Houston Trip Part 1

The sun was shining for the first time in ages as I was awaiting my flight to Houston. Go figure.

Jenn was super duper clever and brought this instead of a sign baring my name to the airport. Loved  it!

And upon arriving at their place I had this adorable sign waiting for me, along with some delicious beers. #mrskenyonhosts

Luckily for me, we were reasonable adults and went to bed early this night. And solely this night.

Three cheers for a dinner full of burger and carb deliciousness. So necessary.

And then things started to get out of hand.

But in a deliciously bubbly way!

And then, as if by magic, this gal showed up around midnight! And then we failed to go to bed until 4am. [insert death emoji here plz]

Weekly Training Recap

After a weekend of excess, it didn't take much for Jenn to convince me to come with her to back to back classes. And then we got yelled at for Jenn signing me up for an intermediate class, when a certain amount of intro classes are required. That did not help me being concerned about dying. Luckily I did survive.

And then we went to a power vinyasa class. I was super ready for food when we were done.

  

 Tuesday she tried to kill me again, and took me to another double, this time a barre class, followed by another rev class. The cycling class was easier and only 45 minutes, but my legs were still super tired from the night before.

 Wednesday morning, Jenn and I practiced our handstands and headstands at her place.

I got home Thursday night, and was excited to head back to my yoga studio on Friday for a power vinyasa class. It felt super hard, and my body felt dead and weak. Blech.

Sunday I went to a power vinyasa class before work. I felt a little stronger than Friday, but my body still feels all out of whack.

 

Spring Race Plan

After a very lackluster running schedule, I opted to DNS the Houston Half Marathon. Bye bye $$$. :( Given how painful the Bemidji Marathon was while fairly prepared, I can only imagine how brutal a half marathon would be given my current running base (little to nothing). I'm truly enjoying yoga all day everyday, so I'm going to continue with that and run when I want to.

With that being said, my plan for this spring is to start back at the beginning (kinda)! Whenever I've "got back into running" I've always focused on a 5k race to shoot for. I know I'm doing great things for my body and my future running self, by strengthening areas that have given me trouble (glutes) and gaining flexibility in others (uh, everywhere, but hips especially). 

While I'm going to continue to go to yoga classes as much as humanly possible, I'd like to also start with shorter runs, lower weekly mileage, and re-introducing speed, essentially working from the ground up again. I'm hoping that by keeping my mileage low, and my goal races shorter, I can really work on keeping my form in check and find a balance between all the yoga and running.

My plan for this spring is as follows:

• 1/31/15 Frostbite Four (weather permitting). I've always wanted to run this race. It's a 4 miler in a town about 30 minutes south of me. They have multiple race routes plotted out and choose the route the morning of the race based on the direction of the wind. I think this race would be a good baseline indicator for me on a hard effort 4 miler. If it's ridiculously cold, I'll probably just go to a yoga class instead. Let's be honest. :)
• 3/14/15 Free Rebel Run 5k. I ran this 5k last year and had a blast. It's free/donation based and on one of my favorite parts of the bike trail. This is my first "goal" race of the spring. "Goal" being a loose term, but I'm going to attempt to add running back into my routine 3x/week with one speed session with a speedy-ish 5k time on this day as the game plan.
• 6/13/15 Harrisburg 10k. I love 10ks and look to have a crazy busy spring ahead of me as far as weekends are concerned, so this would be my next weekend free (insane!) in which there's a race nearby. 
• 6/19/15 Longest Day 10k (?). I have this Friday off, so if it's not a trillion degrees I may head up to Brookings and convince Megan to come run with me. :)
• 7/4/15 Firecracker 10k/5k (weather dependent). I love this race. I ran my 2nd fastest 10k there last summer. But I've also ran my 10k PW there on a hotter/more humid day. If it's gross out, I'll only make myself suffer through 5k. 
• 9/13/15 Sioux Falls half marathon. Shortly after the Firecracker race, it'll be time to start training for my 11th consecutive Sioux Falls half marathon! Wouldn't it be neat if taking things slow and steady all year long lead to a breakthrough race in September?? I wouldn't be mad... ;)

So obviously a spring marathon is out of the cards, as I had previously mentioned that Grandma's Marathon might be an option, and maybe 2015 will be the first year since I started running marathons that I won't toe the line for 26.2 miles. We'll see. There's still a little time that one could be snuck in if I feel the itch! :)

Yoga Wish List

With a new "sport" and passion comes a new wishlist of MUST HAVE items. I've invested in a couple of new pairs of lululemon capris from their *we made too much* aka sale section, but if i had an unlimited shopping budget, I would include these items.**

This hat has been in at my yoga studio on two separate occasions, and both times it has sold out before I was in. Considering I go to class almost daily, THAT'S RIDICULOUS!

I screenshot a pic of this tank in my IG feed one day, only to later discover it's from spiritual ganster. Love.

Love. Minus the fact that it's sold out in everything but white. I'm not about to have a wet white t contest while getting my yogi on.

I would wear this saying on most anything. Sah cahute.

Every time I see a post from dharma bums, or any yogi wearing these pants i creep over to the site to see if they might be on sale. They're just so very jeri.

I recently got my first pair of leggings from Teeki and they are the softest material I have ever felt in my life. I want everything I touch to be made of this! Buffalo Princess - Love the Elephant (Susan!) -

**I'm not being compensated in any way for this post, I just want to share some cute stuff!

Spring Book Excitement

As a librarian (in-training, technically I don't have the official title, someday!) I have access to advanced reader copies of books to read, provide feedback, and promote through readers advisory interactions with my library customers (and all my booknerd friends, hi guys!). This is awesome because I get to preview awesome books I'm super excited about it, but this also means that my to be read stack of books is mountainous.

I figured it'd be swell of me to pass along the mountainous list of books that are high on my radar so you can either buy them (affiliate links if you want to contribute a nickel or two toward a future race fee) or put them on hold at your library and get your hands on the copies as soon as your library has them available.

The Darkest Part of the Forest is Holly Black's newest book. Her books are always dark and eerie and oh so delightful.



The Alex Crow is the newest book by Andrew Smith. If I could read a new book by Andrew Smith every month, that wouldn't be frequently enough. Can you just stop sleeping altogether to keep up with my demand, Andrew? kthx.


  All the Rage. I read a zombie apocalypse book by Courtney Summers, so I'm pretty excited to dive into her newest one.



Author of Water for Elephants's newest book At the Water's Edge is out in April and it's being described as the Scottish Downton Abbey.



  More Happy Than Not is by a new author (to me) but has been touted as a cross between Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and something else. To be honest, it had me sold at ESoaSM.



  I always dig Sarah Pekkanen's books for a good light read, and typically want to move to whichever locale she's describing, I'm sure Things You Won't Say wont' disappoint me in that regard.



Fear thee not, I'll do full reviews on these (and many many more) as I get them read, so check back to see if they're as great as I'm expecting!

Weekly Reads (LIstens): The Martian

I hard a lot of buzz this past fall surrounding debut author Andy Weir's book, The Martian. It immediately went on my to-read list. After seeing a library school classmate's review of it on goodreads, it got bumped up to the top of the list (her comments were that it was way more than she was expecting and super FUNNY!). I'm sold, thanks. I got a hold of the audiobook copy and didn't look back. I normally only listen to shorter audiobooks because I lose my attention space and get bored, but I loved this one. I found myself sitting in my car before going somewhere or hanging out there for a couple of extra minutes after I've arrived just to listen to a little more of the story. And my classmate is right. It is FUNNY. Like ridiculously so, and I wish that Mark Watney and I were besties.

My rating: 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive?and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills?and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit?he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

Weekly Training Recap

I started the week with a gentle vinyasa class. I thought the picture below was fitting for all the snow that was forecasted to hit later in the day.

Tuesday I woke up super early and went to power vinyasa yoga. This picture will continue to make me lolz for all of eternity.

Wednesday I was sick. Blah.

Thursday I worked a later shift, and was still feeling under the weather, so I slept in as late as possible, skipping any classes. See above photo.

Friday I had the day off, so I met my co-worker Emily for power vinyasa yoga. We worked on crow, and it was a blast.

Saturday I worked so no yoga for me. harumph.

Sunday I woke up and met Emily for more power vinyasa. We worked on mermaid pose, which is one of my favorites, despite having tight hips.

 I wore my new teeki leggings, and when I got in my car after class, I was smokin'! 

Sunday after watching the Packers play to a victory, I went to my weekly butt kicking yoga sculpt class. We seemed to focus primarily on arms and squats. One of our cardio sessions was pure torture, in which we listened to the song Thunderstruck, and every time they said Thunder we had to do a burpee, and then we did different types of cardio for the rest of the song when they weren't saying Thunder (which was rarely). Uff da. That was a work out.

2014 By the Numbers 1,115.5

I apparently didn't do this post for 2013, but here it is, revitalized for 2014!

Miles ran:  698.1

Miles away from my goal:  0. I didn't actually set up, just that it'd be more than 2013, and it was! Despite taking most of the year off after the Bemidji Marathon.

Miles away from last year's mileage:+98.1
  

Miles per week average: 13.43

Miles per month average:  58.18

Total number of runs: 111

Miles per run average:  6.29

Time spent running:  about 4.5 days

Marathons: 1

Times I dropped from the full to a half after registering:  0!

Half Marathons: 6

10 mile: 0

10K: 1

5 mile:  0

5K: 2

3k: 1 (accidentally)

1 mile:  0

PRs accomplished:  1.  Auto PR whoop whoop!

Pairs of shoes purchased: ?? No clue. I've been stop piling shoes for years now, so I'm not sure which ones were actually purchased this year.

Hotel nights booked:  5

Flights taken:  1

Race road trips taken:  5  

Number of runners met: 7-- a group of gals at group runs for 605 Running Co and Janna who I was literally running into at races and group runs all over the place! AND Kristin in NYC!

People I'm still bummed I didn't meet: I don't think I had any missed opportunities.

Runner BFF Race Weekend Reunions:  0. Not acceptable.

States crossed off my "run a race in every state" list: 1. New York.

Awesome Race Photos garnered:  2--Only a couple from Bemidji, but they were FREE which was awesome. My mom snagged lots of good ones though!

Dear God I can't believe you'd post those race pics on the internet:  0... that I can remember. No since in digging and proving myself wrong.

Cute boys encountered on the bike trail:  0.

Number of marathons I wanted to DNF halfway through: 1 of 1.

Number of times I was proud of my racing efforts:  5 out of 10. Not bad.

Number of times Kyle ran with me:  0

Number of times my mom ran with me while I was racing: 2! 

Miles biked:  145

Hours of yoga classes attended: 33

Hours of barre classes attended:  4