Urban Cow Half Marathon 2011

Today was the big day of Urban Cow 1/2 marathon 2011.  It's an extremely convenient run because it starts in Keith's hometown a mile away from his parents home.  We were able to stay with them so I didn't have to worry about parking or getting up too early.  I was ready to go!

Last year I completed the 13.1 miles in 2:00:03.  Here is the link to last years excitement http://jennifermariez.blogspot.com/2010/10/urban-cow-half-marathon.html.

Even though last year was a huge milestone for me as I completed my first half marathon about 15min faster then expected, I just had to beat that time this year!  I found a training plan in Fitness Magazine and got started. I decided that I wanted to run at the Boston Marathon Qualifying pace which is an 8:39 min mile.  Somehow I thought this equated to an 1:50 min finishing pace......... wrong.  I found out at the first mile that I was running an 8:22 min mile pace.  I guess I am not the best number cruncher in the world.  I wasn't sure what to do because I didn't train for a pace like that, but I knew Keith would be expecting me to be running along the 1:50 pacer.  I managed to keep the pace up for 1/2 of the run, but knew I needed to slow down if I was going to finish this thing.  I managed to keep the pacer in sight, but continued to fall behind as time went on.  I was sooooo incredibly excited to see Keith at the 10 mile mark.  I warned him before hand that I might be in a bad mood after 10 miles of running, but I was wrong.  He jumped right in there and encouraged me to keep the pace up for the last 3 miles.  Keith's father Ray was cheering me on at the 1/2 mile to go banner and his mother Kathy at the finish line.  The best part of the morning was crossing the finish, getting my cowbell, 2 chocolate milks, and visiting with my 3 supporters.  I had a wonderful time and I will definitely do it again next year.

Results:
Finish Time: 01:53:35, Pace: 08:40, Overall 663 of 3367, Female 194 of 2085, Female 25-29: 27 of 296

Keith took a few pictures:

Training Plan:

Before:

Warm Up:

 Stretching:

 Mile 2ish:

 Mile 11ish

 After:

Results: 

Thanks for reading
JenniferMarie

Celebrating One Year “Life Through My Eyes”

July 2^nd  2011 marks the first anniversary of “Life Through My Eyes.”  I really don’t have the slightest idea what possessed me to start blogging.  I suppose I was bored after graduation and decided to jump start my blogging career.  I knew I couldn’t be just another Norcal biking blog, so I decided to share my adventures, my stories and my life with the world.

That is exactly what I have done the past year in 32 blog posts...............

The First Post: The Belly Up Lizard

The Missing Shirt and the Mystery Backpack

Inside the Innie Canyon

Jessica Rabbit and Crazy Cruella

A Toast to the “Red Headed Slut”

The Litter Disaster

One too Many M&M’s in the Trail Mix Bag

Life on the A List

I Was Once A Bike Commuter

The Weekend Recap- Folsom Cyclebration

Cardiology III

Urban Cow Half Marathon

Lucky n Life

Aloha from Hawaii!!!

Diving Deep 36 Feet

Rewriting Maui Revealed

Carcassonne and Craters

November in a Nutshell

A Letter To My Biological Father

An Addendum To Those Who Don’t Understand

The Physique Rating

Energy Bars

The Amateur Porta Potty User (APPU)

Oatmeal-Peanut Butter Bars

Daily Dialogue

The Votes Are In!

The Horton Tsunami

My Morning Show

A Little Cat Nap

Crazy People Call Blocked

A Childhood Home

This past year you have followed me from the back yard pool to the big city.  You felt the pain in my legs as I rode up Carson Pass and the burning of my lungs as I ran Urban Cow.  We relaxed on Hawaiian beaches, hiked picturesque Craters, and strutted on pageant runways.  We laughed when I ripped the ass out of my pants and were disgusted as I attempted to clean my belly button with an aerosol can.  You realized you weren't alone when you read my personal stories and gave me words of encouragement for the future.  You were there through it all!

Now that I have actually documented how many life changing events can happen in a years time, heading into year number two is unsettling.  I am going into this next year with an empty mind completely clueless as to what adventures lie ahead, just as I did in the past as I turned circles in the pool and wrote my first blog.  

It has been a crazy busy year, and a wonderful one at that.  I am so blessed to have shared it with all of you.  I hope you continue to follow me through my life.

Thanks for reading:)

JenniferMaire

A Little Cat Nap

I have had so many exciting things to blog about over the last month, but no time to do so.  I am a firm believer in moving forward, so unfortunately you will not get to hear about all of my hmmmmmmmmm, what did I do over the last month?  O'well, moving forward.

I actually took a few days off of work this week, one for a dentist appointment to have a cavity filled and two for a race that ended up being cancelled.  I have instead been spending my days off returning curtains to ikea, food shopping, and getting the oil changed in my car.  You would think I would measure the windows in the house before I left, but no, that would be too easy and make way too much sense.  These may seem like simple little tasks, but when you attempt to cram them into your 40 hour work week, it is nearly impossible.  I am actually feeling more tired today then I do when I go to work.  Now that I have been home for two days, I realize just how long a "cat nap" actually is.  It's all damn day around hear!  I don't even think Mahoney and Vella have gotten up to poop yet.  I decided to take a short version of a cat-nap myself.  It ended abruptly in a panic because i thought I had a book report due.  Book report????  When was the last time I even had to do one of those?  I finished Grad school a year ago, so I have no clue where that came from.  It was probably because the last time I had the opportunity to take a nap, I was in grade school.   The nap must have triggered a certain area of my brain to think I had a grade school project to do.  Thank heavens no.  I am done with that.

Well toodles.

Jennifer Marie

  

My Morning Show

Throughout college I spent my mornings watching “Good Day Sacramentento.”  The show was always a blast to watch, stuck with local news (which was rarely ever “news”), and was on from 5am to 10am.  I had the greatest schedule in college.  I worked from 11am-3pm M-F and started school around 5/6/7pm depending on the class.  This gave me plenty of time to watch my favorite morning show, work, ride my bike, and then school.  It was sad to see Kelly, Jeff, Taren, Jackie, and Chris leave the show throughout those precious years. They had been apart of my home every morning since I was 20.  Well, graduate school came to an end for me and now it was my turn to move on.  I moved away from my beloved Good Day Sacramento.  My first thought was, what am I going to watch in the morning?  When I initially moved to the Bay I was staying with my friend Rita who would always watch “Today in the Bay” (TITB) with Brent and Laura Cannon.  Rita can’t handle Laura’s eyes, but she would watch anyway.  In late November Keith and I got our own place, and I just kept up the tradition.  TITB is on from 5-7am, and I am sad to say that I can’t even watch until 7 because I have to head to work.  I no longer have that sweet college schedule.  My mornings are no longer full of Sacramento happenings and fun games in the studio, but weather and traffic reports with my cup of coffee.  The big talk on TITB is no longer Laura’s eyes, but the new controversial weather woman.  Just after I moved here TITB replaced their weather man with a weather woman Christina Loren.  The first morning I saw her, I couldn’t believe her boobs.  Christina has stirred up a lot of controversy here in the bay area.  People either lover her or hate her.  I have to say that she really wakes me up every morning.  I find myself glued to the weather just to see what crazy thing she is wearing and what off the wall comment she makes.  Christina, I love you.  I may not have a clue what the weather will be for the day, even after watching it 20 times, but you never fail to shock me.

The happy Good Day crew.........

The happy TITB crew..........

Here is a funny video of Christina.  I remember when she wore this shirt.  

Thanks for reading:)

Jennifer Marie

The Horton Tsunami

My dear ex-housemate of 2 years was Mr. Chris Horton.  He is actually my longest standing housemate.  I am a little anal when it comes to a clean environment.  My coworkers and Keith constantly hear; “I can’t work in this clutter, what is this crap, do you really need this?”  Luckily Chris accepted the fact that I was crazy, and I accepted the fact that he was subpar, so it worked.  My REI co-workers had a nickname for his clutter, “Horton Crumbs.”  If you needed Chris, you just followed the crumb trail.   Haha.  In all honestly Mr. Horton was an awesome housemate.  He was always there to feed my kitties crunchies, pick me up when I forgot keys, or listen to me complain. 

Anyhow, the day of the Horton Tsunami Chris decided to do dishes and clean his car.  This was breaking news in itself, but it gets better.  Chris plugged up the sink, turned on the water and headed out to his car to grab a few (possibly months worth) of bottles and Tupperware that were acquiring that sweet green residue.  Now I was not actually present, but this is the Horton story reiterated.  Apparently he forgot about the sink and began cleaning his car.  After some time had past he walked into a flooded kitchen.  He took every blanket and towel in the house and tossed it on the floor in a failed attempt to soak up the water.  He then placed an uncanny amount of blankets in the washing machine, which resulted in the first aftershock, overflowing water and a broken washer.  By the time I came home I couldn’t tell if water was coming from the garage or the kitchen.  It was everywhere! 

Life after the Tsunami was difficult.  We had no towels to dry with, no blankets to sleep with, and no washer to clean with.  Two weeks after the incident, Keith got the washer up and running again.  We were able to clean up the disaster that was left following the Horton Tsunami, and all lived happily ever after.

In all seriousness, I wish those in Japan the best. 

Thank you for reading

JenniferMarie

The Votes Are In!

The majority voted and people want to hear about Brynne and Jen’s worst adventure ever.  We have had many crazy little adventures, but this one I am about to tell tops them all.  It’s even crazier then dating a pirate or a drug dealer, and by drug dealer I do not mean the pharmaceutical rep.  The boyfriend crazies are another story in itself.  In addition to the pirate, drug dealer and pharmaceutical rep, we have the gay (maybe 2), the nerd, the tattoo artist, the alcoholic, the psyco, the marine and hmmmm I can’t even remember.  It doesn’t matter though, that’s not today’s story.

When Brynne and I were 18/19 years old we started working at a small vet clinic in Citrus Heights.  This is a horrible story in itself and I hated/we hated that job more then anything else in the world.  I loved the animals, but our coworkers and our boss were from a different world.  I think I came home crying everyday because the job was so bad.  I remember my breaking point.  Brynne and I were mailing flyers when my boss came in being as obnoxious as ever.  I handed her an envelope and left.  She was shocked to say the least, and weeks later Brynne left too.  I do have to say that the drama in that place was pretty amusing.  I remember one woman was cheating on her husband, meeting people online and heading out to “meet” them on her lunch break.  It gets better, but I won’t share because that’s not today’s story either.

Anyhow....... We used to coordinate our lunches together and head out for an hour so that we could talk s&!t, pretty typical.  One day we stopped off at this little Mexican Restaurant.  The food was great, conversation great and then it was time to head out.  As we starting walking back to the car we noticed a man walking towards us with a sleeping bag in his hand.  We thought it was odd.  As he started walking faster, we began to scurry to the car.  We realized he was running after us.  We got in the car and my hands were shaking so bad I couldn’t get the key in the ignition.  I was screaming to Brynne, “What do I do?”  She yelled, “F*@King go!”  I got the key in the ignition and the bum jumped on the top of my hood.  I drove forward and his face just plastered on the windshield.  I am not sure how it happened, but I put the car in reverse and he flew off.  Off we went!  No more Mexican Restaurant.

That’s the story, short and sweet.  I think the reason why that was the worst ever, was just because I have never experienced my heart pump so hard in my life!

Just in case you don't know....... below is a stunning picture of my Brynne friend. haha O yes, and a surprised Ari friend.

Thanks for reading

JenniferMarie

The Amateur Porta Potty User (APPU)

Ahhh........ That is a sigh of pure relaxation.

My glories three-day weekend is coming to an end.  I spent all three days sleeping in, practicing metabolic calculations and riding.  I forgot how good it felt to ride a bike in shorts and a t-shirt.  I tucked a few of my favorite country stars in my kit pocket and just rode. The tranquility of my ride was enough to make my mind wander.  I would love to tell you about my thoughts, but instead I am going to tell you about the amateur porta potty user (APPU).   This by no means is coming out of nowhere.  I had the pleasure of watching several APPU come out of the restroom this weekend.  The 6.5 mile stretch of path I ride has about 4 restrooms along the way.  These restrooms are not necessarily porta potties, but very similar in that there is no plumbing, just made better with no portability.  Anyway, to the point if there is one. Sitting in front of a restroom is the best place to people watch.  As the APPU exits the restroom in a hurry with a look of disgust, you will notice them holding their arms away from their body, fiddling with buttons, zippers, pant legs, and scanning for the nearest water source.  A bike racer is not an APPU, rather an expert.  The sight of a porta potty doesn’t frighten us.  It is actually more of a godsend in many situations.  Those early morning wake up calls, long drives, caffeine and nerves can really get the best of you.  I myself am able to slide down my bib shorts while holding my top in my mouth, and proceed to hover over the hole while wearing cycling cleats on a slippery porta potty surface.  A cyclist cannot only contribute their nice legs to riding, but by using the porta potty hover as a common isometric exercise.  It’s those burning isometric contractions that warm us up and tone our butts.  Coming from a world of pageantry, the porta potty hover is one of my pre pageant preparation secrets.  ha.  I will worn you though, the cleanest porta potty is not always the best choice.  You run a higher risk of experiencing "splash back," just ask Keith.  Now I am not really sure where I was going with this.  I seem to have gotten side tracked.  O’ well, I need to get ready for the work week.

Happy Martin Luther King Day Everyone. 

Thanks for reading,

JenniferMarie

P.S. Here is a picture.  If you ask me though a triathlete can always pee in the water.  I mean, the swim is first.