Rest: Dallas Trade Show

This weekend wasn't much of a weekend due to the fact that I was working for most of it. Lucky me right? Don't feel too bad for me... I get a comp day on Friday. Yay for three-day weekends!

One of my newest challenges as a runner is learning how to fit in my workouts while I'm on the road. This is something I fail at miserably. Loneliness of hotel room + time difference + me NOT being much of a morning person no matter how hard I try + leg exhaustion due to walking all day + not much extra time = NONEXISTENT WORKOUT

See, post-tradeshow running is especially challenging because the reason I'm traveling is so that I can walk around tradeshows... meaning I am on my feet, walking around ALL DAY LONG. It's tiring... even for a runner... really. However, I have been slowly improving my travel workout record.

Very Slowly.

Slooooooooooooooooowly.

Still, I won't admit to you my weekly mileage for last week... it's kinda embarrassing. Anyhoo, low and behold the awesomeness of a tradeshow:

At times... it feels like a fantastical, amazingness wonderland:

Or a complicated ballet that only well-dressed women, men in tuxes and fat female statues can do...

But really it's kinda like an overzealous shopping mall:

And it's also very, very lonely :(

Rest: Life tornado

GAH! Where to start? I've gone through so much change in the last two weeks, I now find solace in the fact that my favorite TV shows are still on reruns, my dog still howls at vacuum cleaners and my car still makes that lovely crackling sound when I drive over 45 MPH. Ahhhhh, the consistencies in life; those things we can depend on for better or worse-- oh how I take them for granted. Ayways, here's the weekend run-down:
 

Friday: After living in my new house for a total of five days, my wonderful roommate and I decided to throw a housewarming/going-away party for Mr. Wonderful. Did you hear that? I said new house, party and Mr. Wonderful moving away all in ONE SENTENCE. That's pretty intense if you ask me.

Although our new home was void of many comfort necessities, we got it to look pretty dang decent. The cement flooring, brick fireplace and 50's style charm didn't hurt. My new boss, who is awesome, lent me some tables, lighting and drink barrels and I bought a keg of Coors Light to really get things rolling. My fabulous roommate (I need a good nick name for her.... coming soon!), made cake, cupcakes and cookies. Holy deliciousness.
 

To sum it up: I'd say between 45-60 people showed up throughout the night. Not only was the food delish, but everyone actually seemed to have a great time. The keg, however, was NOT Coors Light. It was in fact some gross summer/wheat/white/sweet beer that tasted more like a wine cooler than hoppy deliciousness. Bummer. Overall, it was a great night; a lot of close friends came and it ended up feeling more like a family reunion than a gathering of acquaintances.
 

Saturday: Headed to Tucson to help get Mr. Wonderful comfortable in the new home (he's going to law school there, in case I hadn't mentioned...). Apparently, those Tucsonians have been hiding the fact that Tucson is a whopping ten degrees cooler than Phoenix. It was seriously refreshing We met another couple (also in a semi-long distance situation) and played darts at an eclectic sports/game bar. Sadly, I have no luck when it comes to darts.
 

Sunday: Had an amazing run with my new Tucsonian friend. She played softball in college so she's ubelievable athletic. Very pleasant person to run with. I've also learned that Tucson is a great place to run in comparison to Phoenix. It's hilly, cooler and the air is clearer. My asthma didn't bug me at all, even though I was running at a fairly fast (moderate) pace up and down rolling hills. It was quite relieving to have a run like that without having trouble breathing. It's been a while since I had an asthma-free run. And at night? The amazing Loft Theater!!!
 

The Loft is an old, non-profit movie theater that looks identical to how I assume it did in its heyday. The campy movie posters, concession stand stocked with wine and beer, cheesy manikins dressed as movie stars and red velvet seating made this our new favorite spot. The theater has special showings of old classics every evening, themed nights showing certain genres of old films and a great selection of indy/foreign/awesome films. We saw Winter's Bone, and it was awesome. Go see it.
 

Monday: Worked a half day and headed home, only to have a wonderful dinner with Mr. Wonderful's sister and brother-in-law. It was a great end to a great weekend.

I feel like I'm caught in a life tornado, but I think it's a good thing. Everything has been tossed around and moved, but once the dust settles and the damage heals, all will be stronger and refined. Clearly, the change has left me a bit pensive-- forgive me.

Hopefully things will become more settled my mid-September, when I start training for the RNR!! Ya, I'm pretty excited.

Toodles!

Run: Unintentional elevation training

I never thought of myself as directionally challenged, but then again, I’ve never lived anywhere but the greater Phoenix area for most of my life. As a native, It’s pretty easy to know your way around. But add tall trees and elevation, subtract 20 degrees and I get mixed up pretty dang quick. This is a fact I was unfortunately unaware of until after my Pine Top running excursion (how I forgot about the Tempe Town Lake confusion, I do not know)

Things started out fine. Okay, I just turn right, and I’m going to make another right and then I’m going to turn around and make two lefts. But then rights turned into lefts and one turn turned into three and before I knew it I was stuck in the labyrinth that is Pine Top and had no idea which direction I was headed or what street I resided on.

Luckily, boyfriend's sister, Miss Brie, had her cell phone handy and remembered what streets the cabin was on. A few wrong turns later, I finally found home. Silver-lining? I ran for an hour in high altitude, and let me tell ya, high altitude hurts the lungs!

Well technically it’s good for the lungs, but I swear it literally hurt to breath at times. I can’t believe how much of a difference it makes. By the end of my adventure I felt an awkward combination of embarrassed and proud (awkward because I got so lost and the entire Mr. Wonderful family knows, and proud because I just conquered altitude training… okay… maybe not conquered...).

I also felt exhausted. I really wish you could see me superior dramatics after a run. After my hour-long, high elevation run, I proceeded to throw myself on to the floor while throwing water on my face and whining. It’s quite obnoxious.

I would love to head north before Rock N Roll and get in super elevation shape, but sadly Phoenix sporting season is in the dead middle of winter, and I don’t think I’d like running in the snow. Uh well, once a desert rat, always a desert rat.

Rest: Relaxing Pine Top style

Mr. Wonderful and I headed North this weekend and stayed at his parents’ cabin. It was so refreshing to get away from the heat. It was also refreshing to get away from technology.

You see, boyfriend and I are pretty much internet addicts (I won’t tell you who’s the farthest gone), and the rest of technology’s dealers are close behind: Cell phones, DVDs, Websites, blogging, social media, chatting, even GPS systems. We love it all. We do also read a ton of books.... but we're even saving up for a pair of Kindles.

I never had realized just how much time I spend on the Internet until my first trip to the cabin. We don’t have a Wi-Fi connection there and our phones barely have service. It usually takes me a couple days to adjust — I do a lot of pacing back and snacking. I typically start drinking around three just because I don’t know what else to do. But this restlessness eventually passes and then all my anxiety melts away. We read, write, discuss art, love and life and listen to old country records. We play with my dog and do puzzles. It really makes me wonder if people really are happier without the distractions of modern society. Is that too hippy for ya?

Well anyway, here I am back on the magical Internet. I can't help it, I just LOVE the internet.  Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

We did a puzzle. It was circular, 750 pieces and I'd say 65% green, so it was very difficult.

We played with Calypso.

Calypso peed. 

We played in the woods.

Stay tuned for my Pine Top running adventure! 

Toodles! 

Rest: The Tucson Tour

I just love a good day trip, or a few-days trip. The boyfriend and I went to Tucson today to look at U of A's law school. I couldn't help but picture myself with long braided hair wearing a vintage nighty-esque dress with moccasins, all while picking up the harmonica and the art of incense making. Believe me, if I end up moving to Tucson, that actually might happen. Tucson is full of hippies, but I love it. While boyfriend and I were tossing out the pros and cons of residing in Tucson, I resolved that the most exciting pro would be that everything I could ever need would be in one square block: co-op, coffee, beer, pizza, health food, vintage shops, neighborhoods and possible places to run. That would be pretty dang cool if I didn't get too sick of it first.

Highlights of the day

1) Dread-locked man mystically playing  his flute while riding his bicycle through 4th Avenue.
2) The college-esque bars in Tucson seem to be wonderfully lacking in the abundance of testosterone and date rape drugs found in similar Tempe bars.
3) Tucsonans are extremely friendly.
4) A delightful bar called The Shanty has a self-servicing popcorn machine.
5) Differentiating real cowboys from fake cowboys. The boyfriend is a pro detector of cowboy farces.

The road trip accomplished it's goal and boyfriend and I were equally enamored with the town and law school. We were not-so equally troubled (as in I was the only one troubled) by how small the place is, as well as by the over-saturation of Wild West culture. It was extremely charming, but the odds of me finding a good job there are slim. Still, I can't help but hope I do find a job in Tucson so that I can indulge in my inner hippie, grow an enormous garden, write stories all day and shop at the co-op. Seriously, it's an extremely unique and alluring town that would have a promising effect on my soul.

Needless to say, I didn't run (although we did do a ton of walking).  It was an important day though so you cannot hold it against me.