WHABAM!

Let's just cut to the chase shall we? 

We shall.

Ran half marathon #2 yesterday and....

...it was THE BEES KNEES.

This calls for story time!

To be completely honest, I did not feel ready mentally or physically. I didn't do much running the week before the race and thought I would be lucky if I tied my first time. Really. I was not ready. But when I woke up on Saturday I felt surprisingly good. I was extra motivated from a good luck call from absolute darling friend of mine (4:30am my time, 3:30am his time). I ate, got dressed and was ready. At this point, I was going into the race not really caring and just wanting to get this race over with...and I think it really helped. The weather was perfect (well, perfect by running standards). It was cold (40s) but I like running in the cold and actually, I thought it was warmer than my first race in October. The race began at 6:30am and I told myself to go start off easy this time. Last time I was flying the first half of the race and then paid for it dearly the second half. I picked off my two (unofficial) pacers by the time I got to 5 miles and was feeling good. Now, there was a marathon and a half marathon and we all ran together until around mile 11. I couldn't find the 2:00 half marathon pacer, though I knew I began the race in front of him so I decided to just keep my eye on the 4:00 marathon pacer and noticed that as the race went on I was creeping closer and closer to him. This pleased me. I felt surprisingly well when I hit mile 8 and ate a shot block and decided I would eat another, if needed at mile 10 or 11. Well, for the love of mankind THEY DIDN'T POST THE NEXT MILE MARKER UNTIL MILE 12!!!!! You see, when I hit mile 8 and was still feeling pretty good, my competitive side revved up and I decided I was going to try to PR this race.  Trust me when I say I panicked a little after mile 8 and didn't see mile markers because I didn't know what mile I was at or what my time was. AH-NNOYING. I could tell I was at least at mile 10 when my quads starting talking to me, so that was kind of nice but for the love of running where the HECK were my mile markers!!??!?!? Every 2 miles huh? HUH? HUH??? LIES!!!! 

Well. All of the sudden I saw the mile 12 marker and was ecstatic, relieved, and then the exhaustion hit me. But my adrenaline also kicked it into (higher) gear and I was determined. Also I noticed the dude next to me perk up a little when we saw the mile 12 marker, I gave him a side ward glance and secretly challenged him to a running duel. And then the sensible side kicked in and I decided maybe I should just aim at finishing the race at my current pace (instead of trying run really fast/sprint the last 1.2 miles like I thought of doing for 0.3 seconds) so I let him get a little ahead of me but I kept pace with him. WELL. Then I saw, what I thought was the mile 13 marker, so I picked up my speed a little bit only to realize after I had passed it that the marker was the 26 mile marker for the marathoners and in actuality I was quickly approaching the REAL mile 13 marker. So once again I got my adrenaline going for the 3rd time and I was in some serious pain. But a good pain. But still, pain. And at this point they funnel the runners in so it got kind of tight. Well, I passed the mile 13 marker, say the clock and the finish line and SPRINTED. FOR. MY. LIFE. I'm sure my quads were ready to kill me but I was darned and determined to PR this race and be done. 

My unofficial time was a 1:57....

SET A NEW PR!!!!!!!

And then today I checked for my official chip time...

1:55:48

WHABAM!!!!!

I beat my first half marathon time by a little over 5 minutes!!!!!!

I felt like a rockstar. Could not believe it!!!!! I'm still floating.

And now in other news.....

My visitor over a long weekend left Tuesday evening (sad, sad day). It was, undoubtedly one of the best times of my life. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun. Pure bliss.  

Well, I walked into my office on Wednesday morning, I had this waiting for me:

Thank you my dear colleagues for 1) the messages and 2) messages on STICKY notes everywhere!!! I have an infatuation with sticky notes. I love them. It's kind of ridiculous but I do, I love them. 

Oh and hey! It was Valentine's Day too! I decorated Valentine's Day cookies with some of the rehab patients and the staff. It was fun!  

And my stepdad sent me chocolates. I am now a part of the tradition. I wish I describe to tell you how utterly happy this makes me. Happiness. 

AND my best friend sent my a Valentine's Day card with treats. 

Love this girl!

AND!! OH SNAPDRAGON! IT SNOWED IN SOUTH CAROLINA!!!!!!

(This is considered a heavy frost in NH, but I was still excited to see some white stuff here in the south. I'm sure the snowbirds weren't...bahahahaha! And you thought you could escape it!!! MUAHAHAHA!)

Also. Tim McGraw came out with a new CD. It's FABULOUS!!! A throwback to some of his old stuff, his GOOD stuff. Love it. I bought the whole CD and have been listening to it all week. A few songs even made it to my half marathon playlist. 

It's been the best week ever.

The Adventures of Freckles....

I've decided that every time I have an adventure, the caption shall read "The Adventures of Freckles." I do not proclaim that my life is as adventurous as say, Nancy Drew or Jason Bourne, but I surely have my own adventures in my own special way. Like today.

Being a New Englandah, it is expected to receive several snow storms and nor'easters in the winter. This week is no exception and I love it, personally. But anyway, I was carefully driving on my way to work this morning because the roads were treacherous. Frightening. To my utter surprise, the plows had not yet been out at 7:15am. What the dickens?! It's New England! The plows are on standby the moment we hear of an incoming storm. Again, what the?!?! My mom later pointed out that it is a weekend and a holiday weekend and not as many people are out. Ok, ok, but what about the few of us that are!?! My life matters too ya know! Alas, I digress. I was perhaps under false pretenses that because I was in an SUV with my 4-wheel drive activated that I was somehow immune to the dangers and perils of driving in the snow. Ha. Fool that I am.

I was about 3 minutes from work driving (very carefully) down a hill. I was almost to the end of the hill where it levels out when all of the sudden my car locked and started sliding sharply to the left.

It was one of those moments where the seconds feel like hours; s l o w motion.

I remember briefly pumping my breaks and realizing that it wasn't helping. I had milliseconds to make a decision: turn the wheel hard to the right and risk over-correcting and swerving into a bunch of trees...ha NO...or try to straighten out. My attempts to straighten out were futile. So I continued to swerve to the left, picking up a little speed as I descended the rest of the hill. No thoughts just panic rising as my eyes widened and my heart felt like it had butterflies in it (in a very bad way my friends, butterflies belong in the stomach!)

::thunk::

My car thudded to halt. Thankfully the left side of the road is a hill and my car was slowed by the snow and grass and hill. Thankfully no cars were coming and thankfully this street isn't very busy. Thankfully it was a Saturday, a holiday weekend, and early in the morning (7:30am on a Saturday is early). Thankfully. By the time my car stopped I had completed an impressive (retrospect) 360. I straightened my car. It wasn't until I had straightened out that I realized I had stopped breathing and that I was shaking. Not fun. It wasn't that bad but yes it was scary. All I was thinking was Please, please don't let the car get smooshed. Please. Please don't let anything happen. Thankfully nothing happened. No damage to the car. Just a little shock to the nerves. I took a few deep breaths, tried to flex my musles so they would stop shaking (failure), and kept breathing. Nothing happened. It's ok. Nothing happened. It's ok. It's ok. It's. ok. ::deep breath:: ::deep breath::

I pulled into the parking lot of work still shaking a little. It took me a little while to calm my nerves and to stop shaking. Whoo. It also helped to blurt the whole experience out to my manager and co-worker. Whew. On the way home I drove like a 96-year old grandma and could have sworn I was fishtailing at every corner. I wasn't, in fact, but boy was I scared.

Thus concludes the end of Adventure #1.

Adventure #2 (humorous, trust me, just keep reading): Mom and Gabe brave the snow storm to visit Andover, MA.
Driver-mom. Passenger- Gabe (for obvious reasons I hope you realize; I was still a bit traumatized). Driving with my mom can be a tad frightening at times (which does NOT help my already-traumatized self!!!). Mostly it's because my mom is talking about something and is really into it or we passed a cute antique shop, or we passed an adorable house with a cool color, or she spotted something like a cool bird, either way, she is partially distracted. We are approaching a stop sign to a 4 way crossing. In this weather about 20-30 feet away, or more, you typically begin to brake. Oh and there's a car coming. 30 feet, no brake. She's still talking. 25 feet, no brake. Still talking and I start to get nervous. 20 feet. No brake. Oh gosh. I start to press the imaginary brake on the passenger side. 15 feet no brake. I grab the side of the car. 10 feet. My hands fly to my face. I'm going to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then all of the sudden I hear her......giggling and exclaim, Oh!.

Yes, my mother is giggling at my terror and preparation for what appears to be a certain death.

The car slows just in time and the other car passes without an ounce of worry. I, however, remove my hands from my face and glare at my mom as she continues to giggle, cackle, and then just full on laugh at me. Funny? Funny?? NOT funny. And the best part of this is, this happens (what feels like) every 3rd time I drive with her. And she laughs. The nerve..... (and then of course I joined her in laughing because this happens FAR too often and she thinks it's funny! And it kind of is).

Well, we made it to Andover. STUNNING town. OH my gosh. Everytime my mom and I go on an adventure to explore New England, I find a new time I'm going to live in. Portsmouth, Arlington, Andover, so many choices!!!! Our destination was the Whole Foods store. Our first time! Oh boy was it fun. Totally organic and totally fun. Oh gosh the cheeses (I LOVE cheese), the oils, the nuts, the fun tasty treasures!!! I'm converted. My bank account isn't (yet...) but I totally am. I bought some scrumptous soaps (oh I cannot wait to use them: lavender, pumpin and white chocolate, patchouli, germanium, and vanilla and sugar....I am going to be one yummy-smelling chick!), hot chocolate (my mom and I have an addiciton to hot chocolate), cinnamon-raisin swirl peanut butter, and chocolate peanut butter (for my peanut butter party!). Oh it was just delightful!
We made it safely back home, despite the sketchy roads.
Thus concludes Adventure #2.

Adventure #3 will be fitting all of the goodies I have acquired over the break into my suitcases to bring back to school....

Hmmm.....

I'll Be Home for Christmas...

I'm pleased to tell you that my flight home was very smooth. No delays, cancellations, or bad weather. In fact, I was a little unsure when my mom told me I was flying out on Thursday because that gave me really only about 3 days to take 5 finals. I do not recommend that, but I got them done and got home. I beat the huge snow storm that is currently slamming the east coast (secretly...well not so secretly now...I love it!).
May I take just a moment to commend the plowing we have here. They are out BEFORE the snow even starts, salting the roads!!! I love them!!! The roads look beautiful now. In contrast, in Utah the plowers decide to come out a few days later when the snow has frozen over and it really ticks me off. Allow me to present my case. I live in a college town, thus there are thousands of idiotic college kids and muscle-heads with beefed-up cars who think they can drive carelessly through the streets when the roads are icy and dangerous. No, you cannot. Also, there are quite a few students from areas where it does not snow: southern CA, and AZ. Now, I'm not saying all of these students are incapable of driving in the snow, but from my experience, a vast amount can't and it's scary. So the moral of this tale: LEARN TO PLOW PROVO...and UT. For heaven sakes, they don't even plow I-15 or I-80 very well. Shame on you.
Ok....back to my flight.
I had one layover in Detroit, MI. Never been there (shockingly enough). The only down part of this experience was from the flight from SLC to Detroit. Why? The guy who sat next to me talked my head off!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! And you know what he spent most of the time doing? Trying to show off to me about his knowledge of beer selection. Do I care? No. Yikes. Not impressed. Then he went on and on and on about his job, which was actually pretty cool....for about 10 minutes. Then he went into the technological jargon and lost me completely so I caught myself saying, "Wow. That's really cool" about 15 times. And he kept swearing. Gentlemen, I don't care who you are. You don't sound cool swearing. You sound incompetent and unintelligent. Plus, I'm a lady. Don't swear in my presence. I'm not impressed. And he kept stroking his untrimmed and wild beard. Gross. And he kept going on about this wedding he had to go to in NY and on and on and on. TMI dude. T. M. I. The worst of it all was, I had five books with me. FIVE. I shoved two of them in my purse, and then shoved my purse in one of my carry-ons with the other books and not thinking, shoved that bag with my purse and my books in the overhead storage. Moron! Gah! So about 1/2 the way through the flight, I got up to go to the bathroom and dug in my bag for my book. Thank goodness for my book :)

Friday I spent the day in Boston doing internship tours. It was quite exciting. I began my day waiting for the Amtrak Downeaster to take me in to Boston. It was scheduled to leave at 9:17am. Unfortunately, I was about 10 minutes early and had to wait outside. The temperature was somewhere around 6, maybe 7 degrees and it was windy. Because I was dressed professionally, I wasn't in the warmest of clothes. All I could think about was how I am totally investing in thermal underwear. On top of being 10 minutes early, the train was about 30 minutes late because a freight train held them up. Can we say FREEZING??!?! My toes were numb and my knee joints were stiff. I swear my synovial fluid in my kneecaps were beginning to freeze because bending my knees was becoming very challenging. Anyway, the train came, I got on and the car was deliciously warm. However, the woman in front me complained to one of the ticketmen how hot the car was. I wanted to peer over her seat and scowl at her. Luckily the ticketman politely told her she could move to a different cart. Maybe he saw me glaring, or rubbing my poor toes furiously, maybe he just knew all of us getting on the train were probably freezing, either way, I wanted to hug that man. Made it to Boston, took the greenline to Longwood area, and then walked to Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center for tour #1. It went well, although there were about 14 people there, big group! We had to go around and introduce ourselves...yikes. I'm a master's student at BU; I do research; I just got my second bachelor's degree; I've been working as a chef in NYC for 7 years; I've been working at WIC for 2 years; then me: Hi, I'm an undergrad. Greeeeeat. The reality of the competition just slapped me across the face. I spent the next hour fretting over this. Then I figuratively slapped myself in the face and realized that I'm still qualified and capable. I kept nursing my confidence with this information for the rest of the afternoon, even more so once I got to Brigham and Women's tour. They are legit. I want to go there so badly. I think. Now I'm scared. Really, really, really, really scared. It was still fun though. I met this guy, Dan, who goes to school at Colorado State. Since we were the only 2 from the west, we became fast buddies. It was really fun. I finished my tours 4 hours later and took the T back to North Station. I still had an hour to burn so I decided to walk to my all-time favorite part of Boston: the North End. I was tempted to get a slice of Regina's pizza but decided instead to hit up Mike's Pastry to get some cannolis. (I didn't take this photo; I found it on google.com/images, but the funny part of it is, that's the woman who helped me!)Yummmm. So fun!!! I felt like a legitimate Bostonian. Then I took the train back to NH. It was great! Intimidating, scary, and nerve-wracking, but fun!

I love being home. I love being with my family, my ward family, and my friend family. Seriously. I love these people! I decorated our Christmas tree today while big, fat snowflakes swirled to the ground. Dane informed my mom that they could not decorate the tree without me. A cop out so he wouldn't have to decorate it? Perhaps...but I had a blast decorating it! I haven't done it in 4 years, since it's usually done by time I get home.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

New Year

Hello again and Happy New Year!

Today was the first day of school. I actually didn't have my 5-hour lab today so my first class wasn't until 2. I woke up at 9, got ready, and then my roommate Emily got back! I was very excited!!! I did find it difficult to preoccupy myself until 2 however.
Buying books is, in all seriousness, a painful experience. Last semester I spent over $800 and these books are supposed to be used in my classes until graduate. Hooray right? Wrong. I had to buy some more books today and that hurt, literally. And it was for my nutrition classes. Ow, ow, ow!

But it snowed! I love snow. This was the big, fluffy, powdery snow that just kept falling. But then I had to drive in it and Provo doesn't plow very well so it was a tad scary but I made it.

Then...I locked my keys in the car. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I was so mad because, well one: I had locked my keys in the car and two: my roommates and I were expecting some friends over for dinner and I was already pressed for time so this fiasco did not help. Luckily dinner got made (Baked Ziti from Crepes of Wrath), just a half hour late and the boys were fine with it. (On a side note-it turned out wonderfully! It was easy to make, delicious, and quite filling. In fact there are a lot of leftovers for the next few days!!!!). Also, thanks to being a AAA member, a nice man came and unlocked my car for me. It took him about 10 seconds. I was impressed and ever so grateful. I have that whole damsel in distress thing down really well. I didn't panic persay, but I was a tad flustered. Then again, who enjoys having kinks thrown at them? It is a part of life I understand but why on the first day of school, in a snow blizzard, right before I was trying to make dinner? Oh well, it worked out.

Now I just have another semester of school to look forward to. Truth be told, I don't like winter semester. I don't have much to look forward to in terms of vacations--just Martin Luther King Day and President's Day--and that makes me already feel burnt out. Oh the life of a college student. I can't wait until I'm done.

And, I'm always a tad homesick the first week back. I miss my house. When I'm home on vacation--Christmas or summer--I become a bit of a homebody. I just want to be at home with my family. It's comforting and secure; my own personal haven. I miss my family. I miss my dog. I miss my room. I miss the ocean. I miss the view from my windows. I miss New England. I miss that secure feeling of being home. I hoep your home is like that because it's lovely, indescribable really. I hope you have a haven for yourself. It's wonderful.