Gretch Runs

Hi everyone!  It's been quite a while (almost a month) since I've done a Top Five Friday post, so I'm happy to be sharing some favorites with you all today!  This weekend I'll be spending time with my family for the holidays.  I hope you all have safe travels if you're going somewhere, or just enjoy some time with loved ones.  And if you don't celebrate the holidays- I hope you have a great weekend and get some time to relax!! linking up with  Erika ,  Heather , and  Friday   Five   Song Leslie Odom Jr. - Simply Christmas If you're looking for a great Christmas album to really get you into the spirit, look no further.  Leslie Odom Jr. has SUCH an amazing voice (if you listened to the Hamilton soundtrack you would know him as Aaron Burr, sir) and the spin he puts on classics is just perfection.  I think he sounds a lot like Sam Smith, who is one of my favorite singers, with a mix of John Legend.  I absolutely love him and can't stop p

Good morning everyone!  Today's post is a large one so I'll keep my intro short and sweet.  This is my second post all about Hawaii (check out my first one where I talked about the hikes that I went on here !), and I'm packing in all of the favorite things that I did, from restaurants to landmarks to beaches.  I even include a few things that I didn't like!  I hope you enjoy! Restaurants Roy's Waikiki (seafood) - one of the more expensive restaurants on the island, but really excellent food.  Use the Yelp app to unlock a free chocolate dessert.  I got the fish trio, and one of the best things that I ate this entire trip was the butter fish (lower right in the picture, soooo amazing) Sansei (sushi)- our hands-down favorite restaurant on the trip! Everything we got was so amazing, especially the rainbow roll (below).  We ended up tipping the sushi maker, who brought us over a piece of fish with fresh wasabi on top.  Amazing experience! Beet Box (vegan)

This was such a great week and one that I really needed!  Since I took some time off during my trip to Hawaii, I was nervous about this upcoming week.  I had a long run on the schedule (16) and some higher mileage during the week.  I knew this could be the turning point in my training (even though it's still really early and I have a long way to go), so I put a lot of pressure on myself to get back on track.  Keep reading to see how I ended up doing! linking up with  Steff ,  Holly  and  Tricia ! Monday Rest Day! (aka recovery from a long day of traveling and being back at work) Tuesday 5 miles / 8:58 pace I had a dentist appointment, so I was working from home and able to get this run done at lunch time.  There was some snow and it was pretty chilly outside, but I loved it!  Nothing is better to me than running in a snowy winter wonderland.  I had my watch away during this run and just ran by feel and kept it easy.  I guess the colder weather agrees wi

Aloha everyone!  I'm so excited to start sharing my trip to Hawaii with all of you.  It was one of those trips that I know that I'll remember for years because it was just so incredible.  One big reason for that, and something that I was really looking forward to, was all of the amazing hiking!  I've always seen pictures of hikes that people do while in O'ahu, and I knew I wanted to do as many as possible. When I started to plan out my days, I made a Google Doc and would write down every hike that someone mentioned or that I saw online.  Then, I looked each one up on All Trails (one of my favorite apps) to see how challenging it was, how long it was, and the distance from my hotel.  Since I was working during the trip, I knew that during the week I could only do shorter hikes that were close to the hotel, then on weekends I could do longer, more challenging ones.  Taking my list, I prioritized each one and just went down the list until I finished.  In the end, I did a

Aloha everyone!  In case you don't follow me on Instagram, I was just in Hawaii for the past two weeks! It was such an amazing trip and I can't wait to talk more about it, but today I'm going to be sharing my workouts while I was there.  I definitely didn't follow my training plan and missed lots of miles, but I don't mind having an off week (or two) this early on.  I'm sure I'll make it up! Here's a look at how my last two weeks of training went (along with some Hawaiian music I loved while I was there!) Monday Rest Day! Since Dan was there for work, this was really our only free day to spend together.  We decided to go up to the North Shore and visit all of the beaches possible!  Got in lots of walking but no runs. Tuesday 5 miles I went on a run around Diamond Head around lunchtime, which was really hard!  It was pretty warm out and it's a decent climb to the entrance and back down to Waikiki (the actual monument is