Daily, Health, Photos, Running

Let’s play catch-up

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I feel like I haven’t blogged much about my life in the last little while, except for the odd workout routine report. My schedule was jam packed this month. So it was a little overwhelming both in personal, and work life.

The night of “The Event” (call no event planners. I’m IT.). 200+ guests = 2 months of planning, designing, ordering. Everythang. Off the hook for another year!

Add to the fact that my Boyfriend has to work every single weekend up until Christmas (not fun!). I felt like I haven’t had any time to catch up, with all of the giveaways happening last week and again tomorrow.

I decided to take a week off working out to just do things at home. So no CrossFit journal this week!

What I did instead:

  • I made some Lemon Poppy seed muffins.
  • I vacuumed out my oven (lol… I really need oven cleaner)

  • I painted some ceramic piggy banks for my nephews for Christmas.
  • Then wrapped Christmas presents.
  • Organized the house a bit.

  • Decorated for Christmas (and my office too!).
  • Organized my closet and purged some clothes.
  • Ran 4.5km

  • Walked Alfie in the snow

  • Came inside to bake some breakfast cookies (they taste healthy… so they’re not my favorite haha)

  • Walked 4km with Alfie to bring the breakfast cookies to the boyfriend at work

Sometimes you need to take a step back and really adjust yourself. I did manage to keep up with the push up challenges every day (day 33 today!!). 

I also felt like NOT going for a run this week just because it was on the Saturday and not our regular Sunday morning run. Steve the guy who is coaching me texted me on Thursday mentioned that it’s important to keep the routine going, and get me used to a regular weekend run.

(Saturday morning view! About to head out on the run)

So I did, we went for a 4.5km run and honestly? It was one of the best runs. Steve told me I took 40 seconds off my pace from last week. So that made me smile so huge, and definitely made me feel like a million bucks.Last week I mentioned my pace was averaging 7 minute/kilometres. Saturday? 6:20min/km (which is still a 10:11min/mile). Bam! It’s still not as speedy as I would like. But when I used to run faster, my breathing was also a concern. Now I’m slowing incorporating controlling of my breathing, with the distance and add in speed after the fact. Guys… I could go on about running for a whole entire blog post.

Moving on. I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I have way too many samples and cancelled all but two subscriptions (I’m with TopBox & GlossyBox for now). But I re-subscribed to Glymm again. At least for the month of December. I was sucked in by KayleeBob‘s tweet saying that there are gift cards in the December box, and you’re guaranteed at least a $10 voucher for their online shop. Which I’m obsessed with, since I get to use all of my referral points for such goodies. In fact, I recently purchased the Stocking Stuffer Holiday Special for $35 which has a value of $135. Each bag has 10 travel sized samples, a gorgeous gold makeup clutch, and a $40 gift card to Glymm’s Online Beauty Boutique. You’ll have to purchase it by Wednesday December 5th in order to get it for Christmas.

Anyway, so there ya go. A lil’ long recap of what’s been going on in my life :)

I think I’ll save all the winners from last week’s giveaways and just do them all in one blog post. How does that sound?

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Contests, Coupons, Daily, dealz, Health, In the Kitchen, Photos

Leftovers don’t have to be bland

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I hope everyone had a good Wednesday! Usually I write up my blog posts in the morning and push them live right after. But this week seems to be really busy. With all of the giveaways happening, and the biggest day of the year at work (yesterday) it’s just madness! In a good way. I don’t set up things in advance, but I really should’ve done so this week.

I just got home from picking up a few groceries and decided to skip CrossFit tonight since I’m starving and just have zero time. Thankfully I had my meal plan stuck to the fridge so I know what’s cookin’ this week. I don’t always follow through with what I had planned. In fact, tonight’s dinner is going to be left overs. Groan.

I actually really hate having left overs and don’t mind cooking each night. But since I knew today was going to be extra busy I thought ahead of time last night, and made extra chicken for us. Ahh, smart thinkin’ hey?

Tonight I’m having a good ol’ fashion sandwich made with Dempsters bread.

Shown in the photo above:

  • Dempsters Whole Wheat bread
  • Fresh cooked Chicken breasts (from those individual Maple Leaf “Portions”)
  • Chef Robert’s Roasted Red Pepper Aoili that I picked up from a gourmet health food store
  • Mozza + Provolone cheese
  • Tomatoes
  • Maple Leaf bacon
  • Spinach

Everything was cut up the night before since I knew I would be short of time. Then it was time to take the photos for the blog!

Isn’t this picture hilarious? It’s like the sandwich is doomed. Why is the background so dark? I know we have brown kitchen walls and all, but still.

Photos had to happen quickly, because we were both starving. I know the crumbs kind of take away from the photos, but that’s all you can do when your tummy is growlin’ to feed it.

Looks good hey? It was gone in 1.3 minutes flat. Just so you guys don’t feel left out, I’m going to include you in a sweet giveaway thanks to Maple Leaf Canada.

I have 10 free Canadian Bread product coupons for two lucky Canadians to win (five “free product” coupons per person). Be sure to use the coupons up quick as they expire on December 31, 2012.

Use the rafflecopter form below to enter! Contest is open to CANADIANS ONLY.

You can find Dempsters on Twitter, and Facebook too.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I am a member of the MLF Connects program. As part of my participation in this program I have received compensation, however all opinions in place and ideas on this blog are my own.

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50 day pushup challenge, CrossFit, Fitness, Health, Photos, Workout Schedule

My CrossFit Journal (1 Year, Week 37)

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I am on Day 26 of the 50 day pushup challenge. Finally hit the halfway mark yesterday. I still do the pushups in the morning when I first remember because I don’t want it leaning over my all day to do them, and get lazy after work/working out and push them aside. Ha ha. Get it…

Anyway, they’re pretty tough now, I won’t lie. Some days are better than others where I can pump out 13 in a row and then rest for a few seconds and do the rest. But yesterday for instance I was only doing three at a time and needed a break! Funny how that works.

What I did this week, the short version:

M – CrossFit (+ 19 pushups) T – Rest Day (+ 20 pushups) W – Soccer (+ 21 pushups) Th – CrossFit (+ 22 pushups) F – Rest Day (+ 23 pushups) S – Rest Day (+ 24 pushups) S – 6.6km run (+25 pushups)

lol Looks like a lot of rest days. I swear it felt as though I worked out more than that…maybe I won’t continue the short version of my workouts ;)

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year 1, week 37, day 1.

AMRAP 20

1 Clean & Jerk; 155/115lbs 5 Pull Ups 10 Push Ups 5 Back Squats; 155/115lbsics

I used 65lbs for this WOD. I completed 4 full rounds and I did 5 pushups for the 5th round. Either that or it was 5 rounds, and I was on my 6th. I should really write this down again…

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year 1, week 37, day 2  Soccer Game!

 Yay soccer! Can’t really say much about this. We won? 1-0.

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year 1, week 37, day 3

6 Rounds of Ring Dips

30 seconds of Ring Dips 30 seconds of rest

REST 3 minutes

AMRAP 7 Burpees (6″ jump)

I completed 52 ring dips (like I was sitting in a chair. The easiest way to do them. I really suck at tricep strength). Then it was time for the burpees. I did much better than I was expecting. I didn’t rest too much, and completed 56 burpees. I’m not entirely sure the coach believed me, because he said “Oh cool” when he asked my number. :(

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year 1, week 37, day 4

Running yesterday morning in -1°c. Snowy, windy and chilly! But it was great!

I dressed in layers, and borrowed a wind breaker, mittens and wind-breaker mittens. I really need to go shopping for some winter apparel for running. I do have this great pair of wind-breaker pants I bought from Lululemon a few years ago, and they kept me warm throughout the run.

I didn’t have anything to eat before I went, and I could definitely tell I wasn’t in as great of shape as I was last week. So, note to self — must eat something before each run.

One thing I do have to say about running is that I’m on a completely different level than my Ironman Triathlete of a boyfriend. I mentioned that we ran 6.6km and told him that at one point we were running 5:45 minute/kilometers but the rest were 7 minutes. Sure, it’s slower than what I’m used to — but I used to exert myself much more. This time, I’m in control of my breathing and I’m running a further distance because of it. The boyfriend mentioned that it was slow, which was like taking a dig at me, But of course he didn’t mean it that way. I dwelled on it a bit, then told him to never tell me that I’m slow again — it bothered me. Because I know I can run fast. It just takes time. I really haven’t been running since 2010. Sure, I did 2 or so runs a week this summer, but I wasn’t being trained on HOW to run. I just went for long (5-6km), flat runs.

Running with Jenn and Steve is different. I take two puffs of my asthma inhaler, and off I go. It’s difficult at times, but Steve tells me to slow down and the breathing returns to normal again. It’s an anxious thing I have with running, but I’m figuring out how to get it back to a normal rate … with practice.

Look at the state of my bright pink shoes!  They are starting to wear out I think :( I’ve been on the eBay hunt for them now for a few weeks, since they’re a year and a hald olf.

As Steve said, There are only two kinds of runs. Good runs, and great runs. Yesterdays was just … good ;)

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