Goals? Resolutions? Forward Progress!

Goals? Resolutions? Forward Progress!

We haven’t in the past put New Year’s Resolutions on the blog.  Remember how we use to do monthly goals?

The monthly goals were good, but there seems to be some sort of balance between New Year’s resolutions and monthly goals we need to find. However, we have decided this year to put our New Year’s resolutions out there. Maybe we’ll do a quarterly check in to see how we are doing?

Here goes nothing….

Teal’s Resolutions:

1. More yoga.  My favorite yoga instructor is back at my gym two days a week so I would like to start going back to that. On days that I cannot I have 4 videos that he made that I would like to do from home. This goal is easy to accomplish since I basically did little yoga last year so I would like to say a minimum for 4 days a week even if it’s just 30 minutes. So far, on January 9th, I have kept that!

2. More running.  I would like to beat each month’s mileage by at least 1 mile. I would also like to run under a 2 hour half marathon because well… after 23 of these bad boys I still haven’t done that, I have gotten close but not under 2. Running is way more difficult to fit in with a baby so I will have to be pretty strategic about this and be fine with just going out and running 1 mile if that is all I can get.

Thanks to the ladies of Tone It Up we will both be using this to help jumpstart our running this new year!

Thanks to the ladies of Tone It Up we will both be using this to help jumpstart our running this new year!

3. Less mess. I know that sounds like a goal for a 5 year old, but I have this HORRIBLE problem of dropping everything on the floor or leaving it on the counter because I am busy or tired. I want to stop this. If I have a dish I am done with I want to get it put away or clean it, and other things like stop leaving my shoes everywhere (my parents have been hounding me about this since I was 7) but really what this will accomplish is less overall cleaning time. If I just do it then it won’t pile up, and I hope that this gives me more time.

4. More prep.  This means more than just my food. I would like to prep breakfast and lunch for work each week at a minimum. I should maybe blog about this too to keep me on track and help other people to see what I do?!  I would also just like to have a system with stuff and just getting out of the house. I have so much to deal with on a daily basis with breastfeeding, working a full time and a small part time job, running, working out, baby, life… I mean you get it. But sometimes I don’t do things because I am not prepared enough to actually do that.When I figure out a system I will fill you in!

5. More snail mail. This includes birthday cards, Valentine’s cards, thank you notes, Christmas cards, random letters. I like this and love getting “non-bill” mail. This also just goes along with number 4.Plus I know an awesome graphic designer that can help me out with this!

6. More muscles. So I am back to pre- pregnancy weight but it’s, well… NOT THE SAME. So I would have made this  a “less weight” goal, which still might happen but I really would just like some things to go back to how they were before, so I’m gonna just go with more muscle. And this might mean working out from home more because I really haven’t figured out how to get to my trainer more than 1 day a week and still get to see my baby after work.

7. Less excuses. Let’s face it, if I have less excuses than maybe the above 6 goals will actually work!

Beth’s Resolutions:

1. Be more prepared. Over the holidays there were a couple times I was scrambling for things when I shouldn’t have waited until the last minute.  These days waiting until the last minute is soooo not a good option because, well, (a) it stresses me out more and (b) it means sometimes things won’t get accomplished that have to get accomplished.

2. Complete a self created 30 day yoga challenge. Our friend Drum talked about how she had started her own 60 day yoga challenge which sent all sorts of inspiration my way.  She basically put all the tools I’ve been needing to really dive into a practice on my own in my hands. (Thank you so much for that Drum!)

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Ashtanga Yoga: The Practice Manual by David Swenson is the book I’ll be utilizing for my challenges

 

3. Complete a self created 60 day yoga challenge.  Because these are my goals for the entire YEAR, I’m committing myself to two different yoga ones.

4. Run 900 miles. Ultimately I want a 1,000 mile year, but I’m afraid to fail and my highest mileage year to date has been 728.1 miles in 2013. I actually had to go back through my runkeeper records and learned that I had run over 700 miles. Originally I was going to say 750 and maybe I still should, but let’s try 900 this year. I’d like to bring consistency to my running as well so here’s to hoping this helps!

5. Run an under 2 hour half again. A goal to keep me motivated in my running! I’ve done it before pre-pregnancy and I’d like to do it again post pregnancy!

There you have it, folks! We’ll check back in with you and let you know how we are doing!

Again, Happy New Year!

October Report Card

October Report Card

Let’s just get straight to the grades here….

Teal –

1.Log food in myfitnesspal EVERYDAY. You should follow me! I will follow you, we can keep each other accountable! I am teal0996 on there. 

B: pretty half and half here and this will continue to be a goal!

2.  Wake up 4 mornings per weekday and workout, even if it is just 30 minutes. Choose 1 day to take off.

C: on the waking up but A on the working out 4 times a week! I have been having issues waking up, I had a week of time where I kept waking up at 1:30am and was up for about 3 hours so getting up at 5:30 was not going to work. I seriously hope this gets better and has only happened a few more times. I have either gone at night or done my yoga videos at home!

3.  Prep meals. I use to do this religiously and haven’t… hence the Mexican food twice in one day!

B: Sorta? I didn’t prep like I used to, I more or less bought the stuff and took it all to work and made my lunches there. However, I would do that and decide I didn’t want to eat any of it and ate other things instead on some of the days. I did make one run to Fuzzy’s and one run to Quiznos (which I left on top of my car as I drove off). Other than that I did pretty well with this!

4.  Minimum of 64oz of water daily. I need more because I am so active but I am not even getting 64… must fix.

A+: Pretty much nailed this thanks to my ginormous Buccees’s cup and the 800 water bottles at work!

bucees

5.  If I am going to eat a cookie it can only be 1 and when I say cookie I also mean any other sugary treat that I feel like I can’t live without.  Just 1, not 4, not 7, not the entire box, just 1. I say this because if I say absolutely no to these treats I really will eat them all.

B: Well I can say I really didn’t eat any cookies, I did eat ice cream and Peanut butter M&M’s shhhhhhhhh but even with that said I have done much better on the sweets part. That was what I wanted to eat for a while, all bad things. The sight of asparagus one day made me gage and my usual salad for lunch was gross. I am having to employ a ton of will power here but it seems to be getting better!

 [Side note: isn’t it kind of funny to see this last goal now that you know Teal is pregnant??]

Beth – 

1.  Pretty much since I’m in that book club now and I have a reading goal for this year on goodreads.com I’m just going to make y’all read every month about my goals.  I’m super pumped because the third book in the Divergent series comes out this month and I canNOT wait to read it! :)  So this will at least be one of my two books to read this month.

F: A big giant F for this one.  I did not complete any books this past month. WHO AM I?!?! I started both Serena and Allegiant, but haven’t finished either. So disappointed in myself. *hangs head in shame*

2.  I’m still working towards an organized home… :)  Will I ever accomplish this? I have a collection of boxes in three different places right now and my goal is to go through them, throw things away and either put the leftovers in the attic or some other place they can live.

C-: I’m going to go with that grade because there were 5 boxes total and I cleaned out 3 of them. Ugh, I need to get rid of more stuff!  I also feel like this will never stop being a work in progress for me.

3.  This goal basically let’s you know I did not meet a goal last month, so again this month I shall make a window treatment for at least one of the three windows in my house I have fabric to do said project! I’m going to do it!

A+: I DID IT! Like I said I have three windows I was needing (and wanting) to make window treatments for and follow in my sister’s DIY steps from her blog.  I have one not very wide bathroom window that I had forgotten to get fabric for, one kind of regular width laundry room window that I had fabric for and then one large kitchen window that I have fabric for.  I went with the medium size project here and got my laundry room window accessorized with it’s very own cornice and thanks to Brent for helping this shorty hang it up!  I’m now re-thinking if a cornice for our kitchen window is really the way to go.

cornice

4. Yoga! Is it annoying that I keep just repeating goals?! I really want to make sure I’m getting in yoga during my marathon training because I know it’ll be soooo beneficial come December 8th when I’m taking on those 26.2 miles at Dallas Marathon!

B-: I went four times. Haha, hooray, for that number not being 0.

How did your October goals go??

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!

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now to finish accessorizing the shelves 🙂

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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!

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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! 😉

August Goals

And now for what we hope to accomplish throughout this month!

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!

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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!

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!

2. Finish yet another project at our house.

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

yoga

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Wish us luck and we’ll be back with our report card at the end of the month!  What do you do to make sure you accomplish shorter term goals?

Goals: They’re Making a Come Back

It turns out when you do goals for a whole year then decide to take a break and consider revamping them you end up just taking an all out break.  So goals are back!  Yes we are halfway through this month, so we are starting small and we had each already been working towards these goals for this month anyway so now it’s in blog form.  Let’s see if we can remember how this works:

Teal-

1. Clean out the garage.  This thing is a mess and has just become a catch all for whatever crap I don’t want to look at int he house.  We have stuff everywhere and half of it is not even needed.  I have attempted twice to have a garage sale but because I work every Saturday or if I am off we are usually racing, I dont have time for that.  So my goal this month is to get the garage clean. And not just clean, an organized clean so that it won’t continually get messy.  Then I think I will have to walk my husband through what I did because he will just start putting stuff wherever. 🙂  

teal garage

2. Create a headboard for the guest bedroom and fix the weird paint job.  When my brother lived with me forever ago he painted the guest room navy blue and got the paint on the ceiling.  I would like to fix that and then add a headboard to the new bed.  I went cheap (sorry guests) and just bought a bed and the lower frame, so it needs something to spice it up.  If you follow Beth’s sister, Kate, she recently re-did the room Beth used to live in and created a headboard.  I literally want to copy her and do the same thing!!

Beth –

1. We have a couple of blank walls in our house that I know what I want to do with them but I haven’t really moved forward in the execution of the plan in my head.  One will be a long collage wall so even acquiring 50% of what I want for that wall will be an accomplishment for this month!  I also keep hearing over and over in my head my husband saying, are you going to put any of our wedding pictures up in the house??

2. Lose 5 pounds.  Yay, for bringing back the weight loss goals!! 🙂

Additionally, we have a couple of joint goals for ourselves as well:

1. Get caught up!  We’ve been working on this one pretty hard lately – can you tell?? 😉

2. Today marks the third time we’ve redone a half marathon training plan for ourselves and this time we are going to actually DO the runs!

See you on the grading side of goals! 🙂  Happy Monday!

May Report Card & Holy Cow it’s Time for June Goals!!

Yah, yah, yah…we are a little late to get this up, but we are started on June goals already! Have no fear! A lot has been going on over in our parts of the world as we are sure it has been with lots of you too! Anyways, let’s get on with it…

Teal:

1.  Lose 5 more lbs. I have tons of motivation right now because I will be on the beach June 6-11 for one of my best friend’s weddings in the Dominican Republic! C: lost 2-3ish depends on what time you weigh me (don’t you love that) BUT on a side note I am back to where I was before the marathon!!

2. Ok, I’m just going to change this yoga goal. The goal is to go 3 times per week. After looking back on the last 2 months I think this is doable and still a stretch.  I had a 6 time month and a 5 time month so hopefully just 3 a week will be a big enough push that is actually time possible!  B: Close… I went to yoga 9 times. So basically 3 short, not bad for a crazy month!

3. Stop skipping my morning workouts. My gym buddy and I got a little off track due to crazy lives and schedules. The goal is to go all 5 mornings. I had done this for over a year so it’s doable, just need to get back in the routine! I have been going at night more, but it’s not as easy to do and gets in the way of my yoga goal! Domino effect-boooo!!  UMMMMM, not 100% sure how to grade this, I worked out the same and went most mornings, it is just sooo much easier to go at night when I don’t have grad school or something else. I did most of the runs at night but still went about 3 days a week in the morning, PLUS, if you remember from earlier in the year, I wanted to do more weights alone…. DONE!! Feeling so much better about this, well except for the super creepy guy who told me my aura was beautiful. What??

4. Be nicer! I am not evil, but stress has taken over this month with preparing for graduation, looking and interviewing for counseling jobs, planning showers and events, tax season at my dad’s, state testing for schools, blah blah blah. I have NOT been the picture of niceness at all and have become way more annoyed at things than normal. I am not sure how I am going to actually do this or prove it, but I’ll come up with something and let you know how it goes at the end of May!  B-: Ok I was nicer for sure. I did some random things, that at least made me feel nicer including, walking to teacher friends to talk instead of email, putting shopping carts back in the shopping cart thing even if they weren’t mine,  waved at the people in my neighborhood when we passed each other in cars, I never once honked my horn, I bought the lady’s order behind me at Starbucks in the drive through line, and I just got a better attitude about work and stuff like that. Not too shabby BUT I still have a lot of room!

Beth:

1. I’m still chasing those 5 pounds to lose! Ha, one day…one. freakin’. day. I will be able to say I did it so. This goal is sticking! C: I lost two pounds! Haha

2. Survive my first 10 mile race!  I’m currently freaked out by this distance since I’ve never raced it and it is getting hotter down here in Texas!  A+: I DID survive!! It was a hot one, but I did the White Rock ‘n’ Roll 10 miles!

sprintin’ it in!

3. My wedding related goal is super vague, but the goal is to have at least 3 items on my checklist marked off and report back to you what I’ve accomplished them! B-:  I have a CAKE!!! 🙂  I also bought all the supplies for two projects I am working on and while that doesn’t seem like much of a feat, well, it is in my world! Finding time to work, workout and get to stores before they close is hard for me! Ha.  I’ve also done a lot of research into decorations I want to use, so while it would be amazing if I was further along I am proud of where I am!

This isn’t really what my cake looks like – I got more of a simple yet elegant look to mine! 🙂

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4. I want to continue on with my preparing food for the week on Sunday’s goal, but to make it different the goal here is to find two new recipes this month and make them! Must add variety to what I’ve been doing! F:  I did do a lot of food prep in the month of May, however, I only ended up finding one new recipe that I wanted to try and then I didn’t even try it. Ha! I’m not going to make this a goal for next month, but I will make the recipe I have and find at least another to try soon! So help me God!

My extra goals each month – a. Hill workouts weekly! I actually hosted hill runs in the month of May for NTX Runners, but Teal had to cover one of my hill runs because I was sick. :-/  Which means I did 4 hill runs in the 5 weeks of May.  b. Read two books a month.  Well, I actually finished 3 books in May! 🙂  I was a busy reader!  I finished The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow by Krystyna Chiger, Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.

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Joint Goal:

We will be participating in #runchat’s May challenge which is pretty much to run a different route, a new trail or try a race you have never done before.  For more information please visit the #runchat site.  Beth & Brent found a trail area by his house to explore during this month.  You might remember it from Wordless Wednesday No. 25

Onward to June goals….How are we in the 6th month of this year?!?

Teal:

1.  Clean out the garage which involves properly deposing of all old paint, chemicals, and random things you can’t through in the regular trash, donating anything that  should have donated a long time ago, if it belongs to my brother it’s going to his house, and then just generally cleaning. Why I pick June to work outside in the heat is beyond me but whatever!?

2.  So I graduated at the beginning of May!! Yay, but I have very annoying things that I have/need to do

  • Consolidate and move all my student loans to one place and get on a better plan to pay off faster. YUCK, YUCK, YUCK!
  • Register for the LPC exam and not cry when I pay the $300 to take it
  • Organize all the grad work that I did that I want, toss the old stuff, bind what I am keeping ( anyone have one of those spiral binding things?)
  • Organize, bind, toss, or give away my teaching stuff! I will be moving to counselor next year and have a billion teaching things to go through

3.  Follow my under 2 hour half marathon runkeeper running plan as close to possible! I will eventually run and under 2 hour half marathon if it kills me! Well not really, I want to live, but you get the point!

4.  Eliminate random eating. Raise your hand if you stand around trying to figure out something to eat and you find yourself eating crap in the process! ME!! This has to stop!! It’s not like am eating like crazy stuff, but it is mindless and when I finally figure out what to eat, I’m annoyed that I ate weird random things in the meantime!

Beth:

1.  This time around my weight goal is simply: DON’T GAIN ANY!!! Ha, sounds simple right?  Well, this is my birth month and my parents are divorced so this usually means multiple celebrations with good food, good drinks and dessert.  So it’s a dangerous time of year for me. No weight gain in June!!

2. Yoga 2-3 times a week.  Ever since I finished my goal of completing 200 classes in a year I’ve been kind of a slacker, so let’s get back to yoga goals! It’s soooo good for me!

3.  Finish projects at Brent’s house.  I volunteered his house to host a friend dinner (like this one) towards the end of the month and I haven’t finished some art I started for the walls, since I’ll eventually move in there (you know when we are married) I had already left all of my racing medals, hook to hold them, awesome race bib board my SIL made me over there they just need to be hung up.

4. Finish the two wedding projects I have ALL of the supplies for! 🙂

Joint Goal:

We are doing and have asked YOU to participate with us in our Tone It Up Challenge for the month where we do as many days of pushups and planks!

Hope you all have are working hard on your June goals and have a fabulous month! Check back with you when it’s July!  But July please do not come TOO FAST!

BluePrint Cleanse Recap

As you saw in my April goals #1 was to survive the BluePrint Cleanse. At the advice of my trainer and basically just myself and my sanity, I decided to do a more intense cleanse then I had done before. I can not afford the actual BluePrint Cleanse, where they actually send you everything made because it runs about $75 bucks a day plus shipping so, yea, I’m a teacher, that won’t work. I decided to just buy their book and buy the supplies. The total cost of everything, including a 3 day pre-cleanse and 3 day post-cleanse ran about $110 bucks. Not bad for 9 days worth of food!

The pre-cleanse is basically 3 days of preparing your body to deal with straight juice for 3 days. I know, and you probably do too that when we know we aren’t going to eat or we are going to be “cut off” of things then we cram food. Like maybe decide to eat the most fattening meal ever the night before, well, if you did that and went straight to juice you would die. I didn’t do that anyways but I still wanted to pre-cleanse. This was totally not bad and runs around 1100-1200 calories. I was still able to work out too!

Pre-Cleanse:

Day 1: 2 pieces of fruit, gazpacho, veggies and hummus, veggie tacos (avocado and sprouted corn tortillas)

Day 2:  basically the same but instead of veggies you can have a larabar

Day3:  basically the same but for dinner you eat a big salad with tons of veggies

Prep for the actual cleanse is a little insane and this is where I do wish I had a money tree! Juicing is messy and I cut my finger on the stupid pineapple. I made my juices over two nights because honestly it took me forever. The juice will keep for the 3 days if you do it all at once!

Here is what you drink

1-     greens with apple

2-     watermelon

3-     greens with blueberry and apple

4-     pineapple and mint

5-     greens with apple

6-     milk drink (basically ground cashews, coconut oil, water)

Day 1: I started the actual cleanse on a Thursday and had to work. I teach so this made me extremely nervous. I even freaking spilled my green drink at my desk! I almost cried! Also I am essentially trapped in a room for hours at a time with very short breaks to actually go the bathroom. It really was not too bad though. I did have to go to the bathroom at least once an hour just due to the increase in liquids. But I mean nothing bad that I’m embarrassed to say 🙂 I chose the second level of cleansing because I have done cleanses before and figured I could handle it.

See the spill?

Day 2: This day really was the worst, I just really wanted to chew, but was not that hungry! I did not like the “milk” drink you take at night and couldn’t drink it. It’s made with ground cashews so instead of drinking it I just ate a handful. I don’t think I actually ruined anything with this but who knows – the chewing just might have saved me. I did have to take “smooth move” tea, because I really wasn’t going #2 haha! That worked out well!

Day 3– I actually really did feel awesome. I was full, my joints weren’t hurting, not even in my knees, and my eyes no longer really had bags under them! I felt really good and still do even today! I ended day 3 with my last green drink and right before bed ate some more cashews.

Honestly I was not hungry. I actually didn’t even want to drink all of the juice sometimes because I didn’t feel hungry. The drinks do not taste bad, the green one takes some getting used to, and if I actually liked coconut I would have liked the “milk.” At this point, I am not 100% sure how much weight I lost. On the second day I was down a full 5 from the last time I weighed right before, and today at the gym, 2 days after the cleanse is completely over, I was down 8 pounds total. Not bad, the weight is awesome, but I also for the first time just feel really good!

Just my advice:

–          Drink lots of water and green tea- so much so that you think you will pop

–          Buy smooth move tea – it doesn’t taste bad and works

–          Learn to love Apple Cider Vinegar and drink it if you are hungry (mix with a little honey and drink warm) it’s the least gross way!

–          Plan!! And don’t do this when you have to go places, its annoying to carry a cooler – I took one to school and it annoyed me with all the ice!

–          Your kitchen will be a holy mess, so if you are crazy like me learn to breathe!

Beware of weird questions! Liiike – What the hell is that? Is that gross? What are you doing? Why would you do that? That’s weird. (Oh and evil sideways stares at the grocery store because your buggy has far too many fruits and veggies)

-Teal

Are You Ready for Some Racin’?

As you know from our post yesterday we have got Kacie’s Run AND Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas on tap for this weekend!  This is almost exactly what we did this weekend last year – we say almost because last year we paired up with our friends Joe & Bitner to do Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas as a relay!

Saturday morning we will head out to Standridge Stadium in Carrollton to run this 5K benefiting Carrollton Farmers Branch ISD Special Olympics.

We have been pretty fortunate this week in Dallas with some rain on a couple of days that have left us with some nice cool temperatures!  We are hoping we’ll be in the 50’s the whole time we are out there for this 5K.

Goals: Teal will run this 5K as a race.  It is a nice flat course so maybe she’ll bring home a PR.  Her current 5K PR sits at 23:58.  Beth will be treating this 5K as more of a shakeout run so don’t expect any new PR from her, put in 3.1 at a nice easy pace and be ready for what the next day has to hold!

And Sunday holds our longer day with Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas!  We’ve been watching the weather all week to see what it would do for Sunday morning and not to mention it seems like a lot of Rock ‘n’ Roll races have had some HOT weather lately! Anyone else notice that?

As of now we are looking at a low of 62 and a high of 84. Here’s to hoping it stays in the 60’s for as long as possible!  Something else we are hoping for on Sunday is another Troy Aikman sighting! 🙂  Last year Teal saw him as she was running her leg of the relay!

Hello there, Troy Aikman!

Goals: Well, Beth made it one of her March goals to run a sub 2 hour half marathon at this race so that is the goal!  Ultimately she’d like to see a bright shiny new half PR come out of this race!  Kind of scary admitting it because there could be a huge chance it doesn’t happen, but she’s gonna try gosh darn it!  For Teal, she’s just wanting to complete the race!  If you remember from her March goals that she was taking pretty much two weeks off from any type of working out that wasn’t yoga or weights with her trainer, Will.

We are excited for this weekend! There are lots of people we know who will be out running Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas and to all of you good luck!  We would like to give a special good luck to Cynthia MacDonald!  Girl, you are going to rock your first half marathon!  Soak up every second of it because you’ll never get another first half marathon! You’ve trained hard and will do GREAT!

If you are going out to Rock n Roll to spectate you will hopefully be able to spot Beth easily in her yellow Nike shorts, gray top and yellow headband.  Teal is trying to figure out what outfit combo will result in the least amount of chaffing (yes, she wears BodyGlide sometimes it still happens!) possible so maybe you can just look for the tall girl running down the streets of Dallas! 😉

Oh and one last thing – we’ll be hitting up the expo tomorrow afternoon! When are YOU going? Maybe we could meet up!

Break? I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Break….OK, Maybe I Do!

On our March goals I mentioned that I wanted to survive my 2 week rest without cheating and we figured that that you might need a little more explanation. So here goes…

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Not too long ago I told you guys about my weight and my efforts to lose weight. I had been the heaviest in my life and not happy so I decided to do something about it. I managed to drop down quite a bit but have essentially been stuck at my current weight for a while now. At first I just had no loss or gain, and then all of a sudden an actual gain in fat for the first time in 2 years. To me, and many others this may seem odd, I work out basically everyday, run all the time, play basketball, swim, workout with a personal trainer, track my food, have very few cheat days…. you get the drift…an actual fat gain seems pretty impossible to me. So what is the problem?? It is calorically impossible in my opinion for this to happen.

I talked to my trainer, Will, about this a lot, he dug into what he knows and asked around as well and basically came to a consensus that I am overtraining and my body is in an adaptive mode all the time. So while I have fallen into a very healthy routine of exercise and eating right my body has too and has basically decided it is going to stay where it is. Thanks body – love you too!

Talk about motivation killer. I think I actually had a pitty party at the gym the day I was weighed and even broke down and decided exercise and everything I was doing was pointless and stupid, a waste of time.. blah blah blah. Ever feel like this??

I would say that this is similar to when people decide they have to make a change and come to a breaking point. Will asked me if it was feasible to take 2 weeks off from working out and move my body from adaptive mode and into recovery. I cringed of course. I have 2 half marathons in March, hence part of the problem, but I decided to do it. During this time I am going to do no running or cardio. I will weight train 2 times a week with Will and yoga 2 to 3 times a week. Getting my runner self  to not run 3-4 weeks before a race is a little scary, but I am too frustrated to stay where I am and not try something new! I can’t help but think of the insanity definition here. Can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting something to change.

Also, Beth and I both joined MyFitnessPal this week. I have always tracked her food on myapex but I found that it is less convenient. Sorry 24 Hour Fitness! MyFitnessPal works super easy on the phone and has more food listed so it makes it much easier to track food better. So with the rest, I am also becoming more on point with food.

Anyone ever been through this madness before? Let us know!  What did and did not work for you??

New Year, New Goals

Last year [how is 2011 already last year??] we started out the year with a goal for the whole year and that really worked out for us!  That worked out for us for 2011, but if we are going to push ourselves and we are going to grow even more then we need to shake things up for 2012.  You might also see some minor changes to the look of the blog due to the new year and our new goals this month!

So to start 2012 we are going to try out monthly goals!

Teal:

1.  Attend a minimum of 10 yoga classes at Sunstone.  This is big time for me! I only had 25 classes last year. I took a huge break!

2.  Complete one extra day of weight training on my own.  I train with Will two days a week, but that is all the weight training I do.  I am scared of that side of the gym when I am alone, so I am going to buck up and start a progression of doing weights on my own.  Not that I am getting rid of Will, I just need to stop being a baby.

3.  Lose 4 pounds. I am stuck! I hate it and want to be unstuck!

4.  Read a book for pleasure!  Graduate school has killed any fun reading that I once did.  I have chosen to read Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison.

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Beth:

1.  Complete 200 yoga classes.  The very end of January 2011 was when I started yoga and my goal all along was to complete 200 in one year.  I broke that goal into 50 classes every 3 months.  As of this morning I have 29 more classes to go!

2.  Do a hill workout every week.  If I blew off a day in my training schedule it was always hills, and I know I will benefit from doing them SO much.

3.  Organize my room! I love organization, but for the past year I feel like I’m running from one thing to the next.  All the organizing I once did has gone out the window, and it really makes me sad that I now resemble a messy person. 🙁

4.  Find a caterer for my wedding!  This is the next big item I want to get crossed of my wedding to do list!

We each have one last goal that we are both doing –

5. Complete a 10 day Advocare cleanse.

Teal is actually an Advocare distributor.  Checkout her website and/or order from her here.  She has done their 10 day cleanse two times before and saw weight lose results each time.  After all the eating over the holidays and as Teal mentioned before being stuck (not that Beth doesn’t feel the same way) we thought this would be the perfect way to jump start the new year.  Do a cleanse and start afresh.  As of Wednesday, January 4th we will start the cleanse and our last day will be Friday, January 13th.  We will go ahead and update you sooner than the end of the month on our cleanse, but these are our goals!  We’ll check back with you at the end of the month and go from there!