Tour des Fleurs 10K

By now you’ve probably learned that with some of our weekends we really like to go big or go home and by that we mean fit ALL of the things into one weekend. 🙂  Our Wordless Wednesday post was a glimpse into everything we had going on this past weekend.

We kicked it off Saturday morning by running the Tour des Fleurs 10K at the Arboretum just like we’ve done every September for the last 5 and 6 years.  And per usual our friend Bitner also participated in the race with us, but this year we also made Catherine join in the fun as well!

IMG_0021[1]

You can probably tell from the picture that Bitner was a little cold that morning – ha!  A “cold” front had come through and we woke up in Dallas to temperatures in the 60’s.  It was woooonderful and a big change from the heat!  By the time we catch a shuttle bus from the parking lot to the Arboretum and walk through the Arboretum to the race area we aren’t really there that early and it’s time to start the race.  Off we all go on our merry way.

Running along White Rock Lake as we have done every year at this race.  We make it to the one “major” hill on the course that’s almost at the halfway mark.  Beth encounters a runner that’s running a zig zag pattern up the hill with her fingers out dancing along to her music.  We turn the corner and the hill is over! There’s a 3 mile marker sign. Huh? Where was the 2 mile marker sign?  Oh, well surely someone just messed up. Running, running.  Hey 5 mile marker sign.  Ok, this is just messed up!  We are a little over a mile off from these mile markers.  Beth opted to go music-less for this race and no one else around her was commenting about the markers so she kind of assumed maybe she just took a wrong turn because it wouldn’t have been the first time (hello, Too Hot to Handle 2011!).  Teal right away knew something was wrong with the course and reaffirmed that with other runners around here.

It turned out that the lead officer took that right turn onto the “big” hill instead of going straight a little bit further and us coming back to the hill.   And then there really wasn’t a person out there to direct racers either, so we all ended up running a 5.15 mile race. PR’s for everyone! 🙂

When the race was over we each grabbed our finisher’s hats (THANKS for bringing those back, TDF!!) and made our way to the after party.  They do throw a darn good after party with beer, lots of different food options and some free schtuff.

IMG_0055[1]

see the free schutff in our hands?

One of the best parts about this race is getting to walk around the Arboretum afterwards and see all the pumpkins and gourds out all over the place.  The majority of the time it doesn’t feel like Fall is even that close when we do this race, but we absolutely love getting to see the Arboretum all done up for Fall.

IMG_0061[1]

There were a lot of racers whose family came with them and were taking their children out of strollers to have their pictures taken amongst the pumpkins.  As you know we don’t have kids so we opted to put Bitner in the pumpkins and take his picture. 🙂  He loves of us, clearly, because he puts up with us doing these things!

IMG_0031[1]It is sad that the race wasn’t a true 10K, but we love this race!  We can still remember the feelings of nervousness when we were running our first 10Ks. So far!  It’s a bit pricey, but considering the great after party, the finisher’s hat (though they were gone for two years) and the free entry into the Arboretum it’s a good deal! We’ll be back!

Wordless Wednesday 39

Wordless Wednesday 39

IMG_0020[1]

IMG_0032[1]

IMG_0065[1]

times ten

IMG_0095[1]

teal art thing

balloon fest

IMG_0132[1]

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Breakfast

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Breakfast

We get tons of questions about how exactly to do the Advocare 10 day Cleanse and typically it is just about the food choices one should or should not be making.

Advo 3

It seems to range from What the heck can I eat? to Can I actually eat anything? as well as timing and really anything else you can think of we’ve probably been asked it! 🙂  Trust us we’ve been asked some crazy questions which we actually love!  It has helped us learn a lot more and get that much more knowledgeable!  In an effort to help YOU we wanted to share this information and perhaps make the cleanse easier.

Over the next week or so we will be breaking down each meal for you so that we can clear some things up for everyone and again, make it SO much easier!

Naturally, we thought we’d kick things off with breakfast – that makes sense right??

When you wake up:

  • Take the Fiber Drink (days 1 – 3 and 8 – 10) and Probiotic Restore (days 4 – 10) – drink a large glass of water
  • Optional: Drink a Spark for energy and take catalyst before eating
  • Thirty minutes later (don’t freak out – you will not ruin it if you do eat in that range of time) eat breakfast.

Timing:

Wake up, immediately take the fiber drink, wait 30 minutes (or just get ready for work), eat your first meal after the 30 minutes, wait approximately 2 hours and then eat your second meal of the day.

What to eat:

This can get a little confusing because the Cleanse says to eat 5 to 6 small meals a day.  The first two small meals I like to just refer to as “breakfast” and will often times swap the order out depending on how I feel so the options below would work for your first two meals of the day (Advocare refers to this as “breakfast” and “mid-morning snack”).  These are in order of preference on the Cleanse for weight loss:

1. Bowl of fruit of your choice (about a cup to a cup and a half)

  • the lower on the glycemic index the better! Think berries, cherries, apples, pears, grapefruit, apricots – these are all lower in sugar.  If you go with melons, mangoes, papayas, pineapples – these are all higher in sugar.  They won’t ruin your cleanse at all and they are obviously healthy, but if you think about it go less sugar for the 10 days.

2. Meal replacement shake.

  • Advocare has a replacement shake, but if you have a favorite you already use then you can use that.

meal rep shake

source

  • Be creative! We do protein with a mixture of fruits and veggies with water.  Sometimes we use a little bit of unsweetened almond milk, but this is not the *best* as some people stall with weight loss using milks so it’s not ideal.
  • Spinach, celery and kale all lose their flavors when mixed with fruit! 🙂

3. Three eggs (cooked however you want, but try not to add to them with any oil or butter and do not be afraid of the yolk!)

  • Omelet with veggies (spinach, peppers, mushrooms, onion, tomatoes – it’s all OK!)
  • Pouched
  • Scrambled
  • Hard-boiled
  • Make egg cups with veggies

4. Plain oatmeal (limit carbs like this to 1 time per day)

  • Do NOT go to Starbucks or the drive through at McDonald’s because they have convinced you this is a healthy choice – it’s fully of sugar!  We are talking PLAIN oatmeal with an emphasis on the PPPLLLAIN.  This means made at home, you control the intake, plain oatmeal.  If you must add things stick to fruit, stevia or cinnamon.

5. Nuts (2 ounces, we would also say stick with tree nuts, i.e., macadamia nuts, brazil nuts, cashews, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, chestnuts, beechnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, gingko nuts and hickory nuts)

pine nuts in cup in the shape of heart on sack cloth

 

Tips:

Do NOT over think this!

Eliminate all processed foods

Think protein before carbs

If it is not real food do not eat it

Drink TONS of fluids

Get a friend to join you!

It is only 10 days.  You will NOT die and you can add things back later that you might have missed so do not think we took all dairy from you for life or bread for that matter! Neither are the best for you, but you can have some back later.

Happy Cleansing!

September Goals

Oh, good! We are getting our goals for the month up before it’s officially the half way mark. 🙂

Teal –

1. Clean out the back bedroom. Just look at this mess. Enough said and now I am sufficiently embarrassed!

09132013 1 09132013 2

2.  Join Soul Motivation yoga and go 2 times per week. I used to do yoga at 24 Hour Fitness with the guy (Joseph) who now owns Soul Motivation. He left 24 Hour obviously but I have so missed him. It’s pretty far from my house but it’s worth it. Just need to get my butt up there.

3. Make healthy popsicles! I am in a search for healthy popsicle recipes! I know summer is basically over but its Texas so I still have awhile! I bought super cool Popsicle molds like a month ago and have not even attempted to use them. This must change!

Beth – 

Don’t kill me if my goals are pretty much the same as last month! Still working perfecting them.

1. Our house is still a work in progress obviously and I’m pretty positive every month for awhile I could work on a new house project.  This month my house project is to actually make window treatments for at least one window.  I have fabric for two and then remember I wanted to make some for a third window as well.  So I’m starting small with one window and hope I actually accomplish more.

2. Read two books.  On goodreads I set a challenge of reading 26 books this year and have been on track or ahead by just a liiiittle bit all year long.  Need to keep that up. I also joined a book club a couple of months ago, so I’ll be reading Serena by Ron Rash as one of my books to be ready for our next meeting!

3. YOGA!!  Still with the goals and needing to get them done!

Here’s to hoping we’ve been working on these for the past 12 days already if not we’ve got a lot of work to do! 😉  Hope your September is going great!

August Report Card

Here’s how we measured up for the month of August!

Teal –

1.  I HATE doing weight lose goals because I always disappoint myself because my body clearly loves all of its fat (and you probably roll your eyes that this is another stupid weight goal), BUT this month is the month before my birthday and  IF I lost 5 pounds I would weigh what my goal was for 30. So it would have taken me until 31 and a rather roller coaster year for my weight but it would be off! SOOOOO there you go, lose 5 pounds and make my 30 year old goal weight (not really what I want in life just what I wanted at 30) but really do it at 31!

C- : I ultimately lost like 2.5 pounds if I get to count the morning weight! Hahaha.  We shall keep working on the forever struggle of being consistent, healthy, and fighting the fat gene!

2.  I changed my half marathon training plan slightly from Beth’s because I don’t want to burn myself out like I did last time so my goal is to make my runs! This is totally doable because I have basically started an “I am a newbie and haven’t run” training plan to not destroy my love of running again!

B: I have missed a few “short” runs but have been getting the longer ones in and loving my plan. I do not feel discouraged, slow, or overwhelmed by the plan. I know my next half marathons will not be my “fastest” but I am 100% ok with just enjoying the run!

Beth – 

1.  To get up once a week and do a workout before work.  If you follow me on twitter you pretty much know that usually on Tuesday & Thursday mornings I am up at Private Training Zone by 6:00 a.m. to get in an hour of weights with Johnny and the other ladies in my workout group.  This goal would mean I have to get up an additional morning to do a workout on my own.  There was a time when I would do this with yoga, but that has been awhile and I know I just need to transition into this type of routine.  Let’s hope this makes a habit of it!

F: Haha, this one is gonna take a lot of work on my part.  I’ve reverted back lately to even having a hard time wanting to get out of bed for my Tuesday & Thursday mornings, but I do!  I did get up early in the first week of August, but it was to try and get a bunch of reading done for my book club. lol

2. Finish yet another project at our house.

A+: There are now two walls in my house that are no longer blank! Hooray!  I even bought some fabric for a window decoration project, but still have a few more supplies to get for that one!

09092013 2(1)

now to finish accessorizing the shelves 🙂

09092013 1(1)

3. YOGA! Haha, my goals are back and the idea for this month is to get in at least 3 yoga classes a week. :)

C-: Ok, so there were two weeks where I didn’t go, BUT I still went to yoga 10 times throughout the month of August so that’s why I’m still giving myself a C range grade.  All things considered with Birthday celebrations and work picking up steam with busyness I’m proud of those 10.  I love me some yoga and glad I’m making it a priority during this marathon training cycle!

09092013 3

this was before I missed a week…then another…. :-/

 

See you tomorrow when we lay out all of our hopes and dreams for the month of September! 😉

Happy National Teal Day!!

20130906-134143.jpg

(Top left: Girls Beach Trip to Cancun 2006, top right: Marge & Homer a.k.a. Teal & Michael – Halloween 2007, bottom left: Rebekah & Zac’s wedding September 2007, and bottom right: Rebekah’s Birthday March 2007 [Beth, Teal & Rebekah])

20130906-134219.jpg

(Left: Teal & Beth dancing at Teal & Michael’s wedding November 2008 – obvs, top right: the night before Teal’s wedding! and bottom right: Teal and her sweet MIL)

20130906-134238.jpg

(Top left: Girls Beach Trip to the Dominican Republic and Teal being awesome :), top right: riding the catamaran on our excursion on DR beach trip [Mandy, Beth & Teal], bottom left: Girls Beach Trip 2009 – Kaua’i, Hawaii, and bottom right: shave ice at Matsumoto on the North Shore of Honolulu)

20130906-134253.jpg

(Top left: Teal’s 28th Birthday, top right: Michael & Teal as Bacon & Eggs for Halloween, bottom left: Teal & Brent, and bottom right: Beth, Teal and Mary Alice before White Rock Marathon [our first half])

B is for Back to School, Birthdays, Barbies & More!

It seems like for the first time in a looong time we had a completely race-less month! We have had a couple times where one of us made a race without the other, but August 2013 was completely race-less for both of us!

But it worked out for us and was in hindsight just what we needed. Also, yes, we know y’all are tired of hearing us say we are busy.  We are too and really who isn’t?! And let’s just go ahead and stop with the glorifying of that word. Many of y’all might not know that Teal took a new job and is back to the world of middle school and this time as a counselor! So if you were tracking her professional timeline it would be 5 years as a middle school teacher, 1 year as a high school counselor and now the new gig back in middle school.

09042013 1

In Beth’s family everyone was born in August. OK, not really but it sure feels like it. 🙂 It starts with celebrating her Mom’s birthday (hi, Fancy Nancy!), moves into an August birthday celebration that includes her uncle, aunt, sister and husband and ends with at least some sort of friend celebration for sister (Kate) and husband (Brent). Since those last two are just two days apart in birth days it makes it that much more fun (challenging)!

Kate's Surprise Birthday Party

Kate’s surprise Birthday party was a success!

Teal & Michael got Brent this awesome Aggie Yell Leader Barbie as a Birthday present. Best Birthday present ever!

 

Thankfully, we’ve still had time to de-stress with running! We’ve put in a lot of hill work in the month of August with our fellow NTX Runners.  Actually that statement is true for pretty much the entire summer!

hills 3

We’ve also added to our fall racing calendar with a not so surprising registration for Dallas Marathon!  It is our halfiversary race!  This year will be the 4th year we’ve participated in some form of this race (half or marathon).

So, anyway, we survived race-less August, we’ve been doing our training for Dallas, but now that it’s September bring on the next race!

What have YOU been up to? 🙂

Friday Food Finds {2}

Labor Day weekend is upon us!  We are totally bummed that we aren’t yet again make a trek out to Anaheim to race the Disneyland Half that we LOVE like we last year and the year before that!

Anyway for us this weekend makes us think of pool parties, BBQs, college football……so in case you are still searching for your perfect side dish to bring to  a Labor Day party look no further.  #LiAR has got you covered!

Peas & Crayons – Chipotle Sweet Potato Salad:  Why make your normal potato salad when you can put a healthy and spicy spin on it?! Our mouths are watering just looking at this picture!

Happy Healthy Mama – Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Chips: Down hurre in Texas we pretty much break out the chips and salsa for any and every occasion.  This weekend instead we’re sweetening it up with this fruit dish and homemade cinnamon chips! Another mouth watering recipe!

Kate O Lynch – Best Ever Guacamole Recipe: This recipe truly lives up to it’s name! We can both attest to that as we both have made and enjoyed it many a-times when Kate’s brought it over for a celebration of some sort!

Pinch of Yum – Southwestern Quinoa and Black Bean Casserole: If you are a 7 layer dip loving person THIS is the dish you need to try for this weekend!  You can thank us later! 🙂

A Hint of Honey – Tomato and Fresh Corn Quiche: Maybe since it’s a long weekend you’re wanting to have brunch at home with your roommate or husband or your neighbor.  Here is the breakfast must make dish!

Happy Labor Day {weekend} to you all!  Be sure and let us know what you make! 🙂

Liberty by the Lake 5K

2013-07-04 07.22.14

pre-race car pic!

Sooooo July 4th a bunch of our running friends were doing Liberty by the Lake 5K/10K and if they were doing it we had to do it too.  Right? That’s how it works?  The internets also had a special so we got this race for pretty cheap!

We didn’t have big hopes and dreams for this race because, come on, it’s July in Texas. Hot!  But being the weird summer that it is the temperature that morning wasn’t really as bad as it could have been, but don’t worry the humidity was still there. Blah!

Untitled 2

Frunners!
(pic stolen from Mama C)

Untitled 4

NTX Runners!
Look at Ninja representin’ w/his tank

We should also note how pumped we were to wear our latest purchase from Compete Every Day with our Texas Strong shirts!  We loooooove them!!  We did see a few other runners out there sporting different CED shirts as well.  If you haven’t checked them out you really should, especially if you are a Dallasite, as they are a local business!  And no we weren’t paid or rewarded with free things by that mention we just really love their stuff and awesome customer service!

Then at some point it was time to do what we we went to The Colony for and that is run a 5K.  So run a 5K we did.  Not a lot of shade out there and we hear the 10K-ers have it even worse.  We stuck together and ran the whole thing together.  This was also our first race back in the same age group since Beth fiiiinally turned 30.  We crossed that finish line together at 28 minutes flat!

Untitled 5

Several in our group that day won age group awards, but only a couple of them won the privilege of a LiAR photobomb.  Way to go Brian & Jesse!!

Untitled 1 (1)

Another thing we should point out which you can’t see from the above pic, but we totally love Jesse’s method of keeping cool in the Texas heat:

Step 1: wear a hat

Step 2: insert ice in hat

Step 3: put your ice hat on your head

Step 4: repeat as necessary (if you have a cooler full of ice w/you which he normally does somewhere close by)

IMG_1934[1]

It ended up being a fun time, but the fun did not stop there! We made our way over to Team K’s house for some 4th of July waffles and mimosas!

Fotor0814121640

2013-08-14 12.28.18

2013-08-14 12.43.27

Fun times were had by all!  We are so blessed to have made such awesome friends in the running community! It really is incredible all the greatness that running can bring to ones life! 🙂

Again the fun did NOT end there because after this we went and met up with our husbands who were drinking some beers to get thaaat much closer to reaching their plates at Flying Saucer.

2013-07-04 17.11.17-2

So here we are – officially caught up on our race posts! 🙂  We don’t have any races scheduled for August though so unless something happens no more race recaps until September!

Also, shout out to all the people whose pictures we stole without telling them to make this post that much more fun (a.k.a. Mama C, MK, Jesse and Alison P.)!

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!