And then three weeks went by…

Well haven’t I been a delinquent blogger! I haven’t posted anything since I broke my November daily blogging streak. So there’s lots to catch up on!

Final days of #beaststreak

It was really anti-climactic doing the last three runs of a month-long run streak on a hotel treadmill all alone. I had so many great and rewarding runs during the month of November, but those were just strictly get’er done runs. Luckily Pippa made me a banner.

Vegas

My trip to Las Vegas was a huge amount of fun, and a very excellent way to cap off a crazy and amazing November. There was shopping, eating, drinking, lots of catching up. We stayed at the Stratosphere, which was okay, but waaaay down the end of the strip and really far away from everything else. We took a lot of cabs.

In keeping of the “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” tradition, no photos of our adventures, just this one of the strip late in the afternoon. (The Christmas decorations all started to come out after Thanksgiving on Thursday!)

Exploring Las Vegas

Running

After nailing all of my planned training runs in November and throwing in a whole bunch of extra runs, I have definitely been slacking a bit in December. I skipped my long run on December 1st (largely due to the fact that I traveled home from Vegas that day), but have done my other two long runs this month. I’ve made my hills sessions happen (even did last week’s on the treadmill!), but I’ve certainly missed/skipped a few of the others. I’m trying to get back on track this week so that I have some momentum going into Christmas.

24 Days of Christmas Karma

I’ve been trying to work these activities into my December. So far the items I’ve completed are:

4.  Go for a run without a watch, cellphone, music, no technology whatsoever! – I went technology-free on my hill run on December 4th.
7. Do a double run day – one in the am, one in the pm. – Last week I missed my opportunity to run on Tuesday, so I did Tuesday’s run and Wednesday’s hill workout on the same day! One before work, one after.
11. Donate something. – A book for our Christmas hamper.
14. Write a letter, postcard, and send it real mail, to whomever you choose. – I wrote all of my Christmas cards over the weekend and popped them in the mail Monday!
15. Read 1 book in December – Allegiant, Veronica Roth
18. Volunteer – Spark meetings x3! Part of me feels like it’s cheating to count Sparks because it’s not something I went out of my way to do this month, but just because I do it all the time doesn’t mean that it’s not special.
19. The age old pay it forward – Paid for a nice-looking young man’s coffee last Sunday on my way home from my run.
20. Reconnect with someone you’ve been meaning to – Check.

So that’s only 8/24, but I’m pretty pleased with my progress so far. I know there are some items on the list that won’t get completed before Christmas, but I’m not necessarily going for 100% completion. Every item I check off this list will make my December better!

Christmas shopping!

This gets its own category, because I’m actually doing pretty well this year. I’d say I’m 90% done shopping, and 85% done wrapping!

The beginnings of my gift wrapping!

I’m counting down the days of work remaining!