Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Good Eats and Exercise

I am exhausted.  The weekend trip wore me out, P90X kicked my booty last night and I have a full schedule tonight.  I'll start out by saying P90X is hard.  They're not kidding when they tell you that.  Oh and I have no chest strength.  So I'm sore today.  Whoa.  I'll give more of a recap next week after I've kicked my own butt all week.  Tonight, I have the plyometric workout for P90X, a short run so I can test out my shin and a bike ride.  We'll see how that goes!

Fortunately for me, I planned chili in the crockpot tonight, so as soon as I'm ready for it, dinner will be served!  I figured I would share the recipe I used, but I will tell you that every time I cook chili it's a bit different.  This recipe normally is a thicker chili.

I start by browning ground beef and chopping part of an onion and green pepper into very small pieces.
Then, I add them to the crockpot with the following ingredients:
1 can tomato paste
1 large can tomato sauce
1 can diced tomato
2 cans chili beans
1 can kidney beans
1-1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon red pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Dash of cinnamon (sometimes I trade that out for sugar, takes the bitterness out of tomatoes)

Put in the slow cooker on low for 6-8 hours (although today I think mine will be cooking longer) or 2-4 hours on high and it will be done!  Enjoy!

Monday, October 24, 2011

Say It, Do It

Last week was an utter disaster workout wise.  I basically got in shoulders, triceps, back and abs...that's all I remember right now, but I was pretty discouraged about the pain while running mixed with an extremely busy and shortened week.  I think my shin is feeling better (I hope) so I'm taking it out for a test run to see.  Fingers crossed.  Anyway, onto this week.  I'm going to be trying the P90X program.  This will be my first try at this workout program.  I watched a couple clips from it and I think it might be something I will like, so I am basing my workouts on P90X:

Monday: Back and Chest, Ab Ripper X
Tuesday: Plyometrics
Wednesday: Shoulders and Arms, Ab Ripper X
Thursday: Yoga X (I need flexibility!)
Friday: Legs and Back, Ab Ripper X
Saturday: Kenpo X (from what I understand, sort of like a kickboxing/cardio workout)
Sunday: Rest

As I said before, I am going to try to get in a couple runs if my leg is feeling ok, so Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are run days if I'm feeling well.  I'm going to also try to get on the bike once or twice this week.  Hopefully this isn't too ambitious and hopefully I like P90X.  It looks like it has the potential to be a great program.  I'll report back on my findings.  At this point, I'm not committing to the 90 days, I want to try out a week or two before I go all ball to the wall on it!  Look at that...I'm learning!

What's your workout plan for the week??

48 hours up and back...

...to North Carolina.  It was a beautiful time to go up there and we had a great time.  Here's the breakdown of our weekend:
18 hours of driving
12 hours of sleeping
3 hours of sightseeing
15 hours of hanging out with friends and family
We were busy...and we're exhausted today!

We went to Mount Airy which was the inspiration for the Andy Griffin show.  I haven't ever been into the show, but it was neat to see.  We were in the Blue Ridge Mountains where there are apparently a lot of vineyards.  Who knew?  So, I got to knock something off my bucket list!  The wedding was in the middle of a vineyard and the reception was outdoors which gave us a beautiful sunset and an awesome time!  This is probably one of the prettiest weddings I've ever been to...check it out:

 John with the groom.  Not sure why the picture isn't cooperating!

 The bride arrived in a Mayberry Police car!

 Such a beautiful place for a wedding!


The Newlyweds driving away!

 In the vineyard






What did you do this weekend??

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Booty Kickin' Workout?

Helloooo Ladies!

I'd love to report that I ran my 10 miles on my schedule for the week but, I have not.  My shin is still shooting pain every time I try to run (or try to use the stairs at the house...fun fun).  It makes me a bit sad, especially considering the race is a mere 17 days away.  Boo.  I needed to get that last long run in, but that hasn't happened.  I'm taking it easy because I don't want to hurt it more.  Hopefully another day or two will help.

In other workout news:
I'm thinking about trying to do P90X.
My dad bought it and hasn't used it, so I figured it's free...why not?  Has anyone gone through the full 90 days?  It seems like a lot of time to put into the workouts which would probably make trying to find time to run and bike a bit much, but those I refuse to give up.  I know I could just use them as supplemental workouts, but I was just curious of the results I would get if I actually did the whole thing.  Anyone with any experience out there??  It looks like each workout is between 55-90 minutes when you add the ab ripper into the mix.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Lottery Winnings

Oh, I didn't win the lottery?  That was one awesome dream last night then.  The Powerball is up to $124 million right now.  It'd be pretty awesome to win that!

This weekend was much appreciated.  Friday was a pretty rough day all around.  It started with my run (or lack there of) and the Dunkin Donuts being closed so I couldn't redeem my free iced coffee after my run and it really went downhill after that with some real stuff, not just a bad-run-and-no-free-coffee kind of thing.  So end of the day Friday, I was ready for the weekend like whoa.

Besides celebrating a friend's birthday and seeing a few fun friends, it was mostly a work weekend, but felt like one of the most enjoyable ones in a while.  I think that shows I really needed the weekend ha.

This weekend, I:

  • missed out on my regular sleep durations (Friday-Saturday I was up for 22 hours straight ahh!) to wait for friends to arrive and then take friends to the airport, they went to Costa Rica and I am jealous!
  • helped my parents with a project on their condo...manual labor...woo!
  • cleaned like a mad woman
  • planted more of my seedlings into my garden.  I can't wait to eat the fresh veggies!
  • moved sod from one part of the yard to the other by myself (it's not as easy as it looks when John does it).  St. Augustine roots are beastly and sod is heavy!

I'll take pictures of my little garden if the seedlings don't float away by the end of today.  Apparently we're getting another couple days of straight rain.  Thanks for the heads up weatherman!

Oh, and the poor Gators played a pathetic excuse for a football game Saturday.  It was rough to watch, but expected.  Congrats to Melissa for her Auburn win.  Thankfully, we had some good company to console our loss and yummy food + cupcakes!    


I ended last night feeling very pleased with the break I got from work this weekend.  I felt relaxed.  That's always happy, but makes work a lot harder to gear up for the next day.  That about sums up my weekend.  Hopefully this week will be great!

How was your weekend?  Do anything fun or productive??

Say It, Do It

Here are my results from last week:


Monday: 5 x 1000m @ 5k pace with 200 recovery job between each interval.  Abs.
I did 4 instead of 5 due to a time crunch.  My dad was coming over to take a look at our leaking house.  Felt good though.Tuesday: Biceps, back and legs. 2-3 mile run, slow.  Abs.
2 mile run.  10.5 mile bike ride.  Shoulders.Wednesday: Tri's and shoulders.  4 miles, hills (read: overpass, it's Florida)
9.5 mile bike ride.  3.1 miles of hills.  I got a horrible cramp at mile 2 and pushed through until 3.1 and decided to not push it any further.  Abs.Thursday: ~15 mile bike ride. Abs.
Rested.Friday/Saturday: Rest one day, 10 mile run the other day.
Realized I had to run my 10 mile run Friday because of a laser hair removal treatment, so I got up at 4:20am to get in the run.  I ran less than a mile and had pain shooting up my calf and shin.  I thought I just needed to run it out and I'd be fine.  No such luck.  I ended the run at 5 miles so I didn't hurt myself.  It still hurts :(  The race is in less than 3 weeks.  Lame.  I'm going to attempt 10 again tomorrow if I feel up to it.  Also did some major abs to work out my frustration of not completing my run.  Boo.Sunday: REST
Rested.


Total: Ran 13.75 miles, Biked 20 miles, shoulders, and abs.  Not so stellar week.  I'll do better this week hopefully.


This week:
Monday: Abs, shoulders and tris.  
Tuesday: 10 mile run (please please pleeeaaseee!) 
Wednesday: Biceps, back, abs.
Thursday: Speed work of at least 3-4 miles depending on how the legs feel.
Friday: 10-15 mile bike ride.
Saturday/Sunday: Wedding time for friends!


Hopefully this week goes better than last!