Liebster

A while back Elle gave me the Liebster award. Liebster is a German word, which means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome. What an honor! 

The rules are that each person must post 11 things about themselves, then answer the questions the tagger sent for them, plus create 11 questions for the people they’ve tagged to answer. You are supposed to tag people afterward. 

First, here are my 11 things. 

1. I don't think there is a fruit I don't like. If you were to ask my what my least favorite is, I would probably say pomegranate, but not because I don't like the flavor; I just don't like all the little seeds. They are weird. 

2. Speaking of fruit, currently in my house we have no less the 12 different kinds. Strawberry, blueberry, plum, pluot, watermelon, apple, orange, peach, nectarine, fig, cherry, lemon and grape. I love summer.

3. Regarding what I just said, I will be happy that summer is over because then my friends and I will have more time to hang out. Summer is always so busy with weddings and birthdays and family obligations. I usually spend more time with friends in Spring and Fall. Hurray for Fall.

4. I have never been kite surfing, but would like to try it.

5. I have hiked to the top of Mt. Whitney and Mt. Shasta. Shasta is lower, but was more difficult. 

The summit of Mt. Shasta -- 14,179 ft --  June 2009

6. I have never been to Montana. Or Idaho. Both are on my list! I drove through Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, but would like to go back and see more of them too!

7. In order to travel everywhere on my list, I need someone to donate a million dollars to my cause. Any takers?

8. I like cats more than I like dogs. However, the hair from either really turns me off. I hate hair.

9. I am a neat freak. I have to make my bed every day, no matter what. I also don't like leaving any dishes in the sink. Coming home to a clean house is so welcoming to me. (see: above comments about hair)

10. I dislike it when people are late and/or flakey. I find it disrespectful.

11. I would rather text, write a letter or email than talk on the phone.

Here are the questions Elle asked us: 

1.  What is your favorite season?  Why? My favorite season is probably Fall. Although it's a margin of .000002 from the other three. I love them all. Why? Fall is crisp and it has that certain smell to the air. Winter is Christmas and family and silent snowy days. Spring is green and new and crisp and bright. Summer is long warm days and friends and outdoors and water and sun!

2.  What is the most exotic place you have visited? I am not sure what "exotic" means, but I think Southeast Asia is pretty cool. I love all the old architecture in Thailand and Indonesia and Malaysia. It's so different from ours. There are other places that are nice but I wouldn't call them "exotic".

3.  Do you have pets?  What kind? Oops, I guess I kind of answered this one above. No. The hair, remember?

4.  What is your favorite way to unwind? If I am stressed, I usually go for a run or bake. If I just feel like relaxing, I read or water the garden or stare at the tomatoes to see how much bigger they have gotten since yesterday. 

5.  Do you have any food issues?  Special dietary needs? No, thank goodness. 

6.  Favorite snack? I usually snack on fruit (see number 2 in the first list), but if I am feeling like something naughty, it's probably going to be cheez-its. Or those nachos from the ball park with the grossly delicious fake cheese.

7.  Favorite flowers? Anything colorful!

8.  Have you ever met any other bloggers? Yes. I have met several and they have all been great!

9.  Do your real life friends and family members read your blog?  Do they know about it? Yes. They don't comment though. They are all lurkers.

10.  How do you celebrate your birthday? I don't really do a huge thing. It's usually right around Mother's Day, so we do a duel get together for that. This year my brother took me out to one of my favorite San Francisco restaurants! 

San Francisco pre-dinner birthday walk

 
11.   What motivates you to exercise and eat well?  Vanity?  Health?  Performance? ALL of the above. 

Well, I am not going to tag anyone, but why don't you answer one (or all) of these questions in the comments (unless you want to post it on your blog; that works too!) 

1. What special talent do you have? 

2. What was your most embarrassing moment? 

3. If you could eat one thing, anything, right now without having to make it or pay for it or suffer calorie consequences or indigestion, what would it be?  

4. Which is your favorite Bob: the builder, the happy painter, or Barker?

5. What is your favorite and why: lake, river, ocean, stream? 

6. How do you feel about earrings on men? 

7. If you could alter one body part, what would it be? 

8. If you met the Dalai Lama, what would you say to him?  

9. Would you rather be able to breathe under water or to fly? 

10. How do you take your coffee? 

11. Name a hero in your life and tell me why they are your hero. 

Have a great week!

Mary Katrantzou Illustration Competition

UPDATE: I MADE TOP 10 VOTED BY YOU!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for showing your support. I'm unbelievably touched and grateful for all the reposts on facebook and words of encouragement.

To check out the TOP 10 VOTED BY YOU click here!!

Hello Loves,

I hope you had a fabulous weekend!! I finally managed to illustrate my submission for the Mary Katrantzou Illustration Competition. Only one day shy of the competition deadline (I work best under pressure ;). The entries thus far have been absolutely mind blowing. Check them out for yourself here on their facebook page and wish me luck!!

Much love,
Meag xx

Skyline 50k

Last year if you would have said that I would run a 50 kilometer race (EVER!) I would have laughed in your face. One year ago at this time, my longest run for the year was 9 miles and my longest run/race of all time was a half marathon. I had no idea how far (literally) I would come since then.

These feet haven't failed me yet. But I sure do run them to the ground.

So, how was it, you ask? Overall, in a word, I would say: good. I got to the site around 6:30 for a 7:00 start. The race director was very involved and cheerful and his wife and daughter were there, helping out (wearing a fashionable North Face sleeping bag -- I hear it's all the rage). The weather was about 50 degrees and overcast (typical Bay Area foggy morning), which was perfect for racing.

For my own memories, I am going to recap some of my gear as well. I wore my water belt with three bottles (2 with H2O; one with Nuun). I accidentally forgot the holster for the fourth one, but I would have worn four. I wore a hat, no sunglasses, a wrist band and my regular old Nike tempo shorts. I wore my "I survived 26.2 shirt" from the CIM. I also wore my old Asics, which have about 700 miles on them (and plenty of dirt). I carried two apple packets, a chocolate gu and a packet of Honey Stinger chews.

Now for the good stuff. I have to admit, much of the race was in a haze. I remember a lot of chugging along, some of it with other people, some of it alone. I remember the aid stations, because they have food!

The start went well. The first mile or two was on a paved loop around the lake (remember the Big Bass? Same lake!) After we went over the dam, we took a sharp right and headed uphill. One of many hills. Here is the elevation chart.

I felt good though. In fact, often during really hilly trail races, I walk up a lot of the hills, but for a while this time, I took them at a slow jog.

Mile 1: 8:03 -- Mile 2: 8:03  -- Mile 3: 8:41 -- Mile 4: 9:53 (350 ft ascent) -- Mile 5: 8:10 -- Mile 6: 8:39

There were a couple people I was pacing with at this point. One girl in a sport bra and a skort, a guy in a quicksilver running club shirt and a girl with a neon yellow shirt and a Solomon hydration pack. Again, like my last trail race, I would beat them on the uphills and they would pass me on the downhills. I guess I am more like a dump truck than a Ferrari. The next 6 miles were a little bit slower and a little bit more uphill than the last 6, as you can see from the chart. Also, at the hour mark (around mile 7) there was an aid station, and I stopped for a minute and had a couple of snacks. I was not super hungry, but I had a piece of banana and a chomp of some sort, as well as a swig of coke and then I refilled my water and was on my way. I had my first applesauce around the 1.5 hour mark.

Mile 7: 10:56 -- Mile 8: 8:58 -- Mile 9: 7:56 (455 ft descent) -- Mile 10: 10:13 (550 ft ascent) -- Mile 11: 12:24 (542 ft ascent) -- Mile 12: 9:32

At mile 14, there was THE Aid station, the Skyline aid station. I had predicted a total time for this race of about 6 hours. That would put me into Skyline around the 3 hour mark. My Dad was possibly going to try and catch me at one of the aid stations before meeting me at the end, so we had done some estimates and three hours seemed reasonable. I got to Skyline at 9:00, two hours after I had started! I ate some wonderful, gorgeous watermelon, got a water refill and a potato with salt and chugged two Gatorade type drinks.  I glanced around for Dad, chugged another coke and carried on. The guy right in front of me chugged his coke and then let out the largest burp I have heard, scaring an old couple and their dogs.

Mile 13: 9:27 -- Mile 14: 10:36 -- Mile 15: 10:03 -- Mile 16: 12:43 -- Mile 17: 11:31 -- Mile 18: 11:25

I am actually surprised that those miles were not faster, as they were a pretty good mix of downhill and up, with no huge hills that I can remember. But, like I said, this is where things get fuzzy. What I do remember? Looking at my Garmin right around mile 15. The thing is, I had set my Garmin onto metric to do the Run with Jess virtual Olympics (100 m etc) and I never set it back, so it was still on metric. So. Right around the 22 km mark, I started looking at my watch a lot. The problem with km is there are so many of them! Thinking, "I still have 30 km left" is A LOT worse than thinking, "I only have 18 miles left". To make it worse, my brain doesn't do math well when running and I kept getting confused about how long I really had left.

Mile 19: 10:25 -- Mile 20: 10:40 -- Mile 21: 10:21 -- Mile 22: 9:55 -- Mile 23: 8:59 -- Mile 24: 9:38

Needless to say, the km or miles or whatever they were, went pretty slow after about the 30k mark. This is also when my feet started hurting. First it was the ball. Then it was a blister on the sideways toe. Then my knees started to ache. I was hoping for more uphills and less downhills. Yes, I said LESS downhills. Downhill caused my soles to ache and my knees to throb. I was not in bad shape soreness wise; my energy levels were pretty good. I did eat my Gu somewhere around mile 25 maybe. Every time I looked at it, I was hoping that my Garmin had gotten messed up since we were going through so many trees and that it was 5 or 6 or 8 miles off and really I was almost there. Then I asked the bean counters and they said cheerfully, "ONLY 6 more miles!" Only? Grumble, grumble.

Mile 25: 11:16 -- Mile 26: 13:01 -- Mile 27: 13:04 -- Mile 28: 10:05 -- Mile 29: 9:49 -- Mile 30: 9:13 -- Mile 31: 8:19 (this is when Dean passed me )

There was one last aid station around mile 28. I got to it, stopped, got a water refill, ate some cantaloupe, got made fun of for wearing a marathon shirt, downed a coke and a Gatorade and asked how much farther I had (because at this point, I could not read miles or km or barely articulate anything for that matter). They said, "three easy miles, down this hill (ug) and on a rolling loop around the rest of the lake (rolling!? I almost cried)."

source

The last three miles were hot and dusty and everyone who was going the opposite way kept saying, "you are almost there".  I know they meant well but I my feet were crying, "let me out!" I had to go to the bathroom but there was a woman right behind me and gosh darn it, I was NOT going to let her pass me. And then Dean passed me. And then I crossed the finish line. And I was still alive. It was a miracle.

Total Time: 5:09:51 (10:21/mi average)
Overall: 46/213
Gender Group: 8/83
Rookie Prize: 1st place!
Total Ascent according to Garmin: 10,000 ft

After that I ate about 2000 calories in meat products (while the sports bra girl sat next to me and had a salad) and beer. In about 6.5 minutes. I can eat 3000 calories A LOT faster than I can burn them!

The verdict? I wore the wrong shoes. I shouldn't have worn my old, worn out shoes. I felt good except for my feet. I could have kept going if not for the blisters and rubbing and discomfort. I also had a way slower second half than first half, so I probably went out a bit too fast.

FYI: The winner of this race did it in 3:32:05. The oldest person to complete it was 77 and he did it in 6:32. The largest age group by far was the 40-49 group.

Are you where you thought you would be (in fitness or in life) at this time last year? If you had 3000 guilt free calories, what would you eat?

Don't forget to stop by Jills for other Fitness related goodness.

Pass or Fail

I don't know about you, but when I am running a long run, I can't think very well. Sometimes I decide to do a loop when I am in the middle of the run, but my addition skills are lacking, and I end up running way less or way more than I anticipated. Sometimes I get lost when I am running on trails.

And sometimes, cool things happen to me and I don't even realize it.

At mile 30 during the race on Sunday, I heard a runner coming up behind me and I glanced back to see a tan, fit man coming up pretty fast behind me. As he passed me, I said, "good job", as we do when we are being passed at the end of a long race. I could barely muster a "good job"; I definitely couldn't pass anyone at that point! He said something to me about the walkers (we were in a park on a paved loop around a lake at this point) being in his way. As I ran behind him, over the thoughts of how much my blisters were hurting and how glad I would be to be done, I remember thinking, "that guy has some KILLER calf muscles". I kind of watched his tan, muscular legs as he quickly ran away from me. 

That was the end of that. He looked like every other runner. Shorts, check. Hat, check. Glasses, shoes, shirt. Muscular legs, skinny frame. Check, check, check.

Yesterday the results were posted, as well as some photos on the Facebook group for this race. Guess who beat me by 49 seconds? Guessssss! Come on; I will wait.

....

....

If you guessed Oprah, you were wrong. She only runs marathons. Plus, I am faster than her!

If you guessed Scott Jurek, you were wrong also. But that would have been cool.

And you wouldn't have been off by much.

In case you don't know who Dean Karnazes is, he ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, is a famous ultra runner and wrote a few books about running. He also hails from the Bay Area, but I have never seen him around. So I am a little star struck!

Have you ever met a celebrity (and yes, being passed by one counts!)? If you could meet one (living) famous person, who would it be? What would you say to them?

Tuesday Training (6)

I thought I would start off today's post with some jokes. I did not think of these myself, although I may add some to the list. They came from the website run100s.com, which is a great resource if you are ever thinking about doing an ultra. Some of you can probably relate to these! I know I can.

You might be an ultra runner if (sung to the tune of "you might be a redneck"):

- You wonder why they don't make all running socks a dusty brown color.

My feet after the Ultra

- You postpone your wedding because it will interfere with your training. (I thought of Amber on this one; she did not postpone her wedding, but she DID train for a marathon and plan a wedding at the same time!)

- You don't recognize your friends with their regular clothes on. (or this one should be that MY friends don't recognize ME!)

 the party dress that got all the comments

- 6am is sleeping in

- You're tempted to look for a bush when there's a long line for the public restroom

- Your ideal way to celebrate your birthday is to run at least your age in miles (almost did it!).

- You can recite the protein grams of each energy bar by heart

- You know the location of every 7-11, restroom, and water fountain within a 25-mile radius of your house.

- You rotate your running shoes more often than you rotate your tires.

- You walk up the stairs and run down them.

You can find more here. And now, I want to specifically comment on a couple of them:

- Your crew tries to keep you motivated by saying, "You're in second place and only 6 hours behind first with 25 miles to go!"

This kind of happened to me on Sunday. I was told I was the 5th girl and the girl in front of me was ONLY 10 minutes ahead. I thought the guy was joking. Now I am not so sure. 

- The start of a marathon feels like a 5K and you're wondering "Why is everyone in such a rush? Where the ##@@**!! is the fire?"

I found this one funny for two reasons. (1) I have a marathon in two weeks and I only hope it feels like a 5k. I doubt it will, although I did try to do the ultra first, so it would seem "shorter", and (2) It's kind of true in regards to pace. I can only imagine, since my 50k (which is the shortest of the ultras) was done at a pretty easy pace compared to marathon pace. I bet those 100 mile runs are pretty "slow and easy wins the race" kind of attitude.

An actual recap of the ultra will be up later in the week. For now, here's the low down on this week's training.

Week 1 - 4
Week 5 - 8
Week 9 - 11
Week 12 - 13
Week 14 - 15

Week 16:

Monday: Rest / 6 mile walk
Tuesday: 4.5 miles @ 8:47 pace / 5 mile walk
Wednesday: Rest / 3 mile walk
Thursday: 10 miles @ 8:13 pace / 2 mile walk
Friday: Rest/ 2 mile walk
Saturday: Rest / 2 mile walk
Sunday: 31 miles @ an undisclosed pace :) (you have to wait for the recap!)

I have been walking every day, both on running days and rest days. This week was a little strange, as I only ran 3 days, because I wasn't sure about how much rest I should have before the ultra and I was pretty tired most of the week, so I decided not to overdo it. I walked instead, to keep some miles, but to take it easy a little. I am glad I did, because I am not really sore today! I may even go for a run this evening!

Total Miles: 45
Miles This Cycle: 648

According to RunningAhead, those miles were completed in 102 hours, giving me an approximate average pace per mile of 9:22. This week I have a pretty easy taper week ahead of me and then next week, it's "Take It Easy" time and then...marathon weekend!

Do you do a lot of walking? Do you have any "you might be a runner / ultra runner / marathon runner if..." jokes? Do your friend's recognize you if you wear a dress (or slacks if you are a boy)?

Shoot the Breeze

I went to a friend's house last weekend for her daughter's 2nd birthday party. The good thing about 2nd birthdays is that the kid doesn't care if there are other kids there or if it's just an excuse for all of Mom and Dad's friends to get together at a party with a Mickey Mouse theme and eat cupcakes and shoot the breeze. My friend's parents and her husband's parents were also there. We had a great time hanging out and I even wore a dress, just for fun. I am normally a pants wearer; I have an aversion to my own knees. So this was a big deal.

Here are some of the conversations that were floating around. They will be A and I will be Me.

A: You look nice. What's the occasion?
Me: It's 104 degrees in your neck of the woods. (it was 75 in Oakland)
A: I know; that's why I am not wearing a shirt and I am sweating and I am downing beers like it's going out of style.
Me: Oh? That's why? I just thought that was your normal Saturday style.
A: Actually, it is.

A: So you have a race tomorrow?
Me: Yep
A: How far is it?
Me: 50k
A: (quizzical look on face) How far is that?
Me: 31 miles
A: (shocked look on face) 31 Miles? How long will that take?
Me: About 6 hours
A: (incredulous look on face) 6 hours! That's crazy!
(as I secretly agree and start to doubt why the heck I am doing this race)

A: So you must eat really healthy since you run so much
(as I am stuffing my face with my third coconut toasted cupcake in less than 5 minutes in the name of "carb loading")

A: My niece ran a marathon in Hawaii. You should do that one. I am not sure how far her marathon was though. Maybe yours is longer.

On Sunday, I ran the race. All 31 miles of it. I did not die. I will do a recap later. All I can say right now is:

Dear Toilet -- Were you always so low? I think you should be about 2 feet taller so I can stand up and don't have to bend my knees to use you.

Dear Belly -- When are you going to stop crying out for food? You are insatiable.

Dear Feet -- I am deeply sorry. I have abused you greatly. Will you ever forgive me?

How was your weekend? Do you ever have weird conversations (about running or anything else) with your friends' families? Do you have any "dear" questions for anyone today?

New York - London - Paris!!

Hello Again Darlings,

I'm so excited firstly to be posting twice in one weekend, and secondly to be announcing my imminent travels to EUROPE. August 29th I will be zipping off for an extended labor day weekend to visit not one, but two, of my favorite cities in the WHOLE world. London, Paris, London, Paris, oh my where do I even begin?! The vibe, the sweets, the art, the fashion, I'm bursting at the seams with excitement. It's been five years since I was last in Paris and my heart aches thinking of all the things I miss so dearly. Laduree I'm giving you ample warning!!

Before I sign off I would love to ask you, my beautiful readers, what you would like to see more of from my upcoming travels? In the past I've blogged massive postcards but I'm thinking of breaking it up. I want to be able to cover more individual moments, special happenings, amazing street style, cool on site sketches?! What do you all think? Travel is after all at the forefront of my inspiration here on TWD, so why not delve a little deeper into my getaways across the globe?! Let me read your thoughts below...

Bisous Bisous,
Meag