Monthly Archives: May 2012

forced rest day

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this weekend was pretty jam-packed for me, but despite not really having a spare second to myself I still managed to fit in some good workouts and get a a lot done. oh and have fun, I did a lot of that too!

friday sean and I had a wedding to attend – his BFF’s little sister (who I adore) married her high school sweetheart. she was absolutely stunning, and her whole wedding was a beautiful mix of classiness and elegance.

we ended up crashing at his parents house because the wedding was out in sugar land & sean had an early morning wakeup call (4:15!!) to go to dallas with his dad. I, on the other hand, stayed in bed til 7 (I know, late sleeper here) and then spent the morning drinking coffee and chatting with my lovely MIL. from there I was going to have a relaxing day running errands…

wheatgrass

kicked off the day with a shot of wheat grass & a smoothie

HA. saturday was one of those days where everything took about 10 times longer than I allotted time for and I didn’t end up walking through my front door until 7:30pm… I did manage to fit in a 45 minute, hilly bike ride at the gym though, a plus to keeping workout clothes and shoes in your car. when I  did finally eat dinner it was in about 5 minutes flat so I could finish up a few things around the house before sean got home. at 9:30 this happened:

bath

is there really much better than an empty house, a glass of wine, a book, and a bubble bath? methinks NO.

unfortunately about 3 seconds after I sunk down into the bath sean walked through the door and turned on the TV and took a shower. #silenceshattered

sunday started out like this:

swim

1 mile swim, 1 mile walk

random funny story: as I’m walking out the door to the gym in my workout swimsuit and shorts (no shirt, so you could see my swimsuit) this conversation occurred:

S: are you going to swim at the gym today?
Me: nope, going for the elliptical.
S: I hate you.

and ended with one of my best friends & her fiance, and sean’s old roomie and his girl, and this:

river

memorial day weekend should always be spent with close friends and the river.

and yesterday I had a freakin’ cardio party at the gym. 20 min stair stepper, 20 min elliptical, 20 min bike, 30 min walk. followed by a lot of arm lifting with the boy:

sean

needless to say, when I woke up this morning I thought about doing some yoga but decided to wait until after work. when I got home from work I promptly turned around and flew out the door so that I could vote before it got crazy. and when I got home from that I reminded myself that while I am feeling a million times better than I was a month ago I am still injured and I have to take rest days.

taking rest days is really hard for me. I like being active and rest days always make me feel sluggish. but I need them, especially while I’m still recovering. I think part of dabbling in endurance sports is understanding that need to work out, to push yourself, and coming to terms with the realization that you have to give yourself a break from time to time. today was that day for me. even if I had to constantly force myself to do something else to keep from fitting in a short workout. like the ironing. finally got that ish out of the way today thanks to needing to distract myself from my treadmill. and while I may hate resting today, I’m pretty sure my knee is going to thank me tomorrow.

how was everyone’s weekend? anything fun happen? bad at taking rest days or good at it?

my life in instagram photos

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by my life I mean my weekend. and by my weekend I really only mean a few parts of it. oh did you not know I was on instagram? I am. you can find me instagramming at cherry945 for now, though I’m pretty sure I have to give that name to sean at some point and come up with my own name (945 is sean’s motocross racing #).

every year sean’s company puts on a golf tournament in galveston that he has to work at. this usually means that he leaves on thursday and I take off work on friday and meander on down there whenever I feel like it. this year was no different. we were in no rush to get up on friday, which louie demonstrated well:

louie

we all felt this way friday morning. and when I say we all, I really just mean me and louie.

however I couldn’t complain too much because the reason I rolled out of bed was so I could go here:

massage

it wasn’t weird at all when I sat in my car after my massage and snapped a picture of the front of the building. not weird at all.

oh and it actually wasn’t hard for me to get out of bed either, only for louie. I got up and worked out, cleaned the house and did laundry before my 8am massage. I’m doing a swell job of accurately depicting my day.

the drive down to galveston was a breeze. I hung out on the golf course for a bit, then moved to the pool, then moved to the rainforest café, where I snapped this really awesome picture:

butterfly

ok, that’s probably one of the worst pictures I’ve ever taken. I have no real excuse for why it was so bad. so I will blame it on the various drinks that found their way into my hands throughout the day/night. my life is really rough sometimes.

after dinner we went and hung out by the pool again where I re-tested my phone photography skills. that’s how I ended up with this gem:

pool

sean fell asleep while we were sitting by the pool (being out on the golf course all day is exhausting) so we went to bed early. which was ok because that meant I woke up early and got to see this:

crab

do you see the little crabby?!?! I had never seen one up close before! he was so cute and he scuttled sideways across the sand over and over and I couldn’t stop squealing with delight. I love him!

and then I took this picture to prove that sometimes galveston can be pretty too:

beach

you just need the right lighting and photo-filter options.

and that concludes the pictures of my weekend that I have available on my phone. so basically, my friday and saturday morning. it doesn’t include that I promptly drove back to houston for my best friend’s baby shower, hung out there all day, and then turned around to drive back to galveston for the dinner that they put on every saturday night of the golf tournament, just to go to sleep and turn around and drive back to houston sunday morning.

I did a lot of driving this weekend. I also did not do a lot of working out. I don’t have a lot of weekends like that.

it was worth every indulgent second.

Smile

how was everyone’s weekend?

monday motivation

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time for another round of monday motivation (even though Tara thinks tuesday’s are worse)… this time I’m going to impart my new favorite words of wisdom on you. you.are.welcome.

choose

it took me a long time to realize that even people that you thought were some of your closest friends can be toxic to your life. it also took me a long time to realize that you can break up with friends just like you can boyfriends or girlfriends, and that it is just as hard – if not harder – to break up with a friend as it is a significant other.

your life can become infinitely lighter when you only let positivity in. don’t let people who have negativity ruling their lives suck the light out of yours. you only live once, let it be with people who inspire you!

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monday motivation

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let’s face it, monday is easily the most depressing day of the week, with sunday night coming in a very close second. so if you’re like me and faltering on the desire to get anything done, then hopefully this little dose of monday motivation will help:

motivate

if you do nothing else, get moving.

your body will thank you.

on that note, today is my rest day Winking smile

what’re you doing to get moving this week?

3 Things Thursday

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It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these BUT I knew on Monday exactly what the first point would be for today so I practically had to blog. Plus I told Paula I would, and I’d hate to see what kind of grief I would get if I backed out. She might sic Pants on me or something.

1. Have you seen Bridesmaids? Please say yes. My absolute favorite part of the movie is this part right here where Kristen Wiig is all drugged up because she hates flying and she’s trying to sneak into first class:

2. In keeping with the Bridesmaids theme, when we were in Vegas last week for work one of the bartenders was named Steve. I’m sure you can guess where this is going. If you can’t then it means you didn’t watch the clip above or you haven’t seen the movie, so revert back to number 1 and then come back to this one. This was our favorite bartender. We called him Stove the entire time we were there. Clearly he loved this and us. Heather and I are gems to be around.

stove

3.  That’s really all I’ve got. I’m still on vacation brain. Coming back to regular work days has been a bit rough. I would much rather be lounging by the pool reading 50 Shades of Grey. Actually, speaking of, I read the trilogy. I don’t even have words to describe how I felt about those books other than WTF happened to him in books 2 & 3?!?

trilogy

via

Someone explain how someone so cold turns into someone so “omg you walk on water I think you’re wonderful love me love me love me”.

And go.

Have you read 50 shades of grey? Are you going to?

How to Survive Being “Healthy” in Vegas

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Don’t drink.

shot

Obviously that didn’t work.

In that case, screw it.

No not really. In all seriousness, I did manage to walk away from Vegas having done three things:

1. I really, really enjoyed myself, especially considering it was a work trip.

coworkers

2. I ate fairly well, and indulged on a few meals so I don’t feel like I missed out.

food

3. I worked out 4 out of the 5 days we were there.

pool

When I stepped on the scale Monday evening (after dinner because I am clearly an idiot) I saw a number flash up and was pleasantly surprised. I figured it was a fluke, you know, my body was still dehydrated from all of our ‘last night in Vegas’ shenanigans’ and so when I weighed myself on Tuesday and hadn’t gained a single pound from my trip I was floored.

So how did it happen? I’m a little curious too, honestly. But I do attribute it to these things:

1. I made it a point to eat (mostly) healthy. We flew out on Wednesday afternoon and I ate well the whole day leading up to our flight. Once there I stuck with a salad for dinner so I could have a few bites of the fried appetizers and then me and two of my coworkers went out for the night. Throughout the rest of the week I tried to make healthy decisions during the days (wraps and salads for lunches… smaller breakfasts… etc) so that I didn’t walk around feeling disgusting.

bar

2. I made it a point to make time to work out. Was it always convenient? Heck no. But I started off my workcation (which is a real word, despite what the red squiggly line underneath it is trying to tell me) on Wednesday with a quality workout before our flight. One of my coworkers and I hit up the gym together on Thursday. Friday I snuck in a quick abs + bike workout after our conference sessions were over and Saturday I woke up way before everyone else to hit the gym. It never interfered with my time at the pool or in sessions and I was so glad each time I went. Sunday, on the other hand, well… we went to bed around 4-5am. We had to be out the door by 6:45am. You do the math on that one.

3. I still indulged. While I was busy making good decisions during the days I still chose when I wanted to indulge and I made it count. Every single bite that wasn’t “healthy” was completely worth it.

mms

M&Ms for breakfast? Don’t mind if I do…

I just didn’t go completely overboard every single night, as is typical of my prior vacations. And I still had way too much fun.

And somehow ended up in a cupboard one night.

cupboard

But that is neither here nor there.

How do you handle being “healthy” and being on vacation?

Vegas ROUND 2

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I’m going to Vegas tomorrow for a solid 5 days. bring on the bright lights, the city that never sleeps, and… work. wah wahhhh.

this is my second time going and honestly I didn’t think I’d be going back so soon – if you remember, I spent a week there in July for a belated anniversary celebration with Sean and the wedding of 2 of our friends.

vegas

fun fact: I look NOTHING like that anymore. in fact on saturday I chopped all my hair off and dyed it back pretty close to my natural color (light brown).

needless to say, it’s going to be an interesting trip this time around since I’m not going to celebrate but to work instead. it’s also my first real grown-up work trip. i’m getting sooo olddddd… ;-)

I would love to tell you I have guest posts lined up but I don’t. I’m going to try to do some blogging but that may not happen at all. then again, I could surprise everyone (myself included) and get one up!

In Fitness News…

I’m bringing back two-a-day workouts at least twice a week. I’ve been struggling with my eating habits and I think I finally realized that nothing really seems to be changing no matter how many times I complain about it, so I’m just going to start working out more. problem solved.

I got up this morning and had a KILLER workout, I was seriously wanting to quit halfway through, so you know it was good.

I started with 20 minutes on the elliptical (I feel like Julie) and then completed this upper body workout in the form of tabatas:

Upper Body Tabata Workout

happyhealthyrunner.com

Push-ups

Weighted arm punches

Tricep dips

Bicep curls

Tricep extensions

Side Raises

Tricep kickbacks (right)

Tricep kickbacks (left)

Upright rows

Rows from plank

Goodmornings

Shrugs

Perform as many reps as possible of each move for 30 seconds, resting 15 seconds after before moving to the next move.

Repeat 3 times, resting 45 seconds between each circuit.

I wanted to quit after the second round, but I somehow found it in me to push through and I’m so glad I did. I was sweaty and tired, but man the day sure did start out with a whole lot of endorphins!

In an effort to actually do two-a-day workouts I went BACK to the gym at lunch to do another 25 minutes on the elliptical. so glad I did. I forgot how much I love getting out and MOVING during the day instead of just eating lunch at my desk. this will become a more regular occurrence.

Do you workout on lunch breaks ever?