Current Obsession: Gratitude Journal

In 2019, I have committed to a daily gratitude journal. According to my journal, I attempted to start it in February 2018, and abandoned the practice after one day. Awesome. I started it up again in late January, and my friend Courtney's posts about hers served as a daily reminder for me to record mine as well. Sometimes I can be negative, and I don't like that about myself. I find myself distancing myself from friends, co-workers, acquaintances that have black clouds hanging over their heads, and I want to be someone that people seek out for my positivity. I had hoped that looking for the tiny moments of the day that I am grateful for, will help me let go of the negative. So far so good. It's really a treat to have a huge long list some days, and to even have a handful on days that I wish I could do over.


So far I'm on a month long streak, and don't see myself quitting anytime soon.

Weekly Reads: Freefall

I had heard a lot of great buzz about the new novel Freefall so I was excited to get it from my library when it came out. It was a page turner! Told in multiple perspectives revealing little tidbits with each chapter, I could not put this book down. I told everyone I could about it as I was reading it, and you should read it too. I could totally see this being an insanely good movie. So read it before it gets optioned and the hold list at your library goes bananas. :P

My rating: 5 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

A propulsive debut novel with the intensity of Luckiest Girl Alive and Before the Fall, about a young woman determined to survive and a mother determined to find her.

When your life is a lie, the truth can kill you

When her fiancé’s private plane crashes in the Colorado Rockies, Allison Carpenter miraculously survives. But the fight for her life is just beginning. For years, Allison has been living with a terrible secret, a shocking truth that powerful men will kill to keep buried. If they know she’s alive, they will come for her. She must make it home.

In the small community of Owl Creek, Maine, Maggie Carpenter learns that her only child is presumed dead. But authorities have not recovered her body—giving Maggie a shred of hope. She, too, harbors a shameful secret: she hasn’t communicated with her daughter in two years, since a family tragedy drove Allison away. Maggie doesn’t know anything about her daughter’s life now—not even that she was engaged to wealthy pharmaceutical CEO Ben Gardner, or why she was on a private plane.

As Allison struggles across the treacherous mountain wilderness, Maggie embarks on a desperate search for answers. Immersing herself in Allison’s life, she discovers a sleek socialite hiding dark secrets. What was Allison running from—and can Maggie uncover the truth in time to save her?

Told from the perspectives of a mother and daughter separated by distance but united by an unbreakable bond, Freefall is a riveting debut novel about two tenacious women overcoming unimaginable obstacles to protect themselves and those they love. 

Current Obsession: The Office

Kyle and I started re-watching The Office around Christmas time. I was obsessed with the show when it was on until after Steve Carrell left, and Kyle and I don't have a ton of overlap in tv shows that we watch. So when he mentioned that he'd be up to rewatch The Office from the beginning I was very happy--especially because the earlier seasons are so freakin' good!

So if anyone needs me between now and six months from now, I'll be spending all of the spare minutes with my Netflix and Kyle.

Skedaddle + Fargo Half Marathon Training Week 2

Monday Planned: 7 GA Miles, strides and hill repeats
Monday Actual: It really started to snow in the afternoon and we got at least a couple of inches on top of what we already had with ice. WHEE!! But the temps were above zero so count me in. I ended up at 6 miles before my legs felt like they were going to fall off because they were so heavy from plodding through.



Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Rest

Wednesday Planned: 4 GA Miles
Wednesday Actual: 4.12 GA miles with the group run. So slow, uff da!

Thursday Planned: 8 Mile with LT portions
Thursday Actual: I started feeling a cold or something coming on Wednesday afternoon, and after the group run sucked, I opted to sleep in and not run Thursday (even though the conditions were perfection, ugh). I did go to POWER.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 Miles
Friday Actual: Rest day. -20 in the morning before work? No thank you.

Saturday Planned: Long Run 12 Miles
Saturday Actual: 12 mile long run with Melissa after teaching yoga at WoodGrain. The trail conditions were pretty decent, but I did slip and slide enough to make my right hip flexor pretty cranky by the last 3 miles. The temperatures were so comfortable with a handful of positive degrees!!

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: Recovery run 6.81 miles through a lot of snow.

Planned miles: 35 miles
Actual miles: 28.94 miles

Weekly Reads: The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise

Anytime Dan Gemeinhart writes a new book, I have to read it. He writes such amazing stories for grade school and young teen aged readers (and the mid-30s librarian readers who also pick them up). Also this cover? Perfection.

I got an e-ARC of The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise but didn't have time to read it before it came out, so I was excited to get my hands on the very copy that our library bought. I started it, and I couldn't put it down. It was phenomenal. And I lied, I did have to put it down when I knew I was going to be a pile of waterworks and was reading at a restaurant for lunch on my break. READ IT.

My rating: 5 stars

Summary From Goodreads:

Five years.

That's how long Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation.

It's also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash.

Coyote hasn’t been home in all that time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished―the very same park where she, her mom, and her sisters buried a treasured memory box―she devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive 3,600 miles back to Washington state in four days...without him realizing it.

Along the way, they'll pick up a strange crew of misfit travelers. Lester has a lady love to meet. Salvador and his mom are looking to start over. Val needs a safe place to be herself. And then there's Gladys...

Over the course of thousands of miles, Coyote will learn that going home can sometimes be the hardest journey of all...but that with friends by her side, she just might be able to turn her “once upon a time” into a “happily ever after.”

Current Obsession: 90 Day Fiance

I have another obsession to share with you all. It is the terribly wonderful tv show, 90 Day Fiance on TLC. I started watching at the start of the most recent season, as a podcast I follow, Bitch Sesh was raving about it. I was hooked. And then my hairstylist informed me that previous seasons were on Hulu. OMG.

So I basically caught up on a season a weekend, since you really don't need to be super focused on the show to still get what is happening. :P I have since paused a bit since The Bachelor came back on, and my training has ramped back up for my upcoming spring halfs. So I'll say see you later, not goodbye to my crazy, wacky friends until a recovery weekend, I guess.

Who else is obsessed with this? Favorite season(s)? I've yet to get into the spin offs, but I'm sure those will happen during long-long run recovery days. Can't wait!

Skedaddle + Fargo Half Marathon Training Week 1

Monday Planned: GA 8 Miles
Monday Actual: Rest. It was so frigid that I opted for a rest day and moved the run to Tuesday.

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: GA 7.51 Miles. I tried really hard for 8 miles but got scary cold and had to quit a little early. I ended up with bruising on my stomach it was so chilly. Yikes. Windchill was -14. Brr.



Wednesday Planned: LT 7 Miles with tempo portions by time
Wednesday Actual: 7.6 miles with LT portions. I accidentally had it in my head that I was supposed to do 8 miles, so I got really messed up with the turn around. It was super slick and snowy, so we opted to run run by effort instead of pace.

Thursday Planned: POWER
Thursday Actual: POWER

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 miles with strides
Friday Actual: Rest. I was considering going to a gym for a treadmill shake out run, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. So sore from POWER still.

Saturday Planned: Long Run 10 Miles
Saturday Actual: Long run 10 miles with Melissa. It was snowy and slick, so our pace was nice and easy.



Sunday Planned: Recovery 3 Miles
Sunday Actual: Since I skipped Friday's recovery miles, I set out for as many recovery miles as my legs felt comfortable with. I ended up with 6.55 miles through the snow!



Planned Total: 32 miles
Actual Total: 31.66 miles

Race Report: Frostbite Four

I have been waiting to post this, as I was hoping there would be some photos of me from race day, but it appears like they mostly got photos of the two mile and just the top speedsters in the 4 mile. Spoiler alert: I was not in the top speedster category. :P

Melissa and I got to Beresford around 10 a.m., and while I felt like I had light years of time in 2018, I felt super duper rushed. We grabbed our bibs, and headed out for a warm up. I had hoped for 2-3 with some strides, but we only had time for two. I debated about what I should wear for most of the warm up, ultimately deciding on a tank top over a light long sleeve and that was definitely the right choice. It was probably pushing 40 at the start of the race and the glorious sun was beating down on us. I wore capris, but definitely wished I had shorts after about 7 minutes of running.



The warm up felt ok, the strides felt great. We had time to grab a quick bathroom, and it was time to get on the bus. This morning is flying by! I had hoped that Melissa and I could work together; I knew she'd be faster than me, but I was hoping to chase her a bit. The plan was to start around 8:15 pace, and hopefully drop to 8 or sub 8 for miles 2-3. We were together for maybe the first half mile, right around that 8:15 pace. She left me and looked like she was out for a Sunday stroll, not like she was running that fast. I had hoped that starting conservative would lead to a faster finish, but my legs felt pretty heavy and blah from the gun.

Mile 1 8:18

Instead of speeding up in mile 2 for a much beloved negative split, I looked down to see that I was running around an 8:33 pace. EEPS! I put my foot on the gas and started to push and was able to drop the pace down to what my first mile was, but man I was giving a lot of effort to get there.

Mile 2 8:18

About the halfway point, I knew that there wasn't going to be a massive negative split happening, and I'd be lucky not to slow down considerably based on how I was feeling. I factored my finishing time to be around 33 minutes and was so bummed, as my original goal was sub 32. Gah. Luckily during this mile I gained on a small group that was ahead of me, so I wasn't running solo anymore. This helped me focus on something other than how sucky I felt.

Mile 3 8:18

For the final mile, I put on my power Eminem song, expecting my legs to just do their thing, as they've been conditioned to do in this song. Except they didn't. And then we turned and started going into the wind for the first time this race. Uff da. The 605 staff had a sort of informal challenge of boys vs girls with gender placings, so I focused on catching up and passing two females to help slightly. :P

Mile 4 8:01 (8:17 pace, my watch read 3.97)

I finished the 4 miles (or 3.97) in 32:54 just sneaking in under 33 minutes for a pace of, you guessed it 8:18. My heart rate monitor went wonky about halfway through the race, so I don't have specific data on that, but I can tell that through 2.3 ish miles I was working my tail off, which was my ultimate goal if the pace goal wasn't there.

Melissa and I continued for 2 more miles to cool down after the race. I had a flare up in my left rib with about a mile to go which killed during the cool down, but eventually loosened up and relaxed. Uff.



After the race, I was super bummed. I really thought that I was in better shape than this race showed. As I sat with it throughout the weekend, I realized that where I am with my training this spring is different from last year. This year, I needed to mentally take a break after Dallas. I knew I had an intense cycle from February to mid May, followed by another marathon cycle starting in June. Last year, I trained for a fall 10 mile and a late January half marathon. I was a lot more focused on speed, and we had a gorgeous November-January to train.

Last year I was in almost peak form in February, which is why I shocked the hell out of myself at this race last year. seriously. I think I ran 15 seconds/mile faster than my goal. That never happens! Unfortunately, because I was in such great shape so early in the season last year, my spring races suffered; I had an injury flare up in March and none of my spring half marathons really showcased the shape that I was in. I peaked way too early.



Hopefully this race shows that I'm right where I need to be with my spring training kicking off. I'd much rather sacrifice a 4 mile PR for a half marathon PR, or top 3 race time!

And it was a super fun day. There were so many of my running buddies there. Lots of 605 Running Co. friends, SFWR friends, some of the athletes I coach. And my running besties both got PRs. So it was fun and I'm glad I did it!

Race Goals: Frostbite Four

Tomorrow is the Frostbite Four race. Last year was my first time participating in the race, despite it being on my radar since 2009. Who wants to run a race with the word "frostbite" in the title?? Brrr.... pass. But last year was a blast, and I'm excited to do it again this year.

Last year, I ran a PR in a really strong race time of 32:20, a pace of 8:05. I was thrilled with my race performance, especially after a disappointing half marathon the weekend before. This year, I'd really like to snag another PR. I've given myself a bit of an off season since the Dallas Half Marathon, but the amount of miles I have in my legs this year is an additional 1400+ than last year. I did one speed session on a nice day two weeks ago, and I was pretty thrilled by the paces for that.

With that being said, my goals for the race are:

A Goal: Sub 8 pace. Eeps. This seems speedy, but would be a huge confidence boost going into spring half marathon training.

B Goal: Sub 8:10 pace. The weather won't be nearly as nice and perfect as it was last year, so if I land close to last year's time, it would still make for a stronger performance.

C Goal: Run strong, whatever the finishing time.

I'm excited for tomorrow, and to hang out with running friends for the chili feed after, and hopefully see some 605 Running Co. folks take home some race winning hardware!