December Goals

Posted on December 2, 2011 by HHRunner

I can’t believe it’s already December. To prove that I can’t believe that, when I stopped by the bank this morning to deposit a check and withdraw some money and I saw my available balance I just about choked. I spent the next 15 minutes of my drive to work trying to figure out what the heck Sean had bought and why the heck so much money was missing from our account. He said he bought shoes. Clearly it was more than shoes.

Oh yeah, it was our mortgage payment since it’s the beginning of the month.

Reality check over here, it’s December now.

NOVEMBER

I started out last month listing out my November goals, so I guess before I go into December I should see how I did with November right?

1. Improving my overall strength: check check. I’ve been strength training more – twice a week to be exact. I love strength training, and now that I’ve gotten back into it I’ve realized just how much I love it. Success.

2. Becoming a faster, smarter runner: ummm I don’t really know how to guage this one because I haven’t run any races that I want to think about. I’ve been good about listening to my body and I had a fantastic 18 miler last week that I was much faster at then the previous week’s 15 miler. However I had a wretched half marathon. So I don’t know where that leaves me. Maybe success?

3. Managing money better: yeah no. I don’t really know where our money is going right now, but I kind of threw a budget by the wayside. Fail.

4. Improving the quality of the blog: I don’t think I’ve actively done anything different. Oops. No idea.

5. Stress less: Nope. Been mega stressed. Fail.

I think it kind of evens out. Some successes, some fails, some I don’t knows. Such is life.

DECEMBER

I wanna keep December short and sweet though. It’s going to be a busy month with lots of temptations so there’s no sense in making lots of lofty goals that are out of reach.

1. Run smart and hard for the 30k: I am both excited and nervous for next week’s 30k. I’m excited because of how wonderful the previous 18 miles I had went. I’m nervous because what if I can’t recreate that? What if it was a fluke experience? I don’t even think I have a time goal, I just want to finish feeling strong.

2. Maintain my current exercise/weight: Janetha is hosting Dedicated December, a little challenge to stay active during the holidays. She’s offering a lot of cool little giveaways for different winners, and it’s a fun way to stay accountable during the holiday season.

photo taken from meals & moves

3. Continue to run smart and train hard for the marathon: It’s in a little over a month and I really want it to go well. I’ve been dedicated in my training and rarely change/switch workouts in an attempt to run well. I’ve put so much into this and I can only hope I reap the benefits of doing so.

That’s it! Short and sweet!

Don’t forget: You still have a few days to enter the RoadID giveaway!

How’d you fare on your November goals?

What’re your goals for December?

Biggest Loser

Posted on November 30, 2011 by HHRunner

This post is entirely dedicated to my love for the Biggest Loser. So if you have no interest then just go enter the RoadID giveaway and check back tomorrow Smile

Who else watches Biggest Loser?

I don’t post about it often, but I am obsessed with the show and I am even more obsessed with the Makeover Episode, which was last night. If anyone wanted to locate a huge sobbing mess last night all you had to do was come to my house and find me on the couch crying my eyes out at how wonderful everyone was and how awesome everyone looked and how proud I am of people I’ve never met.

Happy folks pre-Biggest Loser

The 5 contestants who made it to the Makeover Edition.

I love seeing people so happy over their accomplishments, and this episode always captures that perfectly. Which is why I was crying my eyes out on the couch watching them all reunite with their significant others as their spouses, girlfriends, etc saw them for the first time since going to the ranch.

I know there’s been some controversy over the show about how it’s not realistic for people to lose that much weight so quickly and the fact that it puts unrealistic expectations on people who aren’t able to exercise 8 hours a day, etc etc. But I think it’s like any reality TV shows – you have to take it with a grain of salt… they are on the show to work out and they prove that anyone can lose weight when they put their minds to it. My favorite part of each episode is when they show the contestant that was sent home and where they are now – they almost always have lost a good amount of weight in their natural environment and within their everyday schedule limitations.

So, now that the final 4 have been picked and it’s almost over, if you watch Biggest Loser who are your favorites??

I am o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d with Vinny. Every time he comes on the screen I tell Sean I love him. Because I do. He is the cutest thing ever.

And I also love John. I love that he’s real and he doesn’t cater to people, he plays the Biggest Loser game to win and compete.

Gah, they look so great!

Do you watch? Who do you want to win?!

If you don’t watch, WHY NOT!!

Merry (early) Christmas, from me & RoadID

Posted on November 29, 2011 by HHRunner

After a very lazy Sunday (I slept and ate. Period. I even woke up to drool at one point… TMI? Sorry.) and an equally lazy Monday morning where I slept in for entirely too long and procrastinated for most of the day, I did finally get up and do something productive with myself last night (well, I mean, I worked yesterday too, so there’s that) and did a round with Jillian and some abs.

I’m going through one of those weird funks where working out is just so unappealing. Not because I don’t want to work out though – I do – I think the timing is just all off. I don’t want to wake up early to work out right now (snuggling down in my warm comforter sounds SO much better) and I have a ton of stuff to do after work since I took the aforementioned Sunday to practice my napping skills, not my grocery shopping or laundry-ing skills. I want to work out at like 10 every morning, but having a job kind of gets in the way of that…

Hopefully tonight I’ll make a comeback to running with a great speed session though. Hopefully.

GIVEAWAY

In the meantime, however, I do have (what I believe to be) an awesome giveaway!

As someone who carries quite a few things with me when I run (mace, iPod, knife, fuel…) I ashamedly and admittedly never bring my license with me. Deep down I know that this isn’t a good tactic because what if something happens to me, but it doesn’t change that I still leave it in the car 90% of the time.

Lucky for me, though, the folks over at RoadID were kind enough to send me a RoadID of my own to try out. The cool thing about RoadID is that not only do they take the place of a license in terms of identification, but they also allow you to add in people to call in case of an emergency.

I listed out my name, the city that I live, Sean’s #, my mom’s #, and that I have no known allergies or medical history on mine. I know a lot of people put inspirational quotes on theirs as well, but I figured I will spend zero time admiring my chosen inspirational quote so the more helpful information on it the better.

When I ordered mine I ordered the RoadID slim in a small size. I only recommend doing this if you have the world’s tiniest wrists because it is TINY. Luckily, I have the world’s tiniest wrists so it fit me great. You can get it in all sorts of fun colors, so naturally I went with black because in addition to having the world’s tiniest wrists, I am also the world’s most boring person and I wanted it to match my black Garmin. Priorities, clearly.

I took it out with me on my long run on Saturday and completely forgot it was there, so I think it wins in terms of comfort, stylishness (obviously, since it matches me Garmin), and functionality (the less I have to carry the better. OK fine, it didn’t take anything out of my hands, but it could have if I was better about carrying my license). In case you need more reasons why you need one too, here are 10, taken from their website:

Lucky for you, the awesome people at RoadID also are letting me give one to one lucky reader. In my opinion (since I know my Christmas list is composed of 99% running related items and 1% everything else) this is a great gift for you OR a runner you love Smile

The giveaway will go through next Monday, December 5 and the winner will be chosen via Random.org. There’s three ways to enter… you can:

1. Leave a comment on my blog telling me what your top Christmas gift is this year

2. Tweet/blog/whatever about the giveaway (if you tweet it, tweet something to the effect of @HappyHealthyRun is amazing and incredible… or just mention me and that there’s a RoadID giveaway )

3. Tell me why you want to win!

Good luck!