Weekly Wishlist + Hellish Hills

Wednesday night I hit the gym (because it's become beyond cold/wet/miserable here....again) and also because it's easier to do hill repeats on the treadmill.  I had a 2 mile warm up then 7x400 at ~5k pace.  I started with the incline and thought I was going to die, so I only lasted for 2 repeats, then 2 on 3.5, then the final 3 on 3.  This was WAY HARDER than the last time I did hill repeats, but I recovered really quickly from each one.  Weird. 1:43, 1:50, 1:50, 1:49, 1:48, 1:47, 1:44.  And then the gym closed so I could only do a 1/2 mile cooldown instead of a mile.  Rude.

Weekly Wishlist :  Dress Edition

I've been obsessed with finding that "perfect" spring-y dress.  Don't ask me why, because I don't have any spring/summer formal events to attend.  Whatevs.

Buy it here.

I love the marigold color of this.  It's just asking to be worn once I have a nice golden brown sun tan (with garmin tan lines, natch.)

I would like this dress to wear to go to tea.  Because that's what everyone in sodak does.  Formal tea time.

Buy it here.

Buy it here.
I don't think I love this one as much as I originally did.  I think the coloring on it is great.  Maybe an outdoor wedding, a slight breeze would give it a really fun flowy feel.  Ok, I've talked myself back in to it.  Non-existent outdoor wedding dress...check!

Buy it here.

Soooooooo soooooooo sooooooo pretty.  Obsessed.  I tend to think this is the color of my eyeballs so I'm drawn to anything in this hue.  Case in point, currently wearing a scarf in the exact color.  It's a pashmina which makes me feel uber snobby, but my BFFF in Cambodia sent it to me.  Sooooooo pretty.

Oh yeah, the dress.  I need to have this.  Like now.  I'll even wear it for a race if that's what it'll take to justify the $$ in my brain.

Weekly Wishlist + Hard Hills

Wednesday night I had a tough hill work out and for some reason I was actually jazzed to do it.  Who am I?  Since we've reverted back to winter, yet again, I was off to the gym for my time of torture.  After a twitter convo with The Angry Runner yesterday, she had suggested I try to wear my Kinvaras sans socks, as that's how they were meant to be worn.  I thought it couldn't hurt (literally) more than the bloodbaths of late, and decided to give it a try.  I must say, I felt a little weird being barefoot at my gym while changing in to my running shoes... but oh well.

I had a 2 mile warm up followed by 6 x 400 m. intervals with the incline at 4.  Incline at 4 = butt burn.  Did anyone run the 400 m. dash or perhaps the 300 m. hurdles?  If so, you know the very meaning of butt burn.  UFF!  Luckily it wasn't nearly to that degree.  I started out at a 7:30 pace and felt like I was going to die, so the next one I did 7:35, followed by 7:40.  Then I went back down the ladder.  I keep forgetting that my body ALWAYS feels like it's going to die the first go around at a tough pace, and that I should ease in to it better.  I'm sure if I had started that first one at 7:40 the rest would've been ok at 7:35 or 7:30 pace.  Oh well.

I finished up (and spraying sweat all over the treadmill and those around me) with a one mile cool down jog.  I also got in some fabulous celebrity gossip from the trash US Weekly mags (the real reason I wanted to go to my gym, let's be honest).  Oh and in between the intervals I walked ~.05 and jogged .2. 

The verdict on the shoes?  After bragging that I haven't gotten blisters in ions, obviously I got a blister.  But it was just a little guy on my baby toe (site of initial bloodbath).  Luke had suggested that the toebox may be too small, but I think it might actually be too wide, which is why my foot was sliding around so much.  I love the shoes though, so in Tim Gunn's words, "I'll be making them work!" 

And on to my weekly wishlist:

Buy it here.
I heart tea.  I usually drink a piping mug of it every morning at work.  Tea cups and saucers are just the cutest thing, and so is this ring.  Knowing me, I'd probably drink a spot of tea out of it to show off.

Buy it here.
This is my new motto, likely taken from Barney Stinson, what uppppppppppppp?!?!? 

Stripes AND sparkles?!?!?!  Where do I sign??
Buy it here.

Buy it here.
I love this cardi.  The bow ties almost make it look like an old school kite's strings.  Future librarian has to stock her closet with cardis, right?

I've been looking for something to be my "jumping off point" to inspire design in my kitchen.... I may have just found it....

Buy it here.

Has anyone joined pinterest?  I'm kind of obsessed.  It's similar to a tumblr page (from what I can tell) but way way way way cooler and simpler format.  You "pin" different images and categorize them based on for the home, wedding, fashion, style, etc. and other people can see what you're pinning and sharing.  Let me know if you're on it so I can stalk you.  Also, if you're interested, send me your email and I can send you out an invite.  (I had to wait 2 weeks for my request to go through for approval to join the site..... elite club I guess.... :p)  Visit me here.

Weekly Wish List + Hill Repeats = EEP!

Time for this week's installment of my Wish List.  As predicted, knowing I can't spend any money has wanted me to spend sooooo much money.  Luckily a lot of this stuff I found on modcloth for the mondo sale they're having, and the items were already sold out.  Phew!

Buy it here.

I've held out on buying a pair of boots.  These ones would've almost made the cut. Just not a fan of the heel.  Adore the excessive buckles though.

Buy it here.

Future librarian Jeri has an un-healthy obsession with cardigans.

Buy it here.

I'm slightly obsessed with this coat.  And then I realized there are approximately 12 days of the year that aren't too hot or too cold to don it, and I talked myself out of it.  Phew.

Buy it Here

I love books.  I love bookshelves.  I love bookends.  The end.  Bahahahah punny, get it?

Buy it here.

I don't even like gold jewelery, but this reminds me of the children's book that I have brewing in the back of my head that I need.to.write at some point.

Buy it here.

If I wasn't on a self-imposed spending freeze, I'd totes get this.

Buy it here.

It's sad that I still can't afford anthropologie stuff even when it's on sale.  No surprise I love this green dress.  Do you know how hard it is to find that perfect color of green in a dress?  Because I do....

Alright, I hope you guys don't hate this weekly segment, because I'm kind of loving doing it.  Usually when I'm feeling the itch to shop I'll go to a bunch of my favorite online stores and put a bunch of stuff in my shopping cart and not buy any of them, and that is sufficient for me.  But this?  This is oh so much better to get to share everything.  Plus if you hate it you can just scroll through it.  Plus if you love me, you can buy them all for me since I'm on a spending freeze.  YAYZIES!!!!

Wednesday night I had my first real hill workout in... technically ever.  While training for the Wild West Relay, I made an effort to run hillier routes, but never have I done hill repeats.  Ohhhhhh crap.  I take that back.  In high school we had this TERRIBLE workout we had to do once per track season.  First we'd have to run 2 miles (or so) out to this GIANT HILL (clay hill; actually made out of clay and what our county is named for, dontcha know?!?) (correction:  the distance kids would have to run all the way out there, us lazy sprinters would have to run half the way and then we got to hop in the truck of the hurdle coach and ride the rest of the way)... uh... yeah.

Anyway.  Once we got there we had to do all these hill repeats up this lower incline hill.  And then we thought we'd be done.  But nooooo then we'd have to do repeats up this crazy steep hill, which again I should mention, is made out of CLAY.  In case you had forgotten.  And THEN when we thought we were done we had to run back in to town.  Or at least we had to run halfway back in to town because we're lazy sprinters.  :)

Ok, so Wednesday night I took on my first hill repeats since high school (phew glad we got that cleared up).  According to good ol' Hal, I was to find a hill approximately a quarter of a mile long to fly up 5 times.  Well Hal, it's pretty dog gone cold here, and since things had thawed slightly they're now a solid sheet of ice.  I can only imagine the comedy that would ensue if I tried to run up a steep ass hill covered in solid ice.  (This would be an excellent place to include one of my delightful drawings.  Too bad I'm lazy and tired.  Also, I'm out of Starburst jelly beans and it's causing me major anxiety.)

So I went to the gym.  After consulting twitter, most of my super smart runner friends suggested an incline of 4.  So I went with that.  I did a 2 mile warm up then 5 x 400 m (with 400 jogs in between) and a half mile cool down.  I wasn't sure how fast to do the repeats, so I did 8:00 pace for the first 3 and 7:52 pace for the last 2.  I definitely could've done them faster (for the record I was still sucking wind and wanting my life to be over at the end of each one), but I'm already very very scared as to the pain my legs will be in tomorrow since they haven't done a workout like this for 9 years.... eep!  I can always speed up on the next ones! :)