Laguna Niguel Heaven

O.K.  I’m officially deciding to blog once a week on Fridays!!  Let’s see if I can keep this up!  Today is all about our Laguna Niguel trip!!  We had a great time!  Staying at the Ritz Carlton all week made me feel completely out of touch with the world.  How nice to have water given to you all day long and someone to clean your room nearly three times a day while leaving chocolates on your bed.  Not to mention how beautiful the surroundings are!!  I took these pictures off the internet, but it looked exactly like this:

Lucky me, the weather wasn’t my favorite.  Everyone kept talking about the 80-90 degree heat wave that we’d just missed the week before.  It was mostly cloudy with a few sun bursts here and there.  Every morning and night I’d wrap up in a blanket and sit by the fire!

This is a view of the hotel and the path that I’d run down.  The glass part of the hotel was the gym.  It overlooked the ocean.  I’d workout and watch the surfers!  I loved running at sea level and feeling like a hot shot!  This morning as I ran back home with my friends I realized how much of a hot shot I am not!  I did get a good 4, 9.5, and a 5 miler in this week.  I’m hoping to get another 6 miler tomorrow!!  I’m crash running for my 1/2 marathon next Saturday!  I’m looking forward to it.  My sister is running it too and we haven’t ran a race together in a long time!!!

Here are a few selfies from the trip in the fancy pants bathroom.  I love my little birdie swim cover up!  The second one is an outfit a 17 year old would wear!  My husband picked that one out for me to wear around Laguna Beach!  Oh geez!!  I’m too old for that (:  The last one is my LBD for the fancy party that we had on the last night.

My favorite day was the 1st day because of the anticipation for the rest of the week!!  I always think that way (:  Love anticipation!  Here are the rest of our pictures!  I loved the fancy theater we went to one day!  It had reclining chairs and they served you food.  Very fun.  We saw the movie Age of Adeline, which I loved too!

One of these days I’ll get a better camera too (:  O.K.  we made it back home last night.  I’m all confused getting back into the groove of things!  I felt like it was Monday!  I had to be reminded again about what I do all day!  Laundry, dishes, driving children all over the world (: It’s always good to come home!

I slid off my eating regimen near the end of the trip, but I’ll get back on!  I’ve loved my healthy challenge that I’m doing with my friends.  It’s fun to hear of everyone’s successes!  Next week, I’ll be concentrating on my 1/2!!  I love running, but I think I like lifting more!  My body changes more with weights!  Last week I had my body composition done at the gym!  I was surprised when my body fat came in at 14.3%.  It actually suggested that I gain body fat!!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  It showed all sorts of numbers and stats too!  Interesting!

That’s all I got for today!!  I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend celebrating Mom’s day!!!  Make a yummmy treat with lots of Sugar in it!! (:  And then tell yourself this:

1/2 marathon training and whole 30

All things fitness today!  I didn’t mention in my last post that I got a flu bug on the last day of our Lake Powell trip and I’m still not 100%.  It’s a great diet plan since almost nothing sounds good to me and when I do eat, my stomach freaks out.  Anyway, I was hoping to pig out today since tomorrow is AUGUST 1ST and I’m starting an almost WHOLE 30 diet!

I also need to get RUNNING!!  I have 8 weeks until my half marathon.  I’d like to run it in 1:40!!  That’s about a 7:45 minute pace.  I might need to get some new running shoes?  That always makes me feel faster (:  I came up with my own training program for the next 8 weeks.  This is not scientific or doctor approved.  I read that 25-35 miles a week is a good total for an intermediate runner training for a half.  My first few weeks are under that due to my lack of running and sickness.  I love plans and I’ll follow this to a T.  I haven’t decided about my weight training yet.  I’ll for sure train 3 times a week.  I’ll give a full review of this training plan in 8 weeks!

   Yesterday we had a great workout I’d like to post as well.  It’s one of my favorite style workouts.  Two exercises.  Start the first one at 50 reps and the second at 10 and then switch to 40-20, 30-30, etc…until you reach 10-50.  Make sense?  We were going to run bleachers after each set but they were wet so we did a few sprints.  We ran out of time and only completed one round of the last part.  That’s cuz we talk too much.

All my friends texted me about their soreness.  Mission accomplished!

O.K. Back to WHOLE 30.  This is pretty much paleo.  I have a problem with that because I don’t love meat but the more I think about it, I can handle it.  I’ll only have meat at two meals and load up on the veggies for the other meal.  My meat of choice is chicken, seafood, and turkey.  That’ll be all.  Tomorrow I’ll post all things FOOD.  Day 1…again (:  Lots of stuff on the internet to help with this diet.  One thing I did like is that you can’t weigh or measure yourself throughout the 30 days.  That will be an interesting challenge for me!  Gotta go!  Think Yummminess!!

Just keep running

Well!  I’m home from race weekend.  We were in St. George for a half marathon!  This was my first race as a 40 year old.  Oh….so old…I did pretty well.  My time was 1:47.  17th in my age group.  Looking back I always wish I ran harder.  It was a pretty hilly course.  I ran with my fastie friends who I’m sure could of ran faster than me but we decided to stick together.  The time whizzed by.  I felt like I pushed it and wasn’t too sore afterwards.  The weather was fantastic!!  Slightly chilly in the AM but it kept getting warmer as the day progressed.  Afterwards, we showered up and went and had facials and pedicures.  Then we shopped around a little and ate lunch at a yummy Thai restaurant.  We rented the movie 42, hot tubbed, and lounged around watching the movie.  I dozed mostly by the fire.  Soooooo fun!  The next morning we went for a long walk through the red rocks and then headed for home.  Here are some pics!

I’m starting another crazy challenge with my competitive bestie (:  We are so funny.  I want to get ripped, lean, and drop a few pounds.  We got talking and conspiring up a plan.  Here it is:  No grains.  Simple enough huh?  Of course, I’m not having any sugar either.  We are going to see who can go the longest and then the one who wins, buys the other something from Lululemon.  I know cutting out grains is a little extreme.  I don’t care.  We do have one small grain option we can have once a day.  We can either have 1/2 c oatmeal, protein bar, or 2 protein balls.  I’ll be eating eggs, protein shakes, soups, veggies, fruit, lean meats, and a little dairy.  I’ll weigh daily and celebrate of course when I reach my 130.

I’m going to go make some soup, take the kids ice skating, finish up laundry, and sigh a little that I’m not at the PINK concert…SMILE and Work Hard!!!

 

Brighten up Friday

A few weeks ago I went to a meeting for my daughter’s musical.  As we sat together listening to the choir teacher drone on, I looked around the room and noticed the majority of the parents with glum looks on their faces and mostly dressed in black, brown, or some other dark color.  Granted, this meeting was held at 6:00 p.m. on a Friday night.  We would of all liked to have been somewhere else.  I looked down at my neon bright pants and smiled at my daughter and whispered to her that I was the only one with crazy colored pants on in January.  Why do we wear dark colors in winter?  Today for my fun outfit of the week, I’m wearing my bright pants to lighten up the cold days of winter!

I’m excited to RUN this weekend.  13 miles should be a good kick in the pants to finish up the month strong.  I have some serious goals that I’m determined to reach…soon!

And for your inspiration pleasure, I came across some photographs taken by a Russian woman.  Click HERE for the link.  They are BEAUTIFUL!!  I would love to do something like this!

Have a wonderful long weekend.  Our kids are out of school Monday and Tuesday!  The house is in order with lists of what to do while I’m away for a LONG day and 1/2!  Remember…smile, relax, and wear something BRIGHT!

Where do I begin…???

Happy Thursday to you*!  I feel like I have been in a time warp.  Last week I survived a half marathon, a move, and a nasty ice storm!  We are  definitely being initiated into our new house and driveway this year!  I feel so accomplished though now that I have computer, t.v., phone, and laundry all hooked up!!!

However, the list is still VERY long for what needs to be done.  We are having a FUN adventure!  The kids were in heaven when we went through the frozen food section and loaded up the cart with foods I never buy!!  I can’t tell you how easy and fast it is to whip up some mini pizzas and a can of green beans!  Everyone is getting adjusted and I’ve never been more crazy determined to get everything situated.  My workouts for the last few days have been going non stop, moving and organizing everything in the house.  Everything has to have a spot.  Here are a few pics of the house in progress!  I LOVE IT!!!!

As for the FIT side of life.  Me and my girlfriends had the BEST time on our half marathon road trip.  The weather was beautiful!  45 degrees felt like 75!  I would have liked to have ran faster.  I finished in 1:52.  Pretty good considering my circumstances lately.  We wished we could have stayed longer, but mostly ME wanted to get back to pack, move, and clean!  Here we are:

The yummiest!

Long live girl trips!

I’m missing my usual workouts and eating schedule.  Eating has been o.k. since my choices are limited and I have so much to do, but I MISS the gym and RUNNING!!!  This has been a crazy winter.  We usually run all winter long and it’s been near impossible this year.  Hang in there…this too shall pass (: