I could not get that out of my head this morning at the gym.  I am on a mission to life heavier weights and while hoisting 25 lb dumbbells during bicep curls, I couldn’t help but feel a bit like a body builder.

Why the heavier weights?  Why not?  While that is part of it, it really comes down to wanting to get stronger, more toned and see progress in the gym.  It is easy to get comfortable doing the same routine at the gym, lifting the same weight. But that isn’t really doing you any good.  Strength training is beneficial in so many ways – it prevents injury, aids in weight loss and improves bone strength.

So I am focusing on increasing the weight of the things I lift up and put down. I am not following a set plan, but will try different thing and report back on what is working and not working. I will be alternating between heavy and light weight as well as number of reps while gradually increasing the weight every couple weeks.

Here’s to strong chicks and toned arms (legs, and shoulder and abs)!

As the morning hours ticked by, I started to get frustrated over little things that really shouldn’t matter.  That was a sign that I needed to make my run a priority and put everything else on hold. Just for 60 minutes.

It was GORGEOUS out.  A perfect morning for a run.  It was a little breezy, but I was pretty well protected on the trail.  It is amazing how freeing a run can feel.  All my stress seems to melt away and I am able to be present and in the moment.  Everything gets clearer and the BS all just goes away!

Now it’s time for a productive and positive rest of my Friday!

You have amazing sunsets.

You were not as humid as I had expected (although I will not be back in July or August).

Your road system is not cool. The stoplights are sooooo long and there is zero warning that a regular 2 lane city street is going to turn into a hiway that will take you miles and miles in the wrong direction. At least that’s what I hear, I totally never got lost

I loved how conveniently located your airport is and how effecient your rental car system is. I left my hotel at 7am and was able to get gas in the car, drop off my rental car, walk to the terminal, check my bag, print my boarding pass, take the tram to the terminal, go through security, get a coffee at Starbucks and be at my gate by 7:45.

Pretty nice except that my flight wasn’t until 9:25 and I hate sitting around at the airport. Oh well.

Flying from one side of the country to the other is FAR!

Some notable things Shellie discussed:

• Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years.
• 1 in 3 kids is overweight or obese (2/3 of of adults)
• 70% of young people are turned away from military service for at least one of the following reasons – not physically fit, criminal record or no high school diploma. That is terrifying.

Shellie put it brilliantly that we have “engineered ourselves out of physical activity”.  People are afraid to let their kids run around outside, we have built freeways between neighborhoods and schools, so while a school might only be 1 mile from your house, you still have to drive.

Most of us are aware of the LetsMove campaign.  There is also PALA, which is a challenge for both adults and children. Shellie is also focused on quality Physical Education in our schools.

After Shellie’s presentation, the day included:

• Breakout Session:  Volunteer Recruitment and Retention.  I got some great ideas from this session.
• Lunch: much better than Monday’s lunch!
• Council Meetings: we met with other councils that are similar size to our council.  We got to bounce a lot of ideas off of each other and discuss challenges and successes.
• Cocktail Cruise:  We took a fun little cruise around the bay with some snacks and drinks.

Wednesday is always the final day of Summit and it is a short day.  We had breakfast before a celebration of awards for councils doing great things, the Coach of the Year award and Molly’s final remarks.  They also always announce where next year’s summit is – New Orleans 2013!

Aaron was sweet and offered to go with me to that one.  I was really hoping for California so we could send a bunch of people, but I guess we better just start getting serious about our budget and how important Summit is.

I had such an amazing time at Summit, as always.  I got to meet a lot of inspirational women and have made some great connections.  I am so hopefully for this 2012 year for GOTR Sac and can’t wait to see where we can take the program.

Why do you run?

I could not fall asleep for the life of me last night. My body was still on California time, even with the early morning and long day of travel.  I finally fell asleep at 1, so there was no workout in the morning.  I was a zombie until I got some coffee and GOTR President Liz Kunz gave the “State of the Union” address.  The theme of her presentation was about transformation – both the transformation the organization is going through we well as the power we all have to transform the world.  Liz is always so inspiring and her address is the best way to start Summit.  By the end the whole room was in tears.  All those passionate women in one room is so powerful – the feeling is indescribable.

After Liz was finished, we were treated with a presentation from Mina Samuels, the author of Run Like a Girl.  She discussed the power sports has to change women all across the world.  One point that stood out to me is that as women we tend to push credit for our achievements off on other people and minimize our accomplishments.  With sports like running, you can’t push credit off on someone else.  When you finish a marathon, you can’t say “well, someone else did that.”  Own your accomplishments, ladies!  Oh yeah, and:

In the afternoon I attended two breakout sessions – one on Strategic Planning and one on Enhancing regional Relationships.

After the day at Summit was over, I rush back to the hotel and headed to Bayshore for a sunset run before it got dark. I was so tired and there wasn’t much sun left, but I managed to squeeze in 2 miles in 19 minutes and it felt great to be outside.  Florida has AMAZING sunsets.  I think its because you are basically just sitting out in the middle of the ocean like an island.  Gorgeous!

Another great day at Summit tomorrow! Can’t wait. Fingers crossed for better sleep tonight!

I brought lots of gluten free snacks for my trip and a full day of travel (I don’t land in Tampa until 5pm). I figured it would be all granola bars and rice cakes today since the Sac airport has very few food options, and probably none for gluten free folks. But then I walked into the new terminal. The new terminal is packed with travel sized versions of some of the city’s best restaurants.

I snagged a Turkey, Brie and spinach omelette to eat at the gate. Glad I got some “real” food. They even had a Peet’s which was awesome. I do not like Starbucks, but it is usually the only airport option.  Not anymore!

Cali to Florida is far! One 2.5 hour flight followed by a 3.5 hour flight. Yowza! And I don’t know what I was thinking taking the window seat on a 3+ hour flight and then guzzling water. #tinybladder

Ready for some fresh ocean air and.some GOTR love!

Here we go!

1 mile warm up
3 x 800 @4:01 with 400 recovery
1 mile cool down

I decided to try utilizing my Garmin’s interval function to help me complete the workout. Last night I programmed it for the interval distances and gave it a whirl this morning.  I don’t have access to a real track, but this is much prettier, don’t you think?

Man those three intervals took it out of me.  Hopefully those will get easier as I do more of them. One thing, my inner thighs/front of my hips get really sore when I run hard.  Any ideas how I can strengthen them or the muscles around them to prevent that?  I am trying to incorporate more lunges and plie squats into my strength routine, but any other suggestions are welcome.  When all was said and done I completed 4.25 miles before meeting up with Cash and Aaron for a walk.

Now I am cranking out lots of work but wishing I was laying in the sun with the animals:

Rough life, huh?

The weekend “started” with a cold and foggy 7 mile run.  I am training for an upcoming 10K and I am trying to actually train for all the races a register for.  I have never actually trained specifically for a 10K, so I enlisted the Runner’s World Smart Coach App to help me out.  It takes the guess work out of it.  I entered in a recent race time (54:00 10K), the distance I was training for (10K), how many miles I wanted to run a week (16-20), how hard I wanted to train (hard), what day I wanted to do my long run (Friday), and how many weeks until the race. Hit generate plan and there you go.  The plan had m first long run on Friday for 7miles.  That’s the farthest I have run since April.  And of course I woke up to this:

But I gave it a shot anyway and figured if I felt like crap I could turn around early to cut it short.  To my surprise, I felt great and completed the 7 miles in just under 1:04.  I averaged a 9:39 pace which I was happy with for my first “long” non-race run.

Saturday was the busiest day of them all.  It started dark and early at the TBF Racing New Years Duathlon.  It is a free race that benefits Girls on the Run!  TBF is an amazing organization that is such a huge supporter of GOTR.  We come to the race and provide raffle prizes and accept donations from participants.  It is a really great fundraiser for us and we love supporting such a great organization in our community.

Saturday night was the annual Father Daughter dance that my Dad and I attend every January.  We have been going for 16 or so years and I look forward to it every year.  We catch up with friends, have drinks, appetizers, dinner and then dance our booties off.  The band that plays every year is the same band that played at our wedding.  They are amazing and it was so much fun to see them.  Every year they know they have to play My Girl before my Dad and I can leave (that was our Father Daughter dance at the wedding).

Such a great weekend – and here’s to a great week!  Tomorrow Smart Coach has me doing speedwork.  My mission is to figure out how to program my Garmin for speedwork.

“Focusing on two men whose bodies have been trashed by steroids, obesity and illness, this documentary chronicles the rigorous healing path — including a two-month diet of fruits and vegetables — that both attempt in a bid to rescue their health.”

The movie follows Jim Collins on a 60 day fruit and vegetable juice fast.  After those 60 days he continues with just eating micro nutrient foods (fruits, vegetables, nuts and beans) in his attempt to naturally cure an auto-immune disease and get off the multiple medications he was taking.  In the end, he lost 90-ish pounds and was completely off his medication.

Along his journey he traveled the country asking people to try juicing and asking if people would ever consider a juice fast.  In Arizona he met truck driver Phil Staples who happened to have the same auto-immune disease as Jim and weighed 429 pounds and was taking countless medications.  Phil decided to give Jim’s 10-day juice fast a try in the hopes of getting his health and life back.  Phil wound up sticking to the fast for 60 days and by the end of film had lost over 100 pounds and was slowly coming off of all his medication.

My Thoughts

• The medical professionals and Jim made some good points including “If our body can heal itself on the outside, why can’t it heal itself from the inside?”
• Comparing the cost of medications vs. juicing probably hit home with a lot of people.  I cannot believe how much people spend on medication for preventable diseases.  The cost of a heart attack is over $55,000 while a month of juicing costs $420.
• Exposing people to juicing and the benefits is always a good thing
• I thought the animations and cartoons weren’t necessary and felt like they were trying to dumb-down the issues

For some reason, I am totally fascinated with juicing.  I know it is “trendy” now, but trends become popular for a reason.  I have been juicing daily this week (today will be day 4).  There are so many benefits I have heard about juicing:

• Hangover cure
• Improved digestion
• Improved skin, hair, nails
• Liver detox
• Immune boost
• Increased energy
• Decreased migraines

I have even heard rumors of people curing cancer by juicing.  All I know is that I feel better when I drink juice, it tastes good, and there is no way it can be doing me any harm – it’s just fruits and vegetables.

Would you ever do a juice fast?

I don’t know if I ever would do a juice fast.  I really enjoy eating – the ritual of making an actual meal and sitting down to enjoy it.  Maybe someday.  Never say never!  For now, a little juice here and there is good for me.

It felt so good to kick off 2012 with a healthy start. It also felt good to sleep in (I got 10 hours) and to wake up hydrated and well rested. I even juiced today – its a New Year’s miracle!

How is your 2012 starting off? What healthy actions have you taken so far?

Looking back at December goals:

• Exercise more days than I don’t.  That works out to an average of 4 days a week which is totally doable. SUCCESS.  I worked out 18 of the 31 days in December.  Very happy with that for December!
• Continue yoga once a week. SUCCESS!
• Floss every night.  SUCCESS!
• Continue building core strength and building up to 2 minute plank.  EH – I did focus on my core in my gym workouts and my yoga studio does abs during each class.  But I didn’t really pay much attention to that elusive 2 minute plank.  I am happy breaking it up into two 1-minute planks.
• Stretch and foam roll for 10 minutes every morning and every night.  FAIL.  I totally blew it on this.  I am going to keep trying to foam role and stretch more often to compliment my yoga “practice”.

Pretty darn good, if I do say so myself!  Looking back at December and how well I did with my goals makes me feel hopefully for how well I will do with my 2012 Resolutions.  Aaron made a great suggestion that I print off my resolutions and keep them somewhere I can see them on a daily basis.  He is so smart!!