Kind

As predicted, today was a much better day than yesterday - albeit still jam-packed.

I started the day with a Kind bar:

Source

If you haven't tried these yet, you need to get a move on it!  They are SO good - and so good for you.  Each bar is made with all-natural nuts and fruits (and sometimes chocolate!), and they taste good.  And, they're each around 200 calories or so.

Mid-morning, I had a banana.

For lunch, I ate another round of the Colossus Salad that I had for dinner last night.  As expected, it was delicious again - thankfully, since I left it at school half-eaten to finish up tomorrow.

I love, love, love my silly students, but my favorite part of this particular day happened after school - and in two pieces.

First, I had a 3.5-mile run scheduled, and I had two students interested in joining me.  I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but one of the girls is more of a sister/daughter to me than a former student (she was in my class last year), and I am so, so excited that she is interested in participating in See-Us Run Des Moines, as it will be very good for her.  I had never met her friend before today, but she seems really sweet, too, and I'm looking forward to getting to know her more as we continue running together.

The girls went for a run/walk yesterday by themselves and ended up doing three laps around Gray's Lake, which is approximately six miles.  I'm guessing they did a lot more walking than running, but I was still very proud of them.  They then went to yoga and said they really enjoyed it.

Today, we set out around the neighborhood in the cold, drizzly weather.  (I was super impressed that they still wanted to run, even though it was so icky out.)  We ran a mile (in 10:37) and then stopped to walk a bit - and continued that pattern of lots of running followed by a brief respite of walking - for a total of 3.7 miles.

And made it back to school just before the downpour hit.

It wasn't a fast run by any means, but I was just so proud of the girls - and thankful I had running buddies!

The girl that I just met today was so sweet.  Afterwards, she just kept saying how excited she was to start this and thanked me repeatedly for letting her run with me - to which I responded, "Thank you for running with me!"  When we were talking about our next scheduled run (two miles tomorrow), she asked if I did this every day.  I explained that I run about four times but try to work out six days a week, and she said that she was so inspired.

It was super sweet - and I'm not going to lie: it felt pretty good to be a fitness "inspiration" to these girls.

Let me tell you how impressed they were, though, when they saw this:

You're welcome.

That is the blister from Sunday.  It started hurting before we had even run out of the parking lot, so I knew I was in for a treat when I finished 3.7 miles.

Let me tell you: it kills.  It still hurts now, even though I gooped on the Neosporin, covered it in gauze, and wrapped athletic tape around my entire foot.

Tomorrow should be interesting - especially my two-mile run.

Oh, I also forgot to tell you about my toenail.  It's not good.  Basically, the medial side of my right big toenail is lifting off from the base and is about to pop completely off.  Shockingly, it doesn't hurt, but it tingles quite a bit.

Either I can be classified as a "real runner" now, or I just dropped something heavy on my foot and don't remember it.  I'm guessing option number two is more likely.

My second most favorite part of today was spontaneously deciding to drive 45 miles north with one of my friends/colleagues to watch our boys play their substate game:

People say we look alike all the time - kids even call us the wrong name, ask if we're sisters, etc.  Thoughts?
(Also, please disregard the fact that I'm not looking at the camera.  iPhones are tricky.)

Unfortunately, we lost the game and are now finished after a really great season.  I'm really proud of the kids - and the coach, who is a great friend - for rising above and, well, kicking butt.

The game was one of my favorite parts of the day, though, because my Number Two Gal and I always have incredible conversations, and today's hour-long round-trip was no exception.  She's super sweet, smart, thoughtful, kind, sincere, and I'm very thankful that we've gotten to know each other over the past year - and have gotten closer in the last couple of months.

So it was a very good day.