A Traveling Pants Universe

It's been a little over two weeks since my Chicago marathon run, and I am already busy preparing for the Spring season! The biggest fear I had when I was prepping for the marathon (apart from the other one that my body will "break" somewhere along the way and I would not be able to finish the marathon at all) was that the marathon would be so hard and exhausting, I would not want to run again, at all. That fear did not come to anything. I literally finished the marathon, made my way back to the rental apartment and was thinking what I could run next while I was recovering and eating pizza :-) So here is a short update on my next 3 races that I am very excited about! November 2016: Big Sur Half Marathon I drove highway 101 from San Francisco to Los Angeles twice now, but I am always excited to come back because the beauty of that region is just phenomenal! Big Sur Marathon is a tough event to get into, but the Half is much more user-friendly. I signed up for it...

It's been a long journey to October 9th... I started this year by making a few resolutions, and one of them was to run a marathon. I had no idea what kind of commitment it would be, what amount of discipline and perseverance it will require, but here I am, writing my first marathon recap! I would also like to mention that I started running seriously only this year, and after making the commitment to my New Year resolution. My running schedule looked like this:  - 5K in February  - 10K in April  - Half Marathon in July  - Marathon in October All of these races were my first time races. As I go further into my race schedule, I am very curious to see how my performance would be when I repeat the distances. I had to sign up for a group run in order to be able to follow the training schedule. I envy the people who can do it all on their own, but I didn't want to injure myself, or lose motivation, so I ran with Rogue running (local Austin running group) ever sin...

Hello all! I have been missing in action for a while, and I am not sure what my excuse is for not writing more often apart from my own laziness. I will try to do better than that! My last post was all about running, and so will this one be. I just got back from a short trip to Utah (driving through Nevada, Arizona and Utah!) where I visited Zion National Park (WOW!), Bryce Canyon National Park (Holy Molly!) and ran my first ever half-marathon! The main purpose of my trip there was to run. I did plan it the way that I could have time to visit and check  out the sights and parks, but the ultimate goal was to cover 13.1 miles in a dignified manner (no limping, no getting sick, no cramping, with a huge smile on my face!). I am happy to report that all of the above happened. I stuck with my plan (thanks coach Peri!) and ran a solid 1:52:07 half. For some people, this might seem super slow, but this is my first year of running, my first ever half, and I beat my goal of 2 hour run...

I am going to be one of the runners standing in line to cross the start and finish line at the Chicago Marathon this Fall. It is both exhilaratingly scary and exciting to think about that. When I get these 26.2 miles in my head, I sometimes freak out a little bit (just a tad!) and ask myself what on earth I am doing. But hey, if your dreams don’t scare you, you don’t dream big enough, right? My first step in preparation for Chicago marathon was to actually start running. Pretty groundbreaking, right? I ran before, on and off, and I am pretty active. I exercise and play tennis, but when New Year started, I committed to really running and training to become a runner. I did my first 5K on February 27 th  2016 and absolutely loved the experience! I did pretty well on time too (at least to my own standards and goals, I know that many runners can do 5K much faster than in 26 minutes!).  My next goal was to run a 10K, which I decided to turn into “...