You know you have social anxiety when....

You know you're coming off a good weekend when you can't decide what the highlight was: finding a fascinating Holocaust memoir to read, or Sunday morning when Titanic and the Sex and the City movie were on simultaneously.

I was supposed to venture out and interact with others Friday night, at Eric's work Christmas party. Something I've come to realize as I've gotten a little older is that Christmas parties for educators are in a different ballpark than Christmas parties in the private sector. Apparently those provide drinks, food, a location, gifts, music, etc....aka it fits the widely accepted definition of "party".

For us, it's more like "hey, when do you all want to get together and drink before Christmas?". And everyone picks a time, and an (inexpensive, we don't make much) place, and it's on.

I got home from work and was exhausted. That's a pretty typical state of affairs, but I also had a headache and a slight fever. (99.1, but I'm a freak and my temperature almost never even hits 98). I pretty much didn't leave the couch until it was time to go to work on Saturday at 3pm. I still felt fairly sick, and as we all know, working sick is just fantastic.

You know you have social anxiety when a fever is preferable to a party where you hardly know anyone. Also, Legally Blond was on. Do you realize that movie came out in 2001???

As I said, Sunday involved two of my favorite movies, and more reading and crying. The historical fiction novel I read last week got me sucked in, and now I can't stop. (Full disclosure: those aren't affiliate links, because I'm not cool like that, just amazon links to the books for those of you who want to be depressed when they read, like I do.)

A weekend where I leave my pajamas as little as possible is a huge win for me. It's freezing out, so hot chocolate is my newest dessert obsession.

I managed to leave the house Sunday night, and also did 30 minutes on the bike trainer. I went to the Charm City Run employee Christmas party, which, incidentally, did fit the normal definition of "party". Eric had his monthly WWE hot date with a bunch of other fake wrestling obsessed men. I convinced my (male) friend Alex to stand in as my date.

It was actually fun, chatting with others face to face, and it didn't hurt that the food was delicious. The best part was white elephant (the game where everyone brings a gift and you can either choose one to open or steal one). 

Most of the gifts people brought were on par with the one I provided, which was a huge hit.

I'll miss you, Mr. New Booty.

We have five locations, and the lucky recipient of my fabulous gift works at a different one, so I wasn't sure if he would be comfortable with the internet fame that comes along with exposure on Chocolate is my Life. But trust me, he was thrilled.

I was doing pretty well, but my Starbucks gift card and then Trader Joes goody bag both got stolen, and my despair forced me to try every kind of Christmas cookie provided. I ended up with one of those heat or freeze packs that you can use on sore muscles. This one is filled with cherry pits, which sounds weird, but it smells great, and as I've made clear, I'm all for anything and everything warm these days.

In summary, it seems when I'm not running (and done with grad school), I'm averaging one book for "pleasure" per week. I'm happy with those stats. 

The Snowday Personality Test

We're on snow day #2 over here! This is considered a total blizzard in Baltimore. They didn't even have The Price is Right on, so they could report about the "storm".

I've said this before (although it doesn't really count because that was when my blog had like 2 readers, which is only about 25% of the current readership) but I really think a snow day is the best personality test in the world. I realize most professions don't get them, but I'm sure we've all been blessed with a period of unexpected free time at some point. (If you are jealous of our snow days, just remember I haven't had a raise in like 5 years, probably never will again, and I have to buy things like tissues, soap and hand sanitizer for work with my own money).

If you think to yourself: "YES, I'm about to enjoy a day in my pajamas with no contact with the outside world, where my sole accomplishment will be seeing how deep of an impression my butt can make in the couch", then you're a lazy POS like me.

If you think to yourself: "FINALLY, a day to organize those closets and scrub those baseboards! I need to get my to-do list pad out post haste!" then you're some sort of alternate species that, while I admire you, I will never understand.

It's probably worth noting that Reaction #1 should take place at like 10am, when you roll over after those extra 5 hours of sleep you enjoyed once you turned your alarm off.

I can only imagine that Reaction #2 takes place after you see the snow day announcement and hop right out of bed at the normal time to get started on a fun filled day of productivity!

I think it's important to identify your snow day personality and make sure you find a partner who is the same. I may have married someone of a different race and different religious beliefs, but the important thing is that we're in sync when it comes to deciding how to spend free time.



Well, I may not shoot imaginary aliens, but the important thing is he's not moving or being productive.


I wouldn't have gotten out of my pjs at all yesterday, but we got a package. It was my Christmas gift from Kara! She told me I could open it early.

When you run long distances with someone, you really get to know them. Somehow she had figured out exactly what I wanted, but had never asked for!

Think of how much time I'll save in races! Now I'll never have to stop!

Ok, kidding, she actually got me these amazing pjs and blanket. You can't tell in the picture, but these are the softest, warmest pajamas of all time. Now we can keep the thermostat at a normal (not tropical) temperature, and I can be warm without Eric sweating in a t-shirt and shorts. The gift that keeps on giving.



The socks even match the blanket!

I was concerned about posting that picture, because you can see some unwrapped gifts, but I realized you can only really see my nephew, Harrison's gifts. And he is very advanced, but he probably won't be reading the blog yet.

I also wore clothes other than pajamas for a short period yesterday to work out. I did T25 Cardio, and ran 3.5 miles. On the treadmill, obviously.

More importantly, we decided to make pizza. Since it was snowing and gross out, we only used ingredients we already had, but it ended up being like the best pizza ever. We topped it with Costco marinara sauce, cheddar cheese, Andoille sausage, mushrooms, and caramelized onions. I don't think I can ever go back to pizza with mozzarella cheese now.

I used my brand new Cutco knife to cut the onions, which was very exciting for me. It was a Hanukkah gift from my dad.



Look how shiny!



Kara is organizing a brand new race, a Valentine's Day themed trail 50k on February 15. It's only $20, and there will be oreos, and medals, and I'm sure we can all agree that there is really no better way to spend Valentines Day, right? Now that I've convinced you, sign up here.

Please take the patented "Alyssa Lindsey Snowday Personality Test" by imagining you wake up to a snow day and are absolved of all your responsibilities, and report your results in the comments.

 

Reading > Running

Tis the season to run races in red and white striped knee high socks and reindeer antlers. For holiday challenges to bust your booty or run every day or burn off the calories in that one tiny piece of chocolate from the advent calendar, you fatty.

 

I'm taking a different approach.

 

Side note: my mom sent me the most amazing advent calendar ever. It's from Starbucks and filled with caramels and is a magnetic chalkboard under the candy so we can use it forever.

 

Please note that Eric hung it with red, white, and green thumbtacks.

 

Last week, I spent only about 4 hours exercising - which is a lot less than during the fall, when it was normally at least 8 hours, often more. I did the first week of the T25 program, which is 5 different workouts that focus on various things (lower body, abs, speed, etc). Even though they are only 25 minutes long, they can be pretty ass kicking.

 

I also busted out the old bike trainer and did 20 minutes Friday, and 30 minutes Sunday. Be impressed. It really is amazing how I can run for hours, but 20-30 minutes of any other exercises annihilates me.

 

Don't worry, the week wasn't completely devoid of running mileage.  I felt like running Saturday, mainly because it was that or perish of a total rage stroke. So I did a whopping four miles.

 

 

All this extra non-running time is glorious, and it really helps that the major project of my grad school semester is done too. I've gotten to sleep in, and I read an entire book this week (The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult, it's amazing, read it immediately).

 

This weekend was an introvert's paradise. I didn't do anything or go anywhere, except to work my second job on Saturday.

 

Sunday, we had what Maryland considers a snowstorm. I was about 25% of the way through my book (don't you love how the Kindle tells you that?) and pretty much my entire day consisted of finishing the other 75%. It's about the Holocaust, so of course it's terribly sad, but also fascinating. Eric didn't understand why my idea of a perfect Sunday was lying on the couch, reading and crying.

 

The snow turned out to be enough for a fabulous snow day today.

 

 

 This week is going to be more of the same "eh, I'll do what I feel like!" approach. It's a good time.

 

Just in case anyone ever wondered what it was like inside my head, this buzzfeed article is, as usual, frighteningly accurate.

 

Anyone doing a holiday race/challenge? I wouldn't be opposed to one, as long as it somehow involves eating a lot of chocolate. Feel free to share ideas.

 

 

 

December: a glorious month of laziness

If I thought the internet only had limited information on training for 100 milers, it had even less on what to do in the interim period when one is recovering from a 50 miler, and preparing to train for a 100 miler. Like, none.

So, I'll just make it up as I go along. Last week, I ran about 33 miles. After I signed up for the race early Sunday morning, I thought about the best way to spend my time before true training begins. I decided not running was the way to go.

Sounds counterproductive, right? And it may well be, there's no way of knowing, and by that I mean there's no solid google search results at this time. Anyway, I have my reasons.

After the Stone Mill 50, I had some aches and pains, which is to be expected. I had a fairly serious freak out about some foot pain, but thankfully a week off from running seems to have solved that. But I'd really like to ring in 2014 and start training completely ache and pain free, and really, truly recovered from Stone Mill.

More importantly, I'm lazy. I'm not an "adrenaline junkie" who needs to run every day to live life without a rage stroke. I had a good experience at Stone Mill, and I'm looking forward to training for the 100. The last thing I need is to get sick of it after 3 weeks and be burnt out by Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

To avoid that, I decided to cut way back on the running in the meantime. I want to miss it and really look forward to it. It's also really crucial for my mental state to experience a life where I don't devote significant amounts of my free time to exercise. I'm aiming to meet the general guidelines to avoid heart disease, which I think is something like 5 hours a week (I just pulled that number out of thin air but it sounds pretty reasonable). The most important thing is not having to get up at 5am and run in the dark. I needed a break from that.

I know what you're thinking. Doesn't this bare minimum approach to exercise put me at risk to gain the dreaded holiday weight?

Yes. It does. Especially when you factor in just how good at cooking my mother and mother in law are. It's basically a done deal. But no worries, I've already snagged that coveted MRS title, so we're good there.

This approach does put me on thin ice, because it's easy for me to spiral down into doing absolutely nothing. I don't want to start my training completely and totally out of shape.

I found the perfect solution.

It's really hard to come up with excuses not to get off my ass for only 25 minutes to do a workout DVD. Except today, I nailed the excuses. But Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I did it. It was freaking hard. Plus it can't be bad for me to work some non-running muscles. Running 100 miles probably requires some core strength, right?

I also dragged this guy out of storage and even pumped the tires. It's all ready for tomorrow morning.

 

Except that's been canceled, because I have to stay up until 11pm to watch the abomination NBC is calling The Sound of Music Live. I'm a pretty serious fan of the movie (I watched it approximately one million times as a child), and this version is just as horrific as I expected. It is making Twilight look like a cinematic masterpiece.

 

However, the live tweeting is hilarious. It's the musical theater version of Sharknado.

 



If you get this, you are my type of people.



 

Confession: I finally watched the movie version of Les Mis this week. Twice. And by confession, I mean "reasons my week has been awesome". I have at least 3 songs from the Broadway version on all my running playlists. It's on HBO again tomorrow. I may watch it again. No shame.

 

Any other (free) workouts you would suggest for my month of laziness?

 

Who else is watching The Sound of Music Live? Thoughts?

 

How do you train for a 100 mile race?

Cliff's notes version: no one knows.

I signed up for April's 100 mile race about 3am Saturday night (registration opened at midnight). I didn't really know if it would fill up, but I had just gotten home from hanging out at a friend's house and was up anyway.

As soon as I woke up Sunday morning, once I got past that "what the hell have I DONE" feeling (kidding, that isn't going anywhere), I moved on to "how the hell do I train for this?".

I spent some time reading all the research on the internet about 100 milers. Actually, not that much time. There's not a whole lot on the internet on 100 milers. Shocking, right?

There was so little, I even had time to line up some awesome pacers. One of the many, many reasons I was hesitant to sign up for a 100 miler was that I didn't think I would know people who would want to come support me when I was dirty, tired, and whiny. In the middle of the night. I've underestimated just how crazy and devoted my running friends are.

From what I understand, the key to completing a 100 miler is to run a lot in training, stay hydrated, and pray.

Look a meme! I worked extra hard on this post!

According to one article, a study showed that people who were successful at the 100 distance only did 10% more mileage than for those training for a 50 miler. Now, this may not have been a peer reviewed study, and it conveniently eliminated key details like what exactly "training for a 50 miler" means. But I like what it says, so I'm going with it.

More seriously, the main idea seemed to be that the key is back to back long runs on the weekends, and focusing on those, rather than a ridiculous amount of miles during the week. This was a relief to me, because I'm really over those Wednesday pre-work 15 milers.

That part is just like 50 miler training. It's unrealistic for a normal person to try to train anywhere close to the race distance. Even if you have time for a 70 miler on Saturday, you don't have time to then spend 3 weeks recovering from it. Instead, you use back to back long runs to simulate running on tired legs while avoiding completely annihilating your body in the process.

I created a training plan that has 2 weekends with 30/20 combinations (30 miles on Saturday, 20 on Sunday), and one weekend with a 52 mile run. The 52 mile run will also begin at 1am - another important part of 100 miler training is night running. Since the race continues overnight into the next day - you kind of have to practice having the sun go down while you're running so you learn to keep running and not just lay down on the side of the road and go to sleep. Or cry.

The plan isn't totally finished, but I'll share it in all its terrifying glory when I'm done. However, there's no hurry, because I won't start training until December 30. Which I'm weirdly excited about.

Since I'm looking at a whole lot of running coming up, what's your favorite thing to listen to while you run/exercise/drive/whatever?

I'm all over the place. My playlist jumps from Miley Cyrus to Broadway to Eminem to funny podcasts to audiobooks, and on a lot of runs I listen to nothing but my crazy thoughts. The only thing I'll never, ever listen to is country. Ew.

The next step, but I don't know why

As some astute stalkers blog readers have already guessed, I signed up for a 2014 race last weekend. It's kind of a big deal.

The C&O Canal 100 miler

This April, I'll be attempting to run 100 miles. Don't worry about me though, this is one of those "easy" 100 milers. It's all on a flat towpath, so you won't find yourself lost while trying to climb a mountain at 3am.

To put it in perspective, there is no race "date". The race spans over two days (Saturday at 7am to Sunday at noon). There's a 30 hour cutoff. Meaning the race continues overnight. I'm counting on my GORUCK experience to get me through that part.

I would have announced it yesterday, along with Kara, but I really wanted my success making pie crust to get top billing.

So now the big question is: why? My friend asked me the day before Stone Mill to explain exactly what goes through my head when I decide running 50 miles is a good idea. 

I didn't have an answer. Then I had 11.5 hours to think about it the next day during the race. I still couldn't come up with anything. At least not that I could put into words. Or even google something someone much more articulate has already put into words.

 I like pain? Except not really.

Something about the challenge maybe? That could be it.

At my first 50 miler, the lows were awful. The thought of running one more step, much less 30 more miles, was incomprehensible and had me nearly laying down crying on the trails.

I wouldn't exactly say every moment of my 3rd one was pure bliss, but relatively, I felt much better throughout the race. I was never near tears, never yelled at strangers, and never thought I'd rather be in the Hunger Games than doing this stupid race. At the end, again, it's all relative, but I didn't feel as close to death as in previous years.

Clearly, it was time to up the ante.

Another possible reason is that I'm really a lazy runner. I know that doesn't seem in line with my current goal race, but stick with me.

Pretty much at this point my options for challenge are either increase the distance, or choose a race and focus on improving my speed. I would much rather run an easy ten miles than a 5 mile tempo run. Focusing on speed is really, really hard, it requires discipline, focus, math (those 800 intervals don't time themselves), exertion - you catch my drift.

Training for a 100 is much simpler. Run. A lot. Then run more. See how much more appealing that is?

We are currently looking for pacers. So anyone that's ever thought "I'd really like to travel to Maryland and run with Alyssa and Kara in the middle of the night while they are dirty, miserable, and probably rude and annoying", please let us know and cancel your plans the weekend of April 26-27. I'll bake you a dessert. I promise.

The key to accomplishing goals: aim low

 I just had four full days off from work. Technically, I did a shift at my second job last night, but it's hard to call that "work" since I get to try on cool new running gear and chat with runners. I did scrub the toilet though, so there's that.

Anyway, I didn't intend for that time to go to waste. Like most productive, motivated adults, I went into my Thanksgiving break with some goals.

1. Sleep as much as possible.

Nailed it. Didn't set an alarm once.

I preferred the bed, not the couch during Cards Against Humanity, but to each their own.

2. When not sleeping, spend 95% of my time relaxing, eating, or reading.

Obviously the relaxing and eating was pretty easy, given the holiday. Eric injected our turkey with butter, and deep fried it. That's how you do Thanksgiving.

Every time it's lowered in, I wonder if this will be the time it causes an explosion.

Apparently he looks evil while carving the turkey.

Because otherwise no one would know what a Thanksgiving table looks like.

Forgot about drinking. I made apple cider sangria for Thanksgiving.

I was a little stressed about the reading. I planned to read two books by authors I actually know in real life, and while I was excited, there's some pressure with that.  I could suddenly really relate to what Carrie went through reading Berger's book.

The first was my work BFF Kristin's book. She's an official published author now - you can buy her book Double Sunset on amazon! I definitely started it because I thought it was so cool that my friend was a real live author, but I ended up sacrificing some of my precious sleep Monday and Tuesday night because it was so good and I couldn't put it down. It's essentially a romance but with a little action - hard to describe but I really recommend it!

The second was even more nerve wracking. My aunt wrote a book, and asked me to read it for her and give her feedback. Now it was family, and she was specifically counting on me to be honest about my thoughts.

I'm not done yet, but it's so good. It's been awhile since I had that "I can't wait to get home from work and finish this book!" feeling (sadly, it wasn't there with Allegiant) and that's how I feel about her book. Such a relief!

3. Don't do a turkey trot.

I mean, clearly this isn't that different from the last goal, but it's a bit more specific. I'd done most of my cooking Wednesday night, so I was free to sleep until 9 on Thanksgiving, and then enjoy nice hot pumpkin spice coffee and the parade. Words can't describe the joy I got from looking at my instagram feed, which was nothing but cold looking people at Turkey trots.

I showed them.

Around noon, I did a free, warm, easy 7 miles on the treadmill, accompanied by Buffy and the smell of frying turkey. I even put the incline at 1%.

4. Hang out with friends

I played about 5 solid hours of Cards Against Humanity and stayed up into the single digits every night catching up with friends I haven't seen recently. Perfection.

Thanksgivmukkah

Remember when people used to take group shots at social events? Now every time we hang out with our friends there are much cuter things to photograph. 

 

Thursday

 

 

Friday

 

Saturday. Even I find this dog cute enough to take a picture of. Still hate the species in general though.

5. Get the Christmas decorations up. Done and done. And I played with this photo in my app and made it all weird and fish-bowl-y, because I use my time off wisely.

 

 

Hint hint. Santa.

 Don't worry though, I didn't forget about my Jewish heritage.

 

 

Eric got 8 Hannukah themed chocolate bars and has been hiding one for me to find each day. I think it's pretty clear how I feel about that.

 

My first stop each and every morning.

 

In my tablet - genius.

6. Black Friday shopping. But really black Thursday shopping.

Yup, we went shopping after Thanksgiving dinner, and I feel zero guilt about it. I've worked in customer service since I was 15, which is actually half my life now, which is actually really depressing. But the point is, I've worked plenty of Thanksgivings, especially at Starbucks.

More importantly, my mom manages a movie theater, and those are open 365 days a year, so she's always had to do holidays on another day or stress over getting the day off. I thought that the whole thing about a social media badge telling people not to shop was a joke, because I've never seen a "in support of family values, please consider not seeing a movie on Thanksgiving or Christmas or all the other holidays!" badge.

Apparently it wasn't. And neither is this.

 

We went to Old Navy and Kohls on our way home from our Friendsgiving. We took turns standing in line, got great deals, made a huge dent in our shopping, got home in time for the second half of the Ravens game, and slept in on Friday. Win/win/win/win.

7. Make my own pie crust.

Beautiful

Apparently this isn't the culinary feat I thought it was, because basically everyone I told was like "oh, I know, I always make my own, so easy, right?". Still, I'd never done it, and now I have. Pumpkin dutch apple pie for the win.

 

With homemade whipped cream. Lots of whipped cream.

It passed a pretty tough critic, so I felt proud.

You can't tell, but I promise that's my pie crust in her mouth.

It wasn't a goal, but I ran 7 miles Saturday and 5 Sunday. It took time away from relaxing and eating, but whatever.

Black Friday/Thursday shopping - love it or hate it?

Also - last book that you couldn't wait to get home and read? I'm almost done with my aunt's and I'm kind of considering branching out from YA fiction and trying a novel intended for adults.