running Archives - Page 10 of 10

Susan G Komen Race for the Cure Recap!

October 10, 2011 · by Ari ·

Hello friends! It has been a super crazy weekend and the business just keeps coming.

Now for my very first ever RACE RECAP!!! Sunday morning Steve and I woke up bright and early at 5:45 to get ready and head out for the race. I’d hardly slept because I was so excited/nervous/anxious to participate in my first race. We met Jason at his house and then headed into downtown Phoenix where thousands of people had gathered to participate in this event. It was pretty inspiring how many people had devoted their early Sunday morning to be there. When we arrived, we met up with Nacho and wandered around a little checking out the different booths.

Those super cute pink shorts were purchased special on Saturday for the race. I wanted to be festively pink from head to toe from the occasion. Even my socks were pink, but you can’t see them in this picture 🙂

Steve wandered off to play photographer while Jason, Nacho and I got ready for the race. As we were getting ready, the breast cancer survivors lined up for their run which began shortly before ours. As soon as I saw them lining up I got unexpectedly emotional. Something about seeing people who have survived something so big out there running–it just hit something and we all know I’m a big emotional basket case anyway. After they took off, I pulled it together and got ready to begin myself.

Of course today of all days Pandora decided to totally suck. I couldn’t get my application to load on my phone and from then on my music was intermittent to non existent. Boo. Anyway, they counted us off and I immediately became annoyed by the crowd of people in front of me keeping my pace to a slow crawl. I have a patience problem. I’m aware of it. I’m working on it, but it’s not getting better fast enough.

Finally after about 5 minutes, the crowd thinned out enough for me to find my own pace. This is where I made my big mistake. I wanted to make up time, plus my adrenaline was kicking. Add that to being a super competitive person (I have a hard time when children beat me in board games), and you get the big mistake of starting off too fast for your own good. Of course later that day I read on an other blog how starting off too fast in the beginning is the fastest way to kill your time. I started running at an 8:50-9:00 pace, which considering my fastest pace for a similar distance was 9:40, was way too fast for my running fitness level.

A little after the 2 mile mark, it really started to hit me. I got a big cramp in my side (who gets cramps?!) and my tummy started to really bug me. Finally, I gave in to my body and took a few walking breaks. I was so upset because I really wanted to run the whole thing, but I had just worn myself out too quickly and knew I was going to have to walk a little if I wanted to keep going. Finally, I turned a corner and could see the finish line. I got so excited, and I wanted to make up for the lost time in my walking breaks, so I began sprinting towards it. Unfortunately, it was further away than it looked. So deceiving, that finish line! Meanwhile, I’m running at a 7:40 pace (yes, I do check my Garmin pretty religiously–it’s new and shiny!), and feeling like I’m about to die, but you canNOT stop, walk, or slow down once the finish line is in sight–isn’t that some sort of unwritten rule? Well it was in my brain, so I chugged along, and once I finally crossed that finish line, my stomach pains came full force and I wanted to collapse on the ground. It felt so much harder than I imagined it would considering I have run this distance and longer! But I definitely learned a valuable lesson about pacing myself. If anyone had told me to slow down at the beginning of the race, there is no way I would have listened. I just needed to experience it myself.

I REALLY wanted to finish in under 30 minutes. Well my friends, that didn’t happen. Not even close. But, even with my lame-o walking breaks, I still managed to finish with an average pace of 9:58 which isn’t too bad for my very first race.

As I caught my breath, I went to meet Steve, but we had location difficulties and I ended up waiting by myself until Jason and Nacho came up to meet me. Of course, as I was sitting there alone, I became a much less than perfect wife and got super grumpy with Steve because I wanted to see him the second I crossed the finish line. I really wanted to share the moment with him, but it ended up that by the time I saw Jason and Nacho, it almost didn’t feel real anymore. I expected to feel this huge sense of accomplishment, but all I could think about how I didn’t meet my goals and how if a 5K was this hard, how am I ever going to run a half marathon in January?! So unproductive, I know! Who finishes their first race and can’t enjoy it?! My attitude needs a serious adjustment, otherwise it’s just going to make things harder! Does anyone else have a really hard time feeling accomplished and not focusing on what could have been better?

After a while, we finally met up with Steve and headed to brunch at St Francis! As soon as I looked at the brunch menu, I immediately wanted to order everything on it, as well as a cocktail at 10am. Is that bad? 🙂 Well, I did not ending ordering a drink, and tried to order mindfully because we had plans later that evening to take a cooking class (more on that awesomeness to come!) To start, we got an order of the fingerling potatoes to share.

Jason and Steve won best menu selection with their skillet of red wine marinated pot roast and eggs. I had a bite. It was pretty much like heaven in your mouth.

I ordered an egg white omelet with goat cheese, and marinated mushrooms and onions. It was the perfect balance of healthy and delicious, and they gave me so many mushroom! Yum!

I even had one of the pieces of bread with some delicious raspberry jam. It may have been my favorite part of the whole meal. Wait, actually my favorite part was my one bite of Steve’s food. Must recreate somehow.

After we finished eating, we posed for some post race photos.I decided that even though it was a non competitive race, we were the winners and should pose as such. And because I finished first, I was in first place and needed to stand higher up in the middle. Obviously.

You can see my pink socks in this one! ^^^

I absolutely love these guys and I am so glad I got to experience my first race with them! When Jason and I were talking he said “I just never would have believed it if anyone would have told me I would be doing this with you.” Sometimes it’s easy to forget where you came from. The first time I attempted to run on a treadmill, I quit after 10 seconds. “I can’t do it.” I said to my friend Mandie. Convinced I was right. Convinced that it wasn’t an excuse.

My personal running mantra that I always repeat to myself when things get tough is “I can do anything.” To me, that sums everything up. I never thought I could lose 70 lbs. When my entire life revolved around food and counting my calories, I never thought I would find balance between who I was before and who I had become. I never thought I would reach my goal of participating in a race–any race. And I certainly never thought I would announce to the world that I was training for a half marathon. I also never thought I would be able to learn how to dance or sing, or be good enough to get my BFA. But every single goal I have put my mind to in life, I have achieved. I can do anything.

The first time I wrote this post, I pressed published and it all disappeared. I freaked out a little, cried, and then went to write round two. But the first time, I didn’t get to the part where I reflected where I came from, and as someone who believes everything happens for a reason, maybe I needed to start over so that I could give myself a little credit, and remind myself that I.Can.Do.Anything. You know what? So can you.

Thanks for reading, everyone. This one is pretty important to me 🙂

Negative Nancy

October 7, 2011 · by Ari ·

If you’ve spent any time with me the last couple of days…well…ummm…I’m sorry. I ~~kind of~~ really suck lately. Yesterday was like the terrible horrible no good very bad day. A day where I should have locked myself in my house with Winston, Clementine and ANMT reruns, but the thing about being a grown up is you can’t really take mental health days anymore. You just have to push through. I started off the day feeling no motivation, skipped the gym and went for a walk to try to convince myself I wasn’t being a lazy bum and the day just went down hill from there. Nothing exceptionally bad happened, but when you are exhausted and over worked, everything seems amplified.

Luckily, today I woke up feeling slightly better, and I had a run to the gym + a yoga class on the agenda. I set out and was feeling great at first, but then I started feeling icky at about the mile point. My stomach was pissed for some reason and I thought I might have to turn around, but I stopped and breathed for a little bit, started to feel better and was back on my way. I stopped again once I was almost there to take a picture of this awesome moment!

>30 minutes!!!!! Okay, so maybe I took an untimed 5 min breather break when I started to feel icky, but I think it still counts! My goal for Sunday has been to finish in under 30, and after today I am pretty sure that I can! I ended up finishing at just under 3.5 miles

Average pace of 9:40!!! I was so stoked when I saw that! I hadn’t gone through my history yet and looked at things like average pace and calories burned, but I did today and saw my average pace steadily getting faster–YES! I’m feeling good about where I am in my training. I have the 5K this weekend and 5 miles scheduled for next weekend which I am nervous about to say the least.

After my run, I stopped into the Starbucks, chugged some water, walked over to the gym and met with the dreaded foam roller. I hate it. It hurts. I think I’m going to buy one for my house because apparently I’m some kind of masochist. Then I went in for a relaxing yoga class. I was able to use the class for my own benefit much more than normal and get what I wanted out of it without worrying what anyone else was doing which was a nice step for me!

After Yoga I wanted to eat my arm off (I just cannot eat before I run). Hank picked me up at the gym–I’m so lucky to have such a helpful family!–and I came home and made basically the most delicious bowl of oatmeal ever. I don’t know–I always make it almost the exact same way: oats, almond milk, chia seeds, banana (cooked in the whole time–trust me!), blueberries, fig butter, sunflower seed butter, cinnamon and some sort of extract (today it was almond). I know, my oats are COMPLICATED! And they are always delicious, but today they were extra amazing–probably because I was so hungry!

I love blueberries in my oatmeal, but it always makes the color of the bowl look funky to me. Like greyish. I wish they were prettier. Oh well, my tummy couldn’t care less! Okay, I need a shower and coffee. Then off to lunch with Hank and Charlie, work and then drinks with my soon to be sister in law! Happy Friday everyone!!

Motivation

October 5, 2011 · by Ari ·

Good morning friends! Today I slept until 8:00 which is so unusual for me! I’ve been feeling really tired and a little worn down and I guess my body just really needed a good 9 hours of sleep. I totally could have laid there longer, but I knew I wanted to get my run done and over with. Yesterday I woke up super sore. I hadn’t really felt any pain from my long (for me) run on Sunday, but then I think yesterday the combination of left over tiredness from the run and soreness from jumping lunges and one legged squats in bodyworks finally caught up to me and in spin class, my legs felt like lead. I had to drop my flat road gear down to an 8 and even still I just could not get my cadence up to where we were supposed to the entire class. It’s not that I wasn’t trying, I was dripping sweat all over my bike (cute, right?) and my legs were on fire!

About 2/3 the way through class I started to feel really frustrated that I wasn’t able to give the kind of power and energy I expected of myself and I kind of wanted to quit. I had this whole battle in my mind about how I was failing and I should just give up, and I knew it was counter productive, so I tried playing the devil’s advocate with myself–reminding myself that I did just start training for a half marathon after what? a month of running? And not only that, I added it on top of my gym schedule, not instead of. Then I remembered some things I’ve read on other blogs about how I don’t HAVE to be there exercising, I get to. Then I thought of Ashley’s bike accident and how she is now struggling to even walk and I am acting like a bad class is the end of the world and worth quitting over.

So then I started thinking about all the people who don’t get to do what I do. People who can’t afford a gym membership, or want/need desperately to make a change in their healthy, but haven’t found that spark in them to be ready to conquer their fears and make a change. I stopped thinking about all the people in better shape than me and how I have so far to go and I realized that somewhere in the world there is probably someone who wishes they can do what I can do. That is something that’s really hard to imagine for me, but I’m hoping that it does exist and that maybe I am an inspiration for someone out there the way so many are for me.

I ended class not super fast, but knowing that I tried my hardest and focusing my energy on being okay with that.

When I woke up this morning, I just didn’t want to. I felt totally unmotivated, and contemplated laying around and then just going to yoga at 11. This is where having something to train for comes in really handy. I am not a great runner. Yet. The longest I have ever run is 4 miles, and January 15th, I have to run 13.1 and that scares the crap out of me. I definitely do not have time to be lazy and skimp out on my run days especially considering I am only planning on running 3-4 times a week. So I thought about it and decided I would go out and try the Galloway Method. I’ve heard other bloggers talk about using it, and that is actually where I found what I’m using as the base for my training plan. So I ran for 3 min, walked for 1, repeat. I was really surprised that it didn’t totally kill my time! I actually found knowing I had a walk break coming, I was way speedier during the run sections. I saw my pace down in the 8’s a few times and at the end when I went to finish strong even dip into the high 7’s (for like 2 seconds haha, but still exciting!) I ended up finishing in about the same amount of time as if I were to have run the entire time, and I felt better. This guy knows what he’s talking about! I think it’s a really good tool for me to use to help with speed, and with motivation when I’m not feeling it, but I definitely still want to have runs where I just run the whole time.

Now I’m going to make some breakfast, and head to yoga! Have a great day everyone!

PS: What helps you get on the wagon when you’re just not feeling it? I feel like this has been a pretty popular topic lately, and I’m curious to see how others deal with the motivational dips we all experience!

Blogger meet up & PDR!

October 2, 2011 · by Ari ·

First I just need to say that my Salted Caramel Mocha Brownie Cupcakes were a huge hit! Hooray!! Kara even told me she liked them better than the pumpkin canolis that Riga Tony’s brought out 🙂 I really love being the designated birthday baker and I love it so much more now that I am embracing the way I want to make food and not putting myself in a situation where I feel like I “can’t” eat what I’ve made. It’s so interesting discovering that when I embrace who I am and what I need, other people openly embrace it as well. I feel like so many things we do to try to please others could be so easily avoided, because honestly, people just like the real us better anyway.

Anyyyywayyy, moving on 🙂 Yesterday I got the amazing opportunity to meet some other bloggers in the area! I was so excited when I started to find other Phoenix bloggers and even more so when everyone was so nice and welcoming! I was totally nervous about going–would you believe that I actually tend to get pretty significant social anxiety? I have a pretty outgoing personality, so it’s something people are often pretty surprised by, but I nerd out about wanting people to like me. Maybe it’s an actor thing 🙂 Anyway, I met up with the group at Four Peaks after I got done with rehearsal. It was so nice to talk to other people who are as passionate as I am about health and food. These ladies are fabulous and I left feeling inspired by every one of them 🙂

I brought my camera, but then never took it out for some reason, so I’m stealing pictures from Nicole and Emily! For some reason, I look pissed in the first one. What’s up with that? I’m just not a good camera smiler! 🙂

L-R Raya, Carolyn, Dani, Nicole, Me, Emily, Heather

I’m so glad I went and thank you guys so much for making me feel so welcome!

This morning I got up and decided it was time to make this idea that Kara and I have been discussing a reality. The idea being half marathon training. The PF Chang’s Rock and Roll half marathon happening Jan 15th to be precise. I’d been really nervous to announce it in fear that I wouldn’t be able to make it happen. Up until this morning, 5K was my PDR and it is not an easy distance for me by any means. How the hell am I going to add an extra 10 miles to that by January?! So this morning I got up and I new today I had to run 4. So I headed out for a run to Starbucks (what is a better ending location than iced coffee?!) and proved to myself that I will be able to continue to run longer and longer distances because I can do anything I set my mind to.

I even did better time wise than I was expecting! Not that a 10:15 average is exactly fast, but considering it’s my first time and it was just a couple of weeks ago that I decided to get serious about this running thing, I’ll take it! In fact I will take it with excitement and happiness and make this face

F you short achilles tendons!! You just try to keep me from running a half marathon! Actually, please don’t try because the last thing I need is something to make this HARDER. I promise to spend lots of time like this trying to keep you happy

Winston and Clementine don’t mind. They &hearts; the lap time 🙂

4 miles in 40:58. I am a happy girl, and I feel ready to take on this new challenge! I am so thankful that Kara is going to be doing it with me! The only thing better than accomplishing life goals is having great friends along the way doing it with you. This has been something I’ve wanted to do since the first day I ever ran a mile a little over 2 years ago and I just always believed that I couldn’t. I can’t wait to prove myself wrong! 🙂

I ♥ my running buddy

September 30, 2011 · by Ari ·

Happy Friday everyone! Today was the loooonnnngggest day. I woke up while it was still dark out at 5:30 after not being able to fall asleep til about 1am. For some reason I still got up in time for a short run. As soon as I started to put my shoes on, Winston jumped all over me and laid on my feet. I always think it’s so sweet when he tries to keep me home with him. So I decided to take him with me. Jack Russells make awesome running buddies! We didn’t have time for much so we just took a quick stroll around the neighborhood.

But on about 4 hours of sleep, it didn’t feel quick. At all. Winnie had a great time though, and to thank me, proceeded to lick sweat off of my face

**Don’t judge my hair dyed face–Kara is an arteeeest and sometimes face paint happens, but it’s worth it and fades pretty quick :)**

Look at that face (Winston’s…not mine haha)! I love him. He makes me happier than I ever knew an animal could! After we got back, I made breakfast and lunch and was out the door by just after 7. I just got home about an hour ago. Of course I walked in and immediately had to catch up on Grey’s Anatomy. I went through several stages of tired today from not yet feeling the tired, to needing a nap, to grumpiness, to loopiness. Loopy was the most fun. I think my kiddos officially think I’m a nut job. Not that I disagree with that. Now I’m just back to total exhaustion. I think that means it’s bed time. I had a million things I wanted to write about, but I guess they will have to wait for an other time. Have a good night everyone! 🙂

Ari + Whole Foods = ♥

September 26, 2011 · by Ari ·

Happy Monday everyone! Today is actually my easy day! Subbing a ballet class, teaching an acting class, and one voice lesson. I’ll take it! I actually get to see mi hermano tonight!! We’re going out to dinner. I feel like I haven’t seen him or Cindy (his mom–yes, my family is confusing.) in forever. I’m also excited because for the first time ever, we are performing together for his piano recital! We compromised by picking a song by each of our favs–Turning Tables by Adele and Paradise by Coldplay. I have no idea when we will have time to practice, but I just love creating music with him, and it’s so nice to get a chance to sing!

Last night, Steve and I went on one of my favorite errands–to Whole Foods! YAY! Did you know some things are actually super cheap at Whole Foods? Rolled oats in the bulk section for 69 cents a pound! We totally stocked up on oats for about $2. Also, whole wheat pastry flour for about $1.20 a pound. On the other hands, I might have to break up with chia seeds. $10 a lb just seems so ridiculous to me! I know they’re good for you, but are they really that beneficial nutritionally to be worth $10?! I mean if I want to add extra fiber, can’t I just use ground flaxseed meal for 1/4 the price? Thoughts?

Also not cheap, in an attempt to work on my food packing issue, I jumped back to my 19 year old self and actually bought packaged food.

Only when you’re attempting to be healthy with boxed food, it is NOT cheap. I miss the day of a box of macaroni for 99 cents. The mac and cheese cups and the noodles only require hot water and a microwave and both have decent amounts of protein. I also bought out the bar section

I really try not to do the bar thing all too often, but I hate not having an easy protein fix ready to grab when I need it, so I stocked up. Plus they were on “sale.” I hate when you get something on sale, but it is still overpriced. Oy. I can’t help it, I’m Jewish 🙂

After some wise words from the smartest person I know (my mama!) I have realized that I really just need to invest in a lunch box with some ice packs and go back to making easy to go meals for the week like I did this summer. I love my mom. She always has the smartest advice. Also, before I bugged her to read mine, I don’t think she had ever read a blog in her life and now she calls me and says “So I read on the blog…” I’m a lucky girl to have parents who support everything I do and are just wonderful 🙂

While at WF, I also picked up my fav grain sweetened chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. We were completely out, and this girl likes to spontaneously bake! And lastly, I also spent too much money on these gems

Why is it that anything with butter in the title is always delicious? Nut butter, honey butter, butter butter, pumpkin butter, fig butter. It’s never a let down. TJ’s was out of my fig butter on my last trip, and I used up the very last of my figgy goodness by making oats in a fig butter jar this weekend. Oats in a jar–not just for nut butters. It was delish. So anyway, I spent more money than I should have buying this new kind at Whole Foods. It better be spectacular!

In other news, my Garmin arrived on Friday! Whoot!! It’s pretty 🙂 So this morning I had to take it out for a little test run. I was surprised by how annoying it was at first to have it making my wrist all sweaty, but definitely worth it to track my pace. I feel like I was a little too focused on checking it out and I wish I would have focused more on actual running, but happy to see my pace average around a 10 min mile. I still have to set it up to track my pace for each mile and to pause when I stop. I stopped at the water fountain twice and stopped for a minute or so to stretch at one point. I wasn’t feeling fantastic this morning, so I kept it pretty short. I’m still trying to figure out what to eat right before I go out so that my tummy doesn’t hurt. So distracting! Plus, for some reason it just felt extra hot today. Anyway, not 100% happy with what I pulled out this morning, but it could be worse.

I’m really glad that I bought it already. I read some race recaps this morning from other blogs that were really inspirational to me and really hammered in why I want to some day run a marathon.

Fall TV Guilty Pleasures

September 21, 2011 · by Ari ·

Good morning friends! So there is a very good chance that this will make me sound like a loser with no life, but I am so glad Fall tv is back!! Last night I got some work done, and then ate my dessert (fro yo of course) while sitting on the couch with the puppies watching Biggest Loser. It felt like the biggest oxy moron. I have a lot of issues with a lot of what they do on the show, but I am a sucker for weight loss tv. I can’t help it. But, I will say that I already miss Jillian. Did you know that I met her???

That was last years GoDaddy holiday party. I told her she was an inspiration, and I was basically star struck. I had to kind of hunt her down because the famous people had their own private area, but my dreams came true and I met her. I wanted to ask her for a work out, but Steve ~~threatened to call off our engagement~~ ~~die of embarrassment~~ ~~disown me~~ asked me nicely not to.

Today I had yoga on the schedule, but Kara had to cover a shift at the bux, and I still thought about going it alone, but it’s not til 11 which is so inconvenient because I like to be done with my work out by then, so I woke up and went for a run. Of course none of my phone devices wanted to cooperate (is it time to buy the Garmin yet?!), so I just went on time and made a nice loop through the neighborhood for 33 minutes. When I got home I drove said loop in my car and used MapMyRun to input the loop to double check. Ironically, it was 3.1–perfect for getting ready for my 5K coming up! 33 minutes is not the stellar time I would have liked and have me second guessing the accuracy of last weekend’s 30 minutes, but I’ll take it, and I feel pretty confident that it is correct. Both my car and the website said so!

Side note: I just googled myself to get a link to put in, and the Arby’s menu came up instead. I think my food is a lot better.

Ok, back to my run. Again, the first 2 miles felt great and passed pretty quickly, but mile #3 still makes me wonder why I would ever want to run to begin with. But that’s okay, because I still remember the first time I ran .25 mi without stopping, and that being an accomplishment. And today was only the 4th time I’ve run the distance, so it should be hard. I came home a sweaty thirsty mess.

Honestly, someone needs to teach me how to take cute post work out pictures, because this is not cute, but it is what I look like when I’m a sweaty mess 🙂 Winston and Clementine immediately proceeded to try to lick the sweat off of my legs. Why are dogs so weird?

Gross, Winston. They also do the same thing when I get out of the shower, but that seems much less gross to me. Although, I don’t prefer my freshly cleaned skin to be covered in dog saliva. Oh the joys of being a pet owner 🙂

After Winston and Clementine tried to bathe me themselves, I took it as a cue to get my butt in the shower, then made some oatmeal and caught up on last night’s Glee! I absolutely loved the season premiere. I laughed, I cried, I felt embarrassed for feeling so emotional over Glee of all things, but I have to be honest, about 1/2 of my teaching work is classes inspired by Glee. It has really sparked something in our society, and as a girl trying to make a living using a BFA in Musical Theatre, it has provided a lot of opportunities and opened a lot of doors. So when Kurt and Rachel cry in the car over their fears of not being good enough and how scary it is to pursue your dream when there will always be someone better than you, I kind of feel okay crying a little too. Because it is scary. But honestly, the more performing arts and shows like Glee become a part of our pop culture, the better chance we stand of survival as artists. So, sappy and silly as it sounds, I’m really grateful to Glee and what it has done for my field, and I love it apologetically, even when the writing is bad and the material is totes inappropes for its target audience. And even though I kind of hate the sound of Rachel’s voice. And even if I wasn’t in theatre, Jane Lynch would absolutely make it for me.

Have a good Wednesday everyone!

PB&J Oatmeal & Garmin Talk

September 20, 2011 · by Ari ·

Hello, friends! After a weekend of, for whatever reason, feeling like my eating was all out of whack, I have been putting a lot of thought into my meals yesterday and today. One of my favorite things in life is when I feel like I consistently eat food that is great for my body and great for my soul-healthy, satisfying, and delicious. Yesterday, and today so far have been just that! In fact, my oatmeal this morning may have been the best oatmeal I’ve ever made. I usually don’t take pictures of meals unless I’m making a full on recipe (somehow I feel like simple things like oatmeal would bore people?), and Steve is here to take amazing pictures with his fancy camera. But today was so yummy, that I made an exception. You know, no matter how delicious oatmeal is, it never looks appetizing to me in photos.

See what I mean? Somehow Kath’s oatmeal always looks like it was painted to be that pretty. Oh well, this oatmeal tasted fantastic.

PB & J Oatmeal

yield one hungry person!

1/3 cup slow cooking oats
2/3 cup almond milk
1 ripe banana, sliced
1 tsp chia seeds
cinnamon to taste
drizzle sugar free maple syrup
1/2 tsp coconut extract–the winning ingredient!
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
3/4 tbs any nut butter (I used PB & Co White Chocolate Wonderful–YUM!)
1/2 tbs fig butter
1/2 tbs 100% fruit blackberry spread (or spread of your choice)

Directions:

1) Heat all ingredients, except nut butter and fruit spreads, on stove top until oatmeal is cooked. **IMO, cooking the banana in with the oatmeal the entire time makes the oatmeal taste like banana bread–YUM!**

2) Put fruit spreads at the bottom of the bowl.

3) Top with oatmeal.

4) Top with nut butter.

The fruit on the bottom gives you a treat waiting for you as you get towards the bottom!

This was the perfect post spin breakfast! Speaking of spin, guess who totally rocked it out in class today?!

That’d be ME! I love the feeling after I give my all to a great work out! Which leads me to my next topic…

Yesterday morning, I went for a run, but my usual run tracker on my phone couldn’t find a gps signal so I had to use a different one. I had been using the Run Keeper ap, but this time used the Sports Tracker. Well the numbers were totally off. I mean I know about how fast I run on a treadmill and have NEVER considered anything below 5 mph even a light job. It’s a hard sweaty power walk, but I can’t run at that pace, and if you recall from last weekend, my device told me I ran 3.1 in 29:59, although who knows how accurate that one was at this point 🙁 Anyway, today after 37 minutes, it told me I went 2.7 miles. Ugghhhh. I don’t feel like it’s right, but the inaccuracy is really frustrating. So I have a decision to make. Do I spend a good chunk of change (remember, this girl works in theatre where the money is scarce) on this baby?

Right now it’s on sale on amazon.com for about $140. The Garmin 305 was my spin teacher’s recommendation that will keep track of my heart rate in classes, during any work out and will track my mileage on runs. I really want to improve my running, so I feel like it would be a good investment, not to mention I’ve wanted a HR monitor for a long time. Just hard to spend the money. I as also thinking of buying the ease into 10k ap on my phone by the same guy as C25K. I would really love for my next race after this 5K to be a half marathon, but I know before that happens I need to get comfortable with the 10k distance.

I would love any thoughts/recommendations/opinions on the Garmin, and/or improving running distance in general. It is NOT my forte, but it’s something I enjoy that I want to improve on.

Alright, off to job #2 for the day, then my house becomes the Disney Channel as I work on Aladdin choreography! Have a great day everyone!

A new PR for me!!!

September 11, 2011 · by Ari ·

Good morning everyone!!! It is the most beautiful morning we’ve had here in Phoenix in quite some time and I couldn’t be happier! Finally the weather is good enough for a beautiful morning run. Let me preface with the fact that I hardly ever run and when I do, it is almost always on a treadmill and I have never gone outside and even measured my distance, but today was different, because….

I have an announcement to make!!!

I have decided to run my First.Race.Ever. The Susan Komen Race for the Cure. I didn’t want to announce until I was certain I could do it and wouldn’t back out. Running has been incredibly hard on my body in the past due to my very short achilles tendins, and has caused a lot of pain, but it is something I can and WILL push through because I have dreams of one day completing a marathon. Starting small.

I have only ever run 3.1 miles ONE TIME in my life. It was on the treadmill and I remember when I was done I wanted to cry. I went from not being able to run a full minute to running a legitimate race distance. I felt so proud. I did it that day in about 37 minutes. Not fast, but I am not speedy and I’m okay with that.

This morning I got up early, realized my window to take advantage of 75 degree temperature was small, and got my booty out the door to see how I did in the great out doors. I not only met my goal of making the 5k (I wasn’t sure I’d be able to outside since the one time was inside and almost a year ago), but I made a new PR that I’ve only been dreaming of–29:59!!!!! Just barely, but under 30 minutes!!!! I kind of wanted to cry–again.

The first mile flew by and I started to wonder why I wasn’t going for a longer race! Mile 2 still felt good, but I started to wonder when the end would come. Mile 3 I just wanted to be done haha. It was getting warmer out, I was tired, and I remembered why I am doing a 5k to start haha. The good news? My run ended me perfectly at Starbucks for water and iced coffee!