Tag Archives: walking

LA Cancer Challenge 5K (or The Foggiest 5K I’ve Ever Done)

Posted on October 29, 2013 | Comments Off on LA Cancer Challenge 5K (or The Foggiest 5K I’ve Ever Done)

This past Sunday was the LA Cancer Challenge 5K. It was 5K #6 for me this year.

This was one of the random 5Ks I signed up for so I could do as many 5Ks as I could this year. I didn’t pick it for any particular reason. This one happened to benefit pancreatic cancer research.

On Saturday after my half shift at work, I headed over to Westwood to the VA (where the 5K was held) so I could pick up my number and t-shirt. I got a bit of a preview of where I’d be walking, and I realized that it was pretty hilly. After doing a little investigating of what I thought the course would be, I parked my car, went to the tents, and got my number.

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On Saturday night, as I wrote yesterday, I stayed home so I could get a good night sleep before the 5K.

On Sunday morning, I took a pain pill before leaving the house. I wanted to try to prevent as much pain from the hills as I could (it worked pretty well). I drove back to Westwood only to see that it was insanely foggy!

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That picture was taken during one of the clearer moments before the 5K started.

While I waited for the start, I took a before picture.

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You can see the fog getting worse! While waiting, my hair got very damp from all the mist. But if I had to choose from it being too cold or too hot during a 5K, I’d choose too cold any day (I just wish I remembered to bring my sweatshirt that day!).

This was considered a Halloween race and there was a costume contest after the 5K was over. I didn’t want to race in a costume, so I just wore my race shirt that I got when I picked up my number. But there were some pretty amazing costumes that day. This might be my favorite group.

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The mom is a banana, the dad is a gorilla, and the baby in the carrier is a little monkey. I also saw lots of Disney characters and several groups of Minions from “Despicable Me”.

The 5K went ok. The hills seemed endless and I heard many other people saying the same thing or groaning when they saw the uphill ahead. I realized that I was not going to have an amazing time so I just focused on finishing.

I finished this race about 90 seconds slower than my last 5K. But considering all the hills, I’m pretty happy about that.

Of course I had to take an after picture celebrating my 6th 5K!

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My next 5K is on Saturday. I’m getting a little nervous about it. I’ve never done 2 competitive 5Ks in the same week. And I didn’t know when I signed up for the next one that it has a time limit. And typically, I’m about 10 minutes slower than that time limit. The only thing I can hope for is that either they are very lenient on that time limit or that there is someone who starts the race about 10 minutes after me (they start the time limit after the last person starts the race).

I know that I can’t get 10 minutes faster in a couple of days so there isn’t much I can do about it. I just hope that my 5K on Saturday isn’t the first one where I get picked up by the sweeper van and am not allowed to finish.

There’s no point worrying since it is what is it. For now, I’m celebrating finishing 5K #6!

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New Shoes! (or I’m Glad I Had A Pedicure)

Posted on June 24, 2013 | Comments Off on New Shoes! (or I’m Glad I Had A Pedicure)

Since my old walking shoes had a big hole in them, I needed to get new shoes before doing any more big walks. I had a full work week last week, but I had time after my half shift on Friday to do some serious shoe shopping.

Shoes and I have a funny relationship. I love shoes, but they don’t love me back all the time. Because of my hip issues, I have to be careful about what I put on my feet. A few years after having my hip surgery, I discovered that shoes with wobble boards in them (the ones that claim to burn extra calories and work out your butt) are the ones that are most comfortable for me. I don’t believe that they burn extra calories, but whatever allows me to walk for hours without pain works for me.

I have a lot of shoes from FitFlop, but they don’t make workout shoes. So when I discovered that New Balance had shoes similar, I bought a bunch of pairs. I had one pair at my house and another at my parents (so I didn’t have to fly with sneakers taking up a lot of room in my carry-on). But the ones with the hole in them were my last pair, and those shoes were discontinued a while back.

Since I loved my New Balance shoes before, I figured I’d try another pair of New Balance shoes (and no, they aren’t paying me to say this). There is a New Balance store near my work in Santa Monica, so I went on Friday.

This was no ordinary shoe shopping experience. Instead of telling the sales people what shoes I wanted to try on, the salesman (whose name is escaping me) brought me over to the shoe fitting area.

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I stood on that platform and there was a computer that took measurements of my feet and where I put pressure when I’m standing. During the measurements, I also told the salesman about my hip issues and explained what type of shoes I’ve like before.

After the foot analysis, the salesman brought over the shoe that he thought would be best for me. He also brought over an insert to put in the shoe to simulate what the wobble board did for me. The shoes weren’t as cute as my old ones, but they are pretty nice.

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I’ll admit, the shoes weren’t as inexpensive as I’d like. But now that I know what shoes (and inserts) work for me, I can be on the lookout for the shoes being on sale (and then I could stock up). I’ve learned the hard way that being cheap with my shoes doesn’t work, so I’m glad that I went for the ones that didn’t hurt me.

I’ve had the chance to do one decent walk with these shoes. And they aren’t the same as my old ones, but they don’t hurt either. I think I just need to wear them in a little bit and then they’ll be perfect.

Sometimes, you have to spend a little more to make things work for you, and workout shoes are one of those things.

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Thank You Aunt Cindy! (or The Gift That Made Me Cry)

Posted on June 6, 2013 | 1 comment

Before I get to the gift that I’m referring to in the title of this post, let me tell you a bit about my Aunt Cindy. I’ve mentioned her in the blog before when she and my mom were here for the “2 Broke Girls” taping and Disneyland.

While my Aunt Cindy and I haven’t always been super close, I’d say for almost the last decade we’ve pretty much talked on the phone every week. We have a lot of the same favorite tv shows, so we chat about those a lot. She also is one of the few relatives I’ve had who understands the struggle I have with my weight. And she has also had hip problems, so we chat about that sometimes as well.

Anyway, back to the gift.

I’ve been so excited to be collecting medals from the various 5Ks I’ve done so far. I normally don’t display my medals and race bibs, but since I have a goal for the number of 5Ks that I do in 2013, I’ve decided to put them up in my living room for motivation.

I just used one of those clear Command hooks (because it is very difficult to put holes in my walls at my house), and hung all my medals up. I then strung all my race bibs through a paper clip and hung them up as well.

I thought it looked pretty darn good considering it took my 2 minutes to do it.

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I’ve had it up at my house since Sunday, and I’ve been very happy every time I pass it.

Yesterday, I got home from work and there was a box on my front step. I didn’t think much of it since I had ordered some clothes online recently. So I went inside to put down all of my things before I grabbed the box and brought it inside.

When I finally got a look at the box, the return address on it was my Aunt Cindy’s address. I quickly thought about our last phone call and couldn’t recall her saying that she was going to send me something. So I opened it up and saw this note inside.

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Underneath the card, I saw this medal hanger.

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And honestly, I cried when I saw it (I’m even tearing up a little now as I write this). While I’ve gotten some very cool gifts for my birthday, Hanukkah, or just because in the past; this gift is very special for me. Even though I don’t know if this is what my Aunt Cindy was thinking, but to me, it means that she believes that I’ll have many medals to come that I should be proud of and display and that I should do better than my little makeshift hanger.

I don’t have my new hanger up on the wall yet (Dad, this is a project to add to our list), I’m resting it on the wall below where it will hang so I can see it every time I see my medals.

Thank you so much Aunt Cindy for the amazing gift! I tried to call you last night to thank you, but since I didn’t get a hold of you, I hope this blog post will do.

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Hollywood Half 5K (or 5K #2 For The Year!)

Posted on April 9, 2013 | 3 comments

A while back, I saw a notice on Facebook for the Hollywood Half marathon. I’m in no way prepared (or motivated enough right now) for a half marathon, but I noticed that they also had a 5K available.

Since I set a goal of doing at least 5 5Ks this year (and have only done 1 so far), I signed up. And my friend Kate signed up too (but I knew ahead of time that she would be running it).

I wasn’t able to go to the expo to pick up my bib number, so Kate grabbed it for me. But I was super excited when I got it from her and noticed that my name was on it (a first for me)!

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The 5K started at 6am, which meant a VERY early start for me. I was so terrified that I’d sleep in that I set my alarm like this.

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Getting to the 5K was a bit of an adventure. The start and finish line were just under a mile apart. No free parking (most lots would have cost about $25). But we noticed that there were subway stations near both the start and finish line (and we had both taken the subway to Hollywood before). However, the light rail that we’d have to take to the subway did not start early enough in the morning.

Spa Night Out to the rescue! I noticed that we got this in the swag bag:

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It was a $20 credit to Uber, which is basically a very fancy taxi service (if you are interested, you can use this link to get your own $10 credit). So we ended up going to the start line in a Town Car. Seemed fitting for a Hollywood event.

It was so cold that early in the morning that we hung out in the subway station to keep warm.

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Finally, it was time to line up at the start line.

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While waiting, we made a new friend with the girl behind us. Her name is Krystle and she was doing her very first 10K. And it was weird enough that her first name is the same as my brother’s fiancĂ©e (same spelling too), but it turns out her last name is the same too (we looked up at the race results to see how fast our new friend finished).

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And when we started, Kate was off and running, and I just focused on walking and not stopping at all. I had my iPhone going with a good workout mix, so I was pretty happy.

The race had an out and back sort of set up, so I watched people going past me the opposite direction for a good portion of the race. And just around the 1 mile marker, I saw Kate running at full speed towards me. We gave each other a high-five and cheered each other on.

Eventually, I crossed the finish line. It wasn’t my best time, but it was about 8 minutes faster than the 5K I did at Universal Studios, so I’m super excited about that!

I also loved that there was a step and repeat at the finish line!

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I met up with Kate at the finish line (who turns out ran so fast that she placed 3rd in our age group!) and we headed down to the subway. And we were pleasantly surprised by how cool it looked down there in the station!

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I’m so excited that I got my 2nd 5K of the year done! I’m almost 1/2 way to my goal. And I’ve just signed up for 2 more 5Ks for next month. First up will be the Revlon Run/Walk which I have done twice before. That one is actually a 5.6K (according to their website). So I’m not going to stress if my time isn’t great for that one. And then at the end of May I’m going to be doing the Firefly 5K, which is a 5K at nighttime (it will be a first for me).

Looks like my goal might have to be changed to be more than 5 5Ks, but right now, I’m super excited that I’ve done 2 so far (and got this bad ass medal)!

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The Color Run (or Why I Still Look A Little Like A Smurf)

Posted on February 4, 2013 | 3 comments

On Saturday, I participated in the Color Run 5K! It was the first 5K for me for the year, and it was one that I had never done before.

I’ll admit, after looking at photos of what people looked like after the run was over, I was a little nervous about how I would get all the color off of me. So I decided to try to protect my hair and face, since if the color didn’t come off from there, I’d have a hard time covering it up.

The morning of the race I got up nice and early and got ready.

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I met the rest of my team (named “Hue Did It”) over at Dodgers Stadium where the 5K was taking place.

The team looked nice and clean before the event started.

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When we got over to the start area, I put my phone in a plastic bag so I could still take pictures but the phone would be protected a bit (smart plan since everything else in my hip pack was covered in powder at the end).

Before we actually started, people started to throw the bags of color that we got for the finish early, so I made sure to put all my protective gear on.

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(Wig for the hair, glasses for the eyes, bandana for the nose and mouth).

I didn’t really get any pictures during the event, but it was a doozy.

First of all, it was all hills. And I hate hills. My hips were killing me the entire time, but I kept going (only took one break when the pain was making me feel a little dizzy). I thought maybe it would only be one hill, but every time we turned, there would be another hill staring at us.

Fortunately, my friends who were walking with me were very understanding.

The color part of this was pretty crazy, and I wish I had gotten a picture, but I’ll try to explain it. Every kilometer you entered a color zone. There would be volunteers lines up on each side with a ketchup bottle full of colored cornstarch in the color for that section.

The first section we went through was blue. You could either walk in the middle for less color or one of the sides for more color. We decided that we might as well go for it. The blue volunteers were probably the craziest of all the volunteers. We walked out of that section looking like Smurfs. One volunteer even managed to get a whole thing of blue down the back of my shirt.

After it was all said and done, the team looked like this.

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When you looked at our arms, you could really see the craziness between where the shirt covered you and where the color got you.

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(you can see my Smurf hands)

When we were ready to leave, there were volunteers with leaf blowers that got a lot of the powder off of you. You were still fully colored, but most of the excess was off of your clothes.

To drive home, I covered my seat with a towel and just wore the tank top I had on under my shirt. And all those clothes went immediately into the washing machine (I tried following the instructions to preserve the color on my shirt but it didn’t work).

It took 3 showers, but I’m almost all clean again. My back is pretty blue still. Those blue volunteers got me pretty good. And I have one blue foot too (not sure how the color got through my socks and shoes).

Overall, I had a great time. I’m not sure I’d want to do this again at Dodgers Stadium with the hills, but maybe next year I’ll think differently.

And if you are considering doing a Color Run, do it. It really is a ton of fun and an experience that you have to see for yourself.

1 5K down, hopefully at least 4 more to go this year!

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weSPARK 5K (or Come and Walk with Me!)

Posted on October 24, 2012 | 1 comment

Last year, I participated in the weSPARK 5K walk. I can’t remember how I heard about it, but I was so excited because it was on the Universal Studios backlot. I used to work on the backlot during my 3 years working Halloween Horror Nights, so I wanted to go back and visit my old home.

I like 5Ks. They are a doable distance for me, and I feel accomplished for finishing one. This 5K is a bit more of a challenge than most because the course isn’t flat, so it makes me feel like I’ve actually done a bit of a workout and not just walk on flat streets.

David (from Keep It Up David) was running the 10K last year, and my friend Emily walked with me. This year, I believe both David and Emily are running, so I’m walking solo for now.

Unless some of you fabulous blog readers want to walk with me! It’s a very fun low-key event. You get to walk all around the backlot before the park is open. You get to take fun pictures like this:

You aren’t forced to raise a certain amount of money (which I appreciate). All you have to do is register and pay the registration fee (you can register here).

You get a t-shirt and everyone who completes either the 5K or 10K gets a medal like this:

(please ignore the dumpster behind me)

I’d love to have some walking buddies at the 5K this year. If you decide to join in, make sure to let me know so we can look out of each other.

But even if I’m walking by myself, I’m going to do it no matter what. I’m going to try to do better than I did last year. The final uphill was a bit tough for me, so I had to stop to take a quick break. I’m hoping this year that I can do the entire uphill without stopping this year. I might pay attention to my time, but because I am planning on taking pictures on the course again, the time isn’t my main concern. I just have to focus on finishing no matter how long it takes. That’s the most important thing to me.

And if you don’t want to walk or don’t live in LA and still want to participate, you can donate to weSPARK on my fundraising page here. I have a goal of raising $500 and would love to reach it!

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