Spring Stress

Spring break was anything but a break. My long list of To-Do's was basically about to explode if I didn't get some things done. Unfortunately on the way to checking those items off I was STRESSING big time! But in my defense there was a ton to get done...wedding stuff, job application, and a grad school research paper that was due. All in the same week?!

Wedding stuff was planned and organized throughout the week. Big props to my mom for being so helpful and making all those excel sheets with time lines and due dates. I'm so grateful she decided to spend some of her time off dealing with lots of wedding planning!

Next up was taking all the necessary steps in making sure I have a job for next year! Who wouldn't be stressed? The application for another NCAA grant was due on Friday and my co-workers and I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday plowing through all those lovely questions. I couldn't be more thankful to them for spending their free time to get the application done. Now it's just a waiting game to see if we actually get it : )

Last major thing I got to stress about was my graduate research paper. The first draft was due this Monday. Basically, if I didn't get it done by then there would be a 0% chance of me graduating this semester. Seeing as how I'm ready to be done with my masters degree I figured I should probably get on this stat! 21 pages were sent off Monday night to my professor. For that, I have Jer to thank. He helped look over the paper. Luckily I chose a topic that he has a huge interest in so it wasn't quite as painful for him as it could have been (I think).

I'm a lucky girl to have so many people who are looking out for me. I also lucked out because we only had two games to work throughout the week so I was able to take some time off to get my stuff taken care of.

Double (Triple!?) Race Recap

Saturday, March 5, 8:30AM:

Jer wins Alamo Heights High School Band 10k 40:12. As you might’ve guessed from the time this was not what we would call a “maximal effort”.  Some of Jer’s work friends were doing it and he heard there were gift cards on the line, and Jer is nothing if not a sucker for gift cards.

Gift Card Acquired!

Saturday, March 5, 6:15PM:

I won the Incarnate Word Invitational 800m run in 2:19.56. This was a little over a 3 second PR for me from my freshman year of college. I haven’t raced the event in over 4 years so I was going into unknown territory. I had a blast. Lining up with my Roger Soler singlet that has 13.1 and 26.2 written on the front (because we’re waiting for our official ones to come in) was amusing to me. As soon as the race had started I was already in dead last the first 30meters and immediately started questioning whether entering in the race was the best idea. However I caught up to the group by the 200m mark and found out most of the girls had taken it out in 32 while I was a second behind. I got excited and passed on the curve, I know, a rookie mistake (jer note: that's not that bad of a mistake), and eventually took the lead before the last lap. At this point I was feeling great and was planning my awesome kick for the end, but as soon as I got to the 600m mark I immediately started to feel the lactate burn. I don’t really remember a whole bunch after that except looking behind me a couple of times, again rookie mistake (okay, this one was pretty bad), and just swinging my arms as hard as I could. I ended up winning by two seconds. It was a ton of fun and I look forward to doing more short races this season.

Crazy Arm Swing!

Saturday, March 5, 9:00PM

Jer takes seventh in the Incarnate Word Invite 5000m race. He lined up with roughly 40 other guys for what has become in the last couple of years a consistently good race, both in terms of competition and conditions. The wind had died down by this point and they were left with high 40’s and no humidity, near perfect for racing. The gun went off and Jer settled in at the back of the front back of guys. He looked amazing coming through the first 1600m at 4:50. The front pack started to pick it up and Jer’s group started to string out a little more. He was looking pretty grungy (see below) during the second mile and I started to get a little worried. I tried getting his splits, but trying to take pictures and splits at the same time was not working out so I missed the 2^nd mile. Later I found out his second 1600m was 4:54. All he had was a little over a mile to go and noticed he was starting to catch guys one by one. His grungy look started to fade and a more determined expression came on his face. I was in the dark time wise as I started to make my way over to the finish line. Once I get there I see Jer  passing the guy who had been leading the first half of the race. As soon as he finished I find out he just knocked 10 seconds off his 5000m PR set his senior year of college for a new PR of 15:16.41!

Grungy!

Looking a little more solid

Congratulating Pancho after his massive PR!

Telling these guys how awesome they are!

Back to work slacker!

Saturday March 12, 8:00AM

We both headed over to Houston to race the Bayou City Classic 10k. Unfortunately the overriding factor in both of our days was the fact that we didn't get to Jer's parents' house until after 11pm the night before the race, and then our beloved dogs (again, see picture below) were so excited they felt the need to run around like maniacs +and bark all night. In the end, we both got less than 4 hours of sleep, and felt like crappola when race time rolled around. In the end Jer came out pretty much unaffected, running 32:01 for 5th place and (officially) a 2 minute PR. I had a tougher day, maybe from the lack of sleep and maybe from the lack of leg rubs (ahem, coach!) but I hung in there for 3rd place in 37:08. Obviously not what I was hoping for, but some days you just don't have it, and at least I picked up a little cash. Jer and I have both raced 3 weeks in a row now, so now it's time for a weekend off to recharge the batteries and get geared up for what comes next. 

PR!

Attempting to take a group photo : )

Don't let these puppies fool you, they are true terrors!

3 Months Until I'm a Daum(inator)!

90 days...just 90 days until I'm officially Mrs. Emily Daum. Time has decided to take the fast track apparently. Planning a wedding is definitely a little stressful and at the rate these days are flying by it'll be a miracle if everything gets done. But I'll admit, I haven't been very good about making sure I stay on top of things either. I feel like when I cross one item off of my To-Do List I remember 5 more things. I checked theknot.com website which has a really detailed to-do list and although it was overwhelming it helped me remember some things I had forgotten which were added to my ever so growing list.

Wedding To Do List…

Invitations to the wedding

Invitations to the engagement party

Dress Alterations

Dress Shoes

Wedding Cake

Marrying Man

Wedding Favors

Flower Bouquets

Registry

Book Honeymoon

Plan for the rehearsal lunch

Formal wear for the guys

Update Wedding Website

Wedding night hotel room?

DIY Photobooth

Marriage Contract

Jer’s Ring

Get my rings resized

Guest Book

Music

SlideShow

Food at Reception

Drink list

Ring Bearer/Flower Girl Items

Garter

Jer is trying his best, as always. Since he has a more rigid work schedule he's taken the reigns on planning for our honeymoon! He's really excited and so am I! Here's to hoping time slows down just a little bit.

Race Report: UTSA Diploma Dash

Today, like pretty much any race, had its highs and lows. It seems a little cliche, but let's go with a classic breakdown of pluses and minuses:

Pluses:
1. Both of the peeps I coach (Chass and Emily) won the race.
2. I placed a solid 3rd to two very good local runners, Chass and Jose Munoz, with a pretty solid time (15:47) on a day where not many people were running too fast.
3. Training has been going great, and despite being a little tired going into today's race, I felt like I put out a pretty solid effort.

Minuses:
1. None of us ran very fast.
2. I got beat pretty handily, which is never fun.
3. This race dropped all of their prize money this year, as well as all of the cool gift cards they had last year. Kind of a bummer.
4. The race started half an hour late, and the last 10 minutes of the delay was caused by some woman leading all of us through a warmup routine, complete with squats and turning your head side to side and other assorted nonsense. Ridiculous.

us waiting in the start corral for a long long time...

Personally, I think all of us ran pretty damn well. Sometimes there isn't anything in particular about a road course that makes it slow - no giant hills, or consistent headwinds, or mismeasurement, but it's just SLOW. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of making excuses and predicting what you "could" have run if only the course had been fast, or the competition been better, or whatever else, so I will leave it by saying that I ran well enough, and I'm pretty happy with where the rest of my little group is at, and I'm really excited for the next couple weeks.

What's up next? Well Emily is getting on the track for the shortest race that she has done since 2007, and Chass and I are headed down to the border to Hidalgo for a half marathon relay race, along with our friend (and Austin Half Marathon champion) David Fuentes. Should be a good time, and we will do our very best not to be kidnapped. But if we are we hope someone will pitch in for our ransom!

A Quarter of a Century Old?!

I can't believe Jer is 25 years old!! His birthday was on the 12th, but I'm just now getting around to looking at some pictures from that night.

We had a great time with GREAT friends! First we headed to Jer's favorite mexican restaurant, Panchitos, and then proceeded to Sherlock's. Afterwards Jer and Chass jammed out in the music room for a little while until they were officially worn out.

Feeling the love!

Showcasing the deliciousness

Jer showing off one of the awesome gifts he received that night

Don't let his face fool you, he loved the sombrero

No mexican birthday dinner is complete without the sopaipillas!

 It's kind of funny to think I've known him since he was just a wee 19 year old, myself only being 18 at the time of course : ). I love the person he's become and I'm so glad he had such a wonderful 25th birthday.

Why Didn't You Race?

This past weekend Jer and I wanted to go and support our friends running the Austin Half Marathon. We were able to catch Liz Eder and David Fuentes run by roughly 3 times. They were both pretty much in first overall each time we saw them too! Jer and I cheered as loud as we could and took fuzzy, non-recognizable pictures of them as we caught them within the first mile, around mile 8, and finally the last 200m.

Who doesn't look that excited after PRing in the half?

David defended his title and not only did Liz PR (and win also), coming in at 1:21:55, but she also got to say she was in the same race as Joan Benoit Samuelson! How cool is that?



1st place Austin Half Marathon Winners : )



The Walking Legend Herself

 
The only beef I had was our interaction with people during and after the race. Nearly every single person Jer and I chatted with asked us "why didn't you race"?  The most important reason being because we came there to support our friends who were racing. David supported Jer, Liz, Chass, and myself a ton during our big race at San Antonio RnR in the fall and is always keeping up with how we're doing. Liz is my BF, my M.O.H, and is always there for me. It only made sense to go out there and cheer them on during an important race for them, especially when there weren't any other obligations holding us back.

I know it seems ridiculous to let a little question like this bug me, but it's really the message behind the question. Well, you did the San Antonio marathon so of course you should be doing another half or full right? When I graduated, the big question was when, not if, I was going to do a marathon. Jer got the same treatment, but of course he was already training for his first one immediately after graduating. I on the other hand hadn't planned on doing a marathon for a long time to come. Why? Because I never pictured myself running one and had little desire to do it. I didn't even want to think about doing one after graduating just to show people you can still be a great runner without having to do a half or a full marathon. Most serious runners understand this and it's the novice runners (who are making up a huge population of the running world now) that assume it's a rite of passage almost. I do think it's great that more and more people are taking up running, but they don't really care to even consider shorter races just because it's not THE MARATHON. More competitive runners know that a 14:30 5k guy is a lot more impressive than a 3:20 marathoner. Odds are that 14:30 guy worked a lot harder than the 3:20 marathoner did, but you've got to know your audience.

So now that my rant is complete, the good news is: it IS actually time to race! We have already set up a schedule of races that we wanted to run this spring, including distances from 800m all the way up to half marathon. In less than a week we'll be toeing the line of the UTSA Diploma Dash 5k! We LOVE track and road races and we LOVE setting new PR's that we weren't able to get down to in college. With shorter races the training is completely different and allows us to participate in more races.

Racing is the reason we train...not to stay thin or have something to do in our free time. The races are why we get up every morning, do it again in the afternoon, repeat the next day, and make the sacrifices we need to make. So it's great when we're able to do more of what we love by having a different schedule in the spring. I love that we focus more on longer races in the fall and shorter ones in the spring. I don't want to speak for Jer, but it allows me to regroup and stir things up in a way that keeps me happy and sane as a runner.

So let's here it for racing time! Training can be monotonous without a little reward for your efforts, and Jer and I plan on getting out there and laying it on the line OFTEN this spring. And remember, marathons and half marathons are just longer races, not the end all be all of our running existence!

Snow Day!

Yep, that's right. It snowed in San Antonio! Although it was only about 3/4 of an inch it still made the streets look like a winter wonderland : ) It happened last Friday and I miss it already!

Unfortunately it was trash day, hence the nasty bins in the pictures!

So that morning Jer found out that no one was heading in to work until 9AM at the earliest while I found out that the two baseball games we were supposed to have got pushed to Saturday meaning no work for me. The news excited us both because it meant we got to do a longer run together in the daylight!! So we headed out around 6:45AM and noticed the streets covered in fresh snow. It was still dark, but only for about 10 minutes. We saw a little ice on a major street and thought it'd be a good idea to head to the park. As soon as we came through the main entrance we noticed just how beautiful the snow made everything look! The sun had just started to come up and all that we saw was gorgeous white snow with trees bordering the crunchy fluff. It's like we weren't in Texas anymore.

I couldn't stop smiling on the run. It was a sight we weren't used to seeing, but I have a feeling it's something the northerners would have appreciated too. Sun, crunchy fresh snow, and very little wind. We went for about an hour before heading home. As we came back into the neighborhood we noticed the snow melting a little and the ice underneath coming to surface. We also saw all the little kids building 6 feet inch tall snowmen on the sidewalks. It looked like everyone was enjoying their morning off.

Marzuki diving in to the fun!

When we got home we let our puppies out as they experienced their first snow day! They loved it! Marzuki followed Dexter exploring the white invader together. They even figured out it was edible and started chowing down!

YUMM!!

Dexter doesn't seem  phased by the chilled ground



Marzuki never seems to go too far



Jer and I made the most of the morning getting cleaned up, drinking  hot cocoa, and catching up on a couple episodes of LOST. Jer found out he had to go in around 1PM, but not before getting in some hardcore 007 time on Wii.

I was happy that the rest of the day was spent being as productive as possible. I cleaned the casa, did laundry, hung up a bunch of clothes, had some much needed phone time with my M.O.H, Liz, and went grocery shopping. Phewwww. It felt wonderful getting so much done!

In the evening I met Jer up at the track and did his warm-up with him. After, I spent the rest of the time being a coach, for my coach, as he powered through some 100's.

And then??? We celebrated a great Friday with Chili's! Who could've asked for a better snow day?!


Here's to hoping our yard looks like this next year!