New Plan

I've been beating myself up over the last week about my complete lack of running, run blogging, or fitness in general. While June has brought many awesome things into my life, running has hit the back burner as I try desperately to get ahead in other (awesome) things.

Yeah, your'e reading that right

So here's the plan: I'm out until July 1. No blogging, no training runs, no nothing. I'm not going to put any pressure on myself to do any of it. If it happens I'll be thrilled but for the most part I'll have my head in a book until June is out of the way.

Hopefully once we get this silly month over with, I'll be able to downgrade some priorities and upgrade running! I had the realization this morning (in the shower, of course) that running (and blogging about it) don't need to be things that stress me out. Instead, I'm going to be confident in myself and my ability to embrace it again in two(ish) short weeks.

I'll still be blog stalking, but not as much. Good luck to all the summer racers out there! And to everyone else battling heat, injury, family issues, work stress and life in general - you constantly inspire me.

Happy National Running Day!

Happy National Running day everybody. It couldn't be more beautiful here in the Bluegrass and I hope wherever you are that it's a beautiful day for a run :)

Now that life is "calming down", I'm feeling like I'm getting into a bit of a groove. Like most of you, by 'calming down' I don't mean there's less going on I just mean I'm getting more capable of coping with it.

For instance, this whole bar prep/bar examination thing has been a whirlwind to get used to. I have class (mostly) Monday-Friday for roughly four hours until the first week of July. This class - like a bad coach - imparts two kinds of wisdom: (1) don't stress! Take it easy, chug right along and (2) spend every waking moment working on this. It's like the training plan that says "for novice-beginner runners" yet has you logging 40 miles a week. Contradictory, at best. For instance here's a sample 'schedule' one of our academic advisors gave us:

7:30-9:00am - shower, breakfast, dress, and travel to bar review class
9:00-1:00pm - Bar review class
1:00-2:00pm - Lunch Break
2:00- 4:30pm - review and consolidate notes from morning's session; make flashcards
4:30 -5:00pm - break
5:00-6:30pm - work through MBE questions in subject you're studying
6:30-7:30pm - dinner break
7:30-9:30pm - work through another group of MBE questions OR 1-2 essays
9:30-11:00pm - review materials for the next day's bar review session

Does that look realistic? No? I know.  I'm not phased though - I'm treating this like I would any race: get a good base, build up endurance, train hard, don't peak too early, save some gas for the finish line.

Aside from the above ridiculous schedule and working, I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate some more running back into my life. I need goals to be successful - or to even be motivated! - and my primary goal of "must look good in wedding dress" wasn't doing it. Luckily Beth @Running Around My Kitchen wrote this great post with tips about how to get out of a rut such as mine. Beth had great tried and true ideas about how to get myself ramped back up about running. Not being one to just pick and choose, I decided to go all in and ramp it up a LOT:

1. I FINALLY got new shoes! 

Brooks Adrenaline GTS 12

I've been dying to step down into something more minimalist, or at least less bulky, for awhile now. These little changes to my stride have been helping and a shoe that facilitates those changes would be great. At the end of the day though, I just wanted shoes to run in NOW. Seeing as though my MAJOR problem has recently (read: always) been blisters, I wanted told the friendly ladies at Blue Mile Louisville "Give me the widest toe box in the world." They did not disappoint. So far I'm really happy with these babies, but only time will tell.


2. I signed up for a race!

Louisville Sports Commission Half Marathon
November 3, 2012

I'm one of those runners that needs a race to actually go out and run. Granted, I've gotten a lot better recently about running just to run, but if there isn't something on my calendar then running always manages to slip to the bottom of my priority list. Trying to work around the July Bar Exam and our September wedding made things a bit difficult. So November it is! I"m really looking forward to doing a half again - I think I can really rock this flat, urban race if I just stay healthy.

It's a good thing I've gotten back into running, too, because I've gotten back into eating BIG time! This past weekend was filled with parties: wedding, birthday, graduation, you name it. We had three separate cakes. But it's not all bad: living in the new house and having someone to cook for has been amazing! Josh is really open minded about things and will try just about anything I make. Monday night I tried a new weight watchers recipe I'd been eyeballing.

Shrimp & Spicy Tomato Sauce nomnomnom

I served it with Penne pasta & some good french bread and it was delish. Want the recipe? You can find it right here - there's lots of room for variation. I'm sure you more 'seasoned' cooks out there will scoff but hey, it was my first venture with shrimp!

Oh yeah, we still have the puppy. Despite her penchant for pooping (everywhere) and her bitty little puppy teeth, we've somehow totally enamored with her and just can't live without her.

Happy Running!

Are you running on national running day?
Any of my Louisville folks running the LSC (Half) Marathon?!