Blogging Challenge #5 Halloween Candy

Favorite Halloween Candy of all time:
My tastes have changed over time. I'm a dark chocolate lover and have now started to dislike anything milk chocolate. Pretty extreme I know. But as for Halloween candy I have to say I have two favorites because I categorize them as chocolate and non-chocolate. The chocolates would be Reese's Butter Cups, Almond Joy, Mounds or Snickers bars. For non-chocolate my fav's are Nerds and Sweet Tarts. But I think my all out favorite candy from there would be Snickers with Reese's as second.
This year in fact I only bought the chocolate candy bag from Costco. The past few years when I've bought the non-candy bag too I ended up with a ton of candy not eaten. I can't wait to start handing candy out to the kids. I love seeing them dressed in costumes.

Book Reading Goal

I set a goal of reading 50 books this year. Last year I read 54 so I figured 50 would be doable. I'm on book 38 right now. Last month was a bit off for me, with two weddings and an engagement party to attend all weekends were booked and the book I was reading wasn't the greatest. The book I read was "Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner. It was a nonfiction book about a "grumpy" man looking for the happiest place on earth. It was a little dry, I got through it but it took me a full month. And for me that's a super long time. I usually read a book a week so that tells you something...
I'm now reading L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad, I picked it up because I'm a "Hills" fan. Let me tell you it's kinda lame. I'll finish it pretty quickly because it is an easy read but as of now I don't recommend it.
If you want to see a list of my books for this year check me out on goodreads.com. I'm Tri-reader.

Running Talley 2009

Goal 300 miles, 219.09 ran 80.91 to go.

Blog Writing Challenge

Do you enjoy reading? What do you read and when? What's your favorite book ever?
I love to read. I read all of the time. Mostly books and magazines. I carry a book with me everywhere (one of my criterias for purses is that it can fit a book) so I sneak in reading whenever I can. I mostly read at night before bed, or if I'm at work, at lunch. My favorite book ever...Little Women.

13 miles for my 13 week old (and almost 3 year old)

Sunday was the race. I wore a sign on the back of my shirt that said exactly the title of this post. I ran with my husband and running partner/friend. It was a beautiful day, perfect weather, entertaining and good company. I had run a 10 miler the weekend before and my pace was decent, a little slower than my PR but was totally ready.
We kept a pretty steady pace and finished in 2:23:36, under 2.5 hours which was my goal. I'm happy with the finish especially since we went a little faster than my training pace.
Unfortunately the race had two deaths, one I believe we saw at mile 12, a woman down and they were doing CPR. The other death my mom and friend saw, the man collapsed in front of them right near the end. The paramedics asked my friend to move my daughter so she wouldn't see what was happening. It's so sad. I can't imagine how their families feel. Of course this happening gives my mother fuel to her fire of not wanting me to work out.
Anyways, onto happier things...my running partner and I have to come up with a race we want to train for so we can try for an under 2 hour PR.

Just under 3 weeks to go

Just under 3 weeks till the race. I'm up to 8 miles on my long run, I have a 9 and 10 mile run planned before the race. It's not as high in miles as I wanted to go beforehand but it's not too bad.
I've been good about running each day my daughter has been in preschool. 3 days in a row is a little hard but it's the best time to squeeze it in. I also taught my first spin class post partum a week ago. It was good getting back into it. I miss spinning. I think perhaps in October after my race I'll start teaching a class a week...we'll see. What I really need to work on is my abs, gotta get some weight training in.
Sorry for the random post, this is just an update on what's going on with me now. Off to hit the trail!

I'm back!

I'm back...well in a way. I'm starting to get the miles in, consistently. The month of August I was able to log in almost 35 miles. And this is despite having mastitis (breast infection) for the 2nd time and catching a cold and being on vacation. I'm pretty happy that perhaps I'm getting a running routine down. 4. 5 weeks till my race, yikes!

On another note, today was my daughters first day of preschool. During the rest of my maternity leave she'll be going 3 full days a week. I'm hoping that allows me 3 runs during the week and my long run on the weekend. I have the single jogger set up for my infant carseat and ready to go. I'm hoping this afternoon I can get in my first single jogger run with my baby boy.

Awesome Book

I read a really good book. One of the best that I've read in a long while!
It was "Hotel on The Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford.
Truely amazing book that took place in Seattle during WWII. A love story between a Chinese boy and Japanese girl who was sent away to a work camp during that time. I can't even begin to describe how good it was. Just read it!

Running with a single stroller is so much easier than a double

Today I decided to do my "long" run which was only 3 miles. But it was a little easier since I took older child in the single jog stroller which saved me some weight to push. As my runs get longer I hope to free myself of the stroller but we'll see, it's hard to manage two kiddos and breast feeding as well as working out. Hopefully it gets easier.
Last week I was able to do two mid-week runs up to 2 miles each and then my 3-miler this weekend so I'm slowly building up. I have 9 weeks till the big race day. I read the greatest quote in this month's Runner's World last night which basically fits me to a T right now. The article was about running with little rest.
"Set Realistic Goals: If you have a newborn, it may not be the time to go for an ambitious PR. Scale back your expectations so they reflect your current circumstances. Remember, he'll grow up eventually."

10 Weeks

I have 10 weeks till my 1/2 marathon. I'm currently 3 weeks post partum, ay yi yi, how am I gonna do it?! When I signed up for the race I assumed my baby would be 2 weeks early like my first child was...nope...So from my due date I had only 14 weeks of training, but my baby was late so subtract come days and here I am, 10 weeks till 1/2. So my fear of being prepared for my race has caused me to try getting out there earlier than I'd like to post partum. At 2 weeks pp, I biked for a bit on my spin bike at home. That went fine. Then yesterday I attempted running. I went on my trusted flat trail with two parks along it (key for a 2.5 year old), pulled out my new double BOB stroller and went for a run. It's been exactly 4 weeks since I last ran (that was at 39+ weeks pg). I did fairly well. I ran 1.66 miles of the 2 mile section of the trail. That run consisted of stopping often to put the pacifier back in the baby, pulling out snacks for the older child and walk breaks every so often to help my bladder situation that occurs post partum. Other than that I feel it was a success so I will keep it up.