It's almost June!

Last night I did Bikram. It was 90 degrees outside. 115 in the studio. I wanted to pass out. 

It's the last day of May. Insane. I just need to take a second and talk about how freaking amazing the month of June is.

1. Last weekend in our 20s

Technically, this begins tonight, when my BFF Nicole arrives from North Carolina. I originally moved to Baltimore with her and other BFF Carolyn. Here we are looking beautiful in our house shortly after we moved in 2005.

My HS BFF Casi moved down a year later, and we used to have some wild times together, especially at Howl at the Moon, which is the bar where I met Eric.

Amazing BFF wedding collage I made because I know how to use Picasa

 Some of us (Casi and I) are actually about to leave our 20s, and some of us are total jerks who have like 6 more months (I won't name names). Funny how it seems like yesterday when we were all seniors in college, and a late birthday was a huge disadvantage. I was actually pitying these two for having to wait so long to turn 21. So quickly the tables turn, and now the joke's on me. 

Ok that was a long one. Moving on.

2. Great Grapes wine festival - this will take place immediately before our last night out in our 20s. This will be my fourth year in a row. You lay on a picnic blanket, drink wine, and eat cheese. It's the best.

2010

2011

2012 - because I know you all care.

3. The end of the school year. Enough said.

4. The Baltimore Ten Miler. Once again, it's my fourth year in a row. This race is insanely hot and hilly, but for some reason everyone in Baltimore loves it. I am posting a lot of old pictures that no one cares about but me in this post, so for looking at them I'm including another fabulous race photo as a reward.

5. My 30th birthday (June 19). I may have mentioned this once or twice on the blog. It's coming. And it will be awesome.

29th birthday scavenger hunt.

6. 30 miles for 30. I still have big plans to do this the weekend after my birthday. Anyone interested in joining?

7. ISTE - a technology conference for teachers. I'm getting my masters in instructional technology, so I'm lucky enough to go this year for the third time in a row with some awesome friends.

Our first year - I know all my teacher friends know this guy!

 It's in San Antonio. Fun fact - my college boyfriend was in the army, and trained there for almost a year, so I've been there I think 6 or 7 times. Eric and I also went together in 2007 when he was in a wedding that got canceled like the day before we arrived, so we went to Sea World instead. Good times. Since I've already seen the sights, I plan to do nothing but drink margaritas on the Riverwalk in the evenings after the conference.

8. Finally seeing my sister's engagement ring in person and going wedding dress shopping with her! I LOVE wedding dress shopping for other people. All of the fun and none of the pressure and body issues! I actually counted down the days until I could see the ring during the Bob Potts marathon - no idea what it was, and I can't really do math in races so I probably came up with a total of like 780.5, but the point is that's how excited I am. 

What are you most excited about for June?

Three things Thursday

1. Post marathon, I'm loosely following Kristy's "zero week" plan, which means you do no exercise all week.  I didn't plan that going into the week, but I'm having one of those periods when no matter how early you go to bed, it's nearly impossible to get up in the morning. Also I have awesome plans this weekend that don't involve any exercise other than dancing.

But I did do 32 minutes on the elliptical last night. Partially because I got out of grad class early and Eric was busy volunteering at his school's eighth grade concert. Partially because this became kind of true for me.

Truth. It wouldn't let me crop the black off and I nearly threw my computer at the wall.

I usually think this is kind of a cop out and more of a "running helps me burn calories so I can eat more things and still be thin!" thing (which it absolutely is for me too, not going to lie), but I was truly struggling after more than 72 hours without exercise. That, or something about being at work, supposedly attempting to look professional, yet soaked in sweat like I did just run and continuing to do so because it's 90 degrees with no air flow makes it difficult to remain calm. One of those. 

2. While I'm just as annoyed as everyone else with how memes have overtaken Facebook, they do have a bright side. I would estimate that since their popularity really took off, the amount of texts I receive from my husband has at least quadrupled. Yesterday he sent me this.

Truth.

 Eric thinks it's funny how much I love sleep, because he's some sort of deranged weirdo about it. He can get 5 hours of sleep, maybe 6 if he's especially tired, and pop out of bed in the morning bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh as a daisy and ready to take on the day.

On the other hand, those who know me well wisely avoid me completely until I've had at least 2 cups of coffee (or I'm running). There's probably nothing on this earth that makes me angrier than waking up, and I can't think of many things I look forward to as much as going to sleep. It really doesn't matter if I get 5 hours or 10, I always still want more.

3. I shopped for non running clothes. That's kind of a big deal.

I read about this site called Thred Up on Sarah's blog, and I knew it was for me. It's consignment clothes that are like new, and I am sure as hell not above gently used anything if it's cheaper. (And if I have any readers who are undergrads planning to go into the field of education, you would be wise to adopt that attitude.) I got my order last night and it all fits great. I know this because I started off my day with a fashion show (trying everything on and sending pics to my sister). I got all the stuff in the picture for under $50, and it's from places like Loft and NY&Co, so not crap brands either. The link I included is my referral link so if you click it we both get a $10 credit to the site. I'm only posting that link because I really want that $10.

I really love three things Thursday. I hate thinking of post titles, and I love lists. Win/win.

Are you more like me or Eric when it comes to sleep? Even though I love it so much, I'm actually really bad at it and can't sleep unless I have a sleep mask and earplugs, and wake up a minimum of 3 times a night to pee. 

Another peek into my heartless, black soul

My Bob Potts race recap was long enough, so I decided to cut it off and save the most important part of any marathon experience for the next post. I'm sure you were all wondering - what did I make for my post-marathon dessert?

Saturday morning, I spent some time perusing food blogs. I not only needed a dessert for Sunday, but also for my upcoming birthday. I'd been looking for awhile, but nothing had felt right so far.

You know how on TV you always see brides in the dress shops and when they find "the one", they put it on and everyone starts crying?

 Well, I never had that. Don't get me wrong, my wedding was the best day of my life, hands down. Maybe I'm just too much of a loser who's not into fashion, but I'm not about to cry over a freaking dress. And I come from a family of huge criers. Crying in David's Bridal is actually right up there with marrying your best friend in my book.

Anyway, my point is that while I was able to choose my wedding dress dry-eyed, I think I finally got a taste of that feeling when I finally clicked on a recipe that was practically screaming to be made on my birthday, and when I got the idea to make brownie pudding again after my race. 

When I say after, I meant right after. I went straight to Wegmans on my way home, and then immediately got to work without passing go, without showering, nothing was more important than getting this in the oven.

I'm always looking for ways to work smarter, not harder, so I multi-tasked cleaning my kitchenaid mixer with refueling.

At that point, I was already covered in chocolate, so I just kept it rolling and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. Amazing, considering I'm pretty positive that I've never done anything remotely productive other than make decadent baked treats after a marathon.

Once I finally showered, we went across the street to an amazing Mexican restaurant that I can just never get enough of.

Wore my medal. Obviously.

 I'm not sure when I'll learn, but eventually I'll stop stuffing my face with enchiladas and guacamole on an empty stomach after a long race. We had to take like a half hour walk after dinner before I could handle life again.

As soon as I was back in action, I started in on pineapple Moscato, a gift from Kari.

I think I discovered the key to marathon recovery - Dance Central. We played for hours, and I swear it was a serious workout.

PURE FOCUS

Eric had a really seductive booty shake.

This is how I waited for my turn. It felt so good on my back, plus you can see how cute the marathon shirt is.

Sorry, forgot to suck in my belly, but luckily this pose totes makes it look flat.

 Finally, it was time (aka no longer felt like I was about to burst and could handle dessert).

The setup

On Monday, I had big plans of being the laziest person alive all day. I came pretty close, although I did deviate a tad to meet two of my teacher BFFs for a four mile walk. After that though, it was on. Game of Thrones thought they could screw with us by not airing a new episode this week, but I showed them by beginning book four, and watching the entire first season on my Monday off. Even though I had just gone grocery shopping, Eric's suggestion of ordering pizza was way more appealing than attempting to cook. Mainly because I had already gone through one bottle of wine by dinnertime.  

Today, I brought all my hot yoga stuff to work and arranged for a ride there and everything (yeah my car is still f-ed up, we're not discussing that). Around 3pm I started thinking about how much more appealing leftover brownie pudding was compared to 90 minutes in a hot room with sweaty strangers. So I decided to ride the "I just ran a marathon!" train a little longer. I got home early enough to work on another one of my New Year's Resolutions: FaceTime with my nephew. Then I ate brownie pudding for dinner. Win win.

Did you cry when you found your wedding dress, or have you ever seen anyone cry? I have never witnessed this in real life.

Bob Potts Marathon recap

The marathon is one tricky bitch.

In October 2011, I ran my third marathon as part of my training for my first 50 mile race. During my second marathon, I'd finished in 4:17, so I was thinking maybe 4:15 would be a good goal for my third, since I wasn't training for speed.

I didn't look at my watch once during the whole race, and crossed the finish line in 3:54. 

Yay! Marathons are the best! I took 23 minutes off my time without even trying! At this rate, I might as well start saving my pennies for a flight, since I'd be at the Olympic trials in no time!

And then I spent the next year and a half trying and failing to come in below 3:54. I got that exact time twice more, plus five other slower times. 

To be fair, I also ran two 50 mile races in that time, and learned to bike and did a half ironman distance triathlon.

When I rang in 2013, my #1 goal was to get focused and PR in the marathon.

I know it says #6, but the first five were either jokes or impossible.
And everyone writes NYR on paper plates, right?

Finally, after two extremely disappointing failures, I managed to pull it off yesterday. I ran the Bob Potts Marathon in 3:51:32 (official times aren't posted yet, but that's what the clock said).

This was totally me at the finish. No, no it wasn't.

After a week of healthy eating and excessive hydration, I felt confident and was looking forward to the race. Until about 4pm on Saturday, when nerves took over, and I spent my entire shift at work feeling sick. I stayed pretty positive after cramping up and coming in at 4:01 at the Delaware Marathon two weeks earlier, but that wasn't actually due to my Mother Teresa like attitude. I can finally reveal the actual reason - as I was wallowing after the race, my sister called me to ask me to be her Maid of Honor, because she was engaged!!!

That was awesome, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't be hearing any life changing news after Bob Potts, and there also aren't really any more marathons around here until fall. So the pressure was on to perform.

I actually got a pretty restful 5 hours of sleep, chugged a cup of coffee at 3:30 am, and was ready to leave by 4am. Except, instead of leaving, I decided I NEEDED to put my special marathon playlist on my phone right then and there. Luckily Eric woke up and helped me out. I bet he wonders what life would be like with a normal wife, you know, one who would just be asleep at 4am on a holiday weekend.

I don't know why, but Mother Nature wanted to me PR just as badly as I did. Seriously, what are the chances of seeing this while waiting for a race to start on Memorial Day weekend?

I'd already used up all my throwaway gloves at other races, and with summer coming, I couldn't risk going to Target for more, because we all know you can't go to Target for one item without leaving with at least $80 worth of other crap.

I had to bust out my GORUCK gloves. After they were on my hands, I discovered they were literally filled with dirt and had to run the race with my hands and shorts filthy and smelling like a swamp.

Once again, small races for the win. I arrived about 5:10 am, and that gave me plenty of time to get myself ready, pick up my bib, and use the porto potty five times (not an exaggeration) before lining up at the start around 5:45.

See how the start is down a little hill? Didn't feel so little going back up at mile 26.

Let's talk about how much I absolutely loved this race. It was put on by a guy named Sean Potts, in memory of his father who ran for exercise way before it was trendy. After everyone lined up at the start, he announced: 
"There will be times during this race when you will feel terrible. That's when you need to suck it up." 

So true. 

"Here's how we'll do this. I'll say 'ready, set, go', and you run on go."

And we were off. We ran about a mile through York, PA. The rest of the race was an out and back on the Heritage Rail Trail, a crushed rock, mainly shaded, gorgeous flat trail next to train tracks. Aka, best course ever.

They actually could have renamed this race after my dad: The Paige Miller Marathon. He loves trains, and many of you probably remember that time he PR'd in both race spectating and pastrami loading. I thought that was pretty fitting, because he was the one who introduced me to the world of fitness, way back in the day when I was maybe in 5th grade and we used to do Bodies in Motion videos with Gilad.

It was tempting to start too fast, and I think I did (first mile was 8:24), because small races like this tend to be very fast fields. I got passed a ton, but that was fine. The first half of marathons, I always get passed a ton. Then usually I pass a lot of those people back in the second half. This race was no exception.

For about miles 1-6, I was really busy working on my maid of honor speech in my head. I know I exaggerate a lot, but I swear I'm not exaggerating when I say that my sister's MOH speech at my wedding was so good, that the very next day I started getting nervous about how I could ever even attempt to make one at hers. Now that time has come. I feel I came up with some good themes though, and managed to jot them down when I got home.

After that, I just kind of focused on enjoying my playlist (which was totally worth the 4am freak out, it made a huge difference) and settling into my goal pace of 8:50. I truly could not get over how perfect the weather was, and that was putting me in a great mood.

Despite my 5 bathroom trips in the hour before the race, I still had to pee again early on. In mile 9, I approached a porto potty, and I knew if it was unoccupied I could be in and out in under a minute, since my job inadvertently requires me to brush up on my fast peeing skills on a daily basis. I made it and that mile was only 30 seconds slower than the previous one, and I even had time to sanitize my hands.

At mile 20, I checked my time, and I was at 2:56. I actually couldn't believe I'd been running for almost 3 hours. I would almost say it had flown by, and that's really not something I can generally say about a marathon. I felt really good, relatively speaking - so much better than at mile 20 in Delaware. I thought I was running the last 10k SO FAST, but as you can see from my splits, it was pretty much the same speed as the rest of the race had been. Still, I felt regular tired during the last 6 miles, not the praying-for-death tired that usually accompanies the end of a marathon.

I told myself I couldn't even entertain the thought of PRing until mile 23. I was exactly on my goal pace of 8:50, but still terrified. I knew how a good race could all go to hell in the blink of an eye. Mile 23 came and went though, and I was still scared to let myself fantasize about my triumphant instagram picture. 

With about half a mile to go, we left the trail and headed back toward the finish line at York College track in sort of an S shape. I absolutely loved this because you could see and hear the finish, and I think I even let out a "finish line" whisper in a reverent, delusional voice. 

Such a beautiful sight.

That little uphill was terrible, but finishing on the track really made you want to give it that kick at the very end, and seeing 3:51 on the clock felt pretty good too.

A concerned looking volunteer escorted me to a bench (another nice touch at the finish). This seems to happen often to me at finish lines. You've seen what I look like while I run, so you can probably imagine just how pretty I look by the time I actually finish, so I guess it's not that surprising. By the way, there was definitely at least one photographer on the course, no word yet if it was someone affiliated with the race or just another runner's spectator, but fingers crossed.

SO. PRETTY. And in my prime.

Finally it was time for that instagram announcement. 

The finish line had cold towels, yet another nice touch, and soft pretzels. I usually don't eat after a race, but 

this time I was hungry and devoured two big pretzel pieces in the car. They were just ridiculously salty and no pretzel will ever taste as good as that one.

The last part of my race recap is sentimental, so consider yourself warned.

I really wanted to wear something of my grandmother's, because she was one of the strongest, most positive people I have ever met, and I wanted to channel her energy. I wore this butterfly pin, and touched it every time I wanted to slow down. Gram wasn't a runner, but if she had been, she sure as hell wouldn't have whined through or half assed any races, because that's not how she approached anything. I swear it helped. 

Ok, sentimental part over. All in all, I don't have anything but praise for this race. The only thing is, I think I ran just a tad conservatively, because I was so nervous about screwing up. I didn't finish with that "I left it all on the course" feeling - but that's ok, just makes it easier to devise a goal for next time!

Non-sarcasm warning: All the positive blog comments, tweets, etc, really made a difference, and I totally had them in mind while running. Ok, one more sentimental thought (PRing makes me emotional and cheesy).

 I couldn't have done it without you!!

Home stretch

Home stretch. Less than 48 hours until go time. Powerade, water, bananas and carbs are my life this weekend (and then after the race, chocolate will reclaim its rightful title).

It's a perfect time for a marathon, because I'm on break from grad school. Try not to be too jealous, but we have a whopping 8 days in between the spring and summer semester. So I'm a free woman until Wednesday! Remember how actual college was a million times better than grad school?

We have a pretty low key holiday weekend planned. Tonight, I really want to overcome my aversion to Friday night movies to watch one of my new favorite celebrities in Silver Linings Playbook. Saturday, I plan to sleep in and be a lazy piece of crap until my shift at work, which is from 3-9pm. 

The marathon is at 6am on Sunday, and it's about an hour away, so I'm aiming to be out the door by 3:45am or 4 at the latest. That doesn't sound ideal, but I really never sleep well the night before a race anyway, so I might as well stay busy at work instead of just twiddling my thumbs at home while I get more and more panicky. Plus, earlier start = earlier finish (ideally), which gives me more time post - marathon to stuff my face and I'm thinking of really being ambitious and busting into a second bottle of wine.

I've got some bad news for my readers. I don't know for sure, but this is an extremely small race (only a few hundred runners, no chip timing), so I'm guessing there won't be a ton of photographers along the course. So I don't think you guys are getting any more gorgeous race pictures out of this deal. But, my mom is also devoted to the cause of giving the readers what they want, and she is working on getting me some pictures from my past that make what's been posted here so far look like glamour shots. I'm not sure when it will be, but just know, it's coming, and it's epic.

As of yesterday morning, here's the predicted temperature for the race. If this isn't PR weather, I don't know what is. 

At the start line, the temperature is 44, feels like 38. Actually didn't realize that until I was typing this post - I may need to rearrange my night tonight to include an hour or two of outfit decisions.

Sunday night, you should be reading a triumphantly (and maybe slightly drunk) written post about a PR, or nothing. The only thing I can think of to do if this goes badly is to delete my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and entire online presence and take up a completely new hobby. Maybe scrapbooking. Or jewelry making.

I'm taking the whole "resting my legs" thing very seriously. No unnecessary movement. I texted the red circle to Eric from bed last night (he has a weird thing about not wanting to go to bed at a time usually reserved for young children). Please note that I would have to walk a maximum of 12 steps to the thermostat.

Laziness is wonderful.

I actually included this for two purposes, to showcase my laziness and as a little helpful tip to any single or dating girls out there. Take a look at the rest of the texts. To maintain a happy marriage, never ever text anything remotely romantic or even personal. Save that for real life only. You're welcome.

There's no tracking system, and no one is going with me to the race, so you'll all just have to wait in anticipation for around 10am until I finish! I don't know how you'll handle it, but somehow we'll all get through.

Fill in the blank: _______________________________ is my life this weekend.

Three things Thursday

Here's 3 things I've been doing (besides checking the weather obsessively and trying not to wet my pants) to prepare for Sunday's marathon.

1. Easy workouts

Yesterday I did 32 minutes on the elliptical. Speaking of the weather, while I was on the machine, the guy on the news told me that whatever front is making it super hot and humid this week is on its way out. By Friday, according to "reliable models". I think if there's one thing we all took away from Snowquester this march, it's  that models are often not to be trusted. Or, that weather is predicted based on models. But still, I'm trusting that guy.

I did a 3 mile run this morning (9:39 pace), and it felt more like a 3 mile slog. I think my alarm went off during my REM cycle, or something, because I woke up completely confused and felt like I'd been drugged. I almost turned it off, but I have huge plans tonight - the third grade recorder concert. I can't miss that, so I somehow managed to get out the door, but since the run was only 3 miles, I never really had time to wake up. Not my finest work, but I did manage to run up behind Eric while he was walking to his car and scare the crap out of him. So there was that.

2. Bikram

I packed all my stuff to go yesterday after work, but it wasn't really appealing. My classroom was over 80 degrees before 9am, so really my whole day was like Bikram. 



Except for the stretching. And relaxation. And silence. But the sweating was pretty similar. I went anyway, and the instructor actually paused the class to complement on my dancer pose, or whatever weird name Bikram calls it. I don't think I've ever gotten a yoga compliment.

3. Eating healthy

Yeah, whatever, it's a cliche, but it's happening anyway. The only alcohol I've had in the 11 days since the Delaware Marathon is a tiny little cup of sangria. I've also tried to really reduce my sugar intake. Not crazy Whole30 level restriction, I'm still fine with cereal and pasta sauce and stuff like that, just not things that are blatantly desserts. In fact, I haven't had any desserts since the race. Except Kari's DoubleTree cookie that she forgot in our hotel room, but what was I supposed to do, throw it away? And my friend in grad class made really good chocolate chip blondies for our last class Tuesday night. It would have been just rude not to try one. And just as rude not to take some home when she asked me to because there were tons of extras. But still, for me, that's an extremely low dessert intake. I'll be watching the mail for my gold star. 

I have had lots of yonanas, which perfectly aligns with my goal of eating at least 2 bananas each day.

Does NOT qualify as dessert, but still delicious as its own thing

Do you try to eat healthier or eliminate any specific foods before a race?

More proof that I make wise choices

Within about a minute of pressing publish last night, I got two texts telling me how hard my race pictures were making people laugh. Based on comments, emails, and further phone contact, I get the impression that I spread a lot of joy and laughter last night. You're welcome, world. My writing may fall short, but my race day expressions never let me down.

 As a thank you, I decided to bring back a couple oldies but goodies. 

Myrtle Beach Marathon, 2012

Eyes closed and possibly sneezing?

I can never get enough of this picture. Might be my favorite race pic of all time.

Marine Corps Marathon, 2011. We hated you.

Once again, you are welcome.

I had another run in glorious 99% humidity before work today, but it was weirdly good. I even brought my headphones, which I normally don't for a run that short, but my audiobook was almost finished and I was dying to know what happened. Then it was over before I'd ran even half a mile, but I switched to Pandora and I think it helped pump me up. 

I decided to just take it easy and see what happened and I ended up with a 9:07 pace without feeling like I was putting forth too much effort. My heart rate was higher than usual, but my super smart science-y friend confirmed my rudimentary theory that it was because my body was working extra hard to sweat and cool itself. So now all I need to do is get used to that and completely acclimate by Sunday. Easy.

I'm running Sunday's marathon completely by myself - Eric will be out of town (not that I wanted him to go, spectating small marathons is horribly boring), and my friends that signed up with me aren't able to run anymore. I guess I've never done this before (running a marathon alone, I've run plenty of shorter distances races on my own, I'm not a codependent freak). Usually at least I know another blogger or acquaintance who will be racing. It's pretty weird because I have no one to obsessively email about the weather, so I just have to retreat even further into the obsessiveness of my own mind. 

So the plan Sunday is wake up at the ass crack of dawn, drive up, run 26.2, creepily ask a stranger to take a picture of me for the blog, drive home, get drunk on Moscato, pass out on the couch. Solid.

Last year for Memorial Day we stayed in a gorgeous house on Ocean Isle Beach.

But, this will totally be good too. Running 26.2 is a pretty close second to spending the weekend sipping drinks in paradise. 

Who's got some good Memorial Day weekend plans? I know mine are hard to top, but feel free to try.

I just felt like running

I'm pleased to report that after the mental trauma I experienced not being able to watch The Office finale in real time on Thursday, it was available on Friday. Spoiler alert - Michael Scott had a cameo, aka all my television dreams came true. That night. Let's not even discuss what torture the Game of Thrones producers are putting me through.

I'm gearing up for marathon #2 within a 2 week span, so I'm in that weird interim period where I have no idea how much to exercise or not exercise. 

UGH, I hate exercise.

One thing I do know is that I'm chugging water like a freshmen with beer at her first frat party. In fact, it might be a good idea to do some baking like Kari to sweeten up my coworkers since I'll be begging them to cover my class so I can pee all week. Additionally, I'm doubling down on bananas - two per day is my new minimum. 

 Over the weekend, I took things pretty easy. I hadn't run at all since the Delaware Marathon last Sunday, and Friday I got that feeling.

I swear this quote was in my head the whole time.

I did an easy 4 miler. On Saturday, my BFFs Carolyn, Casi and I had a date. We periodically have either GNI or GNOs (Girls Night In or Girls Night Outs) and this time we changed it to GDO - girls day out. We met for a bike ride and picnic in a park, and Casi even brought homemade sangria in a mason jar. I KNOW, how freaking cute are we, right?!

SO CUTE (read in a Penny from Happy Endings voice).

I hadn't been bike riding since maybe....August? September at the latest? I intended to go running before we met, but I sort of forgot bikes require maintenance and by the time I finished greasing the chains and pumping the tires and everything I only had time for 3 miles, so I did another 3 when I got back. We only biked about 5 miles since it started to rain, and exercise wasn't really the point of the outing anyway. 

Sunday, I actually managed to get up early to run 8 miles before I had to work at 10. My phone played a cruel joke on me. I checked the weather when I woke up and it said something like 50% humidity, which I was thrilled about. But that was from last night. When it refreshed, it showed me 99% humidity. Great.

Running early in super high humidity is my favorite.

 Monday, our faculty meeting was canceled, so I was able to make it to Bikram. I really wanted to do at least one class in between marathons. It's not really on my plan for hydration, but the stretching is just unbeatable. 

As you may have noticed, I just got the pictures from the Delaware Marathon. My race pictures are notoriously (at least among my family and friends) the worst ever, and this time didn't disappoint. 

At first I was really confused, because it started off with this halfway decent shot, and I was like "is that even me? I don't look the least bit mentally ill."

This one was a little more of the race day Alyssa I'm used to (and clearly taken in the last mile or so when I just wanted to curl up and die), but still better than expected. 

Finally I saw this gem, and then felt confident that it was, in fact, me.

I titled this jpeg "God I'm Gorgeous"

This one is hot too. Check out that thigh gap!

#soskinny #getafterit

 I don't remember any other races continuing to take pictures of me after finishing, but thanks Delaware Marathon for providing me with several pictures of me looking completely confused and unable to produce my own name.

"Whaa....?"

So I'd say if we could get rid of this 99% humidity crap I'd be in good shape for the Bob Potts Marathon on Sunday! BTW, my friend is looking to get rid of his bib, so someone out there must want to come run with me, right?

What's your favorite all girls activity? And if I have any male readers, just change it to all men instead of giving me creepy answers.