fiveleveninety: October 2020

Saturday, October 31, 2020

October in Photos 📸

Made a jack-o-lantern at Brett's family bday party!
This design was called "Perturbed" 😂

Hello! It's been a few weeks since my last update, so I wanted to pop in and say hi and let you know that I'm still alive 😂 A lot has been going on at work, my personal life, and trying to keep up with the exhausting news cycle, so I haven't really felt up to updating here or vlogging. My brain just hasn't had the extra capacity to produce content regularly. But I've missed updating so I wanted to share what the rest of this month has been like through photos! (Brace for lots of Snowy content 🐕❆)

Race Review: 🎶 2020 Virtual Smuttynose Rockfest Half Marathon 🍺

Disclaimer: I received an entry to the Smuttynose Rockfest Half Marathon to review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

This weekend I had the opportunity to run the Virtual Smuttynose Rockfest Half Marathon! It had been a loooong time since the last time I ran 13.1 miles (since MARCH!) so I went into this race with the plan to take it nice and slooooooow and to enjoy each mile as much as possible. I was bummed that I couldn't be running on the coast of New Hampshire for this run, but I wanted to make the most of it! I had a great time enjoying the crisp fall air, and even vlogged my experience on my Instragram story which you can find in my BibRave Pro highlight on my profile!

I tried to keep my run right around an 11 minute pace, and it looks like I was right on the money! I'm really happy with how the run went. I will say that my legs started to feel the impact of the run around miles 9 and 10, but for the most part I was feeling really great for not having captured this distance in MONTHS! I was so happy to finally finish up my run and have it go as smoothly as it did. Because my race goody bag hasn't come in the mail yet, I decided to pose with a pumpkin as my finish line ~bling~ because my race outfit made me look eerily similar to a pumpkin. 🎃😂 I am excited to get my race swag in the mail to officially celebrate. Check out some photos of what I'll be getting below!

Race bib & sticker!

Quarter-zip sweatshirt!

Race medal!

I'll definitely be posting my swag over on Instagram once it arrives, so stay tuned for that!

After arriving home, I indulged in some puppy kisses, a nice hot shower, and a breakfast sandwich before logging on to the virtual finish line celebration on Facebook Live. Fellow BibRave Pro Ryan from IRunonBeer hosted the event which was so cool! One of the big draws of the live Rockfest event in Hampton, NH is the finish line party where you get to indulge in craft beer, lobster rolls, and live music. During the Facebook Live event, there was live musical performances, recipes to DIY your own lobster rolls at home, and Ryan even taught us how to create an at-home beer tasting! There was also plenty of opportunities to enter into giveaways for future race entries into some of Loco Running's upcoming events.

It was so much fun to chat along with my fellow Rockfest runners and enjoy some comradery even though we were all just hanging out in our own homes. One of the hard things about virtual racing is that it's tough to create that finish line feeling of joy and accomplishment when you're running by yourself in your own neighborhood. I think Loco Running did a fantastic job of recreating the finish line festival, and it felt great to have a commemorative moment after achieving another 13.1!

The rest of the day was spent lounging with Snowy and watching football. I also picked out a Smuttynose beer to enjoy as I lazed around for the rest of the afternoon - the Smuttynose Mysterious Haze Double Dry-Hopped New England IPA! I actually really enjoyed this beer and it's exactly what I look for in an IPA: juicy-yet-hoppy with a citrusy taste. 10/10 would recommend.

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience with the Smuttynose Rockfest Virtual Half Marathon. Race directors are having to make some seriously difficult decisions this year in order to make their races as safe as possible, but I know that they're trying their hardest to recreate the racing experience to the best of their ability. I really feel like Loco Running did a great job with Rockfest, and I would absolutely love to run the in-person event in future years. I definitely recommend that you do the same, and hopefully we can run together in person in the future! 🧡🍻

Saturday, October 3, 2020

Friday (Saturday) Reflections // Reading Like Rory Gilmore ☕ + Happy Spooky Szn! 🎃

It's Spooky Season, y'all! 🎃 I think October tends to be one of the most universally liked months of the year. It's the first true ~festive~ month of the holiday season and the changing of the season always brings a feeling of a new beginning, and who doesn't love that? The leaves are gradually changing colors and falling to the ground, and my neighborhood is looking more and more quintessentially New England every day. I think Snowy's enjoying the cooler weather as well because it's becoming increasingly difficult to coax her inside after her walks.

This month I'm participating in the Pageathon! This is a readathon where the goal (like the name suggests) is to read as many pages as you can throughout the month. To make it a bit more interesting for myself, I decided to give myself a theme to follow each week of the readathon. I'm not going to give any theme spoilers, but I will tell you that this week I'm reading like Rory Gilmore! ☕ That means that I'm only reading books that you can find on the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge list. I've been wanting to do this for so long, but I wanted to wait until autumn because I feel like autumn is the most Gilmore Girls season of them all!

I have a decent amount of books from the list on my TBR, so I chose four that I was most interested in to pick from this week. I don't anticipate that I'll be able to read all of these titles, but it will be great to have a good stack to pick from throughout the week before the next theme kicks in! Here are the books I'll be choosing from this week while sipping my coffee like a true Gilmore:

🧟 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (because duh - spooky szn!)

💡 Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

🎭 The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

💔 High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (on Kindle, so not pictured)

This weekend I'll be running the Virtual Smuttynose Rockfest Half Marathon, which will be interesting because I have not run anywhere close to that distance since March 😂 I'll definitely be taking it nice and easy, and try to enjoy my 13.1 mile journey. I'll be doing a virtual race review next week so you can get my thoughts on how the run went, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed that my legs don't fall off! 😬

Thursday, October 1, 2020

📥 TBR In & Out 📤 // September 2020

While September wasn't my best reading month, I was still able to knock 16 books off of my TBR! For the first time in a loooooooooong time, I decided to unhaul a pile of TBR books that I realized I really wasn't interested in reading anymore. I VERY rarely do this because for whatever reason, I have it in my head that I am obligated to read a book if I invest money into it. However, that is a lame-ass way of thinking so I went though my TBR pile and unhauled a decent stack to make room for more books that I'm more excited about! Here's what my TBR in and out for the month of September looked like:

TBR # ON SEPTEMBER 1, 2020:

153

BOOKS ACQUIRED:

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

A Rogue of One's Own by Evie Dunmore

The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza by Shaun David Hutchinson

Séance Tea Party by Reimena Yee

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Well Played by Jen DeLuca