Tag: fun

Race review: One Hour Track Run

January 27, 2014 / melissa / 1 Comment

Yes it is that time of year. The Arkansas Chapter of the Road Runners Clubs of America has launched its Arkansas Grand Prix Race Series with the One Hour Track Run at Danville High School in Danville, Arkansas. The Grand Prix Race Series is a good-natured competition and motivational program that gives runners a year’s worth of races to run and a point system to encourage performance and good sportsmanship. Participants must be a member of a Road Runners Clubs of America Running Club and sign up for Grand Prix as a member of said club. Participants are separated into age groups and gender and points are rewarded for various achievements including finishing the race, winning the race, fastest times per age group, etc. If you live in Arkansas and want more information, check the link right here. It can get rather confusing and the website explains it better than I can.

The one hour track run is a unique race in that it is literally what its name suggests: participants run for an hour around a track and the distance is measured as opposed to time. In order to control crowds, there are two separate races with participants running faster than an 8:30 mile running at a different time than the slower folks.

I did this race last year with a sore calf and managed to squeak out 3. I managed to “fall off the wagon” on my running the second half of last year. My runs were sporadic and none of them were more than two miles. I use the runkeeper app that tracks my runs on my cell phone. I have documentation, folks. As a result, my only goal at the start of the race was to finish faster than I did the previous year. I figured that sore-free legs would ensure a faster time.

I had car trouble and the President of Hot Legs, the running club that has the MOST FUN! in Arkansas and running club of yours truly, picked me up to take me to the “meeting place” where six of us got into a big ole SUV to ride to Danville. It was a complete gabfest on the way.

This year was significantly warmer than last year. Also, this warm weather was an extreme change of pace from the polar vortex chill that we had earlier in the month. In fact, the temperature was significantly warmer than what we were experiencing earlier in the week. Each season has its own challenges when it comes to running and there is always an adjustment period when the seasons change. These wonky temperature changes really mess with me.

The race itself was fine but challenging. I set up my app for one minute intervals alternating running with walking. I managed to complete the entire race with this system. I started out fast and felling great. I ended up running the first mile a good minute and thirty seconds faster than my usual pace. Of course, this caught up with me for the rest of the race with my mouth feeling very dry and my head had a slight dizzy feeling which is consistent with slight dehydration. (oops) I took a walking break for two laps and then got back to the “slow and low that is the tempo” business. The last twenty minutes, I was tired. I finished. According to my app, I completed 3.4 miles.

My official Results
98 Melissa Sawyer 12 973 3.1669 18:56.8

After the race, the Hot Legs had cookies and cupcakes because BIRTHDAY! We posed for pictures. I forgot to actually take any. (oops) Then we piled into the SUV and stopped by Feltner’s Whattaburger for burgers. No, this is not part of the chain. This is a local legend that has been around forEVER! According to urban legend (or what I’ve heard but am too lazy to actually look up), the Whataburger chain attempted to sue the Russellville Arkansas burger joint but realized that the local place was there first. The result was both parties agreed to leave things be. AH America. The last time I ate at Whattaburger was when I was in college on a road trip to the Buffalo River so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the burgers and fries were just a good as I remember them.

Overall, I had a blast. The race itself was a wake up call in terms of my fitness level but it is nothing that I can’t fix. I look forward to the rest of the year.

Saturday Seven

June 27, 2010 / melissa / 3 Comments

I bit the bullet and got my own domain. This should be very interesting. I already have hosting for my professional site so I just added this domain. I’m not sure why I think this is better.
I saw This Film Has Not Yet Been rated. It is about the rating system of the Motion Picture Association of America. It’s about the arbitrariness of the ratings. It points out that the identities of the raters are secret. The film makers hire private investigators to find out who they are. They study movies and point out that the same frames of a sex scene (same position, same angle of the camera, etc.) that get an R rating for a heterosexual will get an NC-17 for a homosexual. It’s a fascinating documentary.
World Cup. DAMN! Nail biter. So close.
My parents are selling my childhood home and the buyer is tearing it down. I have to go through the remaining items still over there to see if there is anything I want. Also, if my brother and I want to coordinate a yard sale, we need to do that this week. The house has floor to ceiling bookshelves in one room. There will definitely be books and old furniture. gosh. They managed to give away my childhood piano. It was out of tune so they gave it away to a guy who was going to pay to have the thing restrung. I saw the eight year old girl who came to watch her family load it into the back of their truck. Her eyes glowed. I think it’s a good match. Apparently, the family owns the donut shop in Crossett.
I am getting back to running. I have to do it really late at night. (8-9 o’clock) but I am getting it done. I’ve been looking at other forms of fitness. It’s time I get serious about this.
My friend Sharon is meeting our mutual hero PAMIE. I’m excited for her. I’m also excited for Pamela Ribon (aka Pamie). She got an article published on Oprah.com. Yes THAT OPRAH.COM.
Speaking of books, I finally have got the first Sookie Stackhouse book. The books take place in a fictional town in Northern Louisiana. While the actual Bon Temps does not exist, there is a Monroe Louisiana and a Shreveport Louisiana. There is a rather large mall in Monroe too. Also, yes, it is realistic for a small town to have a chapter of a group that celebrates the civil war. It rings true with the exception of vampires being real and roaming the earth.

Another episode of TOTALLY AWESOME VIDEOS

May 12, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

From the kids who bought you Dick in a Box, it’s “MOTHERLOVER” If you missed this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, well you missed out. This might be the funniest thing I’ve seen in 2009 so far. …. okay kids, I can’t embed the thing. You’re just going to have to click the link.

“MOTHERLOVER”

Wanda Sykes performed at the White House Correspondents Dinner, otherwise known on Twitter as “nerdprom”

Part II

There is quite a lot of controversy about this bit. Part of is due to Wanda saying that she hopes Rush Limbaugh’s Kidneys fail. It was in response to Limbaugh saying that he hoped the Obama administration fails. Her response:

“He just wants the country to fail,” Sykes said of Limbaugh. “To me that’s treason. He’s not saying anything different than what Osama Bin Laden is saying. You might want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was just so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight. … Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails, I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a good waterboarding, that’s what he needs.”

Strangely enough, the comparing speech that is harsh and questioning of the Presidency with treason was the mantra of the day every day during the Bush administration: “You’re with us or against us” Oh how times have changed. Some of the more fringe elements of the Right have been insinuating that Obama is Muslim and a terrorist for quite a while but when Wanda Sykes does it to one of their “hometown heroes” OH this is how it works.

As far as Rush Limbaugh personally, he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. He’s said nasty things about a lot of people. He said some HORRIBLE things about Bill Clinton. I’m not sure that he’s really a person who has much leeway to get offended by anything anybody else says about him. Strangely enough, Limbaugh himself hasn’t had any response to the Sykes comments.

“Teardrop” by Massive Attack. It’s the theme song to TV show HOUSE. Okay I just like it.

My big fat geek half marathon.

March 20, 2009 / melissa / 4 Comments

For reasons that to this day I don’t fully comprehend, I have always been a person that other people underestimate. For example, my guidance counselor recommended that instead of taking AP English and Calculus that I take a two period class called Office Lab that taught you how to use all the secretarial machines. I ended up being the one who made the perfect score on the Calculus semester test. There was the time this girl told me that my boyfriend was “TOO FINE” to be dating “someone like me.” (How she managed to live with all her hair perfectly placed on her head, I’ll never know). When I had my first meeting with my piano teacher in DC, I bought a piece I could play to show him my level of proficiency. He told me that this was a “very difficult piece.” Yeah I played it. He was impressed. UH HUH. That’s what I thought.

I’m thinking maybe I should get “that’s what I thought” tattooed on my butt.

Sometimes, I have found that I underestimate myself. I’m a perfectionist and see my flaws and weaknesses a lot more than I see my strengths. As a result, I like to do something that scares me a little to remind me that I’m alive and capable.

I began running in DC. DC has some beautiful running routes. There is the National Mall, which has a gravel trail where you can run from the Capital to the Lincoln Memorial and back again. The sidewalks are wide enough that you can run across the Memorial Bridge into Arlington National Cemetery. Rock Creek Park has a bike and running trail.

Sometime relatively soon after I started running, I thought about completing a marathon. It sounded so over the top that I just had to do it. I had a friend doing the Aids Marathon training program and through that I learned about the Galloway Method

So I put the marathon on my bucket list. I then broke it down to the smaller goals with a 5K, 10K, and a half marathon on my list as well.

Life happened. I moved. I gained a ton of weight. One day woke up and realized, HOLY SHIT I”M FAT! I’m really really fat! and started back to running . . very very slowly. So far I’ve lost about 20 pounds.

Last Saturday was my half marathon: The Little Rock Marathon in, where else, Little Rock, Arkansas. I printed out the training schedule on the site and went to town.

As any longtime reader of “run melissa run” knows, I have been panicking about this race for a good two weeks. I’ve never run a race with this many people. I had visions of being trampled by other runners. I’d never run a race this long. Would the hills kill me? Will I lose my timing chip? lots of concerns.

They turned out to be unfounded. I took pictures. Here we go.

This is where I picked up my “packet” with my number, timing clip, and all the necessary items needed for the race. The expo was nice. I met some of the nicest people while I was there. Runners, as a group, tend to be really nice people. Maybe it’s true what they say about endorphins and mood. I saw lots of nice things and ended up doing a little shopping.

I did not buy either one of these t-shirts.

I bought The Stick, which is billed as a “self massager” (no not that kind of massager). IT was worth its weight in gold. I got some gloves, a ponytail headband, a bumper sticker, a magnet, and some jelly beans.

I did my carbo loading at Dam Good Pies. This is an awesome restaurant with great food. I highly recommend it.

I almost wore this shirt to the race, thinking it would be hilarious and might give the spectators a little chuckle. Then I remembered that my pants were black. Oops.

The race itself. Well 6 a.m. is really freaking early. My mother wanted to go with me and since I’m not a morning person, I was more than happy to have someone else with me to wake my sleepy head up for the race.

I started the race with my intent to do 2 minute running/1 minute walk break splits for the duration and I kept this up easy breezy until somewhere between mile 9 and 10.

This picture is around mile seven. Our hotel was on the race route and my mother waited and came outside and took this picture. Obviously, I’m not what you would call pleased with my mother playing Paparazzi.

Somewhere around mile 9 and 10, I got real tired. This route was significantly more hilly than the training area in my town. In fact, Little Rock is a lot more hilly than Melissa land in general. The hills had gotten to me. I began walking up the hill in front of the Governor’s Mansion. After that, I pretty much walked the rest of the route. My goal was just to finish. I didn’t care if I was last.

I finally got to the last turn. I got some lipstick at the lipstick aid station and crossed the finish line about 3 1/2 hours later. One person cut off my timing tag. Another person put my finisher’s medal around my neck.

(my finisher’s medal)

And none other than Mr. TMFW himself put the mylar blanket around me to keep me warm. By this point, I was so tired I wanted him to tuck me in bed with some warm milk and read me a bedtime story.

The post race atmosphere is a little odd. People are tired and yet supportive. I ate a slice of pizza, some chocolate milk, and a banana. I found my mother. I called my Dad.

“Hey Dad”
“So how did it go?”
“It went alright”
“Did you finish all 13 miles”
“yeah”
“REALLY!”

Uh huh that’s what I thought.

I learned a lot during that race. I learned that I need to find more hills for training purposes. I learned that in running, like life, the two biggest things are to show up and to keep going when times are tough. Everything else is gravy.

Fight the Humbug!

December 21, 2008 / melissa / 7 Comments

For some reason, everybody and their Mama is starting to hate one Christmas. Eleanor is losing the spirit. MF never had it (I think he’s lying just to look like a badass for the ladies). There’s even a Bah Humbug club in England.

Back in the day, I used to feel a little blue during the holiday and then I came to resent the holiday. Finally, I have gotten to the point where I can enjoy the thing. Here are some of my tips.

Christmas doesn’t turn crap into gold. Yeah everybody and their mama tells you that Christmas is the time for friends and family. Everybody is supposed to get together and have a jolly old good time. This is all great and all but if your family tap dances on your last nerve: your grandpa is an alcoholic or your aunt is mean and uses you as an emotional whipping girl. None of that is going to change because Jesus was born many years ago. They’re still going to be the same shitheads that they are the other 51 weeks out of the year. Sometimes, you might have to set up some personal boundaries for yourself and limit the time with drunk grandpa and mean aunt if it’s going to harsh your buzz for the entire season.
That being said, if you have been a jackass to someone and are feeling bad about it. This holiday season does give you the opportunity to extend an olive branch or a peace pipe. It’s not calling people out of the blue for no reason, it’s wishing them well for the holiday season.
Your problems aren’t going to go away just because it’s the seasonIf you’re unhappy,fat, or broke, you’re still going to be unhappy, fat, and/or broke. It’s not going to go away because there’s a tree and some presents
People are not nicer during the holiday season. I don’t know what this peace on Earth, goodwill towards man crap is. Ask anyone who works in retail during the holiday season and they will tell you, “people are still the same greedy shits they are the other 11 months of the year. In fact, the greedy shitness is multiplied.” People are shooting each in Toys R Us over what? A Wii. A Bratz doll? People want to be the hero to their own friends and relatives by bringing them the choice gifts so they can get some applause and standing ovations. They will push, pull, poke, and possibly steal the toy out of your shopping cart. Then they drop fifty cents into the Salvation Army bucket and go home thinking they’re a great charitable human being.
Avoid Christmas music. Here’s the deal. The classical music written by the white haired greats such as Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, Yeah that stuff rules. BUT the stuff that is produced closer to today, it sucks. The record producers know that you’re only going to play it for the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas day. They’re not trying to create a Stairway to Heaven or a Help or even a Hey Ya. They know it’s never going to be a number one single or go platinum so they’re going to put out some crap to get a little change in their pockets and go home. To put it simply, Christmas records are CRAP! Avoid that shit. You’ll hear it enough in stores, on television, and on the radio to purposefully put yourself in a position of listening to it on purpose. It’s crappy music with cheesy lyrics. It, for the most part, is not good music. It sucks. Bad arranging. The singer might be out of tune. Nobody is caring because you’ll listen to it for six weeks and then put it up and listen to it six weeks next year. It’s shitty music. So don’t be tearing out the Christmas music right after thanksgiving and expect to not want to poke your eardrums out to rid yourself of that gawdawful noise because that’s just unrealistic. Avoid the shitty Christmas music. Or write to your Congressman to demand that people release stuff that isn’t certified crap. Also, I think those records will say “I hate myself and want to die” if you play them backwards. Yes I do.
Buy your presents online. People go crazy and they especially go crazy in malls. If you can get your gifts online, you avoid that stuff. Of course, my local Chamber of Commerce is going to send me reindeer crap for this particular item. Nice! Fertilizer for my flowers!
You don’t have to go to every party invited. For some reason, there is this pressure to attend every Christmas party. Do you attend every party you have ever been invited? Seriously, say “No thank you, I have other plans.” It doesn’t matter if those plans are sitting on your couch with your cat watching “Veronica Mars” reruns. If you don’t want to go to that particular party, don’t go! OF course, there is this pressure to be a social maven during the holiday. If you’re not a social butterfly who likes large parties or the particular party is filled with people who will make you lose the little faith you have in the human race, don’t be a martyr for the holiday. Don’t go to the shitty party. Give yourself a present.
Avoid peer pressure Yeah Mary has a thousand Christmas lights with some blow up dolls in her front yard but that doesn’t mean YOU have to do that to your house. In many ways, this could apply to some of the above advice. This goes for gifts. If you can’t afford to buy a Wii, don’t let your kid and your neighbors who are getting one make you feel bad for not buying one. Yeah it sucks but bankruptcy because you can’t pay those credit cards later sucks more. So shake it off. Be the rock star that other people want to emulate. Forget those Joneses, they’re probably all on prozac and in therapy anyway.

So there you go. There is some of my advice to survive the holidays without feeling like pooo!

Melissa's favorite things.

December 19, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Yeah yeah, It’s the 19th and you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping. You’re freaking out and while you know you don’t want to know into super debt, you still feel you need to put something under the tree. I know that feeling. Truth is, I haven’t finished my shopping either.

So what do you do?

Here’s some help from ME!

I saw this in Smorgasbite, It’s a girly girl flask that’s green with pink flowers.

girly flask.
LOOK!
I’m also a fan of Fiestaware. Those are some sturdy and cute dishes. You can find buttloads of old dishes made in the past (30s and on) but you can also get the new straight from the factory dishes at department stores. They have a classic line that look nice but don’t necessarily scream, “I got these dishes in 1986” They’re timeless.
Food of the month clubs. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Here’s a bacon of the month club. Personally, I’m drooling over the cheese of the month club. CHEESE. OYEZ. FROMMAGE.
This might not be necessarily favorite thing but I live in a place where I don’t have access to some of the foods that I loved in DC. So if you are internet savvy, you might want to consider getting some of your friend’s favorite foods from far away. A lot of places will deliver food via fed ex. FOR EXAMPLE!
1. Artisanal Cheese will deliver cheese anywhere so I can get the brie.
2. H and H bagels, the New York bagel company (sorry folks but bagels from new york taste different and a lot of what you buy in the supermarket labeled bagels aren’t bagels) will deliver. So will Katz’s Deli.
3. Giordano’s out of Chicago will deliver it’s famous stuffed pizza
4. You can always look on amazon.com food section for groceries that aren’t necessarily placed everywhere like “Utz’s potato chips“
Runningwise, I am all over my Nike + ipod sport kit. It’s a little sensor that you can place on your shoe with a sensor that attaches to your ipod. It keeps track of your time, pace, and distance. If you enter your weight, it will give an estimate of calories burned. It is all that and a bag of chips and probably the best thing I bought for myself all year. If you look in this picture, you can see the sensor on my running shoe.
Books. I love books. I always have to recommend some.
1. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. (of course this book screamed that I’m doom to be a failure due to my poor white trash upbringing. THANKS!)
2. The Watchmen. Yeah it’s a comi—err graphic novel but it has multiple layers and has a lot to say.
3. Indefensible: One Lawyer’s Journey into the Inferno of American Justice by David Feige. This guy was a public defender in the Bronx and this book is about his experiences. It’s riveting and gives great insight into the whole criminal justice system.
I’m still loving my red Old Navy coat. They still have the grey version left. It is CHIC!
Okay for me personally, I would love gift certificates to Star of India restaurant.

Can you tell that I am writing this before dinner and I skipped lunch? I can but I’m keeping it.

My fabulous weekend

October 21, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Team Fabulous 2008

Originally uploaded by mesawyou

I cannot tell a lie. I was a little bit nervous about meeting the “team fabulous” team and going out with them. The last time I met a large group of people that I mainly didn’t know, I was forced to listen some guy talk about his “Italian sausage” for 45 minutes at a sit down dinner.

But this was not that event. This was fun.

We loaded into the hotel shuttle and took our fabulous butts to La Hacienda on Cantrell. There was booze.

That’s a raspberry Margarita. It was orgasm good.

Since it was also a double birthday party, there was cake.

If you celebrate your birthday at La Hacienda, you get your picture taken with a sombrero and blanket, a serenade and a shot of tequila (if you’re over 21).

There was laughing and practical joking. I think we scared Mitch, the shuttle driver.

I didn’t get the memo about dressing like a Transvestite hooker for the Race but considering that I was called Man Woman in college (damn you Frank and Ken!), I think I can definitely pull that shit off. Nextyear, girls. NEXT YEAR.

It is quite awe inspiring to see 40,000 people gathered in one place to support one cause, no matter what the cause is. The Broadway bridge was bouncing. That was a little bit scary.

The other interesting thing is the groups that line the race route along the way. There are bellydancers, firemen, politicians, regular guys (or the Three miles of men), Bikers, line dancers, cheerleaders, a high school marching band, etc. It’s touching. Really.

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