Run with Me Tuesday

This post will be slightly different than what they usually will be.  You see, yesterday was a holiday (what’s up MLK Jr!) so I was holiday’n it up ….not really…if you call dusting, cleaning the bathrooms, mopping the floors Cinderella style (we really need to get a new mop) and making a semi-feast for friends, holiday’n it up, then, ok!  So I will be combining Monday’s and Tuesday’s post into one big happy one.

This weekend was actually really good…didn’t do anything huge, but I did have a happy birthday lunch with some friends at one of my favorite Mexican food restaurants.  Afterwards, we did a little bit of retail therapy at some of my favorite stores, Ulta and Nordstrom.  Sunday was grocery shopping, arts and crafts, football, and the Golden Globes.  Which by the way, ammaaazing dresses the ladies were sporting.  Some of my favorites were (photos are from The Huffington Post and The Washington Post):

Lea Michele in Marchesa

Emma Stone in Lanvin

Reese Witherspoon in Zac Posen

Jessica Alba in Gucci

I have mentioned before that we are slowly decorating our house.  Well, our hallway isn’t very long, but, I have always loved the long hallways that have pictures with oversized frames and smaller black and white photos in them….so I am going to recreate that look, only on a smaller scale and on a smaller budget.  I bought a few white matted frames from Aaron Bros, from the penny sale.  And my MIL just gave me about 8 huge frames all with white mattes in them.  Only those frames are brown wood frames (my husband will be mad that I don’t know what kind of wood but if I had to guess, I would say Oak?).  Anyways, I have started to spray paint the frames black…see picture below.  I would say, I have spent maybe $30 bucks on this project and many of the frames that I bought at AB were at least $20 bucks a piece, so if you are looking for a project to do that will re-amp your hallway, this would be a good time to do it.  The penny sale lasts through the month!

The past six weeks have been a little funky for me in regards to my runs.  I ran the CIM in the beginning of December and basically the whole entire month was post marathon recovery (Hal Higdons), which basically means, I was running maybe 10 miles a week.  Suuuppperrrr lame in my mind, because I am psycho and am programmed to run at least thirty miles a week.  But in actuality, it is very healthy for your muscles, because you burn so much during the race, not to mention the 18 weeks of training prior.  I incorporated at home floor workouts and lots of walks, which helped me feel not-so-lazy.  I realized during my marathon, that the lack of cross training really affected my race and my time.  I barely did anything else during my training (rookie mistake #1) and in result, my left hip was in a lot of pain (from an old injury that I don’t think I ever really 100% recovered from), and I didn’t reach my goal time (11 minutes off, which is a lot for a runner).  I also got sick right before Christmas, so I wasn’t able to do much of anything.  Looking back, I think this helped with my recovery, but at the time it really blew.  Now I am pretty much back to my normal routine and ran my first longer run (9 miles) this weekend, followed by a shorter 4 miler with my favorite running partner, Lucy.  It felt really good, I was so happy to be back and I ran my favorite route which overlooks the valley once you are up at the top.  It was a beautiful morning with scattered clouds, and the sun peeping through to say hello.  I also did some hill runs yesterday, which pretty much is a hell run and makes you curse life the whole time you are doing it, but afterwards, it makes you feel like you can accomplish anything….The route is 5 miles total, including 6 steep long hills…the longest hills in the beginning and slowly tapering off towards the end.  The first time I did this run I was sore for 3 days after….today, I am not so sore which makes me think I should up the routine…maybe 6 hills twice?  ;)