Fill in the Blank Friday

I saw this idea from Lauren on Danielle's blog and I love it!


1. I feel happy when I'm dancing to Baby Got Back, finishing up a great run, getting in the car on Friday after work, taking the first sip of hot black coffee in the morning, going to bed without setting the alarm, going to a wedding, any time I'm with my husband or friends, finishing up a 6+ hour drive to my hometown and finally seeing the exit sign, or sitting by myself blogging and drinking some delicious wine like right now!

2. I get silly when I'm surrounded by no one older than the age of six (aka my job, every day), during long runs, on road trips, or basically all the time (also after work on Friday afternoons, see above).

3. Something that makes me sad is when kids try really hard to learn but something stands in their way, such as a disability or family issues.

4. Something that makes me annoyed is going to meetings where people explain things to you like you are five years old, cars driving way too close to me while I'm running even though they have tons of room to move over, kids screaming my name all day instead of raising their hands, texts that say "K", people not responding when I say hello or good morning to them, the dishwasher leaving those little food remnants in the bottom of my glasses - I better stop there because I could go on and on.....

5. A time I've been truly surprised was when I got engaged. I have never been more shocked in my life and couldn't even respond except to say "really???? REALLY????" for approximately five minutes to make sure I wasn't just hallucinating...definitely didn't see that one coming!

6. I am so thankful for my family, both the one I was born into and my husband and in laws. I love nothing more than spending time with them and I know this is rare, so I am extremely lucky to have such wonderful, supportive people not only in my life, but related to me.

7. I feel loved when my family does crazy things like come all the way to Baltimore to get up at the crack of dawn to watch me run past for 4 seconds while I run my first marathon! Or all sorts of little things - my husband sending me flowers at work to wish me good luck on a race, my mom making me dinner and offering to do all my laundry when she comes to visit, my dad mailing me chicken noodle soup (who knew you could do that??) when I have swine flu, my stepdad working for hours making the perfect cardbox for our wedding (it's seriously awesome). And I love them just as much!

Side note - I should have listed that I survived swine flu as one of my seven interesting things on my last post. But that ship has sailed....

What you're gonna do, is look, RIDICULOUS

10 points if you can tell me who that quote is from.

Baltimore got like an inch of snow Tuesday night and they surprisingly dealt with it like big boys and big girls. Got the plows out, and aside from a two hour delay, it was business as usual on Wednesday, as opposed to the entire city shutting down like normal. They're learning - maybe I'll hang out here for awhile after all!

My grad class and tutoring don't start up again until February, and with Christmas craziness over and my husband busy with 13 year old girls every night (he coaches 8th grade basketball, what was your dirty mind thinking?) I suddenly feel like I have some extra time to play with. So I'm going to workout hardcore so I can look like Michelle Obama in May when I'm a bridesmaid in my BFF's wedding. And, as I've mentioned, some Gwen Stefani abs wouldn't hurt.

Side note - I saw Gwen in concert when I was 13 (in 1996!) and again in 2009. So basically, pre and post babies. Her abs DID NOT change - its freaky. Apparently neither does my taste in music.







So Tuesday I didn't head to the track, since we were getting freezing rain. I'll go out in somewhat bad weather to run but even with all my broomball training I wasn't risking a broken leg. I headed to the treadmill and busted out 5 * 800s at my 5K pace - 7:53. When I was done a kickboxing class was starting, so I figured, what the hell, I'll get some upper body work in. This class was NO JOKE and we had to do all these punches holding 5lb weights plus all sorts of squats & lunges. I still feel it in my arms.

Thursday morning I had to talk myself in to getting up at the crack of dawn for a 6 mile tempo run - the weather was 10 degrees with the wind chill, it was pitch black, I still had to dodge some ice, and when I drove around the night before checking out the route (nerd alert) the only one I could find was the most brutal, hilly one. Good times. Here's what I wear to run in 10 degree weather:
Basically I turn into a Ninja with a headlamp to find the ice, which turned out to be extremely necessary. I actually got hot and took off the face mask before my warmup was done and even took off the gloves while I was "sprinting" up some hills. I always try to remind myself I will not actually be cold during the run.


Despite all that, my splits were:

8:25
9:05
9:00 - this was up the killer hill where my pace slowed to over 13 min miles!!
8:30

Even though only two miles are in my McMillan tempo pace, obviously the calculator doesn't take into account weather/hills/ etc so I consider it a success.

Did Jillian level 1 but with all the hard options 4 times already this week - every day M-Th. Go my abs!

Also did a few other workouts not interesting enough to type up.

Happy Friday!

I'd like to thank the Academy.....

I WON!!!!!!!!!!




I got not one, but two Stylish blogger awards!
I mean - with looks and moves like this, it was only a matter of time, right?

One was from Angie, who has all sorts of delicious looking healthy food ideas that I can't wait to try (especially her Basil Hummus)! The other was from Paula who writes Eat: Watch: Run and is hilarious, and she just signed up for her first marathon! Both of these girls have fantastic blogs that I highly recommend checking out. Thanks for the awards ladies!

I was SUPER confused when I first got the comment that I won, because I didn't know there was any sort of "style" in which posting pictures of yourself in a robe or a headlamp would win you awards. But then I learned.....

Here's what a Stylish Blogger has to do.

1. Make a post + Link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them they’ve won!

I was actually a little stressed about thinking of seven things about myself that are actually interesting/unique. Here goes:

1. I have an addiction to Blistex and go nuts if I don't have one on me at all times.
2. I can't go to sleep if there are any dishes in the sink.
3. I love karaoke so much that I had a karaoke themed wedding. Also all get togethers with my friends end up including on demand karaoke with the microphone that used to be in my classroom. We party hard.














4. I grew up in a dual religion household and still celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah.
5. I am super organized with meal planning but super disorganized with anything involving paper, such as my classroom.
6. I'm probably the only person on earth who doesn't really like watching movies.
7. I grew up in upstate New York and one time in college the "feels like" temperature was negative 25.

There it is folks - 7 things that mostly let you know how neurotic I am!

I don't think I have 15 recently discovered Bloggers I can award yet so I promise to let you know about any other ones I discover. Here's the ones I do have, and I am including the two people who gave me the award, because they're awesome.

1. Kimbo's Breakfast
2. Eat: Watch: Run
3. It's All About the Journey
4. And I Ran....Why?
5. CAUTION: Redhead Running
6. Linds Loves Miles
7. Running 42km

The other blogs I read already have hundreds or thousands of readers and you probably already know about them. I love how this Stylish Blogger thing lets me know about so many other great running/healthy living blogs.

Trails & Bikes

On Sunday I joined a local running group for an easy recovery run. I love running with groups and getting to know new people. I highly recommend checking meetup or just googling groups in your area if you are looking for fellow runners. We did a 4 mile paved trail around a really pretty frozen lake in Columbia, I wish I had brought my camera! After that, a few runners were adding another loop for an extra 1.5 miles. Three guys were just enough ahead of me so they were about to be out of sight, so if I planned to add the mileage (which I did) I needed to catch them. And the recovery run turned into a tempo run. I haven't found anything yet as motivating for speed as thinking you are going to get lost forever in the woods like little red riding hood unless you run fast enough to catch up. Trust me, its happened to me at least twice now. When I finally caught them they were really nice, although we were about a tenth of a mile from the parking lot at that point.

After that I finally tried out some bikes! My friend Mike is like a mini Lance Armstrong and seriously does 100 mile or 150 mile bike rides almost every other weekend in the summer (in addition to marathon training, of course), so he took me to Race Pace, where he gets all his bike supplies. It was a great store and they were extremely helpful. You can actually put a bike on this holder thingie and ride it in the store!

I had no idea how much there was to learn. I'm a runner, so once you master one foot in front of the other as a baby, you pretty much know all there is to know. Bikes are a whole other world. I learned about different types of bikes, shifting, proper form, attire, and a whole bunch of other stuff I probably already forgot. I picked out a type and brand I liked (road bike, Trek, 47 inch), so once the weather gets above freezing I'll go back and try one outside. Which is good, since I've ridden exactly 8 miles in my adult life, and I have this whole triathlon thing coming up....

Sunday night we made an awesome dinner so I felt it was photo worthy. We decided to make fish and remembered that Santa had put this under the tree for us

AMAZING! If you are familiar with Woot, it actually arrived in a Bag of Crap. If not, ignore that last sentence. Eric put it on some tilapia with some flavored olive oil. I also made Thai Spaghetti Squash, from my new BFF here:
and I defrosted some beer bread I made last weekend due to a random craving + me screwing up the breadmaker. I used this recipe and a bottle of Blue Moon, and it's like crack. Take 5 minutes, make some and thank me later. Then come back and curse me when you've eaten half the loaf. Wait, maybe that's just me.

So we had what was our usual date night: eating at our dining room table in pajamas, then finishing folding the laundry while watching reruns of The Office. What can I say, I live a glamourous life.

For those familiar with my girl here:
I started week three and forced myself to take the harder options along with "B" - adding weights to long lever crunches and getups, and changing spiders to spiders with pushups. I did it last night and this morning and, as usual, I love/curse her the whole time. I did feel at the end of week two it was getting SLIGHTLY easier and I could get higher during the "getups". ,

Sugar Ban: Officially Lifted

I wasn't about to let my poor husband eat this entire mini chocolate cream pie alone, was I?

Last night we had date night. We decided to take a picture before we left. I was very helpful in making sure the camera was aimed properly. My sister got me this dress for Christmas, and our friend got her the same one!
Look at that sexy couple. Yes, we still have our tree up. If you look closely, there is still a gift under it for someone I haven't seen yet. I consider that an excuse to leave it up as long as possible. Also we had to wait until December 26th to get our star 50% off so I need to get some use out of it.
Since the movie and restaurant were in the same plaza as Wegmans, we started our date by doing our weekly grocery shopping. If grocery shopping on a date seems weird to you, you haven't shopped at Wegmans. Or maybe its possible single people actually trying to impress their dates suggest other activities?

I am a firm believer that date night is whatever works for the couple. For example, ours have included boiling pasta in our pjs and watching reruns of The Office, dance parties (with us as the only guests and my ipod as the DJ), and playing Twister (and don't think that's some sort of dirty metaphor, I literally took the twister board out of the closet and we played it). But on this rare and exciting occasion we took the more traditional route. Sort of.

We seem to be destined to miss Black Swan. After Casi met us at Wegmans and told us that Dicks was having a clearance sale and everything on clearance was ALSO 50%, clearly we had to make a stop. We scored a bunch of workout clothes, mainly underarmour, for about $60, which is awesome. Most of them were for Eric so I was pretty jealous but the size gods wanted that I guess. That also sparked the discussion, why can't they say "dick" on TV, but it can be the name of a national sporting goods store?

Anyway with all our shopping, we either had to grab something fast and sneak it into the movie, or miss the movie for a nice dinner. We opted for the dinner. The phrase "they have some really good cocktails" left Eric's lips as he was looking at the menu and it was on between me and sugar.

We ran into a bit of a problem. I really liked my drink. I also really liked Eric's drink. He didn't really care for either one. Which led to this. Attractive, I know.


Which led to another stop into Wegmans for the chocolate cream pie. We happily consumed it while watching Dinner with Schmucks on the couch, and I fell asleep before the movie ended, so I can't really comment on how it was.

All in all, I abstained for sugar for 6 full days so I am proud of myself because that is significantly longer than I thought I could go. Things I've learned:

1. I can go a day (or several) without chocolate and not go into anaphylactic shock. I don't know what this means but I know it's real because I googled it to spell it and it sounds like it would be on ER. Remember this guy?
I used to love him back in the day.

2. If you are working towards some kind of goal, alcohol is not going to help you. Unless your goal is to have the confidence to choose a really tough rap song to sing at a karaoke bar that only 50 Cent actually knows any of the words to.
Whenever I am doing some crazy workout thing, like planks or mountain climbers, usually to a Jillian video, and I feel like I can't last one more second, I think to myself "I know I can because I've done it before". So I guess I can apply this reasoning to skipping dessert and making it more of a treat than a nightly ritual. But I still had two Lindor truffles after my pie.

The two Cs

Two things I am obsessed with this week:

1. Corn

Really weird huh? I made this corn and millet (haha just typed my maiden name, Miller, by mistake?) pudding last night for dinner.

Where's the picture of it?

That's about all you're going to get. My face of satisfaction. I ate it all before I could take one. Eric ate one serving. That left three for me. AKA dinner last night, brunch and lunch today. I highly suggest trying it.





What delicious topping did I use?
This awesome coconut oil. Which incidentally is the second "c". I got it for the soup I made over the weekend. Jillian said to get extra virgin, so no ruined whore oil for me. I thought it was really weird that the jar said you could cook with it, eat it as a nutritional supplement, rub it on your skin like lotion, or use it on your hair. NO JOKE. Apparently this stuff does it all. I thought to myself "who is going to just sit there and eat a spoonfull of oil?". Um, turns out me. After putting a tablespoon in the pan to cook with, I tried some. Tastes like heaven. It's solid at room temperature, and you just have to try it. I've been cooking with it nonstop and having a little bit each time. I also used it as a topping to my corn pudding and it was like frosting. Yes, I eat weird foods. Don't mock me (to my face). Whatever awesome health benefits it gives you, I am getting times 20, and you aren't, so there.


Not quite sure how I did a whole post this morning and left out this little gem....

I just signed up for a race that involves leaping over fire, crawling under barbed wire, and 10 other crazy events, in addition to the usual running (3.11 miles). It's called the warrior dash and it's on May 22nd. I have already convinced four friends to sign up and two more are pending. The fact that I may have convinced 6 people to do something crazy and life threatening (two are engaged, one is getting married six days after the race!) means my race peer pressuring skills have really improved. I'm getting really proud of this talent.

My race schedule for 2011 is getting pretty exciting now that it has expanded from just those boring races involving only running....

Hopefully this will encourage me to do some upper body work? And to stop counting things like vacuuming or cleaning the bathtub as an upper body workout? Although according to this article cleaning the bathtub burns exactly 249.92939587 calories. Seriously, I googled it then cut and pasted that number. If only it burned 250 I could consider it a full workout....so close....

Time to get dolled up for my hot date tonight! It includes all my favorite things - grocery shopping at Wegmans, eating, and movies with lesbian sex. The last one is new for me but how could it not become a favorite?

DNF

My first run that I didn't finish happened this morning! Well, technically I ran back to my starting point, so I guess I did "finish", because I wasn't found on the side of the road or anything. But instead of our planned 16 miles, we did 14.5.

I have a serious problem with my type A personality when it comes to training plans so that's kind of a big deal to me. Most people would take pride in the fact that they woke up at 530 am on a Saturday to run 14.5 miles in the snow, but as this blog has made quite clear, I am not normal. So I'm just trying to be proud of myself for actually listening to my body instead of the training plan for once. It was a rough week of workouts, and my legs were sore.


Plus I'm not sure I did a great job replacing the calories that I was eliminated by skipping desserts? I am not trying to lose weight so I need to replace the sugar calories with something else. I ate a lot more healthy fats than normal (almonds, olive oil, avocado, etc), which is probably good.

Who knows, some runs are better than others. This one featured my usual fantastic training buddies plus a surprise visit from an old friend I hadn't seen since the Baltimore Marathon, so it was great to catch up.

Yesterday was my rest day but I still managed to fit in Jillian's 6 weeks to 6 pack abs...so that's three times for this week! Might try to squeeze another one in tomorrow. I also took a "before" picture of my abs. I am not going to post it on the blog (or anywhere), but if you are really lucky, I'll post a picture of a biggest loser contestant next to a picture of Gwen Stefani's abs in 5 more weeks to illustrate the drastic improvement in my own abs. You're welcome in advance.

Another happy hour spent drinking water last night - I like the whole hanging out/then owing nothing when the bill comes thing. Plus two former Ravens (Ogden and Ishmail, I heard of them for the first time last night) were guest bartending, so I got two free Raven's Playoffs teeshirts! So technically I came out ahead on this happy hour...plus I got some good gossip as usual....total win.

Sugar Free for 5.5 days - Sunday night will make a whole week! So do I need to wait till Monday to break it, or does Sunday count?

Eric & I are going to see Black Swan tonight. We had an intense discussion on which two celebrities we would most like to see in a lesbian sex scene. Who would you choose?

Eric's Vote:

+

My Vote:

+