What's Beautiful and I WILL

This post is sponsored by Under Armour through FitFluential

In the past couple of weeks, blogs have been taken over with Under Armour's new campaign for What's Beautiful.    It's all about redefining what we see as beautiful and setting our goals higher and doing everything we can to achieve them.   That in its own is beautiful.

Accomplishment is beautiful.   As an athlete, I know the feeling of beauty.   When I cross a barrier never crossed before, it's one of the most amazing and beautiful feelings.   I actually had a friend just this week ask me if I feel beautiful after running a long distance.   At first I looked at her and thought "NO!  I look my worst once I finish running!"  But then I got to thinking about it and I realize exactly what she meant.   She gets it and she isn't even a runner.

#Whatsbeautiful is feeling comfortable with who you are while still trying to improve yourself! 

There is still a fine line in all of this if you ask me.   While we always want to improve ourselves and be better than we were the day before, we also need to feel comfortable with who we are and love ourselves for what we are today.   It took a lot of work to get to where we are today and it's an ongoing process to become something....or someone that we truly want to be but be proud of the journey.  As long as you're always open to learning, you will continue to grow.  

   

  One of my favorite things about this campaign is that it's all women working together.   It's not every woman for herself.   You can join teams to motivate each other and to keep each other on track.   There is also opportunities to win some great swag from Under Armour, including a trip to Costa Rica!  

If you would like to sign up, you can do so here.   You can also follow me here!   I'd love to follow you as well.   

My goals are to run a Sub 2 half marathon.   I'm close, but just not there yet.   I also need some redeption on last years marathon.   I will run a sub 4:20 full marathon.   I have all summer to work toward these goals and will do everything I can to do them.   

What are your goals this year?  

Your goals for the Under Armour campaign can be ANYTHING.   They do not have to involve running.   It's all about pushing your limits and going beyond anywhere you've been before.   I will.   Will you? 

 

 

Things I'm Loving....or should I say Buying

Help me.  I can't seem to stop buying things.   Internet shopping just makes it way too easy to buy things, especially when I've memorized my card numbers and can type it without even thinking anymore.   My bank account isn't thanking me but it's like Christmas every day when I get home and there is a box on the counter waiting for me.   Mike doesn't even comment on the amount of boxes coming to the house, so he must not mind.   Right?

So what am I buying?   It started with this:

My justification on this was that I was eying them from last year and then Mothers Day came around and Mike didn't get me anything (nor did the girls) so I bought it as my own gift to myself.   I have signed up for another full marathon and because of that, I'm going to need plenty of hydration on my long runs and my fuel belt sort of hurts my hips when running with it so I'll give this a go for a while and see how I like it.

A little side note here.   Mike sent flowers to my work on Tuesday.   I always thought it would be really cool to have flowers sent to me at work but have never had it happen.  I sort of never thought it would happen but when the florist walks up to you (you're the first person he sees) and says "I'm looking for a Sarah ____."   I just about died.   My face must have turned so red.

The next purchase was these beauts:

 I love Pro Compression socks and once again, if I'm going to be doing more races and having longer weekend runs, I need more than the 3 pairs I have.  At least that's what I'm telling myself.  I hope these aren't too bright.

The marathon Yellow are their sock of the month and you can get them shipped for $30.00 with the code SOM5.  

Then since I'm on a role I went ahead and bought a veggie steamer.   This one to be exact:

It's the Oxo Grips Silicone Steamer.   Since we are only 1 month out from the farmers markets here in Wisconsin, I need another option than just roasting my veggies.  



And then I tried ThredUp for the first time.   I don't know if I would have but I had a $15.00 off coupon and I actually was able to buy a nice work blazer and cardigan for like $3.00 after the coupon.   If you are interested, if you are a new customer, you can use the coupon code LADY15 and get $15.00 off of any Women's clothing purchase.   

I got the two items today in the mail and they are brand new condition.  One of them still had a tag on it and the other one looks like it was never once worn.   I don't know for sure if I got lucky but I am extremely pleased! 

In other news, I'm 3 days out from half marathon #2 of the year (hopefully not shitty like #2 suggests).   I'm at the point where I wont be running anymore until then.   Yesterday I went to yoga for the first time in something like two months and I am SO SORE.   I don't know what happened to me but I hurt in places I didn't think I could hurt anymore.   At least I know it's doing something!   Now I need this soreness to go away before Sunday.

Mothers Day and an Unplanned Race

Yesterday was mothers day and honestly, it wasn't anything too special in this house.   I had to work the night before until about 1am and then get up with the girls at a nice and early hour of 7 since Mike was working all weekend.   Thankfully Katelyn brought me a cup of coffee in bed but by the time I was ready to drink it, it had already gone cold.  

After a hot cup of Joe and some mental coaxing I finally managed to get my kids over to my moms so that I could get out and do my long run.   It's never easy running after being on my feet the entire night before but Saturdays don't work right now so you do what you gotta do and get it in when you can.   I ate on the way over and took mental note of how dang windy and cold it was.   My self confidence was crumbling.

Once at my moms, I sat around a bit and talked.   I really did not want to run but I took most of the week off to recover from the Wisconsin Half and knew I needed to get back out there.   Finally I grabbed my balls, or whatever, and went.   

The wind was bad.    The first 4 miles were straight into the wind.   My legs were a bit sore from some weighted squats I had done two nights prior but honestly, once I was warm, I felt alright.    At one point on the way out, I ran through a bunch of birds swooping all over close to the ground.   I hate birds so very much but there was no way around it so I just sort of cringed and kept running in fear that one was going to fly right into my head.  

Once I was able to turn around, it was great.   The wind was to my back and I actually became too warm so the gloves came off and I contemplated taking off my light weight jacket.   I also turned on some music which always puts a spring in my step.   I tried to remember it's mothers day and to celebrate that I'm a mother and able to run and to enjoy it as much as I could.   Sometimes I need to remind myself of this.  

I always love the last mile.   I have a new feeling about running in the past few months and really do enjoy it.   I am proud of myself.   I am seeing improvement and it's exciting.   Instead of being stuck at stand still with my training, I am improving but only after a lot of hard work.  Go figure, hard work actually works. 

After my run, I went home to shower and then headed back to my parents house again to have a yummy meal with the family.    I started with a delicious beer and some Old Maid with Katelyn and my mom. 

Then came the yummy food!  I was hungry and ate way too much.   

On top of that I had chips and dip and cake.   Yum.  

One other great thing happened.   I managed to snag a free bib to the Cellcom Marathon/Half Marathon this weekend.   I will be doing the half as a 50 year old man named Joe :)   I talked to him tonight on the phone and he is actually upgrading to the full marathon so thought he'd give away his half bib to anyone that wanted it.   I'm so very excited since it's only about 45 minutes away from home and I haven't done this race before.   You finish running into Lambeau Field, and after the race, you get race bling and a brat and beer.   It's like a repeat of the Wisconsin half, but I wont end up like this:

I'm not really sure how I stayed on the bed...

This picture is what Lish would call pay back.  This is me, passed out at the hotel at like 4pm with my giant box of tampons behind me.   Thanks Lish!  Just so you know, I had the spins at this moment.   Gross.  

Have you ever ran a race as someone else?  Did the feel the pressure to do well? 

I looked up Joe's race history thanks to Onlineraceresults.com and he's fast.....faster than me.   Poor guy gets my record and I joked to him about that and thankfully he seems A-ok with that! 

2013 Wisconsin Half Marathon Recap

Welp, where do I even begin?   This weekend was packed with fun, running, beer and great friends.   On Friday, we all headed down to Kenosha to get our run on at the Wisconsin Half Marathon.   The race is a Saturday race and starts at 7am so we opted to get a hotel Friday and of course Saturday too so that we could enjoy ourselves after and have too many drinks.

Friday we all met out for dinner and I ate too much.   Story of my life.   After dinner we all went back to our room and got ready for bed.   The alarms were set for 4:30 so that I had plenty of time to have coffee and shower before the race.   I know it seems weird to shower before a race but it wakes me up and makes me feel ready.   We got to the race and had only enough time to hit up the porta potties before the start of the race.   Sorry to anyone that may have made it to the food tent for a meet up.   Blogger Fail.

I wont do a minute by minute reply of this event but I will say the weather was perfect.   We were freezing before the start but as soon as I started running, I warmed up immediately.    The course is pretty hilly.   Not huge hills but just lots of up and downs that felt like they were never ending.   You also do a double out and back which really teases you at mile 11 when you pass by the street that takes to you the finish but you still have to run out 1 mile to turn around and run that mile all over again.   You run near the lake shore which would have been great scenery had there not been huge pot holes all over the lake front trail.   You had to keep your eyes down to avoid a broken ankle.    All in all though it was a fun race.

I started out too fast.   It felt good at the time but I purposely avoided looking at my Garmin until mile 8.   That's crazy for me.   The first couple of miles did have a clock at them though so I knew right away I was going out fast.   I tried my hardest to hold onto that speed but at mile 10,  I started to lose steam and felt like I was slowing down.   I was.

Forgot to turn my Garmin off right away so last lap is not right.

I was so close to the end but tried my hardest to keep strong.   I have never felt like I had dead legs as much as I did in this race though so I did what I could do.  

Then after thinking they completely went long on the last two miles, there it was.   The finish line.   It's the best sight ever.  

Official Time:

2:02:24

That is a 9 minute PR!!!

After the race we went to cheer for a while and then made our way to the food/beer tent for a free beer and brat.   The brat was great, the beer not so much so we made out way to a brewer and enjoyed a couple beers there.   Then we went to another bar and had a few more beers there......

I'm an idiot.   Please don't follow my example.   I went and had a lot of craft beers and then didn't eat anything but a brat after a 13.1 mile race.   Lets just put it this way.   I was in bed by 4pm while everyone else went out to dinner.    Some how Lish managed to get me up to go down to the boiling hot tub after they got back from dinner but I was surely not sober at that point.   

After that we went to bed and I slept all the way through until 5am when I was WIDE awake and ready for coffee but Lish and Kathy already had told me that I was not allowed to get up early.  Poor me.   I played on my phone and laid there until 6:30 when I finally gave in and had to get moving.      They were not mad with the 6:30 wake up call so I dodged a bullet there.   

After having an amazing breakfast and some shopping at the outlet mall there, we headed back home.

I am not sure if I will do this race again.  If all of my friends decided to do it again I might, but I do really like the idea of having one travel race a year where I can try out other races.   Being a working mom, I am really limited to my away races so each year I would like to do one new away race.   Maybe one of these times my body wont fail me in one way or another! 

Three Things Thursday

1.  I had another date with the "Skinny" Mirror.   If you don't have a mirror like this, you need to get one.  I'm just so lucky as to have one at a local bar.  

2.  I am obsessed with oats again.   Now that I can make a big batch in the crockpot overnight, I have been making it every 5 days (when I run out).   I am even going to pack some for this weekends half marathon in a cooler so I can have my same old breakfast on race day.

3.  The Wisconsin Marathon and Half Marathon is this weekend.   I have a goal of PRing.   As of right now, as long as injury or something weird doesn't happen, I should be able to do this.    Ultimately I'd love a sub two but I'm not quite sure I've brought myself to the point of being able to do that.   The real concern is this:  Do I wear a Garmin or not?   I had great success in not wearing it for my 5k.   I also seem to have faster/better training runs without it too.   That's a long time of running without much clue as to how your pace is holding up though.    It's such a hard decision!

Just a reminder that there will be a blogger/non blogger meet up at the food tent prior to the race start on Saturday.  

Wisconsin Marathon Blogger Meet Up

It has come to my attention that there are several  bloggers from near and far that will be at the Wisconsin Marathon and Half marathon this coming weekend.   If you'd like to meet up with me, Rachel, Kim, Lish, Amy and more, we will be at the food tent prior to the start of the race.   I'd love to meet more bloggers so let me know if you'll be there!

 And if you don't want to meet us.....

She reminds me of someone...

This is Katelyn and her first communion class.   All of them are 2nd graders.......

#BostonStrong

This is me and a few of my favorite people.


Do you see what I see?   We are giants! 

Last night we ran for #BostonStrong.   It was with the local Fleet Feet and the turn out was great.   We ended up with around 250 runners and it was a beautiful night for a run.  Here is a video that the local paper took of the event.    You can spot me around the 1:10 mark with some of my running friends.



I also wanted to share a couple more pictures from Sunday. I try not to put too much on my blog about my kids but sometimes they are too darn cute...

So far I've been good with remembering to take pictures for WIAW today so I should have that for you tomorrow!

Blessings on this Sunday

My first born had her First Eucharist today.    It was wonderful seeing her up at the front of the church doing readings, and taking the body and blood of Christ.   Time goes so quickly and I can't believe how mature and amazing this child is. 

I'm officially less than two weeks out from this years first half marathon.   I'm supposed to run 8 miles today but after eating at a breakfast buffet, I don't know if it will happen.   I'm pretty much in a food comma at this point!  Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 50's (but rainy) so I might just wait it out until tomorrow if I'm not feeling up to it.  

I hope you all have had a great weekend!