone the past 2 weekends and haven't been disappointed.
Sunday was spent relaxing. I did a long-ish run, then we went to Old Town Scottsdale for a little site-seeing and a margarita. Monday, I took off work (and Keeper was on break all last week) so we drove up to Sedona with Onyx. We had lunch at a great little place in town with outdoor seating. Then we attempted to drive to a trailhead for a hike. We used our Best Hikes With Dogs, Arizona book but found that the dirt road that led to the trailhead was more than a little washed out after all the winter/early spring rains (despite the hiking book's claims of "easily passable by sedans"). We were supposed to take the dirt road for 5 miles, but after a few minutes of dodging the rocks, we thought better of tearing up the undercarriage of my poor Saturn, parked it and just took a little stroll down the road. I thought the temperatures would be cooler than they were, but it was pretty hot. We were content with a leisurely 2 mile stroll with Onyx and still caught some great views of the red rocks. Onyx and her black fur were glad we didn't push our luck with the hiking.
We had a great visit and wish we saw Keeper's mom more often!!!

Spring Break!

I've been off from school all week (except for track practice most mornings) so Mom & Dad decided to come out this week for their annual visit. The weather was perfect and instead of traveling to other parts of AZ, we decided to take advantage of the Phoenix weather and stay in town. They arrived Monday night and Tuesday morning they came to practice with me and took Onyx hiking in Buffalo Ridge Park (park behind my school, where "Rattler Mountain" is and our home cross country course). Tuesday afternoon we went to a spring training game. We saw the Angels play the Brewers and although the game was pretty uneventful, we got some sunshine and enjoyed the afternoon with Keeper.On Wednesday morning, they came to practice (with Onyx) again. I ran hills, they hiked. We stopped for a 2nd breakfast at Einstein Brothers, dropped Onyx off at home and headed out to Camelback Mountain. We chose to summit the mountain via Cholla Trail. I thought this hike would be a lot easier than it actually was. I'd heard of so many people doing it, it was only about 3 miles round trip... it was TOUGH!!!. The desert was beautiful because of all the rain we've been getting all winter. The trail was tough and then (when we thought we must be getting near the end), Dad and I decided to go the rest of the way alone. Little did we know, we had to rock climb the last quarter of the hike to reach the summit! I'm not usually afraid when I hike, but I was definitely afraid of falling and we were right on the edge. We made it though and took some great pictures. My legs were shot from a hill workout earlier in the day so coming down was definitely a little painful on my quads. We decided a Culver's stop was necessary for some post-hiking milkshakes/root beer floats. Wednesday night, we went out to dinner at Gallo Blanco Cafe for some authentic Mexico City food. It was delicious.Thursday, Mom and I went shopping. We braved the insanity at Nordstrom's Last Chance and although I literally hit the shoe jackpot (I had four pairs in my arms), we saw the line snaking around the whole store to check out and we bailed. I will go back on week night when it's quieter. We just did not have the patience to wait in that line. We went to Marshall's instead and I got a cute dress for my upcoming VEGAS trip!!! Dad took the day to read and lounge with Onyx. We went for a long walk (easy run for me) in the late afternoon up Central Ave. Mom tried her hand (voice, I should say) at Beatles Rock Band. Then Keeper came home and made us burgers for dinner.

I am so glad they came out and visited for a few days...can't wait to fly home and see them again in June!!

It's Pool Season

The past 2 weekends the weather has been warm enough for sunbathing & swimming so Keeper and I ventured out to the condo complex pool. Normally perfectly quiet and empty, it has been VERY crowded on the weekends. I miss the days of being the only one out there during spring break and summer mornings (when everyone else is at work). I've noticed some real chooches coming out of the woodwork...

~greased up guys who definitely are checking EVERYONE out behind their mirrored sunglasses. This isn't Miami fellows, but I've got some killer vericose veins you can drool over.

~old lady who has a raft for herself and... her drink. Yep, a mini-flamingo inflatable beverage holder. She never goes anywhere without her flamingo + drink. This isn't your grandma's vodka tonic...oh wait, yes it is.

~ when lounge chairs are a premium, I would like to give a shout-out to the guy who uses one for his Tshirt and then looks all put out and pissed off when I ask if I can use that chair. Sheesh. Also, the guy who was sitting in a chair and felt the need to use a whole other lounge chair for his FEET. First of all, gross because it's right where other people put their heads, and second of all, really? we have footstools, use one.

~ to the family with the 3 kids who like to run around screaming and pelt everyone with nerf balls: thanks but no thanks. Instead of draping your kid in arm swimmies and screaming at them everytime they go near the edge of the pool "Stop! You can't swim!" how about actually getting in and swimming with them? Or invest in some swimming lessons.

~and to the winners who need to have that cigarette (or 10) out by the pool. Thanks. There's nothing I love more than inhaling second hand smoke to make me feel like I'm truly relaxed. Awesome.

Anyway, the water is great and so is the weather... so despite my rants, I'll be back :)

A weird alarm went off...

and we met some new neighbors! Last night around 9:15 pm a piercing alarm started going off in our apartment. We thought it was the smoke detector (which often goes off when we're cooking for no reason). I was sitting on the couch in my jammies, glass of wine in hand, having just gotten home from a track meet around 8:30pm. Keeper rips the smoke detector off the wall and realizes...it's not coming from the smoke detector. He finds the alarm that's going off from our bedroom. There is nothing we can do to turn it off. The dog was starting to freak out a little bit so Keeper told me to "put some big girl clothes on" and come outside. We evacuated to the courtyard to find everyone else out there too. Apparently alarms were going off in at least 3 of the buildings that make up our complex. No one smelled smoke, no one knew why. The clubhouse and pool had lights flashing and alarms too.

So we waited outside with our neighbors until the alarms stopped and...met some nice people! It's funny how we all live here and don't really interact with each other. Onyx loved all the people and dogs; she thought it was party time! I noticed one guy in jammie pants and a t-shirt with a wine glass...he was doing the same thing I was when the ruckus started! The alarms stopped and we went back inside...never found out what caused them. But we do know some more people here now!

Why do our upstairs neighbors....

continue to leave their bathroom fan on? And why can I hear it in my apartment? How many times a day do they poop up there? And how bad is it smelling if they need the fan on for hours at a time? Their fan was on Saturday night when I came home from the track meet and stayed on until Sunday night (24 hours). This morning it came on before my alarm went off and was on the entire time I was up and getting ready for school. Seriously? I want to say something to them (maybe it's broken and they don't realize how loud it is and that we can hear it through the ceiling) but Keeper doesn't think we should...

So This is Thirty...

On Saturday I hit the big 3-0. I kicked off the weekend by....going to bed at 10pm on Friday night. Yep, this old lady had to rest up for her track practice bright and early Saturday morning. We did a tough interval session that went great. After my chocolate milk and banana with my team, I headed home to hop in the shower. Keeper and I tried a new sandwich place for lunch that is really close to our old apartment. You know a place is good when 2 Fire Departments and some cops start filling the place up for lunch. Yum.

Then Keeper, ever the good sport, went shopping with me so I could find something to wear for my bday celebration. I bought some new jeans at Macy's (despite them NOT being on sale, and NOT being allowed to use my coupons on them...grrr). Then we went home and took a nap :)

We had a few close friends over for wine, beer, and appetizers and then decided to walk to the bar/restaurant across the street. We had fun night (ok, a little too much fun on my part). Oh well; you only turn 30 once, right?