Meow Meow HISS

Good evening!  Is anyone else happy that tomorrow is Friday?  I can't wait - it's been a busy week and I desperately need some R&R.

I will get to the title of this post in a minute, but first things things first - RUNNING!  I had 2-3 miles on the schedule today and thought I would aim for 2.5.  My legs, however, were NOT having it.  I should have stopped at 2 miles, but I kept going, trying to get to 2.5 (why do I do stuff like that?!).  I made it to 2.30 miles before I realized that my legs were telling me they were DONE and needed to walk and to later stretch.

2.30 miles in 24:02, averaging a 10:27 pace.  These hills were a bad idea.  Lesson learned.

Here's a question for all you runners out there - how many days a week do you normally run when you are training for a marathon or half marathon?  Right now I'm running five days a week (three short runs, one medium run and one long run) with a rest day and a cross training day.  I'm wondering if I should take out one of the short runs and add another day of cross training (yoga, pilates, walking, etc.)?  I came to the realization today that right now my legs need rest after the medium runs just like they do after the long runs.  Let me know!  Feel free to e-mail me training schedules that you've used as well (sarahelizabethweaver[at]gmail[dot]com).  I'm all about tweaking things as I go along.

Okay, second thing's second - APPLE CRISP.

We were having dessert with friends tonight and I pulled out one of my sister's recipes.  I actually posted it awhile ago, but I was on the phone with her mid-baking this afternoon and we made some last minute changes.  For starters, I nixed the OJ, then I added 1/4 cup brown sugar to the dry ingredients and topped the entire thing with oatmeal.

Oh.My.Yum.  Words really don't describe it.  I'll re-post the recipe at some point with my updates, they are absolutely crucial to the perfection of this dessert.  But if you can't wait until then, use my original recipe and make those changes.

Okay, onto cats.

Okay, I don't actually want to talk about cats.  I want to talk about catty women.  But it's been awhile since I posted a picture of Lilly and I wouldn't want you all to think that I've grown out of the phase in my life where I think people need to see a photo of my cat at least three times a week.

I came across this article the other day and I encourage every woman who reads my blog to read it and spend some time thinking about it.  It's called Why Are Women So Critical Of Each Other? and it talks about the danger of female misogynistic tendencies.

This post isn't a rebuttal or a reaction to one specific topic or event, it's just a collaboration of thoughts that have been collecting lately.  As I crawl into my mid-twenties (ugh) I'm starting to notice more and more that women are their own worst enemies.  There is a sense of catty competitiveness that I see between women that just doesn't seem healthy.  Rather than encouraging and lifting one another up, I feel like a lot of times we just judge and offer advice that belittles and puts the woman down.  A lot of the times we hide behind a mask of internet passive aggressive anonymity and say things that we probably wouldn't have said to the woman's face.

Sometimes it's not what we say, but it's the way we say it.  We speak through a lens of negativity.  We criticize rather than affirm.

I know I'm stepping out onto a limb by saying "we" and by making blanket statements about women in general.  But I think there is some genuine truth to what Rosjke Hasseldine is saying in her article.  I've seen it in my own life.  Hell, I'm guilty of it in my own life.

And I just think we could do better.  I want to do better.

"For women to flourish, we need to band together. We need to re-create the sense of female connection we once had during biblical days around the village well and in the Red Tent where women gathered, shared stories, supported each other, and passed on their female wisdom."  (Read the entire article here)

We've got bigger battles to fight.