A few things….

This is why we run.

Rise

If you think for a second that just cause we run, we don’t like to eat, you are very sadly mistaken.  I’ve been dibblin and dabblin in running for a few years now, and the more I run, the more wicked my sweet tooth gets.  The way I prevent myself from getting as big as a house is that I just can’t keep the good stuff around the house.  However, if someone brings them to work?  You better run.

Mizuno Matt brought us some donuts from Rise (a Bakery in Durham around Southpoint), so instead of eating my lunch, I ate most of an Oreo.  Then I pretended I was only going to eat half of a chocolate by cutting it in half.  I ate the first half, got three steps away, and ate the second half.  Woops.

GlovesAnd sometimes when you run, you find out what you’re doing is just not gonna work whatsoever.  I ran early this morning, where the temps were holding around a balmy and breezy 23 degrees.  ::fans self:: Hawt!  Anyhoo, obviously I was wearing my gloves and the whole shebang, but I think I touched my face a few times because by the end of the 6-miler, my hands were soaked, and I was in some pretty serious pain.  Thankfully, I managed to loop back around to my house, where I spent the next 20 minutes in absolutely agonizing pain.  I ran out after lunch today and hastily procured a new pair of thicker, drier gloves.  That brush with frostbite was more than enough for me to learn my lesson!

Congratulations are in order!

Let’s take an itsy bitsy break from a ‘Running for Haiti’ related post, okay? We’ll resume the run chat tomorrow.

I woke up to some wonderful news this morning.

I have been friends with Chelsie Lykens since high school…we actually rode to prom in the same limo, I used to copy her French homework, etc etc.  I was in Chelsie’s wedding a few years ago in West Virginia when she married her handsome hubby, Jimmy.  Well, Chelsie and Jimmy welcomed their first daughter this morning, and I’ve been on cloud nine the whole day looking at pictures.

Chelsie, Jimmy, and baby Evie.  How darn cute, right?  And how does she continue to look so good despite the fact she had just been pushing for three hours?
Chelsie, Jimmy, and baby Evie. How darn cute, right? And how does she (Chelsie) continue to look so good despite the fact she had just been pushing for three hours?

Well, the arrival of this sweet, gorgeous baby has gotten me thinking. My friends are starting to have babies. Which means, I need to stop eating snacks appropriate for 5-year-olds (fruit snacks, crystal lite, and fake chicken fingers), and start getting serious about a few things.

I’ve been working on budgeting since November.  I’m not particularly skilled at it, but I’m working on it.  So I decided, in order to be accountable for the enormous amount of money I’ve been spending on food, that it was time to announce to the world that  from Wednesday, January 23 to the following payday (that’s two weeks), I’m not going to set foot into Whole Foods, which is so conveniently placed next to my job.  But I can’t go in there, because it’s a total suck on my bank account.

I love Whole Foods.  They are incredibly reasonably priced for the quality of food that they have (their 365 house brand is what’s up).  It smells nice in there, and they make it easy to live as a vegetarian, vegan, or a person suffering with food intolerances. (I’m a vegetarian, btws).  But I have been spending all my hard earned monies on:

Complete cookie (2)Lemon Poppyseed Complete Cookies (cookies with protein!)

and…

KombuchaCosmic Cranberry Kombucha!  Makes my belly so happy!  But it ain’t cheap.

So my plan is to make do without a few of these things for like half a month while I re-learn how to spend money on food.  I’ll let you know how it goes, and it’ll give us a little something to chat about when I wrap up ‘Running for Haiti’ at the end of January.

 

This is what I do in my secret life….

When I’m not raising funds for Haiti, or working at the local running specialty shop, I teach Zumba.

I stumbled upon it when I was like 16, and I was hooked (thank you, Koh Herlong!)

I think I’m pretty good at it…my classes seem to like me, anyways. Anyhoo, this past weekend was our Holiday party, so the antlers got another workout.

Zumba!These are my Zumba friends, whom I love SO dearly. Nora, Erin, Me, Adis, and Kathy! (Nora is a fellow runner – hopefully she’ll make a repeat appearance in this blog – as long as I’ve been running, she’s been my total inspiration)