Month End has been kind to me

After a weekend without a voice I got it mostly back for my last day off. Monday was my usual combo of Woodland Hills Physical Therapy and Bar Method. It was the last day of my unlimited month and Alison tortured my body so good! I was actually sore on Tuesday which doesn't happen very often. I also bought 5 more classes when I was there since they were having a Black Friday special for $50! I really prefer Bar Method to all the various barre type classes I've taken.

Tuesday I did a 5 mile tempo run with my training group at Fleet Feet Encino. Well, it really was 5 but Garmin took a while to locate satellites. I took my warm up mile super slow, was aiming for 11:00 min/mile and ended up with 10:50 so mission accomplished there. Then I sped up shooting for 10:00 min/mile since my "race pace" is estimated at 10:43. I'd say I did pretty well, then I caught up with a couple girls who were doing 9:30 so my 3rd tempo mile was at that pace but it felt great! In fact, when I "slowed down" for my final cool down mile I still did that in under 10:00. I really gotta focus on starting slow because it helps so much! After the run we did our usual ab work with a little thigh strengthening thrown in. My favorite social media expert Ashley took this pic of my neighbor Andreia and I looking like twins after our run:

Wednesday was an amazing day. It started when I got home from work and found TWO emails from Crowdrise indicating that I had received donations. I was thrilled! Then I left for the fun run at Fleet Feet and boy was it windy! I've never run in that kind of wind before and the group was pretty small and full of fast people so I was pretty nervous. Luckily Jason, one of the amazing coaches on our team, was sweet enough to slow down and run with me. I pushed pretty hard since I knew he was doing me a favor and even though it was pretty miserable, I had a great pace overall! By the time we got back stop lights and street lights had lost power, it was pretty crazy! Asics sponsored the run and provided new Gu flavors and some other bars that were really yummy.

When I got back from the run I found TWO MORE emails from Crowdrise and then ANOTHER one!! Yes, that means I raised $190 in one day! I'm now at $1,355 and my original goal was just to reach $500 by today. I am just floored at everyone's generosity and so happy that I'm able to help an amazing charity like the Center for Assault Treatment Services. Training and fundraising has been a huge blessing in my life! It feels great to know that my friends and family are showing their support in such a positive way. It also makes me feel really good that people want to order macarons from me! I got my 6th order today! So if you'd like to help me reach my ultimate goal of $2,000 please visit http://www.crowdrise.com/crystalarrieta and if you are interested in ordering macarons (LA area for now, but I'm working on shipping options) here is the info: