Where's the Beach?

Sad Day, But Spin Helped This morning I felt like I had been run over. I didn't sleep well at all last night. It didn't help that just after midnight lightening hit so hard that I bolted upright then the thunder that immediately followed literally rattled the house. I seriously thought there had been a terrible accident outside and someone hit the house. The electricity went out briefly and it took a while to calm back down and fall back asleep. Then I was up at 2, 5, and 6. Yawn. At least the storms did stop and it wasn't raining on my walk into the office - just incredibly foggy. It was sort of a down day for me. Fifteen years ago a dear friend's life was cut short. She was an incredible person, so full of life and love. I won't go into details, you can search her name or see this newscast from today if you really want to know. Juli Busken was a dancer at OU and had just graduated. She was abducted and eventually killed in the early morning hours of December...

Last night I wasn't in the mood for cooking to be completely honest. I was ready to go with veggie burgers and sweet potato fries. Jason kept searching the cabinets, fridge, freezer, cabinets again. I could tell burgers and fries wasn't going to cut it. I told him if he wanted to get creative, then go for it. About 20 minutes later, he was still searching. Last week he had mentioned making Italian "Beef" Sandwiches as we hadn't had them in a while. I was out of homemade seitan though, so we went on to something else. Thankfully last night I had a backup for the seitan. I had a $1 off coupon for Gardein products that I picked up at the Lincoln Park Art & Music Festival in Chicago from the Gardein Party Tour Truck . So, when I was a the store over the weekend, I picked up some Gardein Chik'n Strips . They ended up working perfecting for another version of Italian "Beef" Sandwiches . Yes, they are supposed to be a "chicken" sub, bu...

Way Way Off Running Plan So today I thought I was going to hit the trails again for another fantastic outdoor run. The temps were perfect, but the wind was so out of control. Not even gusting 23 mph, just flat out 23 mph. Um, no thank you. I might be fairly crazy, but I'm not totally crazy (ok, that might be a lie). Anyway, as much as I wanted to run outside, and as much as I wanted to attempt to semi-salvage this week's training plan (which is so completely out the window), I hit the gym instead. I started with 10 minutes on the elliptical to warm up and then hit the weights for shoulders and triceps. I started to go with supersets (very typical) but ended up doing trisets of 3x8 followed by 2 additional exercises: TS#1 Shoulder press Lateral raises Rear delt press Front raise open to side - 8 TS#2 Double-arm overhead triceps press Lying triceps extensions Double-arm kickbacks Triceps dips - 16 After the weights I did some ab exercises before returning to th...

No Rest Day After two days of rather intensive leg workouts (weights then longer run), it's safe to say that I didn't even bother thinking about getting up early to do anything. I wasn't sure if today would end up being a mandatory rest day or not. I must say, my mood was better today and I felt more like myself. That, of course, means that I was wanting to get my workout done today. I ended up working through lunch today and leaving early. Since I was feeling ansty to get in a workout, I ended up opting for biceps/triceps/shoulders. I mean, that is as non-leg intensive as you can get. I did another drop set workout of 4 sets of 8 reps: Dumbbell curls Cross-body curls Preacher curls Lying dumbbell extensions Kickbacks Overhead extension Upright rows Lateral raises Overhead press I finished it off with Cathe Friedrich's MMA Kickboxing and a nice, long stretch for the legs. Lots Accomplished Since I got home an hour earlier, I felt like I still had s...

Saturday Sandwich Dinner We started off with White Cheeseless Queso for a snack. We just sat at the table, listened to music, and talked. Dinner ended up being much later than normal. We bantered back and forth over what to make. Jason kept throwing out complicated, time-consuming ideas. Great ideas mind you, just not things to start at 8 pm. We settled on Italian "Beef" Sandwiches that I let him make. We served them open-faced on sandwich thins with sweet potato "fries". I apolgoize for not taking pictures. It was late, and I was starving. Step on Sunday This morning I woke up to gray skies and much cooler temps. I think we topped out at 65, if that. I was really slow going. In all honesty, I almost took the day as a rest day. Typically, Sundays are a run day, but the weather was dreary, and Jason's knee was bothering him a bit. He went upstairs to do yoga to try to stretch, and I ended up doing part of Cathe's Step Blast plus abs. Once I got going, I ...

Sunday Workout Today was the Little Rock Marathon. Part of the route goes right in front of our house. Let's just say it can make you feel just a tad lazy sitting on the computer watching the runners pass by! Jason sat outside and cheered them on, while I got my workout done for the day. I started with Shock Cardio HIIT 30/30 warm up, did Pyramid Lower Body then finished up the HIIT 30/30. My legs are sufficiently fried, and I may not be able to walk tomorrow!  The pyramid legs was pretty much like yesterday's upper body, but without supersets except for squats into plie squats. So you do 12 sets at lightest weight, increase weight, at 10 reps, increase weight for 8 reps, then decrease weight for 10 reps, decrease weight for 12 reps. Step Ups Static Lunges Squats into Plie Squats Deadlifts Calves Sunday Movie Outing After the workout, Jason and I spend several hours doing household chores that we've been putting off. We decided to treat our hard work with a m...