End of An Era

Today I wrapped up an era of my life here in Colorado. . .

Almost two years ago, in the middle of the night on a Wednesday morning, Zach, the furballs, and I packed up our lives in Chicago and moved here to Denver, CO.  Zach got lucky enough to get the opportunity to work from home, and the both of us had always wanted to live near the mountains.  When I got an opportunity to work at the Action Center, we took the leap and made the move.

We packed up and drove on Wednesday, and by Thursday morning I was at work.  And today, almost two years to the date, I left the Action Center for the last time!

I haven’t spoken about my work much here on the blog, because well, it hasn’t been all that fun to talk about.  For awhile, I had struggles with different elements of my work there while at the same time loved the work that I did.   Two weeks ago, I was blessed enough to get what seems like an amazing offer that has great potential for career growth.

While I will still try and keep the bulk of my work life separate from the blog, expect some fun updates on the new job and how things are changing around our lives during this busy time 🙂

Back to Business:  Food and a Run

Last night’s dinner:

A small side salad with garden greens, squash, celery, grapes, carrots and goat cheese.  YUM

Plus a tuna burger with udi’s toast and some GF crackers.

Run

I split my run today

3 miles with this speed demon

One mile with this slow poke.

Not a bad day 🙂

When was the last time you changed jobs?  Was it tough to leave?

Thank You Social Media Friends :) <3

I gotta say.  I’m sitting here with a full and happy heart right now.

All of you, blog readers, instagram, twitter and facebook followers, I hope you all know how much you mean to me and just how much you motivate me every single day to be a better athlete and person.

This Afternoon

I don’t know if you all remember this, but I posted this recently

As accountability to myself for the week to stick to goals.  Both to get in the necessary work outs, but also not to push it too hard.

Welp, on tap yesterday was 5 miles.  For those of you not in the Denver area, overall we’ve had a mild and fairly wet Winter.  GREAT for someone who has been doing most of her runs in the afternoon sun.

Yeah that wasn’t yesterday.  I hit the road at 5, straight out of work with suns-a-blareing.  92 degree heat and a beautiful cloudless sky.

All day I had psyched myself up that 5 miles was no biggy. I’d gone two days without running (one of those being a 12 plus mile hike mind you) so 5 miles should be easy.

Spoiler: IT WASNT.

These 3.25 miles were UGLY.  Including two breaks at lights that I may or may not have prayed to go red.  UGLY.  And splits that were horrendous (thank god they don’t show).

I ended up calling it at my car right at 3.25 miles and wasn’t sure what to do from there.  The area I was running near work had NO water and NO shade.  Both bad to any runner.  I figured I’d go home, drink some coconut water and re-evaluate.  I ended up doing just that, and even reached out to my Instagram/Facebook/Twitter friends about whether or not I should go back out there.

The resounding opinion was rest up, add more tomorrow.  But after drinking a ton of coconut water, sitting in air conditioning and relaxing, I felt fine.   I spent about 15 minutes scouting Instagram, specifically the #fitfluential hashtag (check it out if you haven’t, INCREDIBLY inspiring).  The mix of feeling a million times better and looking at all these inspiring pictures, I knew I could get back out there.

And get back out there, I did.

I was careful to listen to my body on this run and not push it too hard, but I felt STRONG again all of a sudden.  Sure, it was only 1.75 miles, and I had found the shade, but I NEEDED that.  And I have all my social media friends and inspirations to thank.

I haven’t spoken about it much on Chocolate Medals yet, but I’ve got a relay race coming up in a few weeks, so the whole “split run” is something I’ve been doing quite a bit this Summer.   I NEEDED this second run for moral and confidence that I could do this.  And thanks to the inspiration I found from social media

And old Outkast on repeat, I kicked that second run’s ass.  Thank you.

Stronger than ever.  So here’s my thank you 

{ps big work/life update coming later today.  just fyi 🙂 }