tunes to help you beat the winter workout blues

so many of my runs for this training cycle have been on the treadmill that i've not downloaded any new music in a while [when i run on the treadmill i watch quality television, gossip girl, ahem].

i'm doing two races this month, the frosty foot [recap here] and the hot chocolate 10k so i was very excited to reward myself with some new music. now i should explain now, when i say new music, it just means new to me and my ipod... i'm not saying it just came out, so don't leave me a comment telling me how lame and dated my playlists are.

johnny cash & tom petty - i won't back down
mumford & sons [the whole babel album is great] - i will wait, whispers in the dark, lover of the light
robyn - dancing on my own
chris tomlin - whom shall i fear
florida georgia line - cruise
one republic - feel again
ke$ha [go ahead and download the whole warrior album] - c'mon, die young, warrior, wherever you are
will.i.am - scream and shout
the lumineers - ho hey, stubborn love
calvin harris feat. florence welch - sweet nothing
kelly clarkson - catch my breath
ellie goulding - anything could happen
flo rida - i cry
anna kendrick - cups
darius rucker - wagon wheel
nicki minaj - va va voom

What I've Been Listening To In January

I haven't shared a lot of this on the blog but I LOVE music. iTunes gift cards are like gold to me and iTunes 'shopping sprees' are my favorite. I love finding new (to me) music [and pout like crazy when radio gets ahold of it and plays the crap out of it].

I thought I'd start sharing my playlists on here in case you all are interested. I'll try to do one a month and I'll definitely do race playlists. So in true Courtney-like fashion, here's my January playlist (yes I know it's February).


We Found Love - Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris
Internet Killed the Video Star - The Limousines
Helena Beat - Foster The People
Midnight City - M83
Ni**as in Paris - Kanye West & Jay Z
Blackout - Breathe Carolina
Tonight Is The Night - Outasight
I Won't Give Up - Jason Mraz
Kids - MGMT
Even The Losers - Tom Petty
Fell In Love Without You - Motion City Soundtrack
Words Meet Heartbeats - Parachute
Still Not Over You - Gavin Degraw

Two Great Concerts in One Week (Parachute and Casting Crowns)

It's been such a busy week and I was so excited to share why last night... Then I left my phone at the pharmacy. Unfortunately my phone held all the pics that I wanted to share, so I had to wait till today.

Sunday night Brad and I went to the Orange Peel to see Courrier, Kate Voegele, and Parachute... So fun. I am such a sucker for live music and some of my favorite groups have made their way through Asheville lately. The Orange Peel gets lots of great performers (Adele was actually scheduled to play here but she had to cancel) and it's so great because it's a smaller, you get a more intimate feel.

There weren't a lot of people, I guess because of it being a Sunday night.

Wow that's really not a good picture at all, but it's all I have. Anyways, the show was SO GREAT. I love me some Parachute. I listened to their albums while training for my half this year. Will, the lead singer even came down into the crowd to sing with us! I was really impressed and felt like they put on a special show for us because we were out on a Sunday. They kept thanking us for coming out. LOVE.

And if one concert wasn't enough, we also got to see The Afters, Sanctus Real, and Casting Crowns on Tuesday. I love some many of their songs and it was such an uplifting concert. 

As you might have guessed from my new blog header I'm loving the Casting Crowns song 'Courageous'. They did it first thing and it was just as good as I hoped. But the best part was during the song 'Glorious Day' (ps if you haven't heard this song, please go listen to it immediately, along with courageous they will really touch you). While they were singing this crazy powerful song, an artist was painting with his hands only from three buckets of paint. Sometimes he just threw it onto the canvas and paint splattered everywhere. But the end result was AMAZING.

What an awesome blessing.



Lazy Weekend + Jack's Mannequin at the Orange Peel

This weekend has been just what the doctor ordered(Minus the fact that B-rad worked).

I had big plans to get up and run then catch the 930am spin class at the Rush then have the rest of the day free... Well I woke up at 932. Dangit. I knew how hot it would be outside, so what's a few more minutes to make a pre-run smoothie?

Because call me crazy but I don't think this is what Runner's World had in mind when they said to have a slushee type drink before your run:

And I may or may not have had these Friday night.

I trudged through my 5 miler. Literally. It felt like I was thigh high in mud or quicksand or something. I wasn't sure if I needed to do five since I did the 10K on Monday, but I get all finicky if I don't do my long runs (OCD much?).

Then I came home and did a whole lot of nothing. And it was AMAZING. I read US Weekly (I know it's trash but I love it) and some of my book. Then I started getting ready to go see Jack's Mannequin!!

Asheville has this great music club downtown called The Orange Peel and long story short, I always hoped that JM would make a stop there. Unfortunately it was super hot in there and the acoustics weren't that great either. But I had fun nonetheless. They played all my favorites plus a couple of new songs.

Sorry for the craptastic photos. You'd never know by my blog pics that I actually enjoy photography as a hobby! It's just so much easier to use my iPhone that lugging around my "real" camera. I'll try to do better, I promise.

This morning B-rad took me to get my car that I left downtown, ahem, then I came home and the bear and I had a movie day (are you noticing a trend?). We watched the third Twilight movie and Temple Grandin (so good and made me disgusted to think about eating cow anytime soon).

Best cuddle buddy ever. And yes that is half a Fathead on our wall. This is Brad's 'mancave' and that used to be Bengals QB Carson Palmer... well he used to be their QB anyways. His torso fell off the wall a few months ago and we have never gotten around to putting it back :)

Do you ever have lazy days weekends? As often as I can!

What are your go-to movies that you can watch over and over? Juno, the Notebook, Wedding Crashers, Van Wilder

i just went on an iTunes shopping spree...

Workout:  Ran 3.1 miles (31:13) and walked another mile.

I am sofreakinghappy that I'm off work for the next three days! B-rad and I are heading to KY tomorrow, so I just blew up iTunes so we'd have some jams for the ride. Here's a sampling of what I purchased:

 Yeah, like I said. Blew up. Then I found this gem:

69 cent Michelle Branch songs? Yes please. Although I'm not sure what happened to her.

Have you found any good music lately? You really need to download 'Talking to the Moon' by Bruno Mars. Soo good.