Ultimate Coffee Date - May

Linking up with Coco, Deborah, and Lynda to share what I would tell you if we were having coffee [or insert beverage of choice] together.

Since it's Saturday morning, my beverage of choice is orange juice! (I actually drink OJ at any time of day or night - not just on Saturday mornings. But we'll roll with it. =D)

If we were catching up over orange juice, I would tell you:

I'm volunteering at a fundraising gala this Thursday called Taste for Life.
The gala is hosted by a local women's shelter called Apna Ghar. My company has partnered with Apna Ghar on a number of functions, and this event sounded like a really fun way to get involved.

Chefs from all over Chicago will provide food tastings featuring the color purple (which is the color of Domestic Violence Awareness Month). Guests get to vote for their favorite dish, for which the winning chef will receive recognition. Additionally, there will be raffle prizes, live entertainment, and music.

My volunteer duty for the evening will be to sell raffle tickets. I have to admit that I am a little nervous! I've never been good at selling things. (For the record, I don't enjoy when people try to sell things to me, either). When I was a child, I had trouble selling Girl Scout cookies, doing bake sales, etc. I am hoping that since this is a fundraising event, the attendees will be more open to buying.

Beyond the nerves, I am really excited to get dressed up and experience this event!

NFL Draft Town in Chicago is quite a spectacle.
I went to the festival on Thursday night with Rose, and will be going again today with Adam. The festivities are a lot of fun! The city has really outdone itself.

I took a TON of pictures. Here are a few highlights:

Top Left: Hanging out with a Lombardi Trophy. No big deal.
Top Right: The Chicago skyline lit up for the NFL Draft.
Bottom Left: Rose and me
Middle: Selection Stage
Middle Right: Me with Bears kicker Robbie Gould
Bottom Right: Me getting an autograph from Steelers legend and Hall of Famer, Mel Blount

I tried some new speedwork and it is no joke.
For a long time, my go-to speedwork interval sessions included a 1:1 ratio of tempo to recovery. Xaarlin advised that I might get more bang for the buck with longer intervals. She suggested speedwork intervals of 3:30 tempo, 1:30 recovery.

I've tried the longer intervals twice now. Wow, it is a tough workout! That 3:30 can really seem like eternity, especially after about the 90-second mark. Comparatively, the 1:30 recovery feels like it ends in a flash. So far, I've only done four repeats during each session, which feels like plenty. It'll take me awhile to work up to five or more.

As grueling as these interval workouts are, I feel fantastic afterwards! We'll see if I can keep up the momentum. I want to run a sub 2:10 half marathon this year and I am hoping these efforts will pay off.

I'm trying a heart rate monitor.
At Maggie's clothing swap last weekend, Bethany brought a couple of extra heart rate monitors that she had received for promotional purposes. I was happy to snag a new one. (The heart rate monitor that came with my first Garmin has long since died.)

I tried out the new monitor this week. The instructions said to wet the sensors a bit before putting against your skin. As a result, I kept visualizing electric currents running through my chest. This is not a pleasant image. It doesn't help that the monitor has blinking lights on it, too.

I was self-conscious that those blinking lights might show through my shirt, leading other people to think I was some kind of maniacal robot. I tried to overlap the monitor with my sports bra.

Electricity-prompted paranoia aside, I was fascinated by the data analytics that the monitor produced. It'll be interesting to see if and how the numbers change over time.

Adam and I are celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary at the end of the month.
Time really flies! We haven't figured out what we're going to do to celebrate. Maybe just a weekend trip up to southwest Michigan? We'll probably have to keep it low key because there's actually a lot of travel in the calendar this month. And...

Timing is everything.
Adam's family is hosting a reunion later this month in Pittsburgh. From what I understand, this is the first reunion they've had in at least a decade. It sounds like it's going to be an incredible shindig! But, as timing would have it, the festivities begin less than 48 hours after I get back from Korea. What are the odds?

Speaking of which...

I need to start figuring things out for the Korea trip.
Helen and I have had a few conversations over IM about high-level plans. Beyond that, I haven't thought at all yet about what to bring or what to see and do, etc., etc. Time to get my butt into gear. I am really excited to go!

What would you tell me over coffee and orange juice?