Aug 21, 2012

Kicking A** and Taking Names

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Or maybe I’m just taking names? Hmmm.

So last night I kind of tricked Tim… I’m sneaky like that. I asked him if he would be interested in going for a run with me when he got home and after some careful consideration he was kind enough to say that yes he would be interested. So around 7pm last night, after he rolled in from doing some volunteer work (imagine how weird I thought it was when I saw “Barberton Pregnancy” on our shared to-do calendars) we laced up our tennis shoes and headed out to the tow path. I waited until the very last minute to delivery the good news to Tim…

The goal for the night’s run was 7 MILES! He was resistant at first and even actually exclaimed that he WOULD NOT go but after a little coaxing we were on our way. Had Tim not agreed to the run I was actually going to try the whole idea of books on tape for my run. Ashley had recommended it a few days ago when she sent me this inspiration text picture…

Photo Aug 21, 3 35 20 PM

She said that she enjoyed listening to Jen Lancaster’s book while she runs and has found that it keeps her engaged and motivated during long runs. I was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded the “Overdrive” app on my i-phone and was able to connect to my local library and download “Bright Lights, Big Ass” by Jen Lancaster (clearly Ashley knows me well enough to know how much that title would intrigue me). With an easy click of “download” the book is now on my phone for FREE for the next 14 days.

Thank you Clevenet Library!

Additionally, I keep seeing that commercial where the kid uses his books on tape app on his phone (is it the same app? I have no clue) and he runs to like Moby Dick and stuff. WAY further than my little legs would take me but the commercial is still entertaining nonetheless.

My review of the run- went awesome! It has been MONTHS since I completed my first 7 mile run (which I couldn’t even track because my  phone died so that was a guess) and I was surprised by how good it felt to get out there for a long run. The hardest part for me is just thinking about how long you will be running for. Setting aside over an hour of your day for a run is a long time… it’s not like a 20 or 30 minute run that you don’t really have to mentally prepare for- it’s a long sucker and you have to be in it to win it or not in it at all.

The really nice part of going on a long run with someone else, at least for me, is that I like to keep my pace at a conversationalist pace so Tim and I were able to catch up on our day with each other. Tim started his new job last week and is starting to get acclimated to the work and the people so I really enjoyed hearing about his new co-workers and workload. While it is probably a very fair statement to say that Tim and I understand about 10% of what the other person does on a day to day basis I do think it helps to keeps things interested. I have taken a more active role with my new position on the financial side of the business and have been coming across what would seem to Tim to be very basics questions in my meetings so it’s nice to be able to go home and get all of my answers from him! I think we spent a good 3 miles chatting about the balance sheet haha.

Very exciting right? Be jealous!

At the end of the 7 miles we went for a fast sprint to the car and guess who won?!?

Naturally.

Are you still thinking about me? ME silly.

But I never did warn Tim that we were racing- I just starting sprinting so perhaps he could have caught me.

I guess we’ll never know.

So with my Hal Higdon app on I was able to get a recap of my run and since you can’t really see the entire screen here, my mile breakdown looked like this

  • Mile 1: 11:34 pace
  • Mile 2: 11:15 pace
  • Mile 3: 11:40 pace
  • Mile 4: 11:51 pace
  • Mile 5: 11:56 pace
  • Mile 6: 11:40 pace
  • Mile 7: 11:18 pace

So if you are good at math you would know that we averaged about 11:35 min/mile. And in case you are really observant you will notice that below it actually says I am a REST DAY well good for me for going running anyway.

As if that makes up for all of my slacking lately.

Photo Aug 20, 8 28 21 PM

This weekend the app is suggested I do another 7 and I think I may try to make 8 happen. I figure it’s only actually a half of a mile longer than we went yesterday which is only another 5 minutes or so- I can do that right?

Yes of course I can!

Also, I was given (by my running buddy Ashley of course) a really neat little item to hold my keys for me while I run! Check out this little buddy…

Photo Aug 20, 8 38 37 PM

It’s also. Since Tim and I both have push-button starts on our cars we really just need to pull out the little remote control and slip it in this handy holders which tightly connects to my shoe laces! Easy to put on and easy to remove. Easy to put in your purse too.

Off to Crossfit tonight! Hope my legs don’t give out on me.

Filed Under: CrossFit-ing, Primary Menu · Tagged: , , , , , , ,
Jun 15, 2012

Officially CrossFit Crazy

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I had one very serious workout last night. It looked like this…

  • Tire Flips
  • Ladder in-$-out with squats
  • 50 squats with bands
  • Suicide drills with cones
  • 100 Jump-ropes
  • Side lunges with squats
  • 50 Ropes swings
  • Hurdle runs

Yea, like I said serious. And I was pretty serious about it.

crossfit1

And I wasn’t the only one that was serious about it

ashley

The tire flip was probably the most hardcore of the items we did. And apparently that was the small tire so I am just really dreading looking forward to that.

tire2

What I can tell you if you want to do this workout/tweak it and complete it is to split up the cardio intense items with some of the less cardio intense and more muscle building items. Mary and I were partners and we made the mistake of going from the cone suicide drills, to the jump ropes, to the ladder, then to the hurdles and then the rope the first round and our lungs were very angry with us. While the tire flips are serious business they don’t kill your lungs (just the rest of your body haha) and the side step lunges are also a break to catch your breath but burn your legs like they are sitting in a very hot fire. The squats as well- will bite every part of your legs but may give you a breather.

Ideally I think it would go in this order (and some suggestions if you don’t have all of the tools)…

  1. Cone suicide drills (you can do this outside with just about anything… just give yourself 5-6 cones to run back and forth to)
  2. Side step lunges (we used round bands around our ankles but you don’t need anything- just step and lunge deep)
  3. 50 rope swings (if you don’t have a big rope- because who would right?) put a weight in your hand (even something heavy in your house) and make sure you are squatting deep and getting that weight over your head for a full range of motion
  4. Hurdle Runs (what you don’t have hurdles??- who doesn’t? haha) if you want to do these at home get pillows from your house- blankets or whatever else you can find- just give yourself something to jump over and get some air)
  5. Squats- we used tubes here as well but you don’t need them- go deep get the most you can out of it
  6. Jump Rope- if you don’t have one of these go get one! They are inexpensive and a great workout- Walmart or Target should have decent ones
  7. Tire Flips- don’t have a tire? Have a car? Than you have a tire. JK. You can just skip this one- nothing beats flipping over a tire.
  8. Ladder in and outs- you really don’t need a ladder to do this one either- it just helps focus. Jump putting your feet together and then jump out pulling your feet apart. Do this about 10 times… again deep squats! Work those quads

And if you look like hell while you are completing this workouts- well then you must be doing something right. I usually don’t like to share pictures of me on here where I look like a serious hot mess but these were too good to pass up!

Jumping rope with Mary!

jump rope

Swinging that rope!

Rope Swings

Christy is rocking this tire flip and looks adorable! How does she do it?!

tire

And even though we all work hard- we are always there to encourage each other Group

and sometimes we even have a little bit of fun!

waving hi

So what did you do for your body this week?!

Filed Under: CrossFit-ing · Tagged: , , , , ,
Jun 1, 2012

Tough as Nails Workout

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I had a KILLER work-out on Tuesday evening. I mean I was seriously a hot sweaty disgusting mess of a girl that evening but I felt pretty damn good afterward!

But before I tell you just how tough I am, I should probably share a funny story about how tough well I’m not.

So I was in the shower on Monday (don’t worry this story is not at all the type it sounds like to start) and Tim was messing with me. You know like messing with the certain while I was trying to shower to just be a pest.Well I quickly realized that I could catch him in this sneaky ways by looking at his reflection through the clock on the wall when he was coming. So after I catching him, oh I don’t know 1 million times, I said “you know I can see your reflection”.

Well he is wise beyond his years.

So he turned off the lights.

I have NO CLUE what happened in that moment but it was like every scary movie I have ever seen where the girl gets attacked in the shower when the lights go off came flashing through my mind. Insert clue here: I just saw that “Candyman” was on the TV guide when we were flipping through the night before which is the movie that freaks me out the most since my older cousins thought it would be OK that I watched it when I was 7.

Well that darkness combined with the fact that I was in the shower literally made me go into this severe frenzy where I proceeded to scream loudly which eventually led to me curling on the floor in the shower crying.

Yes. Curled up like a cat, crying in the shower.

Super tough right? Needless to say I DID NOT get a picture of this and Tim felt terrible assuming he just found some deep dark childhood secret. Turns out, I’m just not always very tough.

But sometimes I am! So this workout on Tuesday was AMAZING.

It looked like this (which I completed with Kari, Chris, and Michelle)…

  • 1 mile run warm-up
  • 30 toes to head
  • 30 dips
  • 90 jump-ropes
  • 30 push-ups
  • 30 burpees
  • 30 box jumps
  • 15 Thrusters
  • 15 push press
  • 15 dip-drives
  • 5 Wall climbs

Total workout time (including run and cool down): 1 hour

This was just what I needed after a seriously busy weekend eating my way through life during Kara and I’s girls weekend in Chicago! This workout took me 36 minutes and 36 seconds. A tough but wonderful 36:36 I spent on a Tuesday evening. When I got home that evening I pretty much wanted to eat everything in the house which is always a sign of a good workout.

Speaking of good workout signs- did you know that you can tell if you had a really great workout from your belly? If your belly is cold is means you had a good workout. My friend Mary (blogs over at Fervent Foodie) told me that once. And I trust Mary and Livestrong and I did find an article about this on the Livestrong website.

Great job to the ladies in CrossFit class! We killed it!

Filed Under: CrossFit-ing, Primary Menu · Tagged: , , , ,
Apr 10, 2012

Where do the days go?!

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I apologize for the late wishes of a Hoppy Easter! It has been a very busy few days crammed with family fun and to-do’s! But I had a great great weekend which started out with a 2-hour hike at Hinckley Park with my friend Jen, ate lunch with Tim and his co-workers, saw the Hunger Games with my bestest, then I enjoyed a 6.25 mile run with my friend Shelly and Amy on Saturday, participated in a FLASH MOB in Cleveland, and went to the Lake Erie Monster’s game, and concluded my weekend on Sunday with Easter Celebrations with my parents and Tim’s mom and family!

 

Hiking at Hinckley Park and Lunch with Friends

If you live anywhere close to Akron or Cleveland you should check out Hinckley park! Serious Whipps Ledges is an amazing place to go walk and talk for a few hours! Jen and I spent the better part of Friday morning walking and chatting about life. It was a chilly morning but we warmed up fast… the trail challenges you with hills and rocks but isn’t so intense that you need to be some crazy great hiker to have a good time. Toward the end of our walk we made sure to have a little fun!!

Photo Apr 06, 10 00 01 AM

And I am not nearly as creative as Jen and her voyager pose but I still thought the hike was fun!

Photo Apr 06, 10 00 26 AM

My Run Keeper app has been going a little crazy lately so I wasn’t able to accurately track our mileage but in 2 hours I would say we did a few miles! Really there is no better way to spend your morning when you have a vacation day from work because it is Good Friday!

Since I had the day off and Tim and his unfortunately accounting friends had to work their tail off I decided to eat lunch with them and take in a few treats! Since it was Good Friday and Tim and I were not allowed to eat meat I opted for Sushi from Sakura and somehow managed to get far more food than I thought I ordered. Apparently I should not order non-American food to go because it never fails… my order is screwed up. This is literally why I always make Tim order anything over the phone.

So Tim got to eat Sushi on a Friday afternoon for lunch (spoiled right?) and his co-workers and friends got some funfetti cupcakes as a tax break treat! They must have really needed it too because those cupcakes disappeared pretty quickly! I even managed to show up in an adorable new sweater I ordered online from The Limited and of course in true Jaci fashion I left the tags on (that also had an extra button on it). Thank goodness Nikki called me out because I headed to the mall afterward and gosh that would have been embarrassing.

 

My Review of The Hunger Games

If you’re not a fan of the Hunger Games I guess I can respect that- they are more like a teenage read than something a typical grown up would pick up. But in my case…

I loved the first book.

So I had to see the movie.

Lucky for me my bestest, Kara, also loved the first book so we went on a bestest date on Friday to see the movie together! I loved it. I cried, I laughed, I enjoyed the characters, and I thought it was a good great movie. Sure they left out some details I really enjoyed while I was reading the book but a 10 hour movie would not have kept my attention. If I hadn’t read the book I don’t think I would have liked it- so for those of you that hated it and didn’t read the book- I’m not surprised. There were just certain details that you couldn’t appreciate without knowing the back story that the book detailed out so well. You wouldn’t have understood the thoughts that were going through Katniss’s head as she said and did certain things. The book did such a good job helping the reader to truly understand the character, her struggles, her thought process, how she felt about what she had to do. I just can’t imagine it was easy to follow if you didn’t already know those things.

But if you read the book and you haven’t seen it yet… GO SEE IT! Honestly, it is a good movie worth paying the matinee price for (I refuse to go to the movies at night now because I am not paying $10). Plus it’s one of those things that you already put all of the time into reading so you might as well see it on the bring screen and put some visualization to all of the people and things you loved about the book.

Be prepared though.. in my case, I had completely imagined the characters different in my head than they were in the movie. I wasn’t disappointed at all, but gosh my mind was WAY off on some of them!

Plus, Katniss seriously has the prettiest hair I have ever seen. I kept leaning over to Kara and whispering “I love her hair” haha. I also commented that I bet their breath was really stinky after all of that time.

 

6.25 Mile run on the Tow Path

I’ve been fortunate enough to find a few friends that work that are in the same stage of running that I am. Learning to love it, pushing their  bodies, and just doing their best! So the 3 of us committed to meeting at the Tow Path in The Valley last Saturday to go on a nice 6 mile run. Shelly parked her car 6 miles out and Amy drove her to meet me that way we never had to turn around. There is just something about turning around that makes me feel so defeated. It’s like I am constantly looking for the turn a around point- I would rather just run straight and get there I need to go!

It was a really excellent run. I was amazed at how steady our pace was for all 6 miles. Probably not the most impressive time but if you ask me it is pretty darn good!

Photo Apr 07, 9 55 01 AM

We laughed and talked along the way and I think we all kept one ear bud in to jam out to some of our favorite tunes. Shelly is like a historian on that trail so she was giving us all sort of little tid bits about the bridge we can across and the canal we ran next to. It was so nice to be out with others for that long of a run. It went by a lot faster and a lot smoother than my last 6 mile run. I think I am ready to increase by 1 mile every week… which means only 1 month until my 10 mile run.

Which I had told myself is the next milestone that I  have to hit before I can go out and buy more work-out clothes. Something to look forward to no doubt!

So we ended in Peninsula and were proud of our accomplishment. I think we all could have gone another mile or so but I say that 6.25 is still a big deal and something to be proud of! Running with someone else is really the way to go for me sometimes. Sure I love those runs where I clear my head and just breathe but it is also nice when I am with my mom or friends to chat and just stay at a healthy pace.

See- very proud!!

Photo Apr 07, 9 52 40 AM

I don’t know about those two- but I ended up passing out on my couch for an hour after that run! Haha- it really wore me out!

 

FLASH MOB

So as I’m sure a few of you already know, I am sort of obsessed with flash mobs. I just love the idea of complete strangers coming together to dance. I also love choreography. It just looks down right awesome when you have a large group of people doing the exact same dance.

So after I was originally inspired by the OSU Flash Mob video on YouTube I signed up for Flash Mob America where I now get e-mails that alert me to new flash mobs coming in… especially those in my area. Wasn’t long before they were headed to Cleveland to flash mob a proposal for a Solider who was on a 2 week leave! You can see the video here. Yep, I was on the news!

Here my review of the flash mob.

Freaking sweet.

I would have loved it even more if it was in a public place where people were confused about what the 50 so or us were doing but for my first mob I’ll take what I can get. I love that it was a proposal because I am sucker for a good old romantic flash mob story. I love that Rebecca and I met so many great friends while we were there! Turns out it really is a small world and we realized that someone knows someone that knows someone that links us all together. It was really a great experience to meet new friends and to just participate in something different. So we had this flash mob on the roof stop at Velvet dog which is where the couple had their first date!

New friends!

Photo Apr 07, 6 42 30 PM

Plus, I got to cross something off my bucket list. Did you cross anything of your bucket list recently? Gosh does it feel good!

Here is a photo from the mob during the proposal!

Photo Apr 07, 7 08 33 PM

 

Lake Erie Monster’s Game

Did you know that Cleveland had a hockey team? Well if so, you were ahead of me before Saturday night. If you didn’t know now you do!

Tim got some free tickets from his manager at work so he and I along with Rebecca headed to the game after the Flash Mob and dinner with our new friends at Bar Louie. It was a great game! Hockey is exciting and everyone likes to fight and push people around which is funny. One little kid had his shirt off and was just throwing it around above his head. What other sporting event do you see that? It was great fun.

Tim and Rebecca enjoying the game!

Photo Apr 07, 8 49 25 PM

 

Easter Celebrations

Some of the Laney clan met for Easter on Sunday morning (Sister, Nick, and Pey were off finding Easter eggs) and had some delicious sausage and egg casserole and laughed our butts off when I showed my parent’s how to use the photo booth program on my mom’s mac. Apparently they had not played with it before because they were LOVING the special effects feature that the program comes with.

Photo Apr 08, 10 36 49 AM

I guess this could make anyone laugh?

dad

And this doesn’t hurt either!

tim

We managed to take a few normal pictures as well to celebrate the holiday!

laney clan

tim and j

Then, as usual, we all fell asleep in the living room for a family nap time. Seriously every holiday is the same.. show up, eat breakfast, laugh/play a game, fall asleep! Tim usually leads the sleeping effort and this year was no exception!

For me that is what holidays are all about. Spending time with your family enjoying each other’s company and just laughing and having a good time. Of course I try to do this with my family a lot more than the few holidays we have every year but we all know that life gets busy. Work gets busy. School gets busy. And sometimes you forget to take the time out for your family.

After spending some time with my parents we headed over to Tim’s mom’s house for a tasty dinner! There was no spinach buff but this broccoli cheese casserole that I called the puff’s evil step mother. It was actually really good but I still felt sad for the puff haha. That poor puff deserved to be at Easter! We enjoyed some salad, potatoes, carrots (that were delicious and had this like orange glaze on them) and of course this roast thing. I wonder if I should just go vegetarian one of these days because meat doesn’t really seem to interests me as much anymore.

Photo Apr 08, 5 21 23 PM

Well maybe not, because I love hamburgers.

So overall it was a really great Easter filled with family and friends- just the way it should be!

 

What did you do for Easter this year? Any great food/memories/pictures to share?!

 

Filed Under: Good Eats and Treats, My family is the best, Primary Menu · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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