I finished it! 
So. Much. Mud.
After getting hosed off by a fire hose.
Next Day: Whimsic Alley & Malibu
I am planning on putting up pictures of my classroom soon, as well as a recap of my first (super-busy) month as a full-time teacher!
Time has all of a sudden decided to speed up on me. I recently realized I have 68 days until the Survivor Mud Run, and I’ve been skipping some of my workouts lately…. 
Time to get my booty in gear!
When I trained for the Tough Mudder last year I was doing 3-4 runs a week, along with 1-2 stadium stairs sprint workouts per week. I also did strength training about 3 days a week.
Um, yeah… I haven’t been doing anywhere near that. I want to do well in this race, even if it is just for fun. Need to find that motivation and get going!
So what did I do today instead of getting a workout in?
Oh, you know… just took a gazillion pictures of Dobby. 
He’s so funny: that green turtle toy is his favorite, and whenever he lays down to chew on it, he falls asleep. And it’s still in his mouth! Then he’ll wake himself up and be like, Oh yeah, I was chewing on this! (yes, I like to pretend my dog can talk… don’t you?)
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Then this afternoon I headed over to my friend Jess’s house to start painting her baby room armoire. She let me pick out colors and pretty much go to town painting it! So far I just have the branches painted, but tomorrow I’m adding pink and purple flowers and then purple around the squares. I’ve never done something this big free-hand… Hopefully it comes out cute! 
I will post pics of it when it’s finished!
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ALSO: I will hopefully have some exciting news on Monday or Tuesday!
This upcoming week is going to be a crazy one!
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Question: How do you stay motivated for training for a race, especially when your life is super busy?
Last October I completed the Northern California Tough Mudder. It was basically an intense 7 mile obstacle course that included tunnels, ginormous hills, cargo nets, wire crawls, wading through an ice-cold pond, climbing fences, carrying logs, jumping over walls and giant spools, and LOTS of mud!
I trained for about three months before the event, focusing on running, strength training (mostly using own body weight), and sprinting stadium stairs. My goal was basically just to finish the event, because I knew it was going to be really difficult. I hadn’t been doing much exercising in the previous months, so I was pretty much starting from scratch. It was also the first race of any kind I had done.
When I finished the course, I was so proud of myself! Even though there were some pretty challenging obstacles throughout the course, I always knew that I was going to finish it (unless I sprained one of my chronically weak ankles), because there was no way I was going to let everything I did to prepare for it go to waste. When I called my parents to let them know I had survived it, I think they were surprised. Haha, they should have known I wouldn’t let myself fail, even at something that crazy.
This September I am planning on doing the Southern California Survivor Mud Run. It is quite a bit shorter than the Tough Mudder, but I really want to focus on completing this course in the fastest time I can. Now that I have done a Tough Mudder I feel like I can do more than just complete a mud race. I want to really try to do well.
I am starting to train for this race now, so I will keep you updated on how it is going!
Hailey, my running partner. 
Don’t you just love how well my exercise clothes match? Don’t worry, this isn’t going on the Fashion page!
Stop and Smell the Wildflowers 