Hello from happiness, also known as laying on my couch after a long run.
After my Brooklyn DNF last year, I’m terrified of a repeat, so I’ve been taking my training seriously.
After running so many halfs and races in the past, it feels awfully humbling in some ways to have to start over and build back up to getting into half marathon shape — I used to always want to be in good enough shape that I could run a half on a whim.
But life and sinuses intervened last year, and here we are, rebuilding.
I’m attempting to not stress out over the pace, and that’s keeping me sane. I don’t need to put the pressure on myself right now to attempt to PR, or even do anything other than just finish,
And it’s actually been kind of fun to experience the thrill every week of running more than I did the week before.
Plus, also, my city is kind of gorgeous in the springtime, and I ran my favorite route, around the tip of Manhattan.
My friend Meg gives me a hard time that I call basically everywhere my “favorite running spot in the city,” but with views like these (that’s Lady Liberty in the distance), how can you blame me?
Oh hey Manhattan Bridge, looking good today.
And then I saw this on Grace’s blog, and now I need it.
Time to get a jump on work for this week… (but also do some of our Daily Burn yoga because we have a “new” instructor on 365 today.)
If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be to take care of my skin. Growing up and in my 20s, I always had clear, glowing complexion. You don’t think about aging in your 20s, and I definitely didn’t take good care of my skin.
In my 30s, I’ve tried to make up for that lost time by trying a melange of product. Basically, if someone said something “worked” on them, I was ready to try it, without giving much thought to what might be in it, so long as it would make me look good. (Hey, I’ve never been anything but honest.)
But then my mom got diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November 2015, and of course I started freaking out about carcinogens and what I was putting in my body. I’d heard of BeautyCounter a bit through the internets, but it wasn’t until I went to an Uplift event that I really understood why what they do is so important. Besides, after adopting healthy eating and exercise habits, this was the logical next step.
Did you know that there are 1400 banned cosmetic ingredients in the EU, and only 11 in the U.S.? That’s messed up, y’all. Here’s some of the top dangerous ingredients banned in the EU but not here. A great way to check if your cosmetics use safe ingredients or not is this tool from the EWG.
I don’t want to get into politics on here, but it’s pretty scary to me how under-regulated our beauty industry is and the dangerous ingredients we’re putting on our skin just in the name of looks.
I’ll admit, I was pretty naive and had no idea about any of this, but I think what we put on our skin is as important as what we put in our mouths (insert awkward joke here), so I decided to become a Beautycounter consultant so I could share this with all of you.
My Personal Faves
Here’s what I love and personally use every single day. I’m still in the process of transitioning some of my color cosmetics over, but my skincare is all Beautycounter now:
Nourishing Cream Cleanser: Legit, this is the best face wash I’ve ever used. It is so gentle, and my face feels soft and clean after I use it. I used to exfoliate the crap out of my face, using a scrub every day, but now I’m much much more gentle on my skin.
Nourishing Night Cream: I’m 34. Must. Use. Night. Cream. This one is rich and nourishing (hence the name!), but not so heavy that I feel all oily getting into bed.
Touchup Skin Concealer Pen: I have awesome dark circles to begin with and insist on wearing purple eyeliner and rubbing my eyes, so a good concealer is super important to me, and this one is light and effective, and also, the pen format is fun to click because I am 34 going on 4.
What questions do you have for me? How have you made health changes beyond just what you eat and how you work out?
