Weekly Wist List + Runner's High

Weekly Wishlist for your (but not your wallet's) enjoyment!

Buy it here.

This would either look super fab with my skintone, or terrible.  Luckily it's too expensive for me to even try on, but I'm just beyond obsessed with yellows right now.

Buy it here.

If I could, I wear wear sweatpants 9/10 days.  The other day I would wear a long flowy hippie skirt.  Correction:  I would actually be ok wearing a long flowy hippie skirt the other 9 days as well.  Soooooooooo comfy.  And I love all the random stripes.

Buy it here.

I am bummed at how expensive this is.  It's...awesome...clearly.  I even have the perfect wall above my bookshelf that I think it would like to live on.  All hail Barney Stinson....

Buy it here.

I have this little nook area in my living room that I designation as the "future study corner" and am on the hunt to find the perfect desk for that area.  Clearly I need to decorate said corner as well.  No worries, I already have some sweet Nan Lawson prints that I bought myself for Birthmas... these will only compliment them!  (I do wish it was in a color other than pink, however....)

Buy it here.

I've been a bit dress obsessed lately.  I think it's the spring weather (bahahahah funny joke I just made, no?).  I always seem to scramble the weekend before I have a wedding to attend, so call it being proactive I guess.  Again the yellow.  It's a sickness.

_______________

Tuesday night I set out for a 7 mile run.  My legs were still a little sore/tired from my hilly long run, but they warmed up really fast.  I have been obsessively "rolling pinning" my IT bands, so I'm sure that's helping.  It was ~29 degrees when I took off, so I bundled up like normal.  Um...wrong-o bongo..... I was sweating my tushy off.  Apparently 29 degrees with little to no wind is a whole different ballgame then 29 with 15-30mph winds (which is the winter standard).  I was peeling off gloves, unzipping jackets, and sweating bullets.

At one point of the run, I was going through a residential area and a guy was outside blowing bubbles for his little 3-4 year old girl to pop.  It was quite possibly the cutest thing ever.  In terms of online shopping, I would like to "add you both to my cart."  Luckily within a few minutes I was reminded that I'm barely capable of taking care of myself, and that forever is a long time.  Phew.  Crisis (and potential future-husband/kidnapping) averted.

During the 7 miler I had 4x100m strides at (roughly) mile pace.  I'm really loving these strides because they give you something to look forward to during an otherwise monotomous run (6:48, 7:01, 6:39, 7:01).  When I got done I was rocking the most intense runner's high.  Oh hai runner's high!  Long time no see.  I was so jazzed I wanted to go for another run (don't worry I didn't).

I did 7 miles in 1:06 for a pace of 9:28.

I opted to take a rest day on Wednesday after calculating that I had run 4 consecutive days with 33 miles.  Which is more than I've ran in some weeks of this round of training.  No one needs an injury here!  (Then go figure I slept in this morning instead of tackling my tempo run........ come back runner's high!  Come back!)

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 + Welcome Back Speedy Legs!

Happy St. Patty's Day Lovelies!  You know I'm donned in head to toe GREEN.  You wouldn't expect anything else I'm sure.  I forgot to mention something AWESOME regarding the St. Patrick's day celebration on Saturday.  As I was walking to my car post-races on Saturday (yes, I managed to park in a lot sandwiched between the parade route, go me) I saw some of the later parade entries, and I saw... get this.... Le-pug-cauns!  There was a whole troup of people walking their pugs decked out in green.  Obviously this made me freak out and want to steal one.... but I didn't..... Maybe next year I'll walk in the parade...  (hint hint... someone buy me a PUG!)

And on to my weekly compilation of things I want because I'm a horrible consumer but sadly I'm super poor plus on a spending freeze that I'm not very good at:

Buy it here.

I tend to be obsessed with feathers.  Peacock feathers, bird feathers, pretty pretty.  Love this mirror.

Buy it here.
I'm definitely not a HUGE Twins fan, but if I had to cheer for a baseball team, it'd be them.  I hope to make it to a couple of games this year, and clearly this shirt would need to be worn.

Buy it here.
I've wanted this suit now for over a year.  Or is it two?  I keep waiting for it to come down in price, and it refuses.  Ugh.  I just can't bare to fork over almost $60 for a swimming suit, when I could probably get 3 total for that price.  VS stop toying with my emotions!  I think there was even a twitter debate awhile back about whether I should get it or not.  It's getting ridiculous.

Buy it here.

I've been pretty obsessed with all things yellow lately, and I adore this bag.  Too bad my favorite coat is yellow.  And that I already have a super fab spring/summer purse.  Oh and that I don't have money to spend on a handbag.... that too. ;)

Wednesday night I had my first tempo run (I think) of MARATHON TRAINING!!! on my schedule.  I was a little nervous because I haven't done a lot of running outside of marathon pace (9:00) and long slow pace (uh.... with snow+ice 10:30+).  According to McMillan, I was to shoot for 8:00-8:30 pace for my 4 miles.  I did a nice 2 mile warm up and got to work.

The first tempo mile was...... hard.  I started thinking, "how and the heck am I going to maintain this pace for 13.1 miles the end of April?!?!?!  I'm dying and I'm on mile 1."  After the first mile ticked away I realized I was at mile 3 and still running away from home.  Ooops.  Apparently I missed my turn.  While I started searching for the street sign indicating I should turn, the run started to feel much easier and I got in to a rhythm with my breathing.  And then I looked down at my garmin... 8:15.  Uh what??  8:25 feels like death, 8:15 feels like goody goody gum drops?

Whatevs... and I kept going.  My legs felt great, and I went with it.  I started to do the math to realize that even with my slow warm up, I was maintaining a faster pace than Saturday's 5mile or 5k.  Wheeeeeeeee! At one point when I looked down at my watch during the 4th mile I was averaging a 7:44 pace.  Whoa Nelly.... reign it in a bit!  Since I accidentally added more on to my route, I had an extra 1/2 mile cool down as well. 

The results:  6.5 miles in 56:42 for an average pace of 8:45. 

Tempo miles:  8:25, 8:15, 8:05, 8:00.  Avg tempo: 8:11.

And what did we learn from this?  When you race a 5k make sure to get in a solid 2-3 mile warm up, you ding dong.  5k PR is going buh bye this summer....... :D

And what else did I learn from this?  Figure out why the heck your baby toenails are trying to escape your toenail beds so frequently.  Seriously.... All my socks are going to be blood-stained soon!

And what else else else did I learn?  65 degree temps are my friend.  I heart spring.

Weekly Wishlist + I'm Over Winter

It's high time for everyone's favorite (ok just mine) weekly installment of all the stuff I would buy if I had lots and lots of monies!

Buy it here.

I would love it even if the cupcake: tea ratio was the reversed.  Just sayin'.

ohhhhhh.  emmmmmmm. geeeeeeeeeee.

Want the pug.

Want the Shamrock hat.

And go.

I emailed KK this pic.  The next day before work he called me and said, "No sending me any cute pug pictures today!"  To which I replied, "That's a promise that I'm just not willing to make...."

Buy it here.

Buy it here.

Gotta love a good St. Patty's day shirt.  True story:  I made one in college that said "My Lucky Charms" across the chest.  Funny since I was a very flat chested chica (well still am, who am I kidding??)

I heart lockets.  And this one is just too unique and fab to pass up.
Buy It Here.

Buy it Here.
Told you I loved a good bookend.  How fun are these???

Buy them here.

I wear heels approx. 2x per year because they hurt my shinny ninnies oh so much.  So clearly I adore some cutesy flats.  Plus they sparkle.  Like my soooooooooul. (previous sentence said in Angry Runner's hipster voice... FYI)

Wednesday night I had 9 miles to run, 7 were maybe possibly supposed to be at marathon pace, but I couldn't decide whether I wanted to do that or just run 9 miles, as I need to save the leggies a bit for Saturday.  I headed outside and made it approx. .8 miles before I realized that I was chilled to the bone, and the wind was at my back.  Uh.... that's not good.  So I hightailed it home, got in my car and headed to the gym.

At the gym I finished up my 2 mile warm up, stretched, and took off at marathon pace.  Apparently my legs decided the workout for me, because marathon pace FELT like 100 m. dash pace.  Awesome sauce.  Oh well, they'll get enough speed work this weekend.  I read some trashy gossip mags and finished up the 9 miles.  I then proceeded to eat every dairy product in my household for dinner.  mmmmmmmmm.  I heart dairy.

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! :)

This Week's Wish List AKA Weekly I Want

I find the most obscure fabulous things that I want I want I want I want.  Too bad I don't have all the monies to buy all of the things I want I want I want I want.  I might do a semi-regular posting with all the fun finds I've found (alliteration...oof!).  Fab!  (ok too far).

Buy it here.

I want to put this on my new Coach purse as a charm-dealy-bobby.  So cuuuuuuuuuuute!

Peacock Rain boots

Buy em here

Ooops.  I wanted these so much I got them.  And they came in the mail the next day.  And the shipping was fo FREE.  Jerbear = in love.

A 365 day calendar that you fill in sections of the heart each day based on: Time together, Conversation, Caress-Kisses and Sex.  l-o-v-e.  Too bad the shipping is insane b/c it's in Europe. :(

Buy it here

I tend to love most things bicycle related....  ooh!  I think I still have a groupon for skreened!!

Buy it here

This print would look fabuloso in my living room.

Drat. I can't find the link for this anymore.  Please let me know if you know its whereabouts so I can link it!

I also want this to hang up in my soon-to-be mini-office area.

Buy it here.

Thursday night I did my first "pace" workout.  For the rest of my training, these workouts will typically be done the day before my long runs, so I have tired legs to start with, but since I revamped my program I thought that would be a baaaaaaad baaaaaaad idea after just getting back in to the swing of things.  I had 4 miles at marathon pace on deck (approx. 8:59).

I did a quick 1/2 mile warm up before stretching the junk out of my legs left over from my 800s and then I was on.  Since I was stuck on the treadmill, I had to be just slightly faster than my pace.  It was super fun to run at marathon pace.  It's easy (easy for 4 miles, we'll see if it's easy for slightly less than 4 hours) but not mindlessly easy.  I could still read a trashy gossip mag while running, but just not as easily.  ;)

I did 4.5 miles in 40:36 for a pace of 9:00.  My 4 pace miles were 8:52, 8:56, 8:57, 8:56.

Great run minus the intensely painful stomach cramps I endured throughout.  Lunabar... I'm looking at you (which is sad because you're usually so gentle on my tummy... sad face....)