What you’ve missed in my life over the past month!

OK. I know I’ve been gone. AGAIN. But we’ve already talked about my lack of blogging consistency so let’s just move on from that shall we?

So I’ve been quite busy over the last month, hence the lack of blogging! I started my last semester of grad school (hallelujah!) and have been training hard core for the crossfit open. I’ve done lots of other fun stuff in between, and I think the easiest way to recap it all is through lots of pictures….so here we go!

So for Christmas my awesome sister and brother-in-law (the one’s with the ridiculously cute redhead) got the hubs and I tickets to go see The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway in Chicago with them!!! Now, for those of you who don’t know, I am *slightly* obsessed with Phantom. Like, words can’t even express my excitement for getting to see this show. So anyway, our tickets were for a show in January, so we went up on a Saturday, went out somewhere fun to eat, and then watched the show.

I wasn’t allowed to take pictures during the show, but this was us afterwards. It was A-MAZ-ING. Seriously. I actually tried to talk them into letting me stay for the second showing. They weren’t convinced. I DID however, somehow, convince them to watch the movie version with me when we got home. HA! Luckily, my brother-in-law also loves Phantom so he was actually into it like me! *Note my sisters ADORABLE pregnant belly 🙂 There’s another little man cooking in there that will be arriving in April, so excited!!

The next exciting thing I did during my time AWOL was a partner crossfit competition with one of my favorites, Stephanie! It was a one day competition in springfield, and it was a blast! While I tend to prefer individual competitions, this one was a nice change of pace and as always, an excellent learning opportunity! We also did pretty well, so that’s always a plus!

I have another crossfit competition tomorrow in chicago, but this one is an individual one. I am excited to see where I’m at and what I still need to work on before the open starts! So obviously the other thing I’ve been doing lots of is training.

 

I’ve been working a lot on trying to get my strength up and perfect some of my skills, since I lost some of that during my time off. I am happy with my progress and can’t wait to see where I go from here! Unfortunately my running has been little to none, partly because I don’t have time with all my training and partly because the weather has been awful and I can’t run outside 😦 And you know how I feel about the treadmill….

The other big thing going on right now is the Advocare 24 day Challenge I just started yesterday!!! If you don’t know what that is, you can check out their website HERE.

I had heard a lot about this product and have been wanting to try it for awhile. After doing my research, as well as having multiple friends do it and love it, I decided to give it a go! Essentially it’s a cleanse mixed with clean eating and focusing on resetting your system, just what I need! I’m really excited to see how my body changes both physically and mentally from this. I also did a BodPod to find out my body fat percentage, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with where I’m at.

I’m not quite as lean as I want to be, but better than I thought, especially considering my nutrition hasn’t been stellar and I’ve been doing a lot of building lately, which tends to add on some fat! The most exciting thing was seeing how much MUSCLE I have gained since starting crossfit! I did a Bodpod before I started and looking at those results versus this one, I have gained 8 lb of body weight, but that is literally ALL fat free mass aka muscle. In fact I’ve actually added over 10 lbs of fat free mass (muscle) so I’ve even lost some more fat and replaced it with muscle! That’s amazing! How cool is that?! My body fat as of today is at 23%, and ideally I’d like to be at 20%, so that’s going to be my goal! While I would be surprised if I reach that in the 24 days, I’m excited to see what will happen. I took before pictures and measurements, so I can compare them to my end results later! I will definitely keep you guys updated on how it’s going!

Since my eating needs to be EXTRA clean right now, there isn’t going to be a date night out for valentine’s day. Instead Chris and I are planning to cook a nice health dinner tonight and then cuddle up and watch a movie, before turning in early so we can get up at 4 am tomorrow to head up north for my competition. It might not sound that good to you, but that sounds like the PERFECT Valentine’s day to me 🙂

 

Ugly sweaters and family time fun

Well hello! I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! The last few weeks have definitely been pretty busy around here, hence the lack of blogging. Where to begin?

For starters I finally took my CSCS exam (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist), so that was a super fun 3 hours! I then rewarded myself with some auntie Anne’s, because we don’t have one in town their cinnamon sugar pretzels are the bomb! Plus i figured I deserved it after 3 hours of staring at a screen and answering questions that required me to use my brain. That’s asking a lot of me people!

Last week I also got to go to my favorite sushi place ever, Ko Fusion! It’s in champaign, which is The town about an hour away from us where my hubby works. I decided to go there and we met up for dinner after he got done working. This place seriously has the best sushi ever.

This week we had an ugly sweater day at work, and I’m pretty sure I nailed it.

We also dressed up as “elves” on Christmas Eve because we are cool like that….

And of course our members felt sorry for us having to work Christmas Eve so they brought us all sorts of goodies…

I also did a really fun 12 days of Christmas WOD with my favorite training partner Paige and her sister on Christmas Eve.

Looks super fun right?? In case you wanted to try it yourself, you start with the 12 burpees, then do 11 box jumps + 12 burpees, then 10 sit ups + 11 box jumps + 12 burpees and so on until you’ve done it all!! It actually felt really good to do a longer WOD like this since I haven’t done anything like that in a while, and it definitely helped having these two awesome ladies to do it with!

I am definitely really glad to be cross fitting again, I didn’t realize how much I missed it! I’m very happy to report I am feeling great, and it turns out I didn’t even lose much of my strength or speed over the last two months off, so there’s still a chance I can do decent at the open, not to mention I’ll just be less frustrated trying to get back to where I was.

Oh how I missed this!

As far as Christmas goes, we spent both Christmas Eve and day with Chris’s side of the family up in Chicago, so we headed up there as soon as I got off work on Christmas Eve. We did his dad’s side of the family on Christmas Eve and his mom’s side Christmas Day. There were lots of presents, laughs, food and good times.

The Christmas dinner was amazing, although it confirmed a very sad fact for me. For a little while now I’ve been getting really really sick after eating, but it only seemed to occur when I ate beef or pork. So I started paying attention to how my body was reacting after eating those meats and confirmed my body now also hates pork and beef. So that’s fantastic. Looks like it’s just chicken, fish and ground turkey for this girl!

For Christmas presents I got a lot of beautiful jewelry from my MIL, some great gift cards from my BILs and their girlfriends and a new iPad air from Chris (you know, since I shattered my old one…) Chris also got me a fun, sweet gift that I’ve been wanting for a long time now but totally forgot about, which is an air popcorn popper! I was so excited he remembered I wanted one! So it will be popcorn galore around our house for the next few weeks…

We aren’t celebrating Christmas with my family until New Year’s Day, and my awesome sister and brother in law are visiting from Las Vegas, so I still have that to look forward to as well!

I’ve also been working on my crochet skills, and made this beret style hat that I’m pretty proud of! I’ve actually been super crafty lately, and busted out my jewelry making skills to make these bracelets for my MIL and brother in law’s girlfriends.

And because I know your super worried about if I’m still running…fear not my friends! I was still able to get in a couple good runs this week, one being an awesome 4 miler that consisted of 400 meter sprint repeats with Paige and then a nice easy 6 miler today. It was such a beautiful day and I just couldn’t turn down the chance to get out and run!

I’m hoping to get in 3 good runs next week and get back on track a bit, since I did slack off a little this week. Overall though, I’m pretty pleased with my training and where everything is headed!

Questions for you:

What was your favorite gift you got for Christmas?
I would have to say so far my iPad, but my air popcorn maker is pretty cool too!

Do you travel to see family for Christmas or stay in town?
Since we got married we’ve pretty much always traveled somewhere

How did you do on your health and fitness this week?
I did pretty good, didn’t eat too much junk and was able to still WOD or run almost every day!

Our 5 year wedding anniversary weekend celebration!

Well our 5 year wedding anniversary was a HUGE success!! We had the best time and amazingly all our plans worked out as intended and we didn’t get too lost (just a little lost one time…but it all worked out). So all in all, it was an absolutely perfect weekend 🙂

We ended up staying in downtown chicago at hotel indigo, because I found a really good deal online (of course).

It ended up being a really nice, cute room and a great location!

So friday night we went to see Elf: The Broadway Musical at the cadillac theater and it was really good! The performers did an excellent job and it was a really cute show.

 

Overall we had a really nice time. We were supposed to go to dinner before the show,but ended up getting a little** lost in downtown. But it’s okay because we ended up wandering into a big german festival that apparently happens every year around this time. They had tons of booths with homemade gifts and of course FOOD! So we ended up eating some homemade pretzels, nutella puffs and hot chocolate for our dinner. So you know, the usual.

That nutella puff was the bomb. So good. So that was our friday night! Then Saturday morning we walked from our hotel to a really fun breakfast restaurant called Hash Hash A Go Go!

Yeah, their food is awesome and their portions are crazy! That is ONE giant snickers pancake, and I had an eggs benedict with mashed potatoes and biscuits and yes, that is fried chicken on chris’s plate…say what?! 

After we stuffed ourselves with all that deliciousness, we headed back to our hotel to chill, then went to the navy peir to see The Hobbit: Desolation of Smog in IMax 3D!

 

Yeah we think we are so cool in our 3D glasses….I won’t spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, but can definitely say it was a good one!

After our movie we headed to oak brook plaza to have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Wildfire. We have been here before for an anniversary dinner so we felt it would be upholding tradition to go there, plus Chris LOVES a good steak, so it was the perfect choice.

They do have good steak, but I’m not a red meat person. Those mashed potatoes though…oh. my. goodness. So good!

Oh and in case you were thinking, “geese you sure ate a lot this weekend…” my response is well duh. Because everyone knows calories don’t count on your anniversary weekend 🙂

After dinner my amazing, wonderful, patient husband took me to one of my favorite places in the whole world. Lululemon. If you don’t know what that is, well we can’t be friends. I am just *slightly obsessed with their clothes. I am pretty sure I own more lululemon workout clothes than normal clothes…and I’m not even embarrassed about that. 

So what’s even more amazing is I somehow convinced the hubs to try on some of the men’s lululemon stuff and guess what?!

He found something he liked!! My man with his first ever lulu purchase! Doesn’t he look thrilled? But really, he LOVES his new pants and wears them all the time, and has already asked me about getting more. 

And as if the weekend wasn’t already amazing, we ended our anniversary by Chris taking me to Tiffany’s where we picked out a beautiful heart necklace for our 5 year wedding anniversary 🙂 

My first tiffany’s jewelry!! I am one VERY lucky girl! So that was our unbelievably perfect anniversary weekend! May there be many, many more wonderful years ahead for us 🙂

On the running front, I have to admit I haven’t done any for a few days. I decided to take a few days off to enjoy our anniversary and I don’t regret it one bit. Time with my husband is definitely more important than running. Hands down. And I won’t be running tomorrow because…..drum roll….I have my first day back at crossfit tomorrow!!! That’s right friends, I get to start back at it! Granted I am going to have to take it slow and have no idea what I’ll even be able to do, but at least I get to try! 

So my plan moving forward is doing 2-3 days of cross fitting and then still do my runs 3-4 days a week. I actually think this will be a really good balance and am excited for what’s to come! I’ll definitely keep you all updated! 🙂

 

Questions for you:

Have you ever been to a broadway musical? If so, which one?

This was my very first one, but definitely won’t be my last!

Do you prefer your movies in 3D or old school?

While I think the 3D is pretty cool, it usually gives me a headache so we often opt out of it

Have you ever given or received something from tiffany’s??

 

Rock you like a hurricane

Happy Saturday! Is anybody else as jazzed for this long weekend as I am? I just love the fact that I have NO classes Monday! That means no classes to teach or attend! This pretty much NEVER happens, so I plan to take full advantage of it!

In other news… I am excited to announce I will be competing in my very FIRST Crossfit competition next Saturday!!! It’s a partner competition which means I get to have a teammate to help me get through all the craziness, and I’m very lucky because one of my coaches, Erica, agreed to be my partner in crime!!!

Here’s what I’ll be doing at the competition (If you aren’t into Crossfit, you may not understand what a lot of this means, but suffice it to say, it’s gonna be killer!)

Crossfit in the Corn Crib Competition WODs:
WoD 1: (For Time)
200 m Run
100 – Thrusters 95/65 (modified – 65/45)
100 – Over the bar Burpees (modified – bare bar on ground)
200 m Run
(15 minute Cap)

WoD 2: (Combine both Max Effort)
1RM Barbell Ground to Overhead

(3 minute Cap)WoD 3: (For Time)
200 m Partner Wheel Barrow Walk (modified – no feet on shoulders)
50 – Over the Box Jump 24/18 (modified – 18/12)
50 – KB Swings 1.5/1 pood (modified – Russian swing)
150 – Double Unders or 450 singles or 300 tuck jumps – both partners must do the same
50 – KB Swings 1.5/1 pood (modified – Russian swing)
50 – Over the Box Jump 24/18 (modified – 18/12)
200 m Med Ball Toss 20/14
(15 minute Cap)WoD 4:
Will be announced at the Crib!!!

So the way it works is, my partner and I will complete each WOD together, so we split the reps between us and try to get it done as fast as possible!  All teams complete the first 3 WODS and then the top ten teams from each division get to move on and do the final fourth WOD. See how there’s two sets of numbers? The first set is for men/women RX division and the second is for men/women scaled. Since it was my first competition I decided to go with the scaled. The competitor in me wanted to do the Rx division, but the logical side of me reasoned I’ve only been doing this Crossfit thing for about a month now and it would be smart to ease into it since this is my first competition and I don’t really know what to expect! It’s still going to be tough, and if I decide I need more of a challenge I can do Rx next time!!

Workout:

Normally I don’t work out on the weekends, I usually use Saturday and Sunday as my rest days. However, one of the girls I workout with wanted to do a random WOD today at open gym, so I figured why not?!

Here’s the WOD us girls came up with:

 We named our WOD in honor of the hurricane passing through! Admit is, rock me like a hurricane is a pretty awesome name for a WOD!!

So for this WOD you perform the first 3 exercises for 8 minutes, trying to do as many rounds as possible! Then you take a 2 minute break and perform the second set of 3 exercises for 8 minutes, again trying to get in as many rounds as you can!

I gave this WOD a big sweat thumbs up!!

For the first set of exercises I used 135 pounds for my deadlifts and did the double unders instead of the singles (because I can actually do them now!!) and I was able to  get in 3 rounds. For the second set of exercises we did 45 pounds for the push press and again I did double unders and I was able to get in 2 rounds. I was definitely a little burnt out after the first part of the WOD and struggled to move as quickly through the second part! But overall it was a killer WOD and a really fun time! It is SOOO much better to workout with other people, especially the awesome peeps I get to sweat with!

 Here’s the awesome group of ladies I got to do this WOD with!!! Don’t we look sweaty hardcore? I loved working out with these beautiful ladies and I’m so proud of us for coming up with our own WOD and then kicking its butt!!

I’m expecting some really tough workouts this week since they will be geared toward the competition, but I say, BRING IT ON!!! 🙂 I’m just a *teensy bit competitive, if you didn’t already know…and I’m super psyched to be competing in something again!!

Now I’m off  to go relax and read my new book!

I really like this book so far! It’s kind of like The Giver mixed with  Hunger Games!!

Questions for you:

-Have you ever been to a Crossfit competition?

This will be my first one!!

-Do you have a workout buddy or do you prefer to workout solo?

I used to always work out alone but now I can’t imagine working out without all my Crossfit peeps!

-What good book are you reading lately?

Running in quicksand and CPR manikins are creepy

Just in case you were wondering (and you probably weren’t) getting certified as a CPR instructor is not as boring as it sounds! I went into this whole thing thinking it was going to be a REALLY long 3 days of having boring CPR/First Aid information drilled into my head until I wanted to pull my hair out. In actuality, it was kind of fun and interactive. It was nice to touch up on my current CPR skills as well as delve deeper into first aid and other CPR information I didn’t know. Plus we spent a lot of time practicing the art of actually teaching the class to others, which was really good because I am a bit nervous about teaching this stuff to 28 students!

So this is my slightly creepy CPR manikin before I assembled him!

 

Here he is fully assembled! That weird bag sticking out of his mouth is his “lung”. When you blow into it his chest will rise. Pretty cool huh? Ok maybe not as exciting to the rest of you….I guess I’m kind of a CPR nerd now!!

Guess what finally came in the mail?!

 

My new Polar FT4!!! Isn’t the pink gorgeous?! LOVE! So I was very excited to finally get my new toy and OF COURSE I had to try it out! I wore it during one of my crossfit WODs the other day. The time included our warm up, stretching, etc and the actual WOD was only like 15 minutes, so burning 445 calories was pretty stinkin good! I’ve also worn this beauty for some of my treadmill runs and I have definitely noticed a difference in what my watch says vs. what the machine says for calories burned. Bad news peeps, the treadmill has overestimated by calories EVERYTIME, sometimes by over 100 calories! So keep that in mind next time you are working out on a machine!

So far I am very happy with my new Polar watch and I would highly recommend it!

In other news, I still can’t cook….

 

I tried to make these salmon patties, but I ended up burning the outside and the inside was still super mushy…FAIL

SO since I didn’t feel like attempting another cooking failure mom and I decided to have a food adventure and go to a “towny” restaurant (that’s actually not located in our town, it’s in a small town like 15 minutes from us) but that’s semantics…anyway we’ve heard lots of great things about this place and always wanted to try it so….we did!

Here’s their menu, it’s actually pretty simple and mostly made up of “bar” food, but supposedly they have amazing hamburgers, so of course I HAD to try it!

 

Let me tell you, this burger was AWESOME! I was originally going to eat this without the bun, you know since it’s A) got gluten in it and B) not paleo…but I decided I’d been really good the past few days and deserved a little bit of a break. I decided the possible stomach ache would be worth it, and let me tell you, it SO was!!

Of course no burger dinner would be complete without some ice cream for dessert….

 

I love when they give me eyes 🙂 Is it strange that I think it’s cute when my ice cream looks at me while I eat it? hmm….

So onto catching you up on my workouts from the past few days:

I have been faithfully attending crossfit every day and I am LOVING it! Today I was able to do the WOD that the rest of the group did instead of a baby beginner WOD and it was AWESOME!!! 🙂 I am just loving the workouts, the challenge and feeling of being pushed to my limits, plus the atmosphere is one of a kind! Everyone is so encouraging and nice, and the coaches are always giving you attention to make sure you are performing the exercises correctly. Pretty sweet!

I’m sure you are wondering, what about her running? Don’t worry folks, I am still keeping up with my half marathon training. I will say this week has been a bit tougher than I anticipated…I knew doing the crossfit would wear me out a little bit but I didn’t realize how much it would affect my running! Yesterday I did an easy 2 mile recovery run, but the kicker is it wasn’t that easy! I mean it was only 2 miles for crying out loud and at a 9:30 pace! But the first mile I felt like I was running in quick sand and it was HARD. It started to get better by the second mile but since I was only running 2 miles, that means I spent half my run STRUGGLING! But, it’s okay, mama said they’ll be days like this right? Today was a 5 mile pace run and it was a bit better, but still harder than it should be! I warmed up at a 9 min/mile pace and then ran the middle 3 miles at an 8, 8:15 and 8:30 min/mile pace. All 3 of these miles were supposed to be at an 8 min/mile pace, but I just couldn’t push through it 😦 While I was a bit disappointed in myself initially, I thought about how hard I’ve been working this week incorporating this new training of crossfit and realized I’m doing pretty well overall!  I warmed down at a 9:30 min/mile pace and called it a day!

 

There’s nothing like a nice sweaty run to finish your day!!

Time to get to bed, I’ve got a WOD bright and early tomorrow morning!

 

Questions for you:

Have you ever taken a CPR class? What did you think of it?

Does anybody else have a polar watch? If so, which one?

Anyone else have any cooking failures they want to share? (Please, it will make me feel better!)