Race Recap: Rock 'n Roll San Francisco

Happy Monday!  I can't believe the weekend is over already, but hey, doesn't it always go by faster than what you need?

Anyway.  Today finds me sore and stiff and walking around like an old lady who needs a walker.  And that's because yesterday I ran the inaugural Rock 'n Roll San Francisco Half Marathon.  Going into this race, I really didn't expect much from myself.  I was actually shittin bricks because I hadn't run a distance longer than 10K, and that was done March 9th for the Nike Women's virtual 10K.  I did one 4 miler when I was in Hawaii, and then that was it for running until the 27th.  My mileage for the month of March? A whopping 24 miles.  That's pretty crappy for training.

The morning started off rough.  Of course I couldn't sleep much the night before.  Then little man didn't want to get out of bed and I had to wrestle him into his car seat and deal with a crying screaming drive for 25 minutes.  Decision made, next time I have a race he's staying home.  Oh, and then when I got dropped off, my bib tore off my brand new bib holder.  I took all of that as a sign that I would do horribly and be lucky to come in close to my past 2 times of 3 hours.

So, It's Been A While Huh?

I haven't had the urge to write lately.  Nor run.  Nor do much of anything.  For a quick second I thought something may be physically wrong with me because I was lacking energy and that general oomph that usually has me firing on all cylinders for a majority of the day.  I just wanted to be a lazy butt and sit on the couch all day waiting for more lives on Candy Crush.  Oh.  And occasionally trying to play with my kid.  *cringe*

Hey you?  What's that sound?  *knock knock* Remember that?  Oh yeah, it's the sound of life calling.  And for whatever reason, I was ignoring it.  I was being perfectly content with just checking out and ignoring things around me because I was just starting to feel overwhelmed.  (And ok maybe it had something to do with my monthly visitor getting ready to pay a visit).  Even though at every turn, there was life knocking, trying to remind me that I needed to get off my butt and do something.  anything.

Looking back, I'll say my quick trip to Hawaii had a huge amount to do with it.  For some reason, ever since my trip there, I've been second guessing my life and what's going on in it.  Triggered by the question "how do you think your life would have been different had you not left?"  Wow.  That opened the flood gates (and I know not intentionally, of course.  I think it'd be impossible to know that a crazy psycho subconscious voice would somehow begin randomly interrupting my thoughts at all hours of the day and make me completely zone out).

So, it's time to get back into it.  Time to snap myself out of this funk and get back into the swing of things.  Chop chop lady, time's a tickin.

Turn on the waterworks

In the past couple of days, it's finally hit me.  I'm getting married!!!! And then I get emotional and turn into a blubbery crying mess.  I really thought that this wasn't going to happen for me.  My fiance and I had already been together for such a long time, that I kind of resigned myself to "living in sin" with a child, for the rest of my life.  It's not what I wanted, but I had accepted it.  So now that I'm all in with the wedding planning (with deposits for various things already being put down, so no turning back now!), I'm in the midst of searching for vendors.  Right now I'm looking at videos and picturing our wedding, and I friggin bawl.  Thank goodness I'm usually alone when it happens, or around the little one who doesn't get it yet, otherwise I'd be really really embarrassed.  And I know for a fact, that come that day, my makeup artist better make a damn good job of whatever waterproof makeup they use because it will truly be tested.  I'll need more than just a few touchups.  But I am so excited, and I cannot wait!

Umm, hello runner!

I haven't been sticking to my training plan.  But you know what?  It's totally okay.  I took off a couple of weeks because I just wasn't feeling it.  But I ran this week, and tomorrow morning my cousin, girlfriend, and I are running the Color Run San Francisco!  aka the happiest 5K on the planet because you have to enjoy getting sprayed in the face with colored air and wearing rainbows on your shirt.  I use the term running loosely, as those 2 have not trained one bit and are not runners.  So I am totally prepared to be mostly meandering our way through the course.  And I'm totally ok with it.  It's going to be fun!

This week's runs had me feeling stronger, and more determined to improve on my performance.  I felt strong, and it was an awesome feeling!  I forgot I liked to run!  Not to mention, I've had a few people comment that I look like I lost weight (yay).  I haven't weighed myself since last summer, so I couldn't tell you if that's true or not.  But I do know that my clothes are fitting better, and I'm not worried one bit about getting fit to look amazing in my dress.  Notice how I said "getting fit" instead of "losing weight"?  My whole mindset has changed, and I'm no longer that concerned about how much I weigh. What matters more to me now is how I feel and look, and how my clothes fit.  Feeling great has me feeling confident, which is reflected in my aura.  Cheesy sounding, maybe, but it's true.  And it's all because I'm a runner.  Who for the most part, watches what I eat, but won't turn down that bacon maple donut.

Picking Who Makes The Cut...and Who Gets Cut

So, our wedding is going to be a Destination wedding, and the plan is to get married on the island where I was born and spent my childhood.  I have a few reasons for this:

I never wanted to move to the Bay Area.  I was a child and was forced to move at my parents' will.  I understand why they did it, but I will never be happy with the decision.  I do realize that my life would have been completely different had we not moved, but I don't care and will continue to be irrational and in denial about the whole thing.  Oahu will always be home to me.  It is where my heart is, and honestly where I want to be buried.  My grandfather is buried there, and we can't even visit him on a regular basis.  (Which will be one of the very first things that I do when I'm out there in a couple of weeks).

I want to keep it small.  My fiance and I, combined, have a humongoid family.  If we invited everyone we were "obligated" to invite, we would easily be into the 250-300 range.  Inviting everyone that's "standard" (not including relatives of relatives or kids of aunts/uncles that you're relatively close to, distant cousins that you haven't seen since you were 2, etc.) would be about 200.  Not gonna happen.

We are currently at 132 and that's excluding a lot of family that I would like to invite, but honestly won't be, and excluding a lot of his family that he hasn't even provided to me yet.  Which means I will be cutting even more people, and as much as it sucks and I'm uberly afraid of hurting anyone's feelings, it's not personal.  If we were keeping our wedding local, we probably would have everyone that even remotely knows us.  But I don't want, nor have ever wanted, a huge wedding.  I'm not a fan of using a wedding as a family reunion (let's just plan a family reunion if you really want to see everyone).  I am after all, paying for each person that attends.

Add to this the fact that I want to mingle with each and every single one of our guests, know exactly who they are, have a relationship with that person, have them have been around significantly at some point (if not all) of my fiance and my relationship, and truly celebrate the reason behind the party.  I'm a simple girl with simple tastes.  I'm focusing on the true reason behind a wedding.  I'm not into the thought process behind throwing a wedding to impress your guests.  I want my guests to enjoy themselves, have fun, and shower us with love as they have been throughout our relationship.  It's kind of hard to shower someone with love when you don't know them or aren't close enough to them to know what their relationship is about.

So I apologize to anyone in advance if you will not be invited to our wedding. It's not that I don't like you or don't consider you important, but in this case it's not just about me, but my relationship with my fiance.  On this very special day in our lives we want to focus on us, and celebrate with our family and friends that are the nearest and dearest to us.  

How do you decide who you invite and who you don't?  Or are you more of an "invite them all" gal?

(I promise this will be the only heavy wedding post.  This just seems to be a sensitive subject and I wanted to get it out before I exploded).

Saying Yes To The Dress

It is official ladies and gentlemen.  It has officially officially begun.  Though I have been semi-planning my October destination wedding, yesterday I said yes to the dress (squeee!!!!), meaning I put down a deposit, meaning the official wedding spending has begun.  (Official enough for ya? ;) )

I will be attempting to now compose blog posts that document my wedding journey.  This will be in addition to my running journey, on top of my mommyhood journey, on top of my making sure I look good and fashionable journey, and my foodieism journey, with a bit of the photography journey thrown in there somewhere.  Am I crazy?  Probably.  Do I have ADD?  The more I take on, the more I think absolutely.  Would I change anythng about it?  Definitely not.  Having lots to do means I'm not posted on the couch stuck on horrible reality TV all day.

Now of course I can't show you my dress, and I don't think I want to show the pics of me wearing the runner up, but this is the Designer-owned shots of the runner up:

source

For a couple of minutes, I really thought this was the dress.  It's beautiful.  It's classy.  It's simple, and elegant.  But I felt, reserved.  Like I was supposed to be "proper".  It didn't feel like a party and celebrate type of dress.  Then I tried on the one that I've been eyeing and waiting for, and I knew.  I didn't cry, but I knew.  I felt hot.  I felt gorgeous.  I felt like a bride.

I cannot wait for the dress to come in.  Now I have even more incentive to run and get tone (besides the 4 races I have coming up between now and August, yikes).  

Oh to be young again...

and stupid.  wow.  I'm sitting here watching Vanderpump Rules (more horrible reality tv that I can't help but get stuck watching), and I'm just amazed at how these girls act in their relationships.  The insecurity, demanding demeanor, and total "princess is me" attitude is horrible.  Seriously?  Why do these girls act that way?  And then I remember....I'm guilty of some pretty crazy stuff stories of my young adult days.  And then I remember that I am, in fact, old.  Helloooooooo reality check.  Crazy!

I'm ashamed and embarrassed to admit that I was the girl who constantly made her ex boyfriend check in with her (way before text messaging was created).  Pagers were primarily in use in those days (wow), cell phones were just getting on the scene, but not everyone had one, and we knew how to create word messages out of numbers.  Pager alphabet.  Damn kids have it so easy these days.  I required a message when homeboy went to work, school, gym, got home from wherever he was going, and several times throughout the day.  I felt it necessary to constantly keep tabs on him, to address my insecurity issues and think that he's so in love with me, that's why he always calls me (omg yes I was crazy).  And he did the same to me.  It was a constant back and forth that had each other under wraps and made the other one feel like they were the one in control.  Now that I look back at it, that relationship was absolutely nuts.  I am so not that girl anymore.  I don't expect my man to constantly check in and always let me know where he is.  I want my freedom, expect him to give it to me, and I will do the same in return.

Watching this damn show reminded me of what I used to be like.  And hello world, this is what is called growing up.  At every age I can remember since I was 15, I always thought I was "grown up" and knew everything there was to know.  And yet I continued to learn, and as a part of learning, evolving.  People do change.  Something an ex told me a long time ago (about 15 years) always pops up in my mind.  We used to keep in touch randomly here and there for a few years after our break up, and it was after a pretty big gap in communication where I got an email from him saying hi.  It was just your typical hey how you been, what you been up to type of thing, but I had quite honestly gotten over it.  It always ended up the same way, him throwing in a very subtle I'm still into you but I'm just going to flirt because I'm married and have a kid message.  That turned into an I'm not the same person anymore homeboy, I've changed.  And then a response of People never change.  That pissed me off because people do change.  If that wasn't true, then people wouldn't ever grow up.   So he got my last reply ever:  I do.  You don't got me like that no more.  And I never heard from him again.

People grow up.  Things change.  Partying and always being out and about is not my life anymore.  I'm a mom now who rather spend time at home on the couch snuggling with my lil man.  I don't expect (nor want) my fiance to constantly check in with me and always let me know what he's doing or where he is.  Insecurity in a relationship is an ugly thing.  I've grown up.

Hiking The Concrete Jungle

Yesterday was quite the adventure.  A few months ago a girlfriend and I bought Groupons for Hiking Yoga, and since they were about to expire, we set out to actually use them.  Hiking Yoga is a new way to experience yoga.  Basically you speed walk through a city (they have various locations), and stop along the way, usually somewhere with an awesome view of something, and do a few poses.  For my first one, I went to the SF Embarcadero location, meeting at the Ferry Building.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day and I was super excited for my first yoga experience, despite the super early Saturday morning wake up call.

Walking to the Ferry Building

The Farmer's Market was in full swing, and I spotted the Hayes Street Grill booth with a sign for crab cake sandwiches and oyster po boys.  Instantly knew what I was having for lunch.

After checking in, we took off at a quick clip down to a little park outside of the Embarcadero Center.  I roam around that area all the time and had no idea it was there.  It was pretty cool.  This was our first stop to do some yoga.  Have I mentioned I have never done yoga before?  ;)  Anyway, we did a few stretching and poses for a couple of minutes, then took off again towards Broadway.  We strolled through another park (yet another one I didn't know existed), and headed towards Coit Tower.  I knew hills were coming, it is San Francisco after all, but wow.  The first hill we hit made me feel as though I was mountain climbing.  At some point I felt like I was going to kiss the sidewalk, it was that steep.  It also felt like it was never going to end.  And of course I would have loved to see someone attempt to run up that hill.  Once we got to the top, all winded and ready to collapse, it was time for yoga.  I was actually pretty proud of myself for being able to hold poses, I didn't feel like the loser newbie I thought I was.

This continued for the entire hike, which lasted about 70 minutes.  The last 20 minutes were spent doing yoga in the courtyard of Grace Cathedral.  In a nutshell, it was awesome.  And I definitely plan on doing this again.

Top of the first extreme hill

More stairs

Top of 2nd set of stairs, and view from the 2nd yoga stop.  Absolutely beautiful.

Another hidden park

 I felt great afterwards, and my legs are hurting in places I didn't even know existed today.  I didn't get a long run in, but my adventure took me away from my boys for longer than I expected and I needed to get home.  But that crab cake sandwich sure did happen.  And it was awesome.

Of course I added bacon

I've never seen the rocket door open.  With someone climbing in.  Twas a cool sight.

So after sitting in traffic for a bit and picking up food for the boys, I was finally home.  Took a shower, and lil man napped with me for 4 hours.  That almost NEVER happens, but it was great.  Now it's time to get productive and clean my tornado of a house.  Happy Sunday!

So flowers, jewelry, and chocolate huh...

I guess it's what's pretty much expected today, right?  (And Christmas, and our anniversary, my birthday when you piss me off).  My Instagram feed today is clogged with hearts and flowers.  I don't do hearts and flowers.  After a long time of going without it because I was single lonely, I turned that romance craving part of me off, all for self preservation.  If I didn't expect it, want it, or build it up, the less likely it would disappoint me because there were no expectations to begin with.  How can something let you down when you don't even want it in the first place, right?

As part of any "newlywed" stage of a relationship, you get all kinds of hearts and flowers.  Dude is trying to win your heart.  He's gotta step his game up, right?  You get taken out all kinds of places, you get so many flowers that you never want to see another orchid ever again.  After a while, it kind of wears on you, right?  So you say you no longer want it because it's annoying.  Done.

So now, I'm over 5 years into my relationship, and am living through yet another hearts and flowers day that I really could give an eff about.  I did however, take the time and thoughtfulness to go and at least get my guy a card.  I'm all about cards (even though I rarely ever get them), because I think it takes a lot more time and effort to put words to paper and truly express yourself.  And the thought and time behind picking out just that right card, can sometimes be all it takes to put a smile on my face.

Don't get me wrong, I am a girl after all, and I would also love to receive all things that make a girl smile.  But at the end of the day, it's what's in my heart and mind that will have me thinking about you, not the ring on my finger or the flowers in the vase.  Make memories not clutter!

For all of you who are down and out, don't sit in your pity party of one who has no Valentine.  Your family are your loved ones, right?  Since when is love limited to the person who shares your bed?  When I was growing up, my mom would make my brothers and I little Valentine's bundles, with cards, bears, whatever cute little thing she could think of just to show us that she loved us.  (Sorry Mom, it's hard for me to remember these little huge things that you did when we were growing up, and I know I like to remember how you weren't there, but thank you for doing that.)  She doesn't read my blog and doesn't even know what it is.)  But don't feel like you aren't loved, cuz you know damn well that you are.  Remember that.  always.

So, in honor of love, I share with you these:

My "hearts and flowers" cards from the men in my life.

"Sometimes I wonder why I put up with you.  Oh yeah, I remember,  you put up with ME!
Smart man.

My maternal grandma is 93 years old (turning 94 in May), and suffers from dementia.  Physically she's doing pretty well for a woman in her 90s, mentally she's having more bad than good days.  These pics were taken last night when I picked up Lil Man from the parentals.  He always kisses Great Gramma (Mama) goodbye, and apparently she only wakes up to him. When he's around she's physically up and about and always tries to play with him.  The kids in my family have always taken to her.  She's a favorite and just have that aura around her that draws kids to her.  And bubs absolutely adores her.  The  pic on the right of him kissing her will be in my heart always.  That's love.

Time heals all

In one of my mind wandering moments over the past week, I caught myself thinking back on my life in the past ten years (yes, again), and laughing.  There have been so many things that as a woman, you go through just as part of growing up and experiencing life.  And I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that at the time of something that made you bawl your eyes out and curse every single man (or woman) on the planet, saying everyone is the same and you're destined to be alone and sad, it never fails that a year from that moment, you no longer felt that way.  The same can be said for experiencing a loss in your family, the heartbreak and sadness you felt eases with time.  The anger, frustration, helplessness...it faded.  And then you reflect and feel a certain way about how you felt.  Back then.

Time does heal all wounds.  Time also helps you realize that when something happens, it really isn't the end of the world.  I've gone through some pretty trying times in my life, as everyone in my life has at one point or another.  I remember feeling absolutely heart broken (several different times in my life, ha), angry, upset, pissed off at the world and ready to wreck shop.  Feeling like the end of the pain or trials would never come, that I would never ever again see another sunny day.  Just wanting to sleep through the days so I wouldn't have to feel anymore.  But it got better.  Other things in my life happened that made me realize the previous stuff didn't matter.  I appreciated life again.  I loved it.  And it just took time.

No truer phrase has ever been spoken.  Hindsight is 20/20.  Looking back on your life, you will always realize that you could have handled things better and that things you thought were life altering, really weren't.  Things that happened as a teenager experiencing their first heartbreak, bullying episode, parental war, weren't as bad as they seemed.  And things always got better.  In time, things always get better, no matter how horrible or tragic they may seem.  So do whatever it takes to get you through, but always hold on to the fact that time heals.