So the week of the race basically it’s my time to mentally pace around and freak out about little small things I can’t change. Like that I feel 99 times more out of shape than I should. That I should stop eating so many cookies, cake and drinking SO much coffee. That I spread myself too thin.

It’s game time but my mind gets so frantic with things that I have to do for the race that sometimes I have to take a deep breath and remember, it’s just a race and it’s suppose to be FUN!

With that being said, here’s a crazy list of things I do during race week.

Listen to super  upbeat music every time I’m in the car.

Eat. A LOT.

Drink coffee in excess.

Freak out that I actually am running 26.2 miles.

Completely throw my room upside down searching for some random things.

I know I’ll be okay. I’ve checked the weather every morning. every afternoon and every night. Right now we are looking at 72 degrees, which compared to 113 last weekend, is quite a relief. I’m still positive about the race. I mean, knock on wood, what can go wrong?

It just reaches a point where I just want to get it over with already! I’m going on a little 3-5 miler tonight and we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully my legs don’t feel too tired. I’m ready. Tomorrow it’s goal time. I can’t believe I’m already writing up goals and I’m running 26.2 miles on Sunday. Sheesh.

xoxo

So that means I should get some AWESOME presents right?! I thought just for kicks I would put together a birthday list. Mostly the “big” things are things that I’m personally saving for and I plan to have a pretty low-key birthday this year. With work being crazy I’ve planned a little gathering that shouldn’t be too out of hand but who knows. My birthday is exactly one week from today! So without further adieu, here’s some good stuff on my list this year.

With fall approaching sometime hopefully in the near future I am looking forward to sweater weather and what is better than this little gem from Forever 21!

Next, for some reason I have been loving cute little over the shoulder bags. I have really no reason why this would ever work for all the crap I carry in my purse, but I still think that possibly I might like it for 1 day. Thus I leave you with this little piece of love from F21.

And last but not least from my favorite store in the world is this leather jacket. These can be sketchy in texture and if they look cheap so I’d have to see it in real life. But I am thinking that a leather jacket would make me have a little more edge. Or most likely look like I’m trying way too hard.

There are three awesome things from Lululemon that I can’t copy the pictures of but you can see them in all their glory right HERE, HERE, and HERE. I’m completely addicted to cropped leggings right now and that is what I’ve found there that I love. Though I would never pay for their stuff full price, their sale stuff is awesome!

I also am obsessed with Beyond Yoga leggings. Their stuff is made from 90% supplex and that stuff is like suck it in and make you look good material.

Lately I have also been doing some dabbling in the wonderful world of cooking. Well, cooking is a stretch, but I’ve been making almost 100% of my meals at home, which is a huge difference for me. This being said I also have some intense love for paninis. Meet the lovely Breville Panini Duo, which will one day be mine and I will obsessively make way too many caprese sandwiches on it.

Out of nowhere, with my new home and my horrible attempt at gardening, I do realize that watering the flowers is basically the most annoying thing in the entire universe. You know why? THE HOSE. I hate it, it’s so annoying to wrap back around the stupid holder and it makes me not want to do it. You’ve heard right. I want a hose reel. I think it would just make the whole area where the hose is much neater looking. It’d be great it my flowers were also growing and the grass wasn’t looking horrible. I’m trying here people. It’s a learning process.

I also know that it would be totally unnecessary, but would perk up my mornings if I had a little ihome for my old iphone that I now use as an ipod in my bathroom. Something small that doesn’t take up too much room. So here’s a little one from the ihome collection.

And you know, throwing some bones towards this bad boy, I mean that’s never a bad thing. Still working on paying off some stuff before I get one of those little monsters.

I can’t believe that my marathon, my birthday, my birthday party, and long beach are almost all here! The rest of the month is going to just be a crazy whirl wind of amazing, fun, crazy things going on! Can you tell I also have a new addiction to coffee?

xoxo

This morning as I was doing my normal online news creep session, I came across this.

I know most of our news is horrible news. Many of it contains sad stories and things that make you cringe at humanity today. But this was different. I teared up as I watched the video.

Reminds you that there are still awesome people in the world. Left a smile on my face. What a great story of sportsmanship. Glad all these kids could come together for this moment.

Read the whole story HERE

xoxo

This weekend was a blast. A hot blast. I went out on the lake (Lake Castaic) all day Saturday, when it was 103 here! Talk about a late summer hot spell. It was a beautiful day to be out on the water though. Glad I was out of the heat and at least able to cool off in the water. Another awesome thing is that I think I am getting another fever blister on my lip. SWEET.

Since I went out to lake on Saturday I had to get in my last ‘long’ run before Camarillo…NEXT WEEKEND, yesterday morning. Talk about a hot one! I knew it was another hot day in the works when I was greeted with the sun shinning right in my face when I stepped outside to start my run. I wanted to hit 13 miles but with the scorching heat I settled with 11 and went a route with a little more hills. I was a hot day from the start. I literally felt like my feet were sticking to the asphalt with how sticky and hot it was out.

It took me a while to get back into the groove when I started running. I just felt like I was so slow and tired. Finally around mile 4 I seemed to regain life in my legs and was able to finish off the run stronger then when I started. I also saw a dead cat on the side of the road. It was sad. This week I’m going to get in an 8 miler on Tuesday morning and a 5 miler in on Thursday morning and then it’s race time! I have to book my hotel either today or tomorrow but I have been perusing some deals.

I hate that part of the race planning. Booking a hotel and planning the pre-race activities and stuff always stresses me out! I want to just get the race over with at this point. Pending how I feel at Camarillo, I’ll decide what race I’m going to run at Malibu, either the half or full. Right now I’m leaning toward the full, like a complete freak, but Monday morning I’m sure I’ll be right back on the half marathon train.

I’m excited though. I think. As of right now I’m excited. Come Wednesday I’ll just be over the waiting game and ready to get this show on the road.

Another exciting highlight of the weekend was going to a few different baby stores with Shea for her upcoming craft fair! She has been super busy with her business and is kicking serious butt. Her display is SO cute. I will take pictures and share soon. And I’ll leave you on that babyriffic note.

xoxo

So I’m one of the few that loves taper. I truly enjoy it and right now, I’m happy as a clam in taper mode. I might be tapering in running world but my life aka work is still going 110 miles per hour.

There are so many things I’m counting down till the end of the year and it’s so exciting!

Camarillo Marathon is 9 days away and my birthday is 12 days away! Today it’s one of my co-workers birthday and we have three birthdays in the month of October at work! I love birthdays! I love cupcakes and sugar. Then the Long Beach Marathon is only 22 days away!

I’ve been asked many times if I’ll be running or working and I will most definitely only have time to work that weekend. It will be crazy all weekend long and going off zero hours of sleep will be awesome. I’m so excited for it though. Everything is starting to come into the office and it’s like Christmas all the time with all our stuff for the race. Enough work talk.

This weekend I’m running 13 miles, which I think I’ll try to run as hard as I can. One last good run before Camarillo. I’m going to wear my outfit that I have set out for race day and also try out the playlist before race day. I need to start planning race logistics, which I’m the WORST at for myself. I ran twice this week but had no time to go to the gym. I did have time to get a hat for my birthday though!

I am so excited for my upcoming birthday and my party is the weekend after Camarillo so I should be able to walk normally by then. I also got a bunch of new workout clothes passed down from a friend at work and I’m SO stoked to wear them all the time. I am totally becoming that person who wears workout clothes all the time. It’s getting bad. But with all these new clothes I just want to wear them all the time!

Hooray for Taper! Hooray for all the fun events coming up! Hooray for new clothes and Hoo-fricken-ray for Friday!

xoxo