1. I’ve been trying to get back on the healthy eating bandwagon by cutting down on eating out, by cooking at home more, by eating more veggies, and by cutting out most processed foods. I’ve been feeling a lot better and healthier and I’ve already lost 5lbs! Yipee! Only 15 more to go ;)

2. Tonight I cooked up a batch of turkey chili. I used ground turkey, kidney beans, black beans, garlic, onions, fire roasted tomatoes, stewed tomatoes with jalapenos, some chicken broth, and a bunch of spices. It’s been filling up my house with delicious smells for 2 hours now and it’s got another 2 hours to go, but I want nothing more than to dish out a cup right now! I’ll let you guys know how it turns out. I hope it’s delish!

3. I’ll be meeting up with some of my fave gals (Raciel and Jo) this weekend to watch Alice in Wonderland. I’m so excited! Anyone else watching it?

What do you guys have planned for the weekend? =)

P.S. Look out for some exciting new product reviews AND my very first giveaway! =)

I’m currently entered into the San Francisco Marathon’s February Challenge which called for runners to write about how they fell in love with running. I submitted the story I wrote for my “About the Girl” page =) and I’m 1 out of 20 other entries.

I’ve sadly had to drop a race (Ave of Giants) due to some exorbitant and unexpected car expenses, and winning a free race registration to the San Francisco half marathon would really help me out! It’s the last race I HAVE to do to complete the California Dreamin’ series. So, I’d truly appreciate your help! There are two ways you can vote:

1) You can tweet out to THESFMARATHON “@THESFMARATHON I vote for #13!”

Or

2) You can visit their Facebook page, become a fan and write on their wall that you vote for #13 =)

Many thanks in advance! =)

Update: Thanks to everyone who voted for me! I am so super, super appreciative for your guys’ support. It really meant a lot to me =) It was a close race with #11 but unfortunately he won by only a handful of votes =(

When I had initially entered the contest, I didn’t know that it would be a voting type of thing. I thought that the winner would be chosen a panel that would pick the story they liked best. I didn’t find out until late this afternoon that it would be a voting contest. So I apologize for the late notice and I’m so grateful for everyone who scrambled to get their votes in. Thanks again, everyone! =)

Pre-Race
I woke up at 6 this morning and made it to the race site at around 7:15. Even though I wasn’t intending to race the Firecracker, I was feeling nervous. There were a TON of people there, and I was all by my lonesome because Christine got sick and had to sit it out and I wasn’t able to hook up with Greg before the race.

I picked up my bib and jogged back to my car to drop it off. I made it back in time for their opening ceremonies which included

The Race

The race totally didn’t play out like this for me. It looks deceptively flat in the beginning, but it really felt like a soft incline (verified by Maggie) that built up to that crazy ass hill that was every bit as painful as it looked. I tried running as much as I could up that hill, but eventually had to stop to walk for a bit when the burning sensation on my calves started to be too much. That’s when I got a chance to snap these pics.

This is the view in front of me. You can see that 99.9% of the people are walking up that bad boy. I walked for about a minute and then started jogging up again.

Toward the upper portion of the hill, I saw Greg on his way down and I yelled out to him. He joined me for the final trek up, which was pure torture.

I can honestly say that if Greg hadn’t been running with me, I probably would have walked a lot more but he really pushed me to keep going. As we rounded the turn around and were on our way down the hill, I told Greg that I needed to walk a bit, but he told me to keep on trucking! We slowed down the pace a bit, and I was able to build it back up after a min or two.

Here are my stats, and I’m damn proud of them! I did negative splits for the very first time and I finished strong. Ran the last quarter mile of the race at a 9:34 min pace =D (totally blows my 400m time target out the water by 2 mins!)

Split 1: 13:14
Split 2: 11:17
Split 3: 10:18
Split 4: 0:24

Total Time: 35:37 (chip time)
Average Pace: 11:29
Average HR: 168
Max HR: 179
Calories Burned: 371

Age Group 30-34: 90 out of 218
Overall Finish: 1132 out of 2336

Right smack in the middle of the pack! =)

Greg thinks I could have run a lot faster than I was running because I was still talking fairly easily and he could hardly hear me breathing. But physically, I felt like I was pushing myself pretty hard. But it’s really got me thinking about redoing my time goals and aiming for something better. Maybe I can do better next time during my next 5k (the Deena Kastor 5k) =) I’m still chasing after my 5k PR set in 2008 (32:35). Maybe this’ll be the year!

Post-Race
As we were chowing down on our post-race goodies and catching up, we randomly ran into Tony (and his girl :), who we worked with at Aesop. What are the odds! We had a good time catching up and then bid each other adieu.

After the race, Greg and I went to walked over to Sam Woo and had some goodies!

We chowed down as we talked about some of our fave shows (Modern Family) and I told Greg about some of my other fave shows (Biggest Loser & I Survived…), and of course there was talk of running, diet, and running books.

Thanks for joining me at Firecracker and for a fantastic brunch, Greg! =) As always, good times!

It’s really amazing how fast time flies. It literally feels like it was only yesterday that I had this one fantastic run (5 mi w/ 3 at tempo). But when I look at my calendar, I see that that fantastic run was back on February 4 =O WTH!

So this is what happened…

After that run, I experienced some soreness/pain in my right knee that lingered for a day or two. I decided to take a few days off because I’ve learned my lesson, my friends. I ain’t gonna push when it doesn’t feel right. Then I got sick so I decided to lay low until I got a little better. Then things got super busy… and here we are.

Since then, I’ve only managed to squeeze in a set of 2×1600m speedwork. Those went as well as 1600m speedwork can go. I hit my goal times and felt great. I think I’m finally back on the speedwork bandwagon! Then yesterday, I did a set of 5×400m. Those went really well. I hit each about 15-20 secs faster than my time goal. Me thinks it might be time to adjust my target pace!

In any case, I’m now in my cut back week. Although, honestly, there’s really nothing to cut back from =P

I’ll be running the Firecracker 5k this weekend. I’m totally not ready to race this, but that’s ok because I wasn’t intending to race it anyway =) Just wanted to get my feet wet with racing again. I’m looking forward to the Chinese New Year celebrations: the fireworks, the lion dance, and of course, the eating (in moderation). And most importantly, I’m looking forward to seeing how well I tackle those darn hills!

Or should I say, that one big ass, steep hill =)

I first met my friend, Christine, during my first year in law school. We sat next to each other in Civil Procedure, my LEAST favorite subject of all time. I don’t remember how exactly we started talking, but I do remember that when we did, we could hardly stop. We were probably known by other students as those weird girls yapping for hours in the parking lot.. because that’s exactly what we did. We’d walk over to the parking lot, fully intending to leave for the day, only to continue talking in the parking lot for at least a couple of hours before we finally left. It was just our way!

Some fun pics of me and Christine =)

One of the many things I admire about Christine is that fitness has always been a very high priority in her life. She’s always been very active, involved in every activity you can think possibly think of. And her biggest fear about growing old is losing muscle mass. So she does everything she can to maintain what she has… and she’s got a lot!

As if arm wrestling in a club didn’t fully illustrate Christine’s badassery, I’ll share with you one of the funniest memories I have of her, which incidentally also shows how hard core Christine really is.

We had just wrapped up day 1 of the bar exam and I was EXHAUSTED. We had 2 more days to go, 12 more hours of testing. And if that weren’t scary enough, my friends and I were all still feeling unprepared despite the fact that we had spent basically 50-60 hours a week for the past 3 months studying for that dang test. So, it only made sense that after a quick dinner that night we all went back to our rooms to review.

I was sitting on my bed, desperately trying to cram, and as I was cramming, Christine was swimming laps at the hotel pool. The next thing I know, I look up and she’s doing a series of pilates drills in our hotel room. I was thinking in my head… What in the world is she doing?? Doesn’t she know we still have 2 days left?? After she was done with her pilates, she wanted to get in a game of tennis with me. haha I was seriously astounded. Physical fitness is so important to Christine that she couldn’t even let a day go by without working out.. not even when those days coincide with the bar exam! Hard core!

For the majority of my life, I’ve been the complete opposite of Christine. In elementary school and junior high, I loved to play games and I guess you could say I was a pretty fit kid. When high school hit, we said goodbye to recess and with less activity, I slowly started to get “softer.” I wasn’t as fit anymore and I started to gain weight. I followed this trend for basically the next 10-15 years, until I was about to turn 29. Then one fateful night, Christine and I had one of those long, rambling parking lot conversations.

You see, I’ve always thought about getting fit and losing weight, but primarily for very superficial reasons: I want to look freakin’ hot! hahaha ok, not really. But I do want to look and feel better. I knew that getting fit and losing weight were all great things and made you healthier, but Christine brought up a point that I don’t think I’ve directly thought about, the nitty gritty bits of life… that being fit could make some things easier for us. Things like, going through pregnancy, giving birth, and even fighting off and recovering from illnesses, sometimes serious ones are easier when your body is in good condition.

I know… it was a total DUH moment.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially since in the short span of 2 months, I’ve managed to get sick TWICE already. When I was my most active (during my first year of running), I didn’t get sick at all. And I attribute that completely to my being more active and healthy and fit. Now that I’ve been off the band wagon for some time now, I’ve been injured and sick and injured and sick. And now, I’m dealing with some bizarre situation with my hands and my forearms (a story for another day). Things were just better when I was in good shape. Shocker, I know ;)

My family background also gives me a big reason to stay fit and healthy. We’re plagued with a myriad of medical maladies, so it’s even more important for me to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The key is prevention!

So, I guess the main point of this rambling post is that having a long, healthy, better-quality life helps motivate me to keep at it. And to help me get there, I need to channel hardcore Christine and make fitness a priority in my life!