Race Day part I: Pasta for me, the hubs, and 30 of our closest friends.

Race Day eve is here, and it already has been entertaining.

In preparation for the hubs and I running the Brewers' 10-K tomorrow, we are doing the standard pre-game routine: Pick up the race packets, eat our body weight in pasta, and finalize outfits and playlists.  I asked my husband if he picked out what he was wearing, and we was like, "Um, shorts? And a t-shirt?"  Bo-ring.

 

I go to pick up the packets, and make a few key observations.  First, if the lack of traffic control at packet pick-up is any indicator for the race, I am a little concerned.  Second, I got to drive behind this guy, who I could safely assume was going where I was going:

 

 

The walk to the packet pick-up was oddly long.  As I was walking I thought, well, it is for a half-marathon race so what is an extra half mile?  Well played, Brewers, well played.  While I was walking this guy totally speeds past me...walking.  Good thing that I am just running for fun because he can walk faster than I run.

 

When I got home, the hubs had made enough pasta to feed ourselves and 30 of our closest friends.  Except, it's just us.  It was delicious, and I can't wait to eat it through next Thursday.  Finally, I check the weather to make a final decision on the race day outfit, and spruce up my playlist.  Bright colors (obvi), and some bitchin' new dubstep.  At least I will look legit right up until I start running, and take a pasta-coma nap after 4 miles.

 

Wish us luck!

I can't go for that. No can do. Well, ok, yes I can.

Via www.last.fm

I don't think that I have properly mentioned my undying love for Hall and Oates.  I didn't understand the value of Darryl Hall and John Oates until slightly later in life, and now I am trying to make up for lost time.  There are three main reasons why H&O are awesome:

1. Mullets and moustaches:  These guys know how to make hair look good.
2. Withstanding the test of time: H&O are still rocking out, as are there tunes, even in movie soundtracks. (Ref: 500 Days of Summer "You Make My Dreams" dance sequence)
3. Rich Girl, I Can't Go For That, Maneater, and You Make My Dreams: Seriously some of the most feel-good "rock and soul" genre songs of all time.

If you love Hall and Oates, you are going to love this.  Call this phone number: 1-719-266-2837.
If you don't love them, then something may be wrong with you.  You should get that checked out.

Happy 30-somethings: Resiliency, happy surroundings, and the heralded mix tape.

Via recitethis.com

I came across two very interesting articles this week that discussed the topic of happiness.  Reading them together helped highlight some of the key factors to happiness, particularly for my Gen Y age group, and some of the skills that I learned in some unlikely places to ensure my happiness at this stage in my life.  Here are the articles, in case you would like to partake in reading:

Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy - Huffington Post

The Habits of Supremely Happy People - Huffington Post

 

The first article does an exceptional job explaining how Gen Y-ers are wildly ambitious, have high expectations, and think that they are unique among others their age.  The high expectations mixed with a dose of reality ends in feeling let down and unfulfilled.  Facebook and other social media don't help, as we watch everyone else live what appears to be a "better" life, which is really just digitally enhanced and never really better.

 

Fast forward to the happy people habits.  While the first article gives only three basic pieces of advice for the unhappy Gen Y-ers, the second article provides habits that can help our wallowing generation.  Here are a few of my favorites, mostly that pertain as actionable items to the unhappy Gen Y problem.

• Surrounding yourself with happy people: This is critical to keep up momentum, and perhaps surrounding yourself with quality people will reduce the instances of Facebook-enhancing your life.  I don't even like to read or hear from unhappy people, so I do not surround myself with them, and that includes social media.
• Cultivating resilience: I truly believe this is a critical missing ingredient from our kids, and even Millenials' lives.  We have lost this in the world of teams without tryouts and cuts, baseball games with no outs, and the continued promise to our kids that they are great at everything.  I learned this skill twice over before I left the house for college.  It's called Racine public schools.  I know an incredible number of successful people who graduated with me and learned realism and resiliency in just the right dose to be awesome adults and parents.
• Appreciating simple pleasures: Finding meaning and joy in the small details in life.  Some of my favorites? Getting a cheeseburger that looks just like picture, and nearly anything with polka dots.
• Valuing a good mix tape: Music reduces anxiety, which is a great reason to "soundtrack your life."  The young folks of the world may know this as a "playlist," but the careful craft is still the same.  Except for when I had to stop, start, and rewind cassette tapes, that was the best worst thing ever.

These are small things, that add up to a big change in expectations and happiness.  If you are looking for some inspiration try just one happy habit, and really stick to it.  See if it works.  You can even borrow my cassette deck if you need to.

Life is a sitcom, or sometimes a quirky British comedy.

Mr. Bean, via tvrage.com

The reason that I often feel the need to "soundtrack my life"  is because there are so many moments when I realize the ridiculous humor of my day.  Small snippets that could easily be part of a TV sitcom, and often better than fiction.  Today was one of those days.  I know what Mr. Bean must feel like.

I seriously have to question sometimes whether or not I am living in a TV show that I am unaware of, like when Jim Carrey was part of a never-ending channel in "The Truman Show" that lasted his entire life.  If people around me start to do commercials of every day products while we are having a conversation, I will be on to their game.

Here were some of the humorous things that happened to and around me today:

The man in the "business casual" lederhosen look: As I am driving to work downtown Milwaukee early in the morning before most of the business world has stirred up, a man passing off some cargo shorts, short-sleeved dress shirt, and suspenders with an incredible beard made it look like a native German had to take to the city.  I loved it.

The karma of hurry up and wait: So I am standing behind this guy at the Kwik Trip trying my hardest to get out quickly before I break down and buy some blueberry cake donuts.  The man in front of me was the change-digging, "no that's the wrong price", slow-as-molasses guy at the checkout.  I found this humorous and ironic that he was the exact person behind me back on the highway and he could barely stand the fact that my 12 mph was not fast enough for him.  I slowed to eight over to get him back for making me buy a donut.

Neck spider: I am driving today, when the biggest daddy long legs spider CRAWLS UP MY NECK.  I am not sure how I did not crash, seeing as I am particularly ticklish in my neck area.  The turtlenecks are getting dusted off tomorrow, I don't care if it is 90 degrees.

Runaway grape: I was in one of the really nice conference rooms with a few co-workers on a conference call webinar.  While I probably should not have been eating grapes in the meeting, I dropped a grape that rolled away in the middle of the meeting, never to be heard from again.  I looked and looked while trying to pretend I was stretching and looking casual, but after a while I just had to hope no one stepped on it.  At least my husband would be happy to know that he is not the only victim of my grape shrapnel.

I am really just blogging until I find out that I have been on TV this whole time, or until someone realizes that they should pay me for the rights to a movie/mini-series/book deal about the funny and mundane.  Meh, it was probably a better show when it was called Seinfeld.

Why The Joshua Tree album might be all that you need in life.

Single cover by U2, from The Joshua Tree album, 1987
Photo via Wikipedia.org

This is the melancholy face that I make when I can't find what I am looking for.  I often have a vision of something that I am looking for, like a certain pair of shoes or the perfect piece of furniture, but simply can't find it because it doesn't exactly exist.  And so, I end up having to get creative and manufacture it myself.  This is how I end up spray painting all of my picture frames, making my own wedding invitations with paper from three different websites, and have small breakdowns in furniture stores, like today, for example.

I hate furniture stores, they creep me out.  I hate all of their fake little living rooms and bedrooms with ugly accessories organized in a giant cluttered maze.  And then, you get to the even creepier mattress section that has undressed mattresses all lined up like a Red Cross hospital.  This mixed with ugly furniture usually causes me a mini-panic attack.  The hubs says to me today, "Oh my god, are you crying?"  I said "NO!" and got the hell out of the land of ugly couches with cup holders.  And if it had a soundtrack, a melancholy U2 song would have seemed fitting.

The lesson to be learned here is that you could pretty much get by soundtracking your life with one single album, and I argue that it could be The Joshua Tree.  Now, I am certain that some people would argue their own opinion on an album, but I am going to shoot down your suggestions for anything resembling junk like Nickelback or One Direction.  Here is an example of what I mean of the "A" side of what was a cassette tape when The Joshua Tree was released:

1. Where the Streets Have No Name - For when you are lost and you forgot to update your GPS since 2007.
2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - For when you have an anxiety episode in a furniture store.
3. With or Without You - For when you can't decide if you should break up with someone, OR if you can't decide if you can live with or without that cupcake.
4. Bullet the Blue Sky - For when you are angry at Ronald Reagan and military interventions.  Oh wait, that was actually Bono.
5. Running to Stand Still - For when you go running and you realize that you aren't moving very fast because you have sausage legs.

See? Music is like a religion, it can have all of the answers.  Unless you listen to Nickelback, then you can't be saved.

Granola-munchers unite: Pike Lake state park trails

Since it was the first day of fall here in Wisconsin (i.e. 59 degrees in July), trail hiking seemed like the perfect Saturday activity.  Preparing for the day meant long sleeves, bottled water, sunglasses, running shoes, tunes, and delicious earthy snacks.  I prefer the Simply Trail variety by Archer Farms, in a smiley face container of course.

Today's destination for the hubs and I was the brown trail at Pike Lake state park near Slinger, WI.  We felt a little bad for driving there since it is so close, but figured it was our civic duty to fork over the money for a state park pass anyways.  As we got started on the trail jogging, I couldn't help but imagine that I looked like a felt like a character from the Troop Beverly Hills movie:

Via zeebox.com

My other thought was, "I can't wait to find out which one of us takes a digger first."  It was not me.  I told the hubs that I was laughing "with" him, not at him.  The red spot in the middle is where he bit it.

One of the high points of the Pike Lake trails (pun intended) is the nice lookout tower on the top of Powder Hill.   You can see the lake (below), farms, the countryside, and Holy Hill in the horizon.  I hope my butt looks better after all of those stairs.

After a mid-trail break to rehydrate, make fun of high schoolers, and eat some trail mix, we continued on our path.  At this point the landscape was looking eerily like the Hunger Games (maybe we were just getting tired) and we kept each other amused by me shouting at the hubs, "That's nightlock, Peeta!" and by him doing his usual interpretive dance hand movements to whatever rap music he is listening to on his iPod.  For example, giving "toot toot" and "beep beep" hand motions for "Remix to Ignition" by R. Kelly.  I like to try and guess what  he is listening to by his interpretive dance hand motions.  Since I like to soundtrack my life, I felt like my usual running playlist was not a fit for the woodsy nature I was in, so today's hike was soundtracked by Bon Iver's self-titled second album.

Via treeswingers.com

Finally we made it back to the car after some slight detouring, as apparently we have a difficult time following colored stakes.  We decided that we wouldn't last long on Survivor with our lack of direction and my interest in eating snacks every 45 minutes, and mostly because we couldn't find our way out of a paper bag.  Ah tired legs, it's nap time.

Running: Not meant for sausage legs

 

So, no, I am not naturally a runner.  I naturally have little sausage legs that don't move very fast.  Nevertheless, I am not someone to miss out on something because I don't think the sausage legs can keep up, I just have to work harder.

In line with my only real addiction (i.e. overbooking my time), I decided a few summers ago that since I had just switched positions at work, was working on school and planning a wedding, naturally that was the best time to train for a half-marathon.  Sausage legs, activate!

I started training by my house, which is a lovely place to run, and made good friends with the dairy cows and the farmer that I run by every day.  He makes a point to stop what he is doing every time and give me a big long wave.  The cows really like it when I wear yellow, they always start following me when I wear that color.  As the distances started getting longer though, and hills are like kryptonite to me, I discovered that I couldn't really run further than about 6 miles without being eaten alive by the hills of the kettle moraine landscape.  I forgot to mention that I REFUSE to run the same area more than twice, once going and once returning.  I can only do it if I trick myself that I am only running 2-3 miles (out), and then just have to go home (back).

I trained my long runs on the exact trail my race would be on, the Eisenbahn state trail in West Bend, which is nice but I did miss the cows.  At any rate, it was nice on race day that I knew what I was heading towards.

 

I discovered that although I am not really built for running, it was an important part of my day to clear my head, work through a problem, get out some frustration, or just go visit my bovine friends.  Luckily, I have some runner friends, and they always helped provide some motivation.  I made the most incredible running playlist that even matched up with my walk breaks and included a song that reminded me of every friend who was a runner so that it motivated me when it came on (e.g. see soundtracking your life).  I have no idea what my race time was for the half-marathon, but I felt great the entire time, which was the only goal.

 

My husband and I signed up for a 10k this summer finally, which is not as long of a distance, but still requires some attention to training so I don't die the minute the running course hands me an incline any bigger than my driveway.  Since I never run in a really great routine without a commitment for a race, I am enjoying getting back on the road regularly to run and clear my head.  The cows missed me.



Soundtrack Your Life

I've posted before that one of my favorite things is to pretend to soundtrack my life, and I am totally one of those people who are affected by the meaning of music.  Here are a few new or old favorites that you might enjoy to soundtrack your own life.  Sometimes it is just fun to pretend that someone made a movie about you, and that it was the most epic. soundtrack. ever.

If you want to dance around the house:

• Electric Feel, by MGMT - A feel-good dreamy little tune.  Perfect for those of you whose only method of dance is the bounce and sway.
• You Make My Dreams, Hall and Oates - Worthy of a choreographed flash mob in the park a la "500 Days of Summer."
• Dancing on the Ceiling, by Lionel Richie - Just go for it, you know you want to.

If you are feeling melancholy:

• Gravity, by Sara Bareilles - A song about not being able to let go of something you should.
• Endless Melody, by Clarensau - Pretty much the whole album is mellow and sad (but not all), and that is why it is great.
• This Isn't Everything You Are, by Snow Patrol - A good reminder that you aren't only your mistakes.

If you want happy music:

• No Rain, by Blind Melon - This is my all-time favorite happy song, and it just won't quit.
• Feel It All Around, by Washed Out - Chill, but pleasant and content with itself.  And yes, you did recognize it from the introduction to the show "Portlandia."
• Don't Stop Believin', by Journey - Cue the fist pump.

If you are angry:

• Long Way Down, by Goo Goo Dolls - This is the power song on my Nike Running playlist, and I push it when I am angry that I have to keep running.
• Sabotage, by Beastie Boys - I don't like to listen to this in the car because it makes me speed 20 miles over the limit.

If you want to feel love:

• Young and Beautiful, by Lana Del Rey (on The Great Gatsby soundtrack) - A beautiful new song that is the essence of a good Baz Luhrmann crazy soundtrack.
• You Are the Best Thing, by Ray LaMontagne - Pure, joyous love, and the damn truth.
• In Your Eyes, by Peter Gabriel (New Blood Orchestra version) - A new version of an old favorite, and the orchestra is awesome.

If you are working out, or need to get pumped up:

• Right Now, by Van Halen - This song personally got me through 8 years of swim practices.
• I Can Transform Ya, by Chris Brown - Black card, they won't decline that.
• Stronger, by Kanye West - Good pace, just enough gangsta, not to be confused with Kelly Clarkson.
• Live Like a Warrior, by Matisyahu - A reminder to live life as you want to, and it is not about others.  Give yourself some credit.

If you are looking for a good beat:

• Royals, by Lorde - This girl is sixteen and from New Zealand, check it.  I want tigers on a gold leash too.
• Disparate Youth, by Santigold - Good introduction, synthpop borderline dub-step (which is my most recent favorite genre) by a cool chick from Philly.

If you just need a good cover:

• 99 Problems, by Hugo - Don't forget to stomp your country foot.
• Somebody That I Used to Know, by Walk Off the Earth - Fun to sing to, and you know the words because of the overplayed Gotye version.  Even if you don't admit it, you know them.  This could also fit the "angry" category, with the "relationships" sub-category.
• Wonderwall, by Ryan Adams - Ryan Adams is a cult favorite that can do no wrong, and this is no exception.