Puppy Ice Cream

We started this morning off with P90X yoga. As I mentioned before, I've been regularly going to hot yoga...not a ton, but I've managed to go once a week. Taking classes again has helped me tremendously - my form is much better, which means that, in turn, many of the poses are more difficult. I'm happy about it, because it means that I'm doing it right, but it's also freakin' BRUTAL when I'm in the middle of it.

P90X yoga is challenging in general - about 45 minutes of tough moving asanas, lots of warrior sequences and chest opening poses, followed by another 45 minutes of balance postures and abs (in Horton-speak, the "yoga belly 7"). I broke almost as much of a sweat moving through this in our OBX living room as I do in the 90-degree studio at Philly Power Yoga, and I got through the tough poses by reminding myself that the only way it would ever get easier is if I pushed through.

And then I made bacon for breakfast.

Delicious, expensive, Whole Foods bacon.

Around noon, I suggested to PhillyGuy that we take the pups for a nice long walk, since (not unlike us) they've been spending much of the vacation like this:

But, as luck would have it, as soon as we set foot out the front door, it started raining.

So instead of a nice long walk, we packed the dogs into the car and drove about a mile down the road to get some ice cream.

I had cookie dough.

(Side note: how is that a small? I could eat 47 conch fritters, but I couldn't even finish half of this ice cream. I hit my capacity with sweet stuff WAY faster than I do with salty/savory.) The pups got to share some plain vanilla.

Sophie loves ice cream, but (kind of like me) loses interest quickly.



Cosmo, on the other hand?











He never gets bored with it.

(Okay, Mom...one more little bite.)

We're back at the house, I'm snuggled in my sweats and we're getting ready to spend the rest of this rainy afternoon playing scrabble. Yeah, I'm that awesome.

uh...hi

yeah. I guess if there's one thing I do consistently, it's "fall off the face of the earth."

I mean, it's not really falling off the face of the earth, though. I still tweet. And I definitely read everyone's blogs. But yeah. I get busy at work, I can't spare enough time first thing in the morning to put together an entry, and then I can't seem to scrape up the energy to do it when I get home at night.

BAH. Regardless, here's what I've been up to:

A couple months ago, Leslie posted on Twitter about a fabulous LivingSocial deal - $25 for five classes at Philly Power Yoga. I bought my pass and then immediately started stressing about it. I was more than a little anxious - I'm a casual yogi, if there is such a thing. I love yoga, but I can go weeks or month(s) at a time without practicing - and when I do practice, it's usually the P90X yoga DVD, which is vinyasa-style, but with more of a focus on fitness than on proper form and meditation.

When I think hot yoga, I think "real yogis." Whatever that means. I start picturing a room full of skinny, ripped experts in lululemon hot shorts with high quality mats - not the $24.99 nike special I picked up at CitySports, or even the Wunder Under crops I've made my uniform, being that I'm not particularly comfortable in anything spandex that stops anywhere above my knee a the moment.

Frankly, I was too busy being intimidated by my imagination that I wasted a LOT of time that I could have been practicing the best yoga ever.

I finally bit the bullet and just WENT one Saturday a couple weeks ago, and I was instantly hooked. I'm pretty sure I didn't even sweat that much during Broad Street 2010, for starters. I got there about ten or 15 minutes early, which gave me enough time to cram myself into a back corner of the room, far away from the mirrors (clutch) and to get adjusted to the heat (double clutch). And, okay, I'd be lying if I didn't spend at least a little bit of the class fighting away negative thoughts about how much more flexible I could be, or how much stronger I could be, or how my love handles get uncomfortably in the way of any kind of side bend. But honestly? I can't even tell you whether or not the class was full of experts. I was too busy focusing on my own practice, and even the negative thoughts didn't stop me from leaving with a fantastically relaxed and cleansed feeling.

Also bonus: after sweating out buckets, I get to stop on the way home and grab an iced coffee from my favorite neighborhood shop.

So good.

I had to miss class yesterday - I had an engagement party to go to at 1pm, and I chose to spend my morning getting my nails done rather than at yoga. That opened up a little extra time beforehand, so PhillyGuy and I took advantage by having breakfast at Ants Pants.

I had the mediterranean omelet special, with black olives, feta cheese and argula and a side of fresh fruit.

And, naturally, we split an order of sweet potato fries. These are hands down the best sweet potato fries I've ever had - long-cut sweet potatoes fried up so that they're slightly crispy at the ends, but soft and delicious in the middle, sprinkled with kosher salt and served with sour cream and a sweet chili sauce to dip.

Amazing.

Time for me to head out. I've been having a lot of knee issues these last couple of months, but I'm going to give running outside a shot today. I really, really want to run Broad Street this year, but I need to take stock of where I am. Can you believe it's only six weeks away?

Happy Saturday

It's been a good one so far.

A day is always great when it starts with an early (7:45 IS early for a Saturday!) walk to the grocery store in your sweats, with low humidity and tons of sunshine.

It helps when your grocery store has a nice backdrop.

Hi there, skyline! I needed to get a couple odd and ends so I could make breakfast this morning. Most importantly, though? My lil' corner store has the new Larabars!

I grabbed a couple of each. Breakfast was the usual mushroom/spinach frittata with bacon.

My secret to making the frittata nice and fluffy? Beat in a generous dollop of plain Greek yogurt.

And a cinnamon chip scone from Cafe Lutecia, which I toasted up, covered in butter and split with PhillyGuy.

Afterwards, I headed out to King of Prussia to do a little shopping. I did pretty well, actually -- bunch of Theory pieces on sale for work, new oven mitts to replace my (really nasty) $2.50-bin-specials I picked up at Target about four years ago...but my favorite thing? My new shiny rose gold MK watch:

Oh, I love you, pretty little watch.

When I got home, PhillyGuy and I did P90X Yoga, and then the pups and I spent some quality time chillin' in bed watching the Kardashians.

Sooooo happy. We grilled pork chops for dinner, and I made my usual roasted veggies. Except I might have left them in for a liiiiiiittle bit too long.

I really gave it a shot, but trust me when I tell you these were completely inedible.

Blech.

Tomorrow's my "long run" -- at 6 miles, I finally feel like they're getting to a not-embarassing-distance. After my five-miler (take two) went so well on Tuesday, I'm hoping to keep it up and crossing my fingers for the morning.

Hope your weekends are going well!

Absent Blogger

Yeah, I'm on vacation. That's what I've been doing. Vacationing.

Lots of sleeping in. Walking and playing with the puppies. Some shopping. Today, we spent the day at Great Adventure riding rollercoasters. PhillyGuy spent $15 on one of those "throw the softball in the milk can" games trying to win an oversized stuffed dog, with the goal of bringing it home and watching Sophie wig out.

But guess what?

I'm injured again.

Something during my six-miler on Sunday must have irritated something, somewhere. And I'm feeling it deep, deep in my lower back/left hip. Nothing on Runners World seems to match where and how I'm feeling it. It was kind of "eh" yesterday, so I skipped my scheduled easy two-miler, and PhillyGuy and I did Yoga X in the living room instead.

Bad idea. Something in all of those "haha look how long I can make you hold warrior poses and runner's pose!" really tweaked whatever it is that I screwed up on my run, and it was much, much, MUCH worse. I took some tylenol and limped around the house -- every time I took a step or shifted my weight, I grimaced.

It wasn't quite AS bad today, but I was definitely walking with a little bit of a limp around the park. Walking didn't make it better or worse. Massage doesn't help -- it's not a muscular pain.

I made a helpful diagram:



Very realistic, huh?

So...I'm going to do what I usually do. Which is cross my fingers that when I wake up tomorrow, it's magically all better, so I can do my planned mile repeats. I guess the smart alternative would be to go to the goddamn doctor, AGAIN, and ACTUALLY GO to physical therapy.

Blech.

For now, I'm just going to sit here watching the Flyers.

Oh, Yoga

It has been a long time since PhillyGuy and I did P90X yoga. For some reason, we manage to skip it almost every week. It's probably been three weeks or a month since we actually did this workout.

And it shows.

I didn't completely lose all of the progress that I had made over the first five weeks, but I was definitely feeling it last night. Tony Horton's particular brand of "haha look how long I can make you hold yourself in a lunge!!!!" yoga is bruuuuuuutal on my poor legs.

I've mentioned before how the first 45 minutes is a tough progression of moving asanas. You spend an awful lot of time moving from runner's pose to a series of Warrior poses which culminate in increasingly more difficult poses -- triangle, right angle, reverse warrior, twisting triangle, blah blah blah. The last series has you start in runner's pose, move into Warrior 3, and then go into a series of variations on killing your quads single-legged poses like half moon, standing splits, and twisting half moon.

So, about twisting half moon. It's SUPPOSED to look something like this:



Usually, when I do it, my back leg is SORT OF up in the air and my standing leg is bent at the knee like crazy. Yesterday, though, I'm pretty sure I looked more like this:



And I was shaking throughout. MAN, that stuff is challenging.

I'm itching to run today. I'm supposed to do legs and back. Maybe I'll do both. I don't know. All I DO know is that the office manager just came around and offered me some Phillies tickets for today. Apparently, a client returned them, so they're up for grabs. Um, it's going to be 80 and sunny today. It's an afternoon game. These are free tickets, AND good seats. WHY CAN I NOT GO???

Gah.

Quick & Dirty

AHHHHH.

I want to write a real entry! PhillyGuy and I went to our local farmer's market/weekly food stands on Saturday and I took pictures and everything...and I just have NOT found the time to even upload the pics, let alone post about it.

My boss is out this week -- I really thought I'd have a nice easy week. Nope. Instead, not only did she leave me with MORE than enough work to keep me occupied, I'm left to handle all of the day to day stuff that comes up. Like this stupid closing on this stupid deal that JUST WON'T END.

It's my fifth week of P90X, but due to some scheduling issues, PhillyGuy and I repeated Week 3. So this week is our "Week 4," which is a "recovery" week. What that means is a break from most of the weight-bearing or intense lifting exercises, and replacing that with two days of yoga, two days of "Core Synergistics," and two days of "StretchX."

Last night, I could not WAIT for yoga. I headed home, walked the pups, and by about 7:15, was settling in with my mat and the windows open to the beautiful night. The first 45 minutes was tough, as always, but I'm really seeing some improvements -- I can hold Crane for longer (um, which means about 5 seconds at a time instead of 3-4, but believe me, that's something) and I got up into Warrior 3 on each of my legs without too much struggle. Trust me, it still ain't pretty, but that's OK -- I'm definitely improving.

However, that last 45 minutes -- which is my favorite part! -- really started to drag. I got bored. I started wondering how the dogs were doing downstairs. I started thinking about what I was going to wear to tonight's Philly Foodie/Blogger Meetup. I had to fight with myself not to turn off the DVD when I still had 25 minutes left. BUT...I didn't turn it off. I didn't pick an outfit or go visit my dogs. I finished the workout and still felt refreshed and happy at the end -- maybe not quite AS refreshed and happy as usual, but I'm glad I did it.

The length of the YogaX DVD is a common criticism I've seen in P90X reviews. The four times I've done the workout before, I never had an issue with length -- I felt every second of that first 45 minutes, while my legs burned and my body shook and I tried like hell to keep myself in poses. But the last 45 minutes always flew by. We'll see if I'm back to "normal" with my second pass through it this week.

This morning, I did Core Synergistics. Fancy name for -- surprise, surprise -- a lot of very core-centric exercises. Not that much direct ab work, but lots of planks/chaturanga variations, pushup variations, and hollow-hold type exercises that force you to roll around on the floor. My personal jury is still out on this one -- this is going to be another routine I head to the gym for. It involves a lot of dumbbell work that you can't substitute bands for. I'll try it with better weights later this week.

The other thing with Core Synergistics is that it's one of those workouts where it's VERY easy to just go through the motions and "phone it in." If you're not concentrating 100% on flexing what needs to be flexed and working what needs to be worked, you'll find yourself with your butt floating in the air, not really breaking a sweat, and generally wasting your time. There are better ways to waste an hour -- like on my couch watching the Kardashians, not rolling around on my guest room floor. Not to worry -- Tony is constantly barking at you to "DON'T JUST KIND OF DO IT!"

So, that's the quick n' dirty on the first third of Week 4 of P90X. Monday we take our progress pictures/measurements/etc -- that will be great motivation to stay on track while we're up at my inlaws this weekend.

So pumped for tonight -- this will be my first blogger meetup! I feel so legit now :)

Tough but Solid

That's all I can say about yesterday's workout(s).

Friday was a bit of a rough day. More shenanigans, more assignments, blessedly few phone calls (at least something was going for me). In the afternoon, I had an incredibly painful meeting with a guy who, no joke, asked the same 2 or 3 questions over and over again for the first 45 minutes. Between that and the rest of my shenanigan-filled week, I was just FRIED by the time 6pm rolled around.

Earlier that morning, I had taken some steaks and cod fillets out of the freezer to thaw. (Why cod? Because PhillyGuy has decided to "try to like fish," and that means testing out new stuff every time. I lobbyed for sea bass again, since he liked that, but no dice -- he wanted to try something new. And all they had besides sea bass was cod and flounder.)

Anyway -- I had been looking forward to yoga right after work, followed by PhillyGuy's surf & turf. I planned to swing by the store and pick up some fresh asparagus on my way home. Instead, my brain was total mush, and all I wanted was a glass of wine. I have no wine, and I hate opening a bottle by myself, because I never finish it before it turns. So, I called PhillyGuy.

"I want to go to dinner." Where? "I don't care where. I want a glass of wine and I want to go to dinner." Done and done. We walked the pups, shelved yoga, and headed out to Union Trust. Glass of shiraz/malbec blend, a melt-in-your-mouth-oh-my-god short rib appetizer, and a third of a dry-aged strip topped with Roquefort later, and I was much, MUCH happier.

To make up for skipping out on Friday's workout, I hit the gym to do some cardio before PhillyGuy and I hit up Yoga X. It was a gorgeous day and I thought about running outside, but the 27mph winds sent me in to the treadmill like the big baby I am. I ran four miles at an 8:57 pace (6.7mph, .5% incline)...covered 4.25 miles altogether, though, because I stopped to walk between miles 2 and 3 and 3 and 4. Including my walking breaks, I covered the 4.25 miles in about 40 minutes, which doesn't suck -- but MAN, it was tough. I finished solid, despite being completely certain, more than once, that my legs had turned to lead.

After the run, I took a quick walk down the street to grab asparagus, since I had that surf & turf to look forward to. Came back, and PhillyGuy was in the middle of rebuilding my computer. Once he was done with that, we headed up to the "home gym" and hit it, hard.

My legs were feeling that run, for sure, and by the time we got to the last moving asana about 50 minutes in -- a fabulously difficult sequence involving crescent, warrior 3, standing splits, half moon, twisting half moon, and complete death -- they were just trashed. I struggled like crazy and it was all I could do not to collapse. I completed half of those poses totally cheating, with my "raised" leg not even remotely raised, just stuck out to the side with my toe on the floor.

The balance poses were SO, SO welcome -- and I'm really feeling my improvement here. Dancer felt SO FREAKING GOOD, and I just felt...well, SOLID, throughout the workout. I held crane for a couple of seconds at a time, probably 4 or 5 times during the 60-second period -- I'm still working towards this, but it's not nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be.

And then it was 9:23pm. And there was no freakin' way we were going to grill steaks and fish. We ordered Greek Lady instead. I wolfed down a giant salad (greek supreme salad, no egg, add chicken) and struggled to keep my eyes open for another half an hour or so before giving up and heading straight to bed.

I spent a big chunk of today running errands -- hitting up Costco and Target, finally getting around to assembling the shelves I bought for the garage back before Christmas, that kind of thing. We're finally getting around to that surf & turf tonight, but before then we'll hit the gym. PhillyGuy will probably do Kenpo, and I'm not sure what I'll do -- maybe try to run a couple easy miles and do another 40 minutes or so of long, slow, relatively easy cardio while catching up on the pile of magazines that's been growing on my coffee table.

Congrats to all of you guys who ran the Cherry Blossom 10-miler today! You had a fabulous weekend for it!

Happy Easter!

It has been fantastic having a couple of days off! I spent most of Friday afternoon driving around with the sunroof open, hitting up HomeGoods and similar places looking for "art." The walls in our house feel so naked, and I've been wanting to fill them up forever...but I never find anything I like. Friday was no different. I did manage to come home with a few artificial plants -- PhillyGuy has been bugging me to get "more plants" (aka, ANY plants at all) in the house for at least a couple of years.

I was really, REALLY looking forward to Friday night's yoga workout. I think of it in two stages: the moving asanas, followed by the balance poses. The moving asanas kick.my.ass. Period. Lots of transitions, lots of Crescent and Warrior 1 and 2 and a little Warrior 3 (which I can't do well yet). Lots and LOTS of transitions from Plank to Chaturanga to Upward Dog to Plank to Downward Dog. It lasts about 45 minutes, and I am sweating like a pig by the time it's done.

Then, we get to move on to the best thing ever: another 45 minutes of "balance poses." The moving asanas are really humbling for someone like me -- I've always been decently flexible and I took yoga casually in college and law school, until I moved to Philly and left my "real" gym. Then, I try to do the full Warrior sequence and I'm twisting and tumbling and realizing I'm not really even that far down into it with my leg -- yeah, it's humbling. When I get into Tree and Dancer, I feel a little bit renewed. SEE? I can balance on one leg! Not only that, but my left-leg Dancer doesn't even suck that bad!

This week kicked my butt, too, though -- I was proud of myself. I held Crane for about 3 or 4 seconds at a time -- which doesn't sound that impressive, I know, but I actually yelped with pure glee when I did it. PhillyGuy is such a good sport. By the time we got to Bridge/Wheel, my shoulders were SHOT -- I can typically do wheel without much issue, but this time, I couldn't even push myself up. Bridge it was.

Afterwards I felt so fantastic -- the first 45 minutes are so, so tough, and can even be discouraging, but that last 45 makes it all worth it.

Yesterday, I skipped my planned legs-and-back day in favor of a long nap. I stayed out really late (for me!) on Friday night catching up with an old high school friend, and we were up decently early on Saturday to get the place cleaned up for a puppy playdate with my cousin, her boyfriend and their adorable 8-month-old pittie mix. Those three knuckleheads ran around at the dog park for about two hours, and I have to say it wiped me out almost as much as it wiped them out.

So, on deck for today is a run (probably 4 miles or so) and that legs/back workout. PhillyGuy is doing Kenpo, which I simply don't like. I am not particularly coordinated, and the difficulty I have following the moves keeps me from performing them effectively enough to make it worth the strain it puts on my knee. Besides...IT'S SO GORGEOUS OUT! How can I not hit the pavement??