Poor Monty!

A few weeks ago Monty had to go for a little ride to the mechanic.

It turns out that when you're 11 years old, things start to fall apart a little bit.

Don't worry, he's back up and running now, but not exactly good as new. We have some upgrades to make on the poor guy and we may be trading Dan's car in and letting him drive Monty exclusively in the next few months. Which means, I'm in the market for a new ride.
I've already let Dan know that because we are saving for our future beach house I will sacrifice for a few more years and avoid putting myself in a Cayenne.

I'm pretty sure that makes me girlfriend of the year, right?

Seriously though, what should I get? I think I am leaning toward a lease and I kind of like the idea of a smaller SUV, but since I have not been thinking about getting a new car at all, I am sort of open to anything.

Even the Mailman loves Charlie

Did you know that our mailbox is a basket?

I love it. But mostly, I love when I get fun things like notes, cards and invites in it. While the Red Plum circular that we got the other day didn't make me very happy, the treat that came with it certainly made Charlie smile :)

He makes friends everywhere he goes!

Scenes from my run

One of the things I've done to keep myself accountable is join a running club. I would say that all in all I am not a 'joiner' so I may not keep it up past the one season, but it has definitely allowed me to find new places to run and keeps me running at times that I haven't necessarily wanted to.

The club is currently training for the Garden of the Gods 10 Miler. So, we've been training there for the past few weeks. It is really, really hilly, but pretty much one of the prettiest runs ever.

I took photos of some of the views on my drive home the other day and thought I would share.

My camera phone pictures definitely don't do it justice.

if you've never been here, I highly recommend visiting this beautiful, free and open to the public park. It is one of the best places to visit in the Springs.

Hopefully you have a pretty run planned this week. Happy running :)

A Typical Dog Park Excursion

Charlie loves the dog park. If I happen to say d-o-g-p-a-r-k out loud, he will literally pace back and forth in front of me until we get into the car.

Normally, we find a ball and throw it around and loop around the park for a bit. And then it happens... we come to the area of the park where the stream is and I say, no water this time Charlie.

This is always what happens anyway :)

5K on St. Patty's Day

Dan and I rand our first 5K together a couple of week's ago! It was so much fun. As you can tell from all of the green, it was a St. Patrick's Day weekend race. Can you see us in the picture below?!

This was a really fun race downtown and it was actually a 5K, unlike my Turkey Trot experience, which made it even better :)

Besides actually being the length that the race said it was going to be, my run was so different from my first Turkey Trot. Mostly because I have been working really hard on running consistently lately. But also because I was able to use my Garmin throughout the race which really helped me to control my pace and not get caught up in what everyone else was doing. 

I went into the race wanting to run it in sub 29 minutes, but running with a lot of people can be pretty motivating, and I was able to blow past that time and finish in 27:38, which is a 8:54 avg pace!! I felt pretty exhausted at the end of it, but was really proud of myself overall for doing better than expected! I ended up placing 45 out of 222 in my age group and 222 out of 1,241 for all female competitors!

Even though I am not running races to place or have the fastest time, I do love seeing improvement in myself overall. Looking back at my Turkey Trot run, I remember having to walk at times and I finished with a 10:26 pace. It's awesome to know that all of my training is actually paying off in a tangible way :)

Dan also did well for not training at all. He finished in 28:14 which is a 9:06 average page, coming in 506 out of 937 male competitors and 69 out of 111 in his age group. For not training one bit, that is pretty awesome. Even though he did well, it has taken a bit of work to get him to agree to sign up for another race. But I think I'm pretty close to getting him to sign up to run the Bolder Boulder 10K with my over Memorial Day weekend. I'll keep you posted :)

While Charlie didn't attend, he did stay in the St. Patrick's Day spirit.

I was on such a roll!

I can't believe I haven't posted on here since January 24th! I was doing so well for the year up until then, but now I am back! Whenever I stop blogging for a while I always find that I miss it. It helps me to keep tabs on what is going on in my life and it's even more fun to look back on older posts to see how things have changed.

Plus, what else am I supposed to do with the bajillion photos that I take each year? :)

I'm blaming this hiatus on my new running hobby. Or more specifically, my 1/2 marathon training plan that kicked off at the end of January. I'm pretty new to this whole running thing, so it was a huge awakening to see all of the hard work that it actually takes to get into running shape.

Besides my training, I got promoted at work, went to Breck, ran a 5K with Dan, joined a running club, went on Spring Break to San Diego with D, and generally just started to get way more into health and fitness. Also Dan started doing yoga and loves it now! It is pretty much one of my favorite things to do with him at the moment.

It has been a busy two months, but I hope to start posting more regularly now that I am a bit more used to this whole health and fitness no matter what else is going on mentality :)

The view from my front step when I woke up this morning...

Sure it's not the best mountain view money can buy but it's still so pretty. Also, note the moon! I think that means that I was up early, which for me is quite a feat!

Happy Friday!

Public Service Request

Dear News 1st 5,

I find the promo spot that you have been running for the past few months that announces that you now read obituaries during your morning newscasts weird and disturbing.

I know you may be lacking in the ratings, but really, obits? That's what you think is going to get people to tune in? I can understand that you want people to know about new station offerings, but seriously... obituaries month after month. It's just strange now.

I've already banned the local news (don't worry, all local stations, not just yours) from our home to avoid awkward newscasts and surprisingly frequent technical difficulties. Don't bring the awfulness into the commercial break too.

Seriously.

Stop.

Much appreciated,
A local promo spot viewer