TTT: Running!, Randomness, & Foodie Penpal Reveal

1. I ran!  3 whole miles!!!  I even sort of followed the rules my chiro gave me.  I felt like I was hyper aware of what was going on with my body, which can be kind of depressing when you feel tons of little twinges and random pains.  Thankfully,  for the most part, my calf was fine.  I had a couple moments of “does my calf feel tight?”, but it felt fine.  After I ran my three miles, I walked a fourth with about a quarter mile of running mixed in.  I wanted to see how much I’d need to run to run/walk a 13 minute pace.    After I came home, I foam rolled my calves and my quads and tried not to cry like a baby from all the random hot spots.

2. Some random things:

• When I foam rolled my calves, I got a full on cramp in my abs.  Seriously felt like a charlie horse across my belly!  Who does that?!?
• Things are heating up with the Nike Womens Half – I’m involved with weekly calls, we are doing another site walk through again soon, and I have a meet and greet coming up.  It’s just amazing the amount of work that goes into putting on a big race in a big city!  I will never ever take that for granted again.
• I really thought that by this point, I’d be heading into taper, not working on increasing my mileage.  I seriously have no idea what my training plan is at this point.
• My eating habits, the number of books I’ve read, and the fact that I can’t seem to comment on a single blog all point towards depression, but I’m pretty sure it’s just stress about how all this is going to play out.
• Optimist v. pessimist – the optimist is believing I can run/walk all five half marathons still; the pessimist is sure my calf is going to go on the first day.  I’m beginning to believe that reality is somewhere in the middle.

3.  Foodie Penpal Reveal

Once again, I was not disappointed! I got an awesome box of stuff from Elizabeth at Food Ramblings. It was a lovely combination of stuff.

• Goldfish crackers – Shoo was pretty happy to get those
• Whole Wheat couscous – Yum!
• Harry and David creme brulee mix – I can’t wait to try this.  It looks so tasty!
• Adora Calcium Supplement – OK, this was an unusual choice, but I love it!  I’m really bad about remembering to take my calcium, even though I usually take the chewy gummy bear ones my kids take. But these are so good, I’m having to constantly remind myself to only take one or two a day.  Totally a win in my book (and I’ll be buying myself some when these run out.)
• Molasses Bacon Grill Mates.  Oh.My.Goodness.  Sounds so amazing.  (And I’ll be fighting Jones for it – he likes bacon salt in his oatmeal, so I’m sure he’ll be swiping this for weekend breakfasts.)
• Bento Seaweed Snack – I’ll admit this may not get eaten any time soon.  I’m not opposed to the idea, but I had some dried seaweed stuff from Trader Joe’s not too long ago that was awful and the memory is still too fresh LOL.
• A sweet note and some seriously cute napkins!

Foodie Penpals ROCK!  Want to join?  Here are the deets…
Thanks again to Elizabeth for my package and to Lindsey at the Lean Green Bean for organizing.

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.

-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!

-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!

-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)

-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.

– Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents. Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!