my life in numbers

After a truly horrendous commute home yesterday, I'm ecstatic it's the weekend. Mostly for two whole days with ZERO reasons to drive anywhere. Me + Traffic Jams = Nicht Gut.

After a little math pick-me-up (which I'll talk more about soon!) and a little chocolate, I started my weekend running my fastest mile ever. Ahem, a 9:39, thank you very much. *confetti*

So after restarting my weekend, I'm especially determined not to mope around like I've done the past few weekends. I'm gonna go explore a little and bring my camera to capture some of it. It's hard to believe my time here in Germany is rapidly coming to an end. Again.

In the meantime, here's some numbers I'm thinking about...

Twenty-five. The number of days until I jet set home!

Nineteen. My current run day streak.

Eleven. The number of working days I have left here in Germany.

Ten. The number of days until I kick start the last year of my twenties.

Seven. The countdown until Ryan comes back and we road trip it to Oktoberfest.

Side note: Wouldn't it be great if there could be magical confetti cannons that go off when you do something huge? No? Just me? Mmkay.

Until tomorrow. Peace out, cub scouts.

- A. Rae

it's the freakin' weekend

Every time I write that post title, I ALWAYS finish the line. It's like a compulsion a la Sheldon Cooper. Do you know the rest of it?

"Baby, I'm about to have me some fun!"

Let's just sweep the context of that song under a rug, though. My weekend will include no freakin'. Just things like lots of sleep, coloring, and running. You know, single lady stuff since Ryan is currently stateside.

Even though he is three thousand some odd miles away, this September is shaping up to be pretty fantastic. So far, I've run my first 15k ever! I've earned a couple of badges for running five and then ten days in a row.

I just finished day eleven and the streak lives on!

Then this past Thursday, Ryan had bought me a ticket to go see Sam Beam (of Iron & Wine) and Jesca Hoop on their Love Letter for Fire tour as an early birthday present. I'm not ready for you yet, 29! First, Sam Beam is eighty percent beard mixed in with a whole lot of pure talent. Second, you know how some people sound exactly like their albums when they perform live? Sam Beam is. So. Much. Better. I bought the tour album to only find out I have no way to play it! No disc player in my laptop. None in the car. Serious first world problems over here.

But first world problems, bring some pretty sweet first world benefits. Like my favorite chocolate being on sale! Guess who's going broke this weekend?

This month is just going to keep getting better and better.

Until the next chocolate bar. Keep it real, happy meal.

- A. Rae

adventures in heidelberg

The city of old stone bridges, older castle ruins, and even older universities. Birthplace of kings, x-men, and little liars. Home of four rugby clubs, dual doctrine churches, and one rabbit hole of a christmas shop. Our adventure for a weekend.

Until the next adventure. Peace out, cub scouts. 

- A. Rae

magic in the mornings

I just want to say that I hate seeing five o'clock in the morning. Sleep has always been my friend and I treasure it and our friendship dearly.

But there's something to be said about the quiet energy in an early morning. It's like this gently buzzing thing waiting to be set free. Although, to be fair, it could also be the wind rustling leaves, or the rabbits hopping around in bushes. I'm going to stick with the energy thing.

So three days this week I parted with my friend sleep and woke up at five. I wanted to get my runs out of the way since it was supposed to be scorching (it was high seventies/low eighties - read: I'm a wimp) by the end of the day. That and I had a little badge motivation.

Yesterday, after I dragged my ass out of bed and ran two miles, I finally earned that early bird badge. And when I'm doing these runs before dawn, after watching Game of Thrones, the whole "the night is dark and full of terrors" thing is a little unnerving. 

But that morning energy is unreal. I didn't even feel like I needed a nap on those days. And we'll just forget that I wanted to hug my pillow at eight each night and sleep for a thousand hours. I'm very serious when I said I treasure my sleep friendship.

Thankfully, the weather is supposed to cool off so I have a little more flexibility for my run schedule. That and there are other badges out there waiting for me to get them!

What motivates you to run? A training plan? All the food? I asked my husband what his was. His first thought? Food. He quickly reneged and changed his answer to beer.

Until your find yours, keep pounding pavement. 

-A. Rae

Again, I am not sponsored by Smashrun. I've used it for about a year and recently paid for a pro membership out of pocket. The free service is really great, I just wanted to support the great work the team does. If you're already on Smashrun, you can find me here! If you're not, you can check it out here!

running the day

Remember that time I humble bragged about my run gains? You know, those two whole minutes I knocked off my four mile runs. Feel free to call me supersonic.

Yeah, well. It turns out, you're not supposed to be racing every run you do. Who knew? Not me! 

Now, Ryan (who has been trying to convince me for months) has reiterated that I need to run slower if I want to be faster. And I want ALL the gains. It's just really hard for me. It feels like it adds hours to my runs when in truth it really doesn't. I just hate feeling slow and those 45-60 seconds I add to each mile make me feel like I'm losing my pace.

I did run slower this past week and I think I'm seeing some improvements. My average heart rate is down and I never really feel as out of breath as before. So I think I'm in the zone. The aerobic vs. anaerobic zone. I'm definitely sweating more, if that's any indication. But I know that the key to any good training is persistence. So, unfortunately, I'll keep sluggin' along.

My real motivator for running anyway is food. That and how it makes me feel, but mostly for food. And every Monday morning I get this amazing email from Smashrun. It tells me my distance total for the past week and how it compares to the week before. It shows a high level view of my runs and of course, my average pace. For now, I'm skipping right over those.

I go right for the food. Because for as much calories I burned this past week, I want to know what I could've eaten. And I don't know about you but bacon wrapped pineapple bites sound fabulous. Straight up FAB. Bacon wrapped tater tots?! TO DIE FOR.

Even better is that I can switch up the food theme. I'm leaning towards dessert but I'm sure it won't help my insatiable appetite (runger is real!). I should probably switch it to something healthy. Seafood, maybe? Vegetarian?

What would you pick? Are you on Smashrun? You can find me here. I've been using the site for about a year now and really like the whole system. It gives me highlights about my runs and puts it all in graph form. Which, naturally, makes my finance based heart go pitter patter.

On the site, I like that the badges. They keep me motivated to run. There's three different sets of them with 117 in total. So far I have 27 and I'm on track to earn another on Thursday.

Today though, today, I started a different challenge, which in a year's time will get me another badge. I'll give you a hint - I'm aiming for something of a streak...Crazy? Probably. Going to happen? I'm damn well going to try.

Until the next run, I'll see you out there.

- A. Rae

Please know that I am not sponsored by Smashrun. I pay for the pro membership out of pocket because I think it's super neat. It does have a free service, which is still really great, so if you're a runner, and not on Smashrun, you can check it out here.