Resolution Recap

1. Survive Amsterdam. 
2. Lose weight (at least 15 lbs). I think just about everyone makes this resolution. I'm down 10 lbs. and even kept it off while in Italy. Boy they sure do make good food!!
3. Read at least 12 books. 
4. Run at least 4 more half marathons. So not happening this year.  
5. Improve 5k time to under 35 minutes. Our 5k is still looming at the end of this month.
6. Improve half marathon time to under 3 hours. Still working on this. Half is coming up quickly! (EEK!)
7. Commit to Jillian Michaels DVDs for 90 days (30 Day Shred, Ripped in 30, and Buns and Thighs). Oh, Jillian. The bane of my existence. 
8. Start training for a marathon.  
9. Cook at least three meals per week (only one of which can be pasta). We are kicking butt at this one. 
10. Only eat out once per week, unless traveling. We hardly ever eat out now because we are cooking. See above :)

Travels!

So, I realized I would post some travel stuff and I have completely slacked on that. So, here's the past 9 months or 274 days!

Our travels started off spending New Year's Eve in Amsterdam!

The ladies who went spent New Year's Day playing at the North Sea (it was a little cold).

We spent MLK weekend in Paris! This is the view from the Towers of Notre Dame.

In March, we went off to Berlin!

We also took a trip to Luxembourg but apparently didn't take many (if any) pictures.

For Memorial Day, we took a trip up the Rhine and Mosel Rivers!

And then my parents came to visit! We traveled to Paris (again)....

And Salzburg!

And Munich!

We will be heading to Italy for Labor Day! Munich for Oktoberfest and London for Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoyed the photo tour of Europe. More to come.

July Tracker

1. Survive Amsterdam. 
2. Lose weight (at least 15 lbs). I think just about everyone makes this resolution. I'm still losing! I haven't hit 15 yet (but that would be a bit unhealthy if I had). But the scale is moving down!!!!!
3. Read at least 12 books. 
4. Run at least 4 more half marathons. I'm going to assume this goal will not happen. I'm only registered for two distance races this year and the marathon next year. 
5. Improve 5k time to under 35 minutes. I'm working on this one. And we're registered for a 5k at the end of September.
6. Improve half marathon time to under 3 hours. I've seen some encouraging times on my Garmin while running. Here's hoping my work will may off.
7. Commit to Jillian Michaels DVDs for 90 days (30 Day Shred, Ripped in 30, and Buns and Thighs). Again, this goal isn't happening so much. But I'm not ready to give up yet.
8. Start training for a marathon.  
9. Cook at least three meals per week (only one of which can be pasta). We've gotten really good about this. But I won't be able to cross it off until the end of year. 
10. Only eat out once per week, unless traveling. Again, we're doing pretty good on this one too!

The Run That Almost Wasn't

I've been good about keeping up with my training...even though it's hot outside. Well, you might be wondering what's considered "hot." But it's been in the 80s and 90s here. Oh, that's nothing compared to the 100 degree weather you had earlier, I know. But it is when you don't have the reprieve of air conditioning. It's 80-90 outside, guess what, it's 80-90 inside too. But enough about that. So, this morning, I really needed to do a run and it was the start of a new week on Couch to 5k. I spent the better part of the morning trying to figure out how to find a workout I created with Garmin Connect on my Garmin. It ended up being a futile effort and I contacted Garmin about it. I decided I can just do the interval setting and have to remember where I was in the process.

I drink some water and head out the door. I'm on my warm up walk down to the river and off I go. I start thinking about the nice cool water waiting for me in my freezer and then start to think "Did I grab my keys?" I feel my back pocket, nothing there. "Crap! I'm locked out of my apartment, I don't know my husbands number, I have no way of getting in. Can I break into my own apartment?" Well, I continued on my way and calculated in my head when I should be half way through and turning around. But my Garmin didn't indicate I was almost half way done with my workout. "Dang it, I set the wrong number of intervals. Ok, just end the workout early and it's no big deal....but how am I going to get home?" My run ends as the temperature is topping out at 88. So, I start walking home. "Should I just sit outside and wait the 3-4 hours for Brian to come home? Is there a way I could call him? No, I don't have is number memorized and I don't know how to ask someone in German if I can use their phone." What to do, what to do? I didn't want to disturb my neighbors because it was during "Quiet Hours" but I also didn't want to look like a bum sitting outside sweating. "Could I really break into my apartment? No, that's not going to work and I would just be stuck out on my balcony baking in the sun."

I decided to buzz my neighbors, who are also my landlord's parents. They graciously gave me keys to try to open the door. None of them worked! So we tried a few more keys and finally found one that worked. Alas, I was back into my apartment and am now ordering a new Road ID with the updated information so I can actually call someone when in need.

June Wrap Up

1. Survive Amsterdam. 
2. Lose weight (at least 15 lbs). I think just about everyone makes this resolution. I lost 4 pounds while on vacation! Mainly because we were walking around so much! But now that marathon training has started hopefully this will continue!
3. Read at least 12 books. Completed this goal!
4. Run at least 4 more half marathons. Registered for Munich and Army 10 Miler now! I'm not sure I'm going to meet this goal this year.
5. Improve 5k time to under 35 minutes. Started running again! Finally getting my butt in gear!
6. Improve half marathon time to under 3 hours. Because the previous goal hasn't happened, this one hasn't either.
7. Commit to Jillian Michaels DVDs for 90 days (30 Day Shred, Ripped in 30, and Buns and Thighs). #fail This is a tough goal. 30 days of JM is really hard!
8. Start training for a marathon.  Created my training plan and started it! Three days into it now!
9. Cook at least three meals per week (only one of which can be pasta). We've really been getting better at this. I've been trying new recipes and working on trying more! 
10. Only eat out once per week, unless traveling. We hardly ever go out/order take out any more, which is good and bad. I love the local cuisine but it's healthier to cook our own dinners.

5k Recap

If you read my blog a few days ago, you know is signed up for the Welcome to Summer Virtual 5k. I completed this today! I did the first bit as part of getting back into running with the Couch to 5k program. I started it last week with a friend and then did the next day today. I always feel so accomplished after running.  But this is the beginning of my marathon (eek) training. I'm starting at square one and then will progress to the marathon plan. So the run today....it is mild outside, we had a big rain storm last night that cooled a lot down so it wasn't brutally hot. But it was very windy. My running path is a trail along the Rhine River and it's really neat to be running and have a huge barge or cruise boat pass by. I start in my town and then run toward Rüdesheim am Rhein (I don't make it all the way there as that is a 16k run one way). I pass the cute little town of Erbach and then I turned around. Because I wasn't done with the 5k at that point (I was done with the 20 minute run for C25K) I decided to run along the Rhine in my town, which means that I got to pass several docks for some of the cruise boats, the roses that are still in bloom from the rose festival and a couple castles! I love the change of scenery I have from running the same trail in a forest in North Carolina to getting to run past castles. SO cool! Afterwards, I turned back around to continue running up my street and home. It was a pretty good run/walk, although very windy.

5k!

I'm registered for the 5k! 5k/10k