I didn’t train for this 6-miler. One of my running mates couldn’t run it and asked if I’d take her place. I said yes. This was a few days before so luckily, I’d at least run 5 miles the week before.

It was pretty cold, but I’ve run in colder weather. Everyone was decked out in long sleeves, but I knew that I’d be hot like a mutha after 10 minutes. My goal was to hopefully come in the one hour mark, but along the way I kept it loose bopping to Tupac, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, and korean pop music — FYI California powered me through mile 5 and I actually felt pretty fresh.

There were Malden high school kids cheering the runners on and directing us where to go. I’d wave to them. Some kids set up their own water stand and I stopped even tho I didn’t need any more water.

The finish line was near the high school so when I saw a school coming up, I kicked it into high gear only to realize that it was not the same school. By the time the finish line was nearing, it was too late for my final kick…I’d miscalculated and the girl I wanted to blow by ended up staying in front. Gahhhh!

So, what I’m taking away from this race to prep for my half-marathon in May is that (A) I’m going to chow on gels instead of energy jelly beans — it was a biyatch to take them out and have to chew — and (B) I need to work on my mental strength. I stopped to catch my breath a bit 3 times when maybe once would’ve been enough. So I need to work on powering thru.

It was a great run and I came in at 1hr, 5min. I’ll take that.

So why do I run? I need physical challenges because they make me feel tough and on top of the world — there’s no other high like it. :)

One of my favorite things to use is Dropbox.

It’s synced across my desktop machines — in my home studio and at the office — and my mobile devices. It has seriously made my life easier.

What do I mean?

Well…I hate scanning my sketches. Yes. It’s too much of an effort for me to get up, walk to the scanner, lay my sketch on the scanner bed/feed it thru, and then hit the scan button.

But now with Dropbox, I snap a photo of my sketch, sync it up via the handy dandy iPhone app, and — voila! — my sketch is on my machine ready to be worked on.

This works for me because I do general pencil sketches and then work off of them in Illustrator for a more finished piece.

Thanks Dropbox for enabling my lazy mofo ways :)

Originally created by Michal Miszta as an entry into Mimoco’s Unmasked Design Challenge in partnership with Infectious, the design provided the spark for the Einstein™ x MIMOBOT series.

It was fun to work on his crazy hair :)

Learn more about the Einstein X MIMOBOT Series!

I take a zillion snapshots when I’m out and about — this one while I was on a ski slope. I probably crashed while snowboarding. Hence, not wanting to move and preferring to make a little snowman instead.

Anyhow, have a great holiday — I am SO going to relax and unwind. :)