K and I arrived home from visiting family in Iowa mid-afternoon yesterday, finishing the weekend by procuring + trimming the tree. There is a long list of Christmas tree lots in the city. We get our tree from the same place every year, Chicago Christmas Tree Lots at the Lakeview Jewel. The trees come from a farm in northern Wisconsin, and I love supporting a Midwest business since we don’t have the option to hand select a tree from a farm ourselves.

There is more decorating to come; it turns out my small container from our apartment last year isn’t enough to make the rooms in our house festive this year. Before I get distracted by sparkly things, let’s talk about running. The thing that most inspires me about reading fitness and running blogs are posts with workout recaps. Weekly recaps in particular are intriguing, to see how other people work fitness into their lives. It’s not always clear when there are struggles – a cold, an off week, busy collapse on the couch days. I think it’s important to share realistic details about fitness along with the triumphs.

This is the third week of the Holiday Running Challenge, and the miles are right on track so far. I intended to post an update every Monday, but this little thing called life + a hectic holiday week got in the way and an update didn’t happen. Updates every other week are more realistic.

Here are the first two challenge weeks:

Week 1 – Week of Nov. 16th:
Sunday – Ran 3 outside
Wednesday – Ran 3 treadmill
Friday – Ran 4 outside
= 10 miles

Week 2 – Week of Nov. 24th:
Sunday – Ran 5 outside
Wednesday – Ran 3 outside
Thursday- Ran 3.5 treadmill
Saturday- Ran 3.1 treadmill
= 14.6 miles

This week, I’m focusing on why to run as motivation. I came across a Huffington Post article a few months ago, titled 19 Reasons To Start Running and it’s still on my bookmark list. Most of these reasons are reasons to run for me as well, especially #’s 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10. However, my number one answer to the “why run” question is, why not?