1 year left till the dirty 30...

Tuesday I turned 29. As a single gal I've always feared this birthday because its a constant reminder that I'm no where near starting a family and when I should be 'settling' down, I'm still out having fun. It's taken me a LONG time to finally adopt the mentality that my life is freakin' awesome without a man or a child, but I finally have arrived...

• In 6 months I will have finished my 50 state quest- forget the running aspect of it, very few people get to say they've been to all states, let alone by the time they're 30. 
• Although we have some distance between us, I have such a supportive family who will drop anything if I should ever need it. 
• I have a great job with plenty of opportunity, and even found out on Monday I got a promotion.... makin' that chedda! My co-workers make me WANT to go into work, and oddly enough, I miss them when I'm on PTO. 
• I live in a great city filled with tons of music, good beer, food, and entertainment... but not only that, some GORGEOUS views for my runs (could do without some of the hills) 
• I have different pockets of friends, but over the last year, I've really gotten out of my comfort zone to expanded my social circle. 

I always dread my birthday because I never do anything that great and it kind of feels like just a different day. I'm proud to say this was HANDS DOWN the BEST birthday of my 20s ASIDE from turning 21. 

Over the weekend I joined  my gf Emily and all her friends for a 3 night / 4 day weekend trip in the mountains accompanied with white water rafting on the Ocoee River which is outside of Chattanooga for the first time... memories to last a lifetime. 

The ladies...

(yes i'm the only one rocking the $5 water shoes)

The Men...

The Group before... 

Getting ready to head out

Soaking wet after

I only knew Emily and her husband prior to trip, but by Sunday we were all throwing around inside jokes chumming it up- cannot wait till I can hang with them all again.

Came into work on Tuesday and my desk was all decorated complete with a tiara and crown waiting for me

Got tons of different treats throughout the day... the 'cupcake' was actually pineapple dipped in white chocolate, milk chocolate, and sprinkles... genius

After work I headed to my fav rest / bar for some drinks and dinner-- 1st round of Christmas in your mouth shots with B!

Photos with my fave country gals

Me and the roomie

Me and the old roomie

And probably the most hilarious gift I've received in a few years... a bottle of fireball whiskey. Basically over the weekend in cabin if you lost in your game of beer pong you had to take a shot of fireball. I took it like a champ and even willingly finished the bottle (and i don't normally do liquor, but it goes down so smooth) 

At the risk of sounding cheesy, looking back on these last few months there has been so much fulfillment / love / happiness back in my life. I'm in a place of contentment and I just know big things are going to happen for me before I turn 30. I know they say life begins at 30, but I plan on squeezing as much experiences as I can from my 20s before that happens!

Do you have a favorite birthday?

being that its the summer, most birthdays I've had, friend are always out of town on trips. it was nice to get everyone together and just goof off without having to go downtown/ clubbing / getting out of control 

Celebrating 'Merica

Despite my 'once a week' blogging, there is some actual running going on. I like how people re-cap what they did for week, so in the spirit of keeping me accountable- I'm going to start doing the same on Mondays. (I realize today is tuesday) 

Monday: Bootcamp followed by running with Fleet Feet- 4 miles

Tuesday: Fleet Feet Speed work at the track- 1.25m warm up, 6 400 repeats with 1 min rest in between, 1 mile cool down 

Wednesday: Barre fusion class--- helllllllo hips and abs 

Thursday: partied it up 'Merica Style 

Friday- It stormed thurs - sat, but somehow I did manage on Friday to squeeze in an 8 miler, but I didn't know where the sweat ended and the rain began.... I was a drowned rat. 

I was so excited that the sun was out and shining on Sunday I declared it pool day and skipped my run. 

Despite the rain, I had a really good 4 day 4th of July weekend- no races, just drinks, laughter, and friends. Nashville is ranked  in the top 5 firework shows in the nation... who has never seen them? This gal! I HATE large crowds and downtown is a nightmare, so I've always avoided them. This year my gf Emily threw a party in her condo which is located  in a trendy young professional area called "the gulch". You could see the fireworks from her back yard--- apparently rain + fireworks = LOTS of smoke, so they were hard to see. 

Playing around with Emily's belly dance props

look at all that smoke 

All night Nathan kept hitting on me and calling me his gf and by the end I was getting lap dances and he kept trying to sit on me--- for whatever reason I wasn't annoyed and found it humorous. This pic captures the essence of it all.

Even though I didn't run ON the 4th, I did get some use out of my awesome USA procompression socks

A bunch of us ladies carried on the celebrating the next night and went on the town


Saturday more drinking ensued with the roommate, bf, and his friends. After 3.5 years, we finally joined the beer club (UFO club) @ Flying Saucer- goal is to drink 200 beers over course of time- only allowed 3 diff beers to count a night. No cover at the bar, shirt, and once you hit 200 you get your name on a plate hung up and can throw a party and invite your friends to watch them put your plate up. you do also get little gifts along major milestone numbers. It will be YEARS before i finish, but thats okay


Once Sunday hit, I was BEERED OUT and just needed the lazy day at the pool.

Despite my low mileage week and more partying than I'm used to- my body just needed a break. My calf feels great and even though I felt like death the past 2 days running, that was attributed to humidity and not my body rebelling. Summer is officially here so I better get used to these temps QUICK 

Is that a tube of Nuun in your front pocket??

Since the Franklin 1/2 marathon (up until yesterday) I ran once. I wanted to rest my calf, + we had a large conference in town last week where all our remote colleagues in our Direct to Employer Market came in for training. I was co-chair of organizing said training and MC'ed the whole thing, so needless to say, last week was a blur. I did manage to lead a group run Wed morning-- they asked for something scenic and hard, so I took them to Dave Ramsey's house... man I have a love/hate relationship with that route.

Only 3 of us wanted to pose with his house

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Last night I went to our Monday night fleet feet crew and managed to do all 4 miles WITHOUT taking my shirt off--- quite an accomplishment as of late considering I can barely make it a mile anymore before stripping. Afterward we stuck around for Nuun Trivia. Ok so they didn't ask ANY questions about Nuun, but the Nuun rep was hosting and the winning team each got a Nuun pint glass with 2 tubes of Nuun, some gift cards to Fleet Feet and the bar we always run at, as well as the grand daddy of a prize, the large Nuun trophy. 

Leah and I have our "wall of awesome" in our living room (aka where we have both of our medals and trophies) so we REALLY wanting to add this to our collection.  The team with the most creative name won a prize (hence the title of this post), but they said in the words of Ricky Bobby "If you're not first, you're last", so 2nd place in trivia got diddly squat. 

Apparently we suck at movie trivia and song lyrics when they are read out loud in a monotone voice, so we got 2nd- wah wah. I would like to note that one of the questions was "Which state is known as the equality state for being the first to allow women to vote"- With 100% confidence I told my team it was Wyomming and we were the ONLY team to get it right... traveling for half marathons across the country, finally paying off- BOOM

We happily took all our tubes of Nuun and oh so maturely posed to represent our team name (only Leah and I didn't have front pockets so the chest area was just as good)

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This morning was my first official day of speed work group training. Last week it kicked off with a 1 mile time trial to base the rest of your workouts off of. Due to training mentioned above I wasn't able to amke it so I had to do my time trial solo on the track Sunday morning. 6:01 was the official result which is kind of funny considering that is exactly what I ran last year when I was curious how fast I could do 1 mile. I'd like to say that it would be cool to break 6, but honestly... when am I ever going to run just 1 mile, therefore I'm happy with my time. 

Today called for progressive 1 mile warm up, some drills, then 8 400 repeats  at your designated pace with 60 sec of rest in between. My repeats were supposed to be 90 sec... yowzas. First one I went out too fast which is pretty typical for most- 82 sec. The next few were spot on 90 sec, and naturally the wheels came off and I was averaging more around 94 / 95 sec. 

I haven't been so happy to finish a workout in a LONG time. Thankful I brought my sweat rag. Saucony was there to sample out lighter shoes (they had my beloved mirage 3s), but since you can't get much lighter than the virattas, I just wore them and they did just fine. 

I'm hoping over the next 10 weeks my love for the track will return, but as of right now, I still dread 400s. 

Do you have any favorite track workouts?

"back in the day" i used to love 300 repeats bc it was just enough to sprint it all and not get as winded in 400. I'm pretty sure they would suck now.