How I Survived My First Half Marathon

I know this is a little late, but hey, life gets in the way. You know?

I ran my very first half marathon on May 20th. The experience was terrifying, emotional, draining, hard, and fantastic all at once.

I did not run it alone. You see, I have crazy fantastic friends that run/walk too. One crazy fantastic friend grabbed an entry just a week or two before the race!

 

I'm on the far right and the lady next to me is my running-buddy-4-life Libby. Without her to push and support me, I never would have continued on this path to running a half marathon (or 2!).

 The required pre-race shoe shot

Libby is a ten (eleven?) year cancer survivor and always includes others hit with cancer in her races. The list is, sadly, pretty large, but it's such a beautiful tribute. Unfortunately, she had to include a good friend of mine who passed away just 10 days before the half. I would be lying if I didn't admit that seeing her name was a wrench in my side.

The race itself went (mostly) beautifully. It rained almost the entire time, like a Portland race should. Within the first 3 miles, I saw these things:

 Beautiful downtown Portland.

Carpet on the Hawthorne Bridge (my favorite bridge!)

 

Honey Badger!

There was a steady incline from mile 3-6 and then the course promised to go downhill. YEAH RIGHT. There were block long steep climbs. Because the route took us through SE Portland (a first for any Portland race) the streets were older and unkempt, slanting and riddled with potholes. The slanted road didn't bother me too much, but it irritated Libby's IT band to the point where it still hurts her. There was a surprising amount of people out cheering us on, given the weather!
   
I didn't have a goal set other than to finish around 3:00 hours. Yes, I am a slow runner. But I am still out there doing it. 13.1 miles is no joke! I finished at 2:52 (Garmin time, chip time didn't include 2 stoplights I had to wait for) which I was more than happy with.

  

Space blankets rock!!

We followed the race with pedicures (the best thing EVER after a hard run) and a towed car.  I did not know I would be running my second half just a month later.

To be continued....

New Blog Name!

Hello there!

I'm messing around with my blog and making it a bit more enticing for me to actually want to post to it. First thing I changed? The URL and blog name. I'm HOPING that this little space on the internet now shows up as The Roaming Vegan Gnome!

When I first started this blog, I was just writing to write. I don't feel the name fits me as much anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still love dark chocolate. But, I love veganism and travelling and my little gnome companion even more. And I feel the new title fits me much more than the previous one.

Here is the URL, if you need to update your Google reader:

http://roamingvegangnome.blogspot.com/

I hope this works! I have no idea what I'm doing!

My First Half Marathon.

It's on Sunday.

Somehow, I went from someone who could barely run a minute straight to someone who signs up for a freaking half marathon.

(my first real race!)

I am terrified of the distance, but I was also terrified of the Shamrock Run 15k, my farthest distance at that point, and I rocked that.

 (our very awesome and well earned bottle opener medals)

My training runs suck so hard, but in races? The excitement and adrenaline keep me going, sometimes much faster than I expected.

 

(Bridge to Brews 2012, where I took a decent race photo and ran a 12:25 average pace, a PR for me!)

Those ladies who keep popping up in the photos with me? They are MJ and Libby, my good friends and inspiration and fellow Team Slow Poke'rs. They are doing the half with me (along with a couple other awesome ladies) and I just know we'll rock it. And hey, Little Beirut will be playing in front of the Baghdad Theater as I run by! 

Wish me luck, internet. I've been nervous all week. And Portland? Keep up this slightly warm but still sunny weather, mmmmmkay?

pssssst! Check out Team Slow Poke HERE!

Norway

Since this week is spring break for me and I have two days I can devote to something other than living and breathing literature, Jeff and I have been trip plannin' fiends. We found out a couple of weeks ago that hostels in Norway were filling up fast, so we did our best to get the smaller towns booked on Sunday.

Norway is expensive. So, so expensive.

Our first plan of attack was to buy a Hostelling International membership. You can get it in Portland for $28/adult (though I've found digital memberships for less) and save 10% on hostels worldwide. We're saving enough money on our first two hostels the membership is paid for. YIKES.

The small town we're staying in on our wedding anniversary (appropriately the same name as my last name) does not have an HI hostel, but rather 3 other options: moldy and sleazy, falling apart and sleazy or "mid range" aka a decent hotel at a price considered luxury in Portland. We finagled our way around the internets and found a "frequent guest programme" for the mid range hotel that was free to join and allowed us to save 20% on our room, bringing the price down a bit.

(this brings up another important point - don't get exasperated and book without looking for a discount. I can't tell you how much we've saved over the years just searching a bit deeper)

Eating in Norway is a whole 'nother mess. Every place we stay includes breakfast (a requirement) and I'm a huge fan of bringing food from home to survive slightly less vegan friendly areas, but it looks as if we'll be packing much more than usual. I gleaned a few tips from this lovely lady's blog post and am leaning heavily towards freeze drying everything we have in the fridge. You think I'm joking.

I really can't complain too much though. I mean, what's travel without a little problem solving? Plus, look at some of the sights we get to see in Norway alone:

 Bergen

 Preikestolen

 Stavanger

 Kristiansand

 Oslo

Viking Ship Museum, Oslo (I mean, c'mon)

My Legs are Strong.

In training for my first half, I've learned two things.

1) Sometimes running comes as easy as breathing, sometimes it's a horrific uphill struggle.

2) My legs are strong.

The past two weeks I have ran longer and farther than I have before. My minutes-per-miles times are coming down while my mileage is going up. Today I ran 8 miles and half of those (ok, the easier first half) were in the 12 minute range. I am not a fast person, so to see my pace go from 14 to 12 in the space of just a couple months is amazing to me.

My legs are tired right now, but I know they'll be ok tomorrow. Just like they were last week.

Shamrock run is this weekend, I'm tackling the 15k. The very uphill 15k. Wish me luck.

Wanderlust.

So, we're going abroad again. In September.

While most of the people in my life have been incredibly supportive and excited for us, there are some out there who ask, "oh, did you win the lottery? Where do you get all this money? How can you complain about being broke the rest of the year when you go on trips like this?"

Lately, these comments have really started to bother me. Yes, we live pretty damn frugally throughout the year, which puts a cramp in my social life. In January, we moved and paid some tuition out of pocket, which meant we spent an entire month's salary EXTRA on things we normally wouldn't spend money on. That put us in a rough spot but, as we always do, we made it out just fine.

When somebody asks me where I get all this money from, I just say "a tax return." I shouldn't have to say anything else because frankly, it's nobody's business. I am not going in debt to go on these adventures. I am not begging, borrowing or stealing the money. This is my money I'm spending.

I was telling Jeff last night that these trips of ours are the only thing keeping me going right now. Just the thought of "hey, we're really going to do this again" keeps my spirits up. I have no idea what I'm going to do after I graduate. I have no idea if I'll ever find a job in my area of interest. I do know that I spent one depressing summer unemployed, the next working just one day a week and now I'm working  3 days a week while going to school. The time I spend at home, bored out of mind, is suffocating. I hear friends complain about "losers on funemployment" but it's not like that. It's not easy to get a job right now, and it is really, really depressing. I put out 60+ resumes during the summer of 2009 and only landed a job at a horrific small company thanks to a friend that worked there. The summer of 2010 was spent much in the same way, but with no job at the end.

When Jeff and I go on these trips, we live damn cheap. We sleep in sketchy hostels in red light districts to save a few bucks. We live off of bread and peanut butter from foreign grocery stores. We bring instant coffee and Larabars along to sustain us when we can't afford the breakfast not included at the hostel. We walk, everywhere, to save on transportation costs. We try our damnedest to stay under $100/day for both of us, which isn't always the easiest considering the exchange rates.

I grew up poor. This isn't something new to those that know me. I never, ever thought I would have the opportunity to see the world but now that I have, I can't give it up.

If I have to live dirt cheap all year long just to buy plane tickets, I will do it. If I have to live with a crappy cell phone plan in order to buy plane tickets, I will do it. If I have to volunteer for anything and everything under the sun to get free race entries, beer festival entries and vegan food, I will do it.

All I ask is you not question my finances, my responsibilities, my life. The way I see it, I'm doing just fine.

Native Foods. It's kind of tasty.

I promised a long time ago to write about the cooking demo I attended at Native Foods! I'm nothing if not a procrastinator....

 

First, I will confess to hoping they'd give us, those fans packing the place early on a Saturday morning, a recipe for any one of their delicious vegan meats. I wasn't picky, I would happily take the pastrami recipe, the chicken, the gyro....

But alas, the chef focused on recipes centered around whole foods. WHATEVER. Here are the photos and descriptions - at least, the best I can remember.

A mushroom fricassee on a piece of toasted bread. If Jeff didn't hate mushrooms in their cooked form, we would eat this every day.

  

Tempeh cake with chili remoulade. My first thought? Crab cake. But it's not fishy (seaweedy?) so win.

 

An unpictured Native Escalivada, made with eggplants, peppers, capers and cashews.

Persimmon tarts! This was my favorite, and not because I got a couple of samples.

After the lovely demo, my sweet friends and I decided to stay for lunch. Color you surprised, right?

Tandoori kebabs. These are made with both seitan and tofu, and the mango apple chutney was divine.

I THINK this is the Ghandi bowl, my friend ordered it so I'm not exactly sure. Whatever it was, it was so healthy looking, I grimaced. Ok, it was delicious.

Chicago dip! I didn't get to try it as I was too busy eating her sweet potato fries (unpictured because I ate them all), but it was very well received.

I ordered the dragon roll for myself, but didn't take a photo.

Let's face it, I suck at food blogging. I feel like a freak when my sweet friends push their plates toward me, asking if I want to take a photo. Hell, today I took a photo of my crappy lunch, thinking "oh, this will go on the blog!" Unfortunately, it was a photo of some very sad, lonely brown rice. Perhaps the caption will go something like, "proof I'm healthy and very very broke! Brown rice in my thermos, say what?!"

So, some little "holiday" is approaching. I usually couldn't care less about it, but Vegetarian Times published a "Valentine's Day Dinner" menu that sounds so good that I'm taking the plunge and making all four courses. Yes. I plan on eating them all, even. And, if you're lucky, I might write about it.