The Little Things
June 27, 2012

In the last 12 months I’ve come a long way in my journey of fitness:

It’s been an exciting last 12 months. I’m about to take it one step further: a few nights ago I registered for my first triathlon! I’ll be racing the Danskin Triathlon in Wisconsin. It’s a sprint distance, so I’ll be swimming half a mile, biking 12 miles, and running 3 miles.

I actually won a free registration for this triathlon from a giveaway on Madeline’s blog  at Food, Fitness, & Family in May, and have been waiting until I officially registered to announce it.

Obviously the swimming won’t be a big deal (see above), and I can clearly run 3 miles, but the biking will be the toughest for me. I’ve been biking or doing spin classes for the last few months, and can easily go 8 miles. Here’s the glitch- I haven’t actually been on a road bike in 11 years. So…. i need to do that. Soon. And there will obviously be a post on that topic coming up in the next few weeks. Once a week I’ve been doing a pseudo- brick workout by biking 7-8 miles in the morning and running 3 miles in the afternoon. So, while it isn’t back to back, at least my body is used to going that far in a day!

I look forward to continuing to train over the next two months, and add a new “first”! I’m also excited (and nervous!) to finally get back on a road bike after a LONG hiatus!

Now it’s your turn to share! What’s one fitness goal you have for yourself in 2012? If you’ve completed a triathlon before, what’s your best advice? 

June 24, 2012

While this week wasn’t nearly as exciting in terms of the variety of work outs, I did have one particularly exciting moment: I finally ran on a beach! While it was tough, I enjoyed it greatly. Here’s what the week looked like:

Total miles: 24.9 mile walk + 4 mile run = 28.9 miles

Well, I don’t have too much beyond that to stay about the week. I’ve obviously focused on walking this week, which I love doing! Also, I have an exciting announcement coming in the next few days!

Now it’s your turn to share! What’s one thing you’re looking forward to this week?

June 22, 2012

A few weeks ago I signed up for a Virtual 5K race hosted by Toni at Running, Loving, Living. I did a virtual race hosted by her in January, and won my Sparkle Skirt that I wore during my half marathon in May! The race can be completed between June 18th and the 25th, so if you’d like a little motivation to run a 5k or 10k over the next few days, check out her blog and enter to win!

I personally love getting to do these virtual races. They fit into my schedule because they can be completed at any time, but also gives me a little push to get out there and run! This race was fun and tough and a definite first for me!

First of all, I ran with my brother, which was quite a bit of fun! We don’t run together very often; I think the last time we ran together was Thanksgiving. He commented on how much better I was then Thanksgiving, which was nice. I’m glad my training is actually paying off. This was my first race on the beach. That’s right, I got to run along the beach this morning, and it was beautiful. The sand provided a completely different surface to run on, and it took a bit to adjust to. Factors against me included: a migraine (yuck!), the heat, a strong wind  for half the run, and about .5 of the run on very lose sand, forcing my feet to slip around a bit. It was slow moving at first, but we hit hard packed sand around mile 1 and that made it a bit easier.

I could definitely get used to running here every day! Because it had been a week since I had last run, I did a slow and gradual .5 mile warm up before officially starting my 5k run. I also took a bit of time to cool down. I actually ran a solid 4 miles, but officially started my “race time” at 0.5 mile and finished at 3.6 miles, so that it was counted for my time.

Here are my splits. You can tell that the last mile included a very very slow cool down, because that split is not so good at all. I’m pretty happy with my mile 2 and 3 times, especially because I was running on a surface that I had never run on before. My official race time was 36:41. Definitely not as speedy as my 5k PR, but like I said, it was good considering the environment I was running in today.

Now it’s your turn to share! What’s your favorite surface on which you’ve had the chance to run? Have you ever gotten to run on the beach? 

June 21, 2012

Taking a brief break from my Thankful thursday posts (yes- I’m still feeling grateful today!), I decided to post a few random things on this Thursday. Ready?

  1. Today I was sitting on the edge of a hot tub with my legs in the water, and I felt a sudden stinging sensation on my upper thigh area (but the bottom/side of my leg that was near the ground). I immediately jumped up and, upon seeing a few fire ants, immediately ran into the zero depth end of the pool and sat down, hoping it would stop the stinging and burning feeling. How could one little bite send a burning feeling down all the way to my knee? Seriously? I sat there for about 10 minutes before it stopped stinging enough for me to get up and leave. I’m sure the whole thing looked very odd to the rest of the people in the hot tub, but that was the least of my worries. It still stings when I sit down, and I’m not sure how something so little can leave such a stinging feeling. Grrr. I guess I can chalk that up to a new experience?
  2. I went to a graduation party two weekends ago and there were 17 (yes- you read that right) different flavors of beautiful cupcakes on platters in the dining room. Each cupcake was topped with a beautiful design of toppings and frosting. My favorite flavors (yes- of course I had more then one! I split them with a few people though) included Cherry Vanilla, cinnamon roll (almost melted in my mouth!), and root beer float (tasted EXACTLY like it in cupcake form… delicious)! Since that time I’ve been craving cupcakes so badly!
  3. I’m watching wife swap right now and that show seriously stresses me sometimes. They find such opposite people, and it’s just pure chaos in the houses. AGH! It is always interesting to see how each of the families change when they follow up.
  4. I’m re-reading the Hunger Games Trilogy, and am reading them a bit more slowly then the last time. They are still just as addicting the second time around though!

So those are 4 random things that have been on my mind on this Thursday! Maybe a cupcake would help the fire ant bite? 😉

Now it’s your turn to share! Have you ever gotten bitten by a fire ant before? What’s the most delicious cupcake you’ve ever tried?

June 17, 2012

This week was exciting, mostly due to the fact that I spent two days doing different fitness photo shoots. You can read all about this fun experience here. Besides that, I also did a wide range of activities, which mixed it up and kept it fun! Here’s what the week looked like:

Total: 4.75 mile run + 5.07 mile walk + 1.5 mile row + 8.5 mile bike + .75 mile swim + 3.5 hours of pilates + 1 hour lifting= 20.57 miles + 4.5 hours strength training

Pretty great week, right? I love that I used so many different muscle groups and was able to cross train so much! Too bad all weeks can’t be like this:) Getting to play fitness model was pretty great too!

Now it’s your turn to share! What’s your favorite type of cross training? Tell me one thing that you’re looking forward to this week! 

June 16, 2012

I have almost always loved swimming. I saw almost because there was a time at age 5 or 6 where I completely freaked out and had to practice “blowing bubbles” in a dish pan on the side of my cousin’s pool. My swim teacher also had to talk to me about how her water wasn’t special, and if I could swim in her pool then I could swim anywhere. Luckily that was a very short lived fear, and I was quickly diving off the diving board into 12 foot water. I took swim lessons, and then did lifeguard training at age 15. I lifeguarded throughout high school and part of college, and really loved getting to work at a pool! While I love running, I am in no way a natural runner. My body isn’t built to be a great runner, and I definitely have to work hard at it. When it comes to swimming though, I feel much more at home. In high school, I didn’t really think twice about jumping into a pool and swimming a mile. In fact, I worked at a camp for many summers, and I used to do a mile swim with friends there. It felt easy to me.

Then I hit a time where I no longer had access to a pool, and I stopped swimming. Except for playing in pools and oceans, I haven’t actually swam a lap in 7 years. Long gone are the days of jumping into the pool and swimming a mile. I now have access to a pool again, so this morning I headed out and bought the first one piece I’ve owned in too many years to count. This afternoon, I did a quick 25-30 minute lifting work out, and then jumped into the pool to see “how far I could go before getting tired.”

Well, I was so pleased and surprised to see how naturally I fell back into swimming. It felt like I had hardly taken any time off at all. Sure, it wasn’t quite as easy as it used to be, but it wasn’t particularly difficult either. I ended up swimming .75 of a mile before quitting due to time. I could’ve easily gone more then a mile. I WAS BEYOND THRILLED! I’m so happy that despite taking 7 years off, I was able to jump in and fall back into my natural stride swim stroke.

I’m excited to add swimming back into my work out routine, and look forward to getting back to the point that I used to be!

Now it’s your turn to share! What exercise or sport comes the most naturally to you? Do you enjoy swimming? 

June 12, 2012

…a Pilates model that is! This afternoon I headed into the Pilates studio and participated in a photo shoot for a few hours. The shoot lasted for about 3 hours, although I obviously wasn’t doing Pilates the entire time like I would be in a class setting. What I found to be the most difficult is that after I got into a pose, I had to hold it for awhile so the photographer had plenty of time to get a number of shots. This led to a bit of shaking on my part, and I’m definitely feeling sore right now!

Getting ready for the shoot.

It was a great time, and we moved between two studios: The Reformer Studio (where the reformer machines are) and the Mind & Body Studio (where we took some mat pilates pictures).

An exercise using what I like to call the “ring of torture”. This is not an official picture.

One of my favorite exercises on the reformer machines. This is not from today, but gives you an idea of what I was doing. I was wearing those pants today though.

I had a blast doing it and we’re planning to do another shoot soon! I really love Pilates and wish that everyone could have the opportunity to practice it on a regular basis. The benefits are so great, and I think it really enhances the other types of exercise that I do (running include).

Before I started the afternoon shoot, I fueled with a delicious salad.

Included was: spinach, mushrooms, corn, red pepper, onion, and chicken topped with some balsamic vinegar. YUM! After the photo shoot, I walked on the treadmill for 1.75 miles (at 13:20 per mile pace) and rowed for 11 minutes (equaling 1 mile). Obviously i was more then ready to eat when I left the gym, and had this delicious Chicken salad for dinner. Check out the recipe! One little note- instead of pasta I used quinoa, and that worked out just as well and gave me more protein post-workout.

Today was lots of fun, and an opportunity that I likely won’t get again!

Now it’s your turn to share! Have you done anything unusual lately? Have you ever gotten to “play model” for the day? 

June 10, 2012

Hmm… I didn’t post at all this week? Seriously? Where’d the last week go? I was actually speaking at a conference, and had to travel back and forth to that. It was a great conference, and made for a very busy week. However, I still managed to get in some great workouts for the week. Here’s what the week looked like:

Total: 15.69 mile walk + 3.1 mile run + 6-7 miles bike + 2 hours pilates

I’m still fiddling around with what I want my training class to be, but I know that I want to try to run twice a week instead of just once. The run I had this week was one of the best runs I’ve had in 2012. I had the fastest pace while running since the Jingle Bell Jog race I ran back in December. I felt great and really pushed myself. YAY:) Since I didn’t get to do anything on Wednesday (National Running Day), I decided to celebrate a day late!

Now it’s your turn to share! Did you celebrate National Running Day? If yes, what did you do? What’s one way you pushed yourself this week? 

June 3, 2012

This week has included much more activity then the last few weeks, including the longest run I’ve completed since my half marathon about a month ago! Here’s what the week looked like:

Clearly I got a bit ambitious this week, adding cycling and pilates back into my normal routine. My 3.1 mile run felt fantastic, and I loved getting to shake out my legs on a longer run! I feel the ache after Pilates, and definitely need to do more core work on a regular basis! Cycling and biking is a major goal this summer, so hopefully I’ll be doing much more of that!

And that’s it for the week!

June 1, 2012

This month flew by and I didn’t even have too much time to post. Oops. But I was enjoying life so it’s fine:) Now that it’s June (SUMMER!), it’s time to post my recap from the last month. May was a huge month for me, and I hit a major goal and milestone: my first half marathon!

Here’s a glimpse of the month:

A few of my goals for the month of June:

Now it’s your turn to share! What stands out to you as a high for the month of May? What are you looking forward to in June?