Best Long Weekend Ever

This weekend our friends from KY came to visit and we had so much fun! It was all part of my grand scheme to get them to move to NC. I'll let you know how that works out! Becca and I are training for the Run The Bluegrass (her first half marathon) so it was awesome to do our long run together on Saturday. She is having some weird foot pain though, any ideas on what it could be?

It was so great to catch up and show them around Asheville. And of course I didn't take a single picture. Whoops. 

Yesterday I got to run outside on one of my favorite trails. It felt so good to off the horrible treadmill. The weather was perfect and I have really missed running in the parks! 

And I've watched at least 10 episodes of Gossip Girl. Super productive I know. 

What's your favorite thing to do when you have time off around the house?

My Eleven Things

I know you've seen this flying around so you don't need me to explain it! Andrea over at Bluegrass TriChick tagged me. I just found Andrea's blog a few months ago and I really enjoy reading it. She's a KY girl so what's not to like?!

Eleven Random Things About Me:

1.  I love to color my hair. I have no clue what my natural color is, but I'm pretty sure it's really bland dirty dish water blonde. Yuck. I started coloring it in eight grade and have never looked back!

2. If I could, I'd wear pajamas and sweats all day every day. My husband loves it. 

3.  I've had to have stitches 5 different times. 

4.  I get really, really attached to characters in TV and book series. It's a little pathetic. 

5.  Brad and I danced to "Lost In This Moment" by Big and Rich as our wedding song. My dad and I danced to "Daughter" by Loudon Wainwright III. 

6. My dad has called me 'sis' since my baby brother was born. It's one of my only nicknames.
7.  I don't like to cook but I love to bake.
8.  My favorite color is KENTUCKY BLUE!
9.  I'd love to live on the beach.
10.  I've worn glasses/contacts since I was in eighth grade. I even wore those awesome goggles while playing basketball.
11. I love to travel. I want to go so many places and I'd really love to go on a mission trip outside of the country.

Andrea's questions:

1. Morning or Evening Workouts? morning
2. Vanilla or Chocolate? chocolate!
3. Dogs or Cats? DOGS
4. Summer or Winter? summer
5. Pool or Open Water Swim? pool
6. Drive or Fly? fly
7. Magazines or Books? both, but books if i have to choose.
8. Fiction or Non-Fiction? i read mostly fiction
9. Comedy or Drama? comedy
10. Mountains or Beach? beach
11. Racer or Cheerleader? racer

my questions:

1.  favorite candy?

2.  what's your favorite disney movie?

3.  if you could meet one celebrity who would it be?

4.  who's your favorite band?

5.  favorite cereal?

6.  if you could leave tomorrow and visit one place for 2 weeks (for free), where would you go?

7.  have you ever met a blogger?

8.  what's your favorite alcoholic drink?

9.  what's your dream race?

10.  do you have any tattoos?

11.  what's your best running memory?

Tag you're it (sorry if you've already done this and don't feel like you have to play!):

Missy at Southern Girl Running

Sarah at Sweet and Savory by Sarah

Jessica at Running to Be Skinny

Karien at Running the Race

Zaneta at Runner's Luck

Donna at Lip Gloss and Flip Flops

Jill at Fitness, Health, and Happiness

Ashley at Redonkulous Runner

Betty at Unstoppable

Coy at First and Philly

Suz at Cow and Lasers and Everything In Between

I'm Bouncing of The Walls Again...

I'm all hopped up on the CLICK drink that I had at 830 this morning. This coming from the girl who downs Diet Mountain Dew like it's her job. And you can bet your booty that I will be ordering a canister (or three) tomorrow after I try the vanilla latte flavor (I tried Mocha this morning and I'm in love).

Dear Suzanne:  If I end up in caffeine rehab or fired because I annoyed the crap out of my co-workers, I totally blame you! (Kidding!) No joke, I'm bouncing off the walls today and I love it! (And PS if you're wondering... the mocha tastes like one of my favorite things at Starbucks-- Java Chip Light Frapuccino. None of that stupid protein aftertaste or chunks!).

I'm going to go put some of this energy to use... Gotta clean this pig pen we call a home. We're having company this weekend so you know how that goes. I'd die if someone saw our house right now! Yikes!

What are you doing this weekend? Our friends from KY are coming to visit!! 

Do you care about how your house looks? I'm a huge neat freak and can't stand it when my house is a wreck! 

I Love Getting Things In The Mail!!

I went to the gym today after work and knocked out 4 miles on the treadmill. {Pet peeve:  Standing at the front desk waiting for the girl to scan my key card for 5 minutes. Seriously. I understand you're on the phone but say it with me, "Multitask."} It is killing me to have to run inside during this awesome January weather. But there's no way I'm running the dark by myself. 

When I got home I found a package from CLICK. I'm so excited to try this out tomorrow morning and so thankful to SUZ for having such a great giveaway!!

It's been a great mail week! Yesterday I received this beautiful baby:

iFitness is sponsoring our 12 in 2012 effort! I already have one iFitness belt (double pouch that I purchased at the expo for my first half marathon) and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!! I was so excited to get this cute one!! More coming on it later but Riley just had to model it for y'all:

No he doesn't have cataracts, that's just the flash! lol

Have any of you all every been to Tybee Island? Any tips/secrets/random information that you'd like to share would be greatly appreciated. I've never been and we're trying to plan a vacation!

Weekend RUNdown

First I just wanted to share what Andrea shared with me. She suggested using Google Chrome as my web browser to avoid the white screen of death... And so far so good (Sorry Internet Explorer, we had a good run but it's time to go our separate ways!).

So I've not been posting a lot because I haven't been up to much because I've felt so crappy. And I didn't want to post nothing but complaints. But I'm pleased to report (and thanks for those of you who checked up on me!) that I'm getting back to normal!

I also made a big attitude adjustment on Tuesday night.

Could I go to the gym and complete all my runs as scheduled? No. Stuff happens and life gets in the way. But what could I do? I could concentrate on my nutrition in an effort to give my body what it needed to heal but also to work on my weight loss that I've pushed aside. I've starting using the Livestrong My Plate app to track calories, exercise, etc. It's really helping so far. I'll definitely post more about it in the upcoming weeks.

So I've been stressing about my first half of 2012 that's coming up in 3 weeks... I've even had two bad dreams about it! In one I have on my trail shoes for a road race and in another I start running the race 2 hours late. NOT NORMAL. I think the stress is mostly because I've felt that I couldn't prepare because I've felt so crappy.

But the clouds parted on Saturday (the proverbial clouds, not the real ones... it has done nothing but rain here!) and I completed 8 miles on the treadmill (slowly but surely).

SO HAPPY! Then I cuddled up with the foam roller like it was my job, because I know my body wasn't going to appreciate the 8 mile beat down.

Sunday I was super lazy and only left the house for church and a quick trip to Lowe's. Other than that we watched a million more episodes of Big Bang Theory. I LOVE lazy Sundays!!!

Giveaway Winner!

The winners of the Zone Bar giveaway are:

 Congrats to Stefanie and Sarah!

Email me at 3xacharmrunner@gmail.com and I'll get your Zone Perfect bars sent out for you to enjoy! Thanks to everyone who participated!

White Screen of Death and other Randomness

Is anyone else getting the white screen of death when they try to comment on a blog? It's annoying the crap out of me. I usually read in google reader then head over to the blog if I want to comment. For the last week or so, every time I try to do that I get this blank white screen. WTF blogger?

So sorry if it appears that I've been MIA from your blog. Rest assured I've still been blog stalking as usual.

I'm trying to break these beauties in. My 13's are still more comfortable and are my go to shoe, but they've got about 400 miles on them.

This is the card that B-rad got me for my birthday. On the inside he wrote in the website as '3xabear.blogpot.com' (Riley's nickname is the bear). Pretty original!

He also got me some toys:

The quickdraw water bottle that I'd been hinting at and a Nathan VITAband. More to come on the VITAband later, because it's a really cool product!

I hope you all have a great weekend! I have to work but will be doing my long run tomorrow, say a prayer that I'll be able to breathe!! Riley's been giving me kisses to make it better!

Tomorrow's the last day to enter my giveaway!

Really Random Monday

Have you entered my GIVEAWAY?


Thank you all so much for your feedback on my amazing race scheduling. When I first realized what I'd done I had a major freak out. When I told Brad he replied, "Oh that is not a good idea, you do not need to do that." So there it is in writing so he can say I told you so if he needs to! I'm just going to train and see how I feel and go from there (I think I'm going to do it, SHH don't tell him!).


Brad and I did some shopping after church yesterday and you should really go to Dick's Sporting Goods if you're out. It's clearance time, check it out:

3 pairs of Nike tempo shorts and a pair of UA shorts for 33 dollars!! They had a lot of shorts in really bright colors and at 7-8 bucks a pop you can't beat it!

When I was younger I drank a glass of milk every night with dinner and with breakfast most mornings. I've really gotten out of this habit and over the last few years I rarely drank milk, so a goal I made this year was to change this. I'm trying to drink a glass a day!

I'm doing pretty well so far, the only problem is that when I have a big glass of milk I want something like this to go with it:

I picked this up for Brad at the mall but he had picked up his own snack (pretzel) and didn't want it. And YOU KNOW I wasn't just gonna throw it away. Twist my arm. If I can just keep from buying OREOS I should be okay :)

I'm really happy that I've been able to start working out again this week. I've been struggling over the past few weeks with my neck, bronchitis, and this weird rash on my face that turned out to be SHINGLES!?! They think it's actually what was causing my neck to hurt so bad. Completely random. Just it case you're wondering what shingles looks like:

And it's starting to dry up here, it was quiet the mess a few days ago. YUCK!

I hope you all are having a great Monday so far! I'm going to shower and go meet my momma for lunch!

I'm Not The Brightest Bulb on the Tree

I had big plans to work on 12 in 2012 race schedule today... And oh boy did I.

I just signed up for the Covenant Health Knoxville Half Marathon on April 1st...

Not realizing I'm already registered for Run The Bluegrass on March 31st.

I haven't decided if this is really awesome or really horrible. What do you think? Do it or sell a bib?

Zone Perfect Bars ::: Review and Giveaway!

A few months ago I contacted Abbott Nutrition and Brittany at Zone Perfect was awesome enough to send me several boxes of their bars to sample and share with you guys!

I chose to contact Abbott because no lie, they make my all-time favorite bar. Behold, the magnificence that is Strawberry Yogurt:


source

 This bar is the jam. It's delicious, healthy, filling, and easy to grab when I'm running late [always]. When I find these in the store, I buy them out. For reals.

Brittany sent me these two bars to try:

I hadn't tried either of these bars (I didn't want to cheat on the strawberry yogurt) but I was really excited to try them. I liked the Fudge Graham the best out of the two. The taste of both was great, but we finished the box of Fudge Graham the fastest! They kind of taste like s'mores!

Would you like to try them?? I have two more boxes of each flavor to share with y'all! I'll pick two winners and each one will get a box of each flavor!

HOW TO ENTER (you must follow my blog to be eligible)::

• Like my new Facebook page.
• Follow me on twitter @courtneymelson
• Go to the Zone Perfect Website and tell me which bar you'd like to try!
• Extra entries for sharing on FB, twitter, or your blog!

Leave a comment for each, I'll leave it open until Saturday January 21st at midnight! Good luck!

**These bars were provided to me by ZonePerfect free of charge. I was not compensated in any other way. All opinions and general ridiculousness are mine and mine alone.**

HBBC Week 7 (The Finale!)

Saturday:  1 hour elliptical, 1 hour yoga, F&V (8 points)
Sunday:  7 miles run/walk, 20 minutes stretching/foam rolling, F&V (19 points--doubled for Resolution Run, plus bonus points for posting on FB and blog)
Monday:  60 minutes spinning, 20 minutes abs/stretching, F&V (8 points)
Tuesday:  1 hour yoga, 3 mile walk, F&V (7 points)
Wednesday:  4 miles speedwork, 20 minutes foam rolling/stretching, F&V (6 points)
Thursday AM:  60 minutes spinning
Thursday PM:  60 minutes weights (legs), 20 minutes stretching/abs, F&V (11 points)
Friday: 10 minutes stairclimber (waiting on spinning to start), 60 minutes spinning, F&V (8 points)

Total:  67 points

This was a great but hard week. I really wanted to finish up HBBC strong but my neck was bothering me hit or miss and I feel like I'm starting to come down with something. It's just another reason I'm so thankful for Amanda for hosting, I pushed myself to workout when I did not feel like it, and as usual, I felt better after I exercised.

I'm definitely taking today off though!!!  :)

What A Pain In The.... Neck

Sorry to be a bitchy Betty but I am about SICK of my neck hurting.

Have you all ever used these things?

I tried them for the first time today and really liked them.

Note to self:  Putting stuff like this on you then getting all hot working out (or via heating pad) is probaly not the best idea. It increases absorption which could be bad. I removed them as soon as I got home (Brad LOVED ripping them off, probably the best part of his day!).

I got 4 miles of speedwork in on a hills program on the treadmill. I felt good while doing it but of course my neck is sore now. (PS my MD said it was fine to keep working out, just to avoid jerky movements) I tried to avoid the emergency stop but of course I managed to hit it twice.

Moving on, Donna nominated me for a bloggy award, THANKS DONNA!!! I really appreciate it!

Seven random things about myself? How about just 7 random things:

1.   Look what I found at Target yesterday:

Tell me that's not the greatest idea ever?! For hot chocolate or cereal or ice cream?!
2.  B-rad really needed to flatten out his license the other day (it got all wrinkly when he was taking it to his new job. How did we take care of it?

I swear we aren't alcoholics...

3.  My hair is kind of curly when I let it air dry (just curly enough to need to be straightened but not curly enough to be able to wear it that way!).

Hot, I know!

4.  I am addicted to this show now:

I watched all the episodes on the iPad over the long weekend and just my luck it starts back tonight!

5.  My mom loves all things Wicked (Wicked Witch and Glinda the Good Witch). I saw this and had to send it her way!

6.  Brad and I are really bad about changing the lyrics to songs to pertain to our lives. We're especially guilty of adding Rileybear however possible. Our newest hit? "Bear look at that doggie!" (Girl look at that body)... Yeah we're big time nerds, I know!!

7.  I can't think of anything right at this moment, but I did want to let you guys know that I've got a couple of great giveaways coming your way!!

Running into 2012... Well and walking some too.

Today I particpated in two virtual races. I ran/walked a 5k to participate in the last of Kiley's virtual races.

A big thank you to Kiley for hosting these races throughout the holidays. I've really enjoyed them and they've helped me get up and at 'em on several days that I'd normally just be lazy!!

Ugliest race picture ever. Thanks Brad.

The second race I was participating in was Amanda's Resolution Run.

I can't even begin to thank Amanda for hosting the HBBC. I have consistently worked out throughout the holidays and this was a great way to step into the new year!!

It says "get balanced" but I'm thinking it should have said "take less horrible pictures."

I ended up doing 7 miles total (thanks Teen Mom for sucking me into a time warp. I'm going to be screwed when it's time to run outside again).

I'm not sure of my time because I accidentally hit the blanketly blank emergency stop 1.5 miles in and it restarted the treadmill. It also jarred the hell out of my neck so I've subsequently spent the rest of the night on the couch with my friend the heating pad. I'm calling my doctor tomorrow, so sick of this!!