So, this weekend I took a trip with my father to Harrisonburg, VA to visit my cousin and run the Waynesboro Park-to-Park Half Marathon. My cousin and I planned to run it, my aunt(mother's sister) and father planned to walk it.

The Park-to-Park is a point-to-point run from Ridgeview Park to Stuart's Draft Park, on a course equaling 13.1 miles. While I've run that distance often enough, it was my first official half marathon. Also, something I totally didn't account for with living/training in my flat land city at sea level, my first time really running with near continuous, and sometimes large, hills and at a higher altitude.

That said, a rough report.
( Our parents are idiots... )

So, that all said, stats...
I finished at 1:51:41 giving me a 8:32/mi and placing me at 6th in my age group(20-29). I'm happy enough with it.

My cousin managed 2:25:43 with a 11:07/mi, about four minutes faster than she expected, and 59th for her age group(30-39).

My aunt and father finished at 3:21:40 and 3:21:41, respectively, for 15:24/mi and last for both their age group(s)(50-59) and beating just one person overall. Heh.

Placed third for women aged 20-29 and was, I think, the sixth woman across the finish line. Was a fun race and can't even be down about getting third again since I finished at a better time. Though, I still think(as I have) I can go faster, lol.

That said, I had fun. There was a pretty good energy to the whole thing, so, my attempt at writing a race report...
( Rambling about running under cut )

The other day I was on my way home from work and suddenly my brain was all "I'm so hungry I could eat a whole village" followed by a "wait... whut?" Idk. I'm clearly a monster of some sort.

In other notes,
* Run the Spartyka Wounded Warrior 5k tomorrow. Hope for good weather. Not too hot and, if it rains as predicted, light rain. Think it'll be fun regardless.

* Apparently there is to be a horror convention around here in a month. Wanna go!

* I bought way more scallions than I really should have, anyone have any vegan or workable recipes for something that requires lots of spring onions? I can only eat so many cong you bing.

* Anyone else seen the Hunger Games movie? Wanna discuss/thoughts?

Doing a half-marathon(Park To Park in Waynesboro, VA) with my cousin toward the end of April and hope to do a marathon, vague planning as I haven't really looked that far ahead yet, in fall. Also, at least one(Spartyka Wounded Warrior) 5k before the half.

So, training. As long as I focus on my pace, 'pulling back' on my speed whenever I notice myself just going as fast as I'd like, I can run at least 14 miles, so not worried on distance too much right now. Which leaves time, I'm actually not too sure on where I stand in that regard since I have a bad habit of making up my trail as I go(I mean, I only really start off knowing if it'll be a short or long run to kinda set my pace), so while I time most my runs I never know how far I've gone until I finish. Though, as far as I can tell, I seem to have this huge two-three minute per mile gap between my 5k pace and longer distances, so going to try to work on closing it and hopefully improving my times overall.

That said, I'm actually going to be generous to myself and say that so long as I run the half in under two hours, I'll be happy. Not sure if it's cheating to place the bar where I know I can easily walk on under it, but there it is. So, counting the days, excited. ;p

Felt like trying to keep track of the books I read this year, granted it's already a little fuzzy since I'm not exactly sure where some cut off between last year and this year(trimmed out anything there's even a chance I actually started in December though, just to be sure).

That said...
( Books read in 2012 )

Recommendations always welcome! I like zombies, dystopian/post-apocalyptic worlds, lesbian fluff, female main characters, not ignoring the existence of POC/queer folks/ect., horror, monsters of all sorts, mythology and some urban fantasy, queer reimagings, and 1950s-style parody/noir.

My car's inspection was rejected and it'd take at least 1k to fix and even then was sure to break down again, so I decided to scrap it. Was my first car, so kinda woe over it being gone. RIP Domi. Fyi, its name was Dominique, as in Demona from Gargoyle's human name, lol. Was a '97 Pontiac Sunfire. Got it in 2006, came with 140k miles already on it and a CD player that never worked, but *sigh*

Now to begin the unpleasant task of figuring out my transportation situation. I mean, I bike to work and there's several strip malls in a 3-4 mile radius of my house, so it's not exactly like I'm completely stuck. Yet, anything outside that radius(movie theaters, library, clubs, most people I know's homes, clothing stores I actually like, grocery store that actually carries a lot of what I need, and so on...) is at least 12 miles away. Not the worst distance, but still... this area doesn't lend itself well to the vehicleless. Never mind that I'm supposed to visit my sister, a five hour drive, this weekend.

That said, cars are fucking expensive and I'm really not looking forward to draining my moving funds on this. Blah.

It was an okay birthday.

Woke up, light 3 mile run, hour full-body massage(pre-paid for, so I just had to enjoy it), library for awhile, and dinner at my current favorite restaurant(note to self: don't eat the pepper that comes with the chana masala just because B did). Not much in gifts, getting older and all that, but those I did get were of the giftcard variety, which I like, my hobbies and interests tend to make it hard for me to tell someone who isn't into the same thing what I want and not worry about them overpaying or having to really hunt for it due to lack of knowledge.

For the rest of the day, zombie books and tea bath(and probably some drawing and cleaning). Was going to go dancing, but the weekend is way better so... later.

Hope everyone else who had a birthday today, know a few, had a fantastic day and that everyone else's was pretty swell too. ;p

For the holidays, I got my little brother these new rims for his car. Only, they didn't arrive in time. So, I improvised...



...with ten minutes, cardboard, paint(and brush), and an x-acto knife. The sheer look of absolute confusion on his face upon opening it, prior to an explanation, was well worth accidentally stabbing myself in the process.

Joined daily_pony and had thus been taking some pics of my... herd, so I figured I'd post a few so far here(maybe cheer up for some of those who bought DC today?). Feel free to excuse any 'lol, amateur photography' vibe, heh.

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Also, we had a mini 'art war' at work.
( Read more... )

Haven't posted here much anymore, might try to rectify that.

Lately I've just been... lots of ups and downs and nothing in particular. Have a million little projects I'm working on that make me feel productive yet at the same time I feel stuck and like I need something to happen. Yeah, vague paragraph is vague.

Mostly just distracting myself from the storm going on and being trapped inside right now so, some of which Tumblr folk have already have seen, ( a few drawings. )