Happy Birthday to Me!

42 TODAY!

Today I turn 42.  I am proud of my age and would shout it from the rooftops if someone wanted me to.  Why do I love my age?  Here are a few reasons:
1. I feel better today than I did in my 20's
2. I am smarter and wiser now. Therefore I make better decisions.
3. I have learned to value what is important in life (family,friends, health).  Believe it or not, this did take me awhile to learn!
4. The older I get the more comfortable in my own skin I become. Here's an example - I teach high school. On Friday I told my class that there were only two formulas in Algebra they would have to memorize - Slope and the Quadratic Formula. I then explained that we would learn the Quadratic Formula by singing it to the tune of the Flinstone's.  Some of the student's started to say that they wouldn't sing.  I said, "That's all right. I'll do it anyway."  One of the girls asked, "You would sing in front of all of us by yourself?"  I told her I would.  She then said, "You must be a good singer."  Actually, I am an awful singer, but that's the point.  Being in my 40's has taught me not to care what other people think.
5. I am better runner now than I ever was! Mind you, I didn't start running until I was 38.
6. Now that I am older, my kids are also older. They are becoming young men and we can actually have real conversations. I love hanging out with them!
In a nutshell, I am not depressed about getting older. I feel like a bottle of wine that just keeps getting better with age.

Today's workout 9.1 mile run - 9.1 points  40 minute - Crunch Super Slim Down Yoga/Pilates from Netflix - 2 points (Great workout!)  Fruits and Veggies - 1 point  Total points for HBBC: 12.2

Thanksgiving Recovery =)

What a productive day I had!  Thanksgiving was wonderful - spent a lot of quality time with my family and just really enjoyed the day.  Luckily my mom is pretty health conscious, so although we ate a lot, she provided some great healthy options like roasted vegetables, turnips, and sweet potatoes.  We still had the stuffing, mashed potatoes, and asparagus casserole of course, but I didn't leave the table feeling utterly guilty!

Got up this morning at 7 and went to an 8 AM yoga class.  It was a new instructor, and he was terrific!  He really made sure that everyone was doing the poses correctly.  It was a great way to start the day.  From yoga, I headed upstairs to the Hardcore Body class.  This class is NO JOKE - it kicked my butt!  Hardcore cardio drills for a full hour.  I went through two full bottles of water during the class.  Needless to say, I left assured that my pumpkin pie and birthday cake were gone. (My birthday is tomorrow and my mom had a cake for me)

Happy Birthday to Me! - 42 yay!

Got home, and took all the Christmas decorations out of the attic. Once I got my son out of bed (lazy teenager), we set up the outdoor lights - snow man, two reindeer, and bushes.  It was sunny and in the 60's today, so it was a perfect day to do it.  Got both trees (artificial) up, but some lights are out and I did not want to go to the store today. We'll get the trees decorated once I pick up some more lights.

Christmas shopping for the kids was accomplished today as well - all online of course =)

Great day - now I'm pooped!

Today's workout: yoga 1 hour - 3 points  Hardcore Body class 1 hour - 6 points  Veggies and Fruit - 1 point

Total points today:  10

Virtual Turkey Trot Recap

So I decided not to get up and run the Sparta Turkey Trot this morning. I had a really hard workout last night and just wanted to sleep in. Luckily, I have a NordicTrack Elite 9500 (mine doesn't have the built in tablet thought) treadmill with iFit. When I got home last night joined a Portland Oregon 5K to run this morning whenever I felt like getting up.  I didn't think to look at the map and the elevation. Got on the treadmill at around 11:15 and warmed up for 1.5 miles. Started the race and it was going really well until about half way through when the course started to go straight up hill!  I was at about 9 - 12% incline for the last mile.  Needless to say, I had a hard time running, so I switched to a 4.5 mph fast walk.  I did manage to finish the course in 32 minutes which wasn't too bad.  Now I get to go enjoy some great food at mom's without feeling too guilty =)

Today's Workout: 4.6 mile run - 4.6 points I will definitely get my 7 servings in today! - 1 point  Total points for HBBC: 5.6

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday. It is the one holiday that is just about being with family and enjoying each other's company. I have so many things to be thankful for this year - my kids, my health, my job, and plenty of other things.  I read a great article in More magazine this morning.  It was a woman writing about her relationship with money.  At the end of the article, she is sitting with a friend who tells her that if all of the people in the world were lined up in order from best off in the front to worst off in the back, he would be able to see the front of the line.  A lot of us may think that we don't have enough of whatever - money, friends, looks, etc. but if we think about the fact that sooooo many people don't even have a place to sleep or food to eat, it makes our worries seem trivial.  Thanksgiving is also a day with no worries about gifts and decorations - no stress. I love it! My mom is also a fantastic cook. She's from the south and they really now how to cook down there = )

I know that I will overdo the calories tomorrow - I'm not even going to try to deny myself. The only thing I am going to attempt to do is not go for seconds!

Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge is going well. I love having something like this to keep me on track this holiday season.

Today workout:  1 hour spin class - 6 points, 1 hour high impact fabulous 5 class - 6 point, veggies and fruits - 1 point  Total: 13
Good day for points!

Short and Sweet

Hello all! (Although by all I probably mean only one or two of you) =)  I just want to post today's exercise so that I can keep track for the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge. We have parent teacher conferences at school tomorrow so I won't be able to work out at all. I'm kind of bummer since Tuesday is usually my favorite workout day. Still haven't decided if I should run the Sparta Turkey Trot on Thursday morning. I'll probably just decided the night before. I'll have to pay a little bit more, but I really don't want to commit to it.
My two goals for this year are to 1. Improve my yoga practice 2. Increase my speed
I figure that if I keep repeating the goals, i'll stick to it.  I'm going to try a Buff Yoga class next week. The kundalini yoga last week was OK, but my gym offers a cardio class called Fabulous Five that I think I'll try instead. It's a high impact class and is supposed to be a good one.  On the running front, I think I am getting a little bit faster. I usually run for an hour on the treadmill and have found that I can pretty much run the whole hour at 6.0 - 6.8 mph. A few months ago I was holding steady at 5.5 - 6.2 mph.  I think that's a pretty good improvement! The Turkey Trot on Thursday will be a good test to see if I have gotten faster or not since I haven't run a short race in a long time.  As I write this, I'm realizing that I definitely should get my butt out of bed on Thursday and run it.

Today's Workout:  1 hour spin class: 6 points  Ate my fruits and veggies: 1 point  Total for today - 7 points

Whirlwind Weekend

Wow - what a busy and exciting weekend this has been. Friday night, luckily, is my rest day so I didn't have to squeeze in a workout. The high school parents committee sponsored a really nice Ladies Night Out tricky tray and dinner. I didn't get home until well after midnight, so my plan of running on Saturday morning to kick of the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge was out the window. The only thing I had time for was a 2 mile walk with the dogs. Woke up on Saturday at around 9 (which is really later for me) and got the kids ready to go to the mall after my walk. My youngest son needed new snowboarding clothes, I needed to running shoes, and my older son needed a new sweatshirt and sneakers.  We ended up at Macy's and Dicks Sporting Goods.  My son got a really great Under Armour Sweatshirt  (see photo at right) and KSwiss shoes.  The other son ended up with a Spyder sweater and Under Armour damage. I decided to switch back to Mizuno running shoes. I ran the marathon in Asics and I liked them, but when I tried on two different pairs yesterday, the Mizuno's were more comfortable. I ran in them this morning and they felt good. I almost bought a pair of the lighter shoes that seem to be all over the place. The only hesitation I have with them, however, is that I have had a lot of issues in the past with plantar fasciitis and achilles tendinitis. I'm not sure if the shoes would have enough support for me. They felt good when I tried them on (I tried the Nike Lunarglide) - maybe next time. So after doing quite a bit of damage to my budget at the mall, we rushed home to make it to a job fair.

My baby is now 14 and ready for work! We went to Mountain Creek's job fair so he could apply to be a snow tubing attendant.  He got the job!  We were both so excited.  I am so proud of him =) To celebrate, we went out to the diner for dinner. I totally blew it as far as calories go, but I had such a nice time with my boys. We talked and laughed for over an hour and a half. Dinner was a great country chicken with a caramel apple pie for dessert.

Me and my little guy at West Milford HS

From dinner, we went to my high school for a tattoo  with the Highlander band. We have such a great band and it was really a treat. That didn't end until 11:00, so again it was after midnight before I got home.  Somehow I did manage to make it to my 8:15 yoga class and ran 5 miles after that.

HBBC points so far:  Saturday 2 + 1(veggies and fruit ) = 3
Sunday: 5 (run) + 4.5 (90 min yoga) + 1(v&f) = 10.5