My second 10K: Scotland... but not in Scotland!

One of my dearest friends from Austin, Melanie, came to visit me last weekend. In the weeks prior as we planned the details about the trip I said that on Saturday mornings I usually go for a long run. It just so happened to be that I had also planned to race a 10K in Central Park. I asked her if she would be up for a loop of the park and seeing the sights I get to see on a weekly basis. She agreed and signed up, what a trooper! This was only my second 10K to ever race so I wasn't sure what to expect. I have slowly been building up speed so no PR this time around but I was still pleased with my finish considering the the race was super crowded, did lots of weaving, and Central Park hills are pretty relentless. My 'real' goal of the day was simply to finish under an hour and that I did. 

The Stats: 

Net Time: 59:32

Pace: 9:37

AG: 50.96% 

I ALWAYS fall right at fifty %  in my age group. I am just going to embrace the fact that I'm neither super fast nor super slow. 

Over and out. 

Sunset via Brooklyn. This picture doesn't do justice to how beautiful it was but it will give you a glimpse. Also, I think Spring has finally arrived in New York City. Clap clap!

Living in the moment.

    Source

After living in NYC for two and halfish years it is pretty obvious that I love it here. I have loved the life that I have made here. I've made incredible friendships, endured some of life's greatest adventures, cried a lot, laughed a lot, and been thankful for each day that I've been blessed to call this place "home". There have been amazing days and there have been not-so amazing days. They say if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere and I think I finally understand what that means...

It is no secret that hailing from the great state of Texas I have a ton of Texas pride and love my great State (see what I did there?) Anyway, often times I still feel like I'm living a double-life. While my roots are from Texas, my family, and friends too I often feel a pull that I am missing out on so much by not being there. You see, I struggle with major FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and it pains me to not be around so many people that I love who are 2000 miles away from here. I've had a major case of the winter blues the past couple of weeks and have toyed a lot with the idea of moving home. You know why? Because it would be easy.

But life isn't always easy. And the choices we make each day don't always make sense. But I know that these two and half years in NY have changed me for the better, changed me for life. The experiences I've had here will forever be a part of a distinct chapter of my life. I am going to try to stop living with so much FOMO of Texas because that's not where I live. I live in New York City and this is where my heart, and its affections have to be planted. I have made memories that I will cherish forever. I have friends who love me, who support me, who have been there for me when I wanted to give up on this place and for that I'm truly thankful. We've come from all over the world to live in a city of millions, and you know what? It's been so so fun.

Last night as I was on my way home from DC, right before entering the Lincoln Tunnel you have an epic view of Manhattan via Jersey (seen above). I looked out the window and I just smiled. I smiled knowing that I was going back to the City. I was back home, even just after 24 hours. I was coming home to my favorite apartment, to my awesome roommates, to my friends who I love so dearly and to a life that is richly blessed beyond belief. I'm not promised tomorrow. I'm not promised the date of when I'll move back to Texas. But I am promised this moment. And for this moment I will cherish New York and all that comes with this crazy place! :)

30 Before 30!

Hey people! Happy 2013. As promised here is my 30 before 30 list of things I hope to conquer before my 30th birthday in December. Here's hoping it's a fun year!

1. Run the NYC marathon! :) 

2. Play mini golf at Pier 25 on the Hudson River

3. Run a mile in 7:15min (I hope I don't die)

4. Visit a winery

5. See Matilda on Broadway

6. Take a cooking class with a friend

7. Visit a beach/go on vacation

8. Read 5 books

9. Visit an amusement park

10. Go kayaking in the East River

11. Find a mentor

12. Run on Roosevelt Island

13. Try Bikram Yoga

14. Go on a cupcake tour in NYC

15. Go to a Knicks or Nets game

16. Host a brunch 

17. Ride bikes in Central Park (yes, like a tourist)

18. See the Rockettes 

19. Go to dinner at the famous, Peter Luger Steakhouse

20. Fly a kite in a park

21. Eat only fruits and vegetables for a week

22. Visit Boston 

23. Walk the Brooklyn Bridge at night

24. Go on a scavenger hunt

25. Go back to my old neighborhood in Queens and eat my favorite bagel

26. Run 1000 miles 

27. Volunteer at a race

28. Memorize a chapter of the book of the Bible

29. Bake an apple pie 

30. Celebrate the last night of my 20's in EPIC form!

I promise to blog about some of these! Feel free to join me on any of these adventures!

Oh and just for fun, here is my favorite pic of 2013 so far:

Runners. Central Park. 1/13/13

Reflections of Year 28!

What a year it's been! Today I turn 29 years old. In the famous Grey's Anatomy quote I remember, "How did I get this old? How do I make it stop?".  Regardless, getting a year older isn't so bad when the past year has truly been one of the greatest years of my entire life. 

Let's recap a bit: 

In January, my sorority sister's little sister (a mouthful) moved into my apartment! Anja was a great addition to the apt and provided lots of great conversations and encouragement to my life in one of the busiest seasons ever. Also this month I started my last semester of the Graduate Program I did at Nyack College! In addition, school came with an internship at Abounding Grace Ministries. I spent my Wednesday's and Sunday mornings with these guys below! I learned so much about New York, the Lower East Side, and what serving your community truly is truly like.  

In February, one of my best friends from college, Candace, had a baby! I have LOVED getting to see Fairley grow up this year and having her close by! They live a short train ride up on the UWS! She is so cute... obviously :)

The spring also came a new season of running! I had only run 1 half marathon before the Spring and in January I acquired a running coach, Michele. I have gained an incredible amount of knowledge about the sport of running and I would NOT be the runner I am today without her. She has believed in me, and literally spoken to me on almost a daily basis since the end of January. I hope she knows how much I appreciate her and the encouragement, advice, and great accountability she provides for me. I am blessed! I ran 3 half marathons this Spring under her guidance: DC, More/Fitness, and the Brooklyn Half that holds my current PR of 2:07:04! An injury kept me sidelined for most of the summer, but I was fully ready to tackle marathon training by the end of July. 

In May, my best friend in Austin, Mandy brought home her son from Uganda! David is such an incredible child and he is also the cutest kid ever. My best friends are really good at this whole kid/parent thing. I'm so proud of them!

I spent three wonderful weeks in Texas this summer with family and friends, and saw one of my best friends from childhood get married! It was such an incredible weekend. 

This night was amazing.

In September I finished up my internship with Abounding Grace, and also left my Admissions job at Nyack College to take a position with, The King's College in Downtown Manhattan. I am a Registration Coordinator and basically try to make students lives happy by giving them advice on classes and sorting data out on things that you might not find interesting the way that I do. I'm learning a lot about academia, and college students. So far... I love it. Look I have a a business card to prove it! Call me today! It's my birthday! :) 

Also in September, I went to Brownwood for my 10  YEAR HIGH SCHOOL REUNION! It was such a blast. I loved being home, seeing old friends, and catching up on life after 10 years. Wow!  I also ran the Philadelphia Half Marathon and celebrated my 1 year anniversary of racing! What a day :)



OH OH, I forgot to mention that at the end of August I sadly said goodbye to Anja, and gained Elise, also a Texan. I traded my longhorn roommate for an aggie. Yes, I'm still shocked. Jokes aside, this girl has been a vital part of my life this Fall. I have LOVED having her at the apartment... and at work. Oh yes, we are also coworkers. We spend a lot of time together to say the least. We always have ridiculous things to talk about, hilarious emails to forward, and lots of laughs and good conversations late at night. I am beyond blessed to get to live with this girl and do life with her in this crazy city. She is an excellent roommate and friend. Love her so much! She has quickly become one of my absolute favorite people in NYC. She and my other roommate, London truly get a gold star for putting up with me while I was training for a marathon. I was a bit of a nut job at times, and they never complained one bit.

Speaking of marathon training, you all know I was training for the NYC Marathon that got cancelled because of the destruction of hurricane Sandy. I never wrote a blog post sharing my thoughts about this but a brief synopsis is basically that I completely agree why they canceled it but the timing was terrible for all those traveling here. I lost nothing due to the cancelation because I got to run a marathon less than a week later. However, it was not the marathon I had trained for. It was not the marathon that I thought would be my first. And you know what? It hurt a little. I cried on Saturday morning, November 3rd on the treadmill, I cried when I saw the Queensboro bridge Saturday night after dinner with friends on the Upper East Side, and I cried a bit a Marathon Sunday while I ran with THOUSANDS of other runners in Central Park. It was so surreal that something I had trained for for months was not happening. A day I had dreamed about for over a year was not happening and you know what? It hurt. I won't apologize for it hurting either. Obviously, I'm over it now because I did get to run a marathon, and my training did not go wasted! Praise God!

I ran the Richmond Marathon and finished in 4:39:15! I have never felt more accomplished. It was the greatest day this year and I will always be so so so proud to be a marathoner! Life ATM (After the Marathon as Elise calls it) has been fantastic. I am loving sleeping in on Saturdays, running lower mileage, and having lots of time back to do other things. I will start training again after the new year, but for now let the 5K revolution continue. This year, I ran 3 official 5Ks, 4 half marathons, and 1 marathon and almost 1000 miles for the year! Needless to say, my legs have welcomed a break.

Here we are today... December 10th. This is the first day of the last year of my twenties. I have learned so much these past 9 years. I plan to make this year epic. In the next few weeks I plan to come up with 30 things I want to do before I'm 30. Hold me to them all. 

What an incredible year it has been. I have met so many new friends in NY, mostly runners, and have felt like this place truly is exactly where I am supposed to be for now. It is not a surprise that things continue to fall into place so easily as they have. God's hand has been over each day of my life here, and I have been truly blessed. Here's to year 29! Cheers.

My favorite verse this year:

"The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." Exodus 14:14

A few pics:

                       Prospect Park 5K Group!            Max Brenner with friends!

Carla, Emily and I got photographed for a food blog. Cool.

Meeting two of my favorite elite runners: Josh Cox and Desi Davila with my absolute favorite running friend, Katie. (She moved... and I miss her.)

I am 29 years young today. Over and out.

I am a MARATHONER.

Oh hi! I’m here because I promised all 3 of my readers that I would write a race recap from the Richmond Marathon. Oh yes, I ran a marathon this weekend. I am a marathoner. I am in the exclusive club. You know what? I haven’t stopped smiling since I crossed the finish line! This weekend was perfect. Every detail that went into this weekend could not have made for a more enjoyable experience for my first marathon. I am elated….. yes still.

I traveled down to Richmond on Thursday night with Gia, Meggie, and Katie. It was nice to get to travel with a group of women who have all had some great marathon experiences and we chatted away on our epic 6 hour road trip to Virginia. On Friday morning Katie and I headed to the airport to pick up Christine and then we made our way to the expo! I was kind of tired of the concept of an expo after spending a lot of time at the NYC one and I just wanted to get my bib and go! :) The rest of Friday was spent relaxing and waiting for the rest of #TeamRichmond to make their way down to Katie’s parents house. They arrived late and we were in bed with lights out by about 10:30. Honestly, I slept pretty well until about 5:00 am. I just sat in bed and thought about the past 16 weeks of my life: all my hard work, all the early mornings, all the good runs, all the bad runs… I thought about how today was going to make all of those things worth it because by early afternoon I would be a marathoner. I vowed to sit and think and pray and not look at my phone until someone’s alarm went off. I needed that time of reflection. I loved having that time to recall and remember all the hard work I had done. I was so ready for this day! A little after 6am everyone was awake and it was time to get ready! We got changed and started our pre-run rituals. Some girls had coffee, some had bagels, some had spoonfuls of peanut butter, some oatmeal, whatever it was we shared some nervous laughs and finally made our way out the door a little after 7am to drive over to the start. We arrived with time to check bags, and snap a couple of pictures before the 8am start time.

NYC TAKES ON RICHMOND!

It’s hilarious to me that this marathon was literally the ‘smallest’ race I have ever done with just over 6000 runners. The race promptly started at 8am and about 3 minutes later I was crossing the start line. I hit start on my Garmin and off I went. I couldn’t believe that I was really doing this. I was really going to run 26.2 miles. I kept a comfortable pace between 10:15-10:20 and listened to music. I had made a really great running mix and hearing different songs that reminded me of different friends/events made me smile. I replayed in my head some of the pointers my coach and other friends had given me. One that stood out often was to SMILE. I smiled so much. I was so happy. Miles 1-13.1 were incredibly enjoyable. There were lots of signs specifically for NYC marathon runners and it was so nice! I had several people talk with me since I had my NYC bib on and tell me how happy they were that I was there or that I even got to run a marathon after the cancellation of NY. During those miles there were some rolling hills that I was semi surprised by, but nothing too terrible. Overall I really loved the scenery of the course. (Sidenote: Richmond is not flat and this course was not ‘easy’ by any means.) When I crossed the halfway point I remember thinking to myself that I had less than 3 miles to go before hitting 16 when I could officially think of this race as being ‘less than 10’ miles to go. Ha! My coach told me NOT to countdown the miles until they were single digits in fear that the double digit would be too mental. I got to mile 16 and then it became about getting to mile 20 which I knew I could do because I had run 20 miles twice in training. I knew that this race would become harder after mile 20 no matter because of the nature of the sport. I just tried to remain focused and put one foot out in front of another. I was maintaining the same pace I did from the beginning and that was exciting! I continued to smile even though I was beginning to feel the pain. (No pain no gain, right?) Right before Mile 21 the unthinkable happened to me….. my hamstring cramped. My right hamstring cramped. Remember when my right leg is my good leg? My left knee, shin, and foot have all had some sort of injury this year and today of ALL days my right leg decided to cramp. I was NOT a happy camper. I had no idea what to do. “Do I push through this? What if something is wrong with my hamstring? Am I going to make it worse by finishing this marathon? I can’t quit. I have to finish. OMG it hurts. OW OW OW. Every step hurts. Ok, Leticia.. get it together you are going to finish no matter what! BELIEVE!” So after mile 21 I did what I like to say is a walk/run combo at times. I’d run for five minutes, walk for 30 seconds. I did that until mile 25 when I knew that I could do anything for 1.2 miles. I powered through those last miles in the worst pain I've ever felt while running. The 4:30 pace group passed me right at mile 22 and I knew that catching up to them was going to be hard, especially since now I was having to walk some because of the pain. At mile 25 I knew that I could break 4:40 so I pushed it as hard as I could. Right past mile 26, I started going downhill for the finish and I looked to the right side and I saw Katie! It was such a crucial moment for me to see someone I knew! I pointed at her and waved and she started jumping up and down. She joined me on the course for about a hundred yards and was yelling, “OMG, I’M SO PROUD OF YOU! LOOK AT YOUR TIME! YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE A MARATHONER!” I responded how everything hurt and that my leg was cramped and she was like ‘finish strong go get it’! I honestly don’t really remember passing the finish line. It was all a bit of blur. Katie came quickly to my rescue and got me water and led me to where the medals, blanket, and food were. I was so happy. I could not believe I had finished it despite all the pain I was in. My official time was 4:39:15. I am proud of my finish and could not be more thankful for all 26.2 miles and all that I learned about myself on that course. I am tougher than I thought and stronger than I imagined. I dug deep, finished strong and have zero regrets.

I was so happy to be done! 

This marathon was the hardest physical thing I have ever done in my life. Looking back on the past 16 weeks, I pushed myself to limits I never thought I could. Everything about this weekend was perfect. Getting to be surrounded before and after the race with friends who are a part of the NYC running community made this first marathon the best thing ever. If you know me, you know how incredibly excited I was to run the NYC Marathon, but I can say today that I am confident that Richmond was always supposed to by my first marathon. All things always work out in the end, and this was no exception.

I EARNED THIS.

I am blessed beyond belief by the amount of text/calls/emails/tweets, etc. I cannot thank you enough for all the support and encouragement I received after this accomplishment. I would not be the runner I am today with the community that surrounds me and pushes me to excel at something that I truly love. Thank you all and special thanks to two women who inspire me in more ways than they will ever know: Katie- my best runner pal in NY, and my coach, Michele. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

My mantra has always been BELIEVE, and on Saturday that's just what I did.

NYC Marathon…. I still want you…. Someday.

Front door. Best.Roommates.EVER! 

Hi! I'm alive!

Theme for Fall and Year #3 in NYC:

Friends:

Not that many people read this blog, but I AM BACK! I want to make blogging more of a priority this Fall since it will be my first season in NYC without being in Graduate School! It's been a crazy two years, but I am so so excited for what's in store in the coming months. The last time we spoke I shared with you all my plans to stay in New York but that I would be looking for a new job. On Thursday, I accepted a position to be the Coordinator of Registration at The King's College. Incredibly humbled to be offered a position to work with this College. This Friday, (the day I predicted 3 months ago) will indeed be my last day at Nyack College! God is so faithful to me.

This past Friday I celebrated not only a new job, but also two years of residing in New York City. I did all of my favorite things too: ate a bagel with one of my best friends, ran 10 miles with Katie, had a great afternoon with some of my favorite runners friends at Frying Pan, and then had a fantastic dinner with my dear friend, Jessica at Lure Fish Bar. I really cannot believe it has been TWO years. I vividly remember the day that I arrived. I was so so scared. I was so fearful of the unknown. Little by little, and month by month I grew accustomed to the craziness and began to truly fall in love with this place and the people of this place. I have made friends and memories that will truly last a lifetime. These two years have been some of the most challenging, stretching years of my entire life, but I've also learned so much: about God, myself, ministry, and life. I learned what it's like to rely on the prayers of your friends to get by each day. I've learned what it's like to truly miss my family. I've learned what true friendship is all about. I would not trade these years for anything. I am so confident and so sure that this is exactly where God has wanted me for these two years. I'm so excited about what's to come in this third year: new job, new roommate, running a MARATHON. Woot.

I have a blessed life. I hope to never forget that.

Some pics to document my summer:

Not FANTASTIC: I hurt my tibia and didn't run for 6 weeks.

FANTASTIC: Tonya spent the summer in NYC and 3/4 of the Fan Four were here! WOOT!

FANTASTIC: I hosted a cupcake/wine party for my runner friends!

FANTASTIC: One of my childhood best friends got married. I've known all these ladies for almost 20 yrs!

(Super) FANTASTIC: I finally met DAVID! YAY! He's wonderful and precious and so cute.

FANTASTIC: Summer 5K series with some of my speedy runner friends.

It's been a great summer! Here's to Fall and lots of new things.... cheers.