13 | January | 2014 | Chocolate Covered Race Medals

Goooooooood Morning and Happy Monday everyone :).

i really apologize if that intro gets old. what are some creative ways to start blog posts, anyway?

Another weekend wrapped up in the books for 2014, and another week ready to tackle. Thank goodness the weekend on our side was pretty spectacular , so I’m not too bitter about it ending :).

We wrapped up our evening with a little bit of yoga for runners before serving a simple, but delicious dinner.

A caprese salad with some slaw underneath as base. Topped of course with balsamic vinegar and a side of chicken that Zach and I split. I guess he didn’t think there was enough protein in my breakfast?!

Moving on . . . 🙂

I capped off the night with a unphotogenic piece of homemade lemon cake that was absolutely AMAZING and fell asleep quickly on a bit of a sugar high. Come on Ashley — keep it in check. You don’t need to eat EVERY BITE OF DESSERT!

Welp, at least I woke up ready to get moving this morning with a good work out.

Workout of the Day: 4 miles plus easy weights

Since I really pushed the speed (for me) yesterday on my 3 miler’, I decided to keep it nice, slow and fairly consistent today. Nothing really exciting about this run. I kept it constant until the end when I started getting really bored so I messed around with the speed a bit.

Then, of course, for a bit of strength training:

3 sets of 15 incline sit ups (body weight)
3 sets of 15 chest press (20 lbs)
3 sets of 15 leg press (40 lb)
60 second plank + 10 hip hips (body weight)

I don’t know how much I’ve spoken about this on the blog, but I’m sure many of you have noticed my running routine being a little different in the last few months. I started really pilin’ on the miles in November for the POTM challenge, then kept it going through December to reach my goal of 1000 miles in 2013 (yay). At this point, I’ve kept it up, even when I’m not sure I want to, in hopes that I will burn myself out pretty badly and be ready for the 2 week break for the honeymoon come February 2. I definitely do not plan to continue running like this when we return (I have other plans), and have even started looking at 2014 races.

At this point, my Plan/Goals for the week is as follows: