Friday Five: Lovin' December

I don't know if it's because I didn't get to spend Thanksgiving with my family and am super excited to see them for Christmas or if my grinch like heart has grown three size, but for whatever reason I am crazy in the holiday spirit this year.  Here are five of the things I am LOVING this December in spirit of Mar's Friday Five Link Up:

1. My runs.  Ok, so I've only done two runs this December so far, but I've been really excited about running lately.  I've also been doing slightly better with cross training woo.

2. SARA BARELLIAS.  I get to see her on Wednesday and could not be more excited!  I saw her in Cleveland with my brother and sister a couple of summers ago and had so much fun.  I've been jamming to her for weeks now in preparation.

House of Blues in Cleveland. Ready for the show!

3. Starbucks red cups.  I know.  But guys, seriously, don't peppermint mochas just taste better when they are in the red cup? ;-)

4. Comfortable things on dark days.  Now that it's getting dark so early I love curling up with fuzzy socks on, a book, and having yummy smelling candles lit.  Not to mention soups and hot chocolate.

Technically it's a fall scent. But technically, it's still fall.

5. I GET TO SEE MY FAMILY!  So soon.  I've had so much fun picking out and wrapping their gifts.  I can't wait to just hang out.

I hope everyone's December is off to a great start! It's shaping up to be a great month to end the year.

Random Thoughts Wednesday

So I've had a lot of things I've wanted to talk about, but I haven't really had time to do each one justice. I figured I'd get a quick list down and then expand on them later. First up....

Falling back and getting an extra hour of sleep was great, but now can we spring forward? Seriously guys, running in the dark is not an option for this girl.  Call me chicken, but I just don't feel like it's the safest option.  Treadmill it is on week nights!  Woo!

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is the best way way to endure the treadmill.  It lasts just about the time it takes me to run 5 miles and keeps me laughing and entertained, PLUS it keeps me up to date on news headlines.  I literally almost fell off the treadmill because I was laughing so hard last night.  Pretty sure my fellow gym members think I'm the weirdest chick alive.

The gym kind of annoys me sometimes. I prefer running outside (especially now that I'm getting braver and conquering my long runs outside!) and since I use the small fitness center and not a real gym it comes with problems that bigger gyms don't have.  Last night a mom brought in her kid.  I get that it's hard to workout when you're worrying about a small child, but he screamed and cried and pitched a royal fit for SO long before the mom took him outside.  Also, only one treadmill works.  It's annoying, but hey, what can we do.

After one use, I'm already in love with the Nike Training Club App.  My abs were burning last night!  I love how it plays your music and counts down for you.  Plus, it has step by step on how to do each move and even videos if you still don't get it after reading.

The Women's Nike Half Marathon lottery is open!  I LOVED this race last year even though I hadn't trained at all.  Initially I swore I was only going to do it once (the price tag is pretty steep), but it was such a great experience that I quickly changed my mind.  This year there's all this drama concerning the Tiffany's finisher necklace (go read the Nike Facebook page if you want a good laugh.  There are some heated debates about whether or not the necklace is a good reason to run).  Not gonna lie, all of that nonsense is kind of turning me off to the race.  Getting that blue box at the end was really fun (and probably the only way this girl is getting it!) and I just can't spend that kind of money when there are so many other great races out there, ya know?  As of right now I'm not planning on entering, but I have a couple of weeks to change my mind!

I have my eye on another race.   I KNOW I swore off longer distances, but what can I say, I'm still in need of a great half.  I started a training plan last week (more on that later) and I decided if I stick to it and am making progress after week 8 then I will sign up for the race.  So far it's been really good!

I'm ready for my bruises from the Rugged Maniac to go away.  I'll have a full recap later on.  It was a fun day, but man do I look like I lost a fight.

STARBUCKS RED CUPS ARE HERE!  Peppermint mocha.  'Nuff said.

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!

Slow Motion

The past week has been a little crazy.  I was excited to head to my parents' house on Friday to spend time with my family for Mother's Day and the week went by surprisingly fast leading up to it.  I seriously have the best mom in the world and I couldn't have asked for a better weekend with the family.

This is not from this weekend, but gives you a picture of the best mom ever.

I only made it out the door to run once (the time flies when I'm with my family), but those hills kicked my butt.  It may have been from the massive blueberry pancakes I had earlier in the day, but I kept catching a cramp.  It was hard to want to be outside because it was so dreary and was misty the whole time.  I finished a slow 3.1 miles and then called it a day.  Even though my run was less than stellar, I did get a couple good walks in over the weekend.  One of the benefits of having three dogs around means that we have exercise time built into our days.  On Sunday we timed our walk on the trail around Happy Hour at Starbucks so that we could take advantage of the last day of half priced fraps!

Happy Frappies come with gangsta' names.  You can call me Linzle.

This week is going to be another busy one, but I started it off with a run on the 'mill.  While it was pretty nice out today, I really wanted to do some intervals and I push myself so much harder when I'm doing them on the treadmill.  It's that whole if I can't make it another step I just have to crawl back to my apartment thing.  Plus I really needed some water close by.  It has been way too long since the half mile repeats have made an appearance in my life.  I laughed at one point because I felt like I was really flying and I looked over at the mirror and it looked like I was hardly moving at all!  Talk about slow motion.  Oh well.  I ended up doing 3 miles of total running.  Half a mile of warm up and cool down with 4x800 in between.  I walked for 3 minutes after each repeat which made each one significantly less painful than it would have been had I forgone the breaks.  

Hope your week is off to a great start!

Favorite Things Friday

I've been kind of sad lately.  I haven't been able to run for over two weeks now and I'm slowly going crazy.  While I'm definitely not in any life threatening position, it has been frustrating not feeling like myself.  Hopefully whatever's ailing me will clear up soon, but in the meantime I have to take it easy.

To take my mind off being a couch potato, I figured I'd list some things that make me happy.  Positive thinking is said to work wonders so here we go:

This picture shows two of my favorite things.  Cozy flannel (falalala) sheets and my sweet baboo.  Maddux thinks it's a game when I put new sheets on the bed and jumps on and off the bed making it impossible to make the bed look nice.  This time he burrowed in.  I can't help but laugh whenever we play this "game."

Earning free drinks at Starbucks.  I have one waiting for me on my card and am thinking of cashing in this weekend.  It's supposed to get pretty chilly and a peppermint mocha is calling my name.

Pullovers with thumb holes.  My mom and dad have always been awesome valentines and offered to send this my way.  I'm pretty sure I will live in it.

Longer days and warmer days.  I am so excited that the days are slowly getting longer.  It's nice to be able to walk my pup after his dinner as well as right when I get home from work.

Clean floors.  I finally vacuumed and Swiffered.  It feels good.

Talks with my family (and friends!).   I was so lucky to be born into a such a supportive family who can make me laugh.  They constantly remind me that better days are on the way.

Typing this list made me feel significantly better.  I think it's important to step back and remember the things that are going right when life is feeling pretty wrong.  Now I'm trying to find ways to exercise without too much bouncing or head movement.  Planks have been my saving grave lately and I'm thinking of trying out the stationary bike tomorrow.  I seriously need to work up a good sweat.  If anybody else has any ideas I would love to hear them!

Have a happy weekend!

November is the Best Month EVER

Don't get me wrong, I love summer.  I'm pretty sure there's a post very similar to this saying why summer months are the best ever.  Disregard that one, because November is definitely better and here's why:

I get to see my family: I haven't seen these guys since August.  It's been hard.  I rarely get homesick, but lately I have really been missing them.  I can't WAIT to get home for Thanksgiving!  Added bonus, my sister is coming to visit me the last couple days of November!

My birthday is on Thanksgiving: I love, love, (love, love, love) my birthday.  It may be a whole middle child attention thing, but I love that there is a whole day (let's be real, MONTH) dedicated to me.  No, I'm not 5, I just love to celebrate.  My brother's birthday is exactly a week from mine so we get to double celebrate when we're together for Thanksgiving.  Party, party, party!

This donkey has been on my birthday wish list for YEARS.   His name will be burrito.

Starbucks red cups are back: PEPPERMINT MOCHAS HAVE RETURNED.  Yes, I know you can technically get them all year long.  I used to do that.  It would be the dead of summer and I'd be sipping on a peppermint mocha.  Then I realized that it's not really special around the holidays if you have it all year round so I made a pact to only get it in the winter months unless I was having a true emergency day that only a peppermint mocha could fix.

*****There was going to be a picture of me and a red cup here.  Then I went to Starbucks and I was one of the only people to not get a red cup.  Figures. ONE DAY I WILL GET ONE.****

Pumpkin is still big: October is wonderful because pumpkiny goodness returns to our lives.  In November you still have it, plus all the peppermint things, too.  You really can't go wrong with having all that happiness in your life.

Leftover Halloween Candy: I have a lot to buy at the grocery store today.  Chocolate is not one of them.  For whatever reason, I didn't have many trick-or-treaters this year.  It's only ok because now I have enough chocolate to tide me over for the next 3 days.

November is Bread Month: I didn't know it either until I read this tweet:

I don't need to be told twice to eat more carbs.  Come on, it's a celebration.


November is also Runner Safety Month: I love how so many running safety tips are flying around Twitter these days.  I feel like too often I see something on the news about women getting assaulted while running (alone) at night.  It's nice to have all these tips in the back of our minds so that we can minimize risks, not only at night, but in general.  I think it's SO nice that I can run in the middle of the afternoon and not have it be oppressively hot, but if I know I have to do an evening run, I stick to the 'mill.  You never know what can happen, and in my opinion it's better to be safe than sorry.

Speaking of runner safety, I don't want to get into this too much, because I know there are a lot of opinions out there, but I am very saddened by the cancellation of the New York City Marathon.  I completely understand reasoning behind it.  I thought a good point was made when the mayor said,
"We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it.  We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event -- even one as meaningful as this -- to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track" (source).  It would have been unfortunate for a race that usually brings on so much unity and camaraderie to have been turned into an event that divided runners, or even runners and the city.  While I liked the original idea to have the race and to ask the runners to donate $26.20 to hurricane relief, I'm sure that the reasons for cancellation were completely valid.  Having 47,000 runners running through a devastated city may not have been the right choice.  Who knows.

Ok that was heavy, let's lighten this back up by recapping: Family, birthdays, CARBS, candy, holiday cups at Starbucks, and focusing on keeping runners safe?  Yep, saying November is the best seems accurate.  

Lindsey Likes to....Walk?

I told a fib.  Yesterday was not a rest day.  I woke up fully intending to take a break, but I had SO much energy.  I'm not really sure where it came from because I've been totally embracing this whole lazy summer thing.  Since my favorite walking buddy is still out of commission, I decided to head to the gym for an elliptical workout.

I'll be here when you get back.

I took it pretty easy, but it felt good to work up a sweat and get my body moving a little.  My 45 minute work out looked like this:

5 minute warm up

1 minute focusing on pushing with arms

1 minute focusing on pulling with arms

1 minute "sprint"

1 minute increased level (from 7 to 9)

1 minute recovery

5 minute backwards 

Repeat until 5 minute cool down

I've found that continuously mixing it up on the elliptical makes the time go by waaay faster and keeps me from getting bored.  

When I got home I made sure to stretch extra well since I was still planning on running today.  Maddux supervised to make sure I held each stretch long enough.  

Excuse me, you're not stretching.

I must have done a pretty good job, because by the time I was done with my stretches this happened:

Sleepy pup.

I also did my usual arm workout  (10 front raises, 10 tricep kickbacks, 10 bicep curls, 10 overhead tricep thingies, repeat to do three sets)  and some planks while I watched Rachael Ray.  I only use 5 pound weights, but it keeps my arms from getting too jiggly :-)

Today something miraculous happened.  I made it out the door and started my run before 9am  (8:50 to be exact).  I even foam rolled before!  The first 15 minutes or so felt pretty good, but then I just started to get hot and I got this weird tightness in my hips.  I took so many walk breaks during the run.  To give you an idea, I ran for 45:30 and didn't finish my run until 9:50.  That's almost 15 minutes of walking.  My (uncalibrated) Nike+ said that I ran 4.16.  Ugh.  However, I don't have too many problems believing it today...  On the plus side, I had a strong finish and made sure to give it my all for the final minute.  

I think the highlight of today's run was discovering some other little pieces of trail that go off the main loop of the park I was at today.  This park definitely has long run potential and it was fun exploring the different parts of the trail today.  There's lots of shade on the side trails and it's SO pretty.  Having great scenery makes running so much more enjoyable, especially when it's feeling tough. 

Thinking about my outdoor runs lately, I've decided that I really need to just practice running in the heat  with real terrain.  While the treadmill runs have been an awesome confidence booster, I don't think it's doing me many favors in training for an outdoor race.  Since I just registered for a 15k during Labor Day weekend, I figure I need as much outdoor training as I can get so that my body doesn't take the heat as a complete shock.  As we've established, in hot weather I have no problem taking walk/water breaks, but I think now my focus should be on figuring out when I really need water and walk breaks and when I just really want to stop for a minute.  Today I stopped twice for water and that felt pretty good for today's heat (low 80s).   

On a happier note, I celebrated being done with today's run with a homemade frappuccino.  

No Cesars included.

Since I've been on my saving money on nonessentials kick, I've experimented a little in the kitchen to give me some alternatives to my beloved Starbucks.  I've found that tossing some ice cubes, strong (cooled) coffee, milk, a hot chocolate packet, and a few chocolate chips has given me something comparable to a $4 sbux drink.  Pour it in a Starbucks cup and it's practically the same thing, right? :-)

I've also been making smoothies a lot this summer.  I'm sure my neighbors are LOVING all the blender noises coming from my apartment lately.

This weekend I will be having a second go at speed work with a planned 6x800!  I'm excited after the last workout.  It's definitely a new kind of challenge for me!  Happy Friday!