Time for a treat!

Having recently completed a 30km race, I think I've earned the right to indulge just a little. Thank goodness it's Easter this weekend! We will be having a big family get together at my parents place this weekend. I LOVE our family gatherings! There's always lots of fun, lots of laughter and LOTS of super yummy food. I will be making my popular lemon sugar cookies. They are super easy, super delicious, and as we discovered last year, very popular with the kiddies (one of my little cousins ended up with blue icing in his hair...)

These litlle babies make a great Easter treat! Or get different cookie cutters and find a reason to make them any time!

The recipe can be found here. For the icing I mix icing sugar with lemon juice and a little food colouring.

Happy Easter!

Around the Bay in 30k

Well it's DONE!

I DID IT!

The first milestone on my way to the marathon has been completed - The Around the Bay 30km! It went surprisingly well. I had been worried for the entire week leading up to it. But while the race ended well, it did not start well... There was one slight start line hiccup - my iPod decided not to work. Which I realized would mean running for approx 4 hours with NO music. I don't like to run 20 minutes without music! This had the potential to be a MAJOR ordeal!! (Especially considering I had spent over an hour the night before perfecting my race day playlist). My first reaction: F - - - - - - - CK! But then the start gun went off and I had no time to think about it. The first 2km were not pleasant. My knees and shines were killing me. "Great" I thought. I'm going to be in pain and without tunes to help distract me. But thankfully, there were tons (and I mean TONS) of spectators along the route, cheering on the runners. This helped things. Before I knew it I was at the 6km mark, and all lower body pain was gone!

The rest of the run seemed to go by in a blur. I remember being thankful for the kilometer markers along the way (Note to my coaches - it would be awesome to have those on our practices runs - you guys should look into that! lol) Each marker also had fantastic running related phrase. At 3km it was "There is no such thing as bad weather. Only soft runners". 12km was "Just Giver!". At 29km "You are your own hero". I LOVED these. And then there were the spectators! I can not say enough good things about the people watching this event! They were everywhere! Along the entire course. Cheering and clapping. Holding up signs. It was amazing! Literally the music to my ears!

But the BEST part of the day, was running to the finish line inside Copps Coliseum. Hearing them call my name on the speaker and seeing my friends and fellow runners cheering in the stands! Not to get all cheese ball, but without the support and encouragement from the fantastic group of people I train with, I would not have been able to do it! You guys ROCK!

So now that the first step in training has been successfully completed, I'm ready to keep going. Autumn marathon - you are in my sights...

I'm a sucker for a good accent

My friends and I are goofs. We like to have goofy fun. Sometimes this fun takes on the form of silly accents. It's not uncommon for us to pretend to be British. And I like to think uur British accents are pretty good! Ok, they're actually probably pretty terrible, but we love them.

Another type of accent that I love? Accent walls (nice segway non?). When I moved into my new apartment earlier this year, I decided to paint. Typically, I like to have colour on all my walls. And colourful art. And colourful accessories. (I like colour) The problem with this however is that after a while it starts to feel like a crayon box exploded in my home. So this time around I decided to tone it down a little. I went with white walls. Benjamin Moore's Snow White in fact. It was recommended to me by my cousin Holly. Excellent recommendation. It's clean. Crisp. Bright. LOVE it. But... I couldn't have every wall white. I needed a little injection of colour. Enter the accent wall! The colour in my bedroom is my favourite. It's called Excalibur (again by Benjamin Moore). In daylight it looks cool and grey. At night, it turns smoky purple. It adds just the right amount of POP!

Downsizing

Don't worry, I'm not talking corporate downsizing. This is about makeup bag downsizing. My dear friend Lindsay sent me an email a while back suggesting I do a post about makeup bag refreshing. And with the weather starting to turn warm my thoughts turn to Spring cleaning. So I decided to include my makeup bag in my Spring cleanup this year.

Step one was to buy a new bag. Something smaller then my current one. I won't be able to carry around as much stuff. This is a good thing, because really, it's not like I need (or wear) several shades of eyeshadow. Or eye liner. Or blush. So why the hack am I lugging it around? I think my new bag is very cute. (and I got it on sale at Anthropologie!)

Step two was to toss the old stuff I haven't been using. This was actually a little difficult. Why am I so attached to old makeup? It's like I have this worry that once I throw it out, I'll suddenly need poppy red cream blush. If actually tossing your old products is too traumatic, I suggest taking them out of your bag and storing them elsewhere. (I guarantee, after a couple weeks, you'll completely forget about them).

Step three was to refresh the products I decided to keep. I bought a new bottle of my favourite lip stain. My tube of my favourite mascara. I cleaned my makeup brushes. (If you're looking to buy new brushes, the Quo line at Shoppers Drug Mart is great). Got some new blending sponges. Now everything feels fresh and clean and new (which is good considering this stuff goes on my face!)

Another thing to keep in mind as we move into Spring. Spring leads to Summer (who knew!). And with Summer comes hot weather (again I'm blowing your mind right?!). No one wants to have pounds of heavy makeup on when it's warm outside. Less is more. Sheer is better. So if you do decide to pick up some new products, look for tinted moisturizers, stains, and gels. Light washes of colour will look natural and feel much better!

Couch + vanilla tea = rockin' Friday night

I've been very bad about new posts recently. Between my regular job, running, and a freelance project I've taken on, I've been swamped! Now add to that the fact I'm starting to get sick! Urgh. I've got NO energy for anything extra. I've got nothing but the overwhelming desire to sit on the couch and drink tea.

My desire for tea has increased enormously ever since I started adding a couple drops of vanilla extract into my cup along with my sugar. Sooooo good. And if I'm feeling SUPER indulgent (like say on a cold and rainy Friday night) I might even use a little splash of light cream instead of milk. It's rich and sweet and delicious!! And that's about everything I'm looking for at the end of a long week.

Strike a pose. VOGUE!

If Fashion is a religion, Vogue magazine is the bible. The September Issue just came out on DVD. It's the documentary version of The Devil Wears Prada. But the real life personalities are far more hilarious then any scripted character. The movie focuses on the editors of American Vogue magazine in 2007 as they put together the all important September issue - the largest magazine of the year, and the longest magazine EVER published. Anna Wintour is the icy editor in chief. Impossibly skinny and always hiding behind her large designer sunglasses. She's decisive. She's cold. Everyone at Vogue is afraid of her. Then there's her right hand woman - Grace Coddington. Anna's polar opposite. She's wildly creative. She's warm. Everyone at Vogue loves her. Anna is the business woman. Grace is the artist. Watching them butt heads is hilarious! Add to this the LARGER then life personality of editor at large Andre Leon Talley and you've got comic gold. Seriously, this man is amazingness. It's worth watching the movie just to see the scene where he plays tennis - wearing a giant Louis Vitton towel around his neck and the diamond covered watch (his version of a tennis bracelet he explains). And I thought my Lululemon running gear was fancy - Ha!

If you're at all interested in fashion or publishing, it's really a VERY entertaining film. Watch as Anna and crew comment again and again about Sienna Miller's (September's cover girl) teeth and hair (they are shocked that she won't chop off her hair for their shoot!).

It's a famine of beauty, honey. My eyes are starhhhving for beauty!!

Marathoning Update - with the good, comes the bad...

Thought I'd give a little update on how my marathon training is going (I'll have some silly flaky posts later this week). Up until this past weekend, things had been progressing nicely. My tempo runs were finally getting faster. My body was feeling good. I could feel the positive changes taking shape. Then came Sunday. My training was dealt it's first major hurdle. A soul crushing 23km run. This was the furthest I've run ever. I had been a little anxious about it all week. I woke up that morning (7:00 am on a Sunday!) in a bit of a bad mood. I really wanted to stay in bed. But I knew I had to get up for the group run. As hard as it is to run 23km with a group of friends, I knew it would NEVER happen if I had to go out alone.

Things started off ok. But around 8km my knee started to get a little stiff. That's when the worry started creeping in. Why am I sore already? Is this the beginning of another injury? What if I can't do this? So I decided it best to slow my pace down just a little. But in doing so started to fall further back from my pace group. Throw in a couple of long red lights and soon I lost sight of them altogether (which was ok, given my grumpy mood I would not have been the best company). Now I've hit 14km and I really don't want to run anymore. Several times I find myself checking what street I'm on, thinking of quick ways to get back to the Running Room (home base). But I tell myself to keep going. Maybe it will get better. It doesn't. The streets are icy and I almost slide around a lot. I start HATING everything. The weather. The ice. The route. The fact I'm not in better shape. The people who are in better shape. You name it, I was cursing it. Mental exhaustion now starts to set in. I'm taking unscheduled walk breaks. Things hit an all time low when at 21km I found myself alone and exhausted in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. This is normally one of my favourites places to run. But not on this day. I was taking a walk break; My legs (feeling good) were telling me to start running again. My brain didn't want to listen.

"GO! We can do it", cried my legs. But in my head all I could hear was "You're done. You can't do this. Why did you think you could? If you can't run 23km, how are you ever going to run that 30km race? Or the full marathon?". It was at this point I burst into tears. Or what would have been tears provided I had not been so dehydrated. All my bodily fluids had been sweat out and I had nothing left for tears. So instead I was left making that ugly cry face. Totally pathetic. This went on for a good minute. I FINALLY some how ended up running again. And after that things were fine. I finished the remaining 2km with no problem. In fact, there was a little zip in my step. I entered the Running Room to the sound of cheers and congratulations. My fellow runners and friends all every happy that we had completed such a long tough run. It was a very welcome sound!

So what did Sunday's run teach me? Physically I can do it. But as strong as you need to be physically, you need to be just as strong mentally. As soon as you start doubting, it all falls apart. I'll have a chance to put this to practice again on Sunday. We're running 26km! Cross your fingers!