Interception. Holler.

As usual Monday was an easy run day.  No hard workout the day to recover from (*coughLazySundaycough*) but also easy because I’m always gearing up for Tempo Tuesday.  This morning brought about a temperature of ~38*.  Luckily I was able to sleep in because it was a clinic night.  Otherwise I’d have been in much colder temps with no sun. Icky.

Speaking of sleep, I’ve been sleeping LOADS.  At least during the times that I can.  Even with going out this weekend, and last night!, I still managed to get anywhere from 8 to 10 hours. Granted during the week I’m lucky if I get 6 so everything evens out in the end. But man, I totally crashed this weekend in terms of racking up those hours! I NEVER sleep as last as 0900 or 1000 but Saturday and Sunday morning? Well that’s what I did.  Very weird for a chic who’s used to waking up naturally before 0700 or 0800.

But back to my Monday run.  Or not really as it’s nothing too much to shout about.  Pretty standard easy run, going through the motions almost, although a little on the long side as I mentioned today is a day that I get to go into work late because I stay late.  Since my run isn’t exciting enough to babble about I decided to show off a couple of products that I’ve gotten recently.  Yes, I do have a STACK of them that are waiting to be written about from winning giveaways or getting cool packages from my bloggy friends but I’ll get around to them in good time 🙂

First up:

SIGG WATER BOTTLE. (and I probably should say that Cafe Press sent me this bottle free of charge but the opinions of it are my own)

I was contacted by CafePress a couple weeks ago to try out one of their personalized sigg water bottles.  CafePress is the online source for the aforementioned personalized water bottles as well as funny t-shirts and even Christmas posters (which I feel weird typing but I was asked to include that link too from the company (as well as all the links in the copy & pasted sentence above).  Then again, Christmas is a-comin’ and sores are in full Christmas regalia)

I’ve actually used CafePress in the past to make a t-shirt for my sister as a Christmas present one year.  I wish I had a picture of it but it was a shirt that said “Mike Newton is my Homeboy”.  Because, in the Team Edward or Team Jacob scheme of things, I am a Mike Newton fan.  Someone has to root for him, no? It’s not like he has supernatural powers or anything…

But I digress.

Anyway I got to choose a design for my bottle and they shipped one out for me.  This is what mine looked like (and yes I’m a nerd.  I’ve never claimed to not be)

It came in bubble wrap! Sorry CafePress but the bubble wrap was a bit more exciting than the bottle.  Here’s what it looked like up close

Which, admittedly, is still pretty freaking cool. And nerdy.  Like there’s no way to deny it now.

I actually, and unabashedly, love plastic water bottles.  Before you throw stones at me, know that I reuse the plastic ones.  So I’m not *that* eco-hating.  But, in my world $$ trumps all, so when I ran out of my last plastic bottle I figured it was serendipitous to have this one land on my doorstep.  No joke: I got this one on the day I had to recycle my last plastic one.  That was about 3 (?) weeks ago and I’ve been using this one since.  And the design has lasted these three weeks despite my dropping and banging it around.  Which is good because I like showing off my thermodynamics wit.

At least until I get the money to buy another package of plastic water bottles.

Next up:

SpiBelt. I won this guy in a giveaway earlier this month or late last month, I forget as it’s been awhile! Oops

I LOVE this guy.  The idea behind it is you can carry stuff on your run (phone, keys etc) without actually having to carry it.  I don’t run with my keys nor my phone so I was initially skeptical that I would actually need this when I entered the giveaway.  Then I thought: PAPER and PENS.

Because I am garmin-less, when I do speed work I bring a piece of paper and a red pen to write down my splits for intervals.  I can remember a fair amount of splits for things like loop runs and tempos but for something that looks like this, my memory to keep a billion and one numbers in my head falters a bit:

A recent workout. The blue is the plan I got into the workout with and the red is the splits. I apologize for the horrendous handwriting but it’s tough after running hard plus having your finger numb from the cold! I can barely read some of the numbers there and I know the routes I took. Good thing I transferred this to my notebook after the run because some of the numbers look like scribbles or not numbers at all.  To look at it now I wouldn’t have been able to tell you how long the warm up was. 26 minutes? 36? Hahahha

This means that I usually have to wear shorts with pockets or carry the stuff.  And then run the risk of the wind blowing them away if I leave it on the infield. Neither of which is a “cool” look.  Especially since I want to feel beastly during my intervals.  Not going to lie: that means spandex (no picture of that. Sorry hahah).

So this belt has been really useful in letting me wear what I want and not have to worry about losing my paper at the track.  I don’t think this was the point of the creators pf the SpiBelt but hey, it works for me.

That’s what I got for you this Monday.  A little change up from the usual Sunday / Monday = recovery / easy one-two punch. Hopefully I can get around to featuring some of the other things I’ve won recently or gotten in the mail because everything is pretty cool.

Also cool (and I obviously have to put this in here) are my PATS. Holllllllllllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr.

Thanks google

If you aren’t a Pats fan then this picture might not be as beautiful to you as it is to me.  But it was wicked amazing and deserving the place as title of my post today 😀

Time to get back to work. I’m hoping since it’s a clinic day that I get to do lots of walking around because my muscles are still a bit tight and I have to gear up for my Tempo Tuesday!