Citrus and Running

You may be confused about the title of this post but those were the two highlights of my day! We've been enjoying a lot of great grapefruit juice lately. My parents have two grapefruit trees in their backyard that my grandfather gave us. About 15 years ago, my grandfather took the seeds from his morning grapefruit, grafted them (whatever that means), grew them until they were about 2 feet tall, and then drove them down from Iowa to Texas so that we could grow them in our backyard. They're beautiful trees and we never expected them to grow fruit. A few years ago my parents walked outside in their backyard and grapefruit were growing! I'm was really shocked and impressed! Who would have thought that seeds from a store bought grapefruit would turn into beautiful fruit producing trees?? The first year they got about 25 lbs per tree and since then they've gotten about 125 lbs per tree each year. That means 250 lbs of grapefruit per year! Fun fact of the day: did you know that grapefruit grow in bunches like grapes? That's why they're called "grape" fruit. I'm sure you're not surprised that everytime we visit my parents we get at least 8 grapefruit haha. We've been loving it and I've been using the juicer that we got for our wedding nonstop (thanks Jordan and Amber!) Just check out how much juice we get from one grapefruit:

And the juice is so delicious!

We were also lucky enough to get to visit some friends of ours before Christmas who have a lemon tree. They gave us a ton of lemons and they were huge: the size of oranges! I was so excited because we knew that we wanted to try making lemonade. We both like trying new foods. It came out delicious!

Juicing is so easy to do and I feel better drinking it since so it's so much healthier than buying store bought juice. It's so hard finding store bought juice that isn't made with hfcs or added sugar. I can't wait for our own house so we can plant fruit trees and a little garden in the backyard!

On to the running part of the post! If you read our blog on our wedding website you know that I really got into running the past three years and ran my first half marathon last year. Well I'm planning on running another one this year in March! I have to be honest with you. Running this year has been tough for me. I always have to take a break from running over the summer because it's just too hot living in Texas. Once the fall starts I usually get right in the swing of things and start running as much as possible. Well this year I haven't really been able to run much at all. Most of fall I felt pretty awful because the weather kept swinging back and forth and constantly messed with my sinuses. I was so frustrated because I really wanted to run but never felt great when I tried to run. I just couldn't get into a groove and couldn't run very far before having to walk. It made me so nervous because I started doubting whether or not I could even do this half marathon. Last weekend I was super determined to go out and have a great run and then that morning I took a fall down the stairs, hurt my foot, and spent most of the day on the couch icing my foot. I was convinced that the universe was working against me and was determined to keep me from running! (I'm fine by the way! I was able to walk again by that evening and took it slow the rest of the week.) Well today had one of those runs where I just felt great! I really enjoyed running and wanted to just keep going and going. It just made me realize that running is tough! Sometimes we have good runs and sometimes running sucks and that's ok! I should just be proud of getting off my butt and working out. My favorite motivational quote is:

And it's true! Did you know that you burn more calories when you walk/run instead of running nonstop? When you run you're body gets very efficient at running and you burn less calories than doing intervals of running and walking. So there's no need to feel embarrassed when runners pass you while you're walking!

Here's some more of my favorite running quotes:

I tell myself this after the crappy runs!

Hahahaha makes me laugh!

So if any of you think that running just doesn't work for you and you've never been able to enjoy running like other people do, please stay with it! When I first started running, it took me about 3 months before I started really loving it. Now again after months of struggling with running, I'm starting to love each run more and more! It takes a lot of determination and stubbornness sometimes but it'll pay off in the end.

Do you have any great running quotes that keep you motivated?? I'm always looking for more ways to stay motivated!

-Chelsey