Coffee Date – My Next Race, a New Favorite Breakfast & Toddler Woes

Happy Friday Friends!

Let’s have coffee and catch up. It’s been a while!

If we were on a coffee date (and we’d probably be at Philz), I’d tell you:

I signed up for a fall half marathon!!! I was really struggling with my run motivation over the last few weeks. I was planning on running Rock n’ Roll LA (I’m a Rock n’ Blog ambassador) but it was literally the ONLY weekend that my college friends and I could make a girls weekend work, so the girls weekend won. It worked out as the friend I had been planning to run the race with also backed out, so I didn’t have a lot of motivation to run it other than it was a new race to me. Instead, I’m going to be running my first ever trail half marathon, the Raptor Ridge Half Marathon. The course has a giant hill in the middle which I’ll likely have to hike some of, but it’ll be fun. Hill training here I come! A few Oiselle teammates will also be running which will make it even more fun! 

This season of Big Brother is AWESOME. Yes, I watch Big Brother and have since I was 18. The only season I ever missed was when I spent 4 months traveling through Southeast Asia when I was 25. I also have gotten Mike hooked on it and we spend much of our summer discussing the different strategies of the houseguests. On that note, we also watch Game of Thrones and this last episode was amazing (GOT wins for my favorite show ever).

I’ve gotten my workout mojo back. Despite having a bit of an off summer when it comes to running, I’m feeling really, really good and strong as I wrap up the last week of Shift Shop. My challenge group ends Sunday and then I’ll have a week before the net one starts (August 14th – I still have a few spots left if you want to join!) during which I plan to ramp up my running a bit in preparation for the half marathon and also just do whichever workouts sound good to me, which I have a hunch includes some yoga. I miss it!

I’ve found my new favorite breakfast. I used to not have any veggies until lunchtime but during Shift Shop I discovered my new favorite breakfast. It’s 3 eggs (I eat the whole egg, not whites), a handful of arugula drizzled with 1 tsp olive oil, and 1/4 avocado. Salt and pepper on top, of course. Sometimes I add fruit as well. It’s SO good!  

Mike is running his first challenge group! Mike recently finished P90X3 with amazing results. He was really struggling to find a way to get in workouts as a full time working dad. He just wasn’t motivated to run as much as we used to (just before I got pregnant Mike and I both ran the California International Marathon). He committed to the program and not only changed his body, but he is SO much happier! He decided to help other dads and guys who are feeling like they need some extra motivation with their fitness. He’s also going to be adding in some “best life” type research and motivation to help dads be the best they can be. I’m so proud of him!

Siena is at a really fun, yet really tough, age. Siena’s nearing two years old and she has a lot of opinions! She is really talkative and has a great vocabulary so she is able to express herself and ask for exactly what she wants (as well as tell us what she doesn’t want), but it’s really hard to balance the desire to appease her with my desire to also give her firm boundaries. It’s tough! 

We’ve had to make some big decisions for our family lately. I’ll be able to share more on this later, but for now, I’ll just say we’ve had some extra stress! It’s been tough and I can tell it’s having an impact on my energy level, but doing Shift Shop really helped me put my focus somewhere else while we sort it all out.

What would you tell me if we had coffee together today? Any other Big Brother or GOT fans? Any tips for surviving the terrible 2s? What is your go-to breakfast?