What's Your Dream?

Almost every day before work I do indulge in a coffee from Starbucks . Which is a really bad habit, I will admit to that. However, every day to get to my Starbucks I have to walk to gauntlet of delicious treats at the grocery store. Today I decided to show you what I have to walk through!   This is the "baked goods" section, cookies, muffins, pies, cakes, cupcakes, strudels, scones, you name it it is in this section. The picture is missing a few different stands too! We all know what these cases are, cakes cakes cakes, chocolates, cupcakes, and donuts at the end... dooonuts...  So in order to get my non fat latte I have to walk through this flood of temptation! But you know what? I do it, I have only bought cupcakes once, for work, and I didn't have any!  Something very exciting came in the mail today. My first Half Fanatics shirt! Special edition Seahawks Half Fanatics shirt! I am so excited for this!  It seems like I have waited years for this shirt and it is...

So today because I couldn't find another weight program online by Jillian Michaels I used a DVD program that I already had by Bob Harper, Inside Out Method, Body Rev Cardio Conditioning workout 2. It worked on balance, upper body and lower body strengthening. It is quite a workout for 30 minutes! I am definitely  going to be sore tomorrow! The main reason why this 3 x 30 challenge is such a challenge is because of time management! With only about 2 hours of "free" time from waking up to getting ready to leave for work, there isn't a whole lot of workout time allowed. This challenge also is wonderful because of the next couple of week I will be doing about 40 hours extra overtime at work to help out but not only that, it's overtime on day shift! So I will have to flip flop my schedule like crazy. Wonderful because it'll help me stay in workout mode through this craziness at work. Keep me going and not just stop because of a weird schedule. Speaking of work, I...

So this year there have been two pretty big songs that both Tricia and I love! Tricia's is Shake it Off by Taylor Swift and mine is All About The Bass by Meghan Trainor. These songs are so much fun, how could you make them even more awesome? Meghan Trainor doing a Shake It Off cover!  And even better! A mini clip of Meghan Trainor singing All About That Bass to the Shake It Off beat!  Unfortunately I have been unsuccessful at finding anything by Taylor Swift covering Meghan Trainor songs. I will however keep my hopes up! Anything could happen! Both of these songs make me just want to dance! They are both so happy and encouraging! 

I have officially joined Bloglovin' a much easier way to follow all of the blogs that you love! There is even an app! So you can read your blogs on the go.  Follow my blog with Bloglovin   I am very excited to finally be moving up in the blog world! 

My friend Tricia and I have been talking about ways to motivate our workouts. And we decided to come up with a workout challenge to keep us out there. After much discussion we decided on this: 3x strength training sessions of at least 30 minutes each week, in addition to our normal cardio workout routine. For me this comes at the perfect time because 1) I always put a strength training 2) I just completed a half marathon and I don't have another one for a few weeks 3) I have already decided that my next half marathon, which is the Amica Seattle half marathon , I want to give it my absolute all in order to do that I cannot just rely on just cardio and I need to add a lot of strength training sessions.  So in this challenge I can run as much as I want as long as I get at least 30 minutes three times a week of strength training in. Which doesn't sound like a lot but it's way way more than I have been doing. I average usually one strength training workout every two weeks and t...

What a day! It started off by me going to the store to to pick up the ingredients for French onion soup, which I have never made before so this was a whole new experience for me! Including a new ingredient that I've never used before either, rainbow chard. The recipe itself is pretty easy to make but it takes quite a while to make,  it says on the recipe it takes two hours, it took me about 2 1/2 hours.  Recipe found at Cooking Channel TV, Not My Momma's Meals, Light French Onion Soup . The first step is to get eight onions, then peel and slice them up.   (After making this recipe, I'd first recommend wearing swim goggles, sounds silly but it'll save your eyes! And then when slicing the onion use a thin slice, nothing wider than half an inch, and break them all apart Before putting them in the frying pan, it'll help the caramelizing process.) Then put them in frying pan and caramelize them.  Once that is done you simply add The roughly choppe...

Today I finally got the new running shoes that I ordered three weeks ago! Sketchers GoMeb Mstrike, size 8.5z. I have used Sketchers GoRun Bionic for two years now but they are too loose in the front part of my foot now that I've lost 25lbs. (YaY me!) so I chose to change things up with a much more narrow shoe.  I tested them out tonight, I did about three miles in them. I was able to tell that the mid foot was a little bit tight and my abkles were slipping a bit. So I simply looked up ways to tie my shoes that would solve these tiny problems. The blog Katierunsthis ( http://katierunsthis.com/2011/10/04/running-shoe-lacing-techniques/ )  was my solution!  I put together a lace combo that will hopefully work out, I used the loose heel and wide foot lace up ideas.  I will be testing these out in the morning!  For a runner, new running shoes are better than diamonds! So important and love able!  Keep on Running!

Yesterday I ran the Snohomish River Run half marathon and I earned a PR! 2:18:26, took 3 minutes off of my fastest time! As I predicted this year's race was much better organized than it was in the 2012 race. There was plenty of parking close to the race start and the day of packet pick up seem to go very smooth. I was even able to go back to my car to stay warm and get ready for the race after picking up my packet.  All lined up and ready for the race to start! The prerace introduction seemed like it was fun but I was maybe 50 feet away and couldn't hear the speakers so that is something that could have been a little bit different. They went over the racecourse and I couldn't hear them which was sad.  Waiting for the pre race announcements. Race lineup! The race start was a bit confusing I'm just glad that I was towards the back otherwise I think I would've gotten lost! We had a flip our start location from where we were standing for the race introduction to ge...

Tomorrow morning I will be departing work and headed straight up to Snohomish to run in the the Snohomish River Run half marathon. I have run this race before back in 2012, their first year. Because it was their first year there were many ... difficulties. For instance the shuttles was so late that my sister and I had to walk down to the start. Which added almost another mile onto the distance for that day and then the course ending up being rather difficult at one point at the "turn around" you repeated the same spot several times and mentally it was just really hard. But I have high hopes for the race this year. There is a new "route" it's almost backward from the original and there is plenty of parking close to the start, only a couple of blocks away. I also feel that they have a better understanding for the requirements of their aid stations , they added a couple more, even more porta potties!  I just know that this year the race will be an amazing event co...

I am so Excited that I can't even wait to tell you about this! I just saw a commercial for  Nestlé Toll House DelightFulls ™  Filled Morsels ! I cannot wait to try these, unfortunately I am a little worried that I will eat it all!  I have been looking for a new way to spice up my holiday baking and I may have found my answer! I'm so glad that I can just take all of my baking to work and give it away! I am sure once I can find these in the store there will be many more unhealthy posts to follow, I will however stick to my Log Everything challenge and my No Holiday Treats except on the holidays challenge as well. But that doesn't mean I can't share the treats! Nestle even has a website full of suggested recipes !  What holiday treats do you imagine that I can make with these?? 

So for a couple years I have slowly watched the world of virtual racing grow and grow. If you don't know what a virtual race is, it's simple. The race host puts up a website that you go to and sign up, you pay a nominal fee, then run said distance you signed up for, record your time, post you time on the website and see your standings. These races can range from getting a free printable bib to the much more eccentric races, like the ones I am about to tell you about. So despite my doubts and wonder of how this could be enjoyable, so I decided to give it a try anyway! I am signed up for two virtual races! Don't ask me how that happened because I am not exactly sure... So I started looking into a virtual race company that one of my mega marathoner friends posts about every once in a while on Facebook. I thought "If he likes this stuff and he travels the world to run, then maybe I will!" So I looked into it and signed up for the US Road Running 's  Hallow...