Welcome mat

March 4, 2010

half-moon-pose-ardha-chandrasanaI tried a new yoga class today. My kids’ school added a class Thurs AM for parents. It was a bit slow for me but reminded me of the lack of balance I have in Half Moon pose. The teacher helped me roll my chest and shoulder out into a straight line, though.

After a full day at work making some attorney web sites I had karate class. We started a mat work unit. This means we have big gym mats to tumble on and - UGH! - we had to do forward rolls across the room. So you start standing, roll, stand, roll, stand, etc. And it’s not a somersault, because you skip your head and use your shoulder. It’s fun to watch the teacher flip black belts around and upside down to show why we need to learn forward rolls, though. Mat work is my least favorite unit in karate, and I hope it only lasts 3 wks.

Wed I did a full body workout at the gym. Treadmill, Stairmaster, abductor, lunges with medicine ball, upper body weight machines for 1st set, and hand weights with a big swiss ball for 2nd set. I did abs and stretched, and still had a little time, so I went back to the treadmill and jogged along side Richie for a while. His pace kept me going and when he stopped to answer his phone I promptly got off the treadmill and showered.

Brian’s birthday is Monday. (Hear that, arunnersblog readers?) So I made a rum cake to stick in the fridge and soak up some rum - thus it will be ready to enjoy all weekend. Saturday we need to work on the plumbing in the house, but we plan to go out to dinner in the evening. Hopefully we won’t need to do plumbing on Sunday.

Alice is at the Taylor Swift concert tonight. Some good friends got superb tix and took her for her birthday (coming March 23). Taylor Swift is the only celebrity she really seems to follow, and she has an autographed photo of her framed in her bedroom. I’m sure she’ll have a blast! I think my first concert was Richard Marx. Do you remember yours?

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Keep on Keepin on

February 9, 2010

Sunday afternoon we were at a pre-football party and someone brought a Jack Daniels ice cream pie. I swear, I have been dreaming about it the 40 hours since. Oreo crust held on by caramel to some kind of chunky ice cream goodness. I literally had only one bite of Brian’s, and then the whole pie was gone (because of the other people there, not because of me.)

Monday was nothing special. 22 mins on Stairmaster and full body weight workout. Lots of squats - with and without weights. Music during the workout was boring, but music at work included Yael Naim. You know one of her songs from TV. She has this blend of English, Hebrew and French that I like, because those are the languages I have dabbled in.

For dinner I made chicken fricassee for the first time. It did not have tomatoes or mushrooms, like some of the recipes I’ve seen online. My fingertips kinda smell like garlic still. Someone said to rub them with a half a lemon. Seems like a waste of lemon, it’ll wear off today I’m sure. It was quite tasty!

Tuesday (this morning) my lower neck/upper spine felt tight so I started with 25 mins of Yoga. (I have Yoga for Runners #1 from yogadownloads.com on my MP3) Then 1.5 miles on the treadmill. The girl next to me was doing a walk/run program and I wanted to ask her to keep running because we were at almost the same pace and it was motivating hearing her along side me. But I didn’t recognize her and didn’t want to freak her out. I focused a lot on obliques today at the end of the workout - side crunches on ball, diagonal on captain’s chair, bicycle crunches on floor, etc. Feelin’ tight!

Tonight is karate - we’re back in our forms unit. Wendy is excited! Forms are a series of movements we memorize in a specific order to learn proper form. They represent a fake fight. As you go up belt levels you need to learn harder forms as part of testing. Here’s a video of a beginner form - 2 tests ago for Wendy.

Do you use the Stairmaster? When I do, I add back kicks, side steps, skipping steps, etc. so I don’t feel like I’m just doing the same motion for a half hour. Do you mix up your Stairmaster workout? Let me know if you have ways to make it more exciting…

2010 goal update: 3300 crunches, 79 minutes of plank remaining.

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Bumblebee in the hiz-house

January 27, 2010

wendybumblebeeSo, yah, Wendy is a bumblebee. The karate belt after yellow (at her school) is yellow with a black stripe, so they call it a bumblebee. The coolest part of her testing was when a black belt held a board in front of her unexpectedly while she was doing front snap kicks, and she broke her first board. She said, “Mommy I didn’t even feel it!” And I said, “That means you did it right. If your foot hurt after breaking the board, you would have been doing it wrong.”

She also started softball this week at school. She has never played a team sport and I think karate has given her the confidence to try this. She now knows what her body may be capable of.

Alice PR’ed this week in the 400m at track with a 1:21. She’s hoping to pump out a 6 min mile this season. I find it hard to even type that, personally.

Tuesday I ran a bit on the treadmill and did a full body weight workout. Crunches were bicycle on the floor, oblique on the ball and reverse crunches on the captains chair. Planks were straight arm with the BOSU flat side up, side planks with a stright arm, and 1 min 20 second hold on elbows and toes!

Today I skipped the gym to clean the house. I’ve been motivated to move this week, but not necessarily at the gym.

2010 goal update: 4184 crunches, 90 minutes of plank remaining.

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Mon/Tues workouts

January 12, 2010

Monday: 18 mins Stairmaster. Spent much of it talking to the guy next to me who has run since 7th grade and was over 40 yrs old. He’s also coached school teams and was talking to me about not pushing Alice’s too hard. I, of course, recommended “Born to run” to him.

Jazzed up the Stairmaster a bit by putting it on intervals and adding back-kicks, wide stepping, sideways stepping, skip-a-step, etc.

Then ran an easy mile on the treadmill.

Full body weight workout (but I forot triceps and shoulders, oops) Crunches and plank for the 2010 goal.

Tuesday: 20 mins Stairmaster.

Did some new lunges. Weight on left foot, lunge right foot forward, then right foot back, then right foot back diagonally (like a curtsey). Did 4-5, then do left foot. I did them with 7 lbs each hand.

Single leg deadlifts with 10 lbs each hand. Did abductor, adductor, leg extension, hamstring curl machine. Then I did a 2nd set of the lunges and the deadlifts. Also roll-out bridges with ball. I did a set with both legs, each leg individually, then with a leg lift. Then a 2nd set with both legs and each leg individually. Plank one minute, crunches on captains chair.

Tuesday night: Karate. Worked on basic stepping motion. My favorite was starting in fugal stance, front kick with front foot, side kick with back foot, back kick, sudo block landing in fugal stance. Wendy got to bow us out of class today and that was cool for her. Moving on up!

Also, I became the best mom in the world today. Again. Wendy woke up with a stuffy nose, so I told her I might be able to bring chicken soup to her at lunch. She texted me that lunch was at 11:55. At 11:47 I managed to sneak out of work, swing over to Applebee’s (because it is between my office and her school) pick up 2 orders of chicken noodle soup to go, and meet her at school. We sat and ate lunch together, along with her friend Bailee - and some other kids but they didn’t talk much to us. You know 6th graders… We talked about eyebrow waxing, cool dads, pretty dresses and brownies. Then I scooted back to work within the hour. She even hugged me and held my hand in front of other people!

2010 goal update: 4760 crunches, 114 minutes of plank remaining.

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Home sick today - & Orange Belt in the hiz-house!

May 13, 2009

I haven’t missed 2 workouts in a row in a while, but I have a horrible head cold. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to do Yoga while at home because I’m so full of fluid my balance is off. It’s probably more important for me to sleep today.

I keep dreaming about karate people sparring because we were at my daughter’s karate belt test for 2 hrs 20 mins last night. It was cool and exciting, but much longer than it needed to be!
Congrats!! Wendy is an orange belt now!

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