Tag Archives: morning run

STL Bound

Daily Life!, Food for Thought, , ,

Happy Friday!! I hope your having a wonderful day so far. It’s gorgeous (and cold!) here in Springfield, and I’m loving it!

Right after work today, Nick, Mac, and I will load up and head out to St. Louis for a weekend at Nick’s parents house. I’m very excited! Though the anticipation is making this work day go by rather slowly… oh well. It’s already half over. 🙂

Backing up a bit to yesterday, I had a little more work to do in my kitchen before all my goodies would be ready to take along for the weekend. Frosting the sugar cookies was the final thing on my baking agenda!

photo(90)Plain sugar cookies with vanilla frosting = Nick’s father’s favorite! Mark is an easy man to please (his bday is 4 days after mine), and I had a wonderful time licking all the extra frosting off the spoon.

photo(92)I used a simple Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie mix, so they aren’t fancy but still delicious! And I actually ended up eating tons of the leftover frosting right before I went to teach 6:45 pm Jazzercise. Smart idea? Probably not. But I managed to make it through class without getting sick. 🙂

I also whipped up a batch of chocolate chip and pecan cookies for the rest of Nick’s family to enjoy. They aren’t into the plain sugar cookies as much as Mark is.

photo(91)These are like little pieces of heaven, people. Seriously.

I found semi-sweet baking chips in a Halloween variety to make these extra festive!

photo(89)And I obviously did not frost these. The chocolate chips were enough addition!

I now have 2 dozen cookies and a BIG bowl of the Halloween Chex Mix that I posted yesterday to take along for the weekend. Nick’s mom always complain that my treats are unhealthy and that I need to bring along some of my healthy food. But that’s no fun! Birthday weekends are meant for splurging, so splurge we will. A lot.

Morning Run

In lieu of me having to change up my half marathon schedule, I had a crosstraining day yesterday and taught 2 classes. So that made today my shorter run day! Yay for not having to run as far! 😛

I woke up early to the coldest morning we’ve had so far: 30° F! Woah! I bundled up in my best running layers, including a cozy ear warmer and gloves, and headed out on a 45 minute run. I tried to make today’s run a tempo run, but the cold held me back just a bit. My perfect race pace would be between a 8:00-8:10 minute mile, but this morning’s pace was 8:28 overall. I was a little faster than my run on Wednesday morning, but still not at my best. That cold air makes it hard to breath!

I made it to 5.1 miles in 43:30 and was more than ready to be back home. Today’s run was difficult to say the least. I was struggling to pick up my feet and almost tripped myself a few times. This was probably a mix of being tired and eating so much sugar all week. I’m still not feeling my best from eating so many sweets in the midst of all my baking/cooking for the weekend, so I’ll be ready for a ‘sweets detox’ starting Sunday night when we make it home!

I hope you all have a great weekend and can enjoy the beautiful weather! I’m not sure when I’ll have time to check in, but I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun times to share – talk to you then!

Messin’ with my Schedule

Daily Life!, , , ,

Good morning! Woot, it’s Thursday!! I always love Thursdays. Every week this day brings me a sense of relief since the weekend is within sight. Love it! Plus that sense of relief invokes a good mood. No grumpy cats around here!

Grumpy-Cat-PurinaHAhahaahah. Sorry. I love that poor little cat.

I didn’t get a chance to check back in for another post last night because a lot of action was happening in my kitchen.

photo(85)Yup, that right there is diabetes in a pan. Looks yummy right?

photo(86)Halloween Chex Mix made an appearance! Other goodies did as well, but I will wait to post pictures until I get them iced this evening.

I rarely cook up these types of treats in my kitchen, but this weekend brings up good reason for celebration and goodies are necessary! Nick, Mac, and I are heading to St. Louis to visit his family to celebrate several upcoming birthdays. My birthday is Nov. 1. His father’s birthday is Nov. 4. And his brother’s girlfriend’s birthday is Nov. 8! I had to make this Chex mix and lots of cookies last night to take along for our weekend fun. Yay for a little reason to splurge!

We are leaving right after work tomorrow evening and will stay through the weekend. Hence the reason for the post title – this trip will be messin’ with my schedule. Big time.

I LOVE Nick’s family. Love them. To pieces. Really, I do. So I can’t wait to go visit and spend lots of time with them the next few days. But since I just started out on this Half Marathon training plan, this trip will put a little kink in the regularly scheduled activities. I also have to get my Friday night and Sunday morning Jazzercise classes covered for me. When did weekend trips have to become so complicated?!

Luckily, I easily got my classes covered by my fellow instructors. Now I’m just trying to find a good way to squeeze in my weekend workouts and runs while in St. Louis! I have time on Saturday morning to attend a Jazzercise class at a local center close to Nick’s parents house and to also go running. But first, I have to figure out where to run and then how to get myself there. I’m terrible at driving around up there!

I’ve mostly stayed on track up until today, as far as my training plan is concerned. I started yesterday with a nice run. I was scheduled for 5+ miles, so I awoke bright and early and told myself I would run for 1 hour and just see how far that got me.

photo(84)It was stinkin’ cold outside! I think my body was in a bit of shock, and my pace was slower than normal. But I still made it almost 7.5 miles which set me off on the right foot for the day.

Today’s schedule is where it started getting funky. I should have started today with a shorter run (around 3-4 miles), but I instead taught the 5:40 AM Jazzercise class (I switched for my Sunday morning class). Tonight I will teach my normal class time at 6:45 pm. So today has become a cross training day, and tomorrow will be a shorter run day. I’m going to wake up early tomorrow to get out there and hit it hard before this fun weekend begins! I have a 3 hour car ride after work to rest my tired body and relax so waking up early is an OK compromise by me.

Soooooo, here’s another fun roundup of my upcoming weekend activities…

  • Make it to St. Louis by 8ish PM tomorrow evening
  • Dinner with Nick’s parents
  • Saturday morning Jazzercise class
  • 6+ mile run (somewhere?)
  • Meet my girlfriend Emily for a late lunch in the city
  • Relax at home (fingers crossed!)
  • Dinner out with Nick’s whole family
  • Sunday morning shorter run

And that’s about it, folks. I know I shouldn’t worry so much about all the small details, but I love making lists and staying organized.

Have a great day, and I’ll check in with you later!

Jazzercise Pink Dance Party

Jazzercise, Workouts, , , ,

Happy Monday morning! I know we’re all excited to start a new week..right?? Okay, maybe not. I’m pretty exhausted and could’ve used about 3 more days of rest. Hopefully I’ll feel different after another cup of coffee!

Last night I promised you a new Crock Pot recipe that I tried out, but I want to back up before dinner yesterday for this post. I promise the recipe later today. 🙂

Yesterday morning started bright and early because I couldn’t sleep! I thought after my long run on Saturday that I would be able to sleep straight through to my alarm at 7 AM, but no such luck. I awoke at 6 AM with a rambunctious dog crying at the foot of my bed. Mac and I got up, got the morning paper, and set out on a quick 3 mile run to warm up my sore body.

The weather was around 40 degrees, and we met lots of other runners along our path. It was a nice little morning to be out and about I guess! We made it home in about 26 minutes, and I immediately sat down in our livingroom floor to stretch out my sore quads and glutes.

The rest of the morning continued on with some hot breakfast and lots of coffee!

IMG_2343I toasted an English muffin and spread it with raspberry jelly before topping one side with some colby jack cheese. I love the combo of salty and sweet! I also had some Greek yogurt on the side for extra protein.

Jazzercise Pink Dance Party

I did some grocery shopping and had lunch before heading over to Jazzercise for our Pink Dance Party! We hosted a fundraiser class for some students that are raising money for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. They are walking this upcoming Saturday in the American Cancer Society’s event. Everyone (not just Jazzer students!) were encouraged to attend and give a donation of $10. And of course, we encouraged everyone to wear pink!

IMG_2354Several members of our instructor team, including myself, volunteered to teach a fun Jazzercise Plus class that included a few more cardio songs and less body sculpting. We made sure we threw in as many ‘tata’ songs as possible!

IMG_2352Our turnout was fairly light, but we still had a great time! And my favorite part (besides the dancing)?? Cupcakes. 🙂

IMG_2356Yum! I had several of these tiny cupcakes and didn’t even feel guilty. We worked up quite a sweat during this special class!

IMG_2358I’m once again reminded of how blessed I am to be a part of such an awesome group of ladies. My friends from Jazzercise are some of the most fun and caring people I know!

And then after this fun class we headed to the London Calling double decker bus for an instructor meeting!

IMG_2361Cool, huh?! I think it’s pretty darn awesome. One of my fellow instructors is opening up a food truck here in Springfield called the London Calling Pasty Company, and this double decker is only part of their fun set up! If you like British food and are in the area, stop by London Calling starting this Friday! I can’t wait to try out some homemade meat pies. 🙂

Well I hope you enjoy your Monday! I’ll see you all later today!