I Can't Wait For This, A New Tradition, & Effort vs Pace?

Happy Friday-eve! While I anticipated that this week was going to move at snail-speed, I honestly cannot believe that tomorrow is Friday. I can’t wait for the weekend- we’re planning to go ski at a new-to-me mountain here in Colorado! Yay! I love a good adventure. I’m also equally excited for Spring- it’s felt warm(er) here (aka it’s getting to the low 30’s during the day here) and I can’t wait to get out on some trails to explore again! Spring races cannot come soon enough. Plus, I also can’t wait to not take an extra 15 minutes putting on all layers, shoe cleats, mittens, hats, hand-warmers. Going out for an early morning winter run takes so much work. Honestly that’s why I also really love the treadmill in the winter- ha. It’s so freeing to just run with shorts and a t-shirt.

I have incorporated a new habit before my harder weekday runs- getting up a bit earlier to enjoy some coffee while watching the news and cuddling under my heated blanket. It really is so fantastic and honestly worth it to get up a bit earlier. Anyone else do this or am I just crazy getting up at 4am rather than 4:30 just to snuggle downstairs instead of in my bed?

I also hit all of my paces on my speedwork on Tuesday and have a 6-mile goal marathon pace effort run this morning with a 1.5 mile warm-up and 1.5 mile cool-down. I’ve switched my mentality from having it be a “pace-specific” run to an “effort-specific” run because maybe it’s icy outside or maybe there’s a few hills or maybe I’m just a bit off today, BUT if I’m still getting to the effort (aka what marathon pace should feel like with my body) then I consider it a success. It’s all about working on that mindset for me this training cycle. Plus I’m reading this book (finally got it after being on the library waitlist for over 7 weeks!) and loving how she describes building her confidence.

Alex and I had a lunch date yesterday at Winona’s (they literally have the BEST buffalo chicken salad in town) and it was amazing. We used to do this all the time when we first started dating, but since living together it hasn’t been as often. I’m so glad we got to enjoy their salads again.

Also Stella had a very healthy lunch yesterday as well.

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Marathon Pace vs marathon effort- what do you think?

Best lunch spot where you live?

What’s the last book you read?