Arms! and Good Eats

Posted in gluten free, healthy living, yoga by Chocolate Covered Race Medals

Good morning everyone 🙂

Before I get down to business, I want to send love and safe vibes to all my family and friends in the Saint Louis area. I always feel as though my blog isn’t the appropriate place to address such serious topics, but St Louis and the surrounding neighborhoods will always be home for me so I feel the pain and sadness. Be safe, Ferguson and all those in the surrounding areas.

Yesterday Afternoon

I managed to squeeze in a quick stretch session during my lunch as planned, as well as stock up on some awesome Gluten Free goodies.

I haven’t been talking about it much, but I am still working towards a Gluten Free diet for the time being. I don’t feel that I’ve given it enough time to know for sure how gluten affects me, and I’m still finding myself surprised by little things that include Gluten so I’ve been far from completely gluten free. All I know is these past couple of weeks I’ve felt better than I have in ages, so my body is happy :).

Workout

My plan called for some more Arm work yesterday afternoon, so I challenged myself with two more arm routines, this time from my NTC app.

Lemme tell ya, my arms were SHAKING during and after these routines.

{gratuitous arm shot…my husband will love this}

Zach was working away in the garden for the afternoon, so after my work out I grabbed a bottle of water and watched the boy work :). Not a shabby afternoon.

Dinner

On the menu tonight was grilled chicken and salads. We ended up getting the same kabobs we tried last week from Sprouts because we enjoyed them so much the previous week.

My comparison on instagram of my salad versus Zach’s serving bowl of greens. Man boys can eat!

My salad included some greens from the garden underneath all those fresh veggies and fruits. Last nights included: broccoli, mushrooms, celery, scallions, pepper and a couple raspberries from the garden. YUM!

I also wanted to try some of my new goodies, so I added some crunch to the meal by way of craackers

I actually really enjoyed this brand and would absolutely try them again. They were thin and airy, but full of flavor! Totally satisfying.

We wrapped up our evening with the series finale of The Office on netflix before both going to bed early. I think we’re still recovering from a long weekend!

this Morning

I got to sleep in this morning knowing that the only thing on schedule was my yoga for runners, which both were glorious :). A 715 wake up call + 25 minutes of stretching and opening up my little sore runners joints? Perfection!

What’s your favorite body part to strength train?

9Aug2014

Weekly Round Up

Posted in healthy living, running, Work out roundup, yoga by Chocolate Covered Race Medals

Happy Saturday 🙂

I worked a half day yesterday so I managed to squeeze in a nice little 3 mile hike after work. Perfect little afternoon pick me up. Zach finished up some work and I relaxed around the house until about 430 when we went out for date night, including a couple stops for drink and GREAT sushi. Perfect equation for this girl 🙂 I’ll get to that more later, but for now, let’s talk about my work outs for the week.

Workouts For the Week

3 runs

3.5 miler in Breck
4.8 miler with hill repeats
3 miler for the workout that wasn’t

3 yoga classes

1 mountain class at the Double tree
1 sculpt
1 hot power fusion

One arm strength work out

2 hikes

3 short morning yoga routines at home

and

3 lunch walks

plus a tough run this morning. . .

Nothing over the top by itself but overall a good mix of cardio, strength, and yoga with active recovery. I’ll take it. Zach and I have a relay race we’re participating in in a couple weeks, so our work outs will likely start looking a little lighter while we taper.

Plus some pictures from Date night

Just to tide you over 🙂

Have a great Sunday everyone!

What was your favorite work out this week?

7Aug2014

The Workout That Wasn’t

Posted in healthy living, recipes, running by Chocolate Covered Race Medals

We’ve all had them. Day’s where we have big plans for a work out or an activity that you look forward to all day.

A good run, a hike, bike ride? Good class?

And then for whatever reason, things just don’t happen as planned. That was the story of my little work out this afternoon.

Good Intentions

After yesterday’s Morning arm routine followed by an evening sculpt class, I woke up sore and exhausted. Like I mentioned in my previous post, my plan for the afternoon was a nice leisurely hike through my favorite area of the front range.

I woke up, did a brief morning yoga routine and even enjoyed a nice 2 mile walk at lunch. All warming myself up for an afternoon hike.

Welp, mother nature put a wrench in those plans with scattered storms. Rain in the mountains is not something I like to mess with, so I decided to lace up my shoes and try and make it out for a run before it got too bad outside near work, even though my legs were beat.

Nope, two laps of the park near my office and right around one mile later, the rain came with a vengeance (and my car windows were down a bit, upps). I made it back to the car hoping that I could get some miles at home.

Bathroom selfie

Once again, less than a mile in, mother nature decided to continue messing with me and brought more rain. This time nice enough to be dripping inside of my sunglasses. Awesome.

At this point, I decided enough was enough, and that someone was telling me I need to take it easy today. And to be completely honest, my tired legs weren’t willing to push through any more obstacles.

Two more miles for a grand total of 3 miles for the evening.

I wrapped up the work out with some 8 minute abs (time 2) and called it a day.

What was intended to be a nice hike turned into a very wet short and slow run that my legs didn’t want to do, with some core work thrown in for good measure. Oh well. . . you can’t win ’em all, right?

Dinner

At least dinner wasn’t a let down! On the menu for tonight was grilled tacos, one of our favorite staples.

In the mix tonight was:

Grilled onion
Grilled peppers
Grilled squash
Fresh homemade guac
+ Corn tortillas char grilled.

I’m actually most impressed with my experimental homemade guac. I found some “ripe” avocados at Whole Foods yesterday, and figured I needed some healthy fats in my diet, so why not? The avocado worked out perfectly in my little homemade creation!

Fresh Guac

One avocado, cut and smashed
One garlic clove, pressed
1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper
6 small cherry tomatoes cut into halves/quarters
Salt and pepper to taste
Just mix it all together and serve!

YUM YUM I wasn’t really feeling anything for dinner tonight, but the mix of fresh ingredients and grilled goodies definitely satisfied my confused taste buds.