Wednesday's Weekly Wrap-up (July 3-9)

(With my wrap-up posts I try to update each Wednesday about my week in review. I include pictures posted during the week from my Instagram @lilrunner1485 as well. Why Wednesday instead of Saturday or Sunday? Well, it just works better for me on this schedule. So, Hump Day it is!)

Hello friends! So much has happened since my last weekly wrap-up. My apologies for no Monday post, but it was quite a busy holiday weekend! It was the good busy though. While not exactly relaxing, it was one of those truly great weekends that you are sad to see end. Oh Monday, why do you always ruin the fun?!

Independence Day celebration: nothing says patriotic like a flag cake!

With the short work week thanks to the Independence Day holiday, our weekend fun got started extra early. I woke up to amazing weather on Friday! Sunny skies, but not sweltering hot or terrible humidity like we’ve been dealing with pretty much since Memorial Day. There was also a wonderful breeze. If the weather could be like this all the time, I might not dislike you so much, summer! Needless to say it was PERFECT running weather, and that was how I started my day! This run was particularly special and I was very eager to get it done because it was Day 40, the FINAL day, of the RWRunStreak Summer Challenge! Not sure if it was a combination of the weather plus my motivation to finish the challenge, but it was probably the best run of my streak! It was an excellent end to the streak and I am very proud to once again be a RWRunStreak Finisher! I plan to have a future post detailing my RWRunStreak experience, so stay tuned!

I'm a RWRunStreak Finisher!

Finishing the streak was a great way to start the 4th of July celebration. In true patriotic form, I made a flag cake. It was delicious, light and fluffy! Also as a true American, I made the best version of “salad.” A snickers salad that is! Another brilliant Pinterest concoction. Snickers, cream cheese and cool whip? Yes, please! Also, there ARE apples in it, so that makes it better right?! It was delicious as well. Later that afternoon we headed to my hometown for my family’s Annual 4th of July cookout. It was a blast as always. We enjoyed the wonderful weather, played games, ate amazingly good food and just enjoyed each other’s company. The day was complete with homemade ice cream, which is just THE best! We closed out the evening by walking down the street to see the city’s fireworks display. Fortunately my parents live close enough that we can just gather on the street curb with the other neighbors to watch the fireworks. We don’t have to deal with large crowds or traffic! This has been a tradition I’ve enjoyed since I was a kid. It’s really fun to see my nephews, nieces and second cousins enjoy the tradition now as well. It was overall a truly wonderful day and an amazing 4th of July celebration. I am proud to be an American and proud to live in a free country!

Fireworks to celebrate America's birthday!

Homemade ice cream: one of THE best parts of the 4th of July!

On Saturday, the husband and I made the trek to Columbus, Ohio for our annual zoo trip! We go to the Columbus Zoo every year and generally make our trip around the 4th of July weekend due to the extra time we have off work. Despite getting a later start than we intended to, it was a wonderful day! I’ve been to other zoos, and I can say that the Columbus Zoo is one of the best. While the zoo was the busiest I have EVER seen it, we had a very enjoyable day! We love animals and always look forward to our zoo trip. It really is a staple of our summer! We loved the new Africa section at the zoo, which recently opened. For my Disney fans, it had quite an Animal Kingdom feel with the savannah area, where the giraffes and zebras could roam about! I’ve never been as close to a giraffe until this trip and it was amazing! I am so glad the giraffes are back at the Columbus Zoo! We also really enjoyed watching the cheetahs play. Once we left the zoo we stopped for a quick dinner at Chipotle before heading home. This is now like the third time (maybe more?) that I’ve mentioned Chipotle in a post. It’s safe to say we are loving Chipotle this summer! It’s probably good there isn’t one in our town, otherwise it might not be a treat anymore lol! Here’s a picture recap of some of the animals we saw on our zoo excursion:

Sunday was a much needed lazy day. We got a lot of walking in at the zoo and were pretty tired from our trip as well as our 4th of July fun. It was overall a fantastic weekend, and like I said, I was sad to see it go. But alas, if time stood still life wouldn’t be interesting would it? So far this week the summer heat and humidity has returned (yuck!) and it’s back to business as usual. I took a few much needed days off from running (both because I was exhausted and my ankle is still a bit sore), and am now starting my regular run schedule back up! It’s time to start adding longer runs, because before you know it October and the Run Disney Tower of Terror 10-Miler will be here! Who will be running into the twilight zone with me!? Now that the 4th is over, I am ready for this summer to fly by so my Disney vacation can get here! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend and enjoy the rest of your week.

Just hanging with some giraffes at the zoo!

Feel free to share if you completed the RWRunStreak. I’d also love to know how you celebrated Independence Day!

Wednesday's Weekly Wrap-up (June 26-July 2)

(With my wrap-up posts I try to update each Wednesday about my week in review. I include pictures posted during the week from my Instagram @lilrunner1485 as well. Why Wednesday instead of Saturday or Sunday? Well, it just works better for me on this schedule. So, Hump Day it is!)

Hello friends! I hope you all are having a great week so far! Can you believe it’s already July?! Wow!

For this weekly wrap-up, I must start with my day last Friday. Instead of my usual work flow, I volunteered with a group of co-workers for Habitat for Humanity. Since our Habitat site is located in Huntington, I did have to wake up a little earlier to hit the road. I remembered how tired and sore I was after volunteering for Habitat this past November, so I also dragged myself out of bed even earlier to get in a quick run on the treadmill. That proved to be an excellent decision because it ended up being a hot and exhausting day! Despite the sweltering heat and humidity, it was more importantly a very fulfilling day and a wonderful experience. My family has volunteered with Habitat for as long as I can remember. It’s a cause that my family is passionate about and I’m proud to carry on the tradition by volunteering myself. In case you aren’t familiar, Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit organization devoted to building “simple, decent, and affordable housing.” For more information on Habitat, check out their site here.

I had volunteered with Habitat for Humanity before with my church youth group, but my experience last November was my first full-on work day with the organization. I quickly jumped at a chance to volunteer again with the summer group. While the house we were working on had AC installed, the majority of my day was spent outside painting. I actually enjoy painting so I was happy that was one of the jobs we could do for the day. My co-worker and I painted the exterior along with the trim of a shed. It sounds like a simple task, but it did take up the bulk of our day. The sunshine and no shade made me a sweaty mess, but it felt great to do something different for the day and to know that by doing so I was making a difference in someone else’s life. A shed doesn’t seem like much, but I am darn proud of the job we did and I hope the homeowner enjoys it!

Tropical Moon after a hot work day!

The husband also spent the day volunteering for Habitat, so once our group wrapped for the day we decided to treat ourselves to some froyo at Tropical Moon! After a hot day in the sun doing manual labor, Tropical Moon has never tasted so good! Then the husband had a genius idea that we get Chipotle to go and warm it up for dinner later once we got home. First off, I am so proud I now have him hooked on the awesomeness that is Chipotle. Secondly, he really is a genius because Chipotle (even warmed up) has never tasted so good either!

The rest of our eventful Friday was spent seeing the movie version of Jersey Boys! Thanks to my parents raising me right on GOOD music, I absolutely love The Four Seasons! Needless to say I was very excited for this film, and it did not disappoint. It was SO good. I bought the soundtrack this weekend, which includes songs by the cast as well as original tracks from Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. I might be a wee bit obsessed, but it’s just so good! I’ve been listening to the soundtrack non-stop. The music has even made my iPod running playlist! It’s made my hot/humid runs more enjoyable for sure! I really hope I can see the Broadway production of Jersey Boys someday! That's the dream!

Jersey Boys soundtrack is my current music of choice!

Perhaps the most eventful thing to recap is my RWRunStreak update! Last week, I, along with my fellow run streakers, started our decent into the home stretch of the summer challenge. Well, now we are REALLY in the final home stretch and the finish line is almost there! I can practically smell it! Today marks Day 38 of the streak, which means we only have TWO more days left! TWO MORE! TWO MORE! I can’t believe how quickly time has flown! I can tell I’ve been running for 38 days straight (actually 39 since I started a day early lol). Like this time of the summer challenge last year, my legs are really feeling the streak! I can tell I haven’t had an actual day off in quite some time. Knowing I’m so close to completing the challenge is keeping me motivated. For those wondering, my ankle still has some definite soreness, but is MUCH better! Fellow streakers, we’ve got this. Let’s knock these final TWO days out of the park!

RWRunStreak: ALMOST THERE!

Speaking of running in general, I have to note that Run Disney released this year's Tower of Terror 10-Miler Medal! I love it! I can't wait to be back at Disney in October for the race and all the festivities! Who else will be running into the Twilight Zone with me?!

ToT 10-Miler Bling!

What’s on the agenda the rest of the week?

1. Watching Independence Day non-stop. I’ve already seen it twice this week and plan to watch it over and over again with the 4th of July coming up! It’s one of my all-time favorite movies. I love the 90s cheese and really, is there any speech better than President Whitmore's?

2. 4th of July celebration! One of the things I do like about summer is the 4th of July. My family hosts a cook-out every year. I look forward to spending time with family, good food and of course, homemade ice cream.

3. HOMEMADE ICE CREAM. Yes, I realized I just mentioned it, but it’s just so good it must be mentioned again.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week. Have a safe and happy 4th of July! To my international readers, happy Friday! Fridays are always fun in general, right?!

Wednesday's Weekly Wrap-up (June 19-25)

(With my wrap-up posts I try to update each Wednesday about my week in review. I include pictures posted during the week from my Instagram @lilrunner1485 as well. Why Wednesday instead of Saturday or Sunday? Well, it just works better for me on this schedule. So, Hump Day it is!)

Hello friends! Hope you all are having a good week so far. We’ve already made it to Hump Day, which means the weekend fun is just around the corner! This past week was busy as usual followed by a pretty great weekend.

Immediately after work last Friday I planned to get a quick run in and then change in the car before heading to Huntington with the husband. Sometimes I wonder if West Virginia has been channeling its inner-Florida as of late with these random torrential downpours that occur for a few minutes followed by bright and sunny skies. I say this because my weather app indicated no change of storming/rain prior to my run Friday. While the sky did look a little overcast, I brushed it off thinking “well, it might sprinkle a little, but it should be ok.” Just in case, I grabbed my little running belt pack, aka my running fanny pack lol, and stuck my phone in there. As a precaution I put it in a sock since I didn’t have a plastic bag. Crafty! Well, I got about 400 meters into my run when the sky pretty much fell out unleashing basically a monsoon on me. I panicked because of my precious iPhone 5S, which was in just a regular case (not a protective one). I turned around and sprinted back to the car already soaking wet and my phone thankfully escaped this incident unscathed. I ended up finishing my run without my phone by doing laps at the park (boring yawn). The good news is that the rain shower distracted me from how hot it was! Always look for the silver lining folks!

WV 5K Fun!

After my shower, I mean run, we were on our way to Huntington to pick up our race bibs and swag for the West Virginia 5K Championship. We explored the race expo and then decided to have a quick dinner date at Olive Garden. I love Olive Garden salad and breadsticks. What I don’t love is them continually changing their menu as of late. They recently took my favorite dish off the menu and now the husband’s favorite is gone as well. For shame, Olive Garden, for shame. Don’t you just hate when restaurants take away your go-to order? First world problems indeed! It was still a great meal and a fun evening out. Saturday we woke up entirely too early for a non-work day for the race. You can read my full West Virginia 5K Race Recap here. Other than me badly rolling my ankle, which made the race itself not so great, it was a fun morning.

Blonder hair for summer plus a new
Run Disney Mickey for my desk! 

We continued our weekend fun by sticking around Huntington after the 5K to get some things done. We had a quick breakfast at Starbucks (my favorite!) before heading our separate ways for the rest of the morning. I had a much needed hair appointment for a color and a trim. I love getting some hair TLC and I always feel fresh and renewed after a color touch up. It takes a while, but getting my hair done is super relaxing. It’s nice to be pampered! For the summer season my hair stylist made my hair a bit blonder, which I really like. It felt nice to get my layers and bangs trimmed as well. Bangs that have grown to be too long are one of the most annoying things. I’m sure many ladies can attest to that! After my much-needed girly time, I met back up with the husband at the mall. We had planned to get in some shopping but he was completely exhausted and I was having trouble walking thanks to my ankle snafu, so I only made a quick stop at Macy’s to get some makeup. Before we left Huntington we decided to have a late lunch at Chipotle, which recently opened in town. The husband had never experienced Chipotle awesomeness before and I was happy to introduce him to it! I absolutely love Chipotle! It was a really fun lunch date to close out a great day. The rest of our Saturday was spent icing my ankle, napping and being couch potatoes!

Now for a quick RWRunStreak update: Tuesday marked Day 30 of the RWRunStreak Summer Challenge! Fellow streakers, we are now in the HOME STRETCH! We’ve got this! I am very pleased to report that my ankle is feeling much better since Saturday’s 5K. It’s not at 100 percent yet, but with the help of an ice regimen and KT Tape I’ve been able to continue running to keep my streak alive! More importantly, thus far it’s feeling better with each day. Hopefully I continue to stay on the mend!

KT Tape is helping keep my RWRunStreak alive! Winston has also deemed himself my bodyguard since he knows I haven't been 100 percent with my ankle snafu lol! 

What’s on tap for the rest of the week? Friday I will be volunteering for Habitat for Humanity! I volunteered with Habitat this past November and as cheesy as it sounds, it was a very fulfilling experience! I look forward to helping such a great cause again. We are still kicking around our weekend plans, but hopefully we will do something fun! I hope everyone has a wonderful, enjoyable rest of the week!