Five For Friday

Bootcamp - Mon - Thurs at work we have bootcamp offered for free from 4-5pm. I generally try to make it once a week for cross training and have been decent about holding up to that for awhile now. Back in July / August work started an incentive program for different levels of shirts based on how many bootcamp classes you attend:

  Blue   shirt = 25  bootcamps

  Green shirt = 50  bootcamps

Yellow Shirt = 100 bootcamps

Adam was the first (and only thus far) to earn his yellow shirt, thus sparked a group photo of all boot campers who've earned their shirts- check out my "guns" haha.  There are a LOT more folks that come to bootcamp, these are just some of the ones that have earned shirts to date.

Falling in love- It's been a long time since I've been in a committed relationship with my running shoes... highschool to be exact, good old Nike Prestos. Since I got back into 'serious' running 3 years ago, I've been on a quest to find something that make my feet happy. Thanks to the surplus of fit fluential posts on the Saucony Virattas, I started to look toward them. As luck would have it, Bryan purchased some for himself, ran in them and PRed the crap out of his half thus further convincing me that this might be the shoe for me. I realize its zero drop and will take some getting used to, but I'm so ready for the challenge. They came in the mail today and I am even more in love with the colors in person (charcoal gray base, lime green, and hot pink...

You really can bend them in half with just your fingers

Currently my training runs are rotating between my Aasics gel noosas, Newtons, and Brooks Adrenaline--- unfortunately I run my halfs in the brooks adrenaline and they just feel clunky and blah now and I'm ready to say goodbye. The plan is next week I'll do a few short runs (3 maybe 4 miles) in the Virattas and see how they feel. If it appears they might have potential, I will go ahead and purchase the Saucony Cortanas as they have a 4 mm drop, were voted as one of Runner's World best shoes, and all the reviews I've read from folks who run in them raved about the easy transition---- fingers crossed!! 

Twins this morning :) 

St. Patty's Celebration- I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the culture of our company, but even more so my department. We randomly decided to hold another wine at five, St. Patty's theme, for today--- someone mistakingly forwarded the party invite to another department, so now we have over 50 people who are coming. Green wine + Green beer + Irish music + a few of us doing dancing + costumes = Amazing time. I hosted the last wine at 5, but I caved and said I'd bring mint chocolate covered cookie dough balls. 

Originally I purchased white chocolate and dyed it green, however it overheated and became the consistency of mashed potatoes... white chocolate is so finicky- i'd love to know any secrets you may have to melt it just right?? (I did one batch dutch oven style last night, and one batch microwave... major fail on both)


St. Patty's Race/ Bloggy gal weekend: Today I'm headed to HOTlanta after above mentioned celebration to meet up at Elizabeth's until Kim flies in at the awesome hour of 12:45 am and then we'll have all saturday to hang out before Jess comes in from her AL race (double header weekend) so we can run the Georgia Publix 1/2 on Sunday. Unfortunately Elizabeth is going to be cheerleading vs. running due to hip injury, but running or cheerleading, I'm just glad to finally meet her after all this time!

Alaska!- Last week my mom surprised me by letting me know she wanted to join me for my Alaska race. (State #42 I believe)  I chose July to venture to the far north as its a sucky month to race with the heat, it fit well into my schedule, and prices for air fare isn't bad. Douglas Island 1/2 Marathon  is the lucky winner, but unfortunately it doesn't look all too exciting... actually are any races in Alaska exciting?? We decided we will stay for about a week- arrive Wed, leave Tues, so definitely looking for fun stuff to do while in Juneau! (obviously take awesome photos of nature is a must)

How do you properly melt white chocolate?

I've been to add crisco, butter, wax, vegetable shortening to make it easier... not sure about the wax part. Did try both butter and vegetable shortening last night, major fail. 

Anything exciting that is a must see in Alaska in July?

I'd like to see a bear, a totem pole, and maybe go canoeing, but after that I'm clueless.