The Great 28

A couple months ago, I celebrated my 28th birthday. I thought long and hard (that’s what she said) about posting something that explains 28 wonderful things I plan on doing in the coming year, or 28 thought-provoking revelations I’ve had in the past 28 years, or showing you my favorite 28 dance moves (hint: they all include the running man) – but it would have been completely forced.

This is another year for me, another year to push forward with my running, to try and be a better wife and mother, a friend and an overall person. This is just a continuation from the day before when I was only a young 27.

So if you’re hoping for something amazing and ground-breaking here, uh, my bad.

Instead, you get to hear me brag about how my little sister (who lives in Colorado) made it to Texas for the first time in 4 years. This means that she has never met my daughter and I have never met hers. To say I was simply excited – under-freaking-statement of the year.

Photo courtesy of my Aunt Shannon.

We offered up our guest room with the only requirement being that she had to hang out with me on my birthday. When I told her we were planning on riding 4 wheelers with some friends that night, she was more than down. We hung out during the day with our kids and then passed them off ever so gently to Lillie’s Godparents (who are also the wonderful people who took us in as teenagers) and got our birthday on.

Photos are minimal because 1. I was on a 4 wheeler most of the time &  2. I was enjoying my time with my baby sister and didn’t want to take photo breaks constantly. Sometimes real life takes the reins instead of internet fun, and it’s totally worth it.

Am is on the 4-wheeler that is sitting in the lake. I do not apologize for the crappiness of the photo.

Overall, it was a really wonderful way to ring in my 28th year by spending time with my sister and niece.

Tea time is very important business.

I was sad to see them go but grateful for the time we were able to spend together. Being sad didn’t last too long though – a few weeks later she decided she wanted to be closer to family and next thing I know the husband & I are hitting the road to Colorado! This was in Amarillo, Texas – home of the free 72 oz steak (that is if you can eat it in under an hour). I’ve never really had the luxury of being a small person (5’10 at age 11 can do that to you) so this is probably the closest I’ll ever get to feeling unlike an Amazon.

Except for when we helped Amber move to Colorado 5 years ago. We had also stopped in the same place when that happened. Oh look, a young Al & Tam. How precious we are.

Beyond having my sister back – here are a few other things that have happened in the past two months of my 28th year.

I decided to run a marathon. Like whoa, right?

I found a pink truck. With half naked girls on it. Then I forced the husband to take a picture of me with it because that’s the kind of juvenile things married folks like us tend to do.

I met a guy with a legit mullet, took a picture with the sexiest face I could muster and then posted it on this blog.

I mastered the side braid. and I painted pumpkins with the kid. So, the Great 28 is off to a fantastic start – here’s to keeping up the momentum!

Mudquest 2013

I’m a lot little late in posting this considering I ran this back in May and it’s now July.

Oops?

I always try to wait on race pictures so I have something to show you and in this case, I waited, and waited and when they finally came I just kept putting it off.

If there were a procrastinator gene, I’m sure I’d have it.

I ran the 2 miler last year, they ended up nixing that distance, so we opted for the 3.5 mile instead. And by we, I mean, Sar from Life of Love, Christine (no blog, but she ran it with me last year!) and me.

Sar, me, Christine with our finisher medals

They also had a 6.5 & 13.1 mile course (they also had a course for children). The 6.5 was the same loop we did for ours just done twice. I’m not sure if the 13 mile course was any different. It was tough and by the time we finished (1 1/2 hours later) I was glad I didn’t opt to do the 6.5 miler. They have really upped their game for this mud run since the 2 miler I did last year (I think that was the first one they held).

They had 20-30 obstacles. Here’s a couple from their website & facebook:

They had a 10 foot high platform you climbed up and jumped off into an 8 foot mud pond, it was pretty damn scary but was such a rush. And this huge slide that could totally compare to something at Schlitterbahn Water Park except you only climb up some stairs for that, and here you climbed up rolling muddy hills for like 20 minutes. 

This was the only picture I could find of myself from the photographers. That shirt? Yeah, it was white when we started out. It was completely brown within the first two minutes.

Between waiting to go through obstacles, going through obstacles and trying our best not to fall and bust our ass, we finished in around 1:30. We ran to each obstacle as best we could, but mud is kind of a bitch to navigate so the definitely were not ‘race’ miles. But they were fun. We laughed a lot, held on to each other like crazy and enjoyed every minute of it.

Except for the last 20 minutes or so, I’m pretty sure all three of us were over it at that point.

I do have a nice video of me busting my ass for your enjoyment though.

I was going to explain to you where I was, but just watch the video. You’ll figure out which one I am pretty damn quick.

I had more than a few bruises from this one, but they were all worth it.

Another great thing – we received medals as finishers! Unless it’s a half or full, most races don’t spend the money on medals for finishers so that was a pleasant surprise.

Overall, I will definitely be doing this run again. The cost isn’t bad for a mud run, I paid around $40 with early registration and it’s local to me (Waco, Texas). You also get a t-shirt & two free beers at the end. Y’all know I love me some beer, so even though it was 10 am, that shit was getting chugged.

Until we run again!

Training Tuesday 5.28.13

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This link-up is just a way to talk about training [in any way, for anything] to help hold ourselves accountable and possibly brag a bit. I mean, you ran 1 mile without stopping – you totally deserve a chance to brag about it! That shit is hard. You did 10 push-ups in a row, HOLLLEERRR.

And even if you’re not training for anything, you’re just putting yourself out there to be healthier, to get slimmer, to whatever you can share it on Training Tuesday. Let’s say you were sitting at home and instead of eating a carton of Oreos you instead ate 20 baby carrots and just imagined they were chocolate-y crèmey goodness [hypothetical situation, of course] – share it here!

Abbey & I don’t discriminate – we congratulate.

 

Grab the button above & link-up below to let us know what’s going on for your Training Tuesday (or any day really, linking up throughout the week is good too!)

Abbey wasn’t here last week, but thank the sweet baby Jesus she is back! I’ve missed her. But a huge shout-out to all of you who linked up last week with me. (Jaime, Kate, Meg, & Amanda : You guys make me a better blogger. You really do.) I was seriously worried it would just be me by my lonesome.

My Training:

I started Insanity (I’ve done it 3 times this past week – which I’m considering fantastic since it was a 3 day weekend). I had hoped the husband would join me but instead he just comments on how much more sweaty I get with this than I ever did with Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred.

Thanks Captain Obvious.

I took measurements to start out with Insanity and compared those with what I took when I started the 30 Day Shred. It looks like I’ve lost 1.5 inches from my hips and 1 inch from my waist. That was only doing 20 out of the 30 days. I’ll take it!

So, if you’re in the market for a workout DVD – I would totally recommend it (it’s also much, much cheaper than purchasing Insanity). If I would have done those days consecutively and then, you know, actually make it to the 30 I have no doubt that I would have seen even better results. Maybe I’ll try again in a few months. We shall see.

Lately I’ve felt kind of burnt out with exercise but then I did something awesome this weekend and now I know what the real issue is. For the past couple months I’ve tried branching out to other forms of exercise and in the process I’ve stopped running (with the exception of a couple races). I wanted a break from the constant training I had been doing since August of last year and I was excited about it. It’s been a nice change but I’m over it.

I miss running. Something about it soothes me.

Anyway, this weekend I participated in a mud run (race recap soon!) and it was hard. Not only did we have mud holes, belly crawls, and obstacles of all sorts to go through – we chose to run the entire time (when possible. I mean, running on mud isn’t the easiest thing to do my friends). It wasn’t a timed event and a lot of people were walking from one point to the next, but we didn’t, and I’m glad. My legs felt happy. It’s weird to explain but I’m sure there’s someone out there that understands.

Why yes, that IS Sar from Life of Love on the left, me in the middle (duh) and my friend Christine on the right (who also did this with me last year!)

So what does this mean?

It means I need to start running again. I don’t want to wait for August (my initial plan was to start up again for the fall running schedule I have planned). I’m not giving up Insanity – I just think I’ll cut back to 3-4 days a week for that (the program calls for 6 days a week) and add 1-2 days of running – a happy medium.

A happy medium indeed.

This Weekend, I [5.6.13]

Linking up with Sar & Syn to cover my weekend shenanigans.

This Weekend, I got a little muddy. We went to Mudd Jam 4 and had a blast! For those who aren’t familiar, this was an event at an ATV park. You can go camp, ride trails, get in mud & basically just get yo’ redneck on. Don’t knock it till you try it. :)

Our friends, Chris & Kayla (they’re the ones below who are pulling me out of a nice little hole I found), joined us in our redneckery as well as our friend Kevin.  

Alfred showed Kevin a real nice time (as evidenced by this picture below) for his Bachelor party weekend. Kevin is getting married this Saturday & seriously couldn’t stop talking about his fiancé. Twas adorables.

This Weekend, I rehydrated with oranges to counteract my dehydration of Bud Light. The husband laughed at me for throwing them in my cooler, but they were a hit. And sweet baby Jesus they were tasty.

This Weekend, I watched this happen. I didn’t participate because the water was colder than a mug & I had limited amount of clean clothing at this point. But, we have plans to go back in the summer months & you can bet your ass that’s the way I’m rolling. I mean, seriously, how can I not?

But mostly This Weekend, I missed the hell out of this little toot. (she’s so ready for summer!)