Rice Meet and Hunger Games

Whew Tuesday is done with and the good part of the week begins (my one class is Tuesday nights so I generally am pretty glad when Tuesday night is done)

Recap of the weekend:
This past Friday night was the Victor Lopez Classic held at Rice University.
Adam and I drove down Friday afternoon, after his mile repeats.  The Rice meet is historically pretty good, the competition the weather, and its a meet I look forward to every year. (This could possibly be because I have done relatively well at them the past few years but hey who knows? lol)
[HiStOrY of my past rice meets]
2009- 17:57 (this was my first time to break 18)
2010- 17:34 (ish somewhere around there)
2011- 17:17
2012- 16:53
Thats right....i'm no longer a 17 min girl, as Coach Snelling would say :)
The race itself I was not incredibly happy about, I ended up getting second overall I wanted a little better and I believe I could have done better but I'll take a 25 second PR and go with it....at least until next weekend at Stanford.

After the meet my parents, Adam and I race over to a restaurant called Bucca di beppo, before it closes and have some fun at a spunky little Italian restaurant.

I don't think this picture really does it justice, but image this many pictures all over a maze of rooms throughout the restaurant. It was a lot of fun :)

The next morning/afternoon we headed back to Nac and on the way I started reading....The HUNGER GAMES. I officially finished it Monday and I am ready for the 2nd book and to see the movie 

Though most people have seen this already lets just post it for kicks anyways.....

 

Spring Break Rodeo with the Band Perry

Last week was so nice and relaxing, being home with family and friends. But this week has been the complete opposite, today has been the only day where there felt like a bit of lag time in the evening. So of course little time (or no time)  has been donated to blogging....

Last week though was so much fun....I started out the week in Lafayette with Adam, we went to a friend of the family's wedding and along the way had several wonderful crawfish dishes!  The next big event was the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo with Robbie, Amanda, Kelli, Trey and the Graham Kiddos! We watched THE BAND PERRY and ate some rodeo food mmm

Before we left...I should get a tan or something!

Amanda and Brittany learning about dairy 

 Kelli and I talking to the cows 

We found a truck, and in turn a nice place to actually sit for a while :)

So I encountered several Louisianans over the break (my in-laws and my two future roomies) and I was so shocked to hear that they really didn't know what the rodeo was! When I told someone I was going to the rodeo they replied "which rodeo" I kind of laughed and replied "no, THE rodeo" 

The Band Perry was terrific!

Group picture afterwards with everyone

Later on in the week was dedicated to TEAM GREEN. In June I plan on moving to the woodlands so all Thursday and Friday was filled with apartment hunting with Marie, Kadi and Amy. 

                                       You have met Marie before through our other running adventures, and here are two  other additions to Team Green. Meet Kadi and Amy! These are my future roomies... were gonna have fun :)           

On Saturday we ran at the TSU Relays in Houston. We ran the 800 and 1500 with new personal PRs for me of 2:22 and 4:39 (I had never ran the 800 before so it was gonna be a PR either way).

Tomorrow I am headed down to Rice for meet 2 of the season, running the 5k tomorrow night!

Parmesan Chicken Bake, Focus Test

Some time last week I found (on Pinterest of course) a recipe that caught my eye and looked completely delicious!
The Image that caught my eyes:

Parmesan Chicken Bake!

Last night I decided to give it ago and I my taste buds were overjoyed with the result!  It was so simple to make, only taking about 10 minutes to put together and then after the oven viola! I cant wait to make this for my family over the break! (p.s. family I am making this for you over the break!) 

Here is the video from the website with easy step-by-step instructions....

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2008/02/end-of-chicken-parmesan-as-you-know-it.html

On more of a running note: 

Yesterdays work out was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself :) 

I had my best mile repeat workout to date!

6x mile w/ 2:30 min recovery

Mile 1)5:27

2) 5:29

3) 5:26

4) 5:27

5) 5:23

6) 5:18

Getting ready for all of the races that will be starting soon!

After work yesterday Adam and I had a meeting with Deacon Gary to discuss the results of our focus test that we took the week before. 

[A focus test is a test given to to engaged couples by the church that asks about 200 questions over the many dimensions of relationships.]

It was so much fun answering the questions and wondering what Adam had put down, so we were excited to see what we had differed and agreed on!

Woo excited about focus test!

The cover of our test...

We scored high on our first section but our financial planning section was kind of low...but we knew that was going to happen since I marked uncertain on pretty much all of them lol. (come on were college kids how certain can you be on financial decisions right now!!) He said we would work on that one.....

We had a lot of fun with Deacon Gary, we got to talk about our wedding, kids, our family and our faith! I think this should be a test everyone needs to take, even if for married couples as a refresher!

First Furniture Purchase Together!

Living in Nacogdoches there always seems to be plenty of estate sales to go to! And since the town is not very big and the SFA campus is in the middle none of these sales are very far away, most of the good ones are in the neighborhoods right around our apartment.....So on Friday when I saw a sign for one on Saturday Adam and I decided to go check it out!

And look what we found....

A buffet type table with a record player inside!

And for $30!!!

After we lugged that thing inside of Adams apartment (thankfully there was a nice man who helped Adam carry it to his car my my muscles just weren't cutting it!)

Later Nicole came over and Adam figured out how to work the record player!

Also yesterday was one of my roomie's (Lauren) Birthday! The team came over and we had a spaghetti dinner and Steph made her a cookie cake!

Moving on to today....

After a long run in the morning and a whole day jammed with studying Adam and I grilled steaks and sweet potatoes for dinner (I wish I had a picture!) They were sooo good, I didn't want my steak to end! 

Afterwards we had a "light and fun" (competitive and serious) game of FARKLE....

We played this Friday night and I beat Adam pretty severely, so he was back for revenge!....That didn't work out to well for him, because I crushed him again!!! And I learned Adam doesn't take to well at loosing twice in a row to a game of Farkle, even though I was a perfectly good sport about it ;) 

A little about running...

Our next meet for Team Green is right around the corner! The TSU Relays on Saturday the 17th, the girls will be running the 1500 & 800!

Today I had a nice 18 mile run, nice way to start out a big 80 mile week woop!

Time to get through this week and make it to spring break!

Turtle Thursday and Southland Indoor Conference

Its Thursday......
Initially I intended to write something fun for the rest of that sentence but when I wrote Thursday the word association that automatically came to my mind was "Turtle Thursday" 

Not Exactly this kind of turtle but...the term "Turtle Thursday" will be recognized by almost everyone i've been running with the past 5 years.  Thursdays were always set aside for a recovery day.  It would be the day with the least amount of mileage and the girls team came up with the thought of looking forward to that day and naming it after a slow moving animal.

While I don't have a set "Turtle Thursday" anymore in my running schedule I still think the idea is very important! You need to have that day to give yourself a break. While i'm looking at this in regards to running it applies with generally every aspect of life. There needs to be a day of rest (even God knew that! Thats what he did on the 7th day) and a day of recovery.  This can help you push hard on the days that you need to.

Moving on,( but not too far from running of course!) This past weekend, like I said before was the Track and Field Indoor Southland Conference.  I did not get to go :( But luckily Dennis (a friend from the team) was there and gave me a play by play during both the girls and guys 5k and 3k 

During the 5k:

Adam had a conservative start, but worked his way up during the 25 laps and had an amazing last k of the race and came in 2ND PLACE!!!!

This is Adam during his race, I wish I knew where the podium picture was!

My roomie, Lauren, got 2nd in the 5k after leading the whole way and 1st in the 3k!

And the Women's team took 1st Overall!! 4th year in a row!!!

Congratulations Ladies!!