$306.20

That's how much money I've raised so far for Run to Stop MS. It's pretty awesome. I still have some little events planned and haven't even sent out letters/emails to family and friends asking for money. That's all from posting on Facebook, baby! It's still a far cry away from the $1000 I'm required to raise, not to mention the $2000 I'd like to raise. If you'd like to help me get to my goal, you can click on this link to do so.

The MS Society uses the money collected in so many different ways. Research, financial assistance and programs for people with MS as well as their families. My favorite program has become MS Youth Camp. It's a week-long camp for kids who live with someone who has MS, usually a parent. I attended Youth Camp last year as a counselor, because we were short volunteers. The programs side of our organization is not my area, so this was pretty exciting. I loved camp as a kid so I was stoked when I got to go. Being there was fantastic. So fantastic, that I requested to go again this year. Luckily for me, the MS Society sees fit to allow people to help out across departments and I was approved to go back again in June. I'm really excited for the opportunity to return and spend time with the kids and form new bonds. I loved summer camp as a kid so it's pretty much the perfect setting for me. I'll be gone June 19-25 and simply cannot wait.

In training news, I haven't had much to share, thus my posting hiatus. It's not that I haven't been doing any training but the workouts have all been fairly similar and boring. Winter decided to return after a couple of weeks of teasing with warm weather. That means I was back inside on the treadmill. Funny how I didn't used to mind it all that much until I ran outside in nice weather. Now it's pretty dull. But, I can still make it on there for a pretty good chunk of time without completely losing it.

Last Saturday I did a 45 minute run. During the week it's usually only about 30 minutes because we're lifting too. I thought I'd try listening to music again. Bad choice. I spent so much time fiddling with the earphones, I just got really annoyed. Today I ran for an hour (6 miles total) and didn't have the music on. It was much more enjoyable. I just listened to myself in my head. I tend to space out and think about all sorts of things. I get caught up in everything going on around me too. The gym is an interesting place to observe human social behavior. I've also noticed that I have a really big urge to encourage the people on the treadmills next to me. Weird, I know. But, people are really putting in effort for some sort of goal, and I feel like they should be given a pat on the back. I've never actually spoken a word to anyone but I really have to fight the urge to. Maybe some day I will. For now I just try to encourage Jill when we're together. This past week, Jill and I did a pretty intense workout of biceps, back, and abs. We were doing 1-minute planks and Jill was struggling a bit. Her arms were shaking, no doubt due to the brutal curls and lifts that I'd just put her through. So I made it a point to keep her going, although her shaking made me tired just to watch. But, I'm very proud of her because she made it through three 1-minute planks and didn't break once! Go Jill!

Today I took time to be at the gym alone. I went around 10:30 a.m. and easily found a treadmill. That's pretty common for a Saturday. Not as many people are motivated on the weekends. My plan was to run for an hour and I was really hoping to keep up an average 10 minute mile speed, to put me at 6 miles. I did. Now, it's easy for me to run under a 10 minute mile speed when I'm only running for a half hour, but an hour is a different story. It gets trickier but I'd really like to keep a 10 minute average for the marathon. This will put me in about the middle of the pack. I think it's totally achievable. If I think I can, I will.

Now, I'm working on replenishing my calories. That's definitely the fun part. I went to Annie's Parlor for lunch with some people I haven't seen in a while. Yay for a bacon cheeseburger and hand cut french fries. I just took a pan of brownies out of the oven. Yes I made them out of a box but, no judgement. I think box brownies taste awesome. They're for Jill who had a rough day yesterday because of some car trouble. Something tells me that she'll enjoy them tonight with the wine and cheese girl time we'll be having.

I am now off to work at the Division III Men's Hockey Championships being played at the U of M. Hopefully it's not a long shift because I really want to dig into those brownies and have a glass of wine. Hopefully I don't have so much that it impedes with my bike workout scheduled for tomorrow.

When all else fails, go with food

I don't really have much to write about today. Had a short little 3-mile run. I ran at a pretty good clip. About .5 to 1 mph faster than usual. Not too exciting though. Back on the treadmill. I guess the most exciting thing about the run is that I had no knee pain despite the increase in speed. That's a plus!

I usually don't blog about food because, well, that's not the topic of this blog and if I blogged about every good meal I made, I'd feel like a big fat fatty because I kind of pride myself in what I believe to be above average cooking skills. Plus, people would get sick of seeing what I make because I never really cook with a recipe and thus could not share how I make things. But, behold my masterpiece for dinner last night!

Yep, that's right. It's a Chicago-style deep dish pizza. I made the sauce from scratch as well as the dough. The sauce was pretty standard with crushed tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, oregano, sugar, salt and pepper. Don't ask me how much of each. I know I put in one 29 oz can of tomatoes and 1 clove of garlic. That's it. The dough was the real accomplishment. As you may know, I don't really like to bake. It's tedious and messy. But, making this dough was different. 1. It was easy. 2. Dough needs to be kneaded so that was fun. 3. I actually followed a recipe. Winging a dough didn't seem like a good idea. I will be making dough from scratch again. Next time I have to remember to save my scraps to make into breadsticks. I threw away the scraps before I realized that would be a good idea.

For the stuffing I chose Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives along with both provolone and mozzarella cheese. There are so many other things that would taste so good in here that I can't wait to make it again. I realize I probably should though because it can't be too healthy.

To top it off, I made Rice Krispie bars. I don't consider that to be baking at all. Melting and mixing and pressing, yes. I don't have a picture of those because really, who hasn't seen a Rice Krispie bar?

Feel free to be jealous of my pizza. I know I am and there's leftover in my fridge! I think this is very good fuel for running don't you think?

Time to Undo My Recent Neglect

I've neglected a lot of things lately. Mostly because I most certainly did not neglect work, particularly my part time gig with the Gophers. Today is the first Friday since I can remember that I didn't work a shift at the U immediately after finishing up at my real full time job at the MS Society.

Not too long ago (though it seems like ages) I was able to exercise outdoors. This was particularly thrilling because right now I'm watching a weather report about getting another snow storm next week. We're now on to the sports report and the Gophs beat Bemidji State in hockey tonight so woo hoo! Gopher hockey is one of the very few things I enjoy about winter...Anywho...

I ran about 7 miles outside the day before which I wrote about in my last blog. I also did an outdoor walk with Jill that week. I was rear ended (in our new car of course) on Valentine's Day so taking care of that junk got in the way of any more workouts that week. Hmph. I am happy to report that the other dude's insurance is taking care of everything. Which is good because it was definitely his fault. He was rushing to a meeting and came up behind me too quickly, especially considering there was a light sheet of ice in the turn lane we were in. He also was ballsy enough to leave the scene after giving me his information because he had to give a presentation at 8 a.m. It was just after 8 when he hit me so he was already late. We've gotten everything worked out now and will be taking my car in to be repaired on Monday. We couldn't get it in until then because all of this terrible weather has meant pretty good business for local body shops.

This leads me to last week, where I also neglected my workouts. I got sick last week and I always like to allow proper time to heal before getting back at it. Considering I stayed home from work a couple of days, I figured I probably shouldn't head to the gym. Plus, I spoiled myself with the outdoor workouts so the thought of getting back inside the gym is pretty sour.

But, this week I got in a couple of days of lifting with Jill. Mondays are always busy at the gym and this past Monday happened to be the last day of the month and that means people pack the place trying to get their last time in for the month in order to get health insurance benefits. Needless to say Jill and I just forgot it and moved on to Tuesday and Thursday. We worked on triceps, chest and shoulders on Tuesday and biceps and back on Thursday. I plan to get in there tomorrow for a run.

This weekend I'm totally on my own. Erich is in Washington D.C. for the bachelor party of his friend Eric. He left last night. Since Erich started the weekend early, I decided to as well. I went out to show with my coworkers, Allison and Lisa. Allison's husband is in the band and they put on a great show. When Lisa dropped me off it was 2:30 a.m. I haven't stayed out that late on a week night in a long time. It was really fun! Today at work wasn't much fun. Allison and Lisa had the day off so it was really quiet. I was quite happy when 4:30 rolled around and I got out of there. I came home and took a nap! I would definitely do it again though. Tomorrow morning I'm going to head to the gym (whenever I wake up) and get some stuff done around the house. Then I have my only shift at the U for the weekend at 5:30. After, it's fiesta time with Jenna! I have a buy one, get one coupon for Chipotle and we're also having margaritas. I'm pretty pumped for some girl time hang out.

This post was kind of all over the place so I apologize. I've had a request to do a post on stretching so I'll get to that soon. I just need someone to take pictures. Thus ends my recent neglect of this blog.