My coworker and I have a bet. Whoever breaks and eats Halloween candy first owes the other person coffee (we know, we know, one vice for another).

The whole thing started a few weeks ago when the candy bowl appeared in the hallway at work. Out of nowhere. Just BAM, sugar-filled temptation. We turned avoiding the bowl into a competition out of mutual understanding of how enticing the candy could be (and the desire to win. always.).

While we have joked around (someone put candy on my desk to get me to crack first), it’s been easy this year. When I’ve tried to avoid Halloween candy in the past, it’s been a constant struggle for me. This time around I don’t have any candy lurking around my house, and I know I can make it through the whole month – I did it last year. Every day I don’t eat a piece I get more power to say no and the candy seems less enticing.

I’ve spent the past two years or so consciously limiting my sugar intake. I read Year of No Sugar and watched Fed Up. I’m acutely aware of what sugar does to the body and how it messes with the brain. And most powerfully, I know how I feel after I overload on sugar.

I won’t give in this year. Not tonight. Not for the rest of 2014.

This is a candy free zone.

I spent the weekend doing my longest run since my last half marathon in Oct. 2013 and planning what I want to see and do in Vancouver. Only 19 days until the race! I’m already so excited I’m having trouble sleeping.

Today I watched the videos of the course and for the first time in nearly four months, I can see myself crossing the finish line. This is happening. I’m running this race and I’m going to finish. This has been quite the comeback.

Everyone seems to have an opinion about what it means to be a woman (or a man), and after reading Talayna Fortunato’s blog post about dealing with comments from her ex-boyfriend about not being feminine enough, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Growing up I went to a school where girls had to wear skirts and you were an outcast if you liked to play sports at recess. I walked around with a nearly constant skinned knee from playing basketball or soccer on cement in a skirt. I learned not to care what other people thought of me, and if they didn’t understand why I loved sports so much, then I didn’t want to be friends with them anyways.

Years later I feel like the world has similar pressures. I’m tired of all of the magazines in the grocery store telling me I need to lose weight or dress a certain way. I don’t think I can listen to another person say that women shouldn’t lift heavy weights because they will get bulky. It kills me to hear my friends complain that their arms or legs are too muscular or to see the posts on Pinterests on how to get a “thigh gap.”

In an interview with Vogue, Annie Thorisdottir said –

She wants to inspire women, especially young girls, to focus more on what their bodies can do than on how they look. “I’m not preaching that everyone should try to become a CrossFit champion,” she says. “But I want to show them that training can give them more confidence—and that being strong is beautiful.”

It’s time we all do the same.

I can be a badass and a woman without being “butch” or “unfeminine.” I wear dresses to work and tear my hands busting out muscle-ups at the gym after. I have callouses on top of callouses. My hands aren’t soft as silk, and the bruises on my legs mark my PRs, my mistakes, and the times I kept going even after I wanted to stop. I don’t own a single pair of heals, but I have shoes for every athletic occasion. I don’t wear makeup because I don’t see the point in sweating it off every day, and my hair is almost always in a ponytail so I’m ready to go for a run or head to the gym. That doesn’t make me less of a woman.

If styling your hair or dressing a certain way makes you feel good about yourself, do it! Who cares what other people think? It’s time to be ourselves and stand up for what it really means to be a man or a woman.

Injuries are every athlete’s worst nightmare. There is nothing like being told you can’t do something to make you miserable. I’ve been through all of the stages of grieving:

1. Denial: My feet are totally fine. Let’s increase my long run by a mile this week and then walk around for hours.
2. Anger: This includes general swearing and aggressively doing everything I’m not supposed to do because I’m mad I can’t do it. Screw it, I’m doing the box jumps. 
3. Bargaining: If I don’t jump at all at CrossFit, I can still run, right?
4. Depression: Lying on the floor instead of doing my rehab exercises… or anything else. I’m never going to run my half marathon fast enough if I never get to run. This is horrible.
5. Acceptance: My feet hurt and I have to wear ugly shoes. It won’t last forever… right?

I’ve been wearing my “moon shoes” (also known as my old, huge, white lunar glides from high school that seriously battle space boots for the largest, ugliest shoe title) almost exclusively. Every time the soles squeak against the hallway at work or someone gives me an odd look for dressing like Working Girl I am reminded of the stupid training mistakes I made to get myself here.

But my feet no longer keep me up at night or become my obsession while I’m driving. I took all of the last two weeks off from running and instead swam or did the elliptical. I finally went to my doctor and heard the words I was avoiding “no running,” at least until my feet are better. Hopefully after an appointment with a podiatrist this week I will have a solid rehab plan and a bit of a timeline as to when I get off the hamster wheel (and out of the pool) and start really running again.

Being injured is not my jam. There are days where I’m completely calm and rational about it and others where I feel like I am seriously loosing my mind and would do anything to get back to my regular training. For the days when I’m going crazy, I remind myself that every day I’m careful, every time I rest, the closer I am to being able to run again.

The stats:

Ran: 21.4 miles (most of them I probably shouldn’t have run… denial is a strong force)
Swam: 6-7 miles
CrossFit: 12 classes
Yoga: 4 fantastic power classes
+ an hour or more weekly of rehab exercises, foam rolling, and targeted stretching

What you can’t see:

Switching from running to swimming at the end of the month brought me back to my competitive swimming days, and it’s given me inspiration to consider doing a triathlon next year. It has also reminded me that there have been a lot of times in my life where an injury of some sort sets me back for a time, but I always come back and I always learn something while I’m away. So maybe I can’t run right now, but I can pay attention to my body and make it stronger and more prepared for when I do get to run again.

Between it’s antioxidant properties and promise to decrease inflammation, green tea has been my go to morning heart warmer lately. While it’s not my favorite tea (it’s a tough choice, but for mornings I love a sweet, spicy chai loaded with soy milk), I reach for green tea whenever I’m particularly sore or just plain dragging in the morning. I’m particularly sensitive to the bitterness that green tea can get, so I steep for no more than three minutes and add a dash of lemon or honey to my cup.

Now that my feet are on the fritz and I can’t run, I’m channeling my focus and pent up frustrations into nearly chugging green tea. Anything to heal faster, right?

More here

Giving up sugar got REAL yesterday. I need to have cards that say “I’m sorry for what I said to you when I was coming off sugar.” Yikes!

To keep reading, go here

To know how I’m doing in the moment, I have been sugar-crash venting on Twitter and Instagram.