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?

December Goals

Before I get into the December goals, I want to say a few words about my run this morning.  But before I do that, I want to say a few words about how the phrase "I want to say a few words" only belongs right before a eulogy at a funeral.

I managed to wake myself up and get out the door this morning for a run and I'm glad I did because it was fairly nice out (in comparison to how it has been/how it could be).  I brought my watch with the intention of running 40 minutes and that's just what I did.  Actually I did 39:40.  I even tried to go a little farther down the block past my apartment building to get in the FULL 40 minutes, but then there was a dog in my way so I just stopped there.

Running/Fitness Goals:

Run 150 miles

Do weight training 3 times a week and planking as much as possible

Go to spinning twice a week - It's free at the gym I belong to and I might try going to some of the spin studios in the area.

Blogging Goals:

30 Posts - This is gonna be a toughy.  That's basically posting every day, but since I plan to run almost every day this month like a good like half marathoner, that shouldn't be too hard.

500 unique visitors

200 Twitter followers

150 Facebook page likes

Life Goals:

Read 2 books (see some books I want to read currently here)

Listen to as much Christmas music as possible

Go to Mass every Sunday of Advent

I'm sure I can come up with a bunch of other general life goals, but I think I'll save those for New Years.


What are your December goals?

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? 

My Current Half Marathon "Plan"

I can't really do a running recap of last week because I only ran one day - 6.2 miles on Tuesday.  There are 8 weeks until the Phoenix Half Marathon so I'm not overly concerned, but I know that now is the time to get going.

I made up a plan for myself, but we all know how I am terrible at actually following plans, so I came up with a new idea.  It won't matter what day I get these workouts in, as long as I get them in.  Actually, it's not that new of an idea because I kind of did that during Chicago Marathon training too, doing long runs during the week after work and doing two 20 miles runs within 6 days of each other, and doing more speed workouts whenever Mac was available.

For the next 8 weeks I want to make sure I get in 5 runs a week, broken out like this:

1 normal (~8 minute pace) run of 5-7 miles

1 normal (~8 minute pace) run of 7-9 miles

1 long run of 10-15 miles

1 tempo (~7:15 pace) run of 5-8 miles

1 speed workout or tempo run

This would give me at least 30 miles a week, hopefully closer to 40.  I have a few good speed/tempo workout options I found that are geared more specifically to training for a half marathon.  I'll plan to share those with you this week.

I think this plan will work for me for a few reasons:

• I never really know how I'll be feeling each day on the treadmill so if one day I'm feeling awesome, I'll just go with it and do a tempo run or higher mileage.  And on another day if I feel like crap/am super unmotivated, I will first try to put on my very best pump-up songs, but if that doesn't work, I'll just have it be a normal day.  I'll just need to hope that I'm feeling great 2 days a week...or that we have a really mild winter so I can go outside.
• The holidays are a busy time with lots of parties and events on weekends and other nights during the week, so I'll just fit in runs when I can.

(photo from Pinterest)

This weekend I had the opportunity to meet a new blog friend in person!  Katie from Peace, Love, & Oats is a healthy living blogger who lives in Chicago.  My cousin Erin reads Katie's blog regularly, recognized her out at lunch one day and told me I should get in contact with her.  I emailed Katie and we set up a meeting at Starbucks yesterday where we chatted and enjoyed hot drinks on such a cold day!  Katie and I have a ton in common and she is running the Phoenix Rock 'N Roll Half Marathon also!  I'm looking forward to joining the Chicago Healthy Living Bloggers group for their next book club meeting in a few weeks  :)

And that means I need to get started on reading the book!  And it's perfect timing since I finished Caught this weekend.  The book for this month is Me Before You by Jojo Moyes.

 (photo from Goodreads)

Katie said she just finished it and really liked it.  Then, as I was doing some blog reading this morning, I saw that Meghann from Meals and Miles and her book club read it this past month and she also liked it a lot.  I suppose this will be the perfect week to start a new book while I have a few days off work!  I just started actively using the Goodreads website and app because I want to start reading a lot more.  It's a lot of fun to see what books my friends have read and what they want to read and to keep track of my own books.

This week shouldn't be too hard to get my runs in.  I'll be running with my friend Dave tomorrow evening after work, the Edison Park Turkey Trot 5k with Catherine on Thanksgiving, and the Schaumburg Half Marathon Turkey Trot on Saturday.  Then I'll just have to fill in a few other runs and I'll be good to go!  Easier said than done of course though.  I hope to come back to you tomorrow with a great run to talk about...or any run to talk about at this point, doesn't even have to be great.

Do you have a turkey trot on the schedule this week?

What is your favorite Starbucks drink?  I go with the white chocolate mocha usually, but right now it's all about the Gingerbread Lattes.  I know I said in my "No Spend November" post that I was going to try to cut out the Starbucks, but really that is just for during the workweek when I can easily get free coffee at work.

Running in Denver is Hard

Greetings from Denver!  First of all, a few thoughts on flying:

The plane I was on seemed brand new and very futuristic so that was kind of cool.  And then a lot of what the flight attendants used to say was a recording and I didn't like that.  I know a lot of airlines have switched over to safety videos and I've seen those before, but this was even more than that.  I don't think I ever heard them say anything.  Maybe that's a good thing  to cut out the amount of work they need to do so they can focus on customer service, but if I was a flight attendant, I think talking to people via microphone would be the best part of my job.  This is why I need to learn to be a fitness instructor, so I can command a large group of people while talking over a microphone.

When my mom and I went shopping a few weekends ago, we got a free tote bag from Victoria's Secret for spending over $75.  I used the bag for the first time last night as my carry-on.

I really love glitter and this bag really sparkles.  However, as most glitter-haters know, glitter gets EVERYWHERE.  By the end of my journey, I had little sparkles all over me.  As we were waiting to de-plane, the woman behind me said "I really like the sparkles on your jacket" to which I replied, "Thanks, but the sparkles are actually from the bag."  But, it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes I found on Pinterest:

I asked around for some book recommendations and settled on Caught by Harlan Coben.  I'm 33% of the way through it (thanks, Kindle) and I really like it so far!  It's a mystery and I just want to know what happens!

Anne is at work right now so I'm relaxing in a Starbucks for a few hours and going to keep on chugging through it.

This morning I went for a run on a trail near where Anne lives.  I wasn't sure where the trail would lead or how far I would go, but it turned out to be a nice, scenic run.

No views like that in Chicago.  I ran for a total of 24 minutes, not sure on distance but I'll go with about 3 miles.  I think it was hard for a few reasons:

1) Altitude!  It was so hard for my lungs to adjust and to breathe.

2) Hills!  We don't have hills in Chicago and the first half was pretty much just up, so those first 12 minutes were hard between the altitude adjustment and the hills.  But then the 2nd half was downhill and much more relaxed.

3) Tired legs!  All those squats and lunges I've been doing are really fatiguing my legs.  I think I'm going to cut those down and continue to focus more on my arm and core body strength.

 

I thought my shadow looked cool because my legs looked so long.  The weather was perfect too!  Shorts and a long-sleeve top and probably could've easily done a short-sleeve top instead.  Time to get back to my book!  Happy Friday!

Do you like flying?

Any good book recommendations?

How do you feel about high-altitude running?