Reporting Not Much Has Changed

Right now I'm at home in Chicago and staying at my parent's house as per usual. As always (this never gets old), I love taking a trip down memory lane and going through my old drawers and finding new (old) stuff in there. Diaries, pictures, collages, and report cards. Yes, report cards. This time around, I found my childhood report cards from grades K-5. I laid them out on my bed (not my childhood bed...wahhhhh) and poured over them. What surprised me most about them was that they were all handwritten. Hand-freaking-written. Yikes. Big applause to all the teachers who did report cards before computers really hit the scene. I've got mad respect for you. Even more than I had before. I think its annoying now doing it on the computer entering the grades,  typing the comments, but writing them out for each child must have been a HUGE pain in the ass. Huge.

On the Road to PR City

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got." This is obviously a totally famous quote that I'm sure everyone has heard before. We can all relate to it on one level or another, right? This is especially true for fitness and weight loss routines.

In January, I made a declaration of certain goals I wanted to achieve in the year 2014. They weren't resolutions because those are Most of them were fitness goals and some more long term than others. One of those goals was to run a sun 4:30 marathon. For some people, this is a snails pace and they would die of embarrassment over it but I'm realistic of my running abilities and anything under a four hour marathon is really not in the cards for me unless I make running my entire life and even with that, I don't know if this body can do that. And I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is not PRing this October when I run the Chicago the marathon. I don't care if I run a 4:29:59, but it needs to be faster than a 4:30. It needs to be.

The Pacific NW (and San Fran) by the numbers...

This trip out west all started because of a wedding and ended almost two weeks later;  almost 635 miles away (with many more miles in between). I had an amazing time and if I could go back and do it again, I would. Obviously. I wanted to just keep going,  I cannot believe how much ground I covered and all the things I saw and experienced in such a short amount of time. Traveling sure suits me well.

Last year was my first really big trip and it was out of the country. It really set the groundwork for all my future trips. I was by myself and seeing all new places for the first time. That was a trip was the time of my life and will never be topped. However, being able to go away for two weeks and travel the United States and a bit of Canada this summer did just fine and I still had an incredible time.  Below is a bit of an overview of the last two weeks. Pacific Northwest +San Fran by the numbers if you will...

I love ballparks

Day 13. Wah, wah, wah. It's my last day on vacation. Sure, I have a two week trip to Chicago coming up that I am obviously looking forward to, but a trip like this, seeing all new types of places, is a different kind of trip and I am sad its all over. I did, however, want to make the best of my last morning in San Francisco before heading back to New York City. Since I hadn't run yet here, I had to get it done. I have gotten in probably close to 80 miles in my four days in San Francisco but none of them running. I have walked so much since being here that my legs have been tired and sore. However, after only walking like thirteen miles each of the last two days, I felt that I had to get in a run this morning and that I did. Because San Francisco is so hilly, I had to figure out a way to run here with missing the hills if possible. I also knew that I wanted to be able to run to somewhere that I haven't been to yet and see something new here. I looked at the map and decided I'd run to AT&T Park where the Giants play. I love seeing different sports stadiums and I passed this one on the way into the city days ago in the cab but it seemed so far away. After looking at the map, I realized it wasn't that far at all and I was going to run there.

Two colleges, One Day= Awesomeness

Day 12. This was my last full day of vacation and it's always bittersweet. I hate having to stop exploring new places, having new experiences, and creating awesome memories. At the same time, I'm ready to sleep in my own bed, shower in my own shower, and do some laundry. However, if I had the choice to keep traveling, I most def would. I love traveling. Period.

It's been awesome tracking how far I've walked over this trip, but for the last two days my FitBit band has been on its last legs and this morning it finally snapped. I guess I just literally wore it out with all my walking. Well, not really. I think the oil in my sunscreen wore it down because the same thing happened to it when I was in Florida in February. I was smart enough (naturally) to get some scissors and cut the bad and made it fit inside the key holder in my crops. Perfect.  Luckily it seemed to sense my steps just as well as on my wrist. Once I settled the FitBit debacle, I went online to HopStop directions for my two mini excursions for the day. I was going to head to Berkeley, home of the Braverman clan of Parenthood (duh!) and of course the University of California and then to Stanford University in Palo Alto. I love walking around college campuses and was so excited for this.