Today Was Much Better

Good evening Beautiful,

Good news – TODAY WAS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE REST OF THE WEEK! J

Haha, I thought I needed to start with some good news since my last couple of blog posts have been a bit drab! So today I woke up and realized that today I actually didn’t have to rush this morning. It was AMAZING. When I woke up, I had a niiiiice looooong hot shower, made some coffee,  made my breakfast and my lunch, got dressed, did my hair, did my makeup, danced around to some music… the usual, and it was unreal.

We made our way to the office and I got down to business. My email was packed full, and so it began. Luckily my day wasn’t too too busy when it comes to phone calls and emails, however I’m still playing catch up with the last few days, I have voicemails to check, memberships to deal with, and most of it is time sensitive so I really need to crack down and catch up on everything tomorrow.

For whatever reason (I blame it on PMS) I’ve just been exhausted for the past day or so and today is even worse. So I was honestly thinking about skipping my workout again today, but thank god for workout buddies because Jenny held me accountable today to going for a run, so I took Jenny out, and it was pretty chilly, but it was amazing weather to run to. I wanted to do a little bit more than 5km today because I haven’t ran since Sunday, so I decided 7 was a good number. We went on a different route today to try and avoid construction workers.. just kidding, I wanted to make the run a bit harder than normal because if Jenny is serious about doing more races, she’s going to have to get used to hills since it’s very rare that a race is 100% flat ground. So we did about 4 different hills (2 there, two back) and I had her running than faster than normal.

We ended up finishing 5km in about 29:14 and finished the whole run, 7.25km in 41:21. So overall it wasn’t a bad run! It’s on track to kick the 8km race’s ass and finish in and around 46 minutes! Thank god for workout buddies, if she hadn’t held me accountable I for sure would have bailed. Thanks Jenny! I very much appreciate it!

When I got in from the run, the first thing I did was stretch. While I was hunched over stretching out my hamstrings and it got me thinking, what are the benefits of stretching? Should I Google it and share it with my readers? Of course I should! J

Obviously the main benefit of stretching is to increase flexibility. Everyday tasks require flexibility, leaning down to tie your shoes, or pick something up, or stretch to reach up and grab something high and flexibility becomes more important the older that you get since your muscles naturally tighten and become shorter over time.

Stretching can keep the body’s joints, tendons and ligaments lubricated and improve range of motion which gives you better balance and your less likely to fall and injure yourself. It increases circulation of your blood which helps with quicker recovery of injuries or workouts. Stretching also improves your posture because tight muscles can contribute to bad posture but stretching them out can improve the alignment of your back and improve posture.

Stretching can provide pain relief from back pain or arthritis; it can reduce headaches by improving circulation and oxygen flow to the head. Stretching can also help you relax! It will loosen the muscles and offer a sense of well-being and tranquility and although it’s amazing for the body, it’s pretty crucial for the mind as well as it helps to deal with anxiety and depression.

Those sound like pretty amazing benefits if you ask me. I used to be reeeeally flexible, see below for picture.

Yeah, that was back in my days as a dancer. Then I went to college, graduated college, did this, did that, ran a half marathon and all of a sudden I have zero flexibility, shocking. I didn’t take the time to stretch properly so it results in tight IT bands and hamstrings. Since I started running again I’ve actually been taking time after each run to stretch and foam roll in order to avoid any potential pain and injuries caused by lack of stretching. Go me!

Alrighty, I must bid you a fond adieu because I have to whip up some salmon fillets, cook some sweet potato, because the boy is on the phone, very upset with Sears and their lack of any sort of customer service when it comes to a dishwasher we bought two weeks ago and still don’t have. Boo-urns.

Stay sweet.
xoxo