It's hard to believe that we're at the end of the year already. It seems like just yesterday I was at Manager's New Year's Eve party wondering who would attend with me after Vegas moved. This past year has been full of so many changes, yet so many other things have stayed the same. In staying with the general theme (give me credit, I like to believe that this site has a direction. lol) here are the major items that happened to me in my running, riding, reading, and repeating!

Running
This year started slowly in terms of running. I did the bare minimum in mileage and ran races that I was a bit underprepared for. But I quickly turned it around and joined the Disney Springs Fit2Run Galloway Training Group which helped me jump start my running program into something more productive than it had been. While I'm only a casual member the group at the moment, because of the early darkness, I am looking forward to continuing my running journey with them. I was able to PR my 10k and place in my age group for a 5k because of them.

On the topic of my 10k PR at the Celebration Pancake Run 10k, it was a bit disappointing but it is a huge milestone for me. If you check out my races tab you'll see that my PRs haven't really changed in a few years. This is entirely my fault because I am the least consistent runner I know. I had hoped to PR in the 5k at the Jingle Jolly Jog, but my mental game wasn't there. I am so proud of my first age group award. I have lusted after them for, what feels like, ages so it is extremely exciting to finally have one on my wall! Ok, it's actually in a shoebox under my guest bed because I have yet to find a medal holder that I love, but that isn't the point!

Riding
Easily, the biggest thing that happened to my riding career, this year, was purchasing Cupid. I spent weeks last year debating about purchasing her, and I officially made the plunge on January 11th. I never imagined that my horse would be a little Welsh pony cross, who was green broke with a major attitude. But here I am, with my little Welshie who still has a major attitude, and is slightly better than green broke. Honestly, I wouldn't trade in our partnership for anything. Owning a green pony has taught me so much about riding, patience, and myself. For every step forward there are two steps back, but once we make a leap forward the landing is extremely rewarding.

In addition to purchasing Cue, I also uprooted her and moved to a new barn. Shortly after purchasing Cupid I realized that our current situation was not working out. The care wasn't what I wanted for my horse, I felt cheated out of my lesson package, and I was extremely nervous having my partner in a barn with minimal supervision. It took me until May to find a stable that met my standards. The major sign that this was the place for us was when we ran into our new trainer at a show before I had even told our old trainer we were leaving. The new trainer made several observations about Cupid and I, then commented that she would love to take us back to the basics because "she's a baby and there's no need to rush her". Hearing this proved to me that she would have Cupid's best interests at heart which is all I wanted in a boarding situation.

Moving Cupid was the best choice I could make for her. She's happy at our current barn, has put on much-needed weight, and is slowly becoming a solid partner for me. We still have a long way to go, and I miss jumping, but watching her move properly and understand what I'm asking has been worth everything we have been through.

Reading
According to GoodReads, I've read 112 books this year. My goal for the year was 100 so I am officially putting this in the win category for the year! A few of those books were the Saddle Club series because I started walking down memory lane and couldn't put the books down. What was really nice was that I'm able to get them from the Orange County Library Media Mall which means no awkwardly walking into the children section of the library or putting them on hold.

Two other series that I have really gotten into this year are the Finishing School series by Gail Carriger and the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the Finishing School series this weekend, so expect that review to come up in the near future!

Repeat
If you've been around for awhile you'll notice that I fashioned this blog after my running, riding, and reading life. So you might be questioning what this whole "repeat" business is. I decided the other day that I needed a header for my twitter account and my facebook page. The plan was to do a running, riding, and reading silhouette on a glitter background. While putting this together it dawned on me to do a repeat sign so the entire blog title was represented. I looked up repeat signs to get an idea and had an "I'm an idiot" moment. In music, there is a sign that informs the musician to repeat a section, this is called a repeat. Because music is such a big part of my life and I've openly discussed it on here it only made sense to take the Repeat part of my title and have it represent the music portion of my life.

I now present to you the newest "official" section of the blog. My Repeat section, or music discussion.

With that little intro out of the way, it's time to discuss my year in music!
In January I located a local orchestra that seemed like it would be at my skill level and was actively recruiting members, the Central Florida Community Orchestra. I signed up and attended my first rehearsal. It was terrifying and I almost walked away before entering the building, but I participated in that first rehearsal and loved it! The CFCArts #FluteNation welcomed me and has pushed me to want to become a better musician.

This year I participated in four different concerts with CFCArts; Jazz, Joel and John in March, American Roadtrip in June, Fiesta in November, and Once Upon a December in December. Once Upon a December was the first time, since college, where I've accompanied a choir. This pushed me to not only be aware of the rest of the orchestra but to also work on matching the choir without becoming the main focus.

Without the Orchestra, I don't think I would have found a group that feels like home or had the drive to pick up the saxophone again!

Overall, this is a quick review of my 2017. It was fun, it was great, but I can't wait to see what 2018 has in store for me!

On a whim I signed up for the Jingle Jolly Jog 5k run by the West Orange Junior Service League. Some people I work with had been discussing doing this race after they run the OUC Half Marathon and after some (ok, virtually none) debate I decided to join them. While registering I looked back and realized that my last race 5k had been in December of 2015, back when I lived in Illinois, so a Santa themed run seemed like a great reintroduction to the distance!

Packet pickup ran almost all week, but I waited until the Friday before to go and claim mine. I had some concern about shirt availability because I waited until super late to register and was hoping for an extra small, which isn't a commonly ordered size. Much to my surprise there were still plenty of shirts available! Now I know I normally don't obsess over the race shirts but give me a quick second to go off my normal track. The shirts for the Jingle Jolly Jog are amazing.. They're a nice soft, Christmas green with a tear away tag which is a huge plus in my book. I prefer clothes to either have a printed on tag or a tear-away tag because I'm always self conscious that the tags are sticking up. When I say these shirts are soft I don't mean a cheap soft but more of a ready to wear, old tshirt that's been well loved, type of soft. My plan was to race in the shirt so I'm somewhat themed but this idea was quickly scrapped because I'd rather not put pin holes in something I fully plan on wearing.

In addition to the tshirt one of the sponsors also provided a drawstring bag that was filled with various goodies! Though I won't use the drawstring bag, other than maybe at the barn, this was a nice gesture that made me smile.

The bag included a few pens, a purse size bottle of hand sanitizer, a magnetic clip, and a pocket first aid kit that may or may not end up in my tack locker.

It also included pamphlets from the sponsors with coupons, and a few brochures from the charities that will be receiving the race proceeds. This was nice because I liked being able to see who is getting the money and what they do for the community.

My favorite item in the bag though was a little postcard from the West Orange Junior Service League. This postcard was a simple thank you note for supporting them and on the back it listed all the charities that will receive funding from the race. For me this instantly set the race apart from other locally run races. I like knowing where funds are going, and this showed that the WOJSL really wants to keep their benefactors in the loop. Because of their transparency I have already bookmarked the WOJSL to keep an eye out for future events. 

Arriving at the location I was a bit dismayed to see that we had to drive down a construction road and jump a curb to get to the parking area. I have a little car and just had to repair two tires from nail punctures so I wasn't excited to drive in an area that may have that risk again. Despite this the parking was extremely organized and well thought out.

Before the race I was happy to see that there were baby pools filled with water bottles and ice for the participants to enjoy. This isn't something I commonly see at races so it was a welcome gesture. The race began after a prayer led by the announcer and it was a quick start. One thing I wasn't fond of was that I didn't see any timing mats at the start and finish area so I wasn't entirely sure about when to start my Garmin. 

The first mile felt quicker than I planned but I felt like I was in a good place. I completed it in 9:13 and hoped to keep it around under 10 minutes per mile. According to my Garmin I failed at this. Mile 2 felt rough for me. There were Florida hills, which in any other place would be considered an ant hill, and sand all across the course. Because I've been running on strictly flat ground I was a bit unprepared for the hills. This is something I'll have to work on because at this point in my running "career" lack of hill training shouldn't be an excuse. Mile 2 was my slowest mile and took me 10:56. Mile 3 was similar to mile 2 but I was determined to not let this race get the best of me and completed it in 10:12. The final 0.1 mile was a sprint because I could see the finish line and wanted to power through it. The biggest issue I had with the finish was that there were cones across the course that looked like they were directing you to a side road. I almost turned down the side road then did some quick mental/visual math and decided to power to the finish. This turned out to be the correct decision and I finished the race in 31:01 which made my overall pace a perfect 10 minute mile. I'm not happy with this time but I am highly amused by the overall pace.

Overall, I''m not thrilled with with my time. I could have done better, but it was good enough to earn me my first age group award! I took 3rd in the 25-29 age group and got a cute little bronze medal in addition to the participant medal!

Overall, I would happily do this race again. The only negatives were caused by my lack of training. I know better but I didn't think while training. At least I know for my Princess training that I need to get out and do hill repeats or long hill runs to get that endurance and muscle strength back.

Now onto day two of the NYX Lippie Countdown. If you're wondering what they heck I'm talking about please see this post from yesterday. After my enjoyment of Eden from yesterday, I was excited to see what today had in store for my lips.

Today's color ended up being Soft Spoken from the Liquid Suede collection. I was excited to see this because I've been eyeing the Liquid Suede collection but have always hesitated because I already have too many full sized lip products. 

As you can see Soft Spoken is an extremely pretty shade that I initially had issues finding the correct words to describe. After looking at other blogs I tend to agree with their description of this being a mauve nude shade. This has that nice boldness of a mauve but is, like the name describes, softer and more of an everyday fall color. The application is extremely simple as this includes NYX's standard doe foot applicator. This is highly pigmented and applies extremely easily, but also cleans up easily if you color outside the lines. 

This lasted nicely through drinking my morning tea and only required a second application after lunch. Now, I did find this lip color to be a bit more troublesome than yesterdays. It retains a bit of a sticky feeling for an hour or so. This isn't bad and I didn't feel like it was going to peel off on my cup but I was constantly aware of it being on my lips. The second issue I had is one that's common with matte lipsticks. This color settled into every line on my lips and did make them look a bit drier than normal. Now, this didn't make me look dehydrated like some matte colors have done in the past, but it didn't have that healthy and plump look that I usually like. 

Despite the heaviness and the settling I would use this color again for an all day wear. It is too dark for a weekend color but I tend to prefer soft pinks and true nudes on the weekends. 

If you follow me on twitter you'll see that I may or may not have gotten pissed at FedEx and UPS because packages scheduled for delivery on November 30th were not delivered by 10:00pm. FedEx stayed in contact with me and delivered at 11:00pm. That driver deserves recognition for going above and beyond. I also have to give the FedEx social media team credit for being immediately responsive and polite. UPS on the other hand didn't deliver until December 1st, didn't ever update their package tracking, and was only responsive on social media after I called them out for being MIA. If I had to pick a delivery service for my Christmas gifts based off the way they responded to the late deliveries FedEx would win hands down.

Anyways, onto my Black Friday haul. Asics had an amazing sale on running shoes and I was able to snag two pairs of GT-2000 for under $100.00! I love the GT line and these are no exception. My last pair of running shoes has made it through 3 half marathons and almost a year (possible over a year) of runs. They are well overdue for a well deserved retirement.

As you've probably figured out, I'm addicted to makeup. If they could my friends would probably throw me into rehab for this addiction. But they can't and my local Ulta would probably be confused if I didn't show up for every other new release. So, once again I went and ordered a ton of makeup on Black Friday. In my defense, this should be my main stock for the year along with the Fundays sale and the Cyber Monday sale.

The first Ulta item is the Clinique Party Favours set. This set includes trial sizes of the Quickliner for Eyes Intense, High Impact Mascara, All About Eyes, Chubby Stick Moisturizing Lip Color Balm Take the Day Off Makeup Remover, Moisture Surge Extended Thirst Relief, Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion, and City Block Purifying Charcoal Cleansing Gel. Some of these items I've tried before, like the Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion. Other items like the City Block Cleansing Gel are new to me.

The second Ulta item is the Ecotools Highlight & Glow Brush Set. I saw that this set included a spoolie for eyebrows and jumped on it. Currently, the only eyebrow brush I have is included with my eyebrow gel so a dedicated dry brush will be nice The other brushes will honestly be a surprise for me after I open the box. 

The next item is the Laura Geller New York Gilded Goddess collection. Last year I received a baked highlighter from Laura Geller and fell in love with it. When I saw that this set includes a baked highlighter and an illuminating stick I knew I had to have it! 

The fourth item from Ulta is the Origins Skin Bests Black Friday Set. This set includes a travel size of the Clear Improvement Active Charcoal Mask Checks and Balances Frothy Face Wash, and Ginzing Energy-Boosting Gel Moisturizer. I've eyed the Origins line for awhile and was excited to see this set, it should be a nice intro to Origins and help me decided if it's worth splurging on. 

The fifth item is Julep Stars of the Show set. Julep is another brand that I've been interested in but haven't made the jump to try yet. This set includes a nail treatment, gel eyeliner, and lip mousse. All three products are full size which is better than the standard holiday set! 

The final paid Ulta item is the NYX Lippie Countdown Advent Calendar. Last year I bought the NYX Advent Calendar with the Lingerie collection and loved it! So I knew when I saw this calendar that I had to have it!

Opening up the Calendar you see the 24 boxes all nicely lined up. This year instead of doing random spaces each day is in order. This makes the organizational freak in me happy because there's little thought that will need to go into where the next day is and it means that the sides will be even. 

As you can see, each day is nicely nested in the associated day which creates a nice display when you open it. 

The first day includes the NYX Matte Lipstick in Eden. 

Eden is a nice blue toned red that is soft enough for day wear but would transfer nicely to a night look depending on the eye. When I went to wash off the swatch on my hand this didn't budge or smudge. It took two rounds with soap and water to wash off Eden. Because I received the Ulta package so late I was unable to wear Eden during the day, but after seeing how hard it was to wash off I would bet that this is a good half day lipstick. I look forward to wearing this for a full day and playing around with this color. 

The final items in the Ulta box are the freebies that I love to get during these sales. The first two are from the standard skincare sample that I always select. They included Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Foaming Mask, and the Bliss Fabulous Drench 'n' Quench Cream-To-Water Lock-In Moisturizer. I'm excited to try the Foaming Mask, but a bit freaked out about the idea of a Cream-To-Water Moisturizer. 

Like most years, this Black Friday sale included the option of a gift with purchase. I selected the Fringe bag in Bone because it seemed like the most neutral color. 

This bag included all Ulta branded makeup which I have recently come to appreciate. There was a double ended eyeliner in Blackout and Plum, a Tinted Eye Primer, a sharpener, and an eyeshadow kit in Sunshine, Plum Drop, Desire, Say What, Buzzword, and Fearless. 

This bag also included a blush brush lip gloss, Matte Lip Crayon, and highlighter kit in Warm, Radiant Diamond, and Translucent.