Friday, January 11, 2008

About Us

Look Pretty. Run Nasty. was originally created for the three of us to keep connected and share our pain/joy/elation/struggles while training for our second marathon. Erin had recently moved, Lori had just had a baby and was struggling with post-part em depression, and Amanda was running through the joy and fear of a possible adoption. This blog was a perfect place for us to connect with one another and help each other through exercise, it truly became our therapy. All three of us have had great experiences with exercise, eating healthy, and leaning on one another for support.

Amanda and Lori have been friends for almost 10 years and when Erin came along about 4 years ago; Erin and Amanda lived in the same neighborhood. Amanda invited her to workout with her and Lori one morning and their lives have never been the same (in a good way!), it was like Erin had always been there. The three of us have been the ups and downs, the silliness and the sadness. At the end of the day, that's what exercise and friends are all about. Finding others that have the same drive to make their life better through living healthy only strengthens you and .. .. really? It makes you happy!

Since our marathon in May things have changed quite a bit. Erin is pregnant with her first child, Amanda added a beautiful boy to her family, and Lori has become happy again. We're all still very active and working hard, but we no longer have one singular goal.
  • Erin is focused on staying healthy with her pregnancy, she'll be writing at least every Wednesday.
  • Lori is focused on losing weight and finishing her first triathlon, she'll be posting every at least Monday.
  • Amanda is focused on speed, trying to get her half marathon PR down to 1:45, she'll be posting at least every Friday.
We hope you can join us in our journeys. We've been inspired by our readers and friends we've me through this blog and hope to meet even more new and amazing people!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Meet Erin

Hi! I’m Erin. I have been married to my cute husband, Ty, since December of 2005, and I become a better person each day I spend with him. We have a two year old pup, Allie, who runs our house and is my very best friend. Currently I am working on a Master's in Social Work at Brigham Young University and will be graduating Spring of 2009. I am having difficulty narrowing my career ambitions to a set population or specific area of therapy, but have many interests and am excited to set sail.

The only hobby I have at the current moment is TIME MANAGEMENT, I practice it, create new ways to be effective with my time, and think about it every day. One day I would love to be creative with decor in my home. I’d love to be able to taste food and say, "I think this needs some more ginger," and then just add as much as I feel appropriate without measuring. Yes, these would be two hobbies I could pick up at anytime.

Traveling could easily drain my savings and destroy my livelihood if I ever allowed myself to indulge in the amazing places I would love to stand in. My anthem for life is simple: Live it and enjoy it! I truly believe if I am doing the best I can with what I have today, there will be no reason I won't have everything I want in the future. However, don't get confused, this doesn't mean I don't worry all the time about where my "plans" are going. After all I am a RUNNER and we all know we run a little as a way to self-medicate, reduce anxiety and tension. When I am running early in the morning and the moon is hanging low in the sky, I know its hanging just for me. Or when I am high on a peak and looking over the valley I live, I know I have a place in the world. I am amazed at the adventures I can have when my body is healthy and physically strong.

My goals for the next little while are kind of in limbo, My husband and I are pregnant with our first baby (that may or may not make this world a better place). So my goals are centered around being healthy and active in my pregnancy. I will be doing research on what to eat, how to exercise while pregnant, and help you figure out your level of fitness. After the baby is born, I plan on running the St. George Marathon, October of 2009.

Meet Amanda

Hi. I'm Amanda. My friends call me Manda, but know better thank to ever even consider calling me Mandy. I have nothing against the name. I'm just not a Mandy. Tee hee. Now that that's cleared up, let's move on. I live in Utah and love it here. I was married to the love of my life in August of 2002 and life has been an adventure ever since. After 4 years of marriage we found out that we would never be able to have children and entered the adoption world. In June of 2008 we were blessed to have a little angel of a boy join our family. He is our world, and we love, love, love him. He has brought more joy to our lives than we ever could imagine. As a family we enjoy traveling, movies, playing games, being active and being with family and friends.

I work as an RN in the public health field. It's interesting work and keeps me on my toes. Since becoming a mother I only work part-time, and get to mommy the rest of the time. When I find a spare minute, I love music, photography, anything orginizational, running and soccer, and starting 3 bizillion projects that I rarely finish. My husband is a financial advisor and a business consultant. He pretty much loves anything business. He also loves basketball and racquetball and actually introduced me to the joys of weightlifting. We are both very competitive people, and like to push each other to be and do better.

I've always been active in my life for the most part. I however NEVER liked running. Then I had some friends invite me to run a leg in a marathon relay and I asked my friend Lori how I should train for that. That is when my running life began, and somewhere along the line I got hooked. Since then I have run 2 full marathons, many half marathons, and numbers of various other races. I'm by no means super fast. I'm always in about the middle of the pack, but I really have grown to LOVE running. Through my training and races, I have learned that I don't love marathons, but I really, really love halfs. I have decided that instead of just running to get the miles in like I do when I'm training for marathons, that I'm going to start training to run a half-marathon in a time of 1:45. My current PR is 1:54 so I have some work to do to knock those minutes off. However, where my friends are leaving me to run on my own, I knew that I would have to set a goal that would be competitive with only myself to keep me getting up in the mornings to train. It will also force me to do speed training. Bleh. So as I train I'm going to be looking for better ways to train, and different workouts to do to help me reach me goal!

Meet Lori

I’m Lori. I live in Utah with my awesome husband, Van, of 7 years, my two little girls Jaylee (5) and Reagan (1). I luckily married my best friend. We've known each other for forever it seems, which makes our life so much fun. Our girls keep things quite entertaining, full of many things, and provide us opportunities to learn and grow. We love to travel, watch funny TV, play games, hang with those we love, and keep busy entertaining our children. For the time being I have the opportunity to be a stay-at-home Mom, which has its stressful days, but overall I’m grateful that “home” is my job. My husband works as a Medical Technologist and has recently been accepted to Physician Assistant school, he’ll start that summer of 2009. In my previous life I relished in research. I graduated in History and English and worked as a researcher/editor. I’m a N.E.R.D. I love learning random things. Which only makes me even more OCD about studying workouts and finding new healthy alternatives.

I love to do anything active; whether that be running, lifting, hiking, biking (well… I’m trying to like biking), playing with the kids outside or just going for a nice walk… I like to moooove. While I'm mooching off of Van's income, working out is my only outlet.... so I run hard and participate in marathons and half marathon as much as I can. I love food, especially creating new healthy meals, I’m rather obsessed actually with figuring out how to “health-ify” each meal. . Although I give into my vices sometimes, it really comes down to the fact that I feel so much better mentally and physically when I'm living healthy, eating right, and consistently exercising.

My thyroid was obliterated in 2004 due to Graves Disease and ever since losing weight has been a continuous struggle. The last few years my goals have centered around race distances rather than intense weight-loss driven workouts. My goal for the next year is to lose weight (35-40 lbs) and inches (4 in)…. and complete my first triathlon. Tally ho!!!