Care to Support Me?

I am so excited to tell you about my new running event! As some of you know I've been in a hiatus of my running phase after my last half marathon back in August 2010.

I decided to kick myself back up and do another race, Rock 'n' Roll Los Angeles Half Marathon on October 30, 2011. This time for a wonderful cause that I really believe in and am truly passionate to support.

I am participating in the inaugural season of Team ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and honored to be raising the awareness and the much needed funding to support the ASPCA's programs. Also it is perfectly in line with my new vegan life and as an animal lover! October 30 is my brother's birthday too. So this event is super meaningful to me.

So I wish you will join me in supporting the ASPCA with your generous donation and cheers. I don't mean generous just in dollars but your heart too. It doesn't have to be much as long as it comes from your heart caring for animals. Don't worry, I'll do the running of 13.1 miles for you. Isn't that a good deal?

I thank you in advance. Your donation will help the ASPCA continue to provide local and national leadership in three key areas: caring for pets and pet parents, providing positive outcomes for at-risk animals and serving victims of animal cruelty. The ASPCA is very important to me and I appreciate your help as we fight to end animal cruelty, homelessness and neglect.

Go to: http://www.teamaspca.org/participant/silvia to see my progress and to make your donation.

Send me good thoughts! Thanks!

You Don't Have To Go Fast. You Just Have To Go.

My First Half Marathon...(for real this time)
Woohoo!!! The long awaited half marathon is finally complete. I have been training for the 33rd American’s Finest City Half Marathon in San Diego for 12 weeks. I think I stayed with the training schedule for a good part with an exception of a few lazy days and injured days. Prior to this I trained for the Pasadena Marathon in 2008 but the event was canceled. I was really disappointed then because I trained so well and was ready to go with gusto. I even specially ordered a race shirt that says "My First Half Marathon". After that my running was not as enthused and lulled to a point where I was enjoying food too much rather than burning it off. I figured I needed to set a goal in order to achieve what I set to do in the first place. Knowing very well of myself, setting a goal is much more motivating to keep going. And besides, running in a race is much more fun than trying to beat your own self. So with a hesitant agreement from my honey, we began our training for the AFC half. He said “why do we have to pay money so that we can run 13 miles when we can run on our own for free?” Sounds like a valid pondering but eventually he'd realize the fun of it. All in all, we trained pretty well and we headed to San Diego.

For our carb-loading dinner the night before, we went to an Italian restaurant in Hillcrest—Ristorante Arrivederci. Oh my, the food was just amazing! (And you thought I was just gonna talk about running. Oh no, I must include our culinary exploration, as always). We started with Melanzane Sorrentina (grilled eggplant, baked with mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce). This was just heaven. The eggplant was literally smothered in cheese and sauce. It was oh so yummy. We gobbled that dish in very short minutes. People next to us probably thought we haven’t eaten for days. For the main course I had the risotto with mushroom and truffle oil. Not to mention the huge portion, this was THE risotto! The texture was perfect, mushrooms were flavorful and the truffle oil was not overpowering but just right to add to the flavor. It was a simple risotto but powerful. Of course I finished the whole thing. Normally I wouldn’t but I gotta load up glycogen before the big day. My honey had one of the specials, gemelli with chicken in pesto sauce. Yummy also. Chicken was a bit tough but great sauce. He obviously liked my risotto better because he helped me finish it. Now we were ready to battle!



The race day began by waking up at 3:30am to arrive at the race site by 5:30am. Everything worked out great. The event people knew what they’re doing. Things were very organized. We caught the shuttle bus to take us to the starting line. While on the bus, I was quite nervous but ready to get this done! My calf injury was still acting up slightly so I diligently massaged it and stretched lots. After using the port-a-potty twice we began the race.

The first 8 miles were not too hard for me. Amazingly no pain and I felt great. Lots of cheers from the crowds. It was awesome to see people come out to cheer us on. What a spirit! And it’s so encouraging. After about 9 miles into it I started telling myself “I can do this. Only four miles to go. Easy!” The last mile and half was the killer I tell ya. It was all steep uphill. You know when you’re trying to run in a dream and you feel like you’re not going anywhere? That’s exactly how I felt going up the hill. This is when the phrase “You don’t have to go fast, you just have to go” on my cap needed to be repeated in my head. After it finally flatted out entering Balboa Park it felt like it was the longest stretch ever to the finish line. But alas we finished and received our medals. We came in at 2 hours, 18 minutes which was 12 minutes short of what we hoped for. Actually I was just hoping that I will finish within the time limit of 3 hours because the latter part of my training was challenging because of my calf pain. But this was a definite success and still no pain!

It was an exhilaration that I’ve been longing for since I’ve started running for a few years now. I am proud of myself and my honey for doing this. It’s even better that we did it together. He encouraged me and motivated me throughout the training and during the race which I am more than grateful for. I was unsure that this is what I can do but now I am certain that I can. Now we are even more inspired and we are aiming for the Triple Crown (three half marathons in San Diego area) next year…and maybe a marathon someday…maybe, we’ll see.

A Happy Camper?

On our way to camping! Yay! We packed up a van-full of camping goodies and headed to San Simeon on Friday morning. Thanks to C & HS (our camping buddy couple), we ate our on-the-road lunch kimbop (Korean rolls, kinda California rolls but not quite). It's good finger food.

Day One

The drive to San Simeon was not bad. We stopped in Cambria and checked out the little town. I love this town. It's a small and quaint town 2 miles south of San Simeon. We first scoped out some little shops including bakeries of course. Also lucky us, it was their farmer's market day so we looked around a bit. We stopped at an Italian bakery (Allocco's) booth and got an apple poundcake. After that we made a stop at the grocery store and got some firewood.

We finally got to the campsite and checked in. It was a full campground for the weekend. We got site #7 which was right by the entrance but a quieter and smaller part of the campground. It was quite windy though...pretty much for the rest of our stay. Despite the wind, we managed to put up our tent trying not to fly away with it.

*Our tent*


Our first night dinner was salmon burger, beef burger, and salad. Sorry no pictures--we were too eager to tackle the food. There's nothing like eating outdoors. Everything tastes better outdoors. Yum! And I guess you're more hungry when you're outdoors... Since it was so windy and cold, we were craving for hot soup. So we made a pot of spicy noodle soup. Boy that hit the spot. Now we were ready to sit around the fire and roast some marshmallows.

*A perfectly roasted marshmallow...*


Day Two

We were determined not to disrupt our half marathon training during our trip. Aren't you proud of us? We ran 3.5 miles the first thing in the morning. We ran south along the coast and it was absolutely amazing. It was crisp cold with lots of fog but it was definitely refreshing from my usual run in the neighborhood. We found a nice trail to run on with several vista points. Love the central California coast. What a nice way to start my birthday!

When we got back, we had a good breakfast of hash, eggs and cereal with almond milk. Yummy. :) Again, no pictures because I was too hungry to think about taking pictures. The shower was not anything I looked forward to. It was lukewarm with terrible water pressure. Oh well, it's a camping package deal.

The main itinerary for the day was hiking. The first (and basically the only real) trail we went on was the Salmon Creek Trail. The complete trail is 6.5 miles with two waterfalls. The trail started with a quite of a climb arriving at the first waterfall very close from the train head. It was a nice big waterfall.






*Living dangerously...crossing the water*


The view along the trail was breathtaking. We situated ourselves overlooking the ocean and the green lush hills to have our picnic lunch of turkey avocado, PB & J sandwiches and apple poundcake for dessert. Awesome!



We decided not to finish the trail. We had good reasons...didn't see any more shades on the trail, plenty of other things we wanted to do, HS is expecting (yay!) so needed to take it easy, my honey and I were already tired from our morning run. Next we went to check out another waterfall at the Julie Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur. This waterfall is one of the most scenic places along the coast. It was truly stunning.





We headed back down south to the campsite. Along the way we stopped by a black sand beach. Boy, it was windy and cold. Just snapped a couple of pictures and I dashed back to the car.



Dinner for our second night was curry and couscous (and rice). HS also made Korean seaweed soup for my birthday which was really nice of them to think of it. It's a Korean custom to eat seaweed soup for birthday which I think signifies youthfulness and long life.

*Ready to attack curry!*


And I even got a present--wine glasses and bottle saver!


Day Three

I was dreading this day because it was our long run day. We ran 8 miles south to Cambria. It was not easy but it was a good day for me. It was fun running along the coast and in the streets of Cambria looking at the little shops. We passed by a coffee shop (Cambria Coffee Roasting Co.) and the aroma was irresistible! Sooooo wanted to sit down for a sip but kept on runnin'. We did go back the next day and had the coffee which was fabulous! Nice dark roast of Mountain High.

After the run, we weren't up for any rigorous activity so we headed to look at some elephant seals. It was their molting (shedding) season so not much was going on but always exciting to see big seals swimming and laying out on the beach, right?!?




Next on our agenda was lunch! We went to Ragged Point which has an inn, restaurant, and nice vista points. There's actually a very steep trail but it was closed for repairs. Wheewww, I was relieved! Didn't want to do a steep hike at this point. So we sat ourselves down to have some sandwiches overlooking the foggy, mystical looking coastline. Loved it! You don't get to do that everyday.

After lunch we went back down the coast and stopped at another small trail head that leads out to the beach. My honey and I were pretty much out of commission because of our run. So we just took a short walk up to the sand, took a picture, walked right back to the car and took a cat nap. While we were doing that, C & HS had a very memorable event. They were encountered with a few snakes which was completely unexpected. Yikes! Glad I didn't go.




We took a nice stroll on the San Simeon Beach Pier...

*Hearst Castle from the Pier*


Made an impromptu stop at the Hearst Castle Wine Tasting room at Sebastian Store. Their dessert zinfandel was quite tasty so got a bottle. :)While we were there we spotted this comical cow.
*Talk about grass is greener on the other side*


Another impromptu stop off the road. There they were...zebras! Never seen them out in the open!


*Nit Wit Ridge-a house for sale; all made from recycled materials!*


Our last night's dinner was chicken sausages & peppers, couscous, noodle soup and salad.
*My gourmet spinach salad with couscous and blueberries*


Day Four

Yay! Heading home!! But before we go, we had to make some stops at the bakeries in Cambria. We had breakfast at the French Corner Bakery. We splurged...apple danish, fruit danish, brioche, spinach/feta croissant, and a nice cup of coffee and cappuccino! Nope, we were not shy. Oh no, not done yet. We stopped at Allocco's Italian Bakery and picked up an apple poundcake, lemon poundcake, and another piece of pastry. I think we're good now. :)

Lunch off the road was at Thai Palace in San Luis Obispo. The food was okay, curry was kinda funky with humongous piece of chicken. And we fooled around at a candy store a bit.

*Like my bunny hat?*


It was a great fun trip overall except for the wind, cold nights and cold showers. For the most part, I was a happy camper. Of course I would do it again!

Gettin’ physical!

I've been meaning to write about my fitness endeavour but I've been busy...working out! (for the most part...)

On May 8, I participated in the 17th Revlon Run/Walk for women. I ran in the 2008 event when I started to run and this is my second time of participation. This is an annual event that supports to fight women’s cancers. This is especially a meaningful cause because my mom is one of many strong women who fought and survived women’s cancers. She would not be here if it was not for the early detection by screening. For that, I support for prevention!

A few of my co-workers and my honey met up at the Los Angeles Coliseum where the event took place. As expected, it was crowded with excited runners and walkers to start the race and rest of the morning of fun. I was excited because it has been a while since I ran a race. Also this was a good prep for my half marathon in August.

*Proudly showing off the medals...*

I have been trying to get back on track with my fitness…not just running but also getting in the gym to do some classes with weights and all the fun stuff. Thanks to my friend Amber who has introduced me to her gym. I have been going to classes like circuit, cardio kick, and yoga. Oh boy, the first class of circuit with cardio and weights was not exactly fun. I’ve never felt so puky working out—all those jumping around, man! The weights were no joke either. But I'm getting in the groove of working out additional to the running. I forget how fun it was to do classes.

My training for the half marathon has started last week. I'm looking forward to mixing running and cross trainings (CT) like the weights and yoga. I enjoy hiking on the weekends so that would be a good CT activity too.

I think the hardest part is training my mind. It's so easy to get lazy and talk myself out of it. Wish me luck! And thanks for those of you who support me and keeping me on track (you know who you are!).

Running anyone?

"Running? Me? No thanks!" This would've been my answer up until a couple of years ago. I took up a tennis class over regular PE class in school because the teacher made the regular PE
students run on the track/field. I'd rather chase after tennis balls than running. I despised running--made my head hurt, felt like all my internal organs were shaking out of place, and felt like puking after a couple of minutes. I've always been into exercises in some form or another like aerobics and step classes. But never running. I was not made to be a runner.

After 20 some odd years later, something happened... I was going through an unhappy phase of my life. I started just taking walks, about three miles each time. I enjoyed the peace and quiet time for myself to think and decompress. After a while, walking became a bit monotonous so I started trotting, then trotting turned to jogging, and before I knew it I was running. Eventually running became not-so-bad! After a few months of enjoying my new discovery, I ran my first 5K, then 10K, and trained for a half-marathon. Unfortunately the half-marathon was canceled but I was still able to run the distance at the end of my training. It was an exuberance that I have not felt for a long while. I could not believe that I was running. Me? Running? Who would've thought? At first it was a physical challenge but it became a mental challenge. There were many moments I had to tell myself "I can do this", "I've gone more than half", or "only a mile to go". I joined a local running group which was so helpful and valuable for me in order to stay focused and motivated. It was exciting to discover a whole new world of runners! Never bought a pair of socks that costed me $10 until now...but very much worth it.

Since then I have been off-track here and there but I still have the love for running. I try to get my running several times a week. I will re-start my races. My first goal is another 5K next month, then I'll work my way up to a half-marathon. A full marathon at this point scares me but...never say never. :) Marathon or not, I think running will be part of my life for a long time. I hope to share my journey of running time to time.