Ahh! Stupid internet…I love you so why do you trick me?

 

I was looking online for the following

“Pixel ratio for 8.5 x 11”

And a discussion board came up that had exactly what I was looking for. It had numbers for the dimensions of other sizes and a screen shot of a Photoshop tool.

I left it up in browser while I went and worked in my new favorite program. www.picnik.com

I upgraded to a premium membership on this so I could do all sorts of fancy stuff with my pics. It is pretty cool and has a ton of font options that I like but some of the functionality is really quirky. I can’t figure out how to rotate pics once you upload them and the editing features seem really separate, between photo editing and text editing.

So far I’ve just been playing around.

Here is a collage of some cake pics I liked and wanted to put together to bring on a tasting:

 

Here is an instance where I ran into trouble. I tried using pics from my birthday but once I loaded them I couldn’t rotate them (so I made the whole thing kooky to offset) . And worse, once I loaded the pics and moved on to text editing, I realized I put two of the same pic in and couldn’t delete it. Hence the birthday cake stamp on top of the dup

It was cool and I went back to my  source for pixel dimensions. It was then (like 2 days after I opened that tab and had it hanging in my browser) I realized it was a white supremacist discussion board. AHHHHH! I am still a bit freaked out. And embarrassed. And disgusted. Ugh.

I will now go elsewhere for my photo dimension needs.

But I will keep working in Picnik. 

Thank goodness that’s over (MI Half)

Have you ever seen more pitiful finish line pic?

Look at the lady behind me and then look at me. So sad.

So. I did the Mercer Island Half.

It sucked a lot. Way more than I expected and I am a tad disappointed about it.

 

I thought I did an OK job prepping for this race. I was running lots of midweek runs at decent pace and had been keeping up with my long runs like a champ. I even took to going out early Sunday mornings for my long runs.

I was nervous about how heavy legs felt after the <4mile St. Pat’s Dash but otherwise things were all good the week leading up.

On Saturday, M and I had the ever so difficult task of our first cake tasting and then we went to lunch and headed to MI for packet pickup.

It was a really nice expo and the number of runners actually surprised me. We had a pasta party at home and I got pretty darn good sleep the night before, so getting up at DarkO’30 was alright. M even was up and at it to come support me and be my sherpa.

We made it to MI in no time but they led us on a wild goose chase to find parking…0.65 miles away. And it didn’t count toward the 13.1! It was easily the nicest morning, weather-wise, that I can remember in the past 6months, sunny and bright at 8am. I ran down the clock waiting in line to use the bathroom. It was WELL worth it though plus, I made it to the start line in plenty of time.

The run started off pretty good. I felt like I was working but it felt fine…except for the fact that WE JUST KEPT GOING UPHILL. Slow and gradual climbing for the most part but it definitely started to get to me by 4mi. These miles were all under 10’ so I was pleased but feeling worse and worse.

I didn’t look at my garmin again until mile 10 but I knew after 4 I was getting slow. The race had lots of support and plenty of water stops but all of the work I’d been doing on my tummy issues have led me to believe that I can’t drink water during a long run.

Having ridden around MI on my bike many times I knew that around mile 12 there was a crazy hill. Like, get off your bike or at least get into granny of a hill. I dreaded and looked forward (mile 12!) to it the whole time. I just wasn’t sure how I could get up it running. Looking at the people ahead of me as I approached it and it did not look good, everyone appeared to be struggling. I attempted to run it but was not getting anywhere. Halfway up I walked and tried to gear myself up for the next ~1.1miles.

In retrospect I think I got into my own head about this hill. It was a constant fear the whole run and I let it get to me.

The last mile started out fine, a sharp downhill (yay!) and then went into small rolls as we headed to the finish. less than a half a mile to go and I got suddenly VERY sick to my stomach. I think it was my standard GI issues combined with a lack of water and I got a bit panicked. But I was so dang close. I got to jogging again and finally saw the last (up)hill to the finish.

I called M and told him I was close and FINALLY finished.

 

It was a 7minute PR. Good. Sadly, my only other half was Tucson `07, my first year of running ever. So I fully expected a PR. But wanted MUCH better. I had personal goals to meet time-wise and didn’t but what bothers me the most is I’ve still never met my #1 soft goal. To not feel like crap after a long race. Cause I do feel like crap. Bent over in a Starbucks bathroom sick. After eating and drinking a bit I was OK but I hate how scary I feel. Something I need to think about.  

I’m really glad I did it even though it sucked. It has been a great motivator and a good stress reliever. There is something great about owing yourself a long run and being able to do it. So, I will leave it with a cool crop of one of M’s shots of my finish.

Dash and Wait (St. Pat’s Dash Report 2011)

I ran this race because a friend asked me to. That’s pretty much it. I was still feeling anti about getting up early and being cold and adding another shirt to my collection, etc. But she asked and it is a fun race so I said yes.

I was really glad I did. It had been too long since I did a fun run and you know what? They are fun! It was nice getting to catch up with DSF (though I think now it is going to be T-Spork) and since we both have weddings coming up we got to talk about all the wedding goings-on.



Sadly, this race was on March 13, 2011…my favorite day of the year, time change! I am always SO happy to give that freaking hour back in order to get a bit of sunshine daylight in my life. But this meant that the race started at Dark O’30-1hr! Eek!
So I picked up T-Spork at Dark O’30-1hr -~1.5hr (I think it was 7am new time) and we hit the road.




It wasn’t too cold but a bit drizzly, we killed time chatting and admiring St. Pat’s costumes and before we knew it-time to run! I hit the road and got all smiley…I forgot it is pretty fun to take off running with a giant pack of people (many dressed like goobers).



My legs felt heavier than I would have liked, especially considering I had been running many miles the past few months. I had my Garmin in my pocket and didn’t look at it until we had already turned around. I was clipping along relatively fast for me which I hoped was the reason for my heavy legs.

The JOY! The turnaround for this race is well over halfway so before I knew it I was approaching the finish line! I ran an average pace of 9:07 which I was pretty happy with.

The funniest/most eventful part of the morning was T-Spork and my meet up spot. We’d agreed to meet at the whale in Seattle Center. No Prob! I worked at the PSC for 2 years, I knew very well the whale tail outside of there. So I went there directly after the race and waited. And waited. And waited. I got a tad worried and called M to see if he’d heard from Spork’s hunny that she had been medivac’d away and I didn’t know. While we were on the phone he got a strange call. He checked messages and it was her! Hooray! She was at the OTHER whale and had borrowed a phone to call him and ask about my medivac status (probably not, I think she just knew his number by heart). I guess whale statue isn’t descriptive enough in the PNW.

We met up and headed out to a lovely brunch at her place with our sweeties…overall a good Sunday morning.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Must stop

Buying random groupons. and then not using them. I feel like I have a queue of amazingly fun or cool things to do. But I've not done them.

But they have fun things like flying trapeze class (bought one for me, my sister and nephew) and canvas prints (want to make it for my mom) and tasty Mexican food ( tried using it but we didn't eat enough).

But so far they all just sit in my account. I may be their target audience.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I ran to Bothell!

I did 14miles today. It wasn’t pretty, especially after 10, but it was good.

It is crazy that I ran from Redmond to Bothell.

Live writer testing and randomness

I finally installed Windows Live Writer.

 

Let us use this post to test it and to share Six random things for Saturday:

1. Bought wedding shoes. It was my first ever Nordstrom purchase (yay) but they didn’t have the color I wanted in my size so I had to have them ordered (boo).

2. As I looked for that picture, I saw that they had them in blue now. Which was what I wanted and I had emailed them less than a month ago to ask if they were going to have. So, now I must wait for Nordies to ship, then return them and order the blue ones directly.

 

3. March is race time again. Next weekend is St. Pat’s Dash with DSF and the weekend after that is Mercer Island Half. Eep! I’ve been running fairly well and fairly consistently. I had a great 12miles weekend before last. I also finally found the picture from St. Pat’s 2009, the first time I met her! If it freaking snows again this year I will cry.

4. It is FINALLY time to change our clocks again! This is my favorite day of the year. It means more light after months of darkness. But, number 3 above is on Sunday morning, after changing our clocks…wonder how many people are gonna miss it.

5. I am getting so antsy to get out of town. Everyone I know has been jetting off to CA and openly mocking me with their smiling pictures. Plus I feel like it has been forever since I saw all of my CA loved ones. I am also about to top out on vacation time but am trying to keep it at the max for wedding+wedding recovery.

6. Some tax return money is supposed to go to new clothes…that is amazingly hard. Shopping sucks! Outfits needed: Engagement picture outfit, outfit for DSF’s wedding in May, general not-looking-like-a-slob outfit.