Things I love This Thursday

Exercise: 30 mins HIIT elliptical, 5k w/ 2 mile tempo at 8:55 avg pac

The weather in California is super weird today, it's more like the south. So far at almost 2pm it's 91 and cloudy. Very rare for this time of year. But I'll take it over 105 and dry any day. I love the humidity.

Actually, I love this weather so much I'm blogging from the patio. Heaven.

And the view.

I LOVE crepe myrtles in July. Boring the rest of the year, but so worth it.

Oh and Music Man changed the photo file so they are no longer chronological by year but by month so I stumbled upon this photo from 1 year ago today. LOVE him

My garden is totally out of control but I am loving the bounty that we are harvesting daily. The sweetest zucchini, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, lettuce and some herbs. Coming up with dinner on the fly is so much easier when you always have a salad and pasta sauce in the back yard.

Yesterday a friend of mine asked me if I had heard of the 17 day diet. I vaguely remembered my MIL having some success with it and I knew there were a few 17 day cycles but not much else. She told me she had started the day before and was frustrated by hunger and needed some motivation. I responded with all the helpful hints I could think of; like doing something besides eating, snacking on veggies...all that stuff that I KNOW how to do but don't do myself :) And it got me thinking that maybe I needed some motivation too so I decided to do it with her. I've gained some weight back over the last few months, not drastic, but I'd rather be slimmer so this seemed like a good jump start.

I haven't purchased the book yet so I only know the basics of the 4 17 day cycles but this US News article explains more. I think I will purchase the ebook if I can get through the first 17 day cycle.

Today is my second day and all is well thus far. I'm actually loving it because it's always nice to see a 3 pound weight loss, water weight or not. I'm definitely eating better than usual because I'm not eating tons of unhealthy snacks, but not that much different from my normal diet. For breakfast I had an egg white omelet with spinach, tomatoes and mushrooms and on the side I had plain greek yogurt mixed with a little stevia, cinnamon, chia seeds and hemp seeds.

The only difference was I'd usually have toast instead of the yogurt and fruit. It was totally satisfying, even after 60 minutes of pretty intense cardio I wasn't hungry until lunch.

For lunch I had leftovers from last night. Apparently I cheated a bit on this meal because zucchini is a no-no in the first cycle, but oh freakin' well.

I have zucchini coming out of the wazoo and I refuse to eliminate it from my diet completely. I love zucchini "noodles". They are definitely not pasta but a good stand in when covered in veggies, tofu and sauce. Yum Yum.

Hope you guys are having a fantastic week and had an awesome holiday!

The Switch

Exercise: 6 mile trail run, 6 mile road ride
It's amazing how great a good run feels. Since I've been running less the runs I do go on seem better and better. Now I'm going for a run because I want to go, not because I have to. And it honestly feels like a treat; like I get to go running, yay!
My workouts are so varied now, for instance, this was my week in workouts:
Mon-45 mins elliptical, 20 mins weights
Tues-1 mile swim, 2 mile run
Wed-CrossFit
Thurs-4 mile run, 2 mile walk
Fri-1 mile swim, 2 mile walk
Sat-Pop physique class
Sun-6 mile run, 6 mile bike
Switching everything up has been really good for me. I haven't been bored with workouts for a while. And I am really enjoying trying new classes.
I've been waiting for a CrossFit Groupon since I first passed the box on my way home from Music Man's studio. After reading other blogger's love of CrossFit I knew I needed to give it a whirl. And you know what? So glad I did!
CrossFit is no joke. It's a high impact, high intensity workout that includes heavy lifting as well as cardio intervals. I knew there would be a timed Workout Of the Day but didn't know what else was involved. But I came to find out there is no messing around.
The workout began with a warm up of jogging, squats and some stretches. From the very beginning the instructor was correcting form on just the warm ups. Because if form is wrong you won't get the optimum results. Then we moved onto skills to perfect before we started the WOD. I did my first ever wall balls and sumo squats with pulls. Just perfecting the skills had my heart rate soaring. But nothing compared to the WOD.
The WOD was:
3x for time
10 push ups
10 sumo squats with pulls(35)
15 wall balls
200m run
I finished in 12:04 and have nothing to compare that to but know I worked my a$$ off. I know because I was out of breath and nearly nauseous but also sore for 3 days! I really loved it, not enough to drink the Kool Aid yet, but definitely want to try it again.
Just a few days ago I purchased a Living Social deal for Pop Physique. A friend of mine is into ballet so we figured we could try it together. I wasn't super impressed but we're going to give it another try tomorrow. I think we both felt that the workout was something we could have done on our own and it was just a bit slower than I usually like. But it was fun and I definitely was sore on places I don't usually feel so it's worth trying again. There is a different teacher tomorrow so let's hope that makes a difference.
I hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a great and safe holiday!

2 Weeks Later

Exercise: Death by CrossFit (more on that later)

There are 4 draft posts from the last few weeks that I just can's seem to finish. As soon as I start writing there's a diaper that needs attending to, a nap has ended, an airplane is taking off, etc. So here are some points of interest from the last couple of weeks, in no particular order.

• I bought a bike!!! A GT GTR 3 Series. I love her.

• Mom's night out ended up with drinks at a karaoke bar. Here's a blurry photo that I took. I heard that someone may have video...to be deleted ;)

• Music Man took me out on my first 20+ mile ride. I fell twice. Apparently it's not just like riding a bike

• My garden is finally growing and now it is way out of control. We're having a hard time getting through the ginormous zucchinis

• We took a family vacation to Virginia Beach and it was so so so so much fun! I am going to beg to go back again in the next few years. Little Man was  amazing and a total trooper on the flights and adjusted well to east coast time. The adjustment back has not gone as smooth but it was so worth it.

My only beach photos. Somehow my camera got stuck in negative so all my photos are unintentionally artsy. Hopefully Music Man has some decent ones.

• Now we're back in SoCal and all we have to eat is zucchini.

zucchini boats stuffed with lentils and brown rice

cheddar zucchini scones

Hope June has been excellent for you! Have a great week!

Valley Crest Half Marathon Race Recap

Exercise: Week in Workouts

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 2.5 mile walk, 1 mile swim
Wednesday: 12 mile bike ride
Today: 22 mile bike ride w/2000 feet of climbing

Better late than never, right?

Sunday morning I woke up at 6am as usual. Actually, lately, that's sleeping in which may be a first for race day. I had laid out my gear the evening prior so I dressed and ate a casual breakfast of half a bagel and a little granola and yogurt. Then it was a quick drive to the start; like less than 10 minutes.

Music Man dropped me as close to the start as possible at around 7:20. The line for the porta potties was pretty long so I waited for that until 7:45 then got my race shirt and checked it in the gear check area. Super fast and easy. And I was off to the start line by 7:50. The race was supposed to begin at 8 and I think it started about 10 minutes late but I'm not sure because my phone crashed and the battery died! Love my Evo but may be time for something new. I did have my Motoactv but had it set to go so didn't check the start time.

The race begins at the base of a very steep hill. I made sure I was at the very back because I knew from experience that it was best for me to walk the hill as a warm up and focus on running when I got to the top. Everyone at the back was very friendly and talkative but almost none of them had run the course before and found themselves daunted by the hill ahead of them and the hilly elevation to come.

Something that surprised me was a few people asked me if the run is hard. These are the only trails I run so my response is that the course is average. But there are a few killer hills so maybe it's on the harder end of average? But really, it's a trail half marathon. 13.1 hilly, gravely, sandy and hot miles. Even without the trail aspects it's still a half marathon.  And I don't know about you but that distance, no matter the circumstances, is never easy. So asking if a race is hard is totally lost on me. I wonder what the front runners' responses would be ;)

As I said the course is hilly, sandy, gravelly but absolutely beautiful. The temps were a little warm but about 65 at the start and a bit below 75 at the finish. There were 3 aid stations on the course offering Gatorade and water.  Since I was wearing my Camelbak I had plenty of water but I had a hard time getting to my sports beans in the back pocket so I was so grateful that the Gatorade was plentiful. I walked through every aid station in order to drink 2 cupfuls.

Before I began running I kept telling myself I needed to focus on running smart, not fast, because of the pain I've been dealing with lately. As I said before I walked up the first hill, walked through the aid stations and kept a reasonably slow pace. I also decided to slow down anytime I felt soreness, no reason to push through pain. The Motoactv shows my time as 2:30:34 for 13.35 miles and my official finish time was 2:29:59 (no timing chips at this race) Woo! Just under my 2:30:00 goal. Looking at my average pace of 11:16 my actual 13.1 finish would be around 2:27:30. No matter what, I'm totally happy with my time.

And I'm totally happy with this race. It was a beautiful course with friendly runners and volunteers, super organized and it was close to home. I probably wont be running it next year but I have already decided to be a volunteer.

How is it already almost the weekend again???!!! Have a great rest of your week.

Stories From Last Week

Exercise: 1 mile swim, 1.5 mile run (9:58 pace), 5 mile bike ride

We live pretty close to Los Angeles so it's nearly impossible not to see celebrities at least once a month. But everytime it happens it always feels so random. Ex.1 Sunday, Music Man and I were on the way home from visiting friends with a new baby (more on that later.) When we were about a mile from home we noticed someone driving a golfcart on the community bike path. It's a pedestrian path so you normally only see cyclists, joggers, walkers, rollerbladers and the occassional horse. But never a motorized vehicle. As we got closer I giggled to Music Man "Ha, that looks so much like David Hasselhoff!" And his response "That IS David Hasselhoff." We contemplated turning around to get a picture but decided against it because Little Man was asleep in the back seat. We should have totally tried for a pic because Little Man ended up waking up anyway. Oh well. Still a fun story though.

Ex.2 Last Wednesday I had both boys boys with me and had to run some errands. Fairly easy ones like PETCO for poo bags, which is like the zoo to toddlers. I also had to run to Whole Foods for Little Man's favorite crackers. I normally wouldn't take both boys grocery shopping but Little Man loves the Whole Foods grissini with a passion and we were out.

So we go to Whole Foods and get the crackers but because I'm already there it only makes sense to get a few other necessities like milk, kombucha and cookies :). I remember I want yogurt as well so I go down the nearest aisle to get back to dairy and it happens to be the kiddie aisle with all the cool toys. I quickly try to distract the boys by giving them cars from my purse and telling them to divert their eyes. One of the boys exclaims "TRUCK!!!" I laugh and keep telling them to divert their eyes and not look in that direction and then I hear a woman's voice say "What's the deal?" "Do you have a problem?" kind of angrily. I turn to the voice and it's none other than Maya Rudolph. I gather she thought I was directing the kids to divert their eyes from her!!! I was mortified.  I quickly explained that, no, I was just trying to distract them from the trucks. She eased up and apologized. I blurted out "No problem, I love you!" And then I got the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

What really struck me about the situation was how easily she jumped to the conclusion that I was intending to offend her. So sad! I think she's a comedic genius but I'm sure people have been intentionally rude in the past. Glad we got it straightened out though!

Last Thursday we met some friends for a birthday dinner. They have a boy the same age as Little Man so we figured they could entertain each other. We both brought some cars and things for the boys to play with in the booth. Only problem was the Booth backed up to a window so there was a tiny space between the booth and window. In the course of the evening the bulk of the cars disappeared through the crack.
We all took turns trying to reach the cars with no luck. I remembered that I had something in my car that might work and sent Music Man to retrieve it. I have to point out here that Music Man always makes fun of the state of my car, it's always full of Cheerios and crushed snacks, sippy cups and toys. But this time it worked to our benefit. Music Man returned moments later with our "claw" and used it to extract every single toy from behind the Booth. Three cheers for dirty cars!

And finally, thanks for sticking through my rambling stories, I just wanted to touch on visiting our friends with the new baby. Just a tip. If you're thinking about babies and not sure you want one, do not visit a 2 month old. 2 months is the perfect storm of cuteness. They are just getting to be super cute and chubby and starting to smile yet they sleep quite a bit (during the day) and they aren't moving or driving you nuts yet ;) Poor Music Man had no idea what he was getting himself into.

 Ok, that's enough for now. Have a great Wednesday!

And because this post is super long and random here are some random photos:

Music Man has no tattoos and is thinking about getting one. Fun idea, no?

Thanks for building me a new computer hubby! Without you the blog wouldn't be.

Might As Well Give it a Tri

Exercise: 45 mins elliptical, 15 minutes strength, 10 mile easy bike ride

Music Man is home this week which makes life feel like vacation; it's pretty darn great. That said, he went on a bike ride a few days ago that ended up taking close to 4 hours. Which was fine, but unexpected, so he gave me the green light to take as long as I wanted to exercise while he's home and he'd watch the grommet. Sweet.

Swimming has been a huge source of my exercise lately due to the sore leg so it's nice to have the extra time to spend in the pool. My daily swim has been about a mile and then I'm also doing little something else like a short run or walk and I am LOVING it. I've also been biking a lot too. This weekend Music Man urged me to get some clip shoes to try his road bike (I'm only a little shorter than he is) to see if I'd like it. My plan is to experiment with cages first but I already know I like biking just not sure if I want to add real road biking into my regimen. But maybe it is time to give it a tri ;)

For quite some time I have been considering a triathlon. I've always enjoyed swimming and running so it seems natural to give it a tri ( :)see what I did there?) I do bike quite often with Little Man but never for exercise or with any kind of goal. I also didn't have access to a pool until recently and now that I do I can work on time, form, etc. I also found a tri up the road from my parents, like 2 miles, so it's almost too convenient. It's like destiny. Dude.

On my summer calendar I have a few races so far:

Valley Crest Half Marathon - June 10
Watermelon Run- Aug 19
Bulldog 25k- Aug 25
Pacific tri- September 9

August is looking pretty crowded but not so bad. The watermelon run is just a 5k and will be my taper before the Bulldog. After that I have 2 weeks before the Pacific tri and at this point I don't see a problem riding 10 miles, swimming 1/2, and running a 5k. I just need to practice.

I'm super excited about this new goal!

Have a great Week!!!

Nothing Hotter

Exercise: Run 5.5 miles, walk 1.5

I knew I was being stupid this morning on my run. I felt so good my first mile and figured I could push a little harder. I pushed too hard and at 5.25 miles I got a shooting pain in my calf and and knew I had to stop. I called music man to pick me up but decided to walk it out a little. 

I'm thinking the hamstring and the calf issues are coming from the trail running. Just going out too hard on the hills? Soooo R.I.C.E it is. I'm going to ease off running, I've been icing all day, I broke down and bought compression socks and now I'm kicking back with my feet up.

I think the challenge is probably not in my best interest this month. I want to be able to run my half next week and I'm hoping that by resting this week I will be in better shape to do so. I feel as though my training is sufficient for completing it. Then I plan to take a few weeks off of running all together.

Swimming this week has been wonderful and I plan to continue adding it into my weekly workout indefinitely. Music man has been urging me to try his road bike so I hope to incorporate more road biking into my life. The rest of the time I will spend on my home elliptical because it's effective and easy because it's only a few steps away. When my legs are back to normal I will definitely add running back but cross training is great for now.

Now I must get back to my R.I.C.Eing. There really is nothing hotter than mini skirts and compression socks :)

Have a great weekend!