jacking the ball

yesterday, as i walked past the bench in millenium park on which i collapsed after my 20 miler, i decided its time to get back in the running game. or, at a minimum, be less out of the game.

so i set my alarm for 7 am, hoping to get out and get a few solid miles in before it hit 90. i managed to get out of bed by 7.30, and out of the house by 8.15 to drive to the lake. the plan: 2 or 3 untimed miles. nothing spectacular, just a little morning run.

well, at 8.30, even at the lake, it was HOT. i love the heat if i am in a swimsuit, at the beach or a pool, and drinking cold beer. even 2 out of those 3 make me a happy camper. but i am kind of a baby when it comes to being athletic in the sun.

you can probably tell where this story is going. 1 mile in, i decided it was time to lose the shirt and be that girl that runs in her sports bra. 2 miles in, i decided to call it a day and walk back to my car. but with a half mile to go, i sprinted for that last little bit.

kind of a disorganized mess of a run, but it was a run, and it felt good. just hot.

in non running news: my smart talented creative and beautiful jen graduated from the art institute and yesterday i went to her portfolio show. now, i have had the privilege of seeing her work as she was doing it over the last 2 years, but it was really cool to see other people's work, and mostly to celebrate her being done with school.

and, since she is so inspired, she gave out sunglasses with her name and her web address on them. so clever right? i wore them on my run this morning. im her biggest fan.

if you want to check out her work (and you really should, its pretty darn cool), go here.

after her show i had some delicious dinner at blueprint with her parents. they are hilarious and the food was wonderful - i dont get to eat octopus quite enough : )

aaaaand i saw a wonderful concert last night! the dirty projectors and the sea and the cake played at millenium park for FREE. so jamie and i went over there and it was a pretty great show. both are great bands...jacking the ball and sound and vision are particularly happy songs by the sea and the cake. check it out.

sun sun sun all over our faces

oh hey. im alive. i havent been blogging for a number of reasons...i'm not really running, so i am not sure i have anything of interest to blog about, im on summer break so i am too lazy to do anything remotely productive, ive been very busy being social and enjoying my last weeks in chicago, etc etc etc

but i thought i would write a quick little post today.

last week was full of wonderful things like dinners with friends, day drinking with fellow teachers for the cubs game (yikes), reading something crazy like 8 books, occasionally making it to the gym, and lots of napping.

yesterday i had a perfect chicago summer day. i finally managed to wake up and get my butt to millenium park for the saturday morning workouts. i got there a little before 8, when tai chi was going on. i wanted to get a good spot for yoga, so i just joined the class. man, tai chi is kinda weird. i don't get it. maybe i missed something, but i think i was pretending to hold an imaginary ball and turn it and spin it and something about my energy movement...i dont know. i am not passing judgement on it because i know so little about it, but i am just saying, kinda weird for me at 7:30 am on a saturday.

for the 8 am yoga class, i was right up front. sweeeet. i hadn't done good yoga in a while so i was pretty pumped. i love yoga for the workout, but i am just not into the chanting and stuff. once we got past that part yesterday, it was a great class. it was already like 85 degrees by the time the class started (seriously, it was hot) and the sun was obviously east of us, so my right cheek and arm and leg were super super hot and in the sun the whole time. actually, with the sun and heat and yoga combined, i was a hot sweaty mess the whole time. but a happy hot sweaty mess.

after yoga i went to the library to get more books (im a bookworm). and in the afternoon...i went to the beach! there was tons of leftover booze at my house from our grad party, so i mixed up some vodka lemonades for my friend jamie and i, and whisky and coke for her boyfriend matt. and we had fun fun fun laying out at the beach until it got too hot- which is the exact moment we ran out of drinks. so, we headed on a little bar crawl of day drinking.

the evening ended with matt and i discussing our hatred for coldplay. this made me really very happy because i have never met anyone who hates coldplay for all the same reasons that i do. and then! he did something awesome! he told me that the only band he hates as much as coldplay is u2! which is exactly how i feel! ive known matt for maybe 10 years and that was the best conversation we have ever had.

soooo that was my week and weekend. and today? fathers day! and by some lucky coincidence, my dad is coming to chicago today because he has a conference here all week. hoooray! so i get to see my wonderful hilarious smart and almost as good looking as me dad.

to honor my father and to remind him how lucky he is to have me as a daughter, let me dedicate this photo montage of us to him. in fact...ill dedicate this whole post to him! he's that great.

my dad and i run the detroit turkey trot every thanksgiving, and do a re-enactment when we get home:


this year, we even did a re-enactment of our stretching. this picture just makes me laugh:


and here is my all time favorite picture of my dad and i:


happy fathers day dad! and happy sunday to all : )

summertime and the living's easy

friday's house party = great success (except that after the wings lost i got so upset and heart broken that i went to bed. but still, from 1 - 9 pm, it was a great party)

saturday's bachelorette party my running buddy/amazing friend colie = phenomenal.

my cumulative hangover from 2 nights out = ouch.

i made it home around 1 pm today from last night, with plenty of time to go to the library, or work out, or start packing. i layed out on the roof instead. i felt it was productive.

i managed to make it to the lake for a run this evening, but i just wasn't feeling it. whats going on with me? i think for so long running was the big event in my life, and now, its far from it. but still...if i ran a marathon less than a month ago, shouldn't a be able to churn out a 5 miler without feeling like i am going to die?

yes, this is when you can point out that my drinking, eating, and sleeping habit have been shit lately. i'm working on it. really.

in case you haven't discovered these lovely videos, enjoy, courtesy of brook's running super fans

i love their faces at the end of the story! hilarious.


barefoot, thats how the kenyans do it.



the insanity i have experienced during marathon training leads me to believe this seems about right for ultra training...


AND, i just got jenny owen young's album that came out a few months ago. i think "last person" is my new favorite song. but get the whole album, probably. she is rockin.

pump this party (don't back down)

today was the kids' last day of finals, and tomorrow is awards/graduation day. and then...the big party at the volunteer house (aka, my house)!!

which means...tonight we clean, get coolers of beer set up, and make sure we have ping pong balls for beer pong.

this is exciting for a number of reasons: its summer, my 2 years of being a volunteer are over, theres a huge party, the red wings will play game 7 of the stanley cup finals during said party....all great things!

tomorrow at about 1.30 pm chicago time, the party will be starting. i hope you are all excited for me.

oh! and guess who will be in attendance at this party?? Khalid El Boumlili. yeah, the guy who just won the san diego marathon. He is dating a friend of mine who used to be in the same volunteer program i am in. so, the two of them will be over at my house partying tomorrow.

i will let you know if i pick up any wisdom on how to run a 2:11 marathon!

smiley faces

i LOVE the photographers at races. okay, not necessarily the photographers themselves, but i really like that they are there, and that a few days after a race i can laugh at myself, because i inevitably look ridiculous in the pictures.

the pictures from sunday's 13.1 are up. here are some highlights:

this is clearly from my running portion of the race:


and here i am, taking a nice little walk break...


just going on a walk by the lake, its not a 13.1 mile race or anything...


dont you just hate when other people are in the way of your shot at the finish line?


you might not be impressed by these pictures. they arent that great. im pretty sure im cuter in real life than these pictures might lead you to believe. but, thats not the point. they are pretty entertaining, aren't they?

sweet home chicago

my 5th half marathon is officially in the books!

here is a rundown of the hours leading up to the race, as well as the race itself.

saturday 6 pm: cook pasta dinner with patrick. we have almost no groceries to work with, but manage to throw together chicken, pasta, diced tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, broccoli, onion, and a ton of garlic

6.30 pm: food is consumed. so are some coronas

7 pm: red wings begin kicking pittsburgh's ass

7:45 pm: at the end of the first period i eat some fudge brownie ice cream left over from my class's ice cream party

9.30 pm: wings game is over. final score: 5 -0 wings. i am jubilant.

9:40 pm: i set up the coffee maker, lay out my clothes, make a play list, set my alarm for 3.30 am.

10:30 pm: get in bed. watch cobert on hulu. fall asleep at some point around 11 pm

2 am: wake up to txt messages from my friend ryan "go wings!" "what are you uyp too?" "come over"

2.02 am: respond "i have a half marathon in 5 hours" feel like a big loser for being in bed when people are clearly out having fun.

2.05 am: receive message "pit stop?" not entirely sure what it means but i think its funny.

2.06 am: remind myself that though its fun to be drunk at 2 am, at 10 am tomorrow i will feel better after finishing a race than being hungover. go back to sleep

3.30 am: alarm goes off. i realize many of my friends are still at the bars from the night before. surprisingly i am not jealous yet strangely happy to start by day so damn early. still, i shower with the lights off cause it hurts my eyes

4 am: eat oatmeal, drink coffee, discuss my insanity for doing this on a regular basis with patrick

4.30 am: leave to catch the bus. wait for a long time. begin to make a plan b in case it never comes

4.45 am: bus comes! i fall asleep on the way to millenium park

5.10 am: arrive at millenium park and take the shuttle to the starting line

5. 45 am: get to the race. south shore cultural center is really nice, lots of space. we check out bags at gear check and walk around.

6:00 am: bored

6.05 am: after looking for some water to take my motrin, i realize there is none to be found. i take them without water. ew.

6.10 am: massage tent opens. i capitalize on this opportunity. i tell the guy my it band is bugging me and he goes to town on it. really digs deep in my thigh. i am a sucker for this kind of pain. loved it. and im convinced it helped a lot.

6.30 am: BORED BORED BORED

6.50 am: line up in my corral. the race utilized wave starts, and i was in wave I based on my PR in detroit last october. i knew this race would not be as speedy. while waiting, there was some blues brothers impersonators walking around and they played lots of blues brothers music...they were playing up the whole chicago theme the whole race.

7 am: race starts in waves

7.10 am: i actually start my race

mile 3: i realize that i am not up to racing this. and my knee is okay at this point but i doubt it will hold up for 10 more miles. i put a "run one song fast, walk one song" plan in place

mile 5: really pleased with my plan. i remember this is my last race in chicago before moving so i am just enjoying the scenery

mile 6: remind myself that i am not racing 13.1 miles, but i am still burning about 1300 calories and getting in a good 2.5 hr workout

mile 7: turnaround! still confident my plan is genius

mile 9: moe's "st augustine" comes on my ipod for a running song. damnit this song is like 8 minutes long! ugh

mile 10: by this point, i have seen 3 women with their shirts on inside out. this is evidence that the shuttles required everyone to be up waaaaay to early and no one was thinking right.

mile 11: rain starts sprinkling. feels GREAT. debate pushing it the last 2 miles. decide its not worth it, stick with my plan and finish whenever the hell i do

mile 12.5: very close to the finish. i sprint the rest of the way because i have so much left - well, energy wise. knee is hurting a bit but hey, i can do .6 miles without doing too much more damage!

mile 13.1: finish!! i grab water, an apple, cookies (my favorite post race snack!), and deep dish pizza (my NEW favorite post race snack). i go to wait in line for my stuff from gear check. i run into patrick, congratulate him and ask him how it went and he says "this is the stupidest thing i have ever done." we head home.

10.45 am: back at millenium. due to great bus karma, we get a CTA bus home immediately.

11.30 am: hang my new medal with the others. shower. realize that my newly dyed hair (i dyed it eggplant last monday) must still have some dye in it and the rain has bled the color onto my white shirt. the same shirt that my sports bra bled blue on during my 20 miler. awesome

11.45 am: get back in bed. nap time!

official stats:
Distance HALF MAR
Chip Time 2:30:24
Overall Place 2557 / 3002
Gender Place 1434 / 1757
Division Place 190 / 231
Split 1:16:47
Divtotal 231
Sextotal 1767
Pace 11:29

it was not a PR, and it was far from it. but i accepted my limits, and enjoyed the race as much as i could. now, i will be taking some time off to cross train and do yoga to let my body heal up fully from the marathon. i know some of you are invincible and are more or less fine after 26.2...i am realizing this is not the case for me! but, a little rest and changing up my work out routine will be good for many reasons, and soon enough, i will start training for the next marathon.

drink enough wine and you'll sing along

the following is a phone conversation which took place today between my dear wonderful but not so supportive of the running friend daigs and i.

daigs: so there's a wings game on tonight
maria: i know! should be a good one
daigs: and tommy's in town. wanna watch with us?
maria: absolutely. the thing about that is, i have a half marathon tomorrow morning and i have to wake up at 3.30 am. its on nbc so why don't you come over here and we can all watch it?
daigs: OR....why don't you stop running all these damn marathons and drink some beer with us?
maria: yeah...i will...really soon...i promise. after this one.
daigs: thats not at all true

yeah, he's on to me.

does anyone else have these conversations constantly with their friends? or do you have friends who are insane and like to run too?

in other news...today i spent approximately 3 hours looking at things i want for my new life in san francisco. its smarter to just buy new things instead of ship everything out...so i get to pick out new sheets, towels, a comforter, a duvet, etc etc etc.

apartment therapy is a great site that lets you snoop around people's cool apartments and then figure out how to make yours look pretty cool too.

i want this duvet!

alright, time to tear myself from the computer and go make some pasta (and drink some beer) with patrick...even though my knee might not let me finish the race, i am so excited for him! this is his first half marathon, but he is crazy athletic and i know he will kick its ass.

speaking of ass kickin...datsyuck should be playing again tonight. fingers crossed he will make some shit happen. lets mess pittsburgh up.

here's the mail it never fails it makes me wanna wag my tail....

(yeah, my title is a blues clues song. i babysat a lot in college)

i just went home for lunch and had possibly the best 15 minute lunch break imaginable. (yes, living across the street from work has its perks)

first of all, my lunch was my spanakopita leftovers from dinner at pegasus last night. really tasty.

secondly, i got TWO really wonderful things in the mail: the new july runner's world, and my NFT san francisco. i plan on devouring the entire runner's world in one sitting (while icing my knee - i'm such a multi tasker). and the not for tourist's guides are really great, and i am very excited to explore my new city.

what a great lunch, right? right.

today is INSANE at school. last day of classes. teachers and students alike are in rare form.

my economics class kids are having an ice cream party outside today last period. i am very excited about this. also, their final is monday...keep your fingers crossed they study for it!

i'm going to the last cross country fun run at the lake with students today. i am making the decision to walk, not run, in an attempt to save my knee for sunday. after, my coworker angela and i will head over to packet pick up at fleet feet so i can bring my roommate his bib.

i know my knee pain is to be expected after the marathon, and really i was just lucky to get through training without any injury. but, i really can't bring myself not to attempt to run on sunday. it will not be a PR. i am not even setting goals. if i don't finish, then so be it. maybe i will listen to my smart mind (the one that thinks about long term success) and i will skip the run on sunday.

but i can't really imagine that happening. nope, i think i will take motrin before the race, and possibly even more during the race. i will run at a reasonable (aka, slow) pace until my knee inevitably hurts, and then i will walk until i can run again. if i can't run again, then i'll walk it. finishing slow is fine by me for this race.

ten toes

yesterday i went out for my 8 mile run and got my roommate tara to come along with me. it started out really well...cool, sunny, breezy, yay! we decided to run south first, because i always run north first and i wanted to change it up. it was great to run on a different part of the path and get a little change of scenery.

tara and run ran the first 2 miles or so together, then she stopped and we figured i could just pick her up on my way back to the car. so i kept going to run 2 more. around the 4 mile point (my turnaround) i realized my knee was aching. oh well, i figured i could run through it as long as it didn't get too bad.

around this time, however, something else kinda funny happened. something wet and icky was in my shoe. i had run through mud - did mud get in there? or, had i blister i didn't even know i had pop and now the juices were all in my sock? when i met back up tara 2 miles later i took off my shoe to check...and find a nice bloody sock. really gross. and i just cut my nails! how did this even happen! ugh.

so, we kept on running but boy, was it windy. i remembered why i never run south first - so i can start with the wind in my face instead of finishing that way. between the wind, my knee, and my bleeding toe, we quit with about a mile to go.

when i got home, i took these lovely pictures of my toes....




please note the blood between my toes. yummy.

so this morning, my knee is achy. damnit. i think i am going to go for the 13.1 on sunday. worst thing that happens is i DNF but at least i will have gotten up at 3.30 am to go try. if i DNF, do i still get pizza at the finish?

yesterday i got a postcard from the cleveland marathon with my finish stats. what a nice touch! has anyone run another race thats done this? i thought it was pretty cute...





the only bad news is that my time on here is different than the one i had originally seen on the results page...so it looks like i was 4.53 not 4.52. hey, fine by me. just makes it even easier to PR next time : )

been up so long.

since the marathon my runs have been pretty half assed - or half kneed, to more accurate. but yesterday, i went on one of the runs at the lake with students, and i finally had an awesome run. it was actually just one student who showed up (it was nasty weather, and i'm sure the other kids were studying for their finals, right?) and the other teacher who was there. the three of us ran together the first 1.5 miles, then at the turnaround, i took off. since the other teacher is actually a cross county coach, i was allowed to leave her to run with the student.

it was a great run for a few reasons.

one, my knee didn't hurt, which obviously is good.

two, it was cool and breezy and perfect running weather.

three, we were at the lake.

four, i didn't have my ipod (me? running without an ipod? whoa) but i really enjoyed just hearing my breathing and my feet on the pavement.

five, and this is mostly because of reason four, i totally zoned out. i forgot i was running.

six, i love the lakefront path and was getting all nostalgic since in less than a month, i will be gone and exploring new paths...this time, near an ocean.

and seven, i've been stressed out and it was good to get out and run. the end of the school year, plus the end of my 2 years of volunteering and living in chicago, is crazy and busy and a little emotional. it all adds up and makes a run necessary for my sanity.

i've been continuing to ice my knee and stretch like a madwoman, and i think its working. today i'm going to run 8 at the lake. i think that should mentally get me ready for sunday's half. i'll take it easy the rest of the week, maybe run 2 on friday or saturday.

its supposed to be really rainy on sunday. i dont mind for the actual running in the rain, but im really concerned about the pizza. they'd better keep it dry. after 13.1 i don't want soggy pizza.

yeah, the red wings lost last night. i am okay with this. because if game 4 had been a contention game for the cup, and it was only on versus and not nbc, that would be an unacceptable situation. this whole hockey/tv thing needs to get resolved. putting games - especially the stanley cup finals - on versus is NOT the way to get people to start watching hockey. right? right.

also...there is a new joe purdy album out. it is really good. "miss me" and "been up so long" are standouts.

sunshine go away today...

post marathon, i have become an impressively lazy person. this weekend, for example, i went to bed at 1 am friday night and slept in til 1 pm saturday. i then had to work up the energy to take the train to the library...as if it was SO difficult to walk 3 blocks and get on a train. but it felt like it! so i got more books, layed around some more, read, watched the wings game, and went to bed. aaaand slept in the next day too. i do NOT sleep in. like, ever. this is nuts.

on a related note of my laziness, i am addicted to mah jong on my computer.

my mom pointed out that my staying in and laying around probably means that i am broke. she guessed it. moms are always right about those things.

sunday i did manage to find the energy to go on a run. ok, basically i went on a run because i was eating at ditka's that night and i thought a nice long run would be a good idea. my knee is not perfect but i managed to run/walk about 5 miles. its funny hoq quickly 5 miles goes from being a short run to being a long run.

this sunday i am running the 13.1 marathon in chicago . my roommate is running, too, as our coworker is hurt and can't use her bib. so, he is going to run it. he will kick my butt but it will be fun to have someone to hang out with at the finish. apparently there is chicago deep dish pizza at the finish line....sounds like a good reason to run 13.1 miles to me!

hopefully the knee will behave, and if not, well hey. i tried.