So this happened Friday

Waiting at my favorite salon for my stylist to come get me

In the chair, playing with my hair

hahahahaha ....

..... hahahahahahaha

what's gonna happen???

whatever it is, I'm ready.

oohhhh SNIP, my stylist is doing something behind my back.
literally.

There goes my hair!

4 swatches for locks of love. apparently, the average person only has 2.

Finished product!

Yay for donating hair!

Awesome things that happened last week

1. It snowed a lot and so I had 2 snow days. Awesome.

2. I had to leave the cold & snow to travel to Phoenix, AZ for work. Awesome.

3. I got to run outside, in the winter, in shorts and a t-shirt. Awesome.
 
4. I got to have fun and drinks with co-workers and laugh and be myself with them. Awesome.
 
5. I got $5 from my hotel for declining room service. This led to free drinks. Awesome. 
 
6. Dinner one night came with complemintary cotton candy. Awesome.

7. I didn't wear a coat for 2 whole days. In February. Awesome.

8. I got to meet up with a fellow Dublin Marathoner (Awesome)

& try some honey flavored whiskey. Awesome. (also, Wild Turkey American Honey is really smooth)

9. I got home in time to see an old friend who now lives in Philly and loves it there so she usually is only in Kansas City during holidays when I'm in Iowa. This also meant I got to see the rest of her family, which includes my bestie who is so busy at work I don't even see her even though we live in the same city. Awesome.

The Psycopath of least resistance is uphill on the way back

That's the theme for the Kansas City Trail Nerd's Psychopathic 5K. They love hosting the "toughest 5k in the Midwest" so much there is an ice version and a summer version.

Being me and seeing this was a $20 5K, I immediately claimed it as my January Wonder Woman run. Who cares how hard it is?

All I knew was that running trails was fun, crossfit was making my legs super strong (even if my lungs were taking a bit of a break) and I had gotten my old trails running buddy to join me. It was going to be a good day.

The morning turned out even better than anticipated, with lows in the 40s. In January! Yessss, particularly since the following morning's low was supposed to be in the single digits. Sometimes, I feel like the luckiest runner in the world.

As I got myself ready for the run, aka, pulling my star spangled shorts over my capris and situating my gold and red headband just right, I got the usual surprised glances thrown my way. In all honesty, I always get a little self conscious (<--- did I spell that right? It's not looking correct this morning but spell check on this thing sucks) until I get the first "your outfit is awesome".

The race started, and it was immediately uphill. Sweet.
I'll spare you most of the boring details, but the race definitely was hard. But guess what? It was also tons of fun! The nice thing about trail races, especially hard ones, is that lots of people walk. So, you just do your best, take walk breaks on those awful uphills and gleefully bounce your way around on the downhills. My running buddy and I had so much fun on this race that we decided to have a standing "run date" once a month to run these trails.

So lesson of the day: hard can be fun! Wa-hoo!

At the end of the race, I was tasked with a pose to do as I crossed the finish line. I did the pose but there was no photographer capturing us as we crossed, so I went back later and posed again in front of it. I did a nice job embarassing myself and then later that day, realized I did the wrong pose. That's embarrassing in an entirely different way.

So, I owe my brother an extra race so I can do the pose he actually requested. Good thing there is a 5k on my birthday I can do :). 

And, in case you are wondering, I'm totally doing the summer version of this race. It was that awesome, even if I did finish in a snail's time of 39:something.