Training update

Because you all care :) this is an update on  how training is going

Well, training is training.

Here is my background in running. I did track when I was like 8-10 with a community track team. The Gliders I think? I'm probably making that up. Anyway, I never really liked it. I was pretty young on the team and also pretty slow. I couldn't do the sprints like most of the kids my age so I would do distance (the one mile). I would be running the mile with people a year or two older than me so in my age group I always won! Seriously, if you look at my medals/ribbons for races I have a ton of blue/1st place ribbons but those were all from races where I was the only person in the race in my age group. In any race that I ran with my age group I got like 8th or last/participant. (plenty of those ribbons as well btw.) So basically I always hated running.

Fast forward a few years and I was in high school PE and I could pretty much always run a mile because that's all you had to do. My running career consisted of whatever PE teachers forced us to do and volleyball practice. Basically nonexistent because running is the worst ever.

I held the same opinion of running while in college and went running a total of... 3 times, maybe, in the 5 years I was at BYU. Not including running 5ks for 4th of July and Thanksgiving with my family. By this last year I could barely run 1 mile straight and I was okay with that.

I've already gone over my crazy period where I decided to become a temporary runner so I won't go over that but here's how it has gone so far.

I can't say that I love running. BUT I also can't say that I hate running. I'm still slow, but I'm getting faster. I still can't run very far but I can run more than a mile, easy. In the past 3 weeks I've basically gone from only being able to run 1.5 miles straight to being able to run 4 miles straight. The 4 miles is still hard but I can run 3 miles with no problem.

YOU GUYS! I CAN RUN A 5K NO PROBLEM!

This is a first. I have seriously ran like 10 5Ks in my life and have NEVER been able to run the whole thing. And now I'm like, yeah I'm gonna go on a quick little 3.25 mile run just to get a good run in and not ruin my training.

Does it feel good yet... no. Does it feel bad... still yes. But not as bad.

So basically training is going well. The goal for this weekend's long run is 5 miles straight. The goal by the race is to be able to run 6 miles straight.

I did totally biff it on my run this morning. This morning's 5K, which I decided to do as a light run (WHO AM I???) I started of good. I use the Map My Run app and have it tell me pace/distance every .5 miles because I can't stand to wait longer than that. I was keeping a good pace. 1st half mile was 11:13, 2nd was like 10:48. I maintained about an 11:00 minute pace almost to the 2.5 mile. The trail I run has some good gradual hills and then one really steep hill that I run down and a less steep hill I run up and they're both really rocky so you have to watch your step, especially going down because you're just flying. On the steep down hill I wasn't paying attention and my foot caught a rock and I went down and rolled. Luckily there were two construction workers right at the bottom of the hill to watch me go down the hill. I had one head phone in but could hear them ask if I was okay. All I could do was just lie there and reorient myself. Once I realized I was okay and not breathing in dirt (and that my phone wasn't broken) I got up and told them I was fine. They probably think I'm insane and uncoordinated. They asked if I needed a ride back and I declined, really I was fine. And then, like a crazy running person I took off to finish the last 3/4ths of a mile. Finished that at a pretty good pace too :) but that's because it was down hill. Running back was super fun because I was COVERED in dirt which was slowly turning into mud with my sweat. Yum. Mud sweat.

After getting back to my apartment I was able to analyze the damage a bit better. Nothing too bad, a scrapped knee and shoulder, and some good bruises. Nothing too bad and mainly just sore but I was filthy. Some how dirt had gotten into everything so I was just muddy and dusty.

Here's the thing, I'm probably gonna go running again tomorrow... just probably not running down the same hill. Again... WHO AM I???

Summer Adventures 2015: Arizona

Like I mentioned in the previous post we did a TON of traveling this past summer.

After Dan graduated in April there wasn't much keeping us in Provo. We were already planning on moving and had lots of summer plans set up already so we decided to basically fill our summer with vacations and visiting family and be homeless for a couple months until we could move into our apartment at Stanford.

Our first adventure was going on a road trip with my family(and grandparents) from Utah to Arizona and back the first week of July. Now most people would tell you that going to Arizona in July is dumb and they're right but it wasn't much hotter than being in Utah and there were way cooler canyons in Arizona than in Utah so overall worth it.

The first thing we did was drive from Provo to Flagstaff, AZ. Flagstaff is at a higher elevation than most of AZ which makes it much more tolerable heat wise. It's also close to the Grand Canyon.

We spent the next day hiking in the good old national park and then drove to Page, AZ. There's pretty much nothing in Page except Lake Powell, Horseshoe Bend, and a Dam. But there's a little known gem called Antelope Canyon pretty close by and that was by far the coolest thing we did on the trip.

Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon which means it's basically just a crack in the earth. When you get to Antelope Canyon all you can see is flat earth for a few miles and then as you get closer you see that there's a large crack in the earth and then you climb down some stairs and you're in this amazing canyon.

After Antelope Canyon we drove out to Joseph City (founded by my ancestors) and Holbrook (basically owned/ran by my relatives). I have hundreds of relatives (only counting the living ones) that live in Arizona so we spend a lot of time visiting places that were of historical importance to my family. Both my grandpa and grandma grew up in Arizona and both are basically professional historians of the area so we were able to learn a lot from them.

When we left Holbrook we drove through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Parks. This was especially interesting since my grandpa worked at the Petrified Forest during the summer when he was in college.

The main purpose of the trip was to visit Ganado on the Navajo reservation. When my grandparents were first married they lived in Ganado and both taught school there. This is also where my mother was born and lived for the first 6 years of her life. Not only were we able to visit a Navajo reservation with an expert (my grandpa was a professor in Native American Studies specializing in Navajo nation) we were able to see a place that has significance in my family's life.

After spending time in Ganado and at Hubbell's Trading Post (a national historic site) we went to Chinle (pronounced chin-lee) and hiked Canyon De Chelly (pronounced due- shay). Canyon De Chelly is beautiful and has amazing ruins at the end of a very easy hike down into the canyon.

After Canyon De Chelly we were on our way back to Utah to celebrate the 4th of July in Provo the true Westover way.

....and pictures!

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon (hike)

Grand Canyon: Duck Rock

Grand Canyon: River

Grand Canyon

Antelope Canyon

Antelope Canyon

Antelope Canyon

Antelope Canyon from the top

Horseshoe Bend

Joseph City

Huge storm in Holbrook

Petrified Forest

Petroglyphs in Petrified Forest

Painted Desert

Hubbell's Trading Post

Canyon De Chelly

Canyon De Chelly Ruins

Canyon De Chelly

I'm running a half marathon...

Why didn't anyone stop me!

Hello again, long time no talk. Sorry, we've been busy with working, schooling, moving, vacationing, etc. So basically since I'm unemployed again (due to said moving) I'll start blogging a bit again :)

It's therapeutic.

In other news, I'm running a half marathon. Specifically the San Francisco Nike Women's Half. One of only two half marathons that I would ever agree to run (the other one is sponsored by Lululemon in Vancouver, BC, BTW).

When Dan was picking between grad schools (Boston, Princeton, or Palo Alto) I told him that If we moved to the bay area I would run a half marathon in the 5 years that we lived there. Back story, Dan has been trying to get me to run since basically the day we met 6 years ago so that may be why we moved to Palo Alto and not Princeton, NJ. A few weeks after deciding to move to Palo Alto I got this crazy idea that I should run the half marathon THIS year. This 2015 year. I told Dan and my mom this and while both of them looked at me like I was crazy, BUT because they were both really excited that I was going to start running neither of them talked me out of it. Oh, my mom has been trying to get me to run for the last... 20 years. I really had no choice. 

The San Francisco Nike Women's Half Marathon is wonderful! You run around the city and along the pier and at the end of the race they don't give you some crap medal you will throw away during your next move. No, they have firemen in tuxedos handing out Tiffany's necklaces. Proceeds from the race also go to help fund research for Leukemia and Lymphoma. And then you're in San Francisco which is also super fun. Because of this the race is super popular and you have to enter a lottery to get in. After I had come to my senses a bit (but still a bit delusional) I decided to enter the lottery with my mom, Dan, and some other people from my home town expecting that we wouldn't get in but at least I tried. Well the higher powers that be decided to play a little joke on me because we got in. 

This was... Like July 10th that I found out. Long story short, we've been traveling and I didn't start training until last week (September 14th ish) so I'm kicking myself in the butt right now. So now that I've finally figured out that I'm running 13.1 miles in less than a month (5 weeks from the time that I started training) I'm starting to train. 

Good news is that I only have to keep a 15 minute pace, bad news is that I have to keep a 15 minutes pace. That is about 2 miles running 1 mile walking. At this point I'm almost positive I can do the whole thing at a 15 minute pace which is a relief but I'd like to not be the last person to finish the race so I'm working up to being able to run half of it straight and then running/walking the last 6.55 miles. Whether that's how it works out when it comes to the actual race, we'll see. Right now I'm just praying I don't get a knee or ankle injury in the next 4 weeks. 

Well that's pretty much that on the whole half marathon thing. 

If I keep up this blogging thing I have tons to talk about with all the stuff we did this summer and with our move to the bay area. For now though pray that I can finish this half marathon in one piece.