Howdy and happy Thursday,

My poor little blog was down for most of the day yesterday. So I reached out to my 10 followers to give them the bad news. Somehow life carried on.

When I was finally able to log on I saw that Angela from Love the Running had nominated me for a Liebster award.

Thanks so much!

So this is what I’ve learned. The Liebster Award is an online award for bloggers, given by bloggers. It’s a great way to find new blogs to follow as well as promote blogs you enjoy reading. The general rules are:

Thank the blogger who presented the award and link back to their blog. 
Answer the 10 questions the blogger asked of you. 
Nominate 10 different bloggers.
Ask 10 different questions to the nominees.
Notify nominees that they are nominated.

So here are the 10 questions I’ve been asked:

1. Would you rather workout in the heat or the cold? Cold!
2. Do you exercise in the morning or at night? late morning or afternoon when i can otherwise first thing in the morning
3. Why did you decide to start blogging?  I spent lots of my time posting on Facebook about my running endeavors or my anxiety and realized my FB friends might be sick of me. So the idea of a blog which could become a place for me to spew about my love of running and how it keeps me sane seemed very appealing.
4. Who’s your favorite celebrity? Charlize Theron
5. Where do you live and what’s something you love about it? I live in Staten Island, one of the 5 boroughs of New York City…you know….where the NYC Marathon starting line is=) I love that I’ve lived here all my life and am so familiar with every nook and cranny.
6. Do you have any pets? Yes, a 5 year old labradoodle named Duncan
7. What’s your favorite thing to cook? I can scramble a mean egg and boil water for pasta! LOL!
8. How do you stay motivated? I stay motivated by social media and blogs…seeing others post about sacrafices of sleep to get in a workout etc etc. makes me feel like a wimp for even thinking of skipping out
9. Favorite vacation destination? I love California. I keep going back. 
10. Link to your favorite blog post that you’ve written! I wrote a 5 part series of posts recapping this event I did last September where I ran 5 half marathons in 5 days in 5 states. Here’s the link to part 5 which has links to parts 1-4 in it as well. It was quite an epic trip! 

Thanks again Angela!

I am nominating only 3 bloggers because I don’t really read more blogs that haven’t already been nominated =) These 3 are friends I’ve met through fitness first (running or kickboxing) and then discovered they had blogs so they aren’t just “virtual” friends =)

Jane @ Jane and Alex • Tara @ Chanes of Love • Lisa @ The Rescue Baker

My questions are:

1. What’s your favorite flavor ice cream?
2. Are you happy with the name you were given or have you always secretly wished it was different?
3. Are you the type to power through pain of a headache or muscle ache or do you take tylenol or advil for everything?
4. If you could use any color pen to write with what color would it be?
5. Was your answer to #4 your favorite color as well?
6. How many states of the US have you been to?
7. Favorite meal of the day
8. If someone were throwing you a birthday party what would you want the theme to be?
9. Do you use Pinterest?
10. Chocolate or Vanilla?

This was fun! Hope you all enjoyed reading. 

So today I took a long walk with the dog…

and then a short run…

It was kinda chilly. Glad I wore a light jacket. With only 4 more planned runs before the NJ Marathon, I was REALLY hoping to feel the effects of tapering today. But I didn’t:( I actually felt quite achy, tired and sluggish. I had music playing but honestly I was too busy thinking about all the details of race day and don’t think I actually heard any of the music. Ironically one of the details is how to carry my earbuds without putting them in my ears until I’m ready to cue up some music. Something tells me i’m going to be safety pinning things everywhere.

While I spent 54 minutes thinking about race day details I also thought about what I need to start doing right now…so without further ado….a list:

With 10 days to go before a marathon make sure to do these 5 things: 

• Drink more water!

• Eat a little cleaner (increasing carbs a few days before)!

• Stretch and foam roll like it’s your job!

• Get plenty of sleep!

• Practice finish line photo smile in the mirror!

Feel free to answer any of the questions I asked the nominees in the comments below if you feel like sharing.