Half Marathon Update: Weeks 1 & 2

I wrote some big words in my last post, a little bit bigger than I was comfortable with - I wasn't sure I would stick with it. But I'm two weeks in and haven't given up yet (a feat in and of itself)! I've been posting updates on my Instagram, but it's private and not everyone has Instagram, so here's an update post.

This first picture is right before I started my first run, on Week 1 Day 1 of the Couch 2 5k program I'm doing to train. (If you're looking to start running, I highly recommend the program and the app both. The app is about $2 to purchase, but it's worth it. You can play and control your own music in the app while you run, and it prompts you each time you need to move from walking to running and back. The program really eases you into activity, so they really mean it when they say "couch to 5k".)

...and this picture is me after my first training run. I forgot to turn on my GPS, so I'm not sure what my distance or pace was, but I did about two miles alternating 1:30 walking / 1:00 running per Couch 2 5K's program. I was surprised about how great I felt afterward -- I'd convinced myself that I was horribly, horribly out of shape and I would die doing even a little bit of running. So maybe I'm only one "horribly" out of shape.

W1D2, from my running log: "Cold, thanks to the snowstorm we had yesterday (RIP all the pretty flowers). Got up at the unholy hour of six am to go to the gym with my roommate. We climbed a few routes (thanks to my thesis, I haven't been in almost a month and my hands and forearms are feeeeeeeeling it), did some bench presses, and rowed for ten minutes. And all this before 8:30 am! I'm feeling so virtuous. And sweaty." I remembered my GPS, so I can tell you I did 2.03 miles total (0.61 miles running at a 13:08 pace). 

W2D1: I skipped W1D3 because it fell on a Saturday and I was feeling lazy. 31 minutes total, 2.62 miles, 0.91 miles run at a 9:54 pace. Proud of myself for running farther faster, and for ending on an uphill. But I'm proudest of myself because even though I put it off until almost dark and I reeeeeeally didn't want to do it, I got changed and forced myself out the door anyway. It feels good to conquer bad habits!

W2D2: This was a tough run. I was tired and my body wasn't loving me. Still, I did 2.56 miles, running 0.89 miles at a 10:05 pace. I climbed, lifted, and rowed with my roommate at our gym before I ran. Getting up at six am stinks, but it feels great to be productive in the morning.

W2D3:  I skipped my run on Saturday (note to self: Saturday runs don't happen), so I ran that workout Monday morning. I did a little more than 2.37 miles (forgot GPS during first half of my warm up). Climbed with my roommate and nailed a couple of routes I couldn't do last week, lifted 15lbs (3 sets 8 reps), and rowed ten minutes. Pushed too hard at the beginning of my run, so the last running segment was murder. My app says I ran 0.97 miles at a 9:19 pace - much too fast! But I didn't stop running (...jogging) until my drill sergeant told me to, though I was tempted. (That drill sergeant is literal, by the way -- well, as literal as an app can be. The C25K app has a drill sergeant trainer option. I liked him best, so he barks at me every segment change.)

Which brings me to W3D1, this morning: 2.05 miles total. I think I went farther than that - I don't think my GPS kicked in until midway through my warm up. I paced myself too slow this workout (0.81 miles running at 11:03), I think, but after yesterday I was worried about running out of steam, especially during the longer running parts. Better tomorrow. Went climbing with my roommate, but we passed on the lifting and rowing today. And how glamorous is my post-workout look today? Yesterday and today were cold, down in the low 40s when I was running before 8:00am. I made the mistake yesterday of just running in a t-shirt and my arms froze, though I wasn't actually cold. So this morning I dug out my (too-small) long-sleeved running top, and my arms were toasty like the rest of me. 

I'm also tracking what and how much I eat with My Fitness Pal. It's a sobering realization to see how much you can eat without realizing how much you're eating. Snacking is the hardest part -- I do pretty well at meals, but I'm an emotional eater, and it's hard to break that habit. I have to say, without my sister doing this right along with me, I'm pretty sure I would have given up after the first mildly difficult run I had, which would have been about three runs in. But the fact that she's doing everything I'm doing, and doing it with two babies in tow, makes me suck it up and get out there. This experience is teaching me that 85% of what's holding me back from being who I want to be is my own fears and bad habits. I'm in control of those things -- they're things I can confront and overcome. It's not easy, no, but I can do it if I make up my mind. And pray a lot. If anyone wants to know, prayer is my secret weapon, because I know I'm not doing this alone.

Journey to 13.1

Just about to start my first training run for the half.

A few weeks ago, after I turned in the final draft of my thesis to my advisor, my visiting teachers took me to dinner to celebrate. Sitting around eating burritos in Freebird in Sugarhouse, they asked what was next. I jokingly said I was thinking of running a 5k by my birthday. Both of them said no way - that's so much time, you can totally run a half-marathon!

Record scratch.

A HALF-MARATHON?!? 13.1 whole MILES?!

Well, long story short, I'm registered to run a half-marathon the day before my 29th birthday. Because I'm notoriously un-self-motivated (as the sixty pounds I've gained since my mission can arrest to), I roped my little sister into doing it with me. She had her second baby a few weeks ago and was just cleared to start exercising again, so I thought she would be a) up for it, and b) at about the same fitness level. (Except she's probably more fit than I am, ha.) She agreed, like a crazy person, so now we have 20 weeks to go from total dweebs to rockin' 13.1-milers.

I'm not going to lie. This is terrifying. I'm not a big believer in myself. I stay far away from hard things, and when I can't avoid them, I procrastinate and whine about them (see my Facebook page or my Instagram for proof of this re my thesis #annmarievsgradschool). But the other morning, I was lying in bed at my sister's house, with my baby niece snuggled in my arms, breathing slowly and totally adorably as she took a morning nap. I, having been awoken by her early-morning serenade and unwilling quite as yet to get up and greet the day, invited her to come lie in bed with me. As she slept and dreamed next to me, I lay thinking about this terrifying prospect of running a half-marathon. It was such a wonderful, precious moment - Baby J is so confident and full of life, so sure that she can do anything. I didn't want to spoil that memory by chickening out of something that would be hard but worthwhile. I didn't want to look back in ten years and admit to her that I didn't believe in myself but that of course she can do anything. I want her to think I'm the coolest, most amazing auntie on the planet, and part of that means I'm going to have to keep up with her - and since she's just like her momma, she's a 3-volt machine running on 90 volts.

So here's to doing hard things. And believing in yourself, even if only for the sake of others.

Here's me on W1D1 (stealing my roomie's mirror): 188.6 pounds, hips 43", waist 37", upper arm 14", thigh 27"

T-47 Days

This is me almost six (!!) years ago in July 2007.

This is me a little more than six weeks ago in March 2013.

This is me today at approximately 5:25 pm, getting ready to go on the first run I've run deliberately...and felt motivated to run in a long, long time. 

This is me upon returning from the aforementioned run, approximately 5:53 pm.

And this is me, sharing how I feel after finally quitting making excuses (no running shorts that fit, my shoes are too old and worn out, I'm tired, I've had a hard day and I just want to sit in bed and eat ice cream while watching TV, etc, etc) and just doing it. 

I think Nike is on to something.

So what's the 47-day countdown to, you ask? 

This.

Go here for more details.

That's right, I've decided to stop making excuses, stop procrastinating, stop pretending I'm happy being a couch potato and run a 5K. Not a timed one (not yet), but a fun one. Hopefully that will keep me motivated and excited to run, because I've got less than two months to whip myself into shape (well, a shape that isn't squishy, anyway) for it. I'll be following the Couch-to-5K running plan, which has many enthusiastic adherents and seems to have worked for more hopeless cases than mine.

Restless Furniture and New Friends

For all those of you who have been holding your breath since the last time I posted about my room, today is the day you can finally exhale. There have been quite a few changes in the last few weeks.

Let's take a little peek at how my room used to be.

And now for how things look now!

There's obviously a lot more work to be done, but let's not talk about that - let's talk about how it got to this point.

If you'll remember, in the post about the new curtains a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I'd taken a trip to IKEA (that place full of wondrous happy dreams). Well, the curtains weren't the only thing I picked up while I was there. I also got a new duvet and duvet cover for my bed, a bedside lamp, and a few small picture frames. I was planning to do a post about these things last week, but I worked for the first half and was on vacation the second (post about that coming up!), so I was too lazy didn't get around to it. And in the interim, I went and bought a new bed when a local furniture store slashed their prices. (Seriously, I got it for less than one-third of the original price.) A significantly bigger, more comfortable bed. Hallelujah.

That's my kitchen on the left, and the hallway outside my room, looking in to the pantry, on the right.

Of course, it's a bit silly to have two beds in one room, so I needed to take apart and store the twin bed that was in my room.

This might have been true at one point (long, long ago), but I can attest that there was no "spinal care" or "back rest"ing going on while I slept on that thing.

I got this far without too much trouble, but then I ran into this:

I'm ashamed to admit it, but when I popped off the endcaps and saw this staring back at me, my mind went blank. Actually it more like, Great, what do I do with that? No screwdriver was going to get that thing out. I tried to persuade my roommate that we could maneuver the whole frame out of my room, down the hallway, through the kitchen, down the stairs to the basement, and into the storage room without wrecking the walls. She disagreed, and suggested I text some guy friends of ours that live around the corner. As I was walking over to borrow their tool kit, it came to me like a revelation: a socket wrench! From some dim place in the recesses of my childhood memories I remembered my dad teaching me what they were and how to use one.

Ten short minutes later, I had not only a tool kit, but a helper:

He wishes to remain anonymous. Actually I just can't take pictures, but it's a good excuse.

This is the tool kit he brought with him. Apparently boys have these things, though my dad did try to send me off to college with at least a screwdriver and a hammer. I'm not sure where they are, but he did try.

These are the bolts that were holding the bed frame together. They're longer than my palm. Pretty serious pieces of hardware. It still squeaked, though.

And voila! This (plus the sheets, of course) is where I've been sleeping since Tuesday. But my old furniture arrangement just wasn't going to work with this larger bed. The bookcase loomed over the frame-less mattress and box springs, and I couldn't push them all the way into the corner because of the awkwardly placed phone jack (!) and electrical outlet.

So this afternoon I whipped up this highly sophisticated, technical drawing:

I know, amazing, right?

And then I got down to work hauling my furniture all over my room, and ended up with this. I think it looks pretty darn close to the drawing.

This is more like what my bed looks like day-to-day.

And then I tidied up and stuffed a bunch of papers into my desk so that it looked like the picture at the top of the post.

Let me just say that this new, larger bed is pretty much the best thing ever. I like sleeping diagonally and sprawling, which is very difficult to do on a twin bed with a crater in the middle of it. And with no frame, my bed never squeaks. I'm not a fan of the "mattress on the floor starving college student" look, but I have a plan to remedy that and hopefully give my bed-on-the-floor a little class. Don't hold your breath, though, it's going to take a few weeks.

This post is already epicly long, but I want to show you my new duvet and lamp. Here's my new lamp, the JANSJO work lamp from IKEA in black.

I was planning to get the clamp variety, but when I saw it in person it was smaller than I liked and also $5 more expensive. Now that I no longer have a headboard to clamp it to, I'm glad my cheapskate ways made me choose the work lamp.

Sexy, right? I love the slim, flexible neck, and the LED light is much warmer and less blue than I expected. It also puts out quite a bit of light, and it's fantastic at night when I'm snuggled down in bed watching or reading something and I don't have to get out of bed to turn off the light when I get sleepy.

The other things I picked up at IKEA were my duvet and duvet cover. I went cheap here, too, but I did get the full/queen size instead of the twin, and I'm glad for that. The duvet I got is the MYSA STRA comforter with a warmth rate of 1, and the duvet cover is the EIVOR ORD. The cover isn't exactly what I would have chosen had money been no object, but I do like the alphabet design on it. I think it's pretty fitting for a book lover, don't you? I may dye it another color one day if I get tired of it being white, but we'll see.

As for the duvet itself, you might have noticed in the pictures that it's a bit lumpy. I accidentally dried it in the dryer. Without a dryer ball. So it clumped up and I cannot unclump the polyester filling. Thus:

The dark spots are the clumps of filling, and the light ones are where there's no filling. That was stupid of me, and it is a little annoying. But I'm forcing myself to live with it until 1) I figure out a way to pull out the ruined filling and stuff it with something else, or 2) I finally get tired of it and spend another $20 on a new one and do something else with this one. Until then, I haven't noticed it making a difference in how warm the various parts of me are, and I don't suppose anyone else besides me really cares.

So there you have it! Some restless furniture and a few new friends.

Grad School Is Happening

I've made some big changes in my living space and I just got back from an awesome vacation, but this is all I'll share for right now:

It's happening!

Curtains and Light

Lately I've been on quite the DIY-home-improvement-blog tear. I read them religiously and dream of the day I will own my own home and have the opportunity to do things like paint and knock down walls. While there's nothing wrong with my room, to me it still feels "Hello, I'm a college student!" and that was something I wanted to get away from. I'm trying to do things to distance myself from that mentality, especially since I work at the place I graduated from. I even work in the department my major is in. The gist of all this is that I'm making some changes around here in an attempt to reflect a more mature, less totally-broke-college-student atmosphere.

Remember the navy blue curtains that hung in my room? Here's a refresher for you.

It's not this clean any more.

I have nothing against navy blue, but I'm not a fan of the color for my curtains. Even with the two windows, one facing south (the one on the left) and the other west (on the right), when I woke up in the morning my room was pretty dim. My philosophy about light is that if you've got it, you should flaunt it, and so I decided to buy or make new curtains. Let's be honest: I have a lot of talents, but making things is not one of them.

Long story short, I went down to Draper last week for the wedding of one of my companions and made a pit stop here:

Please forgive the bad phone picture, I didn't have my camera.

That's right, IKEA, home of all wonderful homey goodness. Cheap homey goodness. Since I'm not exactly made of money and I don't plan on living here forever I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Whilst wandering around drooling I managed to collect myself long enough to pick up some Vivian curtain panels ($10, woot!) and curtain rods and finials. I also picked up a few other things, but I'll save those for later.

I'll spare you the details of putting them up. It involved a lot of climbing on chairs and muttering to myself and measuring and screwing things into the wall only to discover I had mounted them too close together, etc. You know, all the dirty, behind-the-scenes of the pretty DIY "after" pictures you see on blogs. So I'll just unveil the "in progress" shot.

The curtain is obviously too long, and since the panel was so wide and my window so small, just one panel would work for each window. Yay for saving money, but it meant cutting the panel in two and hemming the raw edges, as well as trimming and hemming the bottom. Fast forward a week and bam!

I wish I could say I was that handy, but it was actually my mother that did all the hemming. (I will take credit for cutting it in half and trimming the bottom, though.) It turns out that having your mom live in the same city you do, as opposed to 2000 miles away, is a really useful and handy thing. Thanks, Mom!

I haven't finished hanging the curtain on the other window, but I did take down the old curtains and wow! This morning when I woke up my whole room was filled with a symphony of light. Cheesy lines aside, switching out the curtains has made a huge difference in the amount of light in my room, which does wonderful things for my mood.

I've made some other changes in here, and I'm in the middle of a few more. I'll share updated pictures when I get things in a more complete stage of completion. Until then you're just going to have to stew in an agony of suspense. I know, I'm sorry. You're all dying to know all about every tiny detail of my room decor, but you're just going to have to wait.

Living Life on the Edge

I just cut my hair. Myself. With kitchen scissors. In my bathroom at 11:00 on a Sunday night.

That just happened.

I Guess My Mom Was Right About a Clean Room

A clean room really does make you feel better. Who woulda thunk? (Maybe me, after being taught the virtues of an orderly living space by my parents for years. Or not.) Right after I got back from Christmas vacation I moved from the basement of my house to the upstairs, thanks to a roommate who embraced matrimonial bliss. While I didn't mind living in the basement, per se, it is nice to see a little more sunshine in my room. I've been meaning to mention this, but the thing is it took me about two weeks to finally get around to actually unpacking/organizing. (If you're new, there aren't many things I loathe more in this world than unpacking, hence the procrastination.) But last Monday I had a day off of work thanks to MLK Day, so I decided to bite the bullet and just get it done. I present to you the pictorial record of my labors. And thanks to my awesomest-of-mothers and the new camera she gave me for Christmas, the pictures are actually decent. Warning: Below There Be Messes!

This is what my room looked like when I moved all my stuff in:

The view looking straight into my room from the door.

A slightly angled view into my room through the door.

Standing with my back against the open door, doorway to my left.

 The view from the head of my bed. 

The other wall as seen from the head of my bed. 

It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of stuff you accumulate, even when you try not to. It doesn't seem that bad when it's all hidden away in closest and drawers, but when it's spread out all over the floor it seems just a little ridiculous. Anyway, this is how I lived for about two weeks, until I figured I'd finally better tackle it instead of ignoring it and hoping little elves would unpack for me in the night.

But you know the saying, Things get worse before they get better?

I decided, after two weeks of sleeping with the bed on the south wall that I didn't like it there. I wanted my dresser next to my mirror so I could use it as a place to hold all my make up. Makes sense, right? But having the foot of the bed so close to the front of the dresser meant I had a hard time getting into it to get my clothes. Not to mention I wasn't awfully fond of the cinderblocks as bed risers, so with the help of my roomie's awesome boyfriend (thanks, Tyson!) I removed the cinderblocks, moved the bed, and put it up on my (slightly less ghetto-looking) plastic bed risers from Wal-Mart.

But you can see that I hadn't actually gotten anything put away at this point. The mess just migrated from one part of the room to the other.

See that frame hanging above my dresser? I should have taken a closer picture of it, but it's got four cards in it that are shaped like hanbok, or traditional Korean dress. Well, the ones I have are traditional Korean dress for nobility/royalty. Traditional Korean dress for peasants is much, much less elaborate (and not as pretty). The top two are for girls, the bottom two for boys. Appropriate for over a dresser, right? Right now they're just slapped into a frame I got half-off at Hobby Lobby, but I need to either get a new mat or paint this one, since I think the black is too stark. The chain of hearts down the left side of my mirror is actually a sweet letter from a friend of mine. Each heart is one thing she likes about me, and it makes my mornings just that much better.

Can you spot what's been added in this picture? In addition to the hanbok frame in the last picture, I hung these four, as well.

(Please forgive the bad pictures of my art. I was shooting at night in artificial light and I'm still getting the hang of my new camera.) To the left of my bed I hung my Proclamation on the Family, flanked by pictures of the First Presidency and three significant temples in my life: Seoul, Washington D.C., and Logan. At the head of my bed I hung a poster of Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville by Robert Doisneau, which I've had a sentimental soft spot for since my junior year of high school. Not, mind you, because of the subject matter, per se, but because a large poster print of it hung my high school French teacher's room and at the time I was enamored with all things French. Maybe it's because of the influence of my art-loving father, but I never really feel a space is mine until there's art on the walls, even if it's only the cheap kind I can afford.

Are you ready to see the final product now? I have to admit, it bears little resemblance to how it started out. Only the dresser stayed in the same place. Well, and the curtains.

I spent a good half-hour or forty-five minutes trying to figure out what to do with my desk. I'd had it facing the wall the window is in, but then my second bookcase had to be awkwardly placed on the blue wall, and it just didn't look right. I finally hit on placing it at the foot of my bed. It's not necessarily perfect, but it looks better than any other alternative I could come up with.

How about some closer shots?

Yes, I do have four pillows, and yes, all four are necessary. And yes, I do still sleep with my stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh my parents gave me for Christmas when I was three. He's a great cuddler. And yes, that blanket he's sitting on is my baby blanket that I still sleep with. I refuse to give them up until I have to sleep with someone else.

My Grandpa Saunders helped me put together this shelf, one of the last things I got to do with him before he died. Consequently, even though it's cheap it's rich with sentimental value. I love having a bookshelf next to my bed so I can always have my books within arm's reach.

  

My closet really needs little explanation, but I wanted to prove that I didn't leave it out of the organization/unpacking spree.

I'm determined not to clutter up my desk by throwing random papers and junk on it, which is what happens when it's next to my bed. I don't do any studying for school anymore (hallelujah), but I like having a dedicated space for my scripture study. It brings back an air reminiscent of the mission. The print I have there on the right was a gift from my mother. It's called Add to Your Faith Virtue; and to Your Virtue Knowledge by Walter Rane, and I love it. Perfect for this study space.

And last, but not least, is my second bookcase. This one holds all my church books and magazines, like my Korean Book of Mormon and Bible, old General Conference Ensigns, and a few books like The Miracle of Forgiveness by President Kimball and Jesus the Christ by Elder Talmage. I put the words Faith, Patience, and Diligence (from lots of places in the scriptures, but these are specifically referring to Alma 32:41-43 in the Book of Mormon) in frames to remind me to work on them, since unfortunately they are not terribly developed in my character. My Scentsy is behind the Faith frame.

And there you have it. My room, finally finished and in order. It only took me two weeks to get around to it and four hours to accomplish, but it's done. How about one last look? It's probably the last time my bed will ever be made.