Stripes, Plaid & Running for ME

digging this zipper detail on this shirt

showing off my purple mani, with a pink "party nail"

I wore the above to drive an hour to stay the night with my bestie before our race the next morning. I wore my ankle booties under my jeans, and deliberately mixed the stripes on my shirt with the plaid on my scarf. You like? I sure did. I'm debating wear this whole thing together again, but maybe this time to work, so that more people besides my husband and my best friend see it, and can appreciate my print-mixing & fall tones ;)

before the race, from my Instagram 

hot chocolate (hence the name) & treats after the race. marshmallows & pretzels never tasted so. good.

My best friend and I did the Hot Chocolate 15k several weeks ago (15k = 9.3 miles). She is currently training for a marathon (!!!), which is 26.2 miles, and although the race was more mileage than she was up to on her long run that week, she really blew the race out of the water! For the first 4 or 5 miles, we stayed together and consistently jogged for 3 minutes, then power walked for 2 minutes. Eventually, I was dyin'. I couldn't catch my breath, my feet were hurting & starting to develop blisters, and my legs. My legs got so tight & sore, even though we had stretched out before the race (it's awesome when your bestie is taking classes to become a certified yoga instructor - she tells you HOW to stretch, how to increase the stretch, and tells you what you SHOULD be feeling). So, I sent her on ahead - she was doing so great, and I could tell she was loving this run (the HUGE smile on her face was a giveaway). She really was doing so great, and I was holding her back. So, she finished significantly before me, since I walked (almost) the rest of the race and listened to my booktape :) The pain & frustration I felt with this race are due to my lack of training - it's no one's fault but my own. 

I mentioned that my Dad and I were planning to do another half-marathon together, but that race was postponed due to the major flooding we experienced in Colorado in September. Once it was postponed, I completely stopped training and thinking about training (I assumed the race would be postponed until the spring, due to the major destruction of the course). Imagine my surprise when the race was rescheduled for a weekend that my Dad & I already had plans, and I had stopped training. I sold my entry for a fraction of what I paid for it, which was a bummer. 

But, after the Hot Chocolate race, and after talking with another friend, I had this "epiphany" about running: I like LOVE it when I'm not training for anything, when I'm doing it just for me, when I'm not trying to get in mileage, when there's no pressure, when I run to clear my head, and get a quick (and cheap!) shot of endorphins. 

Maybe signing up for a race causes me to put undue pressure on myself, and coincidentally tear up my feet with bad blisters. Maybe I should just keep running for fun, for me, for whenever I WANT to do it. Because, if I do go run, and I don't want to, it's hard to snap out of that funk - I spend the entire run wishing it were done already, or that I hadn't even started. So, I'm going to run for me, and for me only. It's not worth it to pay for a race, stress out about it, and not enjoy training for it - it's so much more enjoyable (for me), to run WHEN and IF I want to,  and not because I should.

That being said, I am so proud of one of my oldest friends for doing so well in this race (kicking my butt, really!) and training for a marathon - you are going to be SO great! So proud of you, sweets! Namaste ;)

striped shirt: Ann Taylor LOFT via Clothes Mentor

tank: Abercrombie & Fitch

scarf: thrifted (Target)

jeans: thrifted (True Religion)

booties: Old Navy

running gear: a combination of my stuff, hand-me-downs from my mom, 

and layers borrowed from my friend