Friday Five - Valentine & Olympic Edition

Welcome to the Friday Five - Valentine's Day and Olympics edition.

For starters,  I'm not a big fan of Valentine's day.  Mostly because I'm single.  So it's a holiday that I am currently excluded from.  Like how I imagine non-Christians feel around Christmas.  I'm sure when I am in a relationship, for at least the first Valentine's day, I will be the girl posting flowers (provided the guy sends them I guess) and checking in wherever we go out for dinner and brag about what we did.  But this year, I have plans with some girlfriends - including a running event!

Tomorrow evening I'll be heading to this run:

(www.fleetfeetchicago.com)

Each runner receives a reflective wristband based on your relationship status.  So to start of my Friday Five, here are five pick-up lines I'm thinking of using:

1) "I bet I'm faster than your girlfriend."  (Juuuust kidding, I'll stick to the single ones.)
2) "Your pace or mine?"
3) "When I blog about this, it will say I ran 3 miles with my future husband"
4) "I'm like chocolate pudding.  I look like crap, but I'm sweet as can be." (For after the run, because that's definitely not my most attractive time.  I will wear make-up and my cutest running clothes though.)
5) "On a scale of 1-10, you are a 26.2!"

Ok, so I didn't make up those last 3...thank you, Google.  And I altered the one about blogging.  I will obviously blog about the event, but you can bet your glutes I will not say something like that.

Besides Valentine's Day, it is also one of my best friends Grace's birthday! Happy Birthday, Grace :)

I haven't talked about them much on the blog yet, but I really love the Olympics!  I would like nothing more than to compete in them, but I don't foresee that happening, unfortunately.  I have to say though that I'm really not as big a fan of the winter Olympics as I am of the summer.  But so far, here are what I think are my five favorite winter Olympic sports:

1) Figure skating
2) Cross country skiing
3) Alpine skiing
4) Speed skating
5) Curling

These are my five favorite summer Olympic sports:

1) Marathon (what did you expect?)
2) Triathlon
3) Gymnastics
4) Swimming
5) Track

Five Articles I've Loved This Week:

Runner's Valentines - Runner's World
17 Things You Should Know Before You Date A Runner - Thought Catalog
Matchmaking App Tinder Sees Huge Spike in Sochi During Games - Wall Street Journal
Beer Fridge at Sochi Olympics Only Opens for Canadians - NY Daily News
The Olympics' Most Interesting Man - Crave Online


And since I didn't tell you about it yet, here are 5 things about Wednesday's run:

1) 4.75 miles in 40 minutes (8:25 average pace)
2) Treadmill...what else is new?
3) Started at 7.0, increased by .1 every 2 songs, so ended at 7.5
4) Took it nice and easy because the lunges at BodyPump on Tuesday destroyed my legs
5) ...and then I went to Panera with my dad.

I took Thursday as an off day, but I'll be back at it today!  I'm going to do a morning run on my own before tonight's fun run.

What is your favorite pick-up line?  Running or not running related!
What are your favorite Olympic sports?

Treadmill Pacing and January Round-Up

Happy Saturday!  Remember how my legs felt so fatigued on Thursday and therefore I only ran 30 minutes?  Well, yesterday I went back to the treadmill and felt awesome!

Day 5 - 7.5 miles in 60 minutes - 8:00 average

I really didn't think I'd make it the full hour again last night because I thought for sure my legs would feel so tired and sluggish like they did Thursday.  I started the treadmill at 6.7 (8:57 pace) and increased by .1 every time the song changed (I always do my treadmill workouts by number of songs instead of minutes).  I wasn't sure how long I'd make it and kind of thought once I got to 7.5 (8:00 pace), I would just keep it there and cruise for as long as I could, hopefully an hour.  But I was feeling great, so I just kept increasing with each song and when I got to about 43 minutes I really wanted to quit...but I had made it that far so quitting wasn't allowed.  I finished the run at 8.3 (7:14 pace) for a total of 7.5 in 60 minutes - exactly 8:00 pace average.

Boom.  I did not expect to have that good of a workout after Thursday's not-so -good workout.  But I guess I just needed a bit of a rest day!  Today will probably be an easier day.  And we are getting more snow :(  So I think the treadmill will be calling my name for awhile.  And I will answer it's call and bring my BFFs Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and a few others to help get me through it.

Here's a treadmill pace chart:

And alas, it is February.  So I must do my analytical-self thing and give you a recap of my January mileage:

Total Miles - 66

Total Runs - 12

Average Miles/Run - 5.5

And here is a comparison of this January to all my previous Januaries since 2008:

I think I was trying to get super motived in 2012 and show the tax busy season who's the boss...but it didn't work out (tax busy season is always the winner) and by April of that year, I wasn't running any more... but we can analyze that when we get there.

All in all, I guess the years I'd want compare to the most are 2010 and 2013 because those are the years (although not until October) that I ran good marathons.  However, January 2010 was when I was still injured (groin muscle) so running was a struggle until May/June.  I think I'm where I need to be for now, just building up the base and mileage.  And actually, about half that January 2014 mileage is from the past 5 days.  So my goal for February is to run higher mileage, but evenly spaces throughout the month.  That shouldn't be a problem if I keep up with my 30-Day Challenge!
 
I didn't do a Friday Five post this week, but I do have a few really great articles or blog posts you should check out!

What I Learned From My First Marathon - from Kristin @ Glitter and Dust

15 Reasons Cousins Make The Best Friends - Thought Catalog

Weight Is Just A Number - from Elise @ 9 to Fit
Los Angeles Will Host The 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials - LA Times
Season of Humbling - from Katie @ Peace, Love, & Oats
Why Can You Bet on the Super Bowl But Not Races? - Runner's World

Friday Five - 1/24

Since I fell off the blogging train over the holidays, I haven't had the chance to do the Friday Five posts and these are some of the most fun posts!  So I'm going to try to get back to doing them every week :)

I did manage to stay on the Twitter train for the most part, so you should follow me there...Here are  Five Tweets that I've enjoyed recently (well, in the past month):

Price of Gold was an ESPN 30for30 special on last week about Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.  It was really good!  And then 90s hairstyles were definitely classic.

I tweeted at US Airways as I waited on the runway for my plane to Phoenix take off and they tweeted back at me!  Don't you just love when companies do that?  I responded to them saying I did indeed enjoy the flight and slept almost the entire way and they even responded back to me saying they hope to see me again.

The Polar Vortex is over, thankfully!  But temperatures are still very very cold here in Chicago.

This would make my life a million times better...but also a million times more expensive.

Hilarious.


Five Articles/Posts:

New Chicago Marathon Registration Process for 2014 <-- Combo of qualification by time and lottery.  Luckily my time will qualify me so I'm considering doing it again this year!

Work-Life Balance is a Lie, So Here's a Better Way to Think About It

Depression is NOT a Mental Illness

Penn Freshman Runner Commits Suicide

The 100 Greatest College Traditions <-- UD has 2 on this list!

Five Things Making Me Happy:

I got Katy Perry tickets for Chicago!!  I tried really hard to get better seats and would've paid more, but TicketMaster was being dumb, it said I had the tickets, and then the next page said they couldn't process my request.  But nonetheless, at least I have tickets.  I will probably still monitor various sites to try to get better tickets and sell the ones I have.  And will gladly still go to any city to see her again if anyone wants to.

The Bachelor.  It is so ridiculous, but I just can't NOT watch.  I was sad to see the Free Spirit be let go last week, but there's still lots of crazies left.

Selling books on Amazon.  We have a huge box of old textbooks from as early as my high school days, about 10 years ago.  I listed them all on Amazon and I didn't expect many to sell since they are all old editions, but so far I've sold 2!

Reading.  I will probably do a whole post on books I've read recently or want to read.  I just finally finished The Art of Hearing Heartbeats.  I started it over the summer I think and would read it off an on.  Airplane flights/vacations are the perfect time to get a lot of reading done.

The fact that Justin Bieber got arrested and will hopefully be deported to Canada and never again allowed to enter the United States.  That's probably a stretch, but I hope it happens.


And a Public Service Announcement: A blog/blogger I read frequently, Hollie from FueledbyLOLz, entered a contest to win entry to a Zooma Women's Half Marathon Race in Napa, California!  You can vote for her here!


What is making you happy right now?

Do you like when companies tweet at/back at you?

Friday Five - 12/6

Happy Friday!  In case you missed last week, you can check out my very first ever Friday Five post here.  So let's get right into this week because I have some great things to share!

Five Tweets:

My cousin Erin will be tweeting a different Christmas movie quote every day of December and this is one of my favorites from Christmas Vacation.  It doesn't quite give the voice inflection of this quote credit though, so I hope you're saying it correctly in your head.

Dayton is ranked #25 and that means that Siri is a huge Dayton fan! (For the time being at least...until we move up in the rankings.)

I am too, Shannon.  I don't think I'll ever know.  Except blogging, I like blogging.  And running.

My brother lives in Ohio now, so he is proud to call himself an OSU fan.

And now take a minute to read just a few of DiGiorno Pizza's tweets during last night's The Sound of Music Live with Carrie Underwood:

Five Articles

Philadelphia Marathon On Cheating - Who Cares

10 Personal Finance Tips From Hip Hop Lyrics

The Dumbest Things That Happened This Year 

Why ING Broke Up With The Marathon

Holiday-Themed Workout Playlist

Five Things I Ate This Week:

Gingerbread Latte - I guess I didn't "eat" this, but it has calories and tastes awesome, so it counts for my list.

Sushi - I hadn't had sushi in quite awhile but, Mac and I needed to catch up on life since now we don't run together anymore.  I suppose we could, but it's cold, sooooo that doesn't happen quite as much.

SweetTarts - I moved desks at work this week and now where I sit in unbelievably close to a HUGE bag of SweetTarts.  I was able to avoid them easily at my old desk, but now at this new one, I find myself grabbing a bit each time I get up!

Pesto Pizza - The extended Smith family had a Christmas trolley ride last Saturday and afterwards we ordered pizza.  I realized that after the half marathon earlier that morning (full recap coming tomorrow!), I really didn't eat much the whole day except for a few snacks.  So by the time that pizza came, I went to town on the pesto pizza.  Pesto has become one of my favorite things and ever ytime I have it on pizza, I am in LOVE.  And truthfully, the only other time I had a pesto pizza was last St. Patrick's Day when I was also mildly under the influence.  I can guarantee it'd be good sober too though.

Ham - I usually have turkey on my super awesome salad that I've been taking to work for lunch most days.  But this week I decided to switch things up a little and go with ham in my salad.  I figured I was eating turkey every day in either a sandwich or a salad and then ate a lot of turkey on Thanksgiving, so it was time for a change.  Back to turkey next week though.

Five Quotes from Pinterest:

And I'll leave you with some words of inspiration/fun:

So I guess I picked all the super-girly Pinterest quotes for this week.  I really like glitter and champagne.  Therefore, I wish people always acted like it's New Year's Eve.  Wouldn't that be a good idea?

Don't forget to be awesome today :)

Friday Five - 11/29

Happy Black Friday!!  And a belated Happy Thanksgiving!  Something I've seen on a lot of blogs is a Friday favorite/week round-up post and I decided to join in on the fun!  There's all sorts of ways I've seen it done, but I'm going to try to pick some categories that I most often think about sharing.  And I'll be doing a link-up with Clare's blog (Fitting It All In) - she has been doing these Friday posts forever and are always my favorite posts of the week to read!

Five Tweets: 

There were lots of good tweets this week (especially about the UD basketball games), but here are my favorites!

*Dayton upsets Gonzaga, classic mix-up.  Apparently they know about the annual Dayton 2 Daytona trip!  And even though I didn't stay up late for the game, it was fun to wake up to all the exciting tweets and Facebook posts.

Those clever marketers!

The Little Drummer Boy is my favorite Christmas song!

Just tweeting with Bart Yasso, Chief Running Officer of Runner's World!  He's just as funny in person too.  The snow he was talking about was the whopping 1/2 inch we got earlier this week.

Classic Toy Story.

Five Articles:

New College Running Group Will Offer Prize Money
Be Careful What You Tweet, Fox News Is Watching!  --> And so am I...see above tweets.
Bernard Lagat and Nick Willis Take On Speedgolf  --> Sounds like a fun sport.
It's Thanksgiving So We Asked Some Brits To Label The US States  --> Hilarious.
8 Tips You Need To Know Before You Start Weight Training


Five Books I Want to Read:

The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.

The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Restaurant Man


Five Things on my Christmas List (since it's Black Friday):

Garmin Forerunner 220 - It's time I became a real runner and got a Garmin.

Mattress topper - To make my bed even comfier than it already is.  So practical.

Race registration for the Phoenix Half Marathon - I already booked my flight but haven't registered yet.  Races are expensive!

Nike Flyknit Free shoes - They are sweet and so light.  I've never ran in "minimalist" shoes, but I figure the winter on the treadmill would be a great time to give them a try.

Really warm running spandex - I only have one pair of really warm spandex.  The rest I have are a lot thinner.

I have a few other things on the list too...and yes, some non-running related things, but those are all more general.


Have an idea for a Friday Five category?  I'll try to always share 5 tweets and 5 articles, but then I'll probably pick another 1 or 2 random categories each week based on the time of year or what I have to share!

Have you read any of those books?  Thoughts on them?

What is on your Christmas list?