Happy Halloween!

LOVE this holiday as dressing up is always a nice break in the routine! I'm a big fan of Halloween Homemade costumes. Since I've been in Nashville....

2010

chick from dodgeball 

2011

Princess Lolly (Candy land) 

2012

Gilly from SNL 

2013

Monday's Run Group Costume run

50 Shades of Grey and Lady Godiva 

Today at work 

The leg lamp from a Christmas story (the lamp is a staple at my desk)

What is your favorite costume?

Most creative / homemade?

Bourbon Chase Relay- perspective from a team in last place

  The Bourbon Chase  is s a relay I've wanted to run for awhile now because fun fact, years ago our CEO and several colleagues ran it, had so much fun that they decided to bring a relay to Nashville- we partnered with Ragnar and Ragnar TN was born. Lots of the people in my department were part of that original team, so I've always heard great stories and seen the most picturesque photos.

Last year I captained a team to run BC, KY and the Jellies,  however due to some unfortunate circumstances, we had to pull out the day before the race. This year, my co-worker, Kelly, asked me on a whim 1 week before BC if I would be interested in taking the place of an injured runner, naturally I  happily  obliged at the opportunity to FINALLY get this race under my belt and tagged along for the ride.

I've waited awhile to write this recap, not because I'm lazy or busy, although both are contributors, but more so because unlike Sarah Oual's recap, I did not have that #epicrelay experience. BC dropped the ball HARD when it came to time assignments, thus we spent a large % of our time battling back and forth for the last runner position through the exchange- many times coming through after all the festivities had ended....

To be fair, there was some great organization / concepts that BC got right, so in the most objective / try not bitch my pants off fashion, here are the goods and bads from team "Bulleit Train"

Good

• Every year they have a theme, this year was some type of hippe theme- It was tied in with the awesome bib, long sleeve shirt, and medal--- HUGE wins in my book 

Long sleeve Brooks tech tee, tie dye peace medal 

• Date of BC changes every year- reason for this is it has to be held during a full moon. Lots of the roads are off the beaten path with no lights, so the full moon helps light up the sky. In both of my night runs I felt that I didn't need my head lamp because I could see clearly- unfortunately, this collage is the only photo I have to show the night sky- this is at 10pm - ish?

• Bourbon! I personally don't like bourbon, but it was neat to see the distilleries. Van 2 stopped at Maker's Mark, Four Roses, and Woodford Reserve (there might have been another distillery van 2 was supposed to stop at, however we were running an extra leg in our van so not all of our exchanges with the van were at the major points) 

Getting to sample 120 proof Maker's straight from the barrels- I almost gagged. 

There was free shots at Woodford, however, I had to pass them up as I might have gagged. 

• Finish line had a bourbon tent where you were given a wrist band with 4 tear offs- from there you could have a shot of 4 different bourbons from the choices they had. I was runner 12, so the idea of drinking bourbon immediately after running was unappealing, I gave my tickets away. **If anyone knows of a beer chase relay, count me in**
• Aside from the crummy weather (cold and raining on saturday) we ran through some gorgeous towns, fields, nature- everything. The only photo I managed to take was on our way to Maker's for our first leg

• I was able to see Elizabeth in her first #runnercomeback at Maker's. She was in Van 1 of the Nuun team and since this was the first major exchange,  she was waiting to pass off to van 2. Loved hearing about how her first leg went and am so excited for her to re-enter the world of running now that she's healed! 

The Bad

• Regardless of which relay you do, they all ask the same thing- what is your 10k pace? Based on your team average, they then assign you a start time. When Kelly originally asked me to join her team I said I couldn't because I had my go to market workshop till 1pm that Friday- day the race started. Her response was it wouldn't be a problem because our start time was 4pm and since we were in van 2 we were going to leave Nashville at 4. First thought, naturally, is that I joined a FREAKIN FAST team- she seemed confused and assured me they were just average pace---- umm we might have a problem?
• Get the email from team captain on all the pace times- 11 people total, 2 had paces of 9:30s, 1 a pace well over 10. The rest were 8s and 7s, not bad, BUT NOT fast enough to signify starting at 4. For those that haven't had your relay cherry popped yet (what are you waiting for), your team pace signifies what time of day you'll start. If it will take you a longer time to cover the distance you start early (their earliest start time was 8am), if you'll finish quicker, you get a later start time (latest start was 7pm). 
• Our 2nd runner in our van (leg 8) was the slowest on our team- no biggie we knew to wait longer. Her run was 4 miles and at 54 minutes with her no crossing through we start to get nervous. We chit chat with one of the teams at the exchanges, they started at 5:30 and had already caught up to us- gah! Worry starts to set in that we are going to get passed by everyone. Finally we get a call from our runner who got lost as one of the signs was removed from course. She ran an extra 2 miles and a van picked her up. One of the vanmates told her she ran last year and got lost on that very same leg. This happened again on runner 6's 2nd leg- got lost and ran an extra 1.5 miles.
• I'm runner 12- awesome. I get to run my FIRST leg at 1am... yup, 1am. I don't mind running at night, but this is ridiculously late to only have 1 leg down. I manage to pull off 5.1 miles in 7:30 pace. Both myself and Kelly had 8:30 paces projected, but we were trying to make up time and both managed to run 7:30s or faster to make up for legs that took longer than anticipated. During my run, I managed to  get HAWKED by not 1, but 2 people... this was in my first mile where I was a little ambitious and my pace was 7:02... needless to say, the faster teams were all pretty much caught up to us at his point. To make matters worse, my  team wasn't expecting me to be that fast so when I got to the exchange I had to wait over 3 min for them to get there- how annoying. 

The Ugly

• When we arrive at the next major exchange to sleep then gear up for our 2nd legs, the town was packed! Turns out they had two different exchanges around Centre campus (one between van 1 and the other was exchange 19 where we switched vans). After our failed attempt to sleep we emerge a few hours later to get the baton and it is a GHOST town. There are no teams around, just the volunteers. This is when our runner 6 got lost and ran an extra 1.5 miles on top of his existing miles. He handed off in 2nd to last place. We stuck around for the last place team who was only 1 or 2 min behind us and cheered for them... IMMEDIATELY they shut down the exchange once he went through. 
• Our runner (#7) got injured during his 6 miles and slowed down massively- we got passed by last place and were now the under dogs- womp womp. I offered to take his place and his finish his leg, but being proud he wanted to push through. We managed to get further behind and then the sweeper vehicle started following us. What is annoying about all of this, is we weren't running slow. We were on pace for 27 - 28 hour finish which although won't win awards, is less than a 9 min avg. 
• Lots of back and forths leading up to me, but on my 2nd run we were now 5th to last- woo! For my shortest run I planned on going all out to make up some time. 1 mile in I got chased by two rottweilers that caught up to me and starting nipping at my legs- just like in the movies, this Alaskan Huskie came out of nowhere and saved me, warding off the dogs. Traumatized, came to a fork in the road, no signs so I just kept left and hoped for the best. Shortly after I called my van to get clarification on directions- when they called me they said I took a wrong turn immediately after exchange (and how did no one notice and waited till I ran 2 miles to tell me???) I get deflated and say I'll run toward them but they need to pick me up and drop me off because its f**ing ridiculous that I'm the 3rd to get lost and we haven't been busting our butt to fall behind again. Run a total of 3 miles before my van gets there and another movie moment- dogs start chasing me again and I hop in the van just in time... not sure where the huskie was in that one. Basically the team agreed that since I already ran 3 miles that they would go 3 miles from the exchange and drop me off since we're not winning any awards here. Got dropped off right before the 1 mile to go sign (my leg was 4.3 miles) and then hauled ass- 2nd time in a row I get there and my team is no where to be found??
• This is probably the most ridiculous of them all: In our last round, runner 7 didn't know if he could run again (this would have been his 4th run bc he was making up for a missing runner) Since I'm 12, I volunteer to run the first part of his leg, get picked up, and he could finish it- again, not going for any awards. I walk to the exchange at Woodford Reserve waiting for van 1 runner and after a few minutes they start tearing down the exchange!!! I'm so annoyed at this point from the constant battle of not being last that I immediately go in to bitch mode asking why they are tearing it down as my runner has not come through yet. Turns out the way BC was doing it is they are just writing down teams as they come through instead of having a list and crossing them off. They ask my #, radio the previous exchange, then confirm that we are in last place. I tell them that is impossible because there is a team that we managed to get over 45 min ahead of and unless they cheated there is no way we fell behind.  They tell me that they started pulling teams and having them skip exchanges to 'catch up' and that our team should have been pulled an hour ago- instead they instructed me to just go ahead and start and to let my van communicate to the other van I left- they gave me an extra bracelet (baton) so I could use it at next exchange. 
• I leave (7 min before my runner arrives), tell my van what happened, then head off in hopes of maybe catching one runner--- seriously this isnt fun to constantly be 'behind' and made to feel slow, when reality is, BC just started us too late. I get maybe 3 min into my run and I'm just about to leave Woodford's campus when I get pulled over by a golf cart- they told me we were "so far behind" to just go ahead and skip this exchange altogether so we can catch up. WTF?!?! I wait till I get a full mile under my belt and call my van to tell them the ridiculous news. When they pick me up they inform me that although our runner 6 left the previous exchange in last, he caught 4 runners along the way, so those poor 4 runners were behind us and would have arrived at woodford to an exchange that didn't exist anymore. In the heat of our angst, we told one of the vans we had been back an forth with "i've got worms", what happened and they should just pull their runner and skip ahead too. (they got screwed and had a 3:30 start time)- They ended up following our lead as well. 
• Get to the next exchange, explain to the volunteers what happened and that were are just starting here- instead of him looking confused he just replied "oh ya, they've been doing that all afternoon!!"  RIDICULOUS. At the next exchange we caught up to a fellow Nashville team of familiar runners and they shared that teams have been told to leap frog all day (aka start running before your runner comes through) That was the last straw, we finally didn't care anymore and had discussed skipping some runs just so we could get to the finish line faster- we didn't but it was heavily talked about. 
• My last leg was 6.2 miles- uneventful, passed about 10 people (the only run I passed people on by the way) and we crossed the finish line at 7:27pm, pitch dark. The finish line festivities end at 8:30 pm (or at least that is when the bourbon tent closes), and there were still TONS of people behind us who we passed both in running and when we got to skip the exchange. I felt bad for those runners as I'm sure the after activities were shut down. 

I never thought I'd see what its like to be 'behind' in a relay, but it was terrible. I wouldn't mind if we were last because we were slow, but in the end we finished:

27 hrs 27 min and 2 sec. 
62 / 315 teams
28/190 in our division

I realize we got to skip a run, but it was only 5 miles- I ran 1 mile of it, plus we had 3.5 extra miles ran earlier in the relay, so in the end, we only really skipped out on .5 mile- thus I'm keeping our time. It should be noted that Elizabeth and Sarah's team Nuun team that started 30 min after us also finished 3 hours ahead of us... that is an example of appropriately assigning times. One of my best buds finished in 28 hours, his start time was 11:00 am.

Overall I do think Bourbon Chase puts on a great event, however something as small as the wrong start time can really impact the entire experience. The entire relay was a constant stress fest of hitting times, how can we make up times, worrying if we're in last etc, that it wasn't as fun as it should have been. In the end I would like to do this relay once more to get the negative taste out of my mouth, but please don't let my experience deter you from signing up!

Weekly Recap- Coming in Hot

Monday
Kettlebell class followed by normal Fleet Feet run. My legs were still sore from Bourbon Chase (still working on a recap) that I took the 4 miles easy. Turns out, running slow is more painful than running normal or fast pace- lesson learned.  Since I was still more sore than normal, I decided to take a rest from running the rest week so my calves and quads could be fresh for Friday.

Tuesday

Despite not running, I was still planning on doing the body combat class after work. Plans got diverted when I was given impromptu free tickets to our company box to see Nine Inch Nails in concert for that evening. I wasn't sure what to expect since the stereotypical NIN fan isn't the crowd I run with, but I was thoroughly impressed with all the lights and stage presence. 

Still can't believe they didn't play 'closer', as I thought that was a given. He did end the show with an amazing rendition of 'hurt', so at least I left happy. 

Wednesday

Another work out fell. Had plans to do kettle bells again, however meetings ran long and it was 5:30 before I was free (class starts at 5). Instead I met up with some colleagues after work for some carb loading at Mellow Mushroom, then came home to pack for Ragnar TN

Thursday

Left work in a large white van with 5 other awesome individuals and made our way to Chattanooga so we could get a good night's rest before our 10:30 am start time. I haven't laughed so hard in that 2 hour drive that I knew we'd be off to a good start. 

Friday:

Start of my 3rd time running Ragnar TN- team Leaping Fartleks... i'll admit, not a fan of the name

Weather on Friday was pristine- 40s and 50s. My first leg I OWNED the downhill and all but 1 mile were in the 6s. Naturally the speed and pressure of the downhill DID catch up to me and my 2nd and 3rd run proved to be difficult. Roughly after 19 miles in the books, I had issues walking afterward and even have some lingering calf tightness today. 

Saturday: 

Finished Ragnar in the fastest time for any relay I've ever ran- although official results aren't posted, I believe around 26 hrs and 45 min- not bad considering I didn't know our team would be semi fast. 

After the finish line celebration, teammate Sarah and I headed to the first Annual Volksfest (oktoberfest) to down some beers. No sleep + trying to get your money's worth of beer = hard to do

We spent our time sitting and people watching. Finally people watching paid off- as I was scanning the crowd I happen to look over at a group of folks and see a girl who looks re markedly like my grand-little, Sarah, from my sorority. I haven't seen her since 2006, AND she lives in Chicago, so to double check, I look at her facebook to see if there is any mention of a trip to Nashville. Sure enough she had checked in at Volksfest, so I went over for hugs and catch ups. I was so flattered that despite not talking in YEARS, she has been following all my race adventures on Facebook and knew exactly what I had left. She even has been updating her husband about me so he was asking questions as well. 

Obviously I posted this photo on facebook and the next day I get a text from my 'man friend' who saw this photo and proceeds to tell me that Sarah's husband happens to be his little... SMALL FREAKIN WORLD!

 I get home at 4pm, crash till 7, watch a movie till 10 or so then pass out for the night. 

Sunday:

Matthew (my roomate's bf) turned the big 3-2 so to celebrate we had entered in a big wheel competition put on by one of the local breweries, Yazoo. 

$20 for a team of 4 and it came with a free shirt to decorate AND a free beer + all the hilariousness that ensures in big wheel racing... count me in.  I can't tell you how many times on Friday and Saturday I heard people yell "coming in hot" at the exchange that it became a big joke. For those that aren't aware, it's basically saying the person is running really fast. I decided it would be fitting for my shirt. 

Leah and I after a beverage or two- lack of sleep and dehydrated body = cheap dates 

Testing out the big wheels before the bracket begins 

This is what determinatoin looks like folks

Not as much control as I anticipated while riding the big wheel- shortly after the start line you turn, go downhill around a keg then peddle back uphill. So many people took the hill and the turn too fast and wiped out- I did neither of those things. When I handed off to Michael the pedal came off, so naturally due to some technical difficulties, we got last in our heat. The announcer was nice enough to realize the error and let us proceed to the next round.... we didn't make it to the 3rd. 

All in all another busy but fun week. I'm still sore from Ragnar so I may take another day or so off, but since I'm RACE FREE this weekend, I won't need to rest up for anything. 

Have you ever ran significantly faster outside your normal pace and as a result were incredibly sore?

Anyone else ever ride a modified big wheel for adults??

Weekly Recap

I thought when I was done with my 5 weeks in a row of racing that life would calm down- still just as busy. Due to my sporadic blogging, a few people asked what in the world I'm up to that prevents me from being able to blog regularly. You asked, I delivered...

Highlights from the past week
Monday
5.5 miles after work to get in non traditional 'speed work' aka just run fast the whole time; 7:24 pace.
Kettle bell class after run
Last minute Lumineers show thanks to B at the famous Ryman (original Opryland venue)

Unless you are on the lower level and get stuck behind a pole, there really isn't a bad seat in the house. Its a smaller venue so it always sells out. Lumineers played 3 nights in a row of sold out shows. None of these photos were zoomed :) 

Tuesday

Work half day then  met up with the rest of my team since we were all in town for a workshop the rest of the week. Our 'team outting' was a Nashville Segway tour- yes please

This was all our first times on a segway, I had no idea its all based on your own body weight- lean forward go faster, lean back slow down. I gained a little too much momentum going down a hill and ran into one of teammates and fell off my segway... no big deal. I think the most embarrassing part for me was when I was doing circles and I got a foot cramp and had to hop off immediately and massage my foot. I got made fun of since I'm the runner in the group and my foot 'couldn't handle' standing on a segway... pretty sure I won't live that one down for awhile. 

Got home at 9pm, answered work emails / research till 11pm. 

Wednesday

Beginning of our  2.5 day "Go To Market" for all sales, account managers, and product teams to get together and collaborate  for the next year and learn all the new processes and such- exciting stuff, but exhausting.  Only workout for the day was wearing heels for 15 hours. 

After we were done around 7, met up with a friend for dinner and then crashed downtown. Today marked the first day I had coffee in 3 weeks and unfortunately it meant that I didn't fall asleep till 3am-- hating life. 

Thursday

All day Go to Market followed by our awards dinner and banquet. 

They decided to give away a $60,000 BMW at the awards dinner- anyone that got an award + the people they wanted to recognize each received a ticket- from there 5 tickets were chosen and those individuals each got a set of keys. One by one they got to go in the car and see if their keys started the engine. 

Jeff from our health plan market was the lucky winner- it was pretty exciting even for us non winners. 

Left my place at 630 am, got home at 10pm, answered work emails till 11pm then crashed hard. 

Friday

Finish go to market and say goodbyes at 1pm, race home to pack for Bourbon Chase Relay- yup been so busy didn't even post about how I joined a team last minute. Then raced back downtown to meet up with my van by 3pm 

Van 2 of "Bulleit Train"

Coming into the relay, I only knew Kelly who is in blue shirt and black pants. We had a great, but VERY frustrating time. I'll do a full recap later this week, but lets just say that due to being assigned a later start time than what our pace reflected, we were constantly going back and forth with being the last place team on the course (time was good, just the last through the exchanges) It was definitely a major fail on the Bourbon Chase organizers as we were not the only team to experience this. 

Saturday

ALL DAY Bourbon Chase... running with some bourbon mixed in.

 I was runner 12 and I crossed the finish line at 7:30pm... 7:27pm to be exact. We went and got our free bourbon, ate dinner, and left Lexington around 10:30 pm to head back to Nashville. I got to my place at 1:30am and CRASHED HARD since I didn't get a wink of sleep since Thursday night. 

Sunday

Slept in. Was supposed go to another concert and dinner with a friend but I was sore and my stomach was completely off leaving me feeling less than stellar. I cancelled all my plans and just lounged around all day. I managed to eat 1 bowl of oatmeal with fruit and a chocolate meal replacement shake all day and I wasn't the least bit hungry. 

Last week was go, go go and thankfully we normally do workshops once a year otherwise I'd go insane from being so busy. 

Have you ever ridden a segway? Easy, hard?

Ever been so pumped up for a race only to be let down?

Hawaii finalized and how government shut down postponed state #48

Last week was crazy highs, then lows, then highs again.
Wednesday was a HUGE testament to how when something AMAZING happens, there has to be a counterpoint to bring you back down to earth.

Let's rewind.

HIGH
Maui Oceanfront 1/2 is January 19, 2014. This is my last hoorah, the big 5-0 and my parents are coming along for support and to spend a week with me in paradise. Hotel booked for the Wailea Beach Marriott Resort....

Hotel down, next up, figuring out the flights. Flying to Hawaii is a science due to the time difference, where your layovers and connections are etc that I didn't really want to spend hours finding the perfect flight so I just called my travel agent I use for work trips.
Seriously within 5 min I had my flights booked with minimal layovers and for under $1,000- EASY.

I shared my itinerary with my dad and he wasn't too keen that I would arrive in Maui 5 hours before them and thought it would be nice if we were on the same 8+ hour flight into Maui. Unfortunately timing for me to sit jdown and re-work my itinerary wasn't a luxury I could have because I was leaving that day for work travel and I was swamped. I gave my dad my agent's number and sent her an email with the heads up my dad was calling to change a few things around and to just charge the fees to my card.

Long story short--- I get a call from my dad stating he cancelled my flight, re-booked to match my parents, and UPGRADED me to first class with them because "first class to Hawaii is where its at" according to him. Best of all this was my 'congrats you spent a downpayment on a house for your adventures and now you're done' gift. I was completely speechless that not only do I get to share this incredible moment in my life with my parents, but that they wanted to take the burden of the most expensive state off of me. I really do have an incredible amount of support from them. Needless to say I was on cloud 9 and left Nashville en route to Charlotte for work trip with a little spring in my step.
***************************

LOW
Merely a few hours later I'm waiting to deboard my plane & and am checking my email  and see a VERY disappointing message for the upcoming weekend ...

The first 8 miles run through a National Park- thus with government shut down causing all parks to be closed, race is a no go---- gah. I had a mini freak out and decide, no sweat, I'll still go and just run my own race of one and as long as its 13.1, that's fine. I don't have a lot of wiggle room, so I figure my racing, my rules this late in the game. I call my gf to let her know my plan and then she mentions that all monuments in DC are protected by security guards so the public can't view them, thus sight seeing really wouldn't be an option.

side rant: Let's waste MORE money by paying a bunch of guards to block monuments for potential weeks on end, while we furlough hundreds of thousands who aren't getting paid... makes so much sense. End rant: 

I've actually never been to DC before, thus I've been waiting for a race that is near my gf and DC so I could cross a state off and still get in a bucket list item of learning all the history of the district. After a lot of milling it over, I decide to go ahead and move my trip around and go out there in November instead of October, thank goodness I"m flexible as this is 1 day before I'm supposed to head out.  It was actually easy to do which brings me to my next point 

*** I cannot stress enough how much I've learned to book flights THROUGH THE AIRLINES ITSELF and not through the expedias, orbitz, travelocity etc. I still use them to find what the cheapest flight will be, THEN I go to said airline and book it.(so far its always been same price) I've had so many hiccups with  delays, missed, flights, etc and they won't always help you unless you book through them- case in point was leaving Montana, I didn't blog about it, but our flight was late leaving Billings and it caused EVERYONE to miss their connections in Denver and having to stay the night. I met a friend that weekend and we were on same flight back- she had to re-book her own travel and pay for her own hotel room because she did everything through a different site and not the airline, I felt so bad for her.***

My flight to VA was through Southwest, by far my FAVORITE airlines, so it was as easy as clicking 'change my flight' then choosing my dates, and I was done- bam! Virginia will still be state #48 since Oklahoma wasn't planned until week prior to Thanksgiving.

HIGH

Due to having a whole weekend at home in Nashvegas, I was finally able to experience a local pumpkin patch! (I've been to 2 now and they were in Louisville and San Diego) Although it was a sweaty, humid 85 degrees, still had a blast with the 3 mazes they had, hay ride, nature walk, COWS!, and watching the kiddos.  Guess switching race weekends wasn't so bad after all.. 

finished in 9 minutes instead of 15... ballin

Overall the HIGHS outweighed the major low, so I guess everything worked itself out! 

September in Review

I just love September as it signifies changing temps, leaves, and there are plenty of fests and activities to take part in. I will say that living in Nashville, REAL falls doesn't actually start till October / Novemberish considering it was still 80s all in September and the leaves haven't changed color yet, but still, its right around the corner!!

Total Mileage:  Is it sad that I was excited about 72 miles? It's actually the most miles ran since May... I rock.

Highest Mileage week: 23- working my way back up to 30

Races Planned / Completed: 2/2

Both races were states I'd never been too, both had the cooler running temps I so desire, and both left lasting impressions.

State # 46-  Vermont with my mom. 

State #47- Montana- a little TOO much fun for this race

 

New to Me: (Because you should always be trying something new) 

• Tried a different workout class twice-- Les Mills Body Combat- lots of kicking, punching, and sweating. First class I could barely move next day. After 2nd class I was barely sore! 
• Rode a camel 

• Both Vermont and Montana were 2 states I had NEVER been to before. 

Accomplishments for September: 

• Finished my 5 half marathons, 5 weekends in a row
1. South Dakota- Leading Ladies
2. North Dakota- Go Far Woman
3. Minnesota     - Women Rock!
4. Vermont       -  Maple Leaf 1/2
5. Montana       - Montana 1/2 (clever name) 
• Ran the first (and hopefully last) half marathon (and survived) hung over in Montana. 

Current Book: I barely can find the time to blog, let alone read for leisure. Work has been busy, but its just that time of year. I'm hoping in another month or so things will settle down.

Current Excitements/ Obsessions:

• Hotel AND flight is booked for Hawaii!!
• Figuring out what to be for Halloween
• Oktoberfest is this weekend. German culture, polka music, and beer- sign me up 

Current Songs: 

Obsessed with 2 songs right now. 

• For my everyday listening check out Vance Joy's "riptide" 

• For workout / running if you've been living in a glass bubble and haven't heard Avicii's "Wake me up" you need to add it to your list- great rhythmic beat for running. 

Current Treat

• In the midst of a cleanse so I can't do "sweets", but my home girl Marantha BLEW MY MIND when she created this. I may have finished 1/2 the jar in 2 days... maybe...

 

Current Goal (s):  

• Lose 10lbs; Currently down 3, so 7 more to go. 
• Build back up my running base

September Major takeaway:  With all the travel I had been doing the last 1.5 months, my eating habits got the best of me. Just because I run, DOES NOT mean I can eat what I want, when I want. First place I gain weight is my stomach, and after looking at this race photo, I realized I needed to be strict with myself again to get back on track. 

 8 days into the month and I'm down 4 lbs and 2 inches from waist.  For me, when I REALLY focus on my eating, exercise naturally follows suit... however it is not vice versa if I honker down on exercise, eating actually gets out of control because I think I've earned it. 

How was your September?

September overall was good. Once I got through my halfs, it was amazing to just stay at home for a weekend and be lazy. I was able to get caught up on MUCH needed cleaning, organizing, and wardrobe switch for fall. 

Any Major takeaways?

As always, trying to find balance.