vegas strong | marathon monday week #23

the morning after. spreading some #VegasStrong love

 

Holy shit. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and on the afternoon of October 1st, I sat down to write my first Marathon Monday post in weeks. My world had been crazy with moving, work and life in general so I was glad to find some time to update the blog on my running progress.

Then, at 2am, I woke up to my neighbors screaming, the wind howling and no less than ten texts from an assortment of people. I quickly learned about the tragedy that took place five minutes from my house shortly after I had fallen asleep.

At that point, and for the last two weeks, everything non-essential has fallen away. Time spent on social media, time watching reality tv and time focusing on bullshit. Because the only thing that we could focus on was how we were going to move on from this nightmare affecting our city.

My focus has been my family, my city, working and running. In times like these, you begin to see what really matters in your life and what things make the cut. And I think the only thing that has really kept me sane these last two weeks is my hour or so everyday to escape it all and run the city.

And yes, this race is still happening and I will still be running it. There’s no way in hell I was going to let a sub-human scare me away from running one of the most famous streets in the world. Together with all of the other Rock N Roll Marathon participants, we are showing up to continue to show the world just what #VegasStrong means.

It would be easy to default to fear, stay inside, never do anything ever again. But that’s ridiculous. It’s not the way to live a life. Let me put it this way: I went to see The Grateful Dead five days after the Manchester Bombing at an Ariana Grande concert. Last week I saw Kings of Leon, five days after the 1 October shooting. Because fuck fear. I won’t let it stop me from doing absolutely everything I want to do.

kings of leon has been one of my favorite bands for forever ❤

So this is where I’m at. The events and the aftermath over the last two weeks have changed my mind and put into perspective so many things. I’m not sure where we all go from here, but I do know we just have to keep going.

WE are the lights of this city.

#VegasStrong #BattleBorn

GENDRY DIDN’T GIVE UP | marathon monday week #15

Hey guys I am BACK! I was packing and moving all of last week and that shit got stressful so I had to drop everything and work on getting prepped for the movers. Regardless, I did manage to get my running in and of course all the thinking that comes with it. Lol.

my parents were in town for my move and this was their view at planet hollywood. like HELLO VEGAS!
desert smash @ Hexx Kitchen – gin, blackberries, rosemary agave, lime juice

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So last week I did this amazing 5 mile run. I felt so relaxed and confident the entire time. The music was bumping and I was throughly in the groove. When I find myself in a good groove like this, it allows me to actually enjoy the run, which is a nice touch.

Once my run was complete, I looked at my pace and I wanted to faint. I was looking at thee SLOWEST 5 miles I have ever done. Talk about deflating that ego. What happened? Why didn’t my pace match how I felt about my run?

I’m here to tell you folks, sometimes the numbers do lie.

We’ve all heard stories about friends who are working to get into better shape. They feel so good, yet, their weight is slow to drop. There are stories about rich men and women who are the unhappiest people on the planet while some who are not-so rich are living full, blissful lives. One donut is perfect, yet seven of them produce unpleasant consequences.

You see what I’m getting at…the numbers aren’t always indicative of our level of success.

As a runner, I get so caught up in beating my pace from the last run or how fast I have to run to qualify for Boston. (It’s really fast.) In life, we get caught up with our weight, the amount of zeros in our bank account or pairs of shoes we own (so guilty).

What if we had no concept of the numbers? If weighing ourselves wasn’t such a falsely inflated milestone on a weight-loss journey? If we unsubscribed from those Nike Store emails?

Would we ignore what the numbers were telling us and determine success based on how we feel about our work? I’m guessing we would. Perhaps we would celebrate our success and that would only inspire and drive us to go out and do it again.

Now, I’m not saying that achieving big things is pain-free – not even a little bit! What I’m trying to convey is that it doesn’t (and probably shouldn’t) be a 100% dreadful experience. Where’s the fun in that? Doesn’t leave much room to enjoy the journey.

I’m also not saying we should ignore our Amex limit and buy the new Gucci sandals in every color possible. Or that money doesn’t matter in terms of being able to fulfill goals such as travel or charity.

What I am saying, at the bottom of everything, is – none of it means shit unless we are happy and fulfilled by our achievements. What use is the house and the money and the glory if we wasted our soul and body away to get these things? In my opinion, not worth it at all.

While numbers can and do matter (especially in athletics), it’s important to listen to our bodies and take stock in how we feel. Even if that means slowing pace and not feeling like a lung will burst throughout that 5 miler. Like they say, slow and steady wins the race! You can’t finish if you give up halfway through!

And…GENDRY DIDN’T GIVE UP LAST NIGHT.

I cannot with Game of Thrones last night, how are we going to wait a whole year for the next season. How.

Happy Monday!

❤

lord love a duck | marathon monday week #14

“Lord love a duck” is one of my mother’s favorite sayings. I don’t really know what it means, except that she uses it when exasperated.

I personally think the literal interpretation of this phrase would be hilarious. I feel this way because I’ve had a recent obsession with ducks. I know, random. It started with a post on the Passenger Shaming Instagram account. For those that don’t know, it’s an account that features submissions of people being terrible airline travelers. The photo I’m talking about featured a very adorable service duck, on a plane, in BOOTIES.

See?

Guys…BOOTIES!! Obsessed.

From there, I did some research about the feasibility of owning a pet duck in Las Vegas. Guess what? It’s not feasible. On to Plan B, which entailed setting my text tone to the duck quack and going to Sunset Park to visit the ducks. I talked about my return to this sport a couple of weeks ago.

On Saturday morning, I let myself sleep in before embarking on the run of the day. The longer I sat in my chair drinking my coffee, the more time I had to attempt to talk myself out of running. But then I thought of the ducks. My ducks. I needed to go see these damn ducks. I couldn’t let them down.

To clarify, I am fully aware of the fact that I do not own these ducks. They are wild, majestic creatures that dwell in the lake at Sunset Park and I have no claim to them whatsoever. So why am I attached to them?

Maybe it’s because while I’m sitting on the side of the lake, post-run, watching them swim around doin’ their thang – I feel so peaceful. Perhaps it’s because this is the next best thing to making an irresponsible life decision to acquire one as a pet.

Either way, I learned this weekend that I LOVE the ducks. I don’t know what this has to do with running or even life for that matter. If I could pull anything from this revelation, I would say that finding a quiet moment is so important to balance out our busy, stressful lives. Discovering a place to come to peace could be a crucial step in the process that is getting through a week without threatening to murder a coworker (you know which one).

There’s a reason so many of our favorite authors went out into nature. To be a witness of such perfect stillness and beauty is nothing short of satisfying – and inspiring.

I hope you find a place of peace this week, especially if things start getting crazy. Or, like me, you are having a mild freak-out after seeing both this week’s and the preview for next week’s GAME OF THRONES. OMG.

Happy Monday!

❤

 

 

getting there | sunday stories #2

This is the second post in a Sunday series I’m doing. I’ll be telling my adventures from my  time studying abroad during a summer in college. If this is your first time reading “sunday stories”, you can find the first post here.

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Remember that Mary Kate and Ashley movie in which they traveled to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Park City, Utah? That was one of my favorite of their mediocre movies – How The West Was Won was another fave or It Takes Two, but also their mystery movies. Ok, fine, they were not mediocre. Anyway, it’s also where I stole the name of today’s installment. Yolo. Memories.

Getting to your travel destination is no easy feat, especially if you have to fly…across an entire ocean. Oy.

The night before I was set to leave on my European excursion, I was packing my one, singular, UNO purple people eater, hard-side suitcase. Frantically. I was having an existential crisis over the fact that I couldn’t bring my favorite Bob Marley shirt. For real, this was 21 year-old Jess.

Long, stressful story short: Momma Bear convinced me that it wasn’t necessary to bring my beloved Bob with me. The only thing left to do was chug a weird IPA I didn’t like, set my alarm and go to bed.

Now, don’t get it twisted, I 1000% set my alarm. I set three alarms. There were witnesses.

All three alarms failed to go off, resulting in my very own “Home Alone” moment. You know that part where they have to rush to and through the airport because their alarm failed. Yeah…same. At least I wasn’t Movie #1 Kevin who got left behind. Anyway. I freaked out, naturally, since I react SO WELL to life scenarios.

It was either my roommate (who also happened to be going on the trip) or my parents (who came to take me to the airport) that woke me up. But, like I mentioned, I was not Kevin McCallister (#1 or #2). I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare and I boarded the correct aircraft. Praise the Lord.

We flew from Salt Lake City into JFK in New York City. Like the asshole that I was…am, I decided this was an amazing opportunity to let the world know that I was (AM) a Red Sox fan by wearing a brand new Red Sox t-shirt. See…asshole. But a self-aware asshole. (If you don’t follow baseball or sports or just don’t care, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankee rivalry is the biggest, most famous, longest-running, most taken seriously rivalry in sports. If you care for more info, google it.)

The five hours I spent in JFK were thrilling. Not really. I forced my travel companions to eat BDUBS (Buffalo Wild Wings) and drink Boston Lager with me. (My spirit animal is a middle-aged Dad with a beer gut. It’s becoming more aware to me as time goes on.)

I even witnessed a real-life couple carrying real-life SANDALS luggage. If you watch The Office, you’ll get my excitement. So naturally I had to capture the following photo, the one and only from the “getting there” portion of the excursion.

Finally, it was time to board my very first international flight to Madrid. WHEE! This was the biggest plane I have ever been on and it was quite the adventure…kinda. I quickly learned that being in the middle row of the Titanic of planes (bad reference) was squishy and you get hit with the beverage cart often. However, I also discovered they serve you free wine so that helped, but did not allow me to sleep.

So what did I do on that 7 1/2 hour flight?

1- Watched “500 Days of Summer” for the first time and had an existential crisis (this was a very unstable time in my life apparently haha.)

2- Watched my favorite Scorsese movie “The Departed” to make me feel more tough.

3- Watched a sunrise worthy of a Crayola box as we made our final descent into my homeland, España.

We made our way off the plane and toward Customs. As I proudly gave my shiny, new passport to the agent, I had the biggest smile on my face. I was FINALLY HERE! He was less than thrilled at my excitement (delusion) and barely used enough ink to produce a legible stamp in my passport. Asshole. (Takes one to know one!)

Once we were safely in the country, we gathered our bags and had to find a cab all while running on no sleep and pure adrenaline.

When you are lacking sleep, having to navigate a country you are not familiar with and attempting to speak a language you are not fluent in – your brain may shut down. Case in point, the only words I could come up with were: hola, baño, cerveza. Olé!

Luckily, one of my travel companions took charge and told the taxi driver where our hostel was located. I sat in the back of the cab overwhelmed by everything. All of it. From the architecture passing me by to the Spanish street signs. It was all so overwhelming. I was actually in the homeland!

After arriving at our hostel, the cute man at reception made a comment about my last name since, you know, my family hails from the northern part of the country I was in. He was absolutely convinced that I should know more Spanish than my sleep-derived brain did at the time. However, it was fun to be “recognized” and it only made me feel more at home.

So I’ve successfully made it to Madrid, Spain. Next Sunday, I’ll talk about the weekend we spent in the city and how I actually feel about Madrid.
Stay tuned and subscribe!
❤

17 thoughts locals have on the strip

Once again, we find ourselves at the end of a beautiful day called Thursday. And once again, I have some snarky, Las Vegas experiences to share with y’all.

Today I present to you, some thoughts locals have on The Strip. Because we don’t all experience utter joy when a rather large, foreign tour group with a flag engulfs us while on our way to sushi.

1- Could you walk ANY. SLOWER???

2- Could you please put the selfie stick back inside of your car and actually drive to the hotel before trying to film every single inch of The Strip?? I don’t want to be a victim of your unintentional off-roading as you attempt to capture the majesty of The Bellagio Fountains.

3- I could so easily steal that wallet sticking out of your pocket and/or open purse.

4- Do you NEED to STAND in the middle of a WALKway to take that photo?

5- The Fountains erupt every 15 minutes. Please calm down. I’m not trying to block you from this rare opportunity.

6- I hope you and your obnoxious child know that cockroaches reside in the bushes in front of said fountains. (This is true, I’ve witnessed.)

7- Contrary to what your overpriced well vodka is telling you, she’s waayyy out of your league, bro.

8- Don’t even waste your time politely telling the stripper card people you don’t want one. Sometimes you cannot be polite to strangers. It’s not rude, it’s self-preservation. This isn’t Nebraska anymore.

9- Oh no, do not speak to that dirty, life-size Spongebob.

10- Well look at your dumb (drunk) ass stopping to talk to the poorly dressed showgirl and/or dirty cartoon character lurking nearby. Now you will get finagled into taking a $50 photo.

11- Yep there goes that next round of drinks.

12- GIRL. PUT YOUR SHOES BACK ON. At least make that married guy you met two hours ago in the club carry you back to his hotel room.

13- Oh honey, do not get into that limo.

14- Why do people even come to The Strip? This isn’t that cool.

15- Dammit…I live here.

16- This is fucking awesome.

17- Awee yeaahhh. I live here.

how to get out of a funk

Last week I was in a major funk. I didn’t really even feel like myself until Wednesday afternoon. I had no motivation to work on my massive to-do list and I could not focus at all. If you’ve ever experienced anxiety and/or depression, you know this is an inexplicable feeling which can leave you desperate to find a way out of it.

While this doesn’t happen to me very often anymore, it is a little unsettling when it does. Luckily, I’ve discovered some things that help me get out of that funk. Or at least make me feel a little better.

#1 Breathe & Meditate – Taking a minute to sit, close your eyes and breathe deeply can really help calm your body down. If the thought of meditation is intimidating to you, look for a guided, audio meditation. There are a ton of apps out there, but I really like listening to Gabby Bernstein’s meditations which can be found on her website.

#2 Stretch / Yoga – Sometimes my funk makes me too tired to go out and do a more intense exercise. In cases such as these, I like to stretch and do some relaxing, Yin yoga in the comfort of my own home. I like to use Yoga With Adriene’s videos on Youtube. Her voice is so soothing and her “gentle yoga” really is gentle. Here are just a few of my recs:

Yoga for Depression, Yoga for Migraines, Meditation for Anxiety

#3 Drink Some Tea While Yoga-ing – Get some caffeine-free tea to soothe and detox your body. I like the Yogi brand teas as well as Traditional Medicinals (specifically Peppermint).

#4 Eat Something – It can be really tempting to give into eating junk when in that funk, but I’ve learned that kind of food can make me feel even worse. Something light like a salad will nourish my body and not contribute to the junky feeling.

#5 Get Reallll Dorky AKA Find a Feel Good – One Spring Semester in college, I watched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” at least once per day during Dead and Finals Week. Why? Because it’s what I needed at the time. Then during the Fall Semester, I watched the One Direction movie at least once per day during Dead and Finals Week. Why? Same reason.

and, i mean, COME ON. it’s harry styles for goodness sake.

It doesn’t matter what brings you joy, as long as it does. Who cares if you like to watch Christmas movies during the summer or have seen every episode of Teen Mom and Teen Mom 2 if it makes you feel good? Sometimes we just need a temporary escape. And if we are all responsible for our emotions and happiness anyway, then this is one form of taking control.

#6 Find A Way To Laugh At Yourself – I am a huge fan of a solo-dance party and a good “talking to myself” session. When I do absolutely ridiculous things like this in the privacy of my own home, I usually end up laughing at myself. Why take ourselves so seriously all the time?

 

I hope some of my personal remedies helped y’all. I think it’s important to remember that we all have our days, or weeks or months or even years, but we’re not alone. Everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about.

❤

holy shit halfway check-in | marathon monday #13

this patron prickly pear marg was muy perfecto!
i got to see the killers last week live on jimmy kimmel! AMAZE.

“Holy shit.” Yeah, those are my exact thoughts on this topic. How did we get here so fast?! In 13 weeks, the big day will be real. So I thought it was time to check-in and see what I needed to adjust during this last half of training.

I’ve come to the realization that I do need to make this a more prominent part of my life because this is where the mileage begins to increase. In the coming weeks I will start running distances I’ve never reached before. I’m not afraid to admit it – that’s intimidating!

The only thing I can do is become obsessed with my training and do everything I can to contribute to this process and set myself up for success.

This is what I see looking back on the last thirteen weeks:

– Summer has been hectic! Between traveling and moving and music festivals, sometimes it’s been difficult to get all my workouts completed. Now that my schedule is clearing up, it’s going to be a lot easier to make this marathon a bigger priority.

– SLEEP. For sure, I need more of this shit. Then again, I could always use more sleep. This scenario is a little bit out of my control (I have some WEIRD ASS sleeping issues), but I can work harder to contribute to a better night’s sleep.

– Stretching. I can tell you right now that I do not make enough time for a proper warm up or cool down stretch. All I can tell myself about this one is…just DO. IT.

The marathon is a whole new distance, one that I’ve never run before. That means I need to constantly check-in and tweak my training and my approach. Which is a thing I can do.

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I want to close my “Holy Shit Halfway” Check-In with a quote that my Mom found in her local paper yesterday:

“Too many of us mistake the edges of our comfort zone for the limits of our endurance.” – Chris Huston (Journalist)

❤

cheers bitches!