So, I took a little time out from blogging. It was a summer vacation of sorts, filled with busy stuff, life and other exciting things! I wanted to give you a recap of what you’ve missed since I’ve been away, and what’s happening in my life now.
I’m running. A bunch. Marathon is 5 weeks away (Baystate Marathon on October 20th!) and I’m happy with my mileage between 50-60 miles per week. (Also, as you can see, I love this orange and blue tie-dyed tank! It’s from North Face and I bought it at Marathon Sports in Melrose. I bought it in pink and orange.)
And here is some Garmin data. I do about half my mileage on the treadmill. It’s a soft surface and it helps me with injury prevention. Also, where we live is so hilly and sometimes I feel like I just can’t get my speed up to where I want on these hills. However, I’ve been hard at work.
In this training cycle, I’m doing four 20-milers. I’ve also been working on long runs at marathon pace. Today, I did my last race paced run: 15 miles, 8:05/mile average, 2:01:19. I ran it on the treadmill. When I have back to back long runs (Saturday and Sunday), I do one inside and one outside. Works for me. I was toying with the idea of running 15 miles around the track, but then I did a sanity check!!
This summer, something really exciting happened! I am now an RRCA certified running coach (they’re still updating site info and I should be added soon), and I started my own business called Heart & Sole Running. I’m growing my client base and I’m really excited to see the progress the folks I’m working with have been making. I’m so proud!
I’ve still been doing loads of food prep, which makes it easy to eat healthy all week:
And taking pics of everything I eat:
And what the heck, let’s see those green monsters! (Ok, sometimes the green monsters don’t have spinach….and they are pink or purple….)
I continue to do volunteer work with Community Cooks. We provide quality home cooked meals to underserved people and homeless populations. The organization requests a certain dish each month and I just make what they tell me (those things at the bottom left are Swedish meatballs. I had never made them before, but I used a gluten free recipe and it wasn’t bad!). Helping other people is really important, I think. If you want to get involved, just drop them a line!
Oh yeah! Knitting. Knitting is happening. I made a couple of Burton Bears for a girlfriend (I’m modeling both the toddler and child sizes here!):
I spent an amazing summer hanging out with this guy, the love of my life:
The Bean turned 16 in July! Can you imagine? She is still my kitten though.
Other important information. We did lots of traveling, and we went to Iceland! Why yes, I am carrying an ice pick. More fancy pics later:
I have still been doing my favorite activity of buying beauty products. Don’t worry, that 2nd photo is just me showing that Inglot has come to Boston! I already have a 10-pan I’m still playing with. Reviews to come!:
I grew out my bangs and cut my hair! I’m at the point now where I just can never imagine having bangs again.
I traveled to Iceland looking like a 17 year old hobo (I was showing my sister the bright pink shirt I wore beneath the hoodie I stole from her house). I have bright pink luggage (Samsonite Bright Lite in pink) and our taxi driver actually said to me “You must really love pink!”. A) Yes I do. B) There are worse things in life than loving stuff.
However, it made me realize I need to step up my fashion game. So I went shopping with my bestie Allison and she pointed out that olive is a good color for me. So I bought it (JCrew sweater in spinach, on sale now!). And I got pink pants from Loft (Marisa ankle pant in Harvest Pink, but they’re not online anymore). She’s a big fan of the slim ankle pant. I am taking good notes. This is what happens when Allison dresses me instead (and suggests a haircut. I think she should be a fashion consultant!):
One more thing! I won a food photography contest for Somerville’s new Whole Foods! The prize was a $100 gift card. Really excited! I’m picking it up tomorrow. (Phone snapshot, haha! But do you remember when I made this dish? I nearly didn’t even take this photo, but I was sure glad I did.)
We celebrated Michael’s birthday last weekend and it was so much fun. I laughed so hard my face hurt. I forgot to buy birthday candles and I hate buying those big Yankee style candles because they are so expensive (and I am cheap with weird things). We didn’t know my sister was recording this, so every time I see it, I laugh.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this truck we saw in Iceland. I loved the signs on it.
Thanks for reading and I hope you’re having an awesome weekend doing things you love with people you love.
