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Happy 4th of July everyone!  I’m probably running right now as this is posting (technology can be so clever…), but I thought you’d like to be caught up on my weekend up to this point…

Friday night started with a cross training session in the workout room with Mon.  It wasn’t any Friday night, though.  Being as how it is now July, it is the beginning of my month-long birthday extravaganza! 

Just kidding about dragging out my birthday for a month… sort of.  Mon got a little excited and wanted to give me my birthday present early (my birthday isn’t until the 25th).  Plus, she knew it would go really well with my chosen outfit of the night:How cute is my new purse?!?!  Mon’s always the victim of my fashionably late appearances, mostly because I lack on the accessories and usually can’t figure out which purse will come the closest to matching.  So she’s helping me out!  I adore it! 

She me the present at the gym.  We got a weird look as I shrieked with happiness.

Anyhoo, we made our way to Big Shot in downtown Arlington Heights with another girl who just moved into our complex.  We thought we’d take her out and show her around for the night.  The piano player didn’t appreciate our art work as much as we thought he would.

Do you guys do the piano bars?  Favorite requests?  I’m always a fan of the ones that will play the random songs that aren’t typical for that kind of place- in my college town, they’d break out Sublime and Green Day after a certain time.  And I loved it!

A few rounds later, we took her to Gatsby’s to end the night.  It’s a favorite dive of ours that pours the drinks way too strong and stays open way too late.  (Which is why it’s our favorite.)

I welcomed back my normal breakfast with open arms:Wonderful.  Oh oatmeal, I learned I can live without you.  But why would I want to?

Since I’m racing tomorrow, I switched out my long run for a solid walk and yoga.  And pool time. 

Because I can’t stop yammering about Russell Brand and how much I wanted to go see Get Him to the Greek, we finally went tonight!  Mon and I decided it would be a good way to have a chill night.  And decided to visit an old friend…Sweet Tomatoes!  I really do love this place.  My eyes light up as soon as I walk into the door because of that magical salad bar.  Ahhh…Oops- how did that picture get on here?!?!?!  How embarrassing… yet accurate.

And because I just had to go there:What’s the 4th of July weekend without frozen yogurt?  A sad one- and we don’t want that!

Because we had extra time after dinner and before the movie, we took a stroll through Whole Foods so I could grab some water to throw in my bag for the movie (yes, I’m one of those people).  As we strolled to let our dinners “digest”, we also sampled various items throughout the store.  So yeah… the “digesting” was pretty much pointless.  And we just added to the issue.  Oh Whole Foods- this is why I usually avoid you!

The movie was fantastic.  I loved it.  LOVED it.  As a disclaimer before you run out as quickly as you can to see it- I have a precondition of loving Russell Brand like no other.  I think he’s just hilarious.  Sure, a little dirty in more ways than one, but hilarious.  Loved the one-liners.  And I’ll probably be using them the rest of the weekend.  So please go see it so you can catch what I’m saying…  

So yes, I am enjoying the holiday weekend so far.  Let’s see if it changes by the time I cross the finish line of the Frontier Days 10k Stampede…

I’ll catch ya later… have a wonderful Sunday!

Back on the Couch.

Good news and not so good news.

Good news first?  Ok.  My friend Mon and I enjoy little Sunday Fundays.  Clearly.  This time, we revisted Sweet Tomatoes for fabulous salads.  I may or may not have also been excited to go for frozen yogurt.  I’ve been seeing way too many of you people eating it and I was getting a craving.  So we went.  And it was CROWDED.  We were also there kind of early (to work with the movie time we wanted to see).  Needless to say, we had to wait for a little while for the senior citizens to finish their coffee and lounging.  At 6:00.  Sweet Tomatoes is THE place to be at 6:00.  And then we decided we might just be too young of a demographic to be frequenting this place.  Whatever.  I get my salad and I get my ice cream.  I’ll chill with the old peeps.

Anyhoo, this is what I ended up with when I sat down:When it comes to salad, I just wanna have it all!  Obviously.  I couldn’t tell you what all was in it, because I might as well have just blacked out while standing at the salad bar.  Went crazy… but it was great!  Mon also had a tasty creation.Well sorta- she added pickles.  But I won’t judge.    I’m not a pickle person.  They kind of gross me out.  I don’t even like it when they touch the other food on my plate because it’s like the food is immediately infected with pickle grossness.  Ick.

We sat and caught up on the weekend.  Then decided we had enough conversation and got to the good stuff.  I may have gotten carried away with the chocolate sauce, but is that really the worst of my problems?  I hardly think so.Oh and that’s also a peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie bar.  Perfect addition.  I’m not a fan of when the fro yo almost immediately melts (like it was).  So I had to eat it faster. 

Also, I would like to throw in that when previewing this post, the ice cream bowl looks almost as big as the salad bowl… I promise you it was not.  Although it would have been pretty cool if it was…

The sugar got us all giggly.  Not that we aren’t like that when we’re together as is, but the sugar worsens it.  We were glad we decided not to go to the 3D version of Alice in Wonderland.  That would have just been overkill.  People would have probably thought we were stoned.  We went to the regular version instead.  And people still probably thought we were stoned.  Oh well…

The movie was pretty good.  I know the reviews weren’t so hot, but I still have to hand it to Tim Burton for being just awesome.  He has the craziest vision.  And I love it.  So yeah.  I’m aware we missed out on the Oscars.  I considered this, but then decided I was completely happy catching the clips and award winners on the news and watching E!’s Fashion Police.  Sometimes the actual show tends to drag…

The not so good news?  I ran again yesterday- a decent 3.5 miles according to Nike+.  But by the time Mon picked me up for Sunday Funday, the soreness was setting in.  Like I said before, it’s not the same leg that was injured last time- this time it’s in the right leg.  I.  Am.  Frustrated.  I was telling Mon on the way to eat, I just don’t understand.  I am young.  I am healthy.  I have endurance.  I have the will.  Why is my body not letting me do it??  I do feel that part of this could very well be from my spending alot of time still on the treadmill vs. outside.  When I discussed it with my orthopedist before, he said on the treadmill your motion becomes much more restricted and repetitive, which makes yet another reason my issue with the stress reaction in my left leg popped up. 

So.  I’m taking a couple days off of running.  I should have probably taken this weekend off, but like I told Adam- I’m just not normal. Either way, I’m getting off of that damn treadmill and doing it all outside for awhile to see if that helps.  But first- rest.  I need to be good to run.  I may not run well on the 21st, but I will run it.  Maybe my training leading up to it will not be as extensive as I would have liked, but we’re just going to have to deal with that.  Right now I’m saying two days off at least.  Maybe I’ll do The Shred on Tuesday or something, but it is all dependent on how everything feels.  The Shred is still very good about putting all sorts of strain in your legs, so even doing that is kinda iffy.  I’ll probably just go back to arms and weights for tomorrow.

Anyone else ever dealt with a stress reaction?  Any advice?  Ugh!  This blows!!!

Ugh.  It’s always something….  Hello Monday.  What a great way to start the week!  Grr…

Nothing goes better with salad…

Today I woke up feeling considerably better than I did yesterday.  I pulled another one of those nights where I wake up on the couch- not really sure at what point I fell asleep- and stumble to my bed to finish off the night.  Talk about a wild Saturday night… I forgot to hit RedBox up while I was picking up the candy mix-ins for my baking extravaganza, so I settled on Enchanted after the baking was done and my stomach was processing all the “testings” I did.  I know I’m 24.  But I freakin’ love that movie.  It’s on my list of favorites.  Right between Wanted and Death at a Funeral.  Random.  I know.  Why do you think I named my blog what I did?  Ahhhh…. it’s all coming together now, isn’t it? 

I think my parents have more of a social life over the weekends than I do.   My mom emailed me about how they went and did this and that on Friday and then this and that on Saturday.  But they also didn’t spend Friday night trying to figure out where the hell the bottom of that pitcher of sangria was.  Now I don’t feel so bad.  Seriously- it was like magic.

As mentioned previously, Mon and I are striving for making February (of course it would be the shortest month) our healthiest one yet.  We’re both really just wanting to get a better hold of the food we’re putting into our systems and keep up our workout motivation.  Like I said, I need to get in better racing condition and she has the stair climb up the Hancock Building to do.  And neither one of us would mind getting a little more toned.  Just because. Typical stuff.

Anyhoo, we decided to have a little send-off/kick-off.  The healthy kick-off really is an excuse to satisfy my ongoing craving for salad (which I still find odd but whatevs).  I had never been to a Sweet Tomatoes before.  But every time I talk about hunting down a salad bar, Mon mentions this place.  So we went to the one in Schaumburg.  I believe she  used the phrase, “it’s like eating out of Heaven’s garden”.  Very good description, Mon.  We both had heaping plates.  I think rabbits all over the world felt a little deprived tonight after the damage we did. mmmm….

I apologize for fuzzy crackberry pics. 

The send-off comes in the form of blondies. Nothing goes better with salad than blondies.  I made them myself last night.  And because I rarely make the same thing twice (with the exception of scotcheroos- which is apparently my signature dish) I made them with different mix-ins: reeses pieces and snickers.  Yeah, that was the winning combo.  Waaaayyyy better than the last time I made them.  The snickers melted into chewy goodness and the reeses pieces still satisfied my ongoing peanut butter addiction.  And the blondies themselves- all buttery and soft.  ahhhh…

Because I’m classy, I brought them into the restaurant.  So we could throw on some self-serve fro yo.  That’s just how I roll.  I’m taking the rest to work tomorrow.  The guys at work are like my very own human garbage disposal.

Today was a break from running.  I did yoga.  And worked on the Core Challenge.  Nothing super exciting.  But I will say, the plyo’s that were added to the challenge kicked my butt more than anticipated!  Yesterday I slacked off- so today was spent catching up big time.  Which is unfortunate for my downstairs neighbors.  They’re probably not a fan of the challenge.  Especially because I can’t do them consistently I require breaks because I’m concerned my legs will give out otherwise…

Saturday- 20 plyo’s

Sunday- 60 plyo’s and 330 crunches (hell yes!)

Tomorrow is a full mile.  I’m definitely running slower these days.  But slow and steady… I know.  It’ll get there.  My confidence is higher finally- I think by midweek I’m going to tell my cousin that we should just go ahead and sign up for the Shamrock Shuffle.  I’m too nervous it will sell out if we wait much longer.