August in Review

Happy Labor Day!! Hope everyone is enjoying the extra long weekend. I know I enjoyed sleeping in late and lounging around this morning!

Let's talk about August. IT WAS AMAZING!!! Seriously, so many fun things happened in August. It was my birthday month, after all.

Biggest highlight: Jeff and I ran a half marathon together. It was my birthday, and his first half marathon.

I got to meet-up with Katie from Twitter and ChaseThisSkirt for a #LadiesBeLike tweet-up at the Palms. She dropped off the fun alien green skirt and headband that I wore for the ET Half Marathon. So fun to meet up with her.

Jeff and I also got all dressed up to go to a friend's art show.

We had a pool day with some friends and my nephew and his girlfriend (and one of their friends), who were visiting from MN for the weekend.

I ramped up my running to officially start marathon training for Rock 'n Roll Vegas in November.

I've been slacking on my yoga, but I did create an easy yoga sequence to do in the morning - even before crawling out of bed.

I shared 5 lessons from Running that I haven't learned.

Jeff and I finally went for a couple bike rides to prepare for Ventura Marathon weekend, where we'll be biking 30-miles on Saturday, and I'll be running a half marathon on Sunday. Can't wait!!

Overall, it was a pretty winning month. In addition to all of the above, I also won two $25 GC to Starbucks in a couple of random drawings at work, a super cute Uberfit tank from This Mama Runs for Cupcakes, AND entry to Long Beach Marathon (or half... I still haven't decided) from Fitness Fatale.

Perfect for my birthday month, right?

Let's check in on my 2014 goals.

Individual Goals

Fitness goals - Run Faster and Train Harder
After my July fitness challenges ended in early Aug, my train harder kind of stopped - unless you include the ramp-up of running mileage. I have been good about getting in some speed work, so there's that. The heat is still kind of killing me, but fall is right around the corner. Even though it's still been triple digits here. I mean Starbucks released the Pumpkin Spice Latte, which means fall, right?!

Blogging goals
I like blogging, but it's a little difficult to see my numbers drop every month. :-( At least my social following has been growing, so there's that... Now, how to get them to pop over and read my blog, too. lol.

• Monday Listicles? Rumor has it this will start up again in September, so maybe next week...?
• Fitness Friday posts? I think I posted once on a Friday, but linked up a couple more times.
• What's for Dinner/Week-in-Review posts? With all the craziness of the month, my weekends have been busy, and I *may* have missed a week.

Goals with Jeff

Run a Triathlon. We've decided to push this back to 2015. It's just not the right time for us with me training for a marathon and other things going on.

Read 3 books together. Maybe in September. :)

New in 2014. Have I mentioned we ran a half marathon together? :-) It wasn't my first, but it was his. Plus it was definitely our first together.

Enriching Activities. We knocked off a cultural activity (our friend's art show) plus we found a great (new to us) biking/running trail. We'll be doing a lot more bike rides and running on this trail for sure!

What was your biggest highlight from August?
How are you doing with your 2014 goals?
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Hiking Bristlecone Loop

Sunday morning, Jeff and I got up bright and early. Well, early for us on a weekend. :) We met some friends and headed to Mt Charleston for a morning of hiking.

Gorgeous morning for a hike!

We parked in the Lower Bristlecone Loop parking lot and started our hike from there. In total there were 8 humans and 5 dogs in our little hiking party.

The Sallie-girl came along with us, and she had a total blast walking along the trail with us without her leash. She played a little with the other dogs, but she was so good staying near us and not running off to explore places and things that she shouldn't.

I'd forgotten to charge my watch, so I left it at home. I wasn't planning on running, so I wasn't too concerned about time or distance. I'm guessing we did about 5.5-6 miles, and it took us roughly 3 hours. If I'm remembering correctly.

More on how Sallie, Jeff, and I survived the hike in a bit, but first, let's talk about the actual trail.

Bristlecone Loop is pretty easy to find. From Las Vegas, you travel north on US-95 for a few miles outside of the city. From there you'll take Lee Canyon Rd. It's a left-hand turn, and I'm pretty sure that it's well-marked. Don't take Kyle Canyon Road. That's the first Mt Charleston sign you'll see, but you'll end up on the wrong side of the mountain.

We weren't really paying attention to the odometer, so I'm not sure how many miles you drive once you're on Lee Canyon road, but you'll pass a few campsites and at least one other trailhead, Sawmill. There's a good sign for the Bristlecone Lower Loop parking lot.

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

I can't believe it's taken me so long to write this post about our little adventure.

Did you know that Feb 8th was National Kite Flying Day? I had no idea! But I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to try something New in 2014 and bonus that it could also count as checking off one of our outdoor activities for the year, too!

I've never been kite flying. I can't really ever remember going as a kid - and definitely never as an adult, so we ordered a kite from Amazon and eagerly awaited it's arrival.

I'd read that Ivanapah Dry Lake was one of the best places to go kite flying in the country, and it was just over in Primm - less than an hour away. So, we grabbed a few snacks and headed out for a kite flying adventure.

Sallie is the most comfortable when sitting on the driver's lap.

Primm, NV, is barely a town. It's more like a couple of casinos and an outlet mall right on the border of NV and CA. There was no official entrance to get to the Dry Lake - just a little break in a fence. No sign. Nothing to indicate that we were there. There happened to be a security guard in the parking lot of Whiskey Pete's, and he told us that he sees lots of people entering through that break in the fence. So weird!

But once we were inside, there were definitely Bureau of Land Management signs, so we knew we were in the right place.

Putting the kite together is a bit more complicated than I expected, but it's a breeze once you've done it a couple times.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature apparently didn't get the memo that it was National Kite Flying Day. THERE WAS PRACTICALLY NO WIND! Which is obviously something very important when it comes to flying a kite.

We were able to get it airborne a couple times.

And had a total blast running around and trying to fly our new kite.

Sallie did not agree. Twice she ran back to the car to escape the huge flying creature in the sky that kept dive bombing. It hadn't really occurred to us how the kite would be perceived by her.

She sought the safety of the car and even jumped inside for protection!

She's all smiles now that she's in the safety of the driver's seat.

Here's a little video I shot of our adventure.



And here's a little Auto Awesome video that Google put together for us. Gotta love Google! :)



We felt kind of bad about freaking out Sallie so much, but we had a total blast! We definitely hope to do it again, but we'll leave her at home next time. And make a day out of it by checking out the rest of Primm (i.e. the roller coaster at Buffalo Bill's).

Have you ever gone kite flying?
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