10 mile run and another contest in the works

Monday I finally cashed in a deal I bought on Daily Candy and took class at Bar Method in West LA. I was a little annoyed at the parking situation ($3 with validation or free if you want to walk far in the dark) and the studio wasn't quite as nice as Encino but it felt good to be back. There was some pre-class hubbub because a few students saw Tyra Banks as they were walking in and they told us how pretty she was in person. Other students shared some of their starstruck moments which was pretty refreshing to hear since everyone usually pretends they aren't phased by seeing celebrities in LA.

Tuesday I stopped by Fleet Feet Encino on my way home from work to offer my services to my teammates. I showed Teresa how to resize pictures to upload to Crowdrise and also how to post links on Facebook. I decided not to stay for the run since I forgot my headlamp and I needed to get to the polls before they closed.

Wednesday was a really long day at work so I promised myself I would run on Thursday. Unfortunately it rained on Thursday and I was very tempted to put my run off again but the fear of not being prepared for my long weekend run got the better of me. I decided to squeeze in a 3 mile run around the neighborhood which ended up being pretty nice since I haven't really explored the neighborhood much. I wore my headlamp (stupid time change) but really didn't need it since the streets are very well lit. I'm still used to the pitch black streets of Woodland Hills so that was a nice change.

Friday was my 13 year anniversary as a marrow donor. They sent me an email to remind me and it also gave me a chance to update my contact information, which has indeed changed in the last year. It's too bad that in all this time I've never been a match for someone but hopefully one day I will!

Saturday morning I pried myself out of bed at 6:00 a.m. to join some friends for a run in Venice. I use the term "join" liberally because what actually happened was I saw on Facebook that Peachy and Barbara ran together last week as part of training for the LA Marathon so I asked if I could barge in! Luckily they said yes because I had no idea that Peachy, an excellent and super fast runner, had graciously volunteered to train Barbara and some others to run a sub-5 hour marathon which just happens to be my goal too. Turns out I was stumbling onto an actual training group when up to this point I assumed I would be training alone. I ran with Barbara once shortly before the marathon this year and knew we had similar pace but I was shocked to find out our marathon finish times were 1 minute apart!

Barbara and I ran 10 miles together while Peachy did 20 and Michelle did 15 since they were both training for California International Marathon which is December 2nd. I had some trouble getting my Nike+ watch to acquire the satellites so I didn't record the first mile but my data after that looked pretty good with mostly negative splits and an average pace of 10:56.

It was in the 40s when I left my house so I didn't even consider that we might go in the ocean but I bet you can guess what happened. It's amazing how much you warm up after 10 miles and Barbara insisted this would be our way of icing so I agreed. It actually wasn't that bad and I was glad I went in!

Sunday at church the message seemed tailor made for me! It was all about meeting the needs of others and using our talents to do that. All I could think about was how I can do more to reach my fundraising goals! I don't think I'm particularly talented at fundraising specifically, but the cool thing about fundraising is you can do it in so many different ways. My contest to choose my costume for the LA Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon was very effective so I've decided to run the Christmas 10k and if I reach $1,500 by the end of the month I'll wear a costume. I still need to figure out what the costume will be exactly so details to come but don't let that stop you from donating now in the upper right of this page!

After church I went back to Bar Method and took class with Nick. He was hilarious and talked faster than anyone I've ever met! Luckily I know the drill or it might have been hard to follow, but instead I just laughed my way through class as he talked about brunch, the orange juice he had that was giving him heart burn, and compared thigh work to running a marathon. I absolutely love that they offer a 12:15 class on Sunday (most studios have their latest class around 10 am) and the parking is free Sundays so I might make this a habit.