Seven with Sprinkles on Top -

Happy weekend my friends! I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend so far, I know I am.

Last night, I made my self a salad that always hits the spot: BBQ pulled chicken salad. I’ve mentioned before this one is inspired from Famous Dave’s BBQ pulled chicken salad.

In this salad: leafy greens, shredded cheese, corn, tomatoes, cilantro, and BBQ pulled chicken. I drizzled a small amount of Newman’s Own Lite Honey Mustard over the top. All I was missing was a fresh batch of corn bread (which I debated making but ran out of time).

After dinner, we met up with a bunch of my friends from high school because the two guys that we visited on our recent trip to California, Brandon and Will (please don’t get mad for posting this photo :wink:), were in town. Love these guys. It was so good to see everyone.

Dana and I called it an early night however because we had plans for a big run this morning.

Saturday morning

We woke up leisurely this morning at 7:20 am (who are we?), opened up the weather.com app on our phones and noticed a big blob of nasty weather heading our way on the radar. Hmm….we had plans to run seven miles this morning but really wouldn’t appreciate getting pelted with freezing cold rain in 40° weather. So, we decided to get out and run our errands and just do our big run tomorrow instead. I was extremely dissapointed but hey, lifes goes on.

Anyway, we brought the car in to get an oil change and tires rotated, and while we waited, we meandered over to Starbuck’s for some delicious java to warm my heart. We went for a little walk while I sipped my latte. Still no rain at this point. We were really starting to kick ourselves because original plan had been to drop off the car and go for our run while it was getting work done.

Too late though.

Once the car was ready we made a couple of stops to pick up food for a family BBQ we are hosting tonight. I was really feeling down about not getting our run in today.

When we got home, it was starting to clear up a little, and we made an executive decision that we should get our run in today, right now. We geared up and hit the ground running.

We had to leave Moose at home this time because no offense doggie, but you can’t handle seven miles. I can hardly handle seven miles. Sorry.

Towards the second half of the run, it started to sprinkle which I thought was pretty darn funny. Mother nature was teasing us today. At that point, I totally appreciated the light sprinkles. They were very refreshing.

The run was challenging as all runs are, but overall it wasn’t that bad. I was really starting to feel nervous about my lack of long distance mileage covered in conjunction with the upcoming half marathon, and this run really helped alleviate my anxiety. I am fine. I will be fine. Mind over matter.

There were two large hills during our run, and the second one at the end was particularly gruesome. I cursed it as Dana encouraged me and reminded me to let my arms help pull me through, and I made it to the top with no walk stops.

I am so extremely proud we covered seven miles today and so fortunate to have been able to run it with Dana by my side.