Weekend Update

Hello, you. I've been quiet. As I continue to juggle all that is life, I've come to the conclusion that I just cannot let myself dwell on being quiet. I love that I have this little space on the Internet, and I love that you come here and read it. But I also love life, and I get the sense that you'll forgive me for being quiet. At least I hope you will. I've been busy, friends. You know what busy is like. Places to go, people to see:

Rare glimpse of me in party clothes. What!

The girlies above are some of my most favorite girlies ever. It's half of a very dear group that I spent a lot of time with in college. We celebrated some pretty great memories at our 10-year reunion this weekend. I cannot even believe we've been out of college that long. We started off the weekend with some wine tasting, gathered at a picnic, visited old dorm rooms and really...we just hung out like old times.

It was awesome.
But too short.

Luckily, we have three weddings lined up in less than a year. I'll get to see them again, soon.

That's what makes old friends the best. No matter when you meet them, or how long it's been since you've seen them, you can get together with them and feel like it was just yesterday that you were last laughing together. I hope you know what that's like. It's the best, really.

In other news: I popped into Super Target this weekend and bought this new-to-me Chobani Flip flavor.


I wasn't sure this combo sounded all that great to me, but to honor my Chobani obsession, I bought one. And I pretty much just inhaled it. Verdict: Yum. My mom thinks the Flips taste like candy and I agree. I think that's what makes them so great. You feel like you're overindulging in something so delicious that it can only be the opposite of nutritious, but really, it IS nutritious.

Let's see...college reunion, new Chobani flavor...oh, let's add ten miles to this recap. That's right, my training plan for the Chicago half marathon has taken me into double-digit territory. I got myself up super early to snag ten miles on Sunday with Mom. Literally had to force myself to get dressed.

I much prefer to wake up and get it over with. If I save my runs for later, I feel like I spend all day anticipating the run itself. Plus, these days, if you wait, you run the risk of temps surpassing comfort levels. I much prefer to run in cooler temps. According to MapMyRun, this is what 10 miles looked like:

On one hand, my pace is a smidge slower than I want it to be. But in our defense (I ran with my mom), we did some off-road running around two lakes which left us slowing down for mud puddles on numerous occasions. And there were also times where we had to stop for traffic lights. Silly me never stopped MapMyRun. So who knows.

And on the other hand, the entire run felt pretty decent. My low back tightened up toward the end, but it wasn't anything debilitating. Last time I trained for a half marathon, I started tapering after ten miles. This time around, I'm taking it right up to 12 miles with race day being 13.2 after tapering. I'm hoping it makes a difference because I did not feel prepared for those last three miles at the Chicago Half Marathon four years ago.

Three more weeks to race day. #soexcited

Question: Do you train to 12 or 10 miles when training for a half marathon? If you've done both, did you notice a difference?