One of my Christmas presents from my husband was this Charlotte Tilbury quad that I had been lusting over for quite some time. The Rebel is a green-lover’s paradise and I am oh so happy to add it to my collection!
The Rebel quad can be purchased on CharlotteTilbury.com for $52 USD or $64 CAD.
Because I like running so much on vacation, I decided to sign up for the Fleet Feet New Year’s Day Dash in Middleton, Wisconsin while we were visiting my inlaws over the Christmas break. Why I thought a 5 mile (8.4k to those of us outside the US) run on New Year’s Day would be a good idea… I haven’t a clue! Chock it all up to desiring more and more running experiences!
The race was mid-morning so thankfully we didn’t have to worry about being there too early (normally I’d say hungover… but I was actually so tired I went to bed at 11pm the night before!), but MY GOD was it cold. The wind was whipping about us and even though it was only -6C, the windchill was certainly giving it some. I wasn’t really sure what to wear as I’d never done a race below 2 degrees Celsius, so I ended up whacking on a thin long sleeve racing shirt (not thermal) and a Lululemon jacket along with my Lululemon Wunderunders. Our race kits (which were AMAZING btw – best race kit I’ve had yet) came with some awesome hats so I popped that on as well.
The race was labelled as “extremely flat” and… it kind of is? I mean, there’s one beast slow incline that goes on forever roughly halfway through the race that I wasn’t impressed with, but overall it was decently flat. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to pace myself, or even what time to go for. Being a 5 mile race, it’s not exactly a common distance. I mean… 5 miles is 8.4 kilometers… almost a 10k, but not quite. And definitely not a distance I can put out a 5k race pace for. With that in mind, I basically went into this knowing that whatever speed I finished this race at, it would be a personal best!
I ended up running the whole at what felt like an exceptionally comfortable pace. I was never tired or out of breath – something that surprised me immensely given how much I’d eaten over the course of the last week (thank you holidays). I clocked in a finish time of 45:50, which gives me an average pace of 5:27 per kilometer according to the race web site. However… I really don’t think it was a full 5 mile run. Both my Garmin and my Nike+ tracking app clocked me with a distance of 8.03k which is almost 400 meters shy of the full distance. Had I had to run that additional 400 meters, I would’ve been a few minutes slower, which would’ve made a lot more sense. Given my current fitness level (not amazing), my weight (heavier than normal) and the distance calculated by both my Garmin and Nike+… I have to say my finish time truly doesn’t make sense, so I’m quite confident the race was indeed a bit short for the declared distance.
HOWEVER, despite all this, I was aiming for under 50 minutes, and even if I tacked on a few more minutes to my actual finish time, I still would’ve been under that marker, so for that I’m quite happy!
My husband and inlaws were waiting near the endzone (David got some of the shots above) and were trying to hand me Canadian flags they had brought out to cheer me on (so I could cross the finish line with them!). I was semi-oblivious to their intentions so I just started laughing because it was a cute and unexpected gesture!
Sidenote: Mid-race I tore my hat and gloves off, unzipped my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. I was soooo stinking hot!
I got an AWESOME medal at the end (seriously – it’s huge!) and I heard they had beer and wings at the ready, but we didn’t stick around for it. By that point everyone was getting pretty cold and we just wanted to head on home! Overall though – a well organized race with under a thousand people. The race kit was BOMB (pint glass, gorgeous hat and a hell of a medal AND the professional photos were free!) and I really enjoyed myself!
My 2015 makeup favourites are now up on YouTube!
Things I still need to learn with this platform:
I’m coming back to work today after having had a chunk of the holidays off and unfortunately I seem to have picked up some kind of cold/bug/flu thing on the way back to Toronto. (Womp womp.) So while I don’t have a new post for you today, here’s a roundup of my posts from the last two weeks:
Skincare Saturday: Paula’s Choice Resist Skin Firming Line Minimizer: I checked out a new line minimizer by Paula’s Choice, although it didn’t end up working for me. 🙁
Swatch Sunday: Too Faced – The little Black Book of Bronzers: Undecided which bronzer to get? Why don’t you try out a whole bunch of them?
In the last two weeks, I’ve managed to successfully pick up not only a new computer and a ring light (buh-bye money). I’m hoping the quality of my pictures will improve and be more consistent as I won’t be reliant on daylight for shooting photos. Additionally, my new desktop will let me edit videos with ease (I was doing it before on my ancient macbook pro since my old desktop’s audio had gone the way of the dodo about two years ago). Hooray for new toys! Happy New Year everyone. 🙂
There’s no better way to sample all of Too Faced‘s bronzers than by getting your hands on their bronzer wardrobe: The little Black Book of Bronzers. I think this was limited edition, although I see it go randomly in and out of stock on Sephora’s web site and on TooFaced.com.
To my knowledge, this includes every single bronzer that Too Faced carries in a full size format (oops, maybe not, I see Bronzed & Poreless on their site, but it’s not in this palette). To make everything even more appealing, three of them smell like chocolate!
The Too Faced – The little Black Book of Bronzers can be purchased on TooFaced.com for $49 USD.