Sunday, October 31, 2010

I'm a Card-Carrying Member of the NTER

I love waking up early to run.

And by "early" I mean 6:30 a.m. Hey, when you are a college student staying up till 1:30 in the morning to work on a statistics project, 6:30 is early.

Today I had a good run. I did 16 on the elliptical at 9:57 pace and did negative splits, meaning that I ran the second half faster than the first. Pretty respectable. Last week I did 12 miles at 9:53 pace.

Why did I do the elliptical machine, you ask? A few reasons:
  1. Time. I still have to finish that Stats project, read a marketing case study, do my finance homework, study econ, and bake blueberry muffins for Bible Study tonight.
  2. Entertainment. You get to see all sorts of crazy people at the gym on a Sunday morning, especially on Halloween. Of course there are those people going to classes who are wearing a crazy wig or witch's hat. But then there are the really scary people - the ones who aren't trying to be. One fairly buff guy in his mid 40's was on the elliptical in front of me. He was doing all sorts of twisting and what looked like tai chi. He set the machine to max incline and then tried to go really, really fast while maintaining an intense expression. I was amazed he didn't fall off. And the get-up he was wearing was pretty hilarious. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't do him justice. There was also another man who was in his 60's - he was wearing a white tank top, what looked like thin pajama shorts, and flip flops. Definitely didn't take a picture of him.
  3. Pride. There's something so exhilarating about spending 3 hours on the elliptical. You're better than everyone there and you know it. Plus, you get the best parking spots when you show up before 7am.
  4. Keeping my NTER membership current. What on earth is NTER? It stands for North Texas Elliptical Runners. In January, my dad will be doing a 100-mile ultra-marathon on the elliptical at 24 Hour Fitness. (The PR campaign starts soon, so be watching for updates!) Now, my dad and I are both members of North Texas Trail Runners (NTTR) and my dad, somewhat jokingly, decided to start his own club when he was forced to run indoors due to back problems. So, I'm just logging my miles to keep my membership current. ; )
I've got two weeks of tapering ahead of me. Going to shoot for less mileage and higher intensity.

P.S. Here is my new favorite video - Things We Say Wrong. It just confirms the fact that I'm also a secret member of the Grammar Police - much to the chagrin of my roommate (who happens to be an English teacher).

Monday, October 18, 2010

International Student Dinner

Two weekends ago, my family had the pleasure of hosting three international students for a dinner at our house. My mom is involved with the International Student Fellowship @ UNT and we had three girls over (from South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan) for some good ole' Texas BBQ and peach cobbler. I think they were most impressed with the brownies & ice cream though!


The girls were so funny because they started taking pictures almost the minute that they walked through our door. I was Asian for the night and held up my peace sign for all the pictures. ; )

After dinner I tried to teach them how to play dominoes, but realized I don't remember how to play! Where are Hannah's grandparents when you need them?? So instead, we set up all the dominoes in cool designs and watched them fall. Lol - Momo kept knocking them over before we were ready, so she was banned from touching the table.

I made new friends. Yay : D

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Running Changes Everything


Running has been interesting lately.

I am slated to run Rockledge three weeks from Saturday. Am I ready? Good question. School has taken it out of me - so many tests, projects, papers, meetings...

Two weeks ago, I had a near meltdown: "I'm failing at life!" "But Katie," my parents asked, "Haven't you made A's on just about everything so far?" "Well, yeah. But I haven't run in a week!" I wailed.

Doing a solid 12-miler last Saturday sure brightened my spirits. I haven't logged anything so far this week, but maybe today. Here's the schedule:

  • 15-16 miles this Sat (weekly mileage: 22)
  • Start to taper next week - increase speed work (weekly mileage: 10-12)
  • Taper more - do more speed work (weekly mileage: 6)
  • Rockledge 30K!

And if school takes over and my world implodes, I can always drop down to the 15K - that's only 9.3 miles. ; )

Guitars


It has been so long since I played my guitar! Going to the Guitar Center for our marketing project today made me think of it. I love music and playing guitar, but after several years and even leading worship for a small youth group, it's embarrassing how poorly I play! Haha - it brings back of Hannah's and my Youth Alive "worship band" - Holy Flame. Oh dear. It was a good day when Hannah didn't fling her pick inside her acoustic guitar and bust up laughing in the middle of worship.

GOOD TIMES!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Life Lately

Things have been so busy and I probably should be doing homework or reading instead of blogging. Such is life.

Last night I went to my first Gateway Pink event (their women's ministry). It was a night of worship w/Kari Jobe and it was absolutely amazing. I went with some ladies and had a wonderful time worshiping the Lord. He is so good!

On Wed, we did a scavenger hunt for OB. My team went to the mall. The highlights:
  • Find 2 ppl in conflict & guess the reason why: We chose what looked like a rich Plano mom and her spoiled daughter arguing outside a Bath & Body Works. The reason for the conflict? It was, in our opinion, bad parenting.
  • Do something creative: Matt did an indoor wake boarding thing for 30 min! A good b-day present.
  • Eat the weirdest food we could find: pickles with salt, chile and lime...nobody wanted a second bite.


In school, I finished midterms and I'm now working on projects. The highlights:
  • Turned in a 67-page Stats project - got an A
  • Submitted a group ratio analysis project on Fluor Corp - got an A!
  • Took the accounting final (8-week course) - grade TBD
  • Took tests in OB (Organizational Behavior), econ and marketing
  • In Prog: Marketing project - Dallas Guitar Lessons. Going to the Guitar Center on Sun to pass out surveys. Oh joy.
  • Start Finance next week - kinda nervous, heard it was challenging. My college finance prof was a new teacher and in his class, a 65 was curved to a B...
There's a lot more, but that's all for now, folks!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

I need calories.


I had a freak-out moment earlier this week. I looked at the calendar on Monday and realized I only had 6 weeks till the Rockledge Rumble. Only 6 weeks till I'm supposed to run 30K (about 19mi) and I'm not trained for it!

So I was motivated to run this week and maybe increased my mileage too much. I did three 4-mile runs, which is respectable. Then yesterday I ran @ GV Lake from MADD to Fargate - roughly 8.5mi. Apparently I didn't fuel enough. I did fine on the run - no problems; I even ran & chatted with fellow NTTR member Fred Thompson for a while. But by the time I got home and showered, I could not stop shaking. I ate really well the rest of the day - high protein, good fats, some carbs - but was still shaky by the time I went to sleep. I was also an emotional wreck. Not good.

Moral of the story - I need calories. Specifically, I need calories at the right time. That is, I need to eat before the run, periodically during the run (i.e. more GUs and Perpetuem), and for recovery after the run.

Oh well, next time...

This is my favorite.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Being Italian

Coffee shops are my weakness.

I don't drink coffee, but I absolutely love going to hang out with people. It's what I like to call "being Italian." When my family went to Italy in 2003, we were so impressed at how the Italians would simply sit outside in the piazzas and people watch for hours. They would talk and laugh, drink coffee, eat a delicious dinner with family and friends, go get ice cream and take a quiet walk - it was amazing to watch. Their pace of life is so much different.

It's like that with coffee shops - everything seems to slow down and become less hectic when you sit and talk over a nice chai tea latte or cup of hot chocolate.

I had one of those evenings at my favorite restaurant (Fadi's) this weekend. My 'sister' Bashorat came into town and took me to the ballet to see Cinderella! We had a few hours between church and the ballet, so we were able to catch up over some wonderful Mediterranean cuisine. The ballet was amazing, by the way! I never knew the story of Cinderella had fairies or dragonflies. lol - and the evil stepsisters were played by men! They made it more like slapstick comedy.

What a good night. : )