Let's play catch up shall we....

So it has been 2 months!  It has been a whirlwind at work with year end and in life.  I started this blog as something to track my food, fitness, and adventures and the last few months life has been getting in the way of many of those things.  But I want to get back into it and start to share the new things that have been keeping me busy!  So what have I been up to the last 2 months....

1) Graduating!!!  I had finished up my classes but I finally got my diploma and it was the best feeling in the world.

2) Job hunting, planning a move, trying not to freak out!  Yup this is a daily battle.  I am still planning on moving early next year to MN to be with the BF so right now I am trying to find a job and an easy way to transition out of the one I am in.  I know I have plenty of time but I am still stressed and keeping my fingers crossed that I find the perfect job for me!

3) Running a marathon relay!  The Detroit Marathon Relay was an absolute blast!  It was so fun to be running with 4 of my favorite people and it was a really fun but long day.  Since I was the last leg I had to wait about 4 hours before it was my time to run, thankfully we had heated charter busses that I was able to sleep on.  Overall we didn't finish at our goal time but it was still a great experience.  Oh and I had the best view from my leg start!

4) Putting on a tutu and celebrating halloween!  My girlfriends and I decided to be tutu superheros this year and I think it turned out super cute.  We also did pumpkin carving and learned that some of us are better at it then others lol

5) Celebrating 2 amazing years with the BF!  I cannot believe we have already been together for 2 years... it is one of the cliche feel like you know them forever but still have those early on butterfly feelings that is just too good to be true.  Since we are apart we decided that the best way to celebrate would be to meet in the middle in Chicago.  We did the classic touristy stuff, attended a Second City comedy show (which was hilarious) and went to soldier field for my first ever bears game.  I was seriously like a small child I was so excited.  It was a perfect weekend with the man I love!

 

 

 

6) Ran my first trail race!  It is called the dirty duel mud run and last year it was sponsored by Red Bull.  It took almost an hour to complete the 5K course and it was all natural obstacles like large hills and sand dunes.  I was sore for days but it was one of the coolest races I have ran.

 

 



7) Thankgiving!  This year I flew out to MN and spent the whole weekend with just the BF.  His family was in Florida but we couldn't coordinate it in our schedule so we decided to spend the long weekend with eachother and good friends.  I made enough food for a small army but the BF was happy he didn't have to cook the rest of the week.  We also ran a 5K around gorgeous Lake Calhoun which has a perfect view of downtown Minneapolis... too bad it was only 5 degrees that morning so I didn't take too many pics!

 

8) Recommitting to fitness!  My knees haven't been doing so well with running so I decided to fall in love with some other forms of fitness.  I joined a gym in my area and take 3-4 classes a week.  I am obsessed with Barre (probably since I have a dance background) and have been taking TRX, yoga, tabata, and bootcamp classes.  I have really seen a transformation in my body and I am loving how much it is mixed up.  I have slowly started getting back into running after taking a few weeks off and I just bought a brand new pair of shoes.  I have even told myself that I will be running a Marathon in 2014 so we will see how that goes!!!



 So that is my life in a nut shell!  Now I feel caught up and can get back to it!

Happy Friday!



Weekend update

This was my first weekend back in the mitten state after two away so I was excited to catch up with my girlfriends and soak up some football.

Friday night was a happy hour that never ended.... I swear this happens way too often. Started out innocent enough at 4pm and then happy hour turned into cocktail hour, and cocktail hour turned into shuffle board and then all starts to get a bit fuzzy lol! My original plan was to be home at 7pm so that I could bake cupcakes for the next day and get in some good rest. After many failed attempts (thanks to my enabling girlfriends) I finally made it home around 1am and realized that I still needed to make cupcakes. How they didn't end up into charred little hockey pucks I am not sure but they actually turned out great! Of course I seem to lack in the taking pictures front probably for the better but here is the one gem I do have from the night when we were being driven to another bar by a very nice sober friend since we didn't want to walk in the rain!

Saturday was homecoming for University of Michigan and they played University of Minnesota. Growing up in Michigan most people fall into 2 fan categories, Michigan or Michigan State, I was always a state girl and have always had a distaste for Michigan. Somehow I have seemed to make friends and live with only those who loooove UofM so I am always outnumbered. This weekend though was fun because now that BF is attending Minnesota and since I have the gear I was able to respectfully cheer against the home team! We had a ton of people come out and meet up for day drinking, and classing tailgating games. It was a super long day between the tailgating, full football game, and after events but it was so fun to be away with my friends and acting like we were still in college.

 

Sunday was recovery day and watching my Bears get their butts kicked again in football :-( seems to be a new Sunday tradition! I also got all of my errands and random life tasks pulled together and started working on the resume so I can start applying for jobs in Minnie!!!

Sunday I also decided with a good girlfriend to start a crazy new health adventure this week that I will have to share tomorrow so I can do a good write up on it... get excited!

Detroit Zoo 10K

Sunday was race day! 

This was the longest race I had signed up for this fall and I was actually really excited for it.  All of my girlfriends had ran the zoo race before but I was always out of town or had another engagement.  The race starts just outside of the Detroit Zoo, circles through the cute community surrounding it, and then ends right inside the gates of the zoo.  It was a super chilly morning but it was perfect running weather!

 

My goal for the race was to get under an 11 minute pace average, and I ended up officially finishing in 01:07:57 which put me at a 10:49 minute mile average.  Overall I was happy with my performance but I am not sure what is up with mile 4.... it always seems to be my worst mile!

 

 

The original plan was to see the animals but thanks to the temperature actually dropping during the run we were all frigid and decided to call it a day.  My right knee was super tight which was odd so I spent a good portion of the day relaxing and propping it up.  Today I am rocking the compression sleeves at work to help my tight legs, thankfully it is back to dress pants season!  This afternoon I hope to get in some time on the eliptical and then tonight is yoga to get me all stretched out. 

 

 

 

Hope everyone has a great monday!

5 things Friday

This week has been super odd, and busy so I mainly just have a random smattering of things to share!

1) I haven't been feeling well this week due to allergies but I was finally able to get my booty out of the house last night for a full 4 mile run.  The weather was perfect, I do hate fall but I have learned to appreciate the cooler temps to run in.  The Detroit Zoo 10K is on Sunday so this was my last big run before the race!

2) They just released the shirt design for the Detroit Marathon.... I hate red so I am not super happy about the color!  The design on the back though is pretty BA, and our team t-shirts are going to be awesome so I will take the free shirt!

 

3) The amount of baked goods in my house is not okay.  I successfully made my first batch of scones the other day and then got the brilliant idea to make more to ship to the BF but only half would fit in the box.  So now I have 6 PB Banana scones just sitting in my house, along with a ton of salted caramel chocolate chip cookies that my roomie made for work.  Yesterday I ended up eating a cookie post run and convinced myself that the salted caramel counted as sodium replacement... willpower fail!

 

4) My BF is amazing and sent me a care package with a super cute frog he won for me at the Minnesota State Fair a few weeks back, and a mutually beneficial gift card to VS.  He did tell me it couldn't be used for bathing suits or yoga pants.... he knows me far too well!

 

 

5) Everyone should stop whatever else they are doing with their time and watch Orange Is The New Black.  It is a netflix original series that is AMAZING, and thankfully it will only take you a few days to binge watch all episodes so the 30 day free trial is perfect for anyone currently without a Netflix account.  I decided to take my few days feeling sick to finish up the last episodes in bed and I can't wait for the second season even though I am pretty sure it hasn't even started filming yet.

 

 

 

Tonight is a girls night out on the town, and then tomorrow will hopefully be a perfect pool day followed by rest so that I can kick booty at the 10K Sunday.  Everyone have an amazing weekend!





Weekend Recap

Why does it have to be Monday again?  I am spoiled by my every other 3 day weekends, and it does make the 2 day weekends a little tougher to get back from. 

Friday, checked out an awesome new bar called On the Dunes which is a hike away but it offers a lot of cool activities like bags, ping pong, volleyball, all mixed in with bars and great drink specials.  We went with a huge group and everyone wanted to play volleyball, I'm not really a volleyball girl so I just sat out and watched.  It would have been a great night if it wasn't so dang cold... we will have to go back when it is a little warmer and when I am drunk enough to play :-)

Saturday got in a few hours at the pool and then headed out for the Walk the Plank bar crawl.  It was a bar crawl coordinated for a few extended friends and their birthday.  It wasn't a typical bar crawl in that the bars when from shady to just dirty and you couldn't walk from them but it was def an experience.  Plus any night that ends in drunken taco bell is good in my book!  Plus we also got our picture with the Captain!

 

 

Thankfull I didn't drink too much and was able to have a very productive Sunday.  I knew I needed to grocery shop, meal prep for the week, do 1 of my final exams, get in a good run, and skype date with my love.  Thankfully I was able to get everything done!  I can't believe that I only have 1 final exam left to do (tonight) before I am completely done with grad school!!!!  It must of put me in a good mood because I was able to bust out a solid 3 miles (at less then my normal pace thank goodness) and then enjoy the rest of the night chatting with my love.  This long distance thing sucks but facetime makes it so much more managable. 

 

 

I hope everyone else had a great weekend as well!

 

 



Weekend recap (only a few days late)

So apparently it took me a little bit to get caught up from my long weekend! Thanks to Labor Day and my standard every other Friday off I was able to get in a full 4 days of fun, friends, and sadly homework.

Thursday night J and I headed out to Chicago where she had invited me to be her plus one to a sorority sisters wedding. We didn’t' get in until super late but it was perfect because then we had all day Friday to get brunch, lay out at the beach, and get ready for the wedding. I had never been to the beach in Chicago and I thought that it was sooooo cool that you were literally right in the middle of the city being able to enjoy the lake!

 

It was so much fun being a plus one, I have never been to a wedding where I wasn't either a part of the wedding or with someone that was. Being able to just attend, enjoy the drinks, and not follow a schedule was pretty amazing! It was also fun to meet a bunch of J's sorority sisters and friends from college. We were both AXO's at different schools and I feel like I have known her forever even though it has been such a short about of time.

Saturday morning we headed out for Grand Rapids to spend some time with my HS girls. What should have only been a 3 hour trip turned into a 5 hour mess. We literally did not move more than 30 MPH through the entire state of Indiana! Have to say though I had the best company in the world and when we weren't singing along to stupid songs, or flipping through every Sirius station searching for Britney Spears, we were either talking about everything under the sun or cursing out every stupid driver on the highway. There is a reason she is my bestie!

When we FINALLY made it we spent some time at the pool and then headed downtown GRap to some of my favorite bars. We had way more fun than anticipated and ended up spending most of the night downing girlie drinks and dancing our hearts out!

Sunday was a final drive to home and some recovery. I spent most of the day relaxing with my feet up trying to figure out what I needed to accomplish for my last two weeks of school! Sadly that meant that Monday was completely full of homework but I am happy to say I got my final 2 papers done and only have 2 final exams standing between me and my Master Degree!!!!!!

Weekend recap!

I could not have asked for a more perfect weekend!  Since this was the first one with the BF away I knew it would be hard but my girlfriends stepped up to the plate and made every day awesome. 

On Friday I decided to keep it low key and drank some wine with some close friends and played cards against humanity.  Seriously it is the most hillarious game and it def gave me a good dose of laughter therapy!

Saturday my friends had planned on going to a wine and food festival but the weather basically demanded that we postpone the festival and soak up every ounce of sun next to the pool.  There are a few apartment pools in our area but there is only one that basically turns into a party every weekend.  It has been nicknamed ROHAB because it is the perfect bit of rehab after a long week.  Bonus there was also a super cute pomeranian pup that was running around and made instant friends with our group, dogs make everything better!!  Saturday we were there from 11-3 before we dragged ourselves inside to clean up and head to the festival.  The wine and food festival is a really cool small event where you get to try a variety of wines from all over.  It was fun to be there with such a big group!  From there we just kept the party going with some drinking games and then we headed to the bars.  It made for a long, late, and perfect summer Saturday!

 Sunday we decided to nurse out hangovers and head back to the pool for some more sun!  It was another perfect day and we couldn't pass up the opportunity since there may not be many more left.  I got a little too much color but it was so much fun none of us wanted to leave.  We capped off the night with a "family" dinner at P.F. Changs that is going to be a new Sunday tradition!

Overall it was really such an amazing weekend perfect friends, perfect wine, perfect weather, the only thing missing was the BF but I made sure he got to enjoy it from afar by sending him and obnoxious amount of pics lol!