Monday, August 24, 2020

Goodbye, for now

 I hope everyone has had a great week!  I just want to post to say I've come to the realization that I'm going to step back from blogging.  


 My first running photo on the blog from January 2014

I've always been doing this just for fun.  Back when I started in 2014, it was also a way to have some accountability to keep working out, and to meet other runners as well as learn more about tips and technique.  I've really enjoyed virtually meeting so many of you and it's been a helpful outlet for talking about my training and plans without bothering my non-running friends with it.

Finishing my first half marathon in November of 2014

But now, it has begun to feel like a bit of a chore and not as fun.  And, well, let's face it that there aren't a lot of races at the moment.  And thankfully I've gotten to the point that I'm working out because I enjoy it and want to do it, so I don't need accountability quite as much.  

During the Disney World full marathon in January of 2019 - not the end of the journey I hope!

I definitely still want the community and to stay in touch with all of you!  I may not be here but I will still be posting on instagram and I look forward to continuing to follow all of your adventures as well :)

As always, I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown! 

 weekly Run Down

Monday, August 17, 2020

Weekly Review

 I hope you've all had a great week!  Things went pretty well here.  And as far as workouts, Peloton did a Prince artist series so there was a lot of Prince on my workout schedule :)  My workouts went as scheduled for the most part.  But by the time I got to Sunday, I was really tired again so ended up doing yoga instead of the run that was on the schedule.  Here are the details.

Monday - Boot camp + core

Tuesday - Bike plus core



Wednesday - Rest day

 Thursday - Prince Strength training + core



Friday - Prince spin class + core



Saturday - 30 minute Prince run



Sunday - 30 minute Prince yoga 



So that was it for my week.  Sunday was also Mike's birthday so we had a virtual movie night with friends on Saturday.  It ended up being a lot of fun.  Obviously it would have been better if we had all been able to get together in person but this was a good alternative. 

Here's my workout plan for this week.

Monday - Boot camp (It will be my 100th Peloton class!)
Tuesday - Bike and strength training
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - Bike and strength training
Friday - Running
Saturday - Bike
Sunday - Running plus strength training

 I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown! 
 weekly Run Down

Sunday, August 9, 2020

Weekly Review

I hope everyone had a great week!  It was more of the same over here.  It was the last week of the Pelothon challenge and I had a lot of fun with it over the past 4 weeks.  I'm a bit sad it's done.  But I'm sure I'll find other ways to keep having fun with our new bike and the Peloton app :)  I started a 2 week sleep meditation program and a 4 week abs program through the app already.  I did put up a summary of my Pelothon experience last week.  Here are the details of the week.

Monday - 20 minute beginner ride plus core

 

Tuesday - 10 minute full body strength training plus abs



Wednesday - Rest day

Thursday - 20 minute beginner ride and core



Friday - 30 minute power walk (I threw in some run intervals when I found shade since I didn't get out until the afternoon) plus full body strength training



Saturday - 30 minute Lizzo ride plus core.  I was really tired and not feeling it, so I treated myself with a music based ride I knew I would enjoy.  Lizzo always makes me feel better :)  But still, I noticed that my output on the bike was nowhere near where it would usually be and my heart rate was still pretty high.  



Sunday - Rest day with a short walk and a 5 minute stretch class.  I was still feeling really tired so I decided to shuffle things around.  I'll move my planned boot camp to Monday instead and take this extra day of rest :)

I also had a call with a friend who is a yoga instructor.  It was nice to catch up and she also helped out with giving me a short program to help with my tight calves and quads.  So I'm hoping to add that into my routine as well.  

I also had a video meeting one day this week (most of my calls for work have been without video) so I did take the opportunity to put on make-up :)  It's good to remind myself how to do it every couple weeks!


 

So that was our week.  Here's my workout plan for this week.

Monday - Boot camp
Tuesday - Bike and strength training (it will be my 10th bike class!)
Wednesday - Rest day
Thursday - Bike and strength training
Friday - Running
Saturday - Bike
Sunday - Running plus strength training

 I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown! 
 weekly Run Down

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Pelothon 2020

I thought I'd give a summary of my first Pelothon challenge!  The timing worked out well for the most part since I received my bike during the second week of the 4 week challenge.  It encouraged me to explore more options than I would have done on my own.  I also joined a Facebook group for the team I was on so that helped with finding more of a community around Peloton as well.

So how does it work?  The first thing you have to do is choose a team.  Peloton set up the teams and assigned certain instructors to the teams.  You could choose the team based on the instructors you liked.  I still didn't know most of the instructors so I kind of just chose at random and ended up on #BreakThroughCrew.  This ended up being a great choice :)  Once you chose a team, you had to add the hashtag to your profile and that was it to get started.

Week 1 - Do a workout with each of the instructors assigned to your team.  I had 6 instructors on my team so that was a lot of classes.  I also didn't have the bike yet for this particular week.  But I was able to get the classes done through strength training, stretching and yoga.  This was a good challenge as it allowed me to try new teachers, and new types of classes as I had never done yoga through Peloton before.



Week 2- Do 2 live classes.  This was a great challenge as I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have tried out a live class on my own.  One of the things I like about Peloton is the ability to do the workouts on your own time, so I wasn't eager to try a live class that would have to be on their schedule.  But I found things that fit in my schedule and I have to admit that I enjoyed the group aspect of the live classes and giving high fives to other people working out at the same time :) This was the first meditation class I tried through Peloton.  This was also the week that our bike was delivered.



Week 3 - Do a class 5 out of 7 days.  This was another fun one.  Again, it encouraged me to try out different types of classes.  This was the first week I tried out a boot camp class. 



Week 4 - Do a pelothon class.  This one was a little confusing to me, and I wasn't the only one based on the comments on Facebook.  But essentially, they had certain classes that were designated as pelothon classes and we just had to do one of those.  It could be live or later once the class went "on demand" so we could do it at whatever time was convenient for us.  That made it a pretty easy challenge.  I finished it with a strength training class with one of the #BreakThroughCrew teachers and it was a lot of fun.



As you finish each week, you receive a digital badge to show your completion.  The badges aren't a huge deal for me, but it's still a nice visual indication of your achievement :)



So that was my first Pelothon!  I really enjoyed it, and am grateful that it encourage me to branch out and try different types of classes.  I'm new to peloton so I don't know how often they do things like this but I'm a fan and will definitely keep an eye out for more challenges.

Monday, August 3, 2020

Weekly Review

Hi, everyone!  I hope you all had a good week last week.  The week went pretty well here and smoothly for the most part.  I continued to use the Peloton app pretty heavily.  I'm really enjoying it and it's helping me get in a variety of different types of work outs.

Monday - Rest day since I was having some knee pain.  I did still use the Peloton app for a restorative yoga.  This actually felt really good and I ended up staying in savasana for an additional 10 minutes.



Tuesday - Peloton bike and strength training



Wednesday - 35 minute run/walk



Thursday - Peloton bike and strength training



Friday - Power walk plus warm up and cool down walk


Saturday - Rest day, plus I started doing the Peloton sleep meditation collection



Sunday - Peloton boot camp.  This was my first time trying the boot camp.  I don't have a treadmill so I just ended up doing the running sections outside.  I really enjoyed this workout, it was a lot of fun.  I'm hoping to do more of these.



In addition to the workouts, we also had friends visit in the backyard Sunday.  We set up our kiddie pool, they set up theirs about 10 feet away, and we hung out that way :)  A little weird but it was fun and a change from the usual routine.  We also spent some time on the weekend watching the virtual Lollapalooza concerts.



So that was our week.  Here's my workout plan for this week.

Monday - Bike plus strength train
Tuesday - Rest day
Wednesday - Running
Thursday - Bike and strength training
Friday - Running
Saturday - Bike
Sunday - Boot camp

 I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown! 
 weekly Run Down

Friday, July 31, 2020

Weekly Food

It's Friday!  This iweek went by really quickly.  I'm not sure why but I'm not going to complain about that :)  I hope everyone else had a good week!  And since it's Friday, I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and share the food we ate this week.


We kept the food pretty simple this week.  We started with brunch over the weekend.  We had ordered some fresh bagels (they were so good!) so I had a breakfast sandwich on a bagel with vegan cheese and avocado. 



A friend cooked dinner for us at the beginning of the week and it was a pasta casserole with plenty of spinach.  It was delicious and we had it with salad.



Then there was fried rice with sesame roasted broccoli.  This was pretty basic and I didn't even use a recipe.  I kind of just threw things in until it tasted the way I wanted.  Thankfully that worked out really well this time and everyone was a fan :)



Our meal for the weekend is going to be cauliflower tacos, I'll report back on those next week.  We're also treating ourselves to a special take out deal.  A local catering company is doing curbside pick up for meals as a pivot since there aren't really large events going on.  We have a 3 course meal ordered tonight and it was only $22 per person.  I'm looking forward to it!

I'd love to hear about any fun meals you all have tried recently :)

 

Sunday, July 26, 2020

Weekly Review

Sorry, it's been a couple weeks since I've been here but I'm back!  And I have been working out and continuing to do PT, I just haven't been blogging about it.  But I'm hoping to be able to get back to that now on a regular basis because I miss you all :)  My big news this past week is that my Peloton bike was delivered Friday.  Here are the details.

Monday - 30 minute walk




Tuesday - 30 minute Peloton Yoga



Wednesday - Rest day

Thursday - 20 minute strength training



Friday - Peloton delivery day!  The delivery went nice and smooth, and it was earlier than scheduled.  I celebrated with a 30 minute Brittney Spears ride.



Saturday - 10 minute core strength and 10 minute meditation



Sunday - 20 minute run and 20 minute beginner bike ride



The other fun thing this weekend is that San Diego Comic Con was doing virtual panels.  We watched several panels, and I even dressed up in a Star Wars cosplay on Friday.  I didn't go anywhere, of course, but it was still fun :)



And we had a friend visit for a socially distanced dinner on Sunday evening.

So that was our week.  I hope you all have been doing well!  I look forward to catching up on everyone's blogs :)  Here's my workout plan for this week.

Monday - 30 minute walk
Tuesday - bike and strength training
Wednesday - rest day
Thursday - bike and strength training
Friday - 3 mile run
Saturday - bike and strength training
Sunday - 3 mile run

 I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown! 
 weekly Run Down

Monday, June 29, 2020

Weekly Review

I was able to try running again this week!  It went ok, though I was super slow.  But I guess that makes sense since I haven't run since April and it's much hotter now.  I need to start getting out the door earlier in the morning.  But overall, it was a good week last week.  I also did my PT exercises most days of the week (I think I forgot on Thursday) and my planks most days as well.  Here are the details.

Monday - Lower body strength training

Tuesday - Thursday - Rest days.  These were work days and ended up not really being able to work out other than my PT exercises.  I meant to get out for a walk on Wednesday but ended up running into a neighbor and talked too long.  So the walk just ended up being a short 10 minute loop.

Friday - 35 minute run/walk.  My new sports bras came in this week so I was able to try running!  The good news is that my knees seem fine and don't hurt.  I did a 20 minute peloton run/walk and then kept going for another 15 minutes on my own.



Saturday - Lower body strength training

Sunday - 40 minute run/walk.  And I saw this beautiful neighborhood cat on the way!  I also did a 10 minute peloton stretching class.




So that's it for the week.  It was also a good week because there was a noticeable improvement in the range of motion for my shoulder.  I'm sure it's been improving incrementally but I didn't really notice until this week.  I couldn't tie my mask behind my head last week but I was able to do it on Saturday.

 I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown! 
 weekly Run Down





Friday, June 26, 2020

Weekly Food

It's finally Friday!  This is another week that seemed to crawl by for some reason.  I guess part of it is because we stay in the house all the time and really don't go anywhere.  But I know that's still the right thing for us for now so we're going to keep with it.  I hope everyone else had a good week!  And since it's Friday, I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and share the food we ate this week.

 

Weekend brunch was amazing this week.  Mike made a baked french toast with whipped cream that was delicious.  We also had it with mango and strawberries on the side.


We made another vegan pasta on Wednesday.  This one had roasted veggies and a tomato sauce that was creamy with the addition of soaked and blended cashews. And we served it with salad.  Sorry for the blurry photo, I don't know how I didn't notice that when I took it.


The middle of the week was a greek salad.  It was delicious, especially the second day as the flavors had a chance to marry.  We were trying to clean out our freezer a bit so we served it with garlic bread the first day and with tater tots the second day.  Random pairings but still delicious and now there's more room in the freezer :)


I hope everyone has a good weekend in front of them!