Eh ... an ok day.

I was SOOO excited when I woke up the first time this morning and realized it had SNOWED! It was only a light dusting ... but SNOW! Since it wasn't time for me to get up yet, I rolled over and fell back asleep for another hour and a half, hoping it'd still be there when I went out for my run. No such luck. It was completely GONE by the time I got up again. Grr. I wasn't in any hurry to get up and go out for my run after that, especially since dad and brother left the house early to go donate blood [which means mom and I had a nice quiet house].

My training plan called for 4 steady miles today, but I wanted to go for 5 since I knew my 6-mile run next Saturday will be nixed in favor of racing the Winterfest 5k. I decided I didn't want to look at my Garmin at all and covered it up with my sleeve as soon as I got going. I knew the distances along the village streets and trail cross-roads well enough that I could approximate how far I needed to go before turning around. When I finally did uncover my Garmin, I was already at 4.68 miles. Awesome. For not watching my pace at all, I'm not disappointed in my mile times. I know the first mile should have been slower, but I had to sprint across a couple roads and driveways in the village downtown area.

I've tried 3 of the Zipfizz flavors so far: Orange soda, grape, and citrus. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to buy orange soda or grape, but I really liked citrus. It reminded me of lemonade that someone snuck some orange juice into. I THINK I noticed a boost in my energy, but I've still been drinking my Diet Coke in the mornings. I'm going to try it tomorrow WITHOUT my normal morning caffeine kick. We'll see what happens. I'm going out tonight so I'm going to be TIRED tomorrow if I don't sleep in late enough. I AM loving the bottle, though. When not filled with Zipfizz, it's been put into the rotation of my water bottles with measurements on their side (making sure I drink enough water during the day).

Did you join in on Fab Ab February? I think I've settled into at least 4 reps of the written workout. Today's is 25 sit-ups (I've been doing bicycle crunches), 6 push ups, and a 20-second plank. I've been switching up regular and side planks.

- - -

2.3.12

I am proud of my ...

Heritage. I'm very proud of my German/ Czech/ Irish/ Native American background. A little closer to present day, I'm honored to be the granddaughter of 2 Korean War veterans, 3 if you count my father's mother who worked in the armory while waiting for Grandpa to come home from the war. I don't know a LOT about my family's earlier generations, but these things I do know and I'm very proud of. It saddens me that I've learned more about my Grandparents since they passed than I did in the time I had with them, but I'm still so thankful I had them in my life for so long. I had all 4 of my grand parents and my great-grandmother up until my freshman year of college. My childhood would have been completely different if they hadn't been here. Every little thing I learn about them just makes me appreciate them and the time I had with them all the more.

Who I appreciate ...

Whoever invented pinterest. It's the newest time waster, but a great way to share recipes, crafts, giggles, ideas, and motivation! I can spend HOURS on there just looking. If you want an invitation to join (and don't want to wait around for an invite from pinterest itself), let me know. Or, if you're already on the bandwagon, click the button on the right sidebar and check me out!

2.4.12

I like that I can ...

Easily make friends with just about any remotely-friendly animal. I suspect it's a trait I picked up from my dad. Most of the dogs in the neighborhood love me (and wait for me to pet them when I go by on my run). Also, I'm always hanging out with the horses when I'm up at camp. It's natural for me to be found wherever the animals are. lol. Our last dog was SUPPOSED to be a "family pet", but he was more attached to my dad and I than anyone else. He was super-protective of both of us and ran to us when a thunderstorm or something else bothered him. When one of us wasn't home, he'd wander back and forth between the person home's side and the front door, waiting for the other.

Who I appreciate ...

Gustav Heineman, the founder of Heineman Winery. They make my favorite wine of all time, Lake Erie Pink Catawba. It's local, delicious, cheap, and STRONG. Oh, and it's award-winning. :) The grapes are grown on the Lake Erie Islands and the nearby mainland and the wine can only be purchased directly from the winery out on South Bass Island (Put-In-Bay, Ohio) or from the Anderson's stores in the Toledo area, as far as I know. And the winery will ONLY ship to Ohio. If you go in person, there's a really neat crystal cave beneath the building that you can tour too! My day can be absolute crap and one glass of this while curled up in bed reading or watching a movie and I'm a deleriously-happy girl. I hadn't had a bottle in a couple weeks, but mom came home with some the other night because she knew I was having a really stressful day at school (stupid inter-departmental mail LOST my graduation application and several other grad students' thesis paperwork). I'm slowly working my way through trying ALL of Heineman's wines, but Pink Catawba will always be my favorite (even if it's just because the memories of this wine and my 23rd birthday out at PIB (-: )

Fab Ab February and Zipfizz

I've seen this calendar floating around Pinterest and Twitter for about a week now, but it has finally found it's way into the blogosphere: Fab Ab February.

For someone who has never done much core work or is just getting back into it, this is awesome. Since I'm not exactly in that category, I'm adjusting this plan for myself. I'll still be doing what is in the plan, but I'm going to do it MULTIPLE TIMES! I haven't decided how many yet since I just jumped on the bandwagon last night (hm, I seem to have jumped into a lot of things yesterday), but I'm thinking it'll probably be 4 or 5.

Another thing to check out on twitter is #plankaday. I've been participating for a couple weeks now and those darn @plankpolice have already caught me not logging my planks once. In my defense, I was logging into Twitter from my Blackberry (the mobile site, not the app) and I WAS tweeting. It just wasn't going through. *grumblegrumble*.

A while back, Steph @ Run On! hosted a Zipfizz giveaway and I was one of the winners. And guess what came via UPS last night ...

I don't know how Robbie, our UPS guy, found our porch and doorbell last night in the dark without hurting himself (we hadn't turned the outside lights on since we were all home already and weren't expecting anyone). But, then again, he HAS been here a LOT the past couple weeks. Between my running/ Amazon stuff, mom's stuff from catalogs, and dad and bro's new parts for the motorcycle, we've been getting packages either from UPS or the postal service pretty much every other day. LOL. I was so confused when Robbie said the package was for me, but then I read the side of the box and did a little happy dance. As always, be just laughed at me. Anyway, I've never tried Zipfizz before so I'm a little excited. My first bottle is in front of me right now (orange soda flavor) and I have 2 different coupons from Zipfizz in my email inbox for WalMart as soon as I decide which flavors I like the most. I was digging around on their website last night too and I'm LOVING that they WANT you to send back the tubes for recycling when you get 100! I'd probably do that even if they WEREN'T offering a water bottle. I think I'm just going to keep the box the bottle came in and put them back in there. :)

I'm really excited to see if I could take these on my backpacking/camping trips. Normally I can't function in the morning without my caffeine or energy drink. When I'm home, it's normally Diet Coke [parents aren't fans of the smell of coffee]. At camp or the bf's, it's coffee, but I need creamer and stuff to make it palatable (can only drink black coffee when forced at knife-point). I've tried taking canisters and packets of mixes on the trail before, and some are ok [G2 in the single-service packets = live-saver], but this MAY be an easier option. We shall see.

- - -
2.2.12
I appreciate my ...
Hands! I saw the Kohler commercial last night with the "Hands can do so many things" song and it got me thinking. My hands have so many scars, but each of them is a story, a chapter in my life. I have callous scars from my years of rowing, dog bite [the one and only time Patches EVER snapped at me], burn from working concessions for my friend's student government campaign, burn form the first time I made dinner with my "bf", the scar(s) from the surgeries on my finger after breaking it playing flag football, and so many more. It simply blows my mind to think about all the things my hands have done over the last 25+ years.

Who I appreciate ...
Another corny one, but Brad Paisley! I normally turn on my stereo to listen to Bob & Tom as I'm getting ready in the morning, but I accidently had the country station on this morning [stupid tiny buttons on the remote]. I wasn't feeling great when I got up, but as soon as I heard Brad Paisley's "Old Alabama", I started smiling and singing along. I love that song. I grew up listening to Alabama, have ALL their albums on my iPod, and even got to see their farewell tour when they played at the Lenawee County Fair years ago. Thank goodness mom had already left for work since I'm sure I looked and sounded like a fool, but it made my morning!

January Recap, 3 Mile Day, Garbage, and Appreciation Challenge

According to my running journal, in January I've walked 12.36 miles (this is basically my warm ups and cool downs) and ran 53.64 miles in 10 hours 11 minutes 12 seconds (10:11:12. I seriously giggled like a kid when I saw that). Anyway, I should have absolutely no problem hitting 600 running miles in 2012 if I keep up this pace, especially since I'm planning to start upping my mileage. I'm already tentatively training for a 7k in March and I'd LIKE to be able to do a half marathon by the end of 2012, though that's completely up in the air. No matter what, I'm really enjoying my runs right now. Now that I've started to look at the runs themselves as enjoyable, and not just a means to an end, I'm noticing the feeling of strength in my body (and mind) during runs. I've had a lot to think about this month and contemplating big things on my runs seems to be helping me keep my calm.

Excuse the blurry. Silly camera.

Today's run was an easy 3 miles. The temperature didn't get up to 50* like the weathermen were saying, but it was around 43* and cloudy when I went out (still awesome, though). Since the temperature was borderline and I didn't feel like dirtying my last clean long-sleeve tech shirt (I don't want to do laundry until Sunday!), I pulled out my nifty new Pearl Izumi thermal arm warmers. Finally I got a chance to try them out! :) It was weird knowing that I only had to run 3 easy miles today since I've been running 4 miles so often lately. Like I said the other day, I'm tentatively training for a 7k in March instead of just working towards a 5k. It'll be interesting to see how much this difference affects my 5k time for the Winterfest 5k next weekend (maybe a new PR?). Back to today. I decided, once again, to pace myself by feeling and to only look down at my Garmin when I heard it beep for each mile. I REALLY don't want to jinx it, but I think I'm getting halfway decent at this! My first mile was 11:33/mile. The second was 11:14/mile and the third was 10:43/mile. Total run was 3 miles in 33:29.5 (that's a 11:10/mile pace).  

There is ONE THING that bothers me EVERY SINGLE TIME I run outside. Garbage on the side of the road. It isn't so bad inside the village limits of our little community, but JUST outside limits, in the township, is HORRIBLE. Can't look down without seeing paper, cigarette buts, and cans. Every day I want to go home and come back with 2 garbage bags - one for garbage and one for recycling - and just walk that day's route all over again. Actually, I could probably double the amount of aluminum I turn in for cash at the recycling center at the end of each month. And, believe me, you can tell the difference between something falling out of an old garbage can and something that was thrown out of a moving car (usually beer cans around here). It infuriates me that people do this and that other people ALLOW this crap to sit in their yard. Have these people no pride in their lawns? Knowing this area, if I DID ever go out and start cleaning up the roadsides, someone would probably call the cops and say I was stealing or trespassing. Ugh.

Amanda at Run To The Finish is hosting a 30-Day Appreciation Challenge this month and I finally decided this morning that I would participate too. {HERE} is her intro to the challenge and {HERE} is today's post on the kickoff. Since I don't do as well with challenges where I can't set up mathematical spreadsheets to track my progress, I'm going to be loosely following the worksheet Amanda has posted in the kickoff post. For every day, I'll be completing a "Self Appreciation" and a "Who I Appreciate" prompt. The worksheet doesn't have as many self-appreciation ideas as days for the challenge, so I haven't decided if I'm going to stop after I've run out, recycle, or work on some of my own, but I have 3 weeks to think about that.

- - -

~February 1, 2012~

Self Appreciation:

I love my ... eyes. They're technically green, but there is a ring of gold on the inner-most edge of the iris and the shade of green changes kind of like a mood ring. Sometimes it looks more gray, sometimes more blue, and sometimes vividly green. They're seriously one of my favorite parts of myself. :)

Who I Appreciate:

A little corny, but I'm appreciating the crew of Ghost Hunters/ The Atlantic Paranormal Society tonight. Wednesday is new episode night for GH and it's always a welcome mid-week break. Plus, I've had some experiences of my own and hearing other peoples' stories makes me feel not so alone. Also, Jason is always posting pics and videos of his 3 Aussies on facebook and twitter and they never fail to make me smile! :)