Spartan Beast

hi guys! happy friday!! i had the day off today which is a rarity so i'm a happy camper over here.

i wanted to share some fitness updates with you all today. first things first, i FINALLY got kipping pull-ups at CrossFit on Tuesday! the WOD we were doing involved pull-ups and push jerks (it was a ladder, 15-12-9-6-3), so i grabbed a band to do the workout as usual.

(side note: i thought that i could do pull-ups without a band when i started crossfit, but it turns out all along i'd been doing chin-ups in my IFT barbell class. a pull-up is when your palms face away from you on the bar, and a chin-up is when your palms are facing you. when i went to do a pull-up, i was shocked that i couldn't even do one! turns out that chin-ups are easier than pull-ups for most people. so it was back to square one with using a resistance band to assist me on my pull-ups.)

i actually was using a thinner band than normal during the WOD, and it's the thinnest one we have at my box. and the WOD felt surprisingly easy, so after doing 45 assisted pull-ups during the workout, i decided to give kipping pull-ups another go. my coach taught me how to do them about a week prior, but i was having major trouble with the technique and couldn't even do one. during the WOD, i noticed that i was doing a sort of kipping motion while using the band, which is when i realized that my brain was probably getting in the way of me doing kipping pull-ups. when i think about something too much, usually i get totally confused.so i just went for it, didn't think about it, and managed to bang out 15 unassisted pull-ups! 

i also ripped my hand for the first time, but hey, totally worth it in my opinion. i was so proud of myself!

yep, i post pictures of my ripped hands on the internet. strange.

i also was reminded at CrossFit yesterday of how bad i am at handstand pushups. i'm great at handstands, but horrible at the push-up part (and have yet to master kipping for that). new goal for the future: do a handstand push-up.

in other news, i spur of the moment signed up for a Spartan Beast a week from tomorrow. i'd been thinking about it for awhile and then one of my good friends was persuasive enough to get me to sign up. it's a 10-12 mile obstacle course, and i'm probably going to die. (kind of kidding. kind of). the fastest elite racers finish in about three hours, but i think us normal folk typically take anywhere from four to six. it'll be quite the event! they also don't exactly tell you what kind of obstacles there will be, but from what i've read, it's going to be crazy hard and crazy fun. i think that CrossFit and training for a half marathon have prepared me well!

(spartan race official video on youtube)

i also need to figure out the fueling/water/clothing situation. praise the Lord there's 6 aid stations on the course (unlike the ONE that they originally said there would be), but we're responsible for bringing our own fuel. i'm trying to figure out how i'm going to carry it since anything i wear is probably going to get trashed. and i also am trying to decide what to wear - at the moment i'm thinking spandex shorts, and either a dri fit tee or tank (not sure if more skin exposed is better or worse).

for now, i'm going to focus on getting through the Giant half marathon this Sunday! wish me luck :)

have you ever done a Spartan Race before? any suggestions on what to wear/bring?

Weekly Workouts 7.20.13

last friday i injured my hip - i'm not sure how but i woke up on saturday morning and was hobbling around like an old person. i've always had hip issues (most of the time they never got in the way of anything) but i have a hunch that this was caused by overuse & nowhere near enough stretching and foam rolling. i think i just strained a muscle in my hip joint.

after taking 3 full days off, doing no workouts whatsoever, icing, applying icy hot, and doing light foam rolling, i felt good as new on monday. but i took it as a wakeup call that i NEED to stretch and foam roll every day (and ice if necessary). crossfit and running put a lot of strain on the body and i need to make sure that i take care of myself. my injury could've been a lot worse and i'm really grateful that it wasn't.

with that said, here's this week's workouts! i had almost no hip pain, foam rolled and stretched before/after my workouts, and have been feeling a lot better. i also think that having the proper shoes for CrossFit (finally!) helped a ton.

foam rolling = OW.

Sunday: off
Monday: CrossFit

spend 10 min working on kipping or butterfly pull-ups.
i haven't done kipping pull-ups yet so i worked on those. and DANG they're hard! i have a long ways to go, the technique just hasn't clicked yet.
+
back squat 6x5 at 75%
i hadn't found my 1 rep max for back squat yet so i did that instead, and got to 153 pounds.
+
against 15 min clock:
run 800m
50 pull-ups
60 burpees
70 KB swings (53/35)
max reps toes to bar

i got through 45 kettlebell swings before hitting 15 minutes. that one was tough, the pull-ups definitely got me from the start!

Tuesday: CrossFit

warm-up: 3 rounds of
5-10 ring dips
5-10 strict toes to bar
5-10 L sits

this warmup was freakin' hard. i used a thin blue band on the ring dips and even then my arms were ridiculously sore the next day! and i can barely do strict toes to bar and only lasted like 20 seconds on each L sit. so much room for improvement!
+
3x5 push jerk (on my last set i used 93#!)
+
Metcon
3 power cleans
3 pistols
6 power cleans
6 pistols
9 power cleans
9 pistols
... continue pattern until 7 minutes is up and add up total reps.

i used a 73# bar for the power cleans (RX was 95) and used a pole to help balance on the pistols. i got through 75 total reps (i made it to 15 power cleans).

Wednesday: off

Thursday: 7.1 mile run
this is my longest run so far for my half marathon training and i was really happy with it! kept a solid 8:45 pace, my hip didn't bother me, and the next day i wasn't super sore.

Friday: 2.5 mile run
i just wanted to shake out my legs and see how they were feeling. i actually felt like i could've done more, which was great, but i kept it short because it was really hot outside and didn't want to push my hip too much.

post run smoothie with vanilla greek yogurt, spinach, frozen blueberries & raspberries, and almond milk

Saturday: CrossFit

Bruck
4 rounds for time:
run 400m
24 back squats (RX 115)
24 jerks (RX 95)

i used 83# for the squats and 63# for the jerks, and finished in 36:13. i could've done a bit more, i think, but we didn't use the racks since there weren't enough for everyone in class. that meant that we had to clean the bar for both movements and i don't think i could've gotten more than 90 pounds cleaned and over my head for the back squats. overall this WOD was a rough one, but i got my butt to the box and finished and that's what counts.

all in all, a great week of workouts! i'm feeling much more confident about the half marathon and couldn't be happier with how much progress i've made in crossfit. i'm in the best shape of my life and can't wait to see more progress in the future!

best workout you had this week?

CrossFit and Running

I love CrossFit.
I also love running.

I happen to have  a half marathon coming up in less than a month, and the longest run I've been on was a hot six-miler that felt like death (might not have helped that I had been mountain biking the day before and my legs were shot).

(don't be fooled by the smile)

Needless to say, I've been having a bit of a hard time balancing CrossFit and running lately.

I'm paying so much for CrossFit that I feel like I need to go pretty often. I don't want to miss out on anything, either!
Whenever I'm not going to CrossFit, I feel like I should be running.
And I'm 100% guilty for not doing nearly enough stretching (I don't even know where my yoga mat is).

It doesn't exactly help that one of my not-so-great qualities is indecision. I am the world's most indecisive person and can't ever decide what to order at a restaurant. Don't even get me started on everything else in life!

So today I'm trying to take a step back and figure out how I'm going to get my butt across that finish line on August 4th, while still going to CrossFit fairly often. I'm also on the lookout for some relatively short yoga videos to do, because let's be real, an hour of yoga sounds like absolute death to me right now because I know it's going to hurt. A lot.

Right now my general game plan is to go to CrossFit 3-4 times a week (depending on the workout, how I feel, and how sore I am), run twice a week (one shorter and one long), and STRETCH after every workout. I would like to fit in half an hour of yoga in there somehow too.

Who knows if this is going to work! Now I completely understand why people have so much trouble training for endurance events and doing CrossFit. If you want to be good at one of the two, you kind of have to put the other on the back burner.

So here's to praying that I can still keep doing what I love and not overtrain while doing so.

any tips from those of you who love CrossFit and running?
best site to find good yoga videos?

Scenes from the Weekend

{imagine dragons. freaking incredible live! best concert i've ever been to}

{swimming}

{spicy shrimp and avocado sushi from whole foods}

{playing in the fountain like 5 year olds} 

{pretending to be a photographer}

{love}

{chocolate coconut cupcake with coffee ice cream in the middle from sprinkles. heaven.}

{signed up for the giant half marathon in august! i'm so excited!! it's in one of my favorite cities and you run right along the water to the golden gate bridge and back to at&t park, home of my giants.}

what's the best thing you did/ate/saw last weekend?

WIAW Returns! {Long Run Eats}

hi guys! i haven't participated in WIAW in awhile (mainly because i've been lazy and haven't captured a full day's eats in quite some time!) but i'm excited to be back this week!!

these meals/snacks are all from monday, when i did my long run of the week for my half marathon training plan.

before i left the house, i had my usual pre-run breakfast of toast with almond butter and coffee. i let it digest for an hour or so while reading blogs and then started to get ready to go. i couldn't find my usual sour jelly beans that i've been using as fuel on long runs, so i stole one of my dad's cappucino hammer gel packets (he bikes a LOT so we have lots of fuel-type things around the house!).

i set out not sure what to expect on my run. i just recently spent 3 days at college orientation and didn't work out any of those days, and i had done BodyPump the day before (i originally hadn't been intending on doing my long run on monday, but that's just the way my schedule worked out).

but, despite my doubts, i had a great run! i did a big loop starting at my house with a few water stops planned out along the way. around mile 6, i took the gel and drank a bottle of water. i honestly was expecting it to taste disgusting, despite my love of coffee, but i LOVED it! it tasted kind of like a mocha frosting or something, and didn't mess with my stomach one bit. new favorite running fuel!

(the overall run was at 9:07 min/mile, i just finished with a pace of 8:44, in case you were wondering!)

i finished my run feeling on top of the world, and like i could've added those 3.1 miles without too much more trouble. i'm feeling really confident and i think i'm going to do my solo half marathon sometime in the next week! WOOHOO!

yep, i'm a crazie. :)

when i got back, the first thing i did was blend up a green monster. (i think i need a shirt that says 'will run for green monsters' because it's SO true!) in the mix was a few fresh strawberries, a cup of plain greek yogurt, a cup of frozen mixed berries, ~1/2 cup frozen spinach, and almond milk.

i also had one of my mom's homemade bran muffins, warmed up with some almond butter. YUM!

then we got to work on making my brother's and my tshirt quilts! ever since we were little my mom started saving tshirts from important stuff once we stopped wearing them, and i've been adding to the pile of favorite tshirts ever since. the plan was to make my brother Jay and I tshirt quilts for college, and i'm SO excited that it's finally actually happening. i spent most of the afternoon picking which shirts i wanted, helping my mom cut them, and laying them out.

here's what my quilt/blanket is {hopefully} going to look like!

i love all of the color and happy memories all of those shirts hold, so i can't wait for it to be finished! (also, my mom is the BEST! i got home from work today and she was already starting to sew my quilt!)

while we were cutting the shirts, i had an unpictured bowl of cookie dough ice cream as an afternoon treat. then, we headed to target and whole foods for some fun shopping! i got sheets, pillowcases, and a mattress pad for my dorm room (more on that later, i'm planning on doing a big post with everything i'm bringing next year further in the future!), in addition to lots of fun foodie goodies! while we were walking around i got one of the new starbucks refreshers berry drinks. it was pretty good!

here's the {food} loot from both target and whole foods:

• peanut butter panda puffs
• 2 jars of Barney Butter
• a box of truvia packets (new love!)
• a big container of vanilla chobani
• coconut m&ms (guilty pleasure)
• a few luna bars, a balance bar, and a PureFit bar (new whole foods find - so good!)
• 3 bars of dark chocolate

so yeah, basically just lots of fun treats! i was one happy camper :) 

i had a bowl of the vanilla greek yogurt with almond meal and sprinkles when we got home (major long run munchies kicking in!) to hold off my hunger until dinnertime.

we had whole foods hot bar for dinner - i got fried rice with tofu, a few roasted potatoes (underneath), and a sesame noodle salad thing. it was all delicious!

dinner was enjoyed while having a family movie night watching the dark knight! i'm super excited for the new batman movie to come out on friday!!

dessert was a bowl of coconut and pretzel m&ms, and a LOT of unpictured kettle korn.

*random tangent* looking back, i probably could've had a few healthier things to refuel, but lately i've been trying to not worry so much about whether something's healthy and just enjoy it if i'm craving it. i'm trying to 'let go' a little bit, i guess you could say, and just relax and ENJOY myself more. so what if i have a little extra sugar one day? everything balances out in the end. i know that overall i have a VERY healthy diet in comparison to many people my age, and splurging every once in awhile (as long as it is making me happy) is a good thing. *tangent over* haha :)

and then i faceplanted in bed. twas a good day.
what's your preferred long run fuel? 
favorite thing from the whole foods hot bar?

a day in the summer life {half marathon training plan!}

so, I thought it would be fun to show you guys a day in the life now that I'm on summer vacation! that is, until I realized that I don't actually... do that much. hah. but I figured I'd show you guys what I've been up to anyway!

this morning I woke up early with a cramp in my neck and couldn't go back to sleep... so what's a girl to do? Starbucks, of course!

I also treated the lovelies working at Starbucks to some quality bedhead and sweatpant action before 7am. Sorry I'm not sorry..

had breakfast once I got home: vanilla Chobani with almond meal and some ever-present rainbow sprinkles, with a piece of toast and almond butter. This breakfast has been my favorite as of late!

I then proceeded to park my butt on the couch for a solid hour listening to country music, snuggling with my kitties, and dozing in and out of sleep. I got up a little while later and finally updated my about page and made a blog header that I finally think is going to stick around! The other one I made earlier was just a little too big with a little too much stuff going on, so I like this one much better.

And then I got to work making my half marathon training plan!! I went through the archives of some of my favorite blogs and looked at a couple of different plans before discovering the amazingness that is the Runner's World Smart Coach training plan creator! You get to customize it which definitely is what made me fall in love.

I knew that I wanted a couple of days a week to go to BodyPump and cross train, because my hips tend to start acting up when I run more than four days a week. I also knew that I didn't want too long of a plan overall, because I don't want to burn out. I also picked a day to run the half marathon (read this post to find out why I'm not running an actual race!), which happens to be the day before my family leaves for Maui! Perfect timing, no? :)

I also love that the plan automatically included specific tempo and speed work workouts because I am horrible at coming up with those! I know that I'm not going to be able to follow everything to a T (I'm going to be gone for a couple of days in the middle for UCLA orientation) but I'm going to do my best!

Here's the finalized plan!

{also, if you're wondering why I didn't do the scheduled 8-mile long run today, I ran 7.1 miles just the other day and decided that that was sufficient for my long run of the week - but other than that, I'm sticking with the plan!}

When I finished all that up I decided I should probably get my greasy bedhead in the shower! So I showered up and then headed out to meet a friend of mine for lunch at Panera.

I got the 1/2 Asian Sesame Salad and 1/2 Turkey Avocado BLT on sourdough.

The BLT was to DIE for and I definitely wish that I'd just gotten the full sandwich because the salad was just okay. Next time!

When I got home I got on the phone with a car insurance guy because someone rear ended me yesterday. Not fun! I got the crap scared out of me because the guy was going pretty fast when he hit me (I was stopped at a stoplight and he hit my car so hard it went a good couple feet forward to hit the person in front of me). Needless to say I was a panicky shaky mess for quite awhile! And both the front and back of my car are pretty banged up! :(

Aaaannd a full hour later I've only just gotten off the phone - going to take my car in to go get an estimate tomorrow.. Fingers crossed it gets fixed soon!

After all that I needed some happy thoughts - just looking at this little collage I made the other day makes me smile! "it's funny how it's the little things in life that mean the most" <-- anyone else love that song? it's my current favorite!! i <3 zac brown band!

I'm off to make a snack and then head to work!

happy {official} summer everyone!

have you ever been in a car accident?
favorite summer activity?

I'm Going to Run a Half Marathon!

one of the things on my summer bucket list: run a half marathon.

now, i've been looking for half marathons that are fairly close to where i live for months now (it's always been a goal of mine to do one before i leave for college) but i haven't found any that fit what i want. i don't want to have to travel far, i want it to be a fairly large race that's gotten good reviews in the past, and it has to fit into my schedule. i almost found one that fit exactly what i wanted (and went across the Golden Gate bridge - how sweet is that?!?) but then realized that it was on the day after my family leaves for vacation.

so, as of right now, i'm still not signed up for a race. but i woke up this morning and decided that even if i'm not going to be able to run in a legitimate race, that doesn't mean that i can't run a half marathon this summer. heck, i could do a marathon if i really wanted to!

with that thought in mind, i decided to go for a long run this morning! ever since track ended the longest run i've done has been four miles - i definitely burned myself out running every single day and lately the shorter distances have been really appealing to me.

but, i want to get my stamina back up and start training for this half marathon! i decided that anything above 5 miles i'd be happy with, but in the back of my mind i really wanted to hit seven.

so i fueled up with two pieces of toast with almond butter (one smooth, one crunchy), a cup of water, a mug of hazelnut coffee, and sat making a playlist while i let it digest.

i knew that i was definitely going to be struggling at the end of my run so i bought a few new songs to add to give me a little burst of energy. here's the playlist i came up with!

{click HERE to pin it!}

i also brought some sport beans with me - i know that i don't really need them when i'm only running 7 miles, but i also knew that i haven't run this far in a LONG time and was going to need a little extra energy!

i filled up my water bottle, laced up my shoes, and headed out the door!

in the beginning, i had to consciously tell myself to slow down and hold back, because i knew i was going to hate myself later if i went out too fast. i've been running 8-minute miles lately, but on 5ks and not much longer - so my goal for this run was to stay sub 10-minute miles.

when i hit mile 3, it started to get really hot, so i told myself once i got to mile 3.5 i could stop, take my shirt off, eat a few beans, and drink some of the water i brought (i can't actually drink while i'm running - just sip and spit it out). once i got there, i did just that! i wasn't sure how the sport beans were going to go down since i'm not used to fueling in the middle of the run, but these tasted SO good! i have no idea why since normally i'm not a huge candy person, but these definitely gave me that little bit of extra energy for the second half of my run.

i felt great from miles 4-6, and then my legs and my hip joints started to complain a little (i've had minimal problems with them, but every once in awhile the hip pain flares up, especially on longer runs). right then i really appreciated the playlist i took the time to make! i actually considered running 8 miles since i wanted to hear all the songs on it, but decided not to push it too far today.

 i finished 7.14 miles in 1:05:58 (average pace 9:14/mile!!) 

i'm going to work on creating an actual half marathon training plan this week so that i can set a date of when i'm actually going to run it - since chances are, i probably won't be able to find a race that works for me. i'm going to share my plan once i finish making it, so stay tuned!

have you ever run a half marathon before? any tips for someone who's never run one? 

favorite fuel for long runs?