back!

it's been a while. life has been busy at work. i work in elementary special education and we like to call this "IEP season" aka you don't have a life anymore. not to mention, i broke my toe. i stubbed it on a door frame. ha ha ha, i know. so lame. i was benched for about 4 weeks for that one. after 3 weeks i was able to put a sneaker on and do some cross training, but running was completely out of the question. the past 3 weeks, i have been following the training plan i found when i ran my first half marathon to get myself back into the groove.

my runs are looking like this: 

week 1: mon-off tues-3 miles wed-4 miles thurs-3 miles fri-off sat-3 miles sun-5 miles

week 2: mon-off tues-3 miles wed-5 miles thurs-3 miles fri-off sat-4 miles sun-6 miles

week 3: mon-off tues-4 miles wed-5 miles thurs-4 miles fri-off sat-3 miles sun-7 miles

when i first decided to get back into it and follow this training plan, i wasn't training for a race. i was just training. last week, i got an email from a co-worker asking if i wanted to join a fundraising team and do a 10k. i immediately jumped at the opportunity because 1. i love 10k's and 2. i love running for a good cause and 3. then i'll really stick to my training. we are running to sponsor a program that helps promote a healthy lifestyle for children. my sunday runs will be much longer than 10k's but my mid-week runs will range between 4 and 5 miles so i can pick up the pace a bit. ;) 

i am excited for my first race since my injury and to get back into training. my winter runs were not at all consistent, so i'm looking forward to getting back into a routine. 

any races on the docket for you? do you follow a strict training schedule?

#whatilikeaboutme

while crusin' my twitter feed earlier today, i saw a post that caught my eye. the tweet said "love who you are today" with the hashtag: what i like about me (but in true hashtag, no space between words fashion). after reading the post i was totally inspired to do my own "what i like about me." it's true that all too often we get caught up in the things we can fix, the things we could work on, and the things we're doing wrong that we forget to think about the good stuff. the things we ARE working and making progress on, the things we don't have to fix, the things we're doing RIGHT. thank you to runstretchgo for the inspiration!! 

#whatilikeaboutme

fitness-wise

•  i work hard at my goals. i set a mileage goal sunday night for the week, write it down in my planner, then i achieve those goals. if i have a goal of 6 miles on monday, i run 6 miles on monday. of course if something comes up and i have to cancel, so be it. besides that, i take my goals very seriously and push myself to get them done. 
• i look and feel good. when i first started running i was around 134 lbs, which is the most i have ever weighed. (i'm 5'4) i was in no way obese, but i did not take great care of myself. now, i fluctuate between 115-118 lbs. this is a healthy weight for my height. although i'm hard on myself and sometimes say 'ugh my stomach looks huge' or 'ugh i look so fat in this' in the back of my mind i need to remember i have come along way and i look great. 
• i am strong and healthy. on a good day, i can run 6 miles like its nothing. some days it takes a little more effort, but regardless i can always do it. (not too long ago i could barely stand running 1 mile!!)
• i don't give up on myself. if i have a bad run one day, it just fuels me to try harder and do better the next.
•  i'm not too hard on myself & i'm true to what i enjoy. yeah, i'm going to have a salad for lunch and make overall healthy food choices..but no i'm not going to turn down that cupcake or a piece of carvel cake. i understand moderation. i embrace moderation. (unless we're talkin' about mimosas) ;) 

 personal-wise 

• i am reliable. if i tell someone i am going to do something, i do it. 
• i am always on time. seriously. i grew up with a mother who always made me late for everything. i hated it and made a promise to myself that i would not be that way when i grew up. 
• i am honest. sometimes, brutally honest, but always honest. sometimes this means telling people things they don't want to hear. especially at work. (i'm an elementary school special educator)
• i am GOOD at throwing themed parties. i love them.
• i'm a good dog mom. 
• i'm a good friend and an overall good person. i hold myself to a high moral standard. i'm not proud of that as often as i should be. 

what do you like about you? it feels good to focus on the positive, instead of the negative. how often do we talk ourselves up, rather than talk ourselves down? love, love, love the idea of this post!! 

benched with the flu.

the flu came tearing through school. i made it through the first week of horrific-ness. we had 50+ kids out a day, along with 5+ staff. one day we had 12 staff out and 61 children. i was not sick once the whole 5 days. i thought i made it through. i bragged about making it through. sunday night i went to bed knowing i was in the clear. i made it through the week and the weekend, my immune system rocked. 

i woke up monday morning not feeling great. i felt an ache in my body. as the day went on, things got worse. by about 1:00 pm, i left the classroom and went to the nurse..in true 5th grade fashion. she took my temperature after i told her my symptoms. 100.1 degrees. all of my bragging came back to me and i wanted to slap myself. i totally jinxed it. she told me i better go home to rest. i left early, went home, and put on my pajamas. i had to ditch my plans of running 7 miles on the treadmill.  i lived off chicken noodle soup that my man so kindly made for me.

 

 the next day was torture. the day after that i felt a little better, but still horrible. the day after that i felt much better (in comparison), but still not able to get in any exercise.  the 4th day, i felt good enough to get back to work. i decided i would go to the gym after work and just try the elliptical. i had no dreams of running. i made it a half hour on the elliptical, but stopped there since i didn't want to over do it. the next day, i felt basically fine. i decided to give a run a shot. it was saturday so i was able to wake up slowly, have breakfast, and then relax before i headed out.

 

usually, i can run 3 miles in 21 minutes. my average pace for shorter runs (3-6 miles) is about 7 minutes. so this was slow for me. i had a 3 mile goal when i went to the gym, but i didn't expect it to take me that long. i was happy i fulfilled my goal, despite the pace. it was rough. 

 a couple days later, i was back to my normal pace running 4 or 5 miles. it took me about a week to get back up to 7. i get so antsy when i'm sick and can't exercise! 

 the flu was rough this year. as much as i wanted to get up and do something, i listened to my body and laid in bed watching gossip girls. i drank as much water as humanly possible and ate lots of chicken noodle soup. normally, on a day off i like to drink a mimosa or 3 and i even refrained from that. 

so happy to be back in the swing of things!

 

workin' on your fitness...stuck at home.

as i have mentioned before, i live in new england. unless you live under a rock you know that we got a visit from "juno" this week, who left us with about 2 feet of snow. my school got cancelled monday afternoon. when school gets cancelled, my life commitments are cancelled as far as i'm concerned. if i don't have to work, i am not going anywhere. 

as much as i love a good excuse to not leave the house, i don't always love not being able to get out for a run/work out. especially on a day where i am certainly going to indulge in a mimosa...or 5. so, i turn to good ole workout videos. i have yet to try "p90x or t25" or any of those infomercial workout programs. my step mom is trying t25 and is going to pass it on to me when she's finished. i can definitely say i am never going to commit to doing a 25 minute video as my only exercise, but i am more than open to giving it a shot along with my running/strength training (with weights). at this point i am using youtube videos. 

when i first started this bad boy, i shared with you my favorite ab workout videos. i love them still. along with those, i have a few leg and arm workouts i like too. i do not love them like i do the ab videos, but they do the trick when i can't get out for a run.

xhit "thigh thinner"

xhit makes an appearance in my ab workout video post too. it's not a total ass kicking, but i give everything i have which always maximizes results. sometimes, i do the videos twice through. i love the fire hydrants and fire hydrant kicks. they burn so good! 

  xhit "inner thigh exercises for toning"

another one from xhit. this one is a little longer-20 minutes. i don't have a basketball, which this video calls for, so i just improvise. i have a kettle-bell and dumbbells. i also don't have a bench for "step ups" either, but i have craft crate plant holders so i just move the plant and use the crate sometimes. do what ya gotta do. 

xhit "best bodyweight leg exercises"

 xhit once again! mind you, some of these videos may have repeat exercises. i don't normally do them all in one day, so this doesn't effect me. if i did do them all, it might get a little boring to do certain exercises over and over. 

xhit "9 exercises for toned arms"

you need dumbbells for this one. it hurts! i'll be honest, my arms are weak. arm exercises are the hardest for me. i'm workin' on it!

if you can't tell, i totally love xhit. i have no affiliation with them whatsoever, i just swear by their videos. not everyone digs the hosts, from what i've read in the comments, but they don't bother me. yesterday i did the 20 minute thigh workout, the thigh thinner (mostly for the fire hydrants), 2 ab videos, and the arm exercise video. in between each of those i jump roped for 3 minutes, did a minute of mountain climbers, and 2 minutes of high knees. this got my heart rate going and got me sweatin. i would always rather be able to go out for a run, but when that is just not going to happen i don't mind a small video routine. 

stuck at home? how do you get in some exercise?

kicks

(first things first, i don't know much about blog etiquette. although..one thing i do know is that when people are talking about a product or brand, they mention whether they were paid to say good things or not. let's make something clear...i am not paid to do anything on the Internet. i enter some grades here and there, that's the gist of it. i bought these new shoes, i like them, and now i want to tell you about them. I have 30 Twitter followers for christ's sake...no sneaker companies are asking me to talk about their stuff. ok..moving on)

i go through a lot of running shoes. usually shoes last me about 400 miles and then i like to switch them up. i must admit another reason. my feet get seriously smelly. especially if i have used a sneaker to run in the rain, washed them, and then sweat in them again. for some reason those shoes are extra smelly and extremely embarrassing to take out around people at the gym. i am not a shoe lady by any means. i wear birkenstock clogs/sandals and boots that i bought at marshall's, whose brand remains unknown to me. i am a sneaker lady, though. i love love love shopping for new sneakers.  i only wear my sneakers to run though. i am not a sneaker and jean kind of gal, either. this is the first time pink has slipped into my wardrobe since i learned to dress myself.

the sole of these shoes have "#findyourstrong" imprinted on them. i do not understand the point of this, but hey, it's 2015 and i don't understand the point of much anymore. for example the meaning of the word "bae" (which my

5th graders say more often than i would like to hear) honestly, what is a "bae"?? someone help.

imprints all over the place on these bad boys. thankfully, this one actually makes sense to me. "8 mm OFFSET" is what those tiny little letters spell. the offset is the difference in height from heel to toe of a shoe. the mm stands for millimeters, which is what the offset is measured in. traditionally sneakers have been 10mm-12mm. of course there have been exceptions to the "traditional sneaker" (running flats, those shoes that look like toe socks). the 8 mm is supposed to improve the ride and stability, while still allowing for a less emphasized heel strike. it is also supposed to encourage a more natural stride. i honestly didn't notice much of a difference from my old shoes that had a 10mm offset. i have heard (from my dad) that a 4mm is a little harder to get used to, if you go straight from 10 to 4.

 

i have been seriously loving these. since it is winter in New England (it's a blizzard outside right now), i unfortunately haven't gotten outside for many runs recently. i have been hitting the TM though and if shoes work for me on the TM then i certainly don't question their outside potential. prior to switching up my shoes, i was starting to feel a little nagging in my knee. i haven't felt the nagging at all since switching. 8 miles (on the TM) in my old shoes would have left me with that little pain, i tried 8 in these (on the TM) and didn't feel it during or after my run. i have no reasoning behind this and i'm not even sure if it's all in my head but either way...it works for me.

are you a running-shoe junky? do you use different sneakers for running and cross training? what sneaks do you love?

"you look like you could use a cheeseburger"

i wasn't planning on writing a blog post tonight, but today someone said something to me that got me thinking. now, just to clear something up before i get started. i am 5'4 and weigh 115 pounds. when i first started seriously running, i asked my doctor at an appointment what weight i "should" be at. he explained to me that there really isn't a specific weight i "should" be at, but there is a range of weights that would be healthy for my height as well as my body type. 107-135 pounds is the range my doctor gave me. i could lose 8 pounds and still be at a healthy weight. the reason i say this is to put this into perspective for you. 

today, i saw someone that i hadn't seen in a while, probably a good 5 years. i have never been heavy, but i also have never been as healthy and fit as i am now. after a few minutes of catching up with this acquaintance, she mentioned how "skinny" i was looking and asked what i was doing. i told her that i have been doing a lot of running. her response shocked me, "wow..it looks like you could really use a cheeseburger." without knowing how exactly to politely respond to that comment, i quickly wrapped up the conversation and was on my way. 

i kept repeating this comment over and over in my head as i walked away. i look like i could use a cheeseburger. i kept thinking, well shit...i eat plenty of cheeseburgers. i mean really, i went to five guys on a sunday and then again on a friday, the same week! (don't judge me, i love five guys hamburgers) that wasn't the point though, the point was that she was body shaming me. what if the tables were turned and she thought i was fat. (i don't really like saying that, but i'm trying to make a point here) would she say, "it looks like you should lay off the cheeseburgers?" NO, because that would be cruel, completely inappropriate and rude. so why is it not cruel and why is it accepted for people to make those kinds of comments about "skinny" people?

that comment today just did not rub me the right way. let's not body shame! whether it's a comment about someone's height or their weight, think about it before you say it. even if you don't think it sounds mean, we have to think about these things. that girl probably did not mean to offend me. hell, she probably thought she was giving me a compliment. telling someone they look like they could use something to eat is not a compliment. it's sort of a backhanded compliment. i try not to let things like that get to me, but this time it did. my goal is not to try and look hungry. my goal is to be fit and healthy. i don't think i should ever feel bad about that. i don't want to feel bad about that. i don't want to feel bad about myself, especially after a comment that most likely wasn't supposed to make me feel that way.

whether its a comment on how short someone is, how tall they are,  how big they are, how small they are, we have to think before we speak. we can't body shame each other. you have no idea how hard someone is working, you have no idea what kind of body issues someone is struggling with. we need to lift each other up, not bring each other down. 

homemade dog treats!

i am a crazy dog owner. i LOVE my dog. i have framed pictures of my dog in my house. i have no kids to frame pictures of...does that make me sound any less crazy? aaanyway, i have been trying to find a good recipe for homemade dog treats. mind you, i do not bake for myself or my boyfriend. i bake for my nieces' parties and i bake for my dog. that's it. i am no master chef or baker. these are easy-peasy and a doggy crowd pleaser.

what you will need:

1 1/2 cups of coconut flour

1 cup of smooth peanut butter

1 cup of unsweetened applesauce (i make my own-no thanks, high fructose corn syrup!!)

3 eggs

what you gotta do:

preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

in a large bowl,  thoroughly combine all your ingredients.  

roll into bite-sized balls on a no-stick baking sheet. 

bake for 10-15. depends on the size of the treats (until golden brown is good) 

share with that pup!! 

you have to store them in the fridge. your furbaby is going to love them, so don't worry-they won't take up space for long. it's about a 7 minute prep time, 10-15 minute cook time. totally worth it for your four-legged pal. i use them for training as well as just a treat to show my girl she's being a good dog! my sister in law makes them with 2 cups of whole wheat flour and only 2 eggs. the pups enjoy them just the same! peanut butter goes a long way with our labs.

any good doggy cookie recipes? what do you like to treat your four legged friend with?