Ridiculously photogenic girl

Last night was my very last mid-week longish run before the Hoosier Half Marathon, and I went out with a bang! I ran 5 miles on the treadmill and about 2 of those miles were nothing but fartleks. Fartleks are a necessary evil—they're terrible at the time, but they really do pay off on race day.

Contrary to what this image looks like, I don't run in the dark.
That room just has horrible lighting.

One of my non-runner friends recently asked me to explain a fartlek and the simplest answer I could think of was, "It's running really fast and then stopping and then running really fast again and repeating that cycle until you feel like you want to throw up or until you actually throw up."

But if you listen to "Thrift Shop" enough times while you're doing it, the time passes quickly. 

The problem with fartleks (besides the fact that sprinting totally blows), is that they can take you from cute runnergirl with a bouncy pony tail to a hot mess with B.O. in a matter of only a few minutes.

The saying, "If you still look cute after a work out, you didn't work hard enough" is a total lie. Whoever made up that quote is just trying to make the gross, sweaty people feel better about themselves.

In fact, it was probably written by a gross, sweaty person.

I can't for the life of me figure out how the girls I see bopping along the trail on Saturday mornings always look so cute and put together while they're working out. Even on my best day, I look like a goldfish that jumped out of its bowl and is fighting desperately for its last breath. The girls I see are wearing colorful, matching running outfits and here I am, wearing Clayton's baseball sweatshirt from high school that's about 4 sizes too big and full of holes.

But I digress.

After I finished my cool-down, I jumped off the treadmill and used a towel to blot the pools of sweat that were starting to trickle into my eyes. With as much as I was sweating, you'd never believe it was only 20-some degrees outside. I had deodorant smeared down the insides of my arms. My tank top was clinging to my body like a wetsuit. One of my thighs was rubbed raw from my shorts.

I walked immediately to the bathroom to access the situation and was taken back by how red my face was. And at some point during my run, I must have gotten frustrated with my pony tail and yanked it to the top of my head because I was now sporting an odd Pebbles Flintstone look. My artfully applied eyeshadow from this afternoon was nowhere to be found.

So of course I snapped a picture to show the internet!

Rest assured I will never be mistaken for ridiculously photogenic marathon guy.

And there you have it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! We got a little bit of snow this week, but it's supposed to be something ri-donk-ulous like 50 degrees on Saturday. So fingers crossed that I have pleasant weather for my 12-miler! It's my last long run before it's time to taper and most importantly, it's my last long run before I'm heading down to F-L-O-R-I-D-A! 

And before I sign off for the weekend, if you want to have a smile instantly spread across your face, check out these two animal-filled articles from Buzzfeed: 

The 30 Happiest Facts of All Time

28 Animals Who Don't Give a S**t About Their Disabilities