Coffee+Beer=Love

While I haven't been consistent about blogging Sundays, I have been consistent about blogging once a week. This week's blog is brought to you at Sip Coffee & Beer House in Scottsdale, AZ. One of the best parts about being "off" in the summers, is that you can work remotely for a large majority of prep work. I'm not really "off." We might not have school in session, but I'm working and prepping for next year like a mad women. Music selection, travel plans, outfit selection...sometimes it feels like I have more work in the summers than I do during the school year. Haha, just kidding.

I love a good coffeehouse. Probably goes back to the many hours I spent avoiding the snow and studying at Larkspur in college, which apparently is now Lola-An American Bistro. Pair a good coffee with free wifi and I am a happy girl. Add on the fact that it's also a beer house and you'll have a difficult time getting me to leave. I found this little gem on Google, gave it a try, and it's starting to become my goto place to sit and work. The mornings are pretty quiet, but the traffic definitely pics up around noon.

Lots of blogging topics have been swarming my mind these days. As the mileage starts to increase, so does the amount of time I have to just think. Three quick thoughts on the blog today. Race recap, minor injury, and goals.

Race recap: FroYo5k
Both the 5k and the 10k were offered, with the 10k just looping the course twice. Overall, I was fairly happy with my performance. I set my fastest 5k time in a long time during the race. The froyo treat at the end was AMAZING. While some people were commenting about how they were going to get sick from the froyo at the end, I thought it was a fantastic treat after a very hot race. Heat was probably my only complaint about the race. Race officials were late in starting the race, which in the AZ heat can really kill ya. My runs outside I try to start around 5:30am. Scheduled at 7am, this puppy didn't start til almost 7:15am! But one under my belt. Huzzah!

I sidelined myself for two days this week. After my interval training on Tuesday, I experienced some pain in my right calf starting Wednesday. When I woke up and it was still present on Thursday, I decided a trip to my local running store was in order. The pain was in the same leg that I pronate on, and suspected that I might be having a cause and effect situation going on. After telling my life's running story to Flash at Sole Running Sports Zone, we determined that is was probably time to retire my pair of shoes. Lighter shoes=less mileage available on them. I tried on a new pair and holy cow...night and day difference. It was like running on clouds of air verses flat pancakes. The hardest part of the process was deciding what color to get. Kinda in love with these new turquoise Saucony Kinvara 6s. I spent the rest of the afternoon Thursday doing an easy pool workout and Thursday evening bonding with the heating pad. This morning I woke up to a calf that felt MUCH better, but still could use a little more time off. Since tomorrow is my long run, I figured an extra day off wasn't going to hurt. Swimming again this afternoon.

Weekly Goals!
1- Drink more water. Yeah. I still suck at this.
2- Keep interval training and lifting a regular part of my schedule.
3- Do a better job meal planning. I'm starting to fall into the habit of going to the grocery store every other day and that is not good for the budget or the balanced diet.

Keep running everyone! Live. Laugh. Love.

Andrea