its been one of those weeks..

It has just been one of those weeks (and it is only Wednesday..ugh.)  I have been so crabby this week.  Work has been irritating me and I just can't shake it.  I thought I would be better on Tuesday and then it was rainy and I just didn't want to go to work. I didn't head to run club either. It was rainy and cold and I just wanted to stay inside.  Then Wednesday came around which is staff meeting day.  Yep, once again I am now irritated about something new.  Just when I feel like I am starting to get over one thing, people end up handing more stuff to put me in a bad mood. I'm the librarian, I am supposed to be sunny and happy all of the time (it says so in the librarian handbook).

I know I should have come home and ran to sort it out and get over it, but I just didn't feel like it. Which is too bad because it was sooo nice outside. I did walk Riley so he was happy and did get some fresh air.  I did go to the grocery store to get some food to eat and milk for cereal. So I wasn't a complete angry hermit.    I did not head to the gym like I planned on doing.  Guess there is always tomorrow.

This is exactly how I felt this afternoon!

Sometimes you need to just watch some TV and eat some chocolate chocolate chip ice cream and call it a day.  Hopefully tomorrow will start to turn around and I will feel less like the angry cat and more like myself. If not, I have a facial scheduled for Saturday morning, so that should change my outlook.  

Running Goals revisited

I know I said I wanted to run 600 miles by the end of the year..but I would also like to add that I would like to be a more consistent runner.  This month I can honestly say that I have done a reasonably good job of being consistent.  I have done a long run each weekend..sometime not the miles that I originally wanted..but a long run none the less.  I take that as a huge improvement.  If you read my race recaps one thing is pretty constant..lack of training or sometimes no real training...yeah I'm cool like that.  This time I have actually been running during the weekend.  I have gotten some runs in during the week too!

I started off wanting to run 600 miles this year..I may make it, who knows we are only two months into the year.  I have ran more in January than I have ran last January.  So that is a positive!  I have already pasted last year's running miles for February and we have one more week left.  Which is really good for me.  I'm shooting for double digit run next week. :)  We will see..I just saw the news and it said cold for the weekend and that doesn't sound fun! Hopefully the weather will want me to run too and it will be in the 40's or 50's.    

I also am kicking around the idea of doing a half marathon before Rock N' Roll USA.  There is a small race in Chambersburg PA.  It is a 2 hour drive.  I could get up really early and make it to packet pick up with little problem.   It looks like it is a small race and I used to live near there for a bit. So it could be a fun run.  It is on March 10th and it would give me 8 half's in a year.  I then can move up in Half Fanatics.  I have to see what the temps are going to be.  I don't want to run in snow.  I know some of you love snow running, but I do not like running in snow or ice.  Another plus is it is also pretty cheap for a last minute race.  Fifty bucks is not bad for signing up for a last minute half.  It is looking like a real possibility.  So stay tuned to see if I actually run it :)

How was your running this weekend?

How to tell you are getting older..

With my birthday come and gone its time to reflect on getting older.  If you can't tell I love my birthday! I have noticed that I've changed a bit as each birthday passes.  Here are some signs that I have noticed that I am getting older:

1.  Takes longer to recover from a night out.

Ahh I remember when I would head out drinking with friends and then have a few hours of sleep and head off to work.  That is not happening now!  If I have had a bit too much the night before I usually spend the day on the couch drinking water and wondering why I drank so much.  I much prefer the 10 minute headache and I'm off vs the I can't move or do anything feeling the next day.  I guess this is mother natures way of ensuring I do not go crazy with the drinking.

2.  Vitamins

When did my vitamins increase?  I used to just take a Flintstone vitamin.  Now I have allergy medicine, B complex, Magnesium, Multi and some other random stuff.  It takes me five minutes (or what seems like it) to take them all.  Next up I will be getting one of those lovely pill containers for each day of the week and I will spend my Sunday sorting them for each day of the week.  Ah the things to look forward to.

3.  Wrinkles and dry skin.

I now own night cream and multiple day cream and serums. When did this happen?  I do like getting facials which always helps with the dry skin in the winter..so I guess that is a plus.  When did I turn into my mother complaining about the heat in the house in the winter drying out my skin?  

4.  Pain in random parts of my body.  Last week I will swear I had some gout in my thumb.  Don't worry I googled it and figured that I was right and treated it with Ibuprofen and it was better pretty quickly.  This week my hip has been bothering me because of the change in temperature.  Yeah I am  only a few steps away from a walker..

5.  I want to curse out the cars that drive too fast in the neighborhood.  I'm out walking the dog and a car zooms past and I have the need to run after them and tell them they need to slow down there are kids in the neighborhood.  I do give them evil eyes, which really doesn't do much, but I try. At what age does other peoples driving start to make you mad?  I think this is something that has creeped up on me.  A few years ago I would just walk the dog without giving random evil eyes to visitors in the 'hood.   

6.  People Magazine.  When did I stop knowing who the people featured in People Magazine?  Some of the actors/singers/models I have never seen before.  Soon I will start to tell people about how I walked to school in 10 feet of school ...up hill...both ways.  Its just a matter of time.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend..I'm going to try and squeeze in a long run this weekend.

Birthday Weekend.

So I didn't take many pictures this weekend..what a bad blogger!  I had a great birthday weekend.  I started it out with a 7 mile run with Becky.  She was amazed that she was able to run 7 miles (her longest run yet).  We headed over to the neighborhood that we have been running lately.  We found a new path to a new neighborhood so maybe next time we will do some different exploring.  After the cold run I headed home to shower and then wait for my parents to show up at my house.  Always nice to have the parents visit.  We had a nice weekend..went shopping and out for dinner.  I took them to the Marine Corps Museum and a Winery on Sunday.

Mom enjoying some of the timelines at the Marine Corps Museum.

After they left on Monday I headed over to my friend Karla's house.  She was having a happy hour for our friends Michelle and Bion who came in from Maine.  It was great seeing friends that I have not seen is a long time.  I spent a great night laughing and chatting with friends.  I think I may have done too much laughing, the next morning my back/shoulder muscle hurt (I think it was from the laughter).

Next up was run club.  Can you say more birthday celebrations?  Becky stopped off and picked up some yummy cupcakes.

It also was Eileen's birthday.  So more cake came into run club.   We had run club sing happy birthday to us.  Always fun!

I enjoyed my turtle cupcake!  Yummy!  We also might have split an apple pie cupcake (my favorite so far!)

It has been a great month of birthday love!  Now it looks like I have to keep running to burn off all of the goodies this month!

Running is great most of the time.  Yeah those times when you would just rather sit on the couch and watch TV happen every now and then (sometimes more than we want to admit)..but I'm focusing on the times when we all think running is great!  Since it is Valentine's Day I thought I would give a little love to running.

Things I love about Running:

1.  People- I love that I have met some great people because of running. Some people that I would not have met otherwise.  Some of the people I do not even know there names..I just recognize them at some races (old man runner in the red outfit..see him at a lot of local races..I'm secretly stalking him)  Some of the people I have met now have a place in my phone with a number attached so we can get in touch with each other whenever we want.

2.  New shoes - There is just something about new shoes.  It makes me feel like a kid at Christmas.  I just can't wait to take those new kicks for a ride!  I may buy shoes a bit too often just experience the new shoe feeling.  I also think I might shop for new running shoes more than I shop for new shoes for the rest of my life.

3. The feeling of a great run - sometimes we live for the possibility of the perfect run.  You know what I'm talking about..you head out and think it will just be an ordinary everyday sort of run, but the weather is perfect, you feel like you could run forever.  The perfect run, you never know when it might show up, but you always are happy when it happens and hope it happens often.

4.  Races - I love the feeling of race day.  Everyone is happy and looking forward to a great day of running.  It doesn't matter if it is a 5K, 10K or a half marathon...I love race day!  I never know what kind of day I will have come race morning, but I always hope that the day will be a good one on race day.

 

5.  Bling - I don't think I have to say much about bling.  Love some great running medals.  I need some more bling to fill up my my second medal holder.

 I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!  What are some of the things that you love about running?

Got the shirt!

I finally got my new shirt for running 100 runs with run club!

Yeah for 100 runs!   

Tonight I was thinking of just lounging around the house after work.  I first needed to head to Walmart.  Umm just some advice, don't go there the day before Valentine's Day..I thought they were giving stuff away for the amount of people in the store.  And don't even think about going towards the area with the few chocolate hearts left in the store.  Just crazy!  So I was looking forward to heading home and just staying in tonight.(Walmart can do that to a girl)

Well looks like I am not able to stay in..I forgot dog food.  Riley would hate me if he had nothing to eat.  So back out to get some food for Riley.  Since I am leaving the nice warm house, I might as well head over to the gym.  I was trying to avoid the gym today...but I guess the universe didn't want me to skip a workout so I headed to the gym after errands.  I didn't do too much just the bike and trying to catch up with some reading while on the bike.  Friday I am going to try and squeeze in a run since my parents are coming to visit this weekend.

Birthday run! a.k.a. Love the Run You're With

It was a great morning for a birthday run!  I picked up Jami and headed to meet Becky for my birthday run 5K this morning!  I brought lots of tutus...

And Glen even was willing to put on a tutu for the run!

You got to love when friends are willing to celebrate a birthday run with you!  We all met at Champps sports bar so we didn't have to stand outside forever. Its always nice to be able to wait inside during February.

For the most part we all ran pretty close to each other.  Becky and Jami passed Lee and I somewhere around 2.5 miles..Lee, although faster, ran with me since it was my birthday run (not sure if you all have heard that my birthday is this month)  All in all it was a great morning for a run.  Although poor Glen is now down a glove, I guess his left glove went around for another 5k.

Of course we ended with brunch and some drinks.  Not sure that the staff at Champps enjoyed the onslaught of runners after the race.  Great morning hanging out with everyone.

Now on to more birthday fun for February!!

7 miles and I wasn't blown away

Well I have been on a tutu making frenzy!  I have one more to do and then I will be ready for tomorrow's birthday run with Love the Run You're With. Should be a great morning for a 5K.  Temps should be upper 30's to 40's...you can not complain about that in February.  Last year we were dodging ice on the run.  No worries about ice this year.

I went to pick up the packets this morning.  Looks like grey blankets are the swag. Much better than the brown blankets from last year.  Coming back I was going to meet Becky to run 6 miles.  I stopped at Panera  to have half a sandwich before heading out to run with her.

I met Becky and we headed off exploring a new neighborhood.  It was great.  Ok, maybe not great, great, but it was fun.  The wind was horrible.  At one point Becky asked if we were actually moving forward.  Luckily tomorrow we shouldn't have the wind.  We found a lovely small lake to run around and a dog that followed us part way.  He didn't seem to want to eat us, but rather say "hey keep going!" Lots to see and do! This was Becky's longest run ever!  So proud of her!  And because of her, I didn't back out of my run today.  Sometimes it really does help to make a running date with a friend.  I came home and took Riley for a mile run around the 'hood.  He loved it.  Then he realized it was my evil ploy to have the leash on him to walk him into the bathroom for a bath.  Riley was not so happy about that one!  But he got a mile run and I now have a clean dog..score for both of us!

two hour delay

Haven't ran a bunch this week.  Looks like I am heading out with Becky tomorrow for a six miler.  This will be Becky's longest run to date I believe.  I may come back home and finish two more so I can get in 8.  We will see.  I'm hoping it is not super windy and cold tomorrow.  We are also heading to a new neighborhood to run.  Hopefully it is not super hilly and miserable. Sounds like there are a lot of hope in tomorrow's run.

I have been making my tutu's.  I made my with sparkly black and pink.  I am sort of hating the sparkly black, the glitter gets on everything and it is really stiff.  It is my birthday run, so I will wear the sparkly tutu, but note to self:  stay away from glitter tutu's.  I have two more tutu's to make before Sunday, which should be not problem.  They are not that hard to make.  I have been using safety pins.  Super easy to make!

Today we had a surprise 2 hour delay.  Why is it that the unexpected later starts just make your day that much better.  I do wish that I would have gotten up a bit earlier to squeeze in a workout, but that is ok.  I normally take Friday as a rest day.  I did have time to head to the bank and enjoy some Dunkin' Donut dark hot chocolate!  Yippy!  Why can't every day be a two hour delay?!

weekend update

I have decided that Sunday will be my long run day (feel like I have been putting it off a bit this training run)  I went out and ran four Saturday.  It was a bit chilly.  I tried to head out as late as possible.  I  I almost stopped by my house to get a running headband under my hat to cover my ears.  The wind while running down the hill was freezing my ear off ( my other ear had an ear bud in it to keep it warm)  I just wasn't feeling the long run today.  So Sunday I will shoot for 8 miles.  Perfect way to try and counteract the Superbowl food!

I've knocked out two of my tutu's for my birthday 5k next Sunday.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  I just have to make sure that they fit the people I made them for.  I also can't figure out how to finish the elastic.  I have just tied it off..but the elastic is wide so it is forming a huge knot. Maybe using a safety pin?  I will do some googling and see what I can come up with it.

Last night I headed out with Glen to help our friend Jen celebrate her birthday.  Jen is a newish friend from runclub.  It was fun hanging out and meeting some new people.  It was snowing a bit last night so some people decided to stay home instead of heading to Jen's place. There were some yummy cupcakes too which I only had one (but wanted more than one!)