For the girls

It isn't too often that the competitor inside of me is able to take a step back before a race and say, "Hey Kait, chill out."

Saturday morning, that happened at the Central Maryland Girls on the Run 5k. Because, although it was hard to wrap my athlete-crazed mind around, those 3.1 miles weren't about the times, or the places everyone finished in. It was about just accomplishing something awesome, and proving that it could be done.

About two months ago I wrote about how I became involved with Girls on the Run as an assistant coach. It's been a crazy, fun and challenging two months with our 3rd- 5th grade girls. They are awesome, full of energy and completely unfiltered.

It was so awesome to see them compete against themselves yesterday. In particular, I ran with Ana, a feisty ball of fire who immediately let me know that she "didn't like when people passed us." Our pacing shot back and forth from a dead on sprint to a shuffle of a jog, but that didn't matter. She did an awesome job, only walked twice, and came in right over the 27 minute mark.

"Hey Ana, run ahead of me and I'll take your picture!"

After the race called for breakfast at Eggspectations, which blew my mind as always...

Rain speckled the area yesterday, with some occasional sun making an appearance. Andrew and I went to the evening service for church, and met up with some friends for dinner afterwards. It was a solid Saturday.

In other news, apparently it's National Runner's Month? Sounds good to me, I'll celebrate that with 6 miles today. It's borderline inappropriate how excited I am to put on some good music and pound some pavement after I publish this bad boy.

Thanks for the heads up Dicks Sporting Goods.

And of course, this post wouldn't be complete without a shout out to my wonderful mother. She's amazing in so many ways, and I can't wait to see her again when I head home in June. Miss you mom!

Cheers to all the awesome moms out there!

The Fall Marathon

On Tuesday I introduced you guys to my new best friend AKA a jar of peanut butter. But TODAY I want to introduce you to some of my newest human friends:

Aren’t they adorbs? These are a few of my Girls on the Run munchkins, and I love them. Even when they chose to take of their shoes and wrestle and not listen to a word that I say. I still love them.

Somehow, by the grace of God, I woke up at 5 am and drove my sorry butt to Baltimore to hit some hot yoga before work. I’ve found that the better that I prepare the night before for my morning workouts, the more likely that it is to actually happen.

Exhibit A:

Overnight oats are always my go-to breakfast when I’m running out the door to the gym, as well as a smoothie in my L.L. Bean thermos for later on in the day.

Jumping subjects, I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT.

I am running the 38^th Marine Corps Marathon in October!!

I haven’t run a marathon since Boston last April. I realize my foot is still healing, I realize that October 27^th is seven months away from yesterday.

I am SO excited to run this marathon. So excited.

I’m also pretty serious when I say that training starts tomorrow. With one mile on the treadmill. It’s only up from here people.

Also, I'm feeling super lucky to have gotten in. I realize that thousands of people tried to log on yesterday at 12 PM EST just like I did, and never got through. It was the luck of the click I guess. And I’m honored to have the opportunity to run through DC with 30,000 other runners in the race so properly nicknamed 'The People’s Marathon.'

super high-quality pic here, I know.

This 26.2 will be one of a kind for me as I am literally starting from square one. Mile one, right at the starting line. I can monitor everything I’m doing from the get-go, hopefully take care of my body well and continue to be diverse in my workouts as I increase mileage.

Did I mention I’m excited?

In other news, Andrew’s two brothers and their ladies get into town tonight for a fun-filled Easter weekend. Baltimore, D.C., Annapolis, we’re covering it all by Monday night. I’m super excited pumped to spend some good quality time with awesome people. Fitting for a holiday like Easter, don't you think?

Use the word excited one more time Kait.

Tell me, have any of you signed up/picked any fall races yet? Any former MCM runners? How ‘bout Easter plans?

Enjoy your weekends, not sure when I’ll be checking in next. Don’t miss me too much.

Cheers!

Girls on the Run

I have some good news, and some bad news. Which do you want first?

Bad?

The bad news is, I still haven’t been able to get my hands on some of that deer antler spray to heal my foot. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this link may help:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1513154-super-bowl-revisiting-deer-antler-spray-and-ray-lewis

The good news now... which should be considered awesome news since the bad news wasn’t even serious.

I’m officially an assistant coach for the organization Girls on the Run! Every Monday and Wednesday I head to a local elementary school and join eight precious girls grades 3^rd-5^th who have an interest in running. In reality we don’t run that much – typically some laps around the gym until it gets warmer outside – but we incorporate games, and try to teach positive values and mindsets. 

At the end of this spring each girl will be participating in a 5k to ‘complete the season’ and leave them with confidence in themselves that they can do anything they set their mind to!

A lesson all of us need to occasionally revisit, wouldn’t you agree?

 It’s been a good way to branch out in to the community a little more as well as stay involved with running in a way other than actually running while this stress fracture continues to ruin my life nag me.

In other news, today brought about a few crucial developments that I feel strongly need to be shared with the world:

I made seven brackets and I’m incredibly over-excited for the madness to start on Thursday. More on that later this week.

Sunday involved green pancakes and green beer. A few of you a-holes made fun of me via instagram after I posted the pic of my pancakes and said they looked disgusting. 1. They weren’t disgusting but 2. If I’m being honest, I ended up getting a text from Andrew shortly after taking that picture… and I met him at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast instead. Green donuts > green pancakes.

I found this at Wal-Mart today. They are ‘single serving bags’ whatever that means, and I actually really love the hint of lime. Fabulous addition to my snack drawer at work.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Tomorrow’s the first day of spring so that’s EXCITING. Now, if only the temperatures started reflecting that…

Cheers to wishing for warmer weather!