Updates & Campaign Kickoff

Wow!  Where do I begin.  A lot has happened to me since I last blogged (IN MAY!!!) and I don't even know where to start.  Races I guess....I've completed all of the below since then.  To sum it up I did not perform well in any of them but enjoyed every single one of them and would do them all again.  Brief summary:

June 23rd - Seattle Rock N' Roll Half (3 Medals) - Crowded but fun
July 14th - Deschutes Dash Olympic (Medal) - New ownership that was unorganized but still one of the coolest triathlons in OR
Aug 24th and 25th- Hood To Coast (Medal) - Duh!  Best event ever.
September 16th - Giant Race 10K (Medal) - GREAT race; and that's coming from someone who missed the 10K turnaround and ran with the halfers way longer then I should have.
September 22nd - Denver Rock N' Roll Half (2 Medals) - My fav. RNR to date
October 7th - Long Beach Half Marathon - (Medal) - Really crowded but pretty course

And there you have it.  My athletic endeavors since we've talked last. That's not an exaggeration.  I didn't train for anything so that's pretty much just a list of my workouts over the past 5 months with a few short runs and yoga sessions peppered in here and there.  What have I been doing?  Moving to San Francisco!  That's right; I am now a proud California resident; living in the city and still working in the wine industry (like I'd give that up).  MFR accepted a job and started down here July 1st and I've been down here since Sept. 1st.  It's been a whirlwind of packing up our life, renting out our Portland house, leaving one job and searching for another, subletting, apartment hunting etc...  Throw in a few trips for races (see above) and a two week trip to Europe for our honeymoon (a year after we got married) and that's my life for the past few months.

Which brings us to today!  Why start the blog again?  Well I'll be totally honest; it keeps me motivated and I need that right now.  I am actually training (like for real) for the Surf City Marathon on Feb. 3rd and I need to be held accountable.  I figure saying it out loud will help.  My goal is at least a weekly update for the rest of my training.  Also I am hoping to run a sub 4:30.  My current PR is 4:38 but since I've been out of the training world for some time, I think a 4:30 is a good attainable goal to get me back into the groove of training plans. 

The other (and most important) reason is because we got very sad news today - cue the dramatic music.  After 5 years of glory, we found out today that our Hood To Coast team did not get picked this year:(  While I am very sad to break tradition and will miss my favorite-weekend-of-the-year-with-the-best-friends-ever; I not quite ready to throw myself off the Hawthorne Bridge like some of my teammates. 

I've already started the search for a replacement race we could all do - Cascade Lakes, Ragnar etc... and I am not giving up on HTC just yet.  I always said that if our team ever didn't get picked, I would do EVERYTHING in my power to get on team Nuun with this girl and this girl.  I love Nuun and use it all the time anyway and read those two blogs religiously because of their equal love for relays, beer and running.

So I am starting the campaign right now!  I hereby pledge to blog at least once a week (at the very least); and train my butt off to make this team.  I am assuming to even hang with this crowd, I am going to need to get my pace down to a 8:30 - 8:45 and I can do that if I stick to a schedule.  So that's it; I am shamelessly using my blog because I want on Team Nuun but I think it will have some ancillary benefits as well.  Campaign Nuun starts now - Vote for Kara in 2013!