Friend Making Monday: Birthdays!

Friend Making Monday: Birthdays!

Here’s how it works: you copy the questions, answer them and post them to your own blog.  Then you come back here, and in the comments, post the link to your blog post with your answers to this week’s questions.  If you don’t have a blog of your own, just post your answers in the comments.

1. When is your birthday?

Dec 14^th

2. Is there any sort of controversy or conflict with another important day with your birthday?

Yes, my birthday is just 11 days before Christmas…so a lot of my friends and acquaintances have forgotten my birthday as a result because they’re so focused on Christmas.  But, fun fact!  I came home from the hospital in a giant Christmas stocking when I was born!  I believe I still have that stocking somewhere.

3. Do you have parties to celebrate your birthday?

Nope.  I might spend the day with my friend Amanda like I did last year and we watched a marathon of Silk Stockings and did scrapbook stuff all day.  But, no parties.

4. Do your parents still get you birthday presents or send you money for your birthday?

Sometimes.  Last year they sent me $50 out of the blue which was really awesome of them.  This year, they sent me a little cat statue from their trip to Mexico for my mom’s birthday.

5. Has anyone every forgotten your birthday?  Or did you think that they had?

Yes.  My friends forget my birthday all the time.  If it wasn’t for Facebook, I’m sure most of them still would forget.  Also, I’m pretty sure my birthday slipped my mom’s mind a few years ago because I got my Christmas card the day before my birthday and didn’t get my birthday card until like a week and a half after my birthday…and it was the exact same card she had sent me the year before.

6. What is the best birthday present you’ve ever received?

Hmm…even though the guy turned out to be a total jerkface, cheating, lying bastard…he bought me a DVD player back when they were still new, so he spent over $200 and it was pretty awesome!

7. Do you take time off from work for your birthday?  If you do, do you ever take trips or a whole vacation for your birthday?

Yes.  About 6 years ago, I flew up to Oregon to visit my family for my birthday.  It was cold, but completely awesome.  One of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.  It was almost like a Thanksgiving get together because the majority of my family showed up for the dinner we had to celebrate my birthday at a local nice restaurant…even my mom’s parents made the 4+ hour drive (each way) to make it to the dinner.  This year, my friend Amanda and I drove up to Dallas, TX so I could run my first full marathon yesterday (yep, ran a marathon on my birthday…race report coming soon, don’t worry!).

8. Is there anything you have always wanted to do to celebrate your birthday and, if money was no object to do it, what would you do?

I would love to just have a party with all my friends and family.  I would fly all my out of Texas friends and my family to Texas, rent a big ballroom at one of the fancy hotels in town, have it catered, have a fun photo booth for people to take pictures with, a giant professionally made cake, a DJ…all that jazz.  Lots of fun!

9. Did you ever have a slumber party for your birthday when you were a kid?

Yes.  I remember one year, I think it was my 14^th or 15^th birthday.  I invited like 5 people to come to my birthday party which including movies, cake, pizza and a sleepover.  I think 2 showed up.  I wasn’t exactly “popular” growing up.  But the friends I did have were awesome friends.

10.  Do you buy/make a cake for your birthday?

Not usually.  If I go out to dinner at a restaurant that has cake, I will get a piece.  One year at work, a coworker’s wife made me a giant sheet cake for my birthday because I complained that no one ever remembers my birthday at work.

Expo

A special note about tomorrow...usually I do What's Cookin' Sunday...however I will not be posting that installment tomorrow for obvious reasons (I'm out of town for the marathon and won't be cooking anything until next week).

2nd Best Bday Present Ever

I say 2nd best because 1st best is that I'm running (and I keep typing "funning"...hahaha) my very first full marathon ON my birthday...seriously, what's better than that?  Nada.  So, what is the 2nd best?  Why this, of course:

My "I should win because..." was chosen by SpiBelt to earn a complimentary entry into the Austin Marathon for Feb 15, 2015!!!  I have been trying to figure out how on earth I was going to afford the now well over $100 registration fee (for the half, mind you...the full is at least another $15 more than the half).  Now, I think I'm going to go for it.  I'm going to run my 2nd FULL marathon...I think I'm crazy.  I really do.  But hey, I'm pretty much already trained for it...I'll just take it easy for the rest of December, keeping up with 25-ish miles a week, then I'll start knocking out those super long runs again...definitely try to get some hill workouts in there because the Austin is a little hilly.  But, yea, if I have won free entry into a race and my entry is good for the half OR the full...why on earth am I not going to go for the full?!?!?!  So, yea, this totally made my day...when I saw it posted, I thought I was going to explode.  I started crying and my awesome friend Amanda was at my place and I got to share the moment with someone at the time it happened...not after the fact.  That makes it even more special.  So, if any of you will be running the Austin Half or full Marathon in 2 months, let me know.  I want to meet you!

How To Contact Me

It was recently brought to my attention that the "Contact Me" form that I had on the left hand side of the blog was not working.  So, I went and created a new email address just for this blog.  If you have questions for me, would like me to write about a certain topic, maybe you've got a list of questions you'd like to see me answer and publish for my new Friend Making Monday installments, or you just want to say "hi," you can now email me at:

This email address is posted at the top of the page, right under the banner and will remain there.  It is not a hyperlink.  I look forward to hearing from you guys and getting feedback from you. 

Marathon Nerves

So, yesterday, I officially started getting the jitters about my marathon...which is just a little over 48 hours away from now.  EEEK!!!!  Yes, I've put in the work and I've put in the miles.  Based on a lot of marathon training plans that I've found in books, I went above and beyond what they laid out.  I've gotten up super early, as early as 3:30am sometimes, to make sure I got my runs in.  I did the super long runs...up to 22 miles (which is all that is recommended...they say, if you can run 22 miles, then you can run 26.2...logic).  I know I'm ready, but there's a small part of me that squeaks out "what if"...what if it wasn't enough.  What if the 22 mile run that sucked wind wasn't a fluke that was the result of poor eating habits the 24-48 hours prior to running it?  What if you can't keep up with the 5:30 pace group?  What if you can't finish within the 6.5 hour time limit?  What if it DOES rain like the forecast says it will and you don't look cute in your official race photos?  (okay, I know this one is a little petty, but I'm seriously nervous about it)  What if when I'm crossing the finish line I'm totally spent and can't do a victory leap in the air?  Or, what if I do that and the photographers suck and fail to capture the moment?

Well, I've decided that if it DOES rain (and I'm pretty much expecting the forecast to stay the same: 100% chance of rain), that I will not wear rain gear.  Maybe this is stupid of me...maybe it's not.  I'll wear a white short-sleeved running shirt with my "BIRTHDAY GIRL" tank top on top of it.  I'll wear my visor to keep the rain out of my eyes and I'll wear my pink BondiBand with a bow screenprinted on it on top of the visor.  Instead of my beloved Red Fox Wireless Edge bluetooth earphones, I'll wear my wired Skull Candy earbuds.  I'll ziploc baggie my cellphone (I do this anyway because of sweating).  In my gear check, I will put a sweater and dry shirt.  I still need to find a decent, but not expensive, pair of padded flip flops to wear after I finish to put in my gear check too.

Garmin FR310XT Review

So, if you’ve been following along, then you know I had to buy a new Garmin the week of thanksgiving and needed it ASAP so that I could avoid having to use a phone app while I ran because the apps don’t do mile splits and, well, I’m a data junkie so I “need” to know what my mile splits are!!!  Haha!  Anyway, a while back I had been looking at the 310XT without the heartrate monitor.  It has a 20 hour battery life and that was very impressive to me.  I could run a super slow marathon time and it wouldn’t run out of battery life on me.  This was very important.  I loved my Forerunner 10, but it only has a 5 hour battery life.  As I said, I will be running the marathon slowly (I should finish around 5 hrs 30 mins), so the 10 wasn’t going to work.  Then the 10 started refusing to charge so I broke out my 210 that messed up on me last winter and was able to charge it and it was working.  I used it for a week or so and then it went all weird on me and I had to shut it down.  I then went on to HeartrateMonitorsUSA.com to see if I could get overnight shipping.  When I searched the 310XT I noticed it was really on sale!  The 310XT without heartrate monitor retails for $249.99.  HeartrateMonitorsUSA.com usually sells it for around $170.00.  When I got on their site this time (thanksgiving week), they had it marked down to $139.99!!!  I immediately bought it and selected overnight shipping.  I went on RetailMeNot and found a 5% coupon that I applied and got another $7 off!

The next day, UPS delivered my new Garmin, however I was at work, so when I got home from work I went on their website and changed the delivery so that I could pick it up myself from their location.  I went and got it the next morning, got home with it, charged it a little bit…enough that I could sync it with my computer.  I was super syked about the fact that it has an ANT stick.  If you don’t know what an ANT stick is, let me tell you!  It’s awesome!  It’s a little USB stick that, of course, plugs into one of your USB ports on your computer.  It’s small so it’s not obtrusive at all so you can do like I do and just leave it plugged in.  It’s so small, I’m afraid if I unplugged it that I would lose it.  Anyway, with the ANT stick plugged in you just get your Garmin within 3 meters of the ANT stick and turn it on and it automatically starts to upload to Garmin Express.

The clip on charger is better than the one for the 210.  It’s only got 2 prongs/contacts instead of 4 like the 210 has…so I feel like it seats easier for charging.  I’ve only hooked it up to the charger twice, but it is so much easier to make a good contact for charging than the 210.  I would always have to wiggle the charger clip on the 210 or unclip it and reclip it and it would take a while to get a good contact for it to actually charge.  With the 310XT, I put the clip on and it instantly makes a good contact, no wiggling or finaggling with it at all! 

Something else I really like about the 310XT is that not only does it chime when you hit each mile, but it also vibrates!  So, if you don’t hear it chime when you hit each mile because you’re listening to music or there’s a lot of environmental noise, you will feel it so that you know to look and see what your pace was for that mile.  I mean, for the most part, I know my routes well enough to know when I’m about to hit the next mile so I know at what point to start looking at my Garmin to see what the mile time was.

Because of the 20 hour battery life, I can go like a week and a half to 2 weeks before having to charge it again.  It’s so nice.  I’ve only done a few runs with it so far but I really love it.  I “liked” my other 2 Garmins but I LOVE this one!  A lot of the running blogs I read, this is the Garmin they use, so I know it has to be a good one.  I’m really looking forward to continuing to run using this watch.  I am just really hoping that it doesn’t crap out on me like the other 2 did.

**this is not a sponsored review.

Dallas Marathon

The Dallas Marathon announced today that you can now register to track a runner via text!  So, if you're at all inclined to follow along as I cross the 5K, 10K, half, 20 mile and finish line marks this Sunday, Dec 14th,  text "DAL" to 48307.  When it asks for my bib number, text back "3595".

Also, a special note to Carina...I would really like to meet you while I'm in Dallas.  We can meet up at the expo on Saturday (I should be there around 3pm) or before the race starts Sunday morning (you run way faster than me, so I'm not even going to entertain the idea of running with you even just for a mile...I'll be hanging out with the 5:30 pace group).  So, hopefully you see this before Saturday and if you still want to meet up (you had said a couple months ago that you did...but you may have changed your mind), use my "Contact Me" form on the left and get me your info so I can contact you when I arrive and we can make arrangements to meet.  I'm so excited for this weekend and would just like to share it with someone else that is also running the same race as me!

If anyone else that reads my blog is going to be running this race, PLEASE, I would absolutely LOVE it if you would contact me as well so we can meet up at the expo or pre/post-race.  Or, even better, if you're a slowpoke like me, we can hang in the 5:30 pace group together and motivate each other as the miles pile up!