It's beginning to look a lot like...

How did it get to be November 24th already?  Geez louise, this year has flown by.  Despite the fact last week feels like last December to me, I am feeling ready and excited for the holidays.

I am what you might call a Christmas freak.  I love the feeling of the holiday season. I love the music, the lights, the traditions. I love the gift giving, the cookie making, and the tree decorating.  Which, is exactly what I did today at my apartment!  Yup, my Christmas tree is now up :)

I just couldn't wait until after Thanksgiving, like I usually do.  I wanted my tree now!!  I love how cozy it makes my apartment feel.  Right now I'm curled up on the couch with the tree lights glowing, apartment smelling fantastic, and am just so warm and cozy inside.  I am just as excited for Thanksgiving as I am for Christmas, but I love how my the tree makes everything seem cozier.

This weekend for me was filled with lots of activity and fun times.  Friday morning was a chilly run in the rain with my friends, followed by coffee.  We've started a tradition of going for coffee after our Friday morning runs and I have to say that it is such a treat and something I find myself looking forward to all week long.  

Running with my friends in the morning has really been such a motivator for me lately.  I guess I haven't really written about it too much, but since July I have been meeting with a few friends at 5:40 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.  It is such a fun way to start the day and I love getting my run out of the way early.  I feel so accomplished before I even go in to work.  Running with friends makes it go by faster, pushes me harder, and holds me accountable.  I'm so thankful to have them!!

My weekend was full of lots of relaxing time with friends... watching a movie, catching up, running errands, doing crafts, eating out, and also getting in the Christmas spirit.  

In addition to getting my tree today, yesterday, I joined one of my running buddies, her husband, and two kids to go on the Polar Express train to "the North Pole."  It was such a cute family event I have heard about for years and because I am a big kid myself, jumped on the chance to join Jess and her family.  

We went to the local train station, where they were fully decorated for the holidays and boarded the "Polar Express."  The train itself was so festive and once we boarded and the train started moving, they served hot chocolate and cookies, read the book aloud, played the music from the movies, and drove through the "North Pole" which we watched from the windows and was full of lights and holiday magic.  The kids had a special treat as Santa was able to board the train and say hello to everyone!! :)

Santa!! I know him!

The North Pole

I love the look of excitement!

It was such a fun night and there was even some beautiful snow yesterday evening to make the night even more magical.

*sigh* I love the holidays.

I am pretty proud of some of the eating choices I made this weekend.  For example, on Saturday night we went out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner where they give you free chips and salsa -- which I avoided completely!   I also didn't have any alcohol this weekend.  

I've been doing the Advocare 10-day cleanse, that I did previously in June and really tried hard to stick to the rules.  I cheated a bit on Friday with some popcorn, Saturday with some hot chocolate and a cookie on the Polar Express, and today when I ate lunch at a friend's for a party she was having.  However, I am proud of many decisions I made so I am trying to focus on that and finish off the rest of the cleanse as best I can.

To help with the next few days, I made a delicious meal tonight.  I fed myself and my friend Kevin who helped with setting up my tree for the 2nd year in a row.  We had chicken stuffed with spinach, mushrooms, onion, garlic, and tomato, along with baked sweet potatoes and asparagus.

I will be eating this for the rest of the week, so go right ahead and be jealous now.   As for exercising this weekend?  It was non-existent as I am trying to rest up before my training starts.  It will be one of the last weekends in months that don't include a frigid run.  Ugh, okay, go back to not being jealous anymore.  Wahhhh!

Hope you had a fun weekend as well and happy holidays :)

Time to be thankful.

Hi everybody, I hope that you have all been doing well.  I've meant to come here and write so many times and it is one of those things where the longer you stay away, the harder it is to come back.  So I'm sorry, mostly to myself, because I have not only lacked the discipline in writing lately, I've lacked the discipline in eating right and taking care of myself.  So that's something I am planning to work on nowadays and I am hoping to keep track of it all right here.

Also, one of my readers, Malory, posted over a month ago asking how my half marathon in September went and it made me so happy.  Every time I went to write I would think about that comment and it is one of the things that I thought about when I came back to the keyboard now.

So, for those who I haven't talked to... my half marathon back in September went great.  I had a PR of about 16 minutes, finishing the race in 2:03:41.  I really pushed myself hard throughout the race and started with a crazy fast pace that I was able to keep up for a while -- until the last few miles when I just DIED.  It was all I could do to keep my legs moving through the last 2 miles of the race, but I am so proud that I did.  Having such a strong PR felt great and really proved something to myself.  The other thing that made the race so amazing was having support from my family and friends.

Well, not that I didn't have support the first time around -- I know, that I could not have gotten through the Nashville race without everyone's support.  No, if anything else, I felt more of my own determination doing this half marathon, but this time around, I had a cheering squad!  My parents, siblings, and some friends all came to cheer and seeing them on the sidelines and having them to hug at the end made it so, so amazing.  I'm so grateful to everyone who has been with me throughout my journey over the past few years.

This past year has been incredible.  I ran TWO half marathons.  I completed TWO sprint triathlons -- one on my birthday.  And I did something else you guys.  I am officially registered for my first MARATHON.  Ahhhhh!!!!!!!

AND, that marathon is in Paris, y'all.  Woooo hooooo!

My training starts on December 1st.  It is going to be a long and cold winter and it is going to be terrible and I'm going to hate it and I'm going to cry.  But I'm going to do it.

So, if you're not feeling too abandoned by me so far, stick with me here.  Because there are some intense months to come!!

Thanks for everything, everyone :)

I can't stop running or eating.

What a week peoples!  The weather has been absolutely beautiful this week.  On Tuesday I did a 3 mile run after work, and was totally blown away at how gorgeous the sky was.

There is no filter on those photos.  Sometimes I feel like I am really lucky to live in Upstate NY.  I also have some great friends, whom immediately post run, I then went to dinner and ate this yummy salad.

It was delicious and just the right amount of spicy and coolness from the guacamole.  I ate the whole thing and half the french fries off of the plates around me.

This morning I got up early and met my friends for a 5 mile run that started in the dark.  We're going to need to head out with head lamps on pretty soon!

But, I should have run about a hundred more miles because for lunch I ate all of this.

Plus, I ate a bowl of soup and some bread and a hundred glasses of Diet Pepsi, which I don't even ever drink anymore but somehow ended up with.  Oh, and I stopped taking pictures because at the end of the day I just totally threw all hell out the window and ate some of the following:

• Marinated feta cheese
• Asparagus & brie grilled cheese bites
• Tomato, basil and mozzarella salad
• Chickpea flat bread with sweet potato hummus
• Wine

So, good thing I ran those miles.  Weight Watchers would be so proud.  Doesn't look like I'm going to be losing weight any time soon.

On to tomorrow...

It's officially September and I'm ready!

The rest of my Labor Day weekend finished off pretty relaxingly and full of friends, food, and exercise.  In retrospect, I would go for a little less food to make the exercise count for a little more, but I'm still happy with the weekend.

I wrote yesterday from a local coffee shop, Professor Java's, which is a really cute little coffee shop.  It was one of the goals that I had for myself for Sunday, September 1st.  You see, I realized on Saturday evening that I had the full day on Sunday with absolutely nothing to do and nobody to see.  Most of my friends were out of town for various reasons, and I decided to just make the day a "me" day and in addition to getting done lots of errands (pay bills, return clothes, send some e-mails I needed to send, etc.) I had a few things on the list I always say I am going to try.  One of those was to hang out for a bit with my laptop in a coffee shop, and another was to get a drink alone at a local bar.

Why get a drink alone at a bar when I live in a city with lots of friends and plenty of people to call?  Well, one of the things that I want to do more of lately is push myself out of my comfort zone.  Lately, I've been feeling very comfortable in my life.  I don't see any major life changes coming up in the near future and rather than be "content" with things, I want to keep challenging myself.  I continue to challenge myself physically -- running more miles and faster speeds.  But I want to also stay sharp emotionally and mentally.

Getting a drink alone at a bar is something that I end up doing a lot while traveling and I always end up meeting interesting and different people.  I have conversations on broad topics and interact with people I wouldn't normally on a day to day basis.  If I do this while traveling, what's to say that I couldn't do that in my own home town?  My friends and I often go to the same places over and over, which is fun to have a routine but there are plenty of great places in this town I've never actually been, so I'm going to make more of an effort to check them out and put myself out of my comfort zone to go to a bar by myself.  Yesterday I spent a great day with myself, having both coffee, and later a drink at a bar solo.  It wasn't too thrilling, but a liberating experience that I'll try to do again.

In between, I made myself a delicious meal with some of my CSA vegetables.  I stir fried some onions and green pepper in sesame oil and combined it with udon noodles and topped it all with soy sauce and some chopped scallions.  It turned out delicious and I was able to have make a few extra servings that I'll eat for lunch this week!

Today I woke up early and headed out to Saratoga to meet my friends for a Monday morning run (despite having the day off!)  It surprised me when I opened the door to pouring rain (yet again!) but headed out for the run anyways.  I've experienced this enough times that I know what I'm doing :)  Luckily, the rain died off by the time I got to Saratoga and we actually headed out on the run.  Jess and I did 6 miles this morning throughout Saratoga park and by the race track.  After we ran, we got bagels for breakfast and went back towards the race track to go inside and watch the horses warm up!

It was fun to see the horses run on the last morning of the track season.  I had never gone to breakfast at the track and it was definitely a fun experience and morning with the girls!  After cleaning up at home I headed out to a BBQ with some friends.  It was a fun day all around.

A few weird things that are on my mind though:

• GPS accuracy.  Every day when I run with my friends, I use my Garmin Forerunner watch, which I LOVE.  They all use their iPhones and the app RunKeeper.  When we do 3-4 mile runs, my watch generally tracks the distance as being .1 or so miles short of their distance.  It's become a little joke, because I'm always anal and keep running the extra distance to have my watch beep at the mile mark.  Since my watch is the one odd ball, I've always assumed it's my watch that is wrong.  However, when I wore it during a 5K recently, it marked the distance as exactly 3.1 miles.  Today, when we ran, my GPS was .4 miles short of what my friend's iPhone app said.  That was a lot for a 6 mile run!  I have no idea if it is my watch or their app.  Is there a way to test accuracy?
• Eating.  Why do I feel like on the days that I run I can just eat whatever I want?  I am doing Weight Watchers and counting my points, but I continue to just exceed them on the days I run.  It isn't even because I am hungry, but it is because I just have this mental block saying that I can eat everything I want if I run.  I really, really need to get that in track.

Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend!

Live music and seeing progress.

Hey guys, hope you are having a good Labor Day weekend!  I have been having a great one so far.  I posted on Friday morning and spent the rest of the day having fun with my girl KO.  We spent the day at the Saratoga race track, for the last Friday races of the season, ate some delicious ice cream, Mexican food, and saw our long term favorite musician John Mayer in concert.

KO and I have been friends since kindergarten, and despite often 1000s of miles of separation and many changes in our life, we continue to have a great friendship that includes lots of silliness, long talks about everything in the world, and geeking out about John Mayer music.

I know that he isn't everyone's favorite, but JM has long been someone whose music just relates and speaks to me.  Maybe it is because I was a sophomore in high school when "No Such Thing" hit the airwaves and the pop-tastic lyrics about running through the halls of your high school and screaming at the top of your lungs spoke to me.  Maybe it is because I first went to one of his concerts at that impressionable time when every crush on a guy was like life or death.  Maybe it is because he aged as a musician much as I aged through puberty and life changes such as my parents divorce, college, first loves, and figuring out who I am and where I am going in my life.  But, for whatever reason, his music has always been able to accurately narrate whatever is going on in my life.  His songs have always comforted me or spoken to me and his voice has always been soothing.  It's hard to explain how intertwined his music has been with my life without seeming like a doting cheesy fan, but his music really means a lot to me.  I have a number of friends who are loving long-term JM fans as well, and KO is one of those.  We grew up together using John to explain how we felt when we couldn't find the words.

In fact, one time, during a particularly hard period of life, I wrote KO an email where every single line of the e-mail was a line from a John Mayer song.  Weird, but true :)

So, seeing this concert together was probably our 5th or so show, and was just as wonderful as all of those other times.  Perhaps even better, because due to an amazing friend, we were able to move up closer than our purchased lawn tickets.  Now, you might think, if we're such big fans, why don't we shell out the cash to get seats up front?  Well, honestly, that's never been that important to us.  We're fans of his music and not necessarily crazy fan girls for John himself.  We go to hear our favorite songs sung live, not to necessarily get a good view of him.  You can hear the music just as well from the lawn, and often there is more room to dance.  BUT, that being said, we were thrilled at the opportunity to move up and sit in Row W for the concert and experience the show up close.  These were the best seats I've ever had for a John concert and I am so thankful to my friend for getting us up there!!

The concert was great, the set was beautiful, and it was a great night all around at the show!  Saturday morning after running some errands, KO had to leave town but I'm so happy we had another concert to experience in our friendship together.

Later on during the day Saturday I met up with Dani to do our weekend long run together.  I had 10 miles planned and was a little nervous about them because I had taken a number of days off this past week due to being sick.  I knew it would be helpful to do them together and since Dani is training for a full marathon and had 14 to do, we decided to meet up.  We planned to drive together in one car to the location where my friends and I usually meet in the mornings and run from there to her apartment, which is about 10.5 miles.  Then we would drive back to get the other car.

It sounded like a good plan to me and the run was going well until we started to hear thunder about 4.5 miles in.  "Looks like we might get wet," Dani said to me.  And we kept running, figuring if it did rain, it would be a brief shower and sort of welcoming the chance to cool off a bit.

Well at about 5.5 miles in the sky opened up and oh. my. god. did it rain!!!  Literally, raindrops the size of buckets started falling and the sky started flashing with lightning and loud cracks of thunder.  We didn't really have a choice but to keep going since we were about 5 miles from either of our cars.  And we were laughing through most of it, but man, it rained heavy like that for the next 4 miles!!!  At first the lightning seemed pretty far off so I wasn't too worried but at one point it felt a little too close for comfort and I got really, really scared and nervous.  If Dani weren't there, I probably would have cowered under a tree for a while, but she encouraged me to keep going.  We were at a portion of the trail that was literally just in the middle of the woods and there wasn't much we could do but keep going.

Now that I'm writing, it's almost a metaphor for life.  When you're caught in a thunderstorm in the middle of the woods, there isn't much to do but keep going until you either get out of the woods or the rain stops!

When the storm died down, with about .5 miles left, we were completely drenched but still smiling and still running.  I finished my 10 miles and Dani kept going to finish off her extra miles.  By the time she finished and brought me back to my car and I got home to my apartment, I was SO ready for a shower and it was one of the best showers I've had in a long time!

I finished off my Saturday heading out to a friend's for a party at their gorgeous house in the country.  They had a number of bands perform and I was totally blown away at the passion and talent and the great show these guys put on.  It is not my normal style of music (more metal, hardcore punk) but I am always impressed by passion, which is the "professional fan" in me.  Plus, my friend throws one hell of a party and they had a full sound system, stage, drinks, food, smoke machine, fire dancers, and a freaking bounce house!

Despite heading to the party thinking I wouldn't stay long, I ended up sticking around until late in the evening because I was having such a good time.  It made me reflect upon the day that I did my 10-mile run while training for the half marathon I did in April.  I spent the rest of the day laying on the floor at my mom's house in pain, sore, and feeling sick.  This time, I was dancing into the night.

It's neat to see the progress that my body has made and how it has gotten used to the longer runs and built up endurance.  I'm really proud of myself and how far I've come.  It is definitely something to dance about if you ask me :)

So much has happened and I want to write!

Hey guys,

So much has happened since I last posted and I want to share it all with you so badly.  I always think, if I don't have enough time (or energy) to write a full post or full recap of something than I should wait to do it, which then usually leads me to not writing a full post or full recap.  It's a vicious cycle.  But I think I need to get in my mind that "good enough" is better than "perfect."  Sometimes, I should just write something, which is better than nothing because there is so much that I want to share and remember.

• In the beginning of August I competed in my 2nd sprint triathlon.  I went out to Lake Lauderdale and competed in the Fronhofer Tool Triathlon for the 2nd year in a row, and was able to not only beat my time by 8 minutes, but I also was able to do the entire thing without taking a break (I had to walk the year before.)  I felt amazing after this race and had such a better experience than last year.

• My mom came to visit and we had an awesome time checking out the track in Saratoga, the farmer's market in Schenectady, and lounging about my apartment.

• I attended my good friends M&D's wedding in Saratoga Springs.  It was an incredibly beautiful and touching ceremony and I loved every minute of it.  Weddings are so much fun... dancing, love, drinks, and cake.  What could be better?  So happy for the two of them and I was thrilled to be a part of their beautiful day.

• I attended the "Package Tour" -- yes, that's right, I saw Boyz II Men, 98 Degrees, and New Kids on the Block in concert.  Last minute, I received free tickets from work and snatched those babies up as fast as I could.  It was an awesome decision because I had a blast attending the show with the ladies!

• I got a personal best in my 5K time!  The training plan I have for the half marathon I am doing in September has me doing a couple "step back" weeks where I cut the mileage back.  The weekend of August 17th had me scheduled to compete in a 5K.  I picked a race that said it was great for a summer PR because it has a down hill finish.  And summertime PR, I did!  Not only was it a summer PR, but it was an overall, life PR, by A LOT.  Previously my fastest 5K time was a 26:46 and that was a race that I was convinced I must have cut a corner or something.  I set out to do the race on the 17th with a goal of running in the 27s, with a reach goal of getting an overall PR.  I tried to just run my fastest and only glanced at my Garmin a half mile in.  I saw I was going about 8:30 and tried to tell myself to slow down so that I wouldn't die out, but I just kept going with it.  I didn't look at my watch again, pushed myself, and nearly lost my breath when I got close enough to the finish to see that I was in the 25s!!!  I finished the race at 25:26 -- which is an incredible PR for me.  I couldn't have been prouder.

• My running buddies and I followed up our visit to the ballet with a trip to the orchestra.  Seriously, we're pure class.  The orchestra was just as fun and included some dancing, so of course, I loved it.  We saw the Michael Cavanaugh perform "Songs of Elton John" which also included lots of Oldies.  Loved. It.

• Speaking of class, I also attended a Polo Match in Saratoga for the first time.  It was a similar experience to the orchestra and ballet, where you can bring your own food in.  I really loved the experience, even though I had NO CLUE what was going on during the polo match.  It was neat to see the horses up close and it is an interesting game to observe!  I love trying new things and this was definitely something worth trying.

• I climbed a wind turbine for the 2nd time!  Again, it was just as incredible of an experience.  This time it was in the beautiful Catskill Mountains of Western Massachusetts.  A wind turbine on top of a mountain is HIGH, and the sights were beautiful.  I can't wait for the opportunity to do it again.

• One Monday morning, just like that, I ran 9 miles.  I was feeling good, so I just kept going.  In hindsight, I probably should have prepared my body a bit, but it was a cool feeling to just be able to run 9 miles like that.  I am comparing to my experience of training this spring, where 9 miles would totally wipe me out, and I couldn't even do the whole thing running!  But now, I just, on a random Monday morning, ran 9 miles.  It was a proud feeling for me.  And I definitely indulged later...

• Speaking of indulging, I attended the Altamont Fair!  I loooove the fair because it is so random and fun, and the rides make me feel like a little kid.  You know what else makes me feel like a little kid?  Chocolate, caramel covered apples & eating them like nobody was watching.  Which, maybe I should have paid some mind to the fact that people were around (I think I grossed out my friend Jeff) but whatever, it was freaking deeeeelish.  I ate one at the fair, and one the next day at home as a celebration of my 9-miler.

• I celebrated my 27th birthday!  I had such a great time celebrating this birthday with some of my closest friends.  I haven't felt so loved in a long time and it was a great, great weekend.

• Part of that weekend included competing in my THIRD sprint triathlon.  Who signs up for a sprint tri on their birthday?!?  THIS GIRL DOES.  Who have I become?  The race was shorter than the last sprint triathlon I did so I couldn't compare times, but it felt great to do the race.  My butt?  Didn't feel so great the days afterwards, considering the 5K portion of the tri was ALL hills.  Up and down.  The whole day.  My butt was toast.

• I attended my 6th (ish?) annual Ramadan Dinner at work.  It is one of my favorite days of the year and an incredibly awesome event that is put on.  You celebrate culture, meet people's families, and stuff your face with incredibly delicious Indian food.  What's not to love?

• My CSA keeps coming and I keep cooking!  I've tried so many delicious recipes but one of the ones I am LOVING is for swiss chard dumplings.  I keep getting swiss chard and I just keep on making this!  Yummmmm!  I freezed a bunch so I will have this once the chard stops coming.  I can't wait!

• Oh, and finally, I rejoined Weight Watchers.  Yes, I know that I had that whole schpiel about how I was going to "do this on my own" but you know what?  Sometimes you need a little help.  And the only thing scarier to me than going back to Weight Watchers was the fear that I would gain back all the weight that I had lost.  I. Do. Not. Want. To. Be. A. Statistic.  I'm doing my best to get back on track and feeling really positive about where I am weight wise and the direction I'm headed.  I've had someone tell me that I looked like I lost a little weight, my clothes are starting to feel a bit more comfortable, and recently, a woman called me "petite."  I was like, wahhh?  ME?  But, hey, I'll take it!!!

So, yeah, I've been keeping busy.  I want to come back and write more and I will do my best, BUT right now my best friend Kate is visiting.  She is working (looooserrrr..... we took the day off!) so I figured I'd catch up with you peeps.  We're going to have a fun, best friends day, and tonight, go see our man John Mayer in concert -- something we've been doing together for the past 10 years.  Crazy, huh?  Love you peeps, and please, leave me comments about how much you missed me so I'll come back here more often, k?  K :)

Zucchini Pizza Bites from Skinnytaste

I shared this picture on Instagram and Facebook and was getting a lot of comments so I figured I would pop in here for a quick minute and share the recipe.  I got the inspiration from Skinnytaste (she has so many amazing recipes!) and thought it would be the perfect use of my zucchini from the the CSA.  I followed her recipe of broiling the zucchini on each side, although I did mine for about 4 minutes on each side, since I cut the zucchini pretty thick.  Oh, and I realized once it was in the oven, that I had forgotten to spray the zucchini with oil and salt and pepper.  Woops!  Turned out okay though.

After broiling each side for 4 minutes, I added sauce and cheese.   Turns out my mozzarella cheese had gone bad, which I am pretty bummed about having to throw out.  But I ended up using whatever cheese I could find in my fridge, which was a combination of 2 wedges of Weight Watchers Parmesan peppercorn cheese and a couple pieces off a block of Cabot Garlic and Herb cheddar cheese.

I broiled for another 2 minutes and ended up with this masterpiece.  I must say, I had really low expectations for this dish but it turned out to be delicious!!  Can't wait to do this more.

I promise, I will be back here more.  I've got so much to share with you!  Miss you, xoxo.