News Alert! Jen and I are apparently naturally gifted athletes- and I'm going to write a book!

Okay, so first things first: you know how Jen dressed up as Wonder Woman for Halloween? Apparently it wasn't a costume- she is really like that on a daily basis! This weekend, when she went to run her measly little 7 miles, she just went ahead and ran 10 instead AND managed to maintain a 12.5 minute mile the whole time. No short bus needed there! Go Jen!!!

She even fights crime in her spare time. And she's only slightly drunk while doing it!

I just want to reiterate how awesome she is again. She is pretty amazing! And the only one who's volunteered to do this crazy running thing with me, so she's tops in my book.

While this is probably not surprising to anyone who knows Jen (she's great at everything she does and is tiny with probably 3% body fat), the surprising part is that I'm not as bad as I thought I'd be when I started all this. And I've been suffering from a serious case of LIA (Lead In Ass) lately too.

No caption needed for this one.

The last couple maintenance runs I did more resembled a chain gang of one picking up trash by the side of the road than a person jogging. And I made the monumental mistake last Friday of thinking that since the weather was nice out, I would jog on my lunch break! Unlike most of my decisions, which I generally know are bad ones right off the bat, I was thinking this was a good one until about ten minutes in. I had so many things to do that day- before work I had to sew (Rapunzel & Cinderella went out this week), work was busy, and then we had plans for after work so the only time I could get my run in was noon but since the temp has dropped, I thought, 'this will be perfect!'. Sometimes I feel like my life is the Gong Show and someone should stand on the sideline with a really long hook to pull me offstage before I can actually make the next mistake.

I'd be gonged before the redneck but after the four-armed lady

Here are a few things I learned from that run:

Discovery #1: you cannot eat 3 pieces of pizza and a banana an hour before you run and expect to not feel like you're going to hurl once your body temp reaches approximately 40,000 degrees

Or about surface-of-sun temp

Discovery #2: running in the sun with no shade is hot. Hot like Lance Armstrong's nut sack during the Tour de France. Hot like you want to puke and take a nap at the same time. Now I see the wisdom of starting the princess run at such an early hour- to complete at least half the run in the dark, thank god.

I won! Now I'm going to need some ice, a medium sized bowl, and 15 minutes of privacy.

Discovery #3: apparently my ass looks better than my face. I gathered this astute observation from the fact that I received no honks while running against traffic on McMullen, but it was a different story once I turned around to run back home. I'm sure this wasn't helped by the fact that my face was beet red and my blond hair was in a spout on the top of my head so I looked like a life-sized version of a zit that someone was trying to squeeze the pus out of. Sound gross? I looked even worse. From the front, anyway.

I kinda look like a zit with hair after a few miles. The men are lining up at the door!

But tonight Bobby and I were running our long run (6 miles) and I wanted to try to cure my LIA syndrome so I stocked up on a few things- some good, some bad, and I thought I'd share them with Jen (and Jillian and Liz and Jackie if you ladies are running too).

Quench gum- I read that chewing gum helps to keep your mouth from drying out and gives you something to do (assuming you can run and chew gum at the same time- it was iffy for me) and this worked well for me, but for other reasons. The chewing forced me to breathe in and out of my nose for longer and I thought it kept my breathing even for longer into the run (I spit it out halfway through).

Gu Chomps Watermelon & Clif Shot Bloks Black Cherry- thumbs up on the watermelon, thumbs down on the black cherry. Thought it'd be the other way around but the black cherry was bitter (and had caffeine so I made Bobby eat it). We ate these before we started the run this time to get us going. Worked really well. But not as well as the .....


Gu Gel- I swore I'd never try these since they have the consistency and temperate of semen but I read that they are not bad while you're running and since they are smaller to carry, I bought the jet blackberry flavor and we whipped them out halfway through the run. Here are Bobby's quotes, all within 30 seconds, "This #$%^ is gross!", "I'm gonna blow chunks from this %^&$", and "Even I'LL be blogging about how nasty this stuff is later". I agreed totally. It was like eating thick jelly that was kinda salty too. The whole time I was eating it I thought that I would NEVER eat this stuff again. Until 5 minutes later. We were like fricking gazelles after that stuff! I was SO much faster the second half of the run and we felt like we could run forever after that crap. I seriously don't care if it actually turns out to be zebra semen or cougar turd concentrate- I'm totally using it for every long run. I'll just have to try out some not-so-strong flavors for next time. Maybe the original zebra semen flavor.

Does this come in anal bleaching flavor? I'll take it!

Um, yeah, that's my body too...

SPI belt- while this was not recommended by Helen since they do bounce a little, of course I didn't listen and ordered it anyway. The consensus online seems to be that you either love it or hate it. I love it. It's this tiny little bag on a black elastic belt that sits low on your hips and does not ride up while you're running that can expand to fit a bunch of crap. Tonight I had my iPhone, tissues, key, and 2 Gu gel packs and I plan on adding a camera for the Disney run. It does bounce a little when it's loaded up but not bad; I imagine it's probably similar to what it must feel like for a guy to have his junk bouncing around. Thong, you should order one of these bags so that you can finally feel what it's like to have a pair! That's just a test to see if he actually reads this blog. But I bought this from the website, not an off brand from Sport Authority, and I'm really happy with it. Can also double as a not-as-lame-as-normal hip bag if you go to Disney or Busch Gardens a lot. And mine's silver so it's kinda cute too.


We ended up doing 6 miles in 71 minutes while using a run 7 minutes/ walk 3 minutes combo that worked really well for both of us the entire run. And don't think that I wasn't thinking that I had to at least match Jen's pace, especially since my run tonight was much shorter than her 10 miles over the weekend! I'm not competitive, but I don't actually want to be an hour behind her that day at Disney, so I was pushing it! I'll be mainlining those Gu gel packs that day, baby.

This should get me through the first half hour. I'll steal from old ladies after that.

Okay, and the other thing I wanted to tell you all tonight: I'll be writing a novel in December so if you see me on Facebook instead of writing, feel free to shame me through mockery and heckling to get me back to writing. In other words, just treat me like you do on a regular basis.

Actual kit!

I have a kit that the guy who started "National Novel Writing Month" came up with so that you can do this at any time, not just in November, which is when he started this years ago. The goal is to not write something good, or a final draft, or anything like that, but just to actually write something (50,000 words) and complete a novel, start to finish, in a month. There are some really good quotes in the booklet that I'll share with you next blog that really make you think, "Yeah, I CAN do this" and hopefully someone else will try this too. My favorite quote? We're going for quantity, not quality. Like me at a Golden Corral buffet.

That's good, because I've got a ten spot and a hankering for some quality shrimp.

Me need words

I'm starting Dec. 1st and feel free to hold me accountable at any point. I'm supposed to tell everyone so that people will ask me about it later and I will be shamed into not quitting. Apparently weeks 2 & 3 are the hardest so put it on your calendar to call me around those weeks in December for some anonymous nagging. I'm gonna need it! Oh, and I will not be letting anyone read it. It will be sucky. I picked a sucky topic and it will be offensive to everyone so I'm just writing it for myself to see if I actually like writing fiction. I've never done it before so wish me luck!