Tough Mudder Headband Monday!

My saving grace today was the sunshine, you guys.  It was an ache-filled day as every inch of my body felt sore.  It hurt to open doors, to laugh, to sit, to cross my legs, to turn my head.  Man, am I sore.

And also, it is awesome.

It was back to work and back to routine following the fun weekend I had and that means that Monday started with a run.  We met this morning for 3 miles at an easy pace and threw in a visit to Starbucks because I had a feeling I was going to need it.

Jess and I ran with our Tough Mudder headbands on because as the race tradition goes, the Monday following the run is "Headband Monday" or "Mudder Monday" and all the achey finishers post pictures of themselves back to real life with their headbands on.

As you might know by now considering I have a blog, a Twitter, an Instagram, a Facebook, etc.  I am a fan of social media.  I have really come to love it even more as it connects me with other runners and people participating in these events I do.

I love a couple days after a race when I am still rocking my gear and I see other people who are as well.  It reminds me that it isn't just me who feels proud, I am not a solo dork, it is not embarrassing, it is just something that we, as part of the same community of people, all do.  I browsed through the #HeadbandMonday and #MudderMonday hashtags a bit and smiled at lots of the pictures I saw.  Jess posted a picture of us from our run this morning and I also took this picture at work to share.  Mudder Monday!

Other than suffering from the post-Mudder aches, it actually wasn't a terrible day.  I actually smiled right from the beginning of arriving at my desk because I flipped my one-a-day "Runner's High" calendar to a perfectly timed quote for this Monday!

Aside from eerily timed calendar-quotes, the sunshine also helped in making today spectacular.

I was working through lunch today and just sitting at my desk when I got a text message from a coworker saying, "You have to come outside, it is amazing out."

It was about 12:40 p.m. at the time and I had a 1:00 p.m. phone call so I went out to meet her and sit on the bleachers by our building for a little bit and she was totally right.  It was AMAZING out.  The short few minutes I had in the sun didn't feel like enough and I realized that there really was nothing stopping me from taking my call from my cell phone and sitting outside for it.  Which, is exactly what I ended up doing!

The site where I work has about 5000-ish employees (I think?) so we have a pretty big "campus" of buildings that includes some sports fields.  I snuck up to a lone tree and camped in the shade for my call, which seriously was so relaxing and perfect.  I also was able to focus more on the call, rather than be distracted by people walking by my cubicle or e-mails coming in.  I'm pretty sure I just discovered something today that will not be a one time thing!

By the end of the day though I was super ready to get home and just relax.  I did lots of yoga poses and stretching, using both my foam roller and "the stick" and I also did some exercises this evening to check of Day 2 of the 30 day ab challenge that has been going around Facebook.  I am going to do my best to stick through this and even though the past 2 days have been light, they have been incredibly painful as apparently my abs got a pretty good workout on Saturday.

For those of you who are following along or are interested in it, here are the exercises for the next 30 days!

These things always start off seemingly easy but get brutal, if not impossible towards the end!  I will give it a try though and see what happens!  Today is also the first day in a while that I tracked my Weight Watchers points and actually made decisions around what to eat based on fitting things in to my day (i.e. I passed on a glass of white wine with dinner from the bottle I have in the fridge because I accidentally spent too many points on the chocolates I stole off a co-workers desk today...)

Today is still going strong with the weather as I type up this blog from my porch.  Yesterday afternoon I brought my porch furniture outside, cleaned everything, and washed the porch a bit so my summertime hang out is officially in place!  Cannot wait to start enjoying meal after meal out here and being outside as much as possible!  This winter I think I spent more time out "in the elements" as I trained for the marathon than I have in any other winter.

I'm pretty sure that is going to make being outside this summer all the more sweet and enjoyable.  Hope you had a wonderful Monday and great start to your weeks!