High Five Friday

It’s Friday, I’m happy, and I hope you are too! Shout out to the lovely Allie who is racing an Olympic distance tri this weekend! Time to catch you up on what’s been going on this week with a High Five Friday. Check out the HFF brainchild Angela’s blog for more great reads and links from the week.

FIVE FROM INSTAGRAM

Are you following me on Instagram? If not, you can find me here!

So I’m definitely running the Covered Bridges Half Marathon this coming Sunday! I have NO idea what my pace or time will be…I’ve been doing lots of exploring on the trails since I moved here, which are just naturally slower and harder than road running. Then my last 10 mile long run for training I decided to do on the roads and my pace was…let’s just say ordinary. 😉 But this 5 mile easy run I did last week felt great. We will see on Sunday!

My big boy Roman is proving to be quite the budding blog photographer. Stay tuned for a living room workout in the next couple of weeks on the blog, which I had him take the photos for! Child labor at its finest, people. He’s pretty cute, too.

I’m LOVING my new workplace. I’ve been there two weeks now and have been taking all the classes so I can get a better idea of the styles of the instructors and workouts. The spinning studio is super cool – all brand-new TechnoGym bikes, as well as a projector so you can feel like you’re riding on routes all over the world.

On what I didn’t realize would be the last sunny day in Vermont this season (okay, probably not, but we have had a lot of rain recently), I took the boys to a cute dairy farm in the area. They had a great time – Roman insisted on wearing his Batman cape and who was I to say no?

Last week I went out with a local yoga instructor here for a burger and beer. It is just harder as you get older to make new friends – it’s not like you’re thrown together in school with a bunch of people you see all day, every day and invariably befriend. So it was lovely to meet someone I felt comfortable with, we had a great time and are planning to go out running soon. 🙂

FIVE FUN THINGS

My sister-in-law made last-minute plans to come visit me (yes, from Australia!) and arrived on Monday. We haven’t seen each other in 3 years and she got to meet baby Tanner in person too. He was shy at first and then the day after she arrived, I got home from work to find him in her lap listening to stories. He warmed up quickly.

I’m thinking about running by feel on Sunday – it kind of freaks me out, because I have a tendency to go out too fast in the beginning of races. I’ll be wearing a watch (because you know I want those splits and stats regardless), so I think I’ll make a race day decision. 

The last two weeks, I feel like I’ve had ClassPass. I’ve taken 3 types of yoga (and meditation) classes, a boot-camp style class, aqua aerobics, spinning, a fun cardio-strength aerobics class, and Pilates mat. It’s been so much fun to change my workout routine and try a bunch of different styles of workout. 

Tanner is doing this funny thing at the moment where he says, “I like it,” when he means, “I don’t like it.” This makes it difficult to restrain from laughing when he’s in floods of tears about something he doesn’t want to do or try, all while wailing, “I like it, Mama! I LIKE IT!”

I’m teaching my first group fitness class on Monday. Like my first ever class. Luckily, I’m pretty sure the turn out is going to be on the smaller side, so it’s not quite so overwhelming, but the nerves are strong. I’ve already written out the program for the first month’s worth of classes, so I feel prepared, but I’m looking forward to that first class being done!

FIVE GREAT READS

You need to check out my friend Derek’s blog GloboRun because right now he’s traveling all over Europe, running marathons in most of the cities he’s stopping in, and blogging about it. I’m obsessed with looking at his travel pics on Instagram, but I especially appreciated this post he wrote on failing. We’ve all been there with a race or two (or more), but it’s hard to be objective about your own performance. 

Speaking of traveling, running bloggers, Gabby from Marathons and Macarons is living in London right now and enjoying what seems like a spectacular beginning to summer. I’m living vicariously through her.

I adore Christine Yu and Tina Muir, so I was thrilled to see this wonderful article about what elite runner Tina is doing to combat amenorrhea, in Outside Magazine. I can’t decide if I’m happier for Tina that her story is getting so much exposure, or for Christine that she has a well-deserved byline in a great publication. I think I’ll just be thrilled for both of them. 

This post from Jesica at RunLadylike is worth reading if you’re a new parent struggling to find the motivation to work out in whatever brief window of time you have available. It’s hard to get motivated. Harder when you have a newborn. Hardest when you’re trying to get up and do it at 5:30am (okay maybe that’s just hardest for me because I’m not a morning person!). 

This. This, this, this, this, this. Look, I’ll watch Gwyneth Paltrow’s movies all day long. I think she’s a great actor. But health and fitness advice? I’ll never pay attention to what she has to say, since it is all such nonsense. The scary thing is, so many people DO pay attention and follow her advice. I loved this no-holds-barred breakdown of why she’s just so wrong.

Any races this weekend? Has anyone had a great experience racing by feel before? (This post from Laura inspired me to think about it.)

How do you feel about Gwyneth Paltrow and her goop site?