Mud Run, US Half, Treasure Isle

It's been a while...I'm sadly aware of that.

However! I do have lots to tell. :)

So let's see. I think the last point that I left off, I was about to go down south to Monterey with my bootcamp buddies to run the "Big Sur Mud Run". It is exactly as how it sounds. Muddy. 5 miles of obstacles, I think three mud pits, and a lot of Army dudes telling you to crawl lower through the mud and do push ups at the end. I'm going to be posting a lot of pictures from that trip because it was just...such an amazing weekend. I had so much fun, and it was exactly the get away that I had needed. We had rented out this mansion there, complete with an indoor pool and like 8 different bedrooms. The decor was all stuck in the late 80's, early 90's, and there were about 20 different tv's in the house. It became almost a game trying to spot them.

The actual race was a lot of fun. Our all-girls team were the "She-Hulks". We were all covered in mud from head to toe at the finish. I've never appreciated a shower more until afterward.

I've also been training pretty diligently for this half marathon that was today. There have been many sunrise pictures from my iphone, and I ran a few different locations. I love catching the sunrise. :)

My favorite news to share is that we had the half marathon today, the US Half 2. It was in San Francisco, and I actually ran this race before in November. At the time, I had injured my leg and I couldn't allow myself to run as fast as I could because I didn't want to make it worse. I think I ran it in 1:58 or something. This time, my legs felt strong, and I was trying to prepare for my fastest half-marathon ever. You should know that this is a tough course. Lots of hills. It has haunted the entire group that went last November, and it was difficult to convince some of them to go back.

The total group was Chris (I signed him up hehe), Brian, Jin, and Me. It was at a painful 7am so I had to wake up at 4:50. I got 3 hours of sleep. It was also due to storm that morning so I was a little nervous about just surviving through it haha. Luckily, the rain kind of held back until the end, but it was crazy windy out.

We made it JUST in time. We literally ran there from our car and made it right as the gun went off. I felt great for most of the run, and I knew we were going at a pretty fast clip. My goal was to sustain an 8:30 pace, my ULTIMATE goal was to sustain an 8:23 pace (which would get me just under 1:50). I didn't think that was possible so I was just focusing on the 8:30. I didn't have my iphone with me because I knew it was supposed to rain, so I was a little in the dark when it came to knowing my splits.

My adrenaline surge kind of died out when I hit the 11-13 mile mark. The sand/gravel was difficult to run on. Chris managed to run the entire thing in his new Vibram 5-Finger shoes. Some of the rocky patches were a little rough on his feet, but it's amazing that he can do that. Plus he didn't even go all out, he was coaching me for the last two miles trying to make sure I hit my mark.

We finally sprinted to the finish, and I made it in 1:48:54 which was an 8:19 min per mile pace. I placed 67th out of 741 females and 278 out of 1,432 participants. I was glowing! I don't mean to gloat, but I seriously had no idea that I could do it. Especially with those hills and the wind was a battle the entire way back (up to 30mph gusts). I have to say that I am actually pretty proud of myself for accomplishing that seemingly impossible task. I couldn't have done it without Chris who really kept pushing me the last two miles. :) It was great to have ran with him!

Afterward we hit up Stacks for breakfast. It was awesome.

So that's that news! I have more!

I have been working hard lately. Our game finally came out!!! It's called Treasure Isle. It has been an amazing success, and we have millions of users already. Because it has been such a success, we are still working really hard. I have to give props to the engineers that work around the clock to keep the game running smoothly. They are some REALLY hard workers. If you play the game, you will get to check out some of the artwork I made! There is probably too much stuff to list, but to give you a general idea, I made the boar, the birds (not the seagull), all of the "lost animals" except for the Sloth, most of the plant life, most of the huts/buildings, and more. I hope you will check out the game...I know that Facebook games can get a little annoying, but we have put many hard hours into it!

Anyway that's my life! I'll try to be better about posting. :) Enjoy the pics!