And here it is, the 2012 Team UkeRunning T-shirt design!!!

Unisex cotton t-shirt

(Ordering CLOSED)

Ready???

BigDog 5k, Saturday 9/22/12
Left to right: Jess, Marissa, Me, Paws, Julie, Kevin, Sarah

I have to admit, I am immensely relieved to know that I can actually sing and play ukulele while running! This past Saturday was the first time I've ever actually put it all together. To be honest though, it turned out to be easier than I thought because it turns out that having to constantly turn around and avoid obstacles while shuffling in my apartment takes much more concentration than just running along a clear path. The sky was overcast and a little misty, the perfect running weather! I was quite nervous as we headed down to the Charles but thanks to my awesome team members, my spirits stayed high. For the UkeRunning Beta Test, we cheered and danced our way through the BigDog 5k and I performed three songs, one per mile. Surprisingly, we finished in just under an 11 minute mile pace!!! It was brought to my attention that I actually speed up when I'm singing. I guess I get too excited...but then speeding up contributes to me getting out of breath which you can definitely catch towards the end of "Brokenhearted" during Mile 2!

Small Sony voice recorder attached to my left arm with pre-wrap and rubber bands

Race Highlights:

-Marissa got a fantastic workout running backwards for about 80% of the time. She managed to capture all three songs and more on film, AND she didn't fall!
-My Husky ID stole the show a couple times when it slowly inched out of my sports bra as I was singing and fell out, both times during a song! Thankfully, Sarah was there and ready to snatch it off the ground as we ran.
-Julie found her true calling as the top kung fu fighter during Mile 3, in addition to making sure that Marissa didn't back into any trees while filming.
-Jess snapped photos left and right while cheering and singing along the whole way. Looking forward to seeing captured images of my terrible running form!
-Somehow, I managed to cut my finger while playing and bled a little bit on my ukulele...oops! Guess I bleed for UkeRunning!!!!
-Kevin's hair stayed fantastic.


All in all, it was a fun time and I hope everyone else on the course enjoyed it too. Either that or I managed to motivate them to run faster anyway just to get away from me! The video footage is pretty shaky and I will definitely have to come up with a better method for Komen, but here it is:

It's about 8 minutes long but if you're short on time, feel free to skip to whichever song you'd like:

Mile 1- Brighter than the Sun (Colbie Caillat)- 0:09
Mile 2- Brokenhearted (Karmin)- 2:07
Mile 3- Kung Fu Fighting (Carl Douglas)- 5:56***

***Definitely watch this one to see what Team UkeRunning is all about!!!***



Oh, and a quick shoutout to the NUTTS for killing it at the race and cheering us in at the finish!!!!

What's better than a dreadfully rainy day to welcome us all to fall semester??

 I just got back from a fantastic(-ally short) break in Taiwan. I can't remember the last time I actually had two full weeks of vacation and while it was definitely a nice and much needed hiatus, two weeks?? That's just cruel. It took about four days just to get used to not having anything to do, plus about three full days worth of traveling and two days of moving...oh and two days for Lake George Triathlon with the team. That left just three days of complete relaxation. Better than nothing I suppose. Vacation kind of feels like that carrot that some jerk is dangling in front of a horse just so he doesn't have to walk. In any case, three days was enough time for me to kickstart my new project: UkeRunning.

UkeRunning began with an idea I had about three years ago when I ran the VA Beach Half Marathon and ended up chasing Pac-Man, Elvis, Pikachu and a number of other interesting characters. It reminded me of the time I choked trying to drink water while running a 10k and was passed buy a guy juggling five balls. I can't juggle, but I CAN sing and play instruments, and while I'm at it, why not raise money for charity? It took until recently for me to finally set everything in motion but here we are, just under 3 weeks since the official launch of UkeRunning and we've raised $510 for breast cancer and 5 team members for the 2012 MA Komen for the Cure 5k!!!

Team UkeRunning is for anyone and everyone who wants to partake in my adventures. I would love for other musicians to join me, but the more the merrier! Our goal is simply to have fun and entertain the rest of the racers/walkers at the race (and the volunteers too!). So if you'll be around Boston on Saturday, October 20th, JOIN TODAY!!! 

As a side note, I have never done this before and I'm not sure if anyone has. I've been getting creative with workouts to try to prepare myself so here's a little sneak peek:

Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately and with the continuing onslaught of PT classes, training for Komen will be my "carrot" rather than the vacation that we never really get!

P.S. A huge thank you to Jocelyn Rubin for helping me get the word out through RyanSeacrest.com! Check out the article here.