The running prom.

It might seem a bit contrary to my personality, but I have always loved proms. By "prom," I mean events where a group of people with something in common put on fancy clothes and go to a big party. In high school, it was the senior prom. In college, we had Brecon Prom (ask me about that in a less public forum...). In seminary, we had Spring Fling, aka: the Div School prom. Since my seminary graduation, I have been seriously missing an annual occasion to put on a fancy dress and tell my friends they look fabulous. Last year, my friend Jaimee came to my aid by hosting a prom to celebrate her 30th birthday:

The birthday girl and I. Note: this is my actual senior prom dress!

This year, I got to go to the running prom: the Annapolis Striders' annual awards banquet.

As a non-profit worker and perpetual student, fancy dresses and banquets are not usually within my budget. Fortunately, this event came with a perfect justification: my Ironman award! As I mentioned in my year-end wrap up (12/13/10), I completed all 8 races in the 2010 Striders' Champ Series, which earned me an Ironman award, to be presented at the annual banquet. Winning an award for running is not something I ever imagined myself doing, and I have no idea if/when it will happen again, so I was sure as heck going to pick it up!

I had planned to wear my current "weddings and fancy events" dress, pictured below, to the banquet:

I love this dress and I always happy to wear it, but Anthropologie (aka: my greatest temptation) had other plans. Back in the fall, they sent me an email with this dress in it:

As soon as I saw it, I knew we were meant for each other. Still, I resisted for several months. Finally, just a week before the banquet, my resolve cracked. I decided to "just stop in" to the Annapolis Anthro store and try the dress on. Alas, when I arrived, I could not find it. I decided it wasn't meant to be and took a couple other things into the dressing room... where I found the "last ones" rack. There, on the rack, was my dress- the last one in the store- in my size. When I picked it up, the salespeople acted like we were at the SPCA and I was adopting their favorite puppy: "You're buying that dress? We love that dress! We're so excited for you!"

So, Saturday evening, I put on my new favorite dress, went to Mom's house for a quick photo shoot, and then headed to the banquet. During the cocktail hour, everyone played a game of "try to recognize your running friends out of their running clothes," which was really fun. I found Val, and we all sat down for dinner and the awards.

Running buddies!

They announced the Ironman awards first, beginning with the person who has completed the whole Champ Series for the most consecutive years: 25! I was beyond impressed with the 25 year veteran, as well as the handful of others who have won for 15+ years. Think about it: these folks have managed to make it to 8 races, spread throughout the year, in distances ranging from 1 mile to 16.3 miles, for 15 years or more. That takes some amazing fitness and determination. In the end 50 people ran the whole Champ Series this year- the biggest group ever! Once we all had our awards, they assembled us for a group photo, which you can view here. As I walked back to my seat, Val snapped this photo:

Then, they moved on to the big end-of-year awards. At this point, I got really excited, because I knew a secret: Val was a winner! Our running coach Susan nominated her for the annual Phoenix award, which honors a runner who came back from illness or injury. Val could not be more deserving- she ran through battles with obesity and breast cancer, then came back from a major fall in September to finish MCM in October. Naturally, she won. Susan gave me and a few of Val's other running buddies the news a couple months ago, and we all launched a campaign to get her to the banquet. I thought for sure that she knew something was up, but she could not have been more surprised when Susan presented the award:

Watching that presentation was easily the highlight of the evening, and I thought the excitement was over afterward. Then, to my surprise, I got to watch another friend honored: Susan won the award for Volunteer of the Year. Again, the award was very deserved: Susan shows up on Saturdays 2/3 of the year to coach both half-marathon and marathon training, she runs the Junior Striders program, and she probably does a million other things I don't even know about. Oh- and she happens to have a family and a full-time job. I was so happy to see her get recognized for all of her hard work!

At the end of the night, I headed home to hang up my new "weddings and fancy events" dress and display my award:

All in all, the running prom was a great reward for a year of hard work. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Quick updates.

The big news of the past few days is the Annapolis Striders' annual awards banquet, which happened last night. I'm going to give that its own post. Before I do, though, here are some updates on other things:

-My neck: I spent most of Tuesday experimenting with various neck pain remedies, including ibuprofen, ice, a prescription gel for tendinitis, and my beloved IcyHot. In the end, the most effective thing turned out to be this Ironman Muscle Rub Gel. I had a sample from a race goodie bag (either Baltimore Half or MCM) and it was surprisingly effective (even better than the prescription stuff!). By Wednesday, the neck was feeling much better, but I still skipped Group Power because I didn't want to risk straining it further. By Thursday, it felt pretty normal again, though it definitely hurt a bit after Boot Camp and after I did an 11-mile run Saturday morning. So, I'm going to take it a bit easy on the weights this week just in case.

-Weight Watchers: I seem to be on a bit of a plateau. I weighed in four times in February, and the weights were as follows: 151, 151.5, 151, and 151. So, the good news is that I'm not gaining, but I clearly need to step things up a bit if I want to get out of the 150's anytime soon.

-MCM 2011: This week, I had to decide whether or not to register for the Marine Corps Marathon in 2011. After much agonizing, I decided against it. Two major factors played into my decision. First, I am in the lottery for the NYC marathon. Its a longshot, but if I get into that, I would have to defer MCM. With my very tight budget, I did not want to put out the nearly $100 for registration and take that gamble. Second, I am hoping that I will be able to save enough money to visit my former roommate Katie in Hawaii this December and run the Honolulu Marathon. So, I would rather my $100 go toward that goal. If neither of those things work out, I will just focus on my tri training this year and plan to do my second marathon in 2012.

-Contacts: Speaking of tri training, I am continuing in my quest to assemble everything I need to do Irongirl in August. Thus far, I have my registration, a couple books on training, a helmet, bike shoes, goggles, a swim cap, ear plugs, and registration for a local tri training group. This week, I added contact lenses to that list. I had a choice between contacts and a combo of prescription goggles and prescription sunglasses. The contacts seemed like the simpler and more economical option. Everything is relative though. While they may be simpler, they are certainly not simple, and while they may be more economical, they are certainly not cheap. This past week, I  had an initial eye exam and fitting, and then I went back a few days later to get the first pair and learn how to use them. The second visit was challenging. I have never liked anything touching my eyes, and that aversion got a whole lot stronger back in '00 when I had to have stitches on my left eye (see my 12/30/10 post). Thus, I had a terrible time getting the lenses in and an even worse time getting them out. What should have been a 1-hour visit stretched to over 2 and I needed a beer afterward (I think the doctor did too). Finally, though, I got sent home to practice on my own. It has not been easy, but it is getting easier.

Okay, I think that's everything leading up to the banquet. I will post about that soon, but first I have to put my contacts in and go celebrate my brother's 40th (!) birthday!

Choose your pun.

There are two options to cover the past few days:

1) Blowin' in the Wind: That about sums up this past Saturday's 12-mile run with the Striders' half-marathon training group. In case you were wondering what its like to run into 50mph winds, the answer is hard and a little frustrating. On the flipside, running with 50mph winds at your back is easy, but a little scary. I was actually worried about being blown over once or twice. Pretty amazing. This run was also challenging because I had not done a long run in a couple weeks. I was very grateful for Sunday afternoon's yoga class, which stretched my legs back to normal after a day and a half of tightness.

2) Pain in the Neck: This morning, I either pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve in my neck. At this point, you are probably expecting me to say that I did this while lifting weights, doing yoga, or engaged in some other strenuous activity. Sadly, that is not the case. I did it... washing my hair. That's right. I was shampooing my hair this morning when I apparently pushed my neck too far in the wrong direction and experienced some kind of pop/snap followed by intense pain. Thanks to my marathon training experience, I own a pharmacy's worth of prescription and non-prescription remedies for muscle problems, so I've been experimenting with them all day. Thus far, Advil + topical gel the doctor gave me for tendonitis + ice= some relief. It definitely feels better than it did this morning. Still, I don't know what my prospects are for the rest of the week's planned activities. Boo.  

So, I'm headed home now to apply some more ice and engage in activities that do not involve looking to the left. Shampoo carefully, friends!

Adventures in Narcissism.

Greetings, readers! As you may be able to tell from my lack of posts, I had another big paper due this week. I've had little time for anything else, but I did take advantage of the 10 minutes it takes my ultra-slow printer to spit out 10+ pages in order to hunt for some old photos. My mission: find pictures of myself with long hair and/or without glasses.

The reason? I have had glasses since 3rd grade and some variation of the haircut seen below since winter '08:

I really like having short hair- probably because my mother never let me cut my hair short when I was kid:

This is ca. 1983, I think. My mother owes my sister an apology for that outfit.

However, as those of you with shorter hair know, the downside is maintenance. If your hair grows as fast as mine, you really need to get it cut every 6-8 weeks, or you enter the dreaded Awkward Growing-Out Phase (AGOP). I've awlays been pretty diligent about it.

Then, as you may recall, I decided to run a marathon. As it got closer and closer, every other aspect of my life got more and more negelcted. This included haircuts. I was so focused on the marathon that I totally failed to realize my hair had grown out until I saw this finish-line photo:

When I saw this, I realized that I had not only reached AGOP, I had almost surpassed it. I figured I might as well let it keep growing and see what happens. At this point, my hair is rapidly approaching the longest its been since my last serious growing-out experiment, which took place in 1999:

 I kind of liked this haircut, but I got sick of spending 10+ minutes blowdrying every morning. I had it cut back to chin-length very shortly after this picture was taken. I suspect that the same thing will happen with this growing-out experiment, but we'll see.

As rarely as I have been seen with long hair in the past 15 or so years, I have almost never been seen without glasses. Like I said, I got glasses for the first time in 3rd grade, and I've never minded them. I experimented with contacts once in '00 or '01, but I wore them for such a brief time that I can't even find any representative pictures. Ultimately, I didn't like the time they added to my morning routine (see blowdrying, above) and, since I don't mind wearing glasses, I ditched them.

Then, I decided to do a triathlon. As I've mentioned over the past few weeks, I am working on my swimming and I'm going to start biking outside in the spring. Doing these things with glasses is a real problem. At the pool, I can't see anything at all. On the bike, I can't wear sunglasses because my only prescription pair won't stay on my face. So, I decided that its time to try contacts again. I have an appointment Monday. I may even consider laser surgery, something I swore I would never do.

This all makes me a little nervous. I am so used to seeing myself with glasses that I don't really like how I look without them. Thus, the hunt for pictures to ease my fear. After going through several boxes, I finally came across this:



This is one of my senior portaits, taken in 1996. It never appeared in the yearbook; I chose one with my glasses for that. I only got this one to appease my mother and grandmother, who begged for a glasses-free shot. This particular moment in '96 was also a time when I was in the midst of another short-lived experiment with long hair (no pun intended).

I really did not like this picture at the time, but now I don't think its half bad. Good thing, because I may look like this again in a few months. Time to pull out the prom dress again...

17 seconds and 1.6 pounds.

This week, I came within a hair's breadth of two milestones:

1) Weighing under 150 pounds. Thanks to my long relationship with Weight Watchers online, I can tell you that the last time I weighed in under 150 was in November 2008. I started the new Weight Watchers this past November at 158.5, and I am now at 151.5. So, I am really trying to be diligent this week. Seeing a 14_ on the scale would be pretty phenomenal way to celebrate Valentine's Day!

2) Finishing a 5K in under 30 minutes. My brief racing career started with a Valentine's Day 5K in 2007. I finished that one in 34:15. Since then, I have done four others, with a previous PR of 30:22. Today, at the Annapolis Striders' Valentine's Day 5K, I really thought I would see the 29:59 I've been longing for. Unfortunately, I positioned myself way too far back at the start and spent probably the first half of the race weaving around people. At mile 2, I really kicked it into high gear- so much so that I was worried about throwing up at the finish! Ultimately, I crossed the finish line (without puking) at 30:16. So, a PR, but 17 seconds short of my goal. Next time!

Now, my two goals are having a little conflict. Given the fact that I've been doing 8-10 mile long runs for several weeks in preparation for a March half-marathon, I did not think that a mere 5K could leave me tired and starving. Boy, was I wrong! I have been either eating or dreaming of food ever since I got home from the race at 11:30. Around 1, my good friend Pat called and asked if I would like to watch a movie and eat chocolate cake tonight. It was like a phone call straight from my soul. So, I am currently baking a (homemade) chicken pot pie and waiting for the arrival of my friend and the cake. I will do my best to enjoy both in moderation.

Speaking of chicken pot pie, are you watching Top Chef All-Stars? This week's episode was (in my humble opinion) one of the most entertaining Top Chef episodes ever, and my favorite chef Carla Hall won with her own chicken pot pie. I loved Carla when she was on Top Chef New York, and my fandom increased exponentially when I learned that she is friends with two of my very favorite relatives- my uncle Joe and his fabulous wife Michele. Michele has told me that she is every bit as quirky, funny, and nice as she appears on TV. Joe has bragged that he cooked her crab soup and she asked for seconds. This season, I have enjoyed sending Michele emails and text messages the morning after each episode telling her how well Carla is doing. I am very much looking forward to sending the message saying that she's in the finale!

(Ideally, I will do that weighing 149 pounds, the morning after a 29-minute 5K.)

Attention single people:

From http://garfieldminusgarfield.net, a strong contender for the funniest website ever.

We are approaching that certain day of the year where many of us fall prey to feeling bad about our single-ness. If this applies to you, take a few minutes and reflect on some words of wisdom from a comedian I heard on my drive home today. I didn't catch his name, but here is a rough approximation of what he said:

"Love is powerful. Love will make you move all the way across the country... just to get away from someone! I think we all have our relationship Vietnams. You know, the relationships that still wake you up in the middle of the night: 'Oh, thank God! For a minute, I thought I was back there! It felt so real!'"

I would not usually repeat a PTSD joke, but I'm making an exception here because I relate to this so much. I have absolutely had dreams where I flashed back to some ridiculous, crazy-making fight with an ex. For example, the ex who got mad at me when I asked him to go to a costume party because costume parties are immature and an insult to his dignity. Or, the ex who accused me of only pretending to have fun when I joined him at a sports event (for the record, I did have fun). I am not always happy about being single, but I always awake from those nightmares feeling blissfully free and unencumbered. Whatever happens, at least I'll never have those fights again.

Its a simple matter of perspective. Being single has its downsides, but I know it could be so much worse. If you are feeling bad about being single, try to make this work for you. Think about the stupidest, most persistent fight you ever had in a previous relationship. Really try to remember how frustrated, angry, sad, or crazy it made you feel. Now, think about being single. Which is worse? Personally, I think that being in the wrong relationship is like climbing up a hill with a backpack full of bricks. It just weighs you down. When you shed the backpack, you're still walking uphill, but its a whole lot easier. 

Happy almost-Valentine's Day to all of my friends, single and otherwise!

Dinner is at my place.

I went to spin class tonight with my favorite instructor, Kathie. Kathie teaches high school PE and somehow she still manages to be full of energy every evening. Her classes are always very fun and very hard. Tonight, though, she was out of control. The class got intense within the first song. By 15 minutes in, I wasn't sure I was going to make it. That's when Kathie mentioned that she had missed the Group Power class she usually takes before she teaches spin. Apparently, she got held up making dinner, so she was running late. Clearly, she needs that GP class to work off some energy.

Next week, I think I'll volunteer to make dinner. When Kathie takes extra time to make dinner, I almost lose mine!

No yoga= swim lessons?

This evening, I was planning to break my personal rule of never paying extra for anything at my already-pricey gym. I enrolled in a 6-week, small-group "yoga for runners" class that was scheduled to start tonight. I was definitely looking forward to some extra stretching and personalized help correcting all of the things I know I do wrong when I take the larger yoga classes. Then, a few minutes ago, I got a phone call: the yoga class is under-enrolled, and therefore cancelled. That's too bad, but the upshot is that I got my money back: $90, which is almost enough for some swim lessons.

So, its back to Monday-night treadmill runs during "The Bachelor." See you at 8, Brad!

Sympathy exhaustion.

Earlier this week, I learned that my niece Summer (seen above, with my Dad) has had a rough couple of weeks. First, she got hit by a deer while driving the car she just bought herself (literally, the deer hit her). Then, she had to go to the hospital with one health problem and, while there, found out she has mono!

I had mono myself for about 6 months when I was a junior in college. My main symptom was exhaustion. I probably slept 20 hours a day during the first couple of months. My roommate thought I was dying. The college doctors, who were often a bit incompetent, could not figure out what I had and told me it was psychosomatic. Being me, I just tried to go to school and work as if nothing was wrong. Summer is a lot like me, so I hear she's taking a similar approach.

Since I found out Summer has mono, I seem to have develeoped some kind of "sympathy exhaustion." All week, I've skipped workouts (including ones I like) just to get more sleep. I even skipped my long run this morning. I'm guessing that this is also related to my gung-ho attitude last month and to the huge amount of work I had due this week (see previous post). Still, I like to think that I'm just being a good aunt and setting an example for Summer- get some rest, kid!

On the subject of sympathy, I heard that Summer was very concerned for the well-being of the deer that hit her car. So, I told her I would share my own story of being hit by a deer:

From 2002-2004, I worked as a home-based counselor on the Eastern Shore. I drove, at all hours, down many rural roads filled with deer. I saw them all the time and I was always worried about hitting one. It didn't actually happen until one of my last weeks of work in '04. I was driving home from a family's house at night, when several deer ran out into the road. One of them was coming straight for me. I swerved to miss him, but he changed directions and jumped right into my car. He kind of bounced off and ran off across a field, clearly injured. I pulled over, tried to calm down, and checked myself and the car. Both fine. Still, I was worried about the deer. I knew he was hurt, but probably still alive.

For a few minutes, I actually considered walking across the massive field into the woods and looking for the deer. Then, I realized that (a) an injured deer might not be happy to see me, and (b) even if I found it, I had no way of getting it back to the car to take it somewhere. I remembered a Humane Society office nearby, so I called 411 and got the number. I called and got an answering machine saying they were closed, and people with after-hours emergencies should call the police. So I did. The conversation went something like this:

Police: Queen Anne's County Sheriff's Office, how can I help you?

Alicia: (in heavy-breathing, panic voice) I just hit a deer and I think its hurt!

Police: M'am, are you hurt?

Alicia: I'm fine and my car is fine, but I think this deer is injured.

Police: Are you sure you're okay? Do you need us to come help you?

Alicia: I'm fine, but the deer ran out into the woods and I think its hurt. Someone needs to come look for it. I called the Humane Society and they said to call you.

Police: And you're sure you don't need any help?

Alicia: I'm fine, I just need someone to come look for this deer. Will you come and look for it?

Police: Okay, we'll come look for the deer. You get home safely.

I'm pretty sure I heard him laughing as I hung up the phone.

I drove home, and it wasn't until I got there that I realized police probably don't run off into the woods looking for injured deer. So, the police officer was probably lying, but I actually appreciated the gesture. Without that reassurance, this would probably be a blog post about how I broke my leg running off into the woods at night trying to save a deer.

Get well soon, Summer!

January fatigue.

Greetings from the increasingly desperation-filled land of paper-writing! I have a whole lot due in two days, which has left little time for blogging. It has not, however, cut into my gym time, which I realized when I looked at my January calendar.

As I've mentioned before, I don't keep a lot of statistics about my workouts. I keep a database with basic info from my races, I track my mileage using a combo of Nike+ and DailyMile (which generates the little mileage ticker you see to the right), and I write some notes on my wall calendar every day. Very basic notes: just a checkmark indicating that I exercised, and then something like "run, 6mi, 1:15," or "swimming, 30 mins." I add up the checkmarks every month and it usually ends up showing that I exercised about 5 times per week.

Not this month, though! This month, there are 26 checkmarks for 31 days, and many of those days include two different workouts. Weights in the morning, run in the evening; run in the morning, yoga in the evening- you get the idea. This is more exercise than I did at the height of marathon training. There are two reasons for this: First, I'm in the middle of Striders' half-marathon training 2011 and I'm trying to be more diligent about doing weekday runs in order to improve over last year's time. Second, I added the yoga and the swimming this month without subtracting anything.

I think this is a taste of what serious tri-training will be like, and it is both fun and exhausting. Adding the new activities has really boosted my motivation this month- maybe too much. Last night, I got home around 6, ate dinner, and then sat down to rest for a few minutes before heading to the gym for my weekly "Bachelor" viewing on the treadmill. Somewhere around 6:30pm, I fell asleep. At 8am, I woke up. That's right- I slept for 13 1/2 hours!  Perhaps a sign that I should take it a little easier in February...