Beautiful day for running

So the FUN FACT for the day is that Almería is officially one of the sunniest cities in all of Europe with around 320 days of sun each year. 

Contrary to the above statement, the last week or week and a half has been cloudy, cold, and even a few rainy days! When I woke up today, it was GORGEOUS outside and much to my surprise, warm! I got up at 11:30 today (since we're on holiday til Wednesday of this week, I've been taking full advantage of being able to sleep in) and was inspired by the weather to go for a run. I was able to wear shorts and a cut off shirt and I even put on some sunscreen since it was so sunny outside! I felt like it was summer again!

Also, I wore my new tennis shoes that I've been trying to break in. Check em out!

Funny story about how I got these BEAUTS. My friend Kelli was talking to me about the situation with her visa and how she was going to have to go back to California to pick it up when it was ready. She then said, "Oh by the way, if you need anything from the states, you can just tell me or have it shipped to my mother-in-law's house and I can bring it back for you." About a month before, I had realized that my running shoes were completely worn out and had switched to running in my volleyball shoes. I had been hoping to buy some new running shoes, but after browsing some European magazines, I realized how much more expensive they were over here. For example, in the US a pair of Nike's might cost $100 and here, the exact same pair costs €120. With today's rate of conversion, that's the equivalent of $160! RIDICULOUS! So, when she presented this idea to me, I was super excited and I ordered them online the very next day!

Kelli just got back from California this past Thursday and she brought them by to me on Friday. I went for a short run in them that day and a longer run in them on Sunday (with Kelli). They are awesome! They felt a bit snug at first, at least in comparison to my last pair, so I was a little concerned--obviously it wouldn't be easy or cheap to ship them back to the states to exchange them for a bigger size. However, after the first run, I could tell they were just fine. Today was my third run in them and so far so good. They haven't given me any blisters or any sort of pain whatsoever. They're BREAK-IN FREE! I love it when that happens.

Other exciting news, Kelli found an 8.5K race in a little town called Adra (like 40 min away) that's going to be run this Sunday. She sent me all the info for it and we're both signed up to run it! It'll be my first official race! Exciting :)

After ordering my new shoes, I was also inspired to start a serious search for a half marathon. I’ve been wanting to train for one for a long time now. By the time I started thinking about doing one in Texas, it had gotten way too hot to train. However, since arriving here and having plenty of free time and new places to see, I started running a lot more...especially before I had my gym membership. Once again motivated to run a half, I decided it’d be cool to run my first one in some cool place in Europe to which I’d never been. I originally thought about Paris, but the Paris half isn’t until April and I don’t want to wait that long. So I finally started looking last week and I think I found the perfect race!

I found one in Mdina, a city in Malta, which is a little tiny island country off the coast of Italy (58mi south of Sicily)! I started reading about it and it sounds like the perfect place for my first race. Apparently the island is like a wedge, higher at one end and steadily sloping downward towards the coast. Luckily for me, the course will start at the higher end of the island and the entire race will be slightly downhill until finally you finish along the water. If you want to check out the course, here’s a DESCRIPTION and a MAP.

After browsing some other races, I decided that this sounded like the best one for me. So, I checked my schedule for February 27^th , and whadyaknow, I’ve got a 5 day weekend that weekend for Día de Andalucía! I was worried about having to travel the same day of the race (Sunday) to get back in time for work, but it turns out I’ve got a holiday Monday and Tuesday and I won’t have to work until March 2^nd. So not only will I get there with plenty of time to get acclimated and rested, I’ll even be able to do some sightseeing, if not before, definitely after, the race!

Also, I looked at airfare and it’s only gonna cost me like 260€ (that’s about $345) roundtrip for the flight, which is quite a bit cheaper than some of the other places to which I’ve been hoping to travel—not horrendously expensive and since I’ve basically done ZERO travelling thus far, that’s definitely an amount I’m willing to spend.

Since I’ve been running quite a bit already, I don’t think it’s gonna take me too long to train. I asked Kelli who just finished running the half in Granada to help me with a training program and she said she would. As I said in a previous post, she ran at UC Irvine and is a beast (got 2^nd of all women at the Granada half with a time of like 1:27ish). I’m hoping she can help me come up with a training schedule to get me running at a faster pace, so I can knock some time off of my run. Later, when I get a more concrete idea of where I stand, I’ll set my time goals and publicize them here so that I’ll be more motivated to meet them haha. Also, I'm trying to see if I can get Kelli to run the race with me. She said she'd like to but she doesn't know if she'd be willing to spend the money to get there. Also, I'm going to ask Tomás if he wants to run because when I told him I wanted to train for a half-marathon, he said he'd like to do one too. So we'll see! I might be going by myself or I might have some buddies for the trip...too early to tell right now!

OHHHH and the BEST part is, my friend Audra from school HOPEFULLY is gonna come visit around this time! I’m trying to talk her into coming with me to Malta for the race. If she’s gonna be in Europe, might as well do a little travelling while she’s over here, right? The correct answer is yes, absolutely. Audra I know you’re reading this. Make it happen.

That’s all for now! P.S. aren't y'all surprised that I updated 2 days in a row?!?! Impressive, right? Let's see if I can keep it up.

P.P.S. Completely unrelated...I FINALLY got my residence card! I picked it up like 2 weeks ago but kept forgetting to post a picture of it. 

My beautiful residence card! Too bad I'm not a student hah

The blacked out rectangle below my picture is my NIE (numero de identificación para extranjeros) which I was finally able to give to the bank in hopes of getting my PIN number for my card. I've been in Spain almost 3 months now and I STILL don't have my PIN for my debit card. Every time I go to the bank I ask them about it and they give me some BS excuse about why it hasn't arrived and they always tell me it'll be there "by the next week, and if not the next one, definitely in 2 weeks." I think by the time I actually get it, I'm gonna be changing banks because this has gotten a little bit ridiculous.