One of those days

Wednesday was just one of those days when I left work and knew that a workout was just not happening. It had been a busy day, and motivation was actually nowhere to be found.

Somehow I found myself here:

This sounds weird and maybe even a little bit cliche but Whole Foods consistently makes me happy. I love grocery shopping in general, but on occasion I'll find myself wandering down the street to this odd little purgatory of mine, picking out a small large selection from their hot food bar, and just sitting in a booth for some time to myself.

I even let them know it:

Thanks for the love WF

Yesterday three of my coworkers surprised me with a little something for helping on a project...

This by far has been my favorite Edible Arrangement that I've received so far - chocolate covered green apples. I begged my coworkers to share it with me before I wiped out the entire box, but by the end of the day the damage on my end had been four of those wonderful apple balls.

Yet my body didn't seem to mind the excess sugar too much, as I cranked out 8 miles at a 7:20 pace shortly after, and felt pretty good. Well, condition-wise I felt good. Feet-wise, not so much.

Not something we will discuss today.

Fun Fact Friday:

Every time that I hang up my iPhone after Facetiming with Andrew, I get this overwhelming sense of gratitude for the technology, and kind of stand/sit there frozen for a second. It's weird and dorky, but I half expect the music from the iPhone commercials to start playing.

Am I the only one that used to tear up during the original iPhone/Facetime commercials? No, just me?

Welp, this post was short and sweet, just like my hair that I chopped off yesterday.

:(

I hate haircuts, but the brightest of my ombre had to go, it was officially time to usher in fall with my hair. I'm not confident enough to post pictures of it yet.

On that note, does anyone have any solid suggestions of ways to help your hair grow? I've heard both folic acid and prenatal vits (probably not gona try prenatal that weirds me out)...

Suggestions welcome, as always!

Work time. It's Friday people, make it great!

Cheers - 

K

A Whole Row to Myself

I started writing a post on Sunday night, but after two consecutive 3 AM nights in a row, this is exactly how I felt at the time:

Jane and I were on the same page and were both ready for bed by 9 pm. And that's exactly what happened; it was glorious.

I then told myself that on my 6 AM Tuesday morning plane ride back to Baltimore I would hop back on wifi and come up with something witty to slap up here. Just so happens that this happened:

A WHOLE ROW TO MYSELF? That never happens.

So I slept on the plane instead, and here we are. Have I ever mentioned that the laundry room here in my Baltimore house is attached to my room?

Some people see it and are like 'Ohhhh that sucks' but frankly I don't really care. My roommates can trample through my room whenever they feel, I'm not home that much, and when I am it's not like I'm parading around naked. At least most nights.

This morning in particular I LOVE the fact that the laundry room is right there, as when I rolled out of be and felt cold, I threw a sweatshirt into the dryer before hopping into the shower. Get out of the shower and voila - a perfectly warm sweatshirt to bundle up in.

Anyways, back to my Chicago weekend. Friday and Saturday was a whirlwind of good times with good friends. I loved seeing my sister, high school and college friends all in a 24 hour period. And of course, there were many bachelorette shenanigans to be had...

I was blessed with 8 miles on Monday afternoon, including a quick lap around my middle school track. It took me back to my track & field days, when I ran the fastest mile (I'll probably ever run) of my life, coming in at 5:38. Those were the days.

I was also blessed with finding pumpkin froyo on my lunch break yesterday. WHAAAATTT???

This may be the end of me.

Would love to chat more, but I have to get ready for work. Hope your week is going well, and Happy Hump Day!

Cheers-

K

38,000 feet

I’ve had writers block all week.

That, and I’ve been insanely busy.

I was blessed to be able to attend a Diversity/Leadership/Be a better person type of training through work, so was out of the office Tuesday-Thursday. Needless to say, just because I’m out of the office doesn’t mean the work disappears too, so I had some catching up to do every night.

Needless to say, this guy was my best friend this week:

Nonetheless, I like to think that the training helped me to reset my moral compass a bit. These two quotes this week stuck hard with me, and I wanted to share...

Anyways, I apologize for neglecting you all.

I’m currently sitting at 38,000 feet, and according to my flight tracker we are traveling at 480 mph. Pretty cool huh? Gotta love airplane wifi, it always feels magical.

Funny story, I ran 12 after my last day of training yesterday, and chose to do so on the BWI trail, which is literally a large loop around the Baltimore airport. I parked right near an area where planes were coming in to land; it was pretty cool to watch.

Anyways, when taking off not 45 minutes ago, I realized we flew right over that same park that I had parked at not 24 hours ago. I don’t know why but it made me happy and I sat here smiling and now the man next to me definitely thinks I’m a nut.

I’m a cool kind of nut.

I’m chi-town bound for a House-cooling party tonight, a Bachlorette Party tomorrow, and some family time Sunday and Monday. I’m pretty stoked for all of it… as always, the trip is coming at a damn good time.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t currently pounding some DD iced coffee to get mentally prepared for the evening. Now’s not the time to be napping Kait.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate naps? Hate them. Such a waste of life.

Really, I don’t have much else to report. If we’re being honest I’m currently staring down the flight attendant with the basket of snacks.  Something I feel like I need to publically admit: My eating habbits have been far from the best lately. I’m actually looking forward to starting fresh on Sunday and falling back into my paleo-type recipes.

I think that’s all folks. A couple of miles may happen along the lake while I’m in the city, who knows. I won’t count on it because it’s always an adventure when my college teammates and I team up. Always.

Cheers to the weekend, cheers to plane wifi, cheers to my free plane peanuts.

K

Eggcited

What a horrific title. I'll try harder next time.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but I may actually love fall here in Baltimore more than I loved summer. Favorite things so far have included:

Open windows

My pumpkin candle

 Chilly long runs on beautiful flat trails

not the best quality, but there was no time to stop for pictures.

Throwing on a hoody after 18 miles…

Speaking of 18 miles, they went well! I knocked them out early Saturday morning when temperatures were barely hovering above 50 degrees, and I could actually see my breath. It was marvelous, held an 8:18 pace. Saturday night entailed this:

Sunday I woke up overly excited about life. So naturally I started cooking egg muffins, and they actually turned out awesome. Want the recipe?

 Thought so.

Spicy Paleo Egg Muffins

Ingredients:

-6 eggs

-1 Cup of spinach

-3/4 cup ground turkey (or bacon)

-Salt & Pepper

-3-4 TB hot sauce

Preheat the oven to 350. Cook the ground turkey with the spinach.

Whisk eggs in large bowl with salt, pepper and hot sauce; add meat and veggies and stir well.

Pour into muffin pans (I use liners so that they don’t stick) and bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

I’m a big fan; they are quick and easy snacks for on-the-go. Not to mention full of protein.

Following my muffin excitement, later in the day I departed on what was supposed to be a shakeout run. I once again got way too excited about the new shoes I had purchased the evening prior, and decided to push myself for six miles…

Sidenote- when running along the harbor, anytime the surface turns into a wooden dock I instantly become fearful of stepping on a rotten board and falling through, forcing me to run faster.

Another sidenote – Is this not one of the best-coordinated running outfits that you have ever seen? I mean come on, check out that color scheme…

I should have more to report on my switch into Newtons later this week, once I’ve broken them in a bit more. Until then, I leave you with this song:

Obsessed.

Busy week for me, in and out of training and then jetting home to Chi-town on Friday. Keep it real my friends.

Cheers -
K 

Things I Learned This Week

To start, I learned some startling news when I walked into Panera this morning… they have pumpkin pie bagels. Noooooo.

I resisted the urge for today, but I'm not sure how much longer I can keep it up for. The large sign hanging up advertising them makes them look flat out amazing.

I learned that it is in fact possible to burn something in a crockpot. Last night I threw the ingredients for Pumpkin Oatmeal following a recipe that I found on Pinterest. This is how it was suppose to turn out:

source

This is how mine turned out:

LOLOLOLOL

Nevertheless, I sucked it up, threw an egg on top of a bowl of it this morning, and called it a win... even if it wasn’t. I’m not too sad, steel cut oats just aren’t my thing, I’m a little bit over them to be honest. I felt like I was eating rice.

I learned that Tall Boy Natty Bohs on a school work night aren’t the best idea, and really set me up for failure that next morning...

Enough said.

That same day, I also learned that running on my lunch break can literally turn my day around. Now some may call it gross that I do this but as a pretty minimal sweater, I have no issue pulling my hair back, slapping on some deodorant, and continuing my day in the office.  Even the shortest of runs helps to break up sitting on my ass all day and makes me feel like less of a slob.

quick afternoon 2 miles

I learned that Spotify has a pretty awesome workout playlist. If you’re a Spotifier, just type in ‘workout’ in the search box and select the playlist entitled ‘Workout’ by Spotify. Rocket science, I know. It has a good selection of jams and I thoroughly enjoyed it will remixing the below workout at 5:30 this morning….

20 min sweat swesh (derived from a bunch of WODS smooshed together)

100 sit ups

10 mins, AMRAP: 5 burpees, 10 pushups, 15 air squats, 20 skaters

10 mins, AMRAP: 40 mountain climbers, 10 single squats (per leg), 20 (weighted)crunches

100 sit ups

I sweat, it woke me up, did the job.

Lastly, I learned that this girl is awesome, her blog is awesome, and this article is something that everyone should read.

 "I don’t have what people expect I should have, but I am abundantly blessed with absurd, exhilarating, and fantastic things I would have never dreamed up on my own."

- 26, unmarried, and childless

Early bedtime for me tonight, as an early alarm is set to pound out 19 miles before 10 AM tomorrow. Encouragement welcome.

Cheers!

K

Less is more

First thing's first:

Couldn't go on without acknowledging today and what it means to us as Americans.

I need a haircut. I hate them, but I really need one, it’s out of control. I mean, check out that MANE:

Also why do I look like a giant in this pic from last weekend?

When it comes to haircuts, less is more. If you take off more than two inches, I’m probably going to snatch your scissors out of your hands and come at you. Kidding, but seriously.

I’ve actually been thinking about that concept a lot lately; less is more. I put it in the same category as quality versus quantity.

Once upon a time, I ran as much as I wanted, wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted to. I pounded the trails all over the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, finding dusty paths outside of city limits, and it was beautiful. A love affair with running, if you will. My body showed me grace for my 50+ mile weeks throughout the entire summer and fall of 2011, for whatever reason. Maybe it was the lack of a desk job, maybe it was the still-newness to running, I don’t know. But it was lovely.

Have I mentioned recently that I miss it?

Sidenote – for all of you  Colorado/mountain runners, do me a favor and never take that sh*t for granted. I would kill for quick access to dirt trails over pavement, and for my Garmin to be reading a couple thousand feet above altitude instead of negative numbers.  That’s right, my runs next to the harbor are literally BELOW sea level. Cool?

Clearly my running has changed since then, as I've collected enough injuries the past year for a family of six. So when it comes to marathon training, the quality of my runs are much more important than the quantity. The same concept actually goes for racing. If you didn’t pick up on it in my last post, I'm hyper-competitive. Possibly a bit too competitive when it comes to racing, but really I’m not sorry. I don't like doing things without reason behind it. I like to have intention, and I like to beat people and finish strongly.

What’s your point kait, get off your high-horse.

source

The point,  I guess, is that the Marine Corps Marathon is now 46 days away. I’m entering a high-mileage point in my training, and have 19 miles on the docket for this weekend. I’m a little nervous to see how my body responds, but I’m also starting to get excited as the race day is actually starting to become more of a reality.

Call me crazy, but unless I feel confident that I can run the race, enjoy it, and PR, I’m not sure I want to run 26.2 just for the heck of it. It goes back to the competitor in me – I want to do well, I don’t want to just run it to run it. I already know that I can complete a marathon, two of them actually. There’s a time and a place to try something just to try it, but marathons are no longer in that category for me. 

Quality over quantity. I try to do it on this blog – I don’t post just to post. I have slowly evolved to take this approach with my runs, with my work, with relationships in my life. Even with cupcakes.

vanilla almond cupcakes my coworker brought in today. so. good.

Just felt the need to share my current mindset; a weird little peek into my brain, if you will. Please don't misinterpret as me sternly declaring that there is not point in a leisurely run; I'm all for them, and still enjoy them. I just can't as much as I used to.

  

I’m off to a happy hour. Should be a perfect little outing to get over the hump this week!

Cheers!

K

The Chase

My sister sent me this text this morning. I really couldn't agree more, and had to share.

She's biased as September is her birthday month... but I love the descriptor.

Onwards. I went to bed at 8:30 PM last night and it was beautiful. What was even more beautiful was getting up at 5:30 AM on a Monday without any hesitation or sadness. 8.5 hours of sleep night was exactly what I needed, and so I hopped out of bed cranked out the short little workout below:

5 rounds

-25 situps

-12 pushups

-15 jump squats

Short, sweet, and a little bit sweaty. Good way to start off a Monday.

So was this:

Commutes to work are way better when God decides to show off.

Something peculiar happened today. I got home from work and had to crank out a quick 9 miles before an event I had later this evening. So I shoved some raspberries and two semi-healthy cookies down my throat (what?) and called it fuel. Shot out the door with no pace in mind.

So I make my way along the harbor, right, my typical week day route. The brick isn't exactly forgiving on my feet, but I enjoy the people watching and the boat watching and the hustle and bustle of the city. My Garmin and I have had a love/hate relationship lately, but this particular evening I was watching it like a hawk, trying to sit in the 7:30's.

How do I say this without sounding like an A-hole? ... In my normal, healthy body, I'm not used to getting passed by other girls. I mean it happens obviously, I'm not the fastest grape on the vine. And when it does:

following my 17 this past Saturday..

So I'm uber competitive, sue me. 

Anyways long story short, mile 7 is coming in hot and I'm feeling decent. Holding in the mid-sevens, entering into the Fells Point neighborhood. I glance back as I'm crossing a street and literally did a double-take. Another girl is on my heels.

Like on my heels, hard. 

My instant reaction to run faster. I mean obviously, if she felt the need to keep a mere arms-length distance between us, she wanted me to know that she was there right? So my inner-athlete flared up and told me I better not even allow the concept of being passed by another girl cross my mind.

If I had to guess, it looked like a chase scene. For a solid mile or so, she was right on my butt all the way through Fells as we wove in and out of pedestrians. People were probably wondering if I had mugged her, or who was pissed at who over boy problems.

I'm not exaggerating; she never let more than 10 feet between us. And we were definitely moving compared to some of the other runners who were out for a leisurely post-work run. See mile 7 for proof:

She dropped off just outside of Canton to take a different route, hence why mile 8 and 9 slowed a bit. All-in-all, I got home feeling great, semi-thrilled that another fellow-female gave me a short run for my money. Fast runner girl in the pink: I like you, let's be friends.

You love the seflies.

And now ya'll think I'm a little unstable, but hey at least I'm being honest. Quite thrilling for a Monday run.

Bedtime for me. Keith Urban has a new album out tomorrow, so I'm forecasting this Tuesday to be well above the norm.

Keep it real, cheers - 

K

Falling into Fall (literally)

I’ve missed you guys.

I apologize for my shady absence, but I was out living pretty damn hard this past Labor Day Weekend.

And now my body is desperately trying to find normal again, whatever normal is these days. 6 AM alarms have felt like 4 AM alarms the past three days, but it was well worth it. Mentally, it was more needed than I could have ever realized.

Physically? Physically it confused my body. Today it’s still asking me if the abundance of drinks – umbrella beach drinks, coronas with tangy limes, shots of whiskey – if all that was really necessary. Confused as to why I was eating philly cheesesteaks for breakfast on the beach, and chasing it with a cannoli.

That’s not a joke, I promise it happened.

Asking if not one, but almost two nights of no sleep was really necessary.

It was.

Because laying in bed next to my best friends, ranting about our dreams and our fears and asking the hard ‘why’ questions outweighs any night of sleep. Because sprinting into the ocean in the dim moonlight, with nothing between the waves and our skin… that’s living like we were made to live. And sitting in that sand, hand in hand, watching our beautiful sun start to peak over the edge of the water and sprinkling sparkles over the waves… that will knock any amount of sleep out of the water.

 You can take my pillow, I’ll take the memories.

The memories of standing in a gas station parking lot the next day, having my knee scrubbed free of asphalt and sand while tears of laughter and pain run down all three of our faces. The asphalt that I met at 4 AM on the way to the beach, in a dead sprint. The lost skin was worth it. The scars that will form will bring me joy, not sadness.

Dancing to the point of perhaps reinducing stress fractures in my feet? Worth it. Waking up with sore ribs and abs from laughing late into the night will bring me more pride than any p90x you want to throw at me.  

There was a re-prioritization that happened in my head this weekend, slowly. My health is so important to me. But locking myself up in my room for 3 weeks straight in order to sugar detox? That isn’t as important as living this life that is so freaking short. Celebrating the gifts we were given, the friendships we are blessed with, this amazing earth we live on.

I’m not saying I’ve punted. I’m currently sipping tea as I type this, absent-mindedly making my paleo-like list for the grocery store. By the way, we did make some healthy pumpkin bars this past weekend … and ate the entire pan by noon that same day. They were excellent.

Recipe linked here

I’ll wrap this up, I could go on forever. I’m so blessed to have my wolves. I’m lucky to have this life I live, no matter how hard and shitty it may seem at times. I’m excited that it’s fall, and for what it brings; both the good and the bad. It’s a season of change, not only as the leaves color and fall, but within my own life.

Thank you all for doing life with me. I will always try my hardest to publish my full self on this tiny little domain, hence the semi-romantic rant I just went on. I’m glad I’m back, I’m glad football is back, and I’m so, so glad that tomorrow is already Friday.

What are the thoughts on the new layout? Props to my girl Kailyn, she worked her magic pretty dang hard. Get in touch with her if you're looking for a blog makeover.

Cheers my friends.

K8