Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

Good Morning, friends! Happy New Year! It's a cold, rainy, gloomy day in DC which is weirdly, just what I need. I rang in the New Year by falling asleep at 10pm (moving is hard!) and then hanging out with a good friend who happens to be my new neighbor.

I love the start of the New Year. I think it's such a fantastic way to look back on the past year and look ahead. Last year, my theme for the year was growth and I'm going to keep that theme. We never stop growing, do we? We learn lessons and we make changes, but we never stop growing.


Looking back to this time last year, I'm definitely a happier person. 2015 was a tough year and, while 2016 was much better, I came out of the year with a desperate need for self care. I'm linking up with Helene tomorrow to recap my year but the one lesson I learned from 2016 was the importance of taking care of yourself. For the first time in my life, I had a job that I felt like I couldn't put down at 5pm on week days and, while, that definitely isn't the case, I had virtually no work life balance. I would be on the treadmill answering work emails. By the time December, my industry's busiest month, rolled around, I felt burned out. This year, I need to learn to put a serious focus on work life balance.

Because of the lack of a work life balance, my blog seriously suffered. I never had time to post and when I did, I was too tired to sit in front of a computer and craft a post. I started last year with a 31-day blogging challenge and by March, I was posting maybe once per week. This year, I'm committing to spending at least 4 hours per week on my blog. I've planned out all of my posts for the month of January and actually have a plan to bring my blog back to it's former, for lack of a better word, glory. This will be the 7th year that I've had this blog and I don't want this hobby to fall to the way side. I need to be realistic about my plans for posting, connecting with other bloggers, and growing my blog, but at the end of the day, I just want to be blogging again.

Looking back on my goals from last year, I feel like all of my goals for this year are the same. I don't look at that as a failed 2016 but as an opportunity for a better 2017! So, in list form, here are my goals for 2017 (mostly repeated from 2016):

• Run a sub-4 marathon: Goodness, I'm sick of making this a goal. I've had a goal to run a sub-4 marathon since 2011. I know people who eke out 10, 15, 20, 40 minute PRs and over my seven year running career, I've knocked off a whopping 7 minutes from my marathon. I'll share my running goals in another post this month but I'm tackling 2 marathons this year to try to finally get that sub-4 finish.
• Do another 30-day yoga challenge: I did an at-home yoga challenge last year. This year, I'd like to up the ante and try a 30-day in-studio challenge, or at least mix it up with half the time in the studio and half the time at home.
• Finish my 30 before 30:  I'll be 30 next month and I'm only about one-third of the way through my 30 Before 30 list but I'd like to finish the list by the end of 2017.
• Hit 30 countries: I've traveled to 26 countries. I think it would be awesome to make it to 30 in my 30th year!
• Take a cooking class: The Pilot's parents bought us a gift certificate to a culinary school in DC for Christmas! I'm so excited!
• Cook at least one recipe from every single one of my cookbooks: I have a cookbook addiction. My obsession with Little Free Libraries and the propensity of people in my neighborhood to leave cookbooks in them doesn't help. Yet, I have a lot of cookbooks that I've never touched. I need to change that or make a plan to get rid of some of these books. 

So I went to Dubai last week. Don't worry, I'm sorting through pictures and getting ready to tell you all about it!


The trip was certainly a whirlwind and I was so grateful to come home to a staycation! I definitely made the most of my half week at home and I'm ready to tackle the week ahead! Here's what I did with my staycation!

I watched a lot of Netflix. I caught up on the current season of Scandal, watched the latest episodes of Once Upon a Time, watched a lot of The Goldbergs, and basically spent the entire day Wednesday in front of the TV.

I finally ran. I hadn't run since the Chicago Marathon but Thursday morning, I laced up my shoes and headed out for 3 easy miles around my neighborhood.

I read. I finished The Zookeeper's Wife and started All the President's Men.

I reorganized my desk/bookshelf area. It had become the landing pad in our apartment and wasn't being used as a desk. It's much cleaner now!


The Pilot and I took a trip to Mount Vernon where we ran into our landlord with her kids and spent the day exploring with them.


We took Peyton hiking in Rock Creek Park and had cupcakes at Baked and Wired. The foliage in Rock Creek was so pretty that I stopped hating fall for a minute (until I turned my clocks back that night).


We watched the World Series. It didn't end well.

I made a lattice top apple pie...and crossed another thing off of my 30 before 30 list!


I worked on my blog. I drafted a lot of posts, pulled together some awesome images, and started working on a new header. I've been toying around with a new header for ages, and after not being able to decide on one, I decided to get your feedback. So, which do you like better?

I was 22-years-old, fresh out of college and working my first job when I started this blog. I was living in Boston...a city I had moved to without having ever visited...just for a job that I didn't really love. One day, while flipping through a magazine in a doctor's office, I read an article called "Yes! You Can Run a Half-Marathon!" So, I decided to run a half-marathon and said that one day, I would run a Full too. I started this blog with running a marathon at the top of my 25 before 25 list.

You all know where that story went. Here I am...five years later...still blogging...still running...and I think it's time to nod my head to my roots and let you all know about something else I've been working on...my 30 Before 30 list.

In no particular order, following the theme of some personal, some professional and some just fun, here is my 30 Before 30 list. Some of these are repeats from my 25 Before 25...either because I didn't get to them...or because I'm starting them again. You can read that list here.


1. Travel to Cuba.

{via} Being a Cuban American, it's incredibly difficult to reconcile never having been there.

2. Run a sub-4 marathon.
3. Visit every Major League Baseball stadium. (22/30)
4. Cook my way through a cookbook.
5. Do a 30 day yoga challenge.
6. Go horseback riding.
7. Blog every day for a month.
8. Buy a Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress.

{via}

9. Go to the ballet.
10. Run another international marathon.
11. Go on another layover with The Pilot.
12. Take a cooking class with The Pilot.
13. Attend a black tie charity gala.
14. Order a wedding album.
15. Put all of my photos from my past travels into an album or scrapbook.
16. Start writing the novel I have brewing in my mind.
17. Go back to New Orleans.

{via}

18. See Kenny Chesney in concert.
19. Host a dinner party.
20. Pay off my credit card debt.
21. Make my own article of clothing.
22. Read a book in Spanish.
23. Perfect French macarons.
24. Go back to Paris with my mama.
25. Make a lattice-top pie.

{via}

26. Master these 30 recipes (i.e. know how to make them without looking at the recipe).
27. Go to one spot during all four seasons and photograph it with my DSLR.
28. Tour the White House.
29. Take a painting class.
30.Visit Carolann in Hawaii.

Five years ago I opened up this little corner of the internet.


I was 23, fresh out of college and living in Boston. The Pilot was my boyfriend of 4 months. I had never run a race before.

I posted a list of 25 things I wanted to do before I turned 25. I didn't do 10 of them. Some of them (like horseback riding and learning French) are still on my list. Others (like swimming with dolphins and doing a triathlon) aren't anymore.


Through this blog, I found my passion for running. When I started this blog, I started training for my first half-marathon. I was immediately connected with the amazing running community in the blogging world. To this day, my closest running friends are all bloggers. With the exception of one person, everyone I know who runs is someone I've met through my blog, either directly or indirectly.


Those people are some of my closest friends. Some of them were at my wedding. I see them regularly. We talk, we text, we snail mail. We've met each others families and have seen each other's houses. The idea that we met them through our blogs is so foreign now. Some of them still blog, some of them don't. We're still friends. They're people who are incredibly important to me and I never would have met them if I hadn't started this blog.

Emily, Andrea & Holly

Writing this blog has also taught me to apply a filter a little bit more closely. There are some things that we just don't blog about. Learning, and remembering, to apply that filter to my blog has helped me apply it in my personal life as well as my professional life.

I love writing. It doesn't matter what I'm writing about, I adore it. It's obviously easy to write about yourself, but my new job that I started two months ago? Writer. Five years ago, when I started this blog, I don't think I ever would have started a career as a writer, but here I am...and I love it.

This blog has also taught me about balance. In reading other blogs and getting motivated to work out and train and eat right, I've learned how other people balance work and family life and marathon training and healthy eating...and I've applied it to my own life. The idea of having kids one day and trying to figure out how to "do it all" isn't scary to me anymore because so many other women do it.

I never thought I would blog for this long. I started this blog out of boredom. I never really knew what it would turn into, yet, here I am...five years later and I couldn't be happier.

To all of you who follow my little adventures, I appreciate you more than I can say. Thank you for reading, for commenting, and for supporting me. So, here's to five years of blogging, and to whatever future might be in store!