New Year. New Running Goals.

Now that I have a nifty “Magical Miles” medal hanger, it only makes sense to add more to my count 😉 #ChasingMedals

Psst…I’m baaaaack. 🙂 My, oh my, it sure has been a while since my last blog post. But with a new year upon us, what better time than now to get back in the groove and make my comeback. For the past two years, I’ve kicked things off by training for my first race of the year – the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon. 2017 won’t be any different, however, I’ve added a little more to my overall race goals this year.

2016 wasn’t my best running year since catching the running bug back in 2013 and completing my first medaled race in 2014. Early last year was the ultimate roller coaster. I was debating on whether I was going back home to Ohio. I was going through career obstacles, life challenges, and not to mention moving TWICE in one year! There was way too much going on to add “sign up and train for this race” to my already complicated task list. Overall, 2016 rewarded me with a whopping three race medals – a half marathon, a 5K, and a 10-miler. Out of all three of those races, I didn’t have a dedicated training plan but still managed to get through them.

Now that 2017 is here and a perfect time to start anew, I’ve decided to task myself with a goal of earning TEN race medals (with three being half marathons), as well as bumping up to the purple run level on the Nike Running Club app (1,552 total miles by the end of the year). 2015 was my best race year where I did my first ever half marathon in March and then was crazy enough to sign up for another one in September. This year, I guess I’ve gone madly insane as I want to do THREE half marathons. (No, I still will never do a full marathon!)

Songs Guaranteed To Make You Move!

When it comes to your workout playlist, it’s all about the beat of a song.
The cadence.
The bass line.
The lyrics.
The push it gives you.
The second wind of energy that derives from it.

For me, with a music collection that’s comprised of nearly 10,000 songs, it’s definitely difficult to pick a teeny-weeny fraction of that to make it onto a top 10 list. However, for this particular post, I wanted to select 10 songs that I can say are some of my favorites to listen to while running or working out.

I know some people who can run without music. That statement alone hurts my very soul. How can you run without music? How can you live without music? How can you breathe without music? Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic but seriously, I can’t function just on a daily basis without music. I was doing an outdoor run once and when I got to the two-mile mark of what was supposed to be a four-mile run, my ear buds had the audacity to give out on me. You know what I did? I simply retraced my steps and walked back home…in complete silence. I tried to go music-less during my run but that lasted about three minutes before I had to call it quits. It’s just impossible. That’s the reason why I now keep a backup pair in my car for moments like that or in case I pull up to the gym and realize that forgot to grab my ear buds on the way out the door.

Anyway, when it comes to picking the perfect workout song, it has to abide by the following criteria:

6 Simple Tips to Avoid Mindless Snacking

You’re guilty of this. It’s okay. Don’t be ashamed. You’re sitting at your desk twiddling your thumbs and somehow open your snack drawer when you’re not even hungry. Or, you’re sitting at home on the couch and somehow end up standing in the middle of the kitchen wondering how and why you even got there in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong. Snacks aren’t a bad thing. They are very necessary. It is, however, important to make sure you are snacking on the right things — and in the right portions. According to Merriam-Webster, a snack is defined as “a small amount of food eaten between meals.” I was guilty of going overboard a few weeks ago with one of my snacks. Instead of just packing three pretzels rods, I brought the whole bag with me to work. What was supposed to just be three pretzel rods at 120 calories turned into eight pretzel rods at 320 calories. So much for a small snack, huh?

My attitude when it’s time to eat!

I know for me, my eating schedule is like clockwork…literally. I have to eat something every two to three hours or I am one HANGRY (Hungry + Angry) individual. I eat breakfast at 9am, a snack at 11am, lunch at 1pm, a snack at 3pm, dinner around 6pm, and then my last snack at 8pm. If I stray from that schedule, there’s going to be some problems. I am the queen of snacks. I pack snacks in my lunch bag, snacks in my purse, snacks in my gym bag… Ok, now I’m starting to sound a little greedy…

The point of this blog post is to offer a few tips on what has worked for me to avoid what is called mindless snacking. All of those calories add up — as you can see from my overdose on pretzel rods — so it’s up to you to be disciplined enough to make smart snacking decisions.

30 is real.

What more can I say?

Your body turns on you. You feel aches and pains that you’ve never felt before. Your metabolism immediately shuts down. You may even consider purchasing your first body shaper. These things only scratch the surface of how 30 has treated me thus far. Seriously. People think I may be exaggerating but the steady increase on the scale and all the clothes that I can no longer fit and have been donating to the Goodwill has let me know – “girl, this is 30. And 30 is REAL.”

I still try to workout (at the very least) three days a week. I ran a half marathon exactly one month ago, but guess what? I haven’t lost a single pound. And for those of you who say, “well, muscle weighs more than fat” I’d like to hear your explanation as to why my pants buttons will no longer fasten and why my thighs are having a constant conversation with one another. What do you have to say now?