Weekend Awesomeness

What an awesome weekend! It included some of my favorite things- hanging with the fam, eating delicious things, and running! 

Photo credit- fellow vanny

 I ran the the (race formally known as) Coogan's Salsa, Blues, and Shamrocks 5k this morning. It's now called the Washington Heights Salsa, Blues, and Shamrocks 5k but whatever, I have a hard time with change. I ran a , which is not a PR but I am slowly getting closer and closer to my old times with every race. Today's race felt pretty comfortable. I know I could have gone faster but my knee has been bothering me all week. I think it's all the treadmill and cement. This winter has not been kind to runners.  Anyway, I decided not to blow it out and just slow down on the downhills that were bothering it. At this point, self preservation matters just as much as PR-ing to me. I've been trying to bet my weight down for the spring and I NEED to be able to not get injured. Also, my family is really into jumping pictures so here we all are. Yes, we all ran this one :)

Lovely coffee and lunch at Ground Support with my aunt who came and stayed the weekend with me in NYC. She used to live in Washington Heights but moved away so it's fun because she knows a bunch of places and ends up showing me stuff as opposed to when friends/ family visit, I am usually the tour guide. My mom spent the afternoon with us, as well. I think we spent close to 45 minutes in Pearl River Mart.

And guess who's Fleshman Flyer fan club card came in the mail?? As this photo documents, I'm beyond excited to be a member. For anyone that doesn't know, Lauren Fleshman is a kicka** runner and overall cool chick. She is an elite runner for Oiselle, one of my favorite running companies, and also a founder of Picky Bars, an awesome energy bar filled with ingredients you can actually pronounce. I originally heard about her on twitter- she was always writing funny little things about running. But the thing that really sold me on her- other than the fact that she's super speedy- was her frankness about being a woman and an elite athlete. I am not a super skinny little runner. I'm not fat, and I know 90% of people who aren't tall are super jealous of my 5'11"-ness, but I'll be the first to admit that I have moments where I feel very low about how I look. I'm not someone who can down three snickers bars and nothing happens- it goes straight to my thighs. I will not force anyone to listen to the story of my bathing suit meltdown in Athleta last summer. But I struggle most not with the models on the covers of fashion magazines, but the one's on fitness type magazines. Why don't I have her abs? I will never pull off those booty shorts, and I will be wearing one, if not two, fugly knee braces for my entire running career. When you look up to ladies like that, it's really, really hard not to look in the mirror and be really upset. Lauren Fleshman wrote this post about that, and reading it honestly helped. It's not like anything she wrote was anything that deep down I didn't already know but hearing it from someone like her honestly helped.

And now she has a fan club- I'm all in!