I adore you guys

angeldrinkstea said: I love the hair!

sleepruneatrepeat said: You look gorgeous today!

happyhealthycook said: Yes. That Note this morning really hit me, too. Go run tonight! You’ll feel great after, almost for sure, right? Big warm hugs to you. 🙂

marinemindset said: You are awesome!!! Have a great day!

trivialbob said: Your hair looks really good in that pic.

becky-balances said: The Universe is almost always eerily spot on. Go run tonight!!!

You all seriously made my day! Thank you! Sometimes, my hair does exactly what I want. Especially during the winter…dry hair means I can bend it to my will! 🙂

I promise when I get home tonight, I will hop on the treadmill and run. It might be just for 2 miles. But I promise I will do it. Thanks for keeping me accountable friends!

Also, Tonight on Glee, they are doing a BILLY JOEL episode! How excited am I? Answer: So very excited! I grew up on Billy Joel and have seen him in concert. I’m pumped.

Good things

Found out today that my bank has a mobile banking app. I can now do everything from my phone…and deposit checks! That’s awesome. Too bad I went to the bank THIS MORNING to desposit a check. But regardless, I’m excited.
Friends like Brooke. Seriously. She’s the best. She’s really good at talking me down from the ledge. I need that. How do you always know when I need to hear from you? Serendipity my friend. Fingers (and toes) crossed I get to come see you and Susie run Twin Cities in a couple weeks! The Husker football schedule is the only thing standing in my way!
New Girl is on tonight. I have Castle DVR’d from last night. Hey there TV, come to momma.
My life has been nuts the past month and suddenly this week has slowed down. This is NOT the best week for that to happen. But I WILL get out of my head and get through it. I need to be busy. Any reminders from you all would be appreciated. I’ve got 99 problems, and 86 of them are ones I’ve made up in my head. True Story.
I seriously want Pad Thai tonight. It might just have to happen. Either that or froyo. It’ll be a GTD.
After being super sore yesterday after Sunday’s On-a-whim Half-Marathon, I feel awesome today. Only my lower back is a little sore. That’s awesome. I plan on running in the morning.
The summer of Melissa is over. I have a post brewing about that. Stay tuned folks! (I know you’re excited! ;))

That’s all I got. Happy Tuesday Friends!!

“You’re just what I needed” aka: Fargo Half Recap

So this past weekend I went to Fargo to run a 5k and a half marathon with some lovely ladies. If you would have told me a year ago that I would willingly drive 7+ hours to Fargo, NoDak to run a race I would have said you were nuts. But Brooke is pretty good at twisting arms and making Fargo sound like a dream race (flat course, fun times with her, Bailee and Johnna? Sign me up!) So I did it.

Long story short, this weekend was fantastic! Bailee and I made the trek in 2 trips on Thursday and Friday. The 5k Friday night was fun, but there were a lot of walkers and strollers. It was hard to run around them. But we managed and had a good time. Then we took jumping photos:

After a very delayed dinner at the restaurant next door to our hotel, we finally made it back and collapsed into bed around 11pm. Run a 5k the night before a half marathon AND go to bed late? Clearly, we are doing it right.

Marathon morning dawned with thunderstorms. It was still raining a bit for the first 2 miles of the race. Then it stopped, was warm-ish and humid for much of the race, then about mile 8 or 9 the sun came out and started baking us. I wanted/needed my jacket off STAT! Brooke, Johnna and I ran the race together. I had the BEST time! We laughed, raged, complained, questioned our sanity, and wondered where the FargoDome had gone. I wanted to find race officials and question them about their terrible race route. It was the most fun I’ve ever had in race.

(yes my shirt says “your pace or mine?” Its awesome!

Just before mile 2 there was a band playing The Cars song “Just what I needed.” I proceeded to sing that to Brooke and Johnna for a good portion of the rest of the race…and the rest of the weekend! Those poor girls! But that song was so true; that weekend and time spent with those ladies was just what I needed!

It was also around that point that I saw a guy with two signs that said “Go Far.” We were running the Go Far challenge-the 5k Friday and the Half Saturday. The man then flipped his signs around to say “Far Go.” It finally dawned on me why they called it the “Go Far” Challenge! I swear I’m not usually that slow! 🙂

Saturday night we met Susie and had a blast with her. She made an excellent case for a trip to the Twin Cities in the fall. We shall see. We stopped and grabbed a yummy dinner first…complete with strawberry daiquiris!

(Johnna is posting more photos from our crazy weekend!)

Sunday morning Bailee and I made the trek back home. 7 hours in a car sucks! I was glad to get home, we met my friend Keith for dinner and then went to see “Star Trek Into Darkness” in 3d after that. Bailee and I got rained in on 4 states on Sunday. I’m so glad that I took the time to shower and dry my hair. This is what happened by the time we got to Brookings, SoDak:

All in all, this was a fantastic but busy weekend! I love those ladies. I can’t wait to see them again! What’s our destination race next year? Somewhere even more awesome than Fargo? Let’s start planning! 🙂

“Back to life, Back to reality”

I only took one extra day off work in conjunction with my weekend. Just one extra day. But somehow, I’m just not into working today. I want to go back to Fargo and I want to hang out with Brooke, Bailee and Johnna. I don’t want to run a race for awhile, but I want to see my friends. 3 days just wasn’t enough. I had the BEST time! Now I just need to renew my passport so I can visit Brooke in Winnepeg. I also need to save some cash to go visit Johnna (and the rest of the tumblrs) in New York City! It was also so amazing to get to meet Susie! It felt like we were all old friends already!

In other news…This is the first time in a loooonnng time that I’m not signed up for any races. Not even a 5k. That’s likely to change soon…there’s a 10k in my hometown that I think I want to do on Father’s day. And a 5k a in a small town a few weeks later. But no halfs, no fulls, no warrior dashes…nothing. It’s an odd feeling. I think I rather like it.

I like to forget that running a half always puts me up a few pounds. So getting on the scale this morning was upsetting. But honestly, since I’m not racing I think the plan is to try something new: HIIT training, cross training and cutting out crap. Let’s face it: I like dessert but my gut and thighs don’t. So I’m going to make a new training schedule that focuses on weight loss. Because, realistically I’d like to lose about 10 pounds. Totally doable. Here’s to keeping myself accountable.

I will post a recap of the races/weekend. Because it was too awesome not to recap. All weekend long I kept thinking of this quote:

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” -C.S. Lewis.

I’m so lucky to have friends like Brooke, Bailee, and Johnna. What a fantastic weekend! Thanks ladies!