Doin' my own thing.

I felt like today was a "take it easy" day.  I mean, I still did a workout, but it didn't feel like much for some reason.  Probably had something to do with the fact that it took me until about 9am to even get started.  I did 3 miles on the treadmill at around a 10 minute mile pace, then I did some strength training.

Since I was doing it at home, I had to make do with the equipment I have, which isn't much.  I only have 5 pound dumbbells and 35 pound dumbbells (which only my husband has ever used because they're way too heavy for me).  Today was shoulders, abs and calves, so I did a bunch of sit-ups, calf raises on a step-stool, bent over lateral raises and lying side raises with the 5 pound hand weights.

Then I spent the afternoon doing stuff in the kitchen: making pumpkin puree, vegetable juice and more homemade soup.  The soup I made was another chicken quinoa, but I changed it up a little bit to give it a southwestern flare.  The base was made from broth, chili powder, sea salt, black pepper and tomato, then I added jalapenos, garlic, carrots, squash, chicken, peas, corn, and quinoa.  I baked a few *clean* corn tortillas in the oven, sprinkled with sea salt and served the soup with the "chips".  It was very good.

This evening, my husband and I went to the gym for our usual Monday evening spin class with Misty.  It was a great class and I especially love it when my husband and I get to go together.  It doesn't always work out that way, so I'm grateful when it does.  After class, we made a (relatively) quick stop at the grocery store before coming home and having a creamy pumpkin smoothie before getting ready for bed. :)

Power breakfast.

Since it's Sunday and I don't have much else to post, I thought I'd share with you all the recipe for the delicious pancakes we had this morning. :)

Clean and Healthy Pumpkin Pancakes

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 scoop protein powder of choice (vanilla works well)

1/4 cup ground flax

1/4 tsp sea salt

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/2-1 cup water

Mix together to desired consistency and bake on hot griddle.  This amount makes 6-8 pancakes.  (I usually double this for my family.)

We topped ours with chia seeds, sliced bananas, raw almonds and pure maple syrup.  Mmm, mmm good. :)

A bonus day.

It felt a little strange to not do a run on a Saturday, but besides the fact that I'm still giving my knee a chance to rest, I got lucky and was able to attend a second Muscle Fusion X class at the gym for the week.  Normally that class is only taught on Thursdays, but on Saturday mornings there is a rotating class slotted at 9 am and each week is a different class.  Today was Muscles Fusion X, taught by the same instructor that teaches the Thursday class.

So this morning Chris and I went to the gym at a little after 8 so that I would have time to do some strength training before class started.  I did triceps, mostly, but also a little leg work.  Class was awesome, as always, and it felt so good to get in a bonus workout this week.

Tomorrow is a rest day and then the rest of the week I will probably be doing a minimal amount of running.  Even then, I will most likely stick with the treadmill for any running I do in preparation for Saturday's half marathon.  I read that when runners have knee issues such as the one I am having, it's good to run on an even surface to avoid further agitating the affected knee.  Since most of the roads I run on have a pretty dramatic camber, I think it's best if I use a treadmill.

Snow day, spinning and a quinoa chicken soup recipe.

I have the perfect opportunity to do a blog post right now, while I wait the arrival of my husband returning from his week of training and while all four kids are at a neighbor's house for a Halloween party.  The house is so quiet right at this moment.  I treasure that silence.  All I hear right are my fingers hitting the keys and the whir of the  heater.

This morning we awoke to this beautiful scene:

Later in the morning, after taking my daughter to an activity, I had the chance to hit the gym.  I even got in about an hour in the weight room before going to spin class.  I did abs, glutes and shoulders.  I was still feeling sore from yesterday, but it wasn't bad enough to hamper my lifting today.  Then, of course spinning was fabulous.  Today was a "climbing" day, according to our instructor, so no sprints or speed, just all hard and heavy.

This afternoon, I made a batch of the most delicious and clean chicken soup, which was perfect for a day like today.

Here's how I made it...first, pour two cans of chicken stock (clean, check your labels) and 4-5 cups of water into a stock pot and turn heat to medium.  Add chopped carrots, cubed summer squash, 4 cloves of minced garlic, 1/3 cup of dry lentils, 2/3 cup rinsed quinoa, kale (washed and torn into bite size pieces), salt and pepper to taste.  Keep at a low boil for about 30 minutes.

In another pan, saute 2 large, cubed chicken breasts with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a dash of sea salt.  When it's browned, add it to soup mixture along with 1 can of black beans (again, check your label on the beans since some canned beans contain sugar).  Let simmer for another 15 minutes or so and voila!  Super healthy, super thick, super delicious, super-soup! :)

Phew.

I lack the energy to even come up with a catchy title for this post. :)  Today was a tough Thursday.  Not tough in a bad way, but tough in a grind-my-body-till-it-cracks type of way.  First of all, I started out my day feeling a little beat up from yesterday's run.  I think it was the combination of the steep downhill for the first 5 or 6 miles, the uber cold temperatures and our (faster than normal) pace.  My calves, hamstrings and quads feel tight and sore, but even my joints are feeling it.

As much as I hate to admit it, I also think I've grown a case of the infamous "runner's knee".  My knee has bothered me on and off for the past month or two, and I've been trying to ignore it.  My last couple of long runs, though, it's become more difficult to ignore.  I was actually feeling more pain and discomfort on previous runs, but yesterday's run was a little different.  When we first started our run, and downhill decent, I felt a twinge, but it dissipated after the first mile or so and then my knee didn't bother me much at all for the rest of the run.  When we stopped running, however, my knee started making a clicking/popping noise with every step I took.  It's still doing this today.  It almost feels like there's something catching inside my knee cap whenever I bend and extend my leg.  I'm not thrilled about it because I know that a break from running may be on the near horizon for me.  Next weekend is our half marathon, then after that, if my knee is still doing the same thing, I think I will take a break from running completely for a couple of weeks and see if that helps.  There are so many other ways for me to get in enough cardio, that it would be stupid of me to risk further injury.

In the meantime, I still made it to the gym this morning for my usual workouts.  I started in the weight room, today doing back and chest muscles.  After that, I went to spinning class for an hour, then ended my workouts for the day with the Muscle Fusion X class.  Today's intervals included (but were not limited to) skaters, jump kicks using the step, bench and press, squats, burpees, bicep curls, jumping jacks with jump-ups and floor squats, dead rows, running laps, "football feet" with push-ups  - today's magic number for reps was 32 - and repeat each set - three times.

Yeah, we did these...I think she called them Heisman steps??  So many different moves, it's hard to keep track.

After doing the strength/cardio intervals for 50 minutes, we spent 10-15 minutes on core work.  Needless to say, I'm walking around the house like an old, decrepit lady tonight.  It feels good. :)

10 miles of life.

Last night I was getting ready for bed and remembered I needed to charge my phone for my long run in the morning.  As I did, I saw I had missed a text from on of my friends checking to see if I wanted to run together.  Of course, I did, since I was already planning to run, and it's always fun to have someone to run with.  Actually, I take that back.  It's always fun to run with certain running buddies.

I feel so lucky and blessed to have met and gotten to know so many wonderful people through running.  One of my current "frequent footers", Lisa, is one of those people.  Though we're similar in a lot of ways, we're also different and it's so fun to run with her because there is never a shortage of things to talk about.  It certainly makes the run go by faster - literally and figuratively - but the best thing about it is just getting to share an hour, or two (or three) with someone who just "gets it".  Thanks for a great 10 miler today, Lisa!  (Although, I have to admit, I'm a bit sore and achy tonight.  Glad we did that downhill because apparently my legs needed the practice! Haha!)

Tuesday double.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I really love my current Tuesday and Thursday schedule.  Other than the days I do really long runs, I feel like these are the days that I accomplish the most with regards to my fitness goals.  Also, every week I am growing more and more attached to my "gym family".  I seriously never would have thought I would enjoy this lifestyle quite so much.  I love how much camaraderie there exists between those of us "regulars", as we sweat, groan, grunt and even laugh together.

Anyway, I started my morning in the weight room, doing heavy weights, working on triceps and biceps.  After that I went to spin class.  We know that our bodies adjust to exercise as we regularly do the same type/intensity, which is why many people will hit plateaus in the their workouts.  I have been regularly taking spinning classes for almost 8 months now, and I still feel like every class is a killer workout - both cardiovascularly and strength wise.  Today during spinning I got my heart rate up to 190 bpm!  No plateau in spinning yet...

Next up - Muscle Fusion.  While I use my individual weight training time to do sets of heavy reps, Muscle Fusion class gives me the chance to focus on all of the muscle groups, doing high sets of reps with a lower weight.  After this class each Tuesday, I find I am sore in a different spot.  I guess that's good.  Tonight, I'm feeling it in my inner thighs and my shoulders...thank you wide stance, weighted squats!

My secret. It's not really that much of a secret.

Okay, so a comment from my friend and fellow blogger Lindsay at aFitFamily.com has prompted me to write a quick (or not) post regarding how I prioritize my time such that I can work out as much as I do.  She's not the only one to ask me the question of how I find the time to exercise for hours a day and still get other things done.

Maybe to some it may seem that spending the amount of time that (I confess to) on exercise, wouldn't leave much time for things such as laundry, cooking and housekeeping.  So, lest you think that my obsession with fitness leaves my family living in squalor, wearing dirty clothes and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner, here are some of my thoughts on this topic.

First, a few facts:

• I have four children, ages 12, 11, 10 and 6.  Monday through Thursday they are all in school from 7:30am until 4:15pm.  My husband works 40-50 hours or more a week.

• As of right now (and for the past 13 years) I have been a stay-at-home mom and not worked outside of the home...at all.  Some call this a luxury.  We call it a sacrifice.  It's not easy and not always fun.  We live simply, making things work on one meager (cop's) salary by living in a modest (read: old) house we can afford, only having one vehicle, not having the latest electronic devices or expensive clothes, nor spendy monthly cell phone bills, cable or satellite television.  I don't go to the salon to get my hair or nails done - I do it myself.  We don't go on many vacations, our kids' shoes and pants will have holes or be way too small before we buy them more, we only allow each child one paid activity per school year.  Yes, that means our kids don't all get piano lessons, dance lessons, art lessons, or get to play soccer and little league and football and basketball.  They will probably not get to have braces in elementary school and will (gasp) have to wait until later in life to have perfectly straight teeth, like I did when I paid for my own braces at 19 years old.  So they will have have to suffer with their child-like, crooked-toothed smiles while keeping themselves occupied at home on weekends, NOT talking on cell phones that they don't have. :)

Okay, so here's the rest of the story:

• I do at least one or two loads of laundry every single day.  I usually put a load in right when I get up or after breakfast.  Some days it might not get folded until the evening after dinner when the kids are doing homework, etc, but if I'm doing multiple loads, I just work on it throughout the day.  One of the benefits of not having the money to buy a lot of stuff - there's not a lot of stuff to wash.

• I follow a daily maintenance type of method when it comes to cleaning the house.  There are those jobs, like cleaning the bathrooms and dusting, that I usually do once a week, but again, this is where having a modest house comes in handy.  It doesn't really take me a lot of time to do those things.  The rest of the time I make a concerted effort to keep up on things.  I find it's a lot easier to keep a clean house if don't ever let it get too "bad".  I vacuum every day, I clean up the kitchen every day.  I make the kids pick up after themselves.  Every day.  They've got it down pretty well, too, I might add.  They know that "mom doesn't like things left on the floor" and Noah (12) is especially great at taking out the trash without being told and helping with keeping the dishes done - which is nice, because we don't have a dishwasher.  Yep, you read that right.  It's 2012 and in our kitchen not only is there no dishwasher, but also no garbage disposal.  And we, a family of 6, survive just fine.

• I do cook.  I make things from scratch.  I bake, too.  I like to bake things using vegetables from our garden.  I grind my own wheat.  I make juice.  Maybe I don't venture out into a lot of new territory often, when it comes to trying new or exotic recipes, but I fix what I know my family will eat, trying to keep it as healthy as possible.  I'm not perfect at it, but I try.  There is nothing in my workout routine that conflicts with my dinner prep time, which can be anywhere from 3-5pm.  My husband and I have both been eating clean for about 3 months now.  Before that, we ate healthy, but now we're more strict about nixing processed sugar and flour and eating (almost all) whole foods.  With the kids, it's been a little more difficult, but it's a process.  The only pre-packaged foods that I buy and use are typically for the kids' lunches, but it's things like crackers, some kind of healthy granola bar or applesauce.  I also make healthy muffins to put in there sometimes.  I send them to school every day with a lunch that I pack myself, every morning - before I do any exercise. :)

• I make a choice to not be overly involved with my kids at their school.  We attend their special functions, and I will help at the occasional party or activity, but I don't volunteer for PTO or anything like that.  It's just a personal choice I make.  Dealing with those kinds of things stresses me out and I try to avoid stressing myself out so that I can be a more pleasant mom when my kids are with me at home.

• Here are some numbers:  I wake up at 6am every day and go to bed around 11pm.  That gives me approximately 17 hours to accomplish whatever needs to be done.  Even if I workout for 3 hours a day, that's less than 18% of my waking hours.  That still leaves me with the other 82%, or 14 hours to do other stuff.  I don't take naps (but for the really rare occasion), I don't watch TV (unless I'm watching something on Netflix, while working out or folding laundry), I don't do book club or girl's night out.  My only real hobby is exercising.  My time at home is my time to be home.  I do have some church obligations, including being a den leader in the cub scouts, which takes a few hours of my time each week, along with a couple of other things, but I have time to keep house.

Now I'm not claiming to have perfected the whole balance thing.  You all know I've complained before that I have issues with sometimes feeling insecure about the choices I make and where my priorities lie.  I guess I have so many things to be grateful for, things that help me keep this level of peace and balance in my life.  Things like good, self-sufficient, capable kids who tend not to make things too hard for me (most of the time), and a supportive and helpful husband who makes my happiness his priority.  Also, the fact that we live two blocks from the elementary school and about a mile from our church, makes going to activities simple and quick.

Call it "my secret", if you will, but I think it's really just about the choices we make.  For each of us that means different things.  Some of you may not agree with all of the choices I make, but it works for our family, at least for now.  I spend some time every week doing some sort of volunteer stuff, whether it involves going out and physically doing something for someone, baking something for a community, church or school activity, or just visiting someone, but I have also learned that in order to maintain peace of mind, it's okay to say 'no' sometimes.  Another of my blog readers also commented recently that we are all in different "seasons" of life and that we should embrace each season because they can change at any time.  This is my time to enjoy and make use of the fact that I have the ability to train every day, several hours a day and still keep my kids and husband happy and our household functioning properly.  It may not be this way for long, I don't know.  All I know is that my family is my priority and the choices I'm currently making with regards to how I spend my time do not detract from that.  If and when they do, I may need to reassess my choices.

A different Monday.

Another interesting week for me: my husband is out of town for work until late Friday, and we (meaning the kids) have something going on every single day.  So my plan is to make the most of the time I have while they are at school.

Normally Monday is reserved for a long run in the morning and a spin class in the evening, but today's rainy, cold weather put a damper on my run and a Teddy Bear Picnic with my 1st grader is taking precedence over my usual spin class.

So instead, I went to the gym this morning and started out on a treadmill.  I began with a run of a little over 3 miles.  Then I got started on some weight lifting.  Strength training today included calves, shoulders, back and abs.  I went steady on the weights for almost an hour, then I went back to a treadmill and did another 2 mile run, then took about 15 minutes to rest before spin class started at noon.  Spin class was great, as usual.  After all of that, I brought my sweat-soaked self back home for a shower and now I'm sitting here listening to the rain pour down.

Sometimes it helps to switch it up.

Yesterday I woke up with a renewed sense of commitment, after my "blue" day on Thursday.  In the early afternoon, I went to the gym and spent about 30 minutes in the weight room before going to a spin class.  I came out of the spin room after an excellent and difficult workout, feeling exhilarated and ready to keep working hard.

The rest of the day I spent with Chris and the kids.  Our oldest went on a boy scout campout, so after dinner we took the other 3 and went on a hike in the Gibson Jack trail area, hoping to catch a glimpse of the moose that have been hanging out in the area.  It did not disappoint.  We hiked until it started to get dark, then came home and had a fire in the firepit.

This morning I ran with a couple of friends.  While my two running companions planned to run a 9 mile loop, I only had time to do about 5 miles due to a cub scout activity I needed to get to by 9am.  It was a fast 5 for me - my average pace was 9:42 min/mile, and it felt good to push myself.  I'm hoping to take the kids to the pool today for a little swimming, and that will round out my week.

As I look over my workouts for this week, I only got in about 20 miles of running, but I also did 6 miles worth of hiking, 4 spin classes, 2 Muscle Fusion classes and 5 days of strength training on my own.  So while my mileage was lower than what I'm used to, I think it's good to switch things up a bit sometimes.  Besides, this is probably the kind of week I will be doing for the next few months.  I've talked to trainer/instructor Misty about working with me one-on-one and as soon as she sets me up with a customized schedule/training plan, I will be following that instead of winging it on my own.  I can't even tell you how excited I am to get going on my new "plan"!