Last RUN of the year... Happy NYE!!!

I did my last run of the year this morning.

I have ran a total 1,001 miles in 2011!!!

I'm ready and excited for 2012.

I wouldn't have worn any other color for my last run of the year...

Wear Blue Run to Remember

I'm working on my 2011 recap and 2012 goals post that should be up within the next few days.

I am enjoying reading everyone's recaps and goal posts. It helps to get me motivated and excited to see what 2012 has in store for me!

Hope you all have a safe and

Happy New Years!!

YMCA Christmas 10k Run

Let me just say that I love running for fun, with no time in mind, with fabulous girls and dressing up!

Here is my outfit for the YMCA Christmas 10k Run this past Saturday

Santa's little helper?

I met up with Cambry and Linzi at the starting area and we took some pics. 

Love this one with Santa!

Santa loves runners

Another pre race photo.

Before the start of the race we watched the costume contest...

I'm lovin baby Jesus

Boys with nothing but a box on and Santa in his pjs I think?

Buddy the Elf even made an appearance (Penguin girls looked cute too!)

I'm kind a partial to my own glittery costume, with even my jacket decorated with snowflakes.



This was after the race so the snowflakes started falling off

Once the race started it was nice and flat for the first mile and a half or so...I knew there was a hill coming soon I just didn't expect it to last so long. Linzi, Cambry and I did a run/walk combo up the hill of death Highland Hill. Linzi said she had done some training runs on it when she was training with Team In Training for the Nike Women's Marathon. They would do their long runs on it! So I asked her a few questions about it cause I think I may do some of my own training runs on it, I have a few races next year that have some hills and I'd rather be over trained for them then under trained.

The hill actually reminded me a lot of 30th St hill in Tacoma, WA. (But Highland hill was a lot worse cause it seemed to never end) Which made me think of my running adventures there and of my BRF who was running the Santa Runs 5k at the same time with a fabulous group of bloggers all dressed up as super cute candy canes. (I ran this one last year with her, we dressed up as snowflake girls and crossed the finish line together cause it was my last race in WA before I moved to Idaho)

When we finally reached the top of the hill and then picked up some speed on the downhill. We rounded a corner and saw some people dressed up singing Christmas carols. Finally one more corner, smiled for the photographers and sprinted into the finish line.

 I didn't wear a watch for the race but we chose to go down the finishers shoot to be timed. We finished in 1:07.

After the race we got some warm soup, oranges, a cookie and chocolate milk. We found a place indoors to keep warm and enjoy our goodies...

This was such a fun race. Difficult considering the long hill but fun overall and can't wait to do this again next year.

Linzi I hope you are coming back to run this with me and Cambry next year. I know that's the whole reason you came from Georgia, had nothing to do with visiting your parents for Christmas, nope, it's so you could run with me :)

No pressure

Tomorrow morning I'll be running a local 10k Christmas Run with these lovely ladies...

Cambry, Linzi and I at the City of Trees Marathon & Half Marathon.

What's nice about this race is I have no pressure to meet a specific time. I just plan to enjoy the run and catch up with Linzi who is visiting from Georgia and Cambry who I haven't ran with in a while.

It's also nice I have no goal time cause there's a 1.5 mile hill right at the beginning. And it's also going to be in the 20's at the start! I planned on wearing an elf themed outfit but I at this point I just want to keep warm. My bottom half will be decorated with striped socks, my capri running pants, and my red team sparkle skirt, but my top half will be warm with a few layers of clothes that include my running jacket. And of course I'll be wearing a sparkly santa hat to match my sparkle skirt :)

I'm almost thinking about not even running with my garmin watch, I might feel a little naked since I rarely run without it. We will see if I can bare to leave it at home tomorrow.

Besides running my weekend will include lots of shopping. Yes I am a procrastinator and haven't finished my xmas shopping. Hey at least my house is decorated and has been for a few weeks now :)

Do you ever run without your Garmin? I know this girl has got some awesome PR's running pretty much sans gps

Doing any fun races this weekend?

Have you finished your Christmas shopping?



The rest of my Vegas trip in pictures…

After landing and checking into the Flamingo we headed to the expo to meet our friends Tiana and Bill. I only picked up my packet that day (Friday). We didn’t walk around the expo till Sat.

Got my bib! Runner #6935

After picking up my packet we headed to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch while we waited for Tiffany and Will to land. (Sorry no pics of CPK but it was delicious!)

There was a little bit of gambling of course

Had to play the Sex and the City slot machine!

Gene was more excited about this slot machine…

After some walking around and getting excited to be imagining myself running on the strip…

It was time for dinner! We decided on Hash House A Go Go located in the Imperial Palace. Their food was D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S!! They started by bringing out some homemade biscuits topped with honey.

Their portions were HUGE so we all shared an appetizer of Fried Green Tomatoes and chicken

I only had a few bites of it cause the honey biscuit was still calling my name.

Gene and I decided to share the chicken pot pie

In case you need a comparison on how big it actually was here it is next to my head haha

Yea we didn’t finish it.

We were all so completely stuffed from dinner we all needed to do some walking around and site seeing…

And a little bit of drinking too…

We also some some Storm Troopers…

On the way to breakfast on Saturday we just about froze in the wind, we were wishing it would disappear before race day…

Gene took some fabulous pictures

 

Before we reached the Cheesecake Factory we had a little fun at the Forum Shops (which Tiffany and I visited on Sunday before the race to get our shop on)

We were very excited to be at H&M.

We tried to apply as a job being a mannequin. What do you think are we hired?

At breakfast Gene got surprised by his cousin Jay (far left) making the trip to spend Vegas with us

After breakfast it was time to be silly at the expo!!

Don’t mind that my glasses are crooked, they were broken, either that or I was drunk and couldn’t put them on right.

Ran naked…

Won a sweet beanie from Brooks that says Run Happy

The place was just to busy and they had already ran out of sizes of some of the shirts we liked so we left.

After dinner at great at Il Fornaio in New York New York, we headed over to Mandalay Bay for the blogger meet up at Eye Candy Lounge. I don’t have any pics of that but there are some great ones out there. I got to say hi to Jess from Blonde Ponytail and meet Janae from Hungry Runner Girl who has some great dance moves!

After dancing a little bit our selves we went in search of the boys in our group but got distracted by this candy shop.

Apparently my tongue is blue.

After all that it was finally time to rest of for Sunday, or in our case rest up to go shopping then go running. You can read my race recap here

Before our trip ended we had to make one more stop to have breakfast at Hash House A Go Go… best food ever! I had the French toast with banana’s and walnuts on top… Yummy! Oh yea eggs and potatoes but those hardly got touched.

The rest of the day was spent shopping and site seeing before we caught an evening flight Monday evening back to Boise.

A few more pics…

I think we took this picture some time after the expo when we were lost trying to find our way back but it’s to pretty not to post

Tiffany and I love being silly

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pictures, I didn’t get to shop in this exact store but we did head into Sephora at the Forum Shops. (This one was at the Venetian.)

If you can’t tell, I prefer to spend my money shopping instead of gambling