I started off this year in not the best place mentally. There was honestly nothing wrong in my life, but there was this funk I felt like I just couldn’t shake.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working to get back to my happy place, and I think I’m there! 

Here’s a few things that have helped me get there:

• Learning that little NO word. Does having plans every night of the week really make me happy? Does taking on extra responsibilities outside of work when all I really want to do after work is see friends or sit on my couch make me happy? Nope! Last night, we had a work happy hour and tonight I had several things I could have done…but my couch is fabulous.
• Baths and reading. I love taking a bath so much, and there’s few things that relax me that well. It’s like all of my anxiety dissolves the second I get in. And yes, even in the summer, I enjoy hot baths. I’m weird.
• RUNNING. My running sucked over the winter but now that it’s nice out and I’m training for Brooklyn, running is keeping me sane AND endorphin drunk.
• Consciously telling myself not to lose sleep over the little things. I am a Grade A worrier, but sometimes you just need to realize when something’s out of your hands anyway and you shouldn’t be worrying.
• Really choosing to spend time with the people that make me happiest and spending less time with those who don’t.
• And also trying — as often as I can — to meet up with someone new or someone I haven’t seen in a while for an invigorating conversation.
• MUSIC. Over the past few months, there have been several key playlists in my life. I’ll share them in a separate post soon.
• I’m back really watching what I’m eating, and it’s actually really nice to have a kind of framework and structure to what I eat, taking out some of the guesswork.

What kind of tweaks have you made for your own happiness?

And on Mondays, we take rest days.

This has been a kind of recent thing for me in the past few months…and it works.

The other day, my coworkers and I were talking about weekend workouts and rest days. One girl said she loved to take a rest day on the weekends because it means she gets to sleep in one day. I can’t sleep past 8 anyway, so this is not a draw for me. I love working out both days on the weekend because I have extra time and can usually make at least one of those workouts social.

This is all a long way of saying hello from my couch. I slept in a bit before work this morning and skipped washing my hair and cleaned my apartment and went to the post office before the office, and went grocery shopping after work and am blogging now. Productive rest days for the win.

Let’s talk about last week, though.

Last week, it all started clicking again and I just wanted it. I craved my workouts instead of thinking of reasons to stay in bed — even when it was 30-something degrees IN NEW YORK IN APRIL.

Monday: Um, rest day or two-a-day Mondays, I guess.

AM: Andrea Speir, our DailyBurn Pilates instructor, was in town, and led us through a 45-minute workout. I LOVE her videos. Guys, we’ve always had some seriously awesome programs, but our most recent ones, Black Fire and Pilates have totally hit it out of the park.

PM: T2.

Tuesday: Very deserved rest day.

Wednesday: Easy 4. Ideally this is supposed to be after a hard workout, but I had an early appointment and just couldn’t make myself do it.

Thursday: Uplifting Strength with my girl Alyssa. There’s nothing like taking a friend’s class, because you CAN’T SLACK OFF IN FRONT OF YOUR FRIEND.

Friday: Speed workout in the cold wind. It sucked. I did it. The end.

Saturday: Was supposed to do 7 miles, with 4 at tempo, but was pretty sore from strength + speed and knew I had a long run the next day so cut it down to 5.

Sunday: 10 miles with my bud Camille. My legs were not happy after all of that. It was honestly not a fabulous run. Yesterday involves lots and lots and lots of foam rolling.

This time around, Jess gave me a list of workouts for each week and told me to fit them into my schedule as I could, knowing that I usually have some workouts I’m trying for work or this blog. Running three days in a row when I’m only running four days a week: kind of dumb.

This week’s goal:

Tuesday: trying out The Run. I’m going to count this as my intervals for the week.

Wednesday: Well + Good yoga event in am

Thursday: tempo

Friday: short recovery run

I am taking a class at NYU this weekend, both days from 10-4, and Saturday is also Derby. I’m trying to decide if it makes sense to do my 12-miler before the class on Saturday or Sunday…what would you do?

And how was your week of workouts? What are you training for?