Today’s fave five were:
- Waking up to my apartment and its good heat. It’s freaking COLD outside in Chicago this week!!!
- My really awesome Pilot Varsity pen. I’ve got it in black and in blue ink and it’s awesome. I think with all my swap-bot swapping, I can warrant purchasing the whole set of 7 colors!!! It’s like a calligraphy pen, only no dipping and even flow. Also, you can take it with you easily in your purse without fear of it spilling or leaking. Pretty darn cool. It’s the little things people…the little things.
- Having a REALLY great run this evening, despite the freezing cold temps that with windchill felt like 6 degrees. Uhhh, yeah. Cold. Mike kept joking that we were crazy to do it so we shouldn’t, but of course we did and the run went really well. Officially his 7th run, and my 7th of the new year and all around good. I FINALLY kept us at a very solid (slower) pace and we still did the three mile run in 28:32:02 (a few second less actually) which puts us at 9:30 minute mile pace – INCLUDING our 6:1 walk break ratio. Yeah baby! That’s good stuff. After we ran our three I felt like I needed a bit more, so my handsome partner let me run off to do another quick mile before calling it a night. I ran an 8:30 minute mile and can honestly say it felt really good. I wasn’t pushing hard at all and think if I had pushed a little, I could have done an 8 minute mile for sure. I’m so excited about this because I recalculated what I need to run in order to Boston qualify and the time is scary. I thought an 8:30 m/m would get me a 3:30 marathon time. WRONG…in order to achieve a 3:30:00 marathon time, I need to be able to run 8 minute miles flat for 26.2 miles. Eeeeeek. That’s the time at least Mike needs to qualify. For me to qualify is a little better – I need to be able to do 8:23 minute miles. Woo hooooo. Not. Boy, that’s fast. But, I’m hopeful. Tonight’s training run was good for the both of us and I think it’s early enough in the season for us to excel before we even hit May (when the official marathon training begins). In any case, we had a great run and it made me feel good and those happy endorphins swam happily in my blood stream elevating my day from pretty crappy to happy!
- DEVON MARKET! After our run we hit up Devon Market for some fresh produce and goodies for food this week. Since classes begin tomorrow, I need to have breakfast (my bananas), lunch and dinner all ready to take with me each morning before I leave. So tonight I made Thome Style Chili. YUUUUUUMMMY! It’s simple, delicious, pretty low in calories, filling AND very affordable to make! While at the market I picked up all kinds of fresh fruit like strawberries, raspberries, black berries, oranges and pomegranates! Everything there is soooo affordable that it makes buying good for you foods a little less of a burden on the pocket book.
- Banana bread with chocolate chips. I think I may have finally re-figured out the perfect recipe. Secret ingredients include: yogurt, chocolate chips and Kerrygold Irish butter. I’m about to pull it out of the oven now and it smells good. I hope it tastes even better!
