Like a blister in the sun

First off, in case you're wondering my blisters are healing nicely so far.  Two of the original seven were under toenails, which have since popped and been removed, leaving a nice layer of new pink skin and a large space for a new nail to grow in.  The other five are living their best life as they make it through the final stages of blisterhood.  It's been a fun ride and we've been through so much together, but I'm more than happy to be saying goodbye to these little guys.  Hopefully I don't see you again soon.
Outside of the blisterhood of the singularly worn shoes, things are going swimmingly over here in the no run household.  Hahahaha, I'm kidding we were a no run household for a total of 4 days after the marathon before I decided to just wrap those bad boys up and join Ryan on a run.  We took the old Battle Road trail in Lexington, which is a lovely trail, for those of you who haven't been.  As I may have told you last year in this same blog, it runs through some great historic sights but also has nice natural views as well, history be damned.  (I immediately take that back, we need history, please disregard that last clause.)  I won't lie to you, that first run back was rough.  My knees and calves still hurt a little bit, so I was all about the walk breaks, but we still made it 5.5 miles total.  Not bad for a recovery run.  After that initial reintroduction to the run, my legs seemed to adapt fairly well, so on Monday I hit the trails in Lynn Woods for another 5 mile run.  Then on Wednesday I took a quick 3 mile jaunt around the block before track just to feel like I wasn't being super lazy.  Which I actually have been, because aside from those 13 miles, I haven't done a damn thing to work out since the marathon.  It's been awesful.  Yea, you read that right, I've combined awesome and awful to make a new word that really fits my lifestyle right now.  I've really enjoyed not doing anything but also feel bad that I haven't done anything, it's a daily battle really.  But I suppose I've had enough time off, so it's time to get back in the saddle, as they say in the biz.
Now, you may wonder WHY I need to get back at it, since I just finished what seems like a years worth of training.  I'll give you three guesses, but I bet you'll only need one.  Ready? It's because.....drum-roll........surprise, I signed up for the Disney Marathon! Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?  Alright, if you didn't, you've obviously never read this blog before, so welcome to your first post! I know it's not until next January, but I think this summer I want to try running more miles instead of running fast.  I'm looking at it like this: I already know I can run a sub-4:00 marathon and I know how I got myself there.  But is it possible that I could run even faster simply by extending and adding on more long runs?  Generally my training involves chunks of short runs, 13 miles or less, but mostly 10 miles or less for the majority of the week.  Then one day every few weeks I'll throw in a long run, 13+ miles up to 20.  However, I don't usually consistently do longer runs daily, or even weekly.  So perhaps if I can get in longer runs all summer more often I can decrease my marathon time by a few more minutes simply by the act of having a shorter distance to go when the time comes.  That's basically the training plan I use for my long distance track girls, on a much smaller scale, so why aren't I using it on myself? It's working wonders for them, so I suppose it's time to get on board with that one.
And another thing! I keep coming across other people's running blogs and I've noticed that a lot of these ladies tend to get free trials of great items to test and write about.  How can I get in on that!? Listen, if you're any of the following companies, hear me out.  Hoka, New Balance, Adidas, Tailwind Nutrition, Orangemud, and anyone else who wants to offer free trials in exchange for write-ups, I swear, if you send me your stuff, I will gladly put it through it's paces and report back on this blog as to what I think about the product.  You have a new pair of running shoes you want tested? Send them my way, I'll run in them and write up a weekly report, pictures included, if that's what you need.  Want a new Tailwind flavor tested? Send it on down, I'll throw that 'ish in anything! But seriously, you have stuff and I want it, so let's just agree to make this work for everyone and get me into your free sample trial tester groups already.  Ok? Cool, thanks, good talk.  Catch you on the flip, hopefully someday in my new tester gear. ;) In the meantime, here are two pictures from the week.

Always buy the small batch Polar, even if it is called Jalapeno Citrus Margarita. By the way, what does a nosy pepper do? Get's JALAPENO business.  (Sorry I don't know how to make accent marks with my keyboard)

This dog man...she thinks she's a human I guess.

An Ode to Shoes

My trusted and battle worn Adidas, I will miss you so.  Together we've run two marathons, 7 half marathons, and countless other short races along the way.We have logged well over 100 miles, you and I. You were the shoe I wore for my first half and my first full marathon.  We went through mud, water, sand, snow, and unbeknownst to me, other types of trash and dirt I'm sure.  From the highest hill to the lowest valley, together we conquered running.  You never gave up, not when you were water logged from 20 miles in the rain, or when it was so cold your laces were frozen together.
Shoes, you took me to new places and learned new routes, but you also joined me on the old home roads.  We went to Philly and D.C., Gloucester and Salem, Milwaukee and Waco, and yes, even a treadmill here or there. But you weren't just for running. Sometimes you got laced up for a dog walk, just because you could.  Your main calling though, your whole reason for being, your shoe-ness, if you will, was to run, and run fast.  And now, as your life as a running shoe takes it's final breath, know that you have fulfilled your purpose. You gave me the miles I needed, the support my knees deserved, and the style my vain side loved. Never again will a shoe as meaningful as you grace my feet.  So, with this, my final goodbye, I retire you, my blue Adidas marathon shoes, to the closet of dog walking shoes.  Know you go in good faith, with the love of my feet behind you, and the world of walking open to you.  Enjoy life in retirement.

Suiting up for my first half with my brand new shoes

Suiting up for my first FULL with my still new shoes

Will Run for Beer Series Finale: Summer Shoes

Wicked Half 2013: Fall shoes

Running with Stella: Dog shoes

Finish at Philly: November shoes

Today, the last day of their running career. 

Goodbye old friends.

In the endddddddddddddddd, it doesn't even matter

There's a throwback for you.  If you know the song, I'm sorry if it's now stuck in your head.  So, as I mentioned, Adidas was giving away a free entry into Boston.  I don't know how they decided who got it, or how they even contacted that person.  Today though, a retweet showed up from some girl in West Virginia, about how she's excited to run Boston thanks to Adidas.  I guess that's it then.  I mean, it's March 4, just over a month before the marathon.  The BAA is being super strict about bandit runners and non-registered people running, which is understandable, given the events of last year.  As much as I hate to say this, I might have to just let it go.  There's no charity team to get in on, no way for a bib this late in the game, as far as I know.  I've tried every outlet, knowing I wouldn't have the time required to BQ.  It just didn't happen.  You know, I'm sure there are 100s of people out there who would like to run Boston this year.  Maybe they have good reasons, maybe not.  Though I imagine that most serious runners have already found a way in.  Like I said last time, there are a hundred reasons I want to run Boston this year.  Unfortunately, I think I have to just face the truth and move on.  With disappointment in my heart and lead in my feet....

March...EEEK!

Thankfully February is OVER.  See ya later Feb.  What a month.  Seriously, filled with snowstorms, wind chills, and a lot of not running.  I'm glad to be out of it.  Now, onward to March.  Hopefully the weather warms up...a lot.  I'm particularly tired of trying to run outside and having to dodge snowbanks, ice patches, and winter in general.  Seeing grass and sidewalk again is an exciting prospect.
Along with the *hopefully* melting snow, we're also basically at the two month countdown to the big wedding day.  Tomorrow is officially two months, but who knows if I'll have time to update this then, so we'll just call it today.  The other elephant in the room right now is the Boston Marathon.  It's coming up next month and I STILL don't have an entry.  Believe me, I've been trying.  I attempted every charity who had spots open with no avail.  Adidas running has a free entry their giving away, all you have to do is tweet why you want to run.  You better believe I did that.  My problem there is that I can't possibly fit into 140 characters all the reasons I NEED to run Boston this year.  There's just too many.  In no particular order, here are a few.  1) Because of last year.  2) It's Boston, it's the dream. 3) BOTH of my running partners are running it and it's likely the only chance I'll ever have to run it with them.  4.) It would be the 3rd marathon in 6 months.  How amazing would it be to have that accomplishment in my life.  In short, there are 100s of reasons why I want to run Boston, if only I could have the chance!  Plus, anyone who reads this knows my love of Adidas running gear goes deep, it seems only fitting that I would be able to run under the Adidas spot.  Seriously, it's a match made in heaven.  If only Adidas knew that.
On another note, we went for a 10 mile run today, because yes, I'm still training for it, even if I'm not in it yet.  I'm trying to upload my Garmin info and it's taking forever.  What the heck is up Garmin?  I've had to download extensions, re-work all sorts of info, and I still can't get my watch to upload.  I miss the old site, where you plugged in your watch and it uploaded.  None of this Garmin Express nonsense.  In an effort to make this all easier, I connected it to my Google + account.   Turns out, it didn't make it any easier at all.  Seriously, these updates are taking forever.  I just wanted to see my splits!  Sure, they're going to be slower than usual, but that's because we run pregnancy pace now, to stay with Cynthia.  But I still want to see them.  Sheesh Garmin. Get it together.

Keep on running

I'll admit it, I haven't been running in a while.  A month, to be exact.  I know, I know, what the heck am I thinking?  Well, mostly, I've been thinking, I have no races coming up, what's the point?  Yes, that's a poor mindset, but that's just how it goes.  It's not as if I've been sitting dormant either.  I've still been going to boxing, even through Christmas break, so I've basically been keeping up with fitness, just in a different way.  The weather lately hasn't been great either, and really, who wants to go running in a polar vortex?  Ok, so some people do, but I certainly don't.  So, I didn't.  Today though, the weather was amazing.  A nice 50 degree day in January, you really can't ask for anything better than that.  So, after a month long hiatus, I laced up my running shoes and hit the beach.  I took Stella with me, because she looked like she could use a good run.  We went for a nice 5 miler up through Nahant and back down again.  At first, I was a little concerned that I had made a bad choice.  The wind heading up to Nahant was kind of fierce, even if it was 50 degrees.  But eventually I got used to it, and once Stella got her business done, we really got into our groove again.  My first mile was a 10:10 pace.  By mile 4 we were back down to 9:18, right around my marathon/training pace.  I know that I wouldn't be anywhere near that if I had skipped a month of running and DIDN'T do any cross-training (boxing), but thankfully, I was able to get right back where I started from.
So, there's thing thing going around the social networks called 100 happy days.  The basic point is that you're supposed to take a picture of something that makes you happy, one a day, for 100 days.  Supposedly, people that do this start to notice more about their surroundings and are just generally happier people.  I've been participating on Twitter, just because I liked the idea.  I think it's a bit tough to do the picture thing every day though, simply because there are some things that you just CAN'T capture in a picture.  For example, the smell of the ocean air when you haven't been to the beach in a while, or the way the sunset looks over Boston.  Sure, you can try to get a picture of the sunset, but it never comes out as amazing as it looks in real life, especially on a phone camera.  But, I've been finding other pictures to take the place of non-capturable moments that make me happy.  On my run today, try as I might, I couldn't possibly capture just ONE moment. The entire run made me happy.  Stella was having a good time, the sunset was beautiful, I loved being on the beach, and I loved running again.  I took pictures to use, but there was just so much more to it today, that I can never capture.  Maybe that's the point though.  In looking for a picture, I noticed so much MORE than the picture.  For a moment, I was able to look around and take in everything, including the (real or imagined) joy I saw on Stella as her ears blew in the wind and she ran happily beside me.  Since I couldn't pick just one image, I made a collage of our whole run.  By the way, if you aren't using Picasa for your photos, you are missing out.  That program is amazing. So, here's a collage of all the things that made me happy today.  None of these pictures do the sunset justice, but there you have it.  Day 9 of 100 happy days.

And now for something completely different.  (I've decided to adopt this as my own, thanks Monty Python!)
I've been looking around for a better body wash/face cleanser.  My skin isn't overly oily or anything, but I felt like the regular Dove Bodywash was actually giving me acne, which I didn't appreciate.  So, I went on a search for a product that a. cleaned well and b. smelled good.  Luckily, I found these two amazing products.
Neutrogena's Body Clear Body Scrub, which smells lovely AND scrubs clean.  I can already see a total difference and I'm positive that it works far better after a workout, than the regular Dove did. Sorry Dove, but for intense cleaning after intense sweating, I'm all about this scrub now.  Hopefully I don't regret this post in a week or two.

My other amazing product is the Biore Charcoal face cleanser.  I just read someone else's review and she hated it, but personally, I love it.  Once again, it smells awesome and it really seems to work.  My face seems so much softer and clearer than it was two weeks ago.  But, then again, like I said, I don't have overly oily skin, so I'm not sure it would work for everyone. Just thought I'd share this little review, you know, in case you're in the market for some new body wash/face cleanser.

I want to be a part of it, New York, New York!

This Christmas, as a throwback to our first Christmas together, Ryan and I went to New York City for the night.  The first time, we went down on Christmas day and spent the day looking around at all the Christmas decorations in the city.  It was nice because, being Christmas day, there were no crowds anywhere, including the ice rink at 30 Rock.  Even if we didn't go skating, it was nice to be able to look down and see the whole thing unhindered.  This year, we went down on Christmas Eve day and spent Christmas Eve/Christmas morning in NYC.  Unlike the year we went on Christmas day, on Christmas Eve night, NYC is PACKED.  At least, midtown is.  Where we stayed, at the Gem Hotel, down by 1st and 2nd, there was essentially no holiday cheer and you couldn't really even tell it was Christmas.  But, you could see Katz's deli from the hotel, so it all evened out for us.
Of course the first stop once we arrived was Katz's.  You really should get a sandwich from Katz's at least once in your life, if you can.  The pastrami is AMAZING. Buuut since the last time we went, last November,  I got a pastrami sandwich, I figured this time I would get a corned beef sandwich.  Bad choice.  Not that the corned beef was bad, it's just that the pastrami was better.  Lesson learned there. Next year, it's back to pastrami for me.  I will make a sandwich trip to NYC a yearly tradition, I'm 100% certain Ryan will have no arguments on that.  As a fair warning though, the sandwiches are a biiiiiiiiit expensive.  Worth it, but expensive, and they are cash only.  So, take heed before you go in.  To be safe, if two people are eating, bring at least $50 in cash.  Obviously more if there are more of you eating.  Then again, if you're not big into eating piles of meat, you can share one sandwich between two people and safe yourself a bit of money there.  Enough about the sandwiches though, I know you're DYING to know about the Christmas displays.
First, we decided to walk from the hotel to midtown, because, well, why not?  It was only 3 miles and, in the words of Ryan, "if you can run a marathon, you can walk 3 miles."  Point taken, so we did.  The walk wasn't so bad actually, even if it was a little chilly.  On the way we saw the Empire State building all lit up red and green, but I didn't take any pictures of that.  Sorry.  When we got up to all the good stuff, we checked out window displays and 30 Rock.  I really like the Lord and Taylor's window display, even though I didn't get any pictures of that either.  They had different scenes made out of cardboard cutouts, totally vintage and totally cute.  Bergdorf Goodman's display was all the different seasons, which was really neat.  Saks had a story of a Yeti, (apparently it's a thing), and a video that was projected on the side of the building every 4 minutes.  Rockefeller center was amazing, as usual, but so crowded we only stayed long enough to get across the plaza.  It was seriously over-packed.  Then on the way back to the hotel, we trekked through Times Square and stopped by Macy's to check out their display.
The next morning, we went to breakfast at a little bakery that happened to be open.  The food was nothing exciting, but we did get some red velvet cupcakes to go, which ended up being delicious.  We left the city around 10 am on Christmas day in order to get home and eat dinner with the family.  We unwrapped our gifts and wrapped up the night by watching Love, Actually.  Overall a great trip to NYC and a great Christmas.
If you were wondering what I got, don't worry, I'll fill you in now. If you're expecting me to tell you all about the new running gear I got, you're going to be highly disappointed, as I got 0 in the way of running anything.  Believe me when I say that's quite alright though.  Ryan got me an amazing bracelet and necklace set that I absolutely love.  I was really surprised by the gifts too, as I wasn't expecting jewelry of any sort.  The only thing I said I wanted for Christmas was a Jimmy Graham jersey, so to get a bracelet and necklace was completely surprising.  I'm doubly happy about the jewelry though because they're perfect for wedding jewelry.  Don't worry, there's a picture at the end of the post.  Ryan and I also got two camping chairs, which were straight off our registry, and perfect for the summer.  For now, they're hiding in the back of our closet though.  We also got a pizza stone (SCORE!), some baking sheets, and of course, a ton of gift cards. Oh yea, and back in NYC I bought a great new Adidas sweatshirt.  It's tough to find the NEWEST Adidas gear around here ever since the Originals store in Cambridge closed.  Anyways, today I decided to hit the after Christmas sales at Target and the malls and see if I could score anything.  Mostly I went for the wrapping paper.  My trip was a definite success though, considering everything at Target was 50% off.  I got the wrapping paper, some bows, gift tags, a cute little wooden Merry Christmas sign, and best of all, two rolls of FAT lights.  Then I went to the mall and got some workout clothes from Old Navy.  You didn't expect me to go shopping without getting at least something to wear during running/boxing did you?  Now I'm busy drooling over a pair of North Face boots that I desperately want, but really shouldn't buy.  But since this post has spiraled out of control, I'll just leave you with a thousand pictures, some from now, some from our first Christmas in New York, we'll see where this goes.  Enjoy.

Ok, the first two, I feel the need to explain. Having Picasa on my phone, I have my photos auto-backed up to Google.  As part of Picasa, there is a feature called Auto-awesome.  This feature puts different effects on pictures, depending upon the picture.  Sometimes it collages, other times it puts a burst of photos together to make them move.  In this case, it added snow and twinkles to this picture.  I LOVE this feature, so I had to share both photos.

Corned beef and pastrami. And a plateful of pickles.  TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Gorgeous jewelry set from Ryan.  LOVE IT!

Halloween - Bergdorf Goodman, or BG from here on out.

Valentine's Day - BG

April Fool's Day - BG

Rockefeller Center Tree

Macy's

My Target 50% off scores. (Well, minus the centerpiece and The Little Drummer Boy.)

Obv Frosty is wearing my Philly Medal

and the penguin gets the Marine Corps.

Nutcracker parade

Jiggity - jig

Awesome new sweatshirt.

And some from 2009.