2016.009: A Walk Down Memory Lane

Happy Weekend! How is everyone doing? We have lots to catch up on! How is that possible, you ask … I have no clue, but it’s true.

Rebecca and I have been slowly plowing away at our #runlovechallenge mileage. We’ve gotten in 3 runs together this week and will be running the First Light Marathon relay tomorrow. We ran 6 miles Tuesday at the Running Wild group run. We were planning to run Thursday evening, but had to change that to Friday evening because we got rained out.

We tried to step up our picture taking game Friday. We stopped for a few minutes to play around with the phone timer photos. Everyone else is majorly showing us up with their Instagram photos, so we tried to take it up a notch. We did better, but still not great. It doesn’t help that the majority of our runs are in the dark, which is not really the ideal lighting for pretty picture taking.

The good news is that I survived the first week of tax season. Ha. It wasn’t a bad week at all, but I was definitely worn out Friday evening. This happened …

I have gotten into a really bad habit of falling asleep on the couch (under a big pile of pillows and a large dog no less). It happens pretty much every night. It’s just so cozy and I get so sleepy. I woke up just after midnight last night. The struggle is real.

Speaking of cozy … These pants (by good hYOUman) are absolutely amazing. They are made out of what has to be the softest fabric ever. I got these when we went to Watercolor a few weeks ago and I have pretty much lived in them since. They kind of remind me of a really unfortunate (bright red) Aladdin dance costume that I had when I was about 7. Thankfully, I am able to put away those tragic memories and enjoy my cozy pants.

I have been meaning to share this wonderful snippet from Anne Lamott for a little while and the cozy pants reminded me …

“Can you put the scale away for a week? Okay, then how about 4 days? I have been addicted to the scale, too, which is like needing Dick Cheney to weigh in every morning on my value as a human being. Can you put away your tight pants? Wear forgiving pants. The world is too hard as it is, without letting your pants have an opinion on how you are doing. I struggle with enough esteem issues without letting my jeans get in on the act, with random thoughts about my butt.”

Love it! Now that I have completely gotten side tracked, let’s get back in line here. I was telling you about our #runlovechallenge miles. This morning we ran 8 miles with Daniel and some of his buddies. We are 52 miles into our goal of 214 miles by 2/14. It’s been fun running together more, but it’s definitely a challenge to schedule it (especially because we are trying to match at least some of our clothing at each run). Last night we pretty much went through Rebecca’s entire running wardrobe, so now I am up to speed on what our options are for matching! We might be in over our heads here.

We got home from our run this morning and I was planning to walk with my mom. We have a pretty set Saturday walk date set if she is in town. But of course, it was raining again … so. much. rain. One of my friends at work told me that she heard a saying, “What if whip nae nae is a rain dance and we brought this all upon ourselves?” How funny is that?! 

Since it was raining my mom and I decided to go the gym (where we could walk together on the treadmills instead). Speaking of treadmills, I forgot to tell y’all, but our treadmill is sick. Daniel was able to revive her for a little bit, but I think she might be on her last leg. I’ll keep you posted. So mom and I headed to the gym, a place that I must admit, I haven’t seen in quite some time.

It was such a weird experience for me. I used to pretty much live at the gym. I was there probably 6 days per week, but after Daniel and I met, I “quit the gym” (remember that Friends episode …). We just ran, so I didn’t really use the gym membership anymore. Of course it is the first week of January and so we walk in and the place is packed out. There weren’t even two treadmills together at first, which forced me onto this contraption.

The ellipticals of the olden days are no more and this machine was a little bit intimidating at first. It didn’t help that as I get up there and try to figure out what program I want to try to do, I tried to set my phone in the cup holder (which didn’t have a solid bottom) and it went crashing down, causing a really loud noise and lots of stares in my direction. I felt like such a newbie!

That really took me back … I used to dread the first week of January with all the resolutioners there, taking up all the machines and crowding the gym. How dare they? Well, my perspective on that has definitely changed now. It takes a lot of courage to decide that you want to start a workout program and get healthy. Good for you! Keep it up.

At some point in the last week, I got my January StitchFix box and I forgot to tell y’all about it. I kept one top and one pair of pants. The rest of the stuff was cute, but just so, so. I decided I could do without it.

Apparently January 9th is a big day. I really love the timehop app! It reminded me today that 6 years ago today, Daniel and I got engaged!

It also reminded me that 5 years ago today, I ran my first marathon!

Today was a little bit less exciting than those days, but it was still a good day. We ended the day by grilling out and sitting by the fire. I was pretty proud of our dinner. We followed the MyPlate guidelines (see previous post) pretty well.

Daniel is all about the s’mores. Ooey gooey s’mores. He saved some for later!

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m planning to get a good night’s rest, so that I will be ready for our relay in the morning. The weather is supposed to be great and I am running the really flat, (hopefully) fast 10K leg. I’m really excited!