Foodie Pen Pal Reveal: April Edition

It's that time of the month again (that's the first time I've ever said that when it doesn't relate to a particular cycle women get to enjoy lol)!

This month my Foodie Pen Pal package came from a wonderful lady name Jennifer over at Peanut Butter and Peppers!  She managed to pack all of the good inside of this cute Hawaiian bowl, which I loved!



Inside there was...



Seasoned almonds... I seem to get these a lot from Foodie Pen Pals, I wonder if they are all realizing that I love all flavored almonds!!  These two flavors were no different!



Next up was a travel size EVOO and Italian seasoning that she loves so much.  I tried a little on some pasta and like it a lot, I can't wait until we start using the grill a little more, it is going to be fantastic on veggies!



Finally, the package was topped off with desserts!  A chocolate sandwich cookie and biscotti! I absolutely love biscotti, almost as much as I love almonds and coffee :)




Thanks so much for the wonderful box Jennifer!  Be sure to stop over and check out April's blog, who I ironically sent a package to for April FPP!

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If you're interested in joining the Foodie Pen Pal Program here’s a detailed explanation of the program:

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.

-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!

-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!

-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)

-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.

- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in Europe, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!

If you have any questions or want more information about joining get in contact with Lindsay over at The Lean Green Bean! If you're ready to sign up, click here to fill out a participation form!

Workouts Lately

Thursday
3 miles

Friday
Cross Fit

5:00 AMRAP

5 Overhead Squats 

5 Push Press

-Rest 2:00-

5:00 AMRAP

20 KB Swings 

10 Knee-to-Toes

-Rest 2:00-

5:00 AMRAP

10 Pushups

10 Sit Ups 

Saturday

Rest

Sunday

12 miles...last long run before the half marathon this upcoming Sunday.  

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Fitness Plan

With this week being half marathon week I want to make sure my legs are nice and fresh for a competitive 13.1 on Sunday, so here is what I plan to do for the week...

Monday: Piyo + cardio (maybe)

Tuesday: 60 min run

Wednesday: Cross Fit

Thursday: Cross Fit 

Friday: 30 min run

Saturday: Short walk

Sunday: Eau Claire Half Marathon!

Reader Request: Calorie Crusher

A couple quick things before I get to the main topic of my post today...

Wednesday

Cross Fit 

5 bear complexes

10 side hop overs

4 bear complexes

20 side hop overs

3 bear complexes

30 side hop overs

2 bear complexes

40 side hop overs

1 bear complex

50 side hop overs 

Time: 5:30 

Remember when I went to visit my friend Carrie and we made coffee mugs?  Well they got "fired" and since she visited yesterday, I finally go to see my finished product!!

I love it, I couldn't be happier with the final results of my mug :-)  Now I just need to use it!

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A couple weeks ago a reader, Lindsay, emailed me wondering about how to do some of the Calorie Crusher exercises that I posted about a while back. Well I was finally able to make some home videos of most of the moves! Side note: I am a very amateur video maker, so please bear with my video skills.

Box Squat 

Popover

Do one minute (or adjust the time to your needs) with 3 boxes, then bump down to 2 boxes and for the third minute use just one box.  Your speed should quicken as the box height gets smaller.  If you don't have boxes like these, just use a small, medium and large box (one blue box is about 5 inches).  

DB Low Lunge

KB Row

BOSU Squat Press

Slider & Mountain Slider

SB Toe Tap

BOSU DB Back Fly

I hope these videos help Lindsay!  If you look these videos up on YouTube there is a small description about correct form that should be used for each exercise.  I hope you enjoyed the videos and the sneak peak of the gym where I work!

Off to carry on with the rest of my days... run, drink from my coffee mug, work and Grub Club! 
What are you doing today?

Impromptu Trip

Yesterday J and I took a little impromptu trip to the cities... to watch the Twins vs. Red Sox game!  

You may be able to see by our shirts that he is Red Sox fan and I am a Twins fan... that seems to happen to us for every sport (ie; Saints vs. Packers).  

We had a great time, it was fun to be spontaneous for a change and to have some quality "us" time.  

There's no way we could have gone to a Target Field and not have gotten corn dogs and sodas as large as my head.  

And of course popcorn that quite possibly will take us a century to finish!

Overall we had a terrific time, minus the half an hour where I started to freak out that I wasn't going to get any sleep before I worked at 5:00 am the next morning.  I made it through my shift alive and well though... we'll see how the rest of the week goes now.

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Monday

3 miles

Tuesday

Cross Fit 

Warm up: 400 m jog

3 x 400 m @ 8.0

Helen

400 m 

21 KB swing

12 pull ups 

Repeat 2x

Time: 13:01 

Post-workout: 3:00 Turkish get ups

(I made 8 each side)

400 m cool down 

Six Things Sunday

Since this is the easiest way to recap my week since I haven't posted in a while, I'm going to go with it :)

1. I had a great week of workouts!  Even though my mileage wasn't super high it is okay, because I have a half marathon in two weeks so my long runs are getting shorter.  After the half begins my full marathon training... wahoo! 
1. Tuesday: 4 miles- easy pace
2. Wednesday: 5 miles on t-mill + 10:00 elliptical 
3. Thursday: Cross Fit workout- 2 km row, 50 wall ball, 1 km row, 35 wall ball, 500 m row, 20 wall ball- 22:25 + 20:00 bike 
4. Friday: Solo 8 miles- 1:13:00
5. Sunday: 45:00 bike outside + this arm and ab workout
2. Babysat all day yesterday for these two hoodlums on the right... exhaustion! 
3. Five more days until we find out how J's hernia surgery recover is going. We are really hoping he didn't go back to work too quickly and mess things up. 
4. One of my La Crosse girlfriends is coming this week!!! 
5. Grub Club this Thursday! Anyone have suggestions of what I should make?
6. I am going to go make these now!!

Enjoy your Sunday relaxing!

Tuesday Tangents

This weekend I spent most of my time like this...

And by "like this" I mean, I wore my nursing "hat" this weekend.  J had a little hernia surgery on Friday, so I got to play care taker and nurse him back to health.  I got a little stir crazy trying to take care of and entertain him, so I did some running and some baking.  Some for me....

PB Rice Krispie Bars

And some for my foodie pen pal :)

And some for scrap... major FAIL here!  I wanted them to be as fresh as possible for April my #foodiepenpal, which I thought would be ideal, but not so much when you have a little oopsies :(  I ended up just sending the chocolate chip protein cookie recipe to her, hopefully she'll be able to make them sometime and enjoy them....sorry again April! 

I was also lucky to receive my #foodiepenpals package yesterday...I love it when a FPP package comes in the mail!

Fitness Plan

I ended up running 20 miles last week, 12 of which came from the weekend, along with some weight lifting and other cross training.  Here is this weeks plan... 

Monday: Cross Fit + 15 minute bike 

Tuesday: Run 5-6 miles

Wednesday: Run 5-6 miles 

Thursday: Lift 

Friday: Long run? 

Saturday: Chasing two cute kids around 

Sunday: Long run? 

Monday's Cross Fit workout was:

20 DB lunges

5 DB presses

40 yard (down and back) sprint

15 box jumps

As many rounds as possible in 10:00 (I did 3.75... couldn't quite fit those box jumps in).  The lunges were really hard for me for some reason?? I'm feeling them today, which I like though!

Anyone have anything exciting happen over the weekend?

Holy Fran!

Thursday

1.5 miles/Cross Fit/Bike 

15:00/11:51/20:00

I tried Cross Fit's infamous "Fran" workout this morning...I now know why it is such a famous/dreaded one!  

29-15-9 reps

Thrusters and pull ups

Talk about a hard workout!  Thank goodness it lasted less than 15 minutes! I didn't expect my triceps to be so spent from the combination of thrusters and pull ups, but they were pretty tired. I finished Fran in 11:51, I'm not sure how that matches up to real Cross Fitters, but I was pretty proud of myself.  I know I will try it again and hopefully smash that time, but for my first try it wasn't too bad.  Warm up was a short run and then I finished the workout with a little cardio on the bike.  

That's all I have for you right now.  Heading to work later this afternoon and then playing "nurse" starting tomorrow for J who is having a minor surgery.  

What is your workout today?  Has anyone else done Fran? 

Six Years Ago Yesterday

I hope you all made it out of your sugar comas... I'm still trying to make my way out, the Easter bunny hit my house hard!

J was quite surprised to see that the thing I was most excited about was the Pez dispenser in my basket!  In fact I was so excited, my new bunny dispenser inspired me to dig through all my old stuff and pull out the only Pez dispenser I saved when I cleaned out all of my old childhood stuff from my parent's house.
I <3 Pez + Ninja Turtles!

A little delayed, but here is what the week has looked like in my world of fitness and what the rest of my weekly fitness plan is...

Monday
Lift
60:00

Step ups 4 x 8/8

TRX power pull 4 x 5/5

EZ bar curls 4 x 12

SB DB alternate pullover 4 x 6/6

BOSU KB row 4 x 10/10

Jump pull ups 4 x 5 

Push ups 4 x 5(wide) -5 (normal) -5 (narrow grip)

SB knee tucks 4 x 10

Tuesday
Piyo/3 miles (More about Piyo later this week)
45:00/27:00

Wednesday
5 miles/Stairs
45:00/25:00

Thursday: Cross Fit + Cardio

Friday: Piyo + Easy run (?)

Saturday: Long run w/Brita

6 Years Old!

I can't believe it was six years ago that I was a freshman in college.  And that six years ago yesterday I got a call from my sister while I was studying telling me I was officially an aunt to this little angel!  When she came into my life she changed my whole world forever!

Now she is reading...

Being a great big sister to her little brother...

Being the official birthday cake cutter (note the ice cream scooper... he made us all feel like we were on diets with his scoop size lol)...

And being a complete goof ball!  

We love you Kietra! Happy 6th birthday!

Today's Tip: Snack on a combo of protein and carbs every few hours to keep your mind sharp...low blood sugar can impair your judgement. 

I Love The UPS Guy

Receiving packages in the mail is one of my favorite things in the world! Maybe that is part of the reason why I am a part of Foodie Pen Pals and shop online more now...I'm being 100% serious.  This week has been a big week for me, I think my relationship with the UPS guy has elevated to another level.  Look at what I got in the mail this week!!!

My Kindle Fire cover! I ordered this two months ago when J got it for me for our anniversary and it finally arrived (about stinking time)! It got good reviews from other customers, but I had a heck of a time with my order. Even though I got super frustrated that I didn't get it right away and had to do a lot of emailing with the company, I love it!  I love the color, the material and that it has a magnetic clasp.  

Also in the mail were my home study books for my CSCS CEUs! I am really excited to dive into these books!  I'm hoping they are very informational and worth the $400 (cringe) I spent on them.  You gotta do what you gotta do I guess.  I'll be sharing things that I learn while I work through the following three books:

If you were to pick a home study what fitness topic would you chose?

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What's this you ask?  Why it's my yoga mat out and about at 5:30 am!  Yes, I brought a little yoga back into my life on Thursday morning and it felt darn good!  The class did not have enough people for it to "go", but I love the instructor so I am going to look into taking a class of hers at the YMCA.

Other workouts...

Thursday Workout

Yoga + Elliptical + Walk (easy/low intensity day)

60:00/30:00/45:00

Friday Workout

5 miles - easy

45:00

Remember when I could barely get out of bed?  Well this morning was the first morning I could walk after getting out of bed!  Yeah, that's some serious DOMS right there! It feels good to finally be back to (almost) normal.  

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Today's Tip: Listen to your body.  Even though it may not be according to your plan, take an easy or rest day when you need it, your body will thank you at a cellular level and by how you physically feel!

I Climbed The Empire State Building

Monday Workout
Cross Fit
21:43

10 burpees

15 jump split squats

20 double unders

25 yard shuttle (5 x 5)

Rest 90 seconds

Repeat for 8 rounds

I was dead tired after this...the double unders really got me!  The rest periods are definitely needed with this much jumping around.  

Tuesday Workout
Stairs (walk)
58:00
594 calories

I basically climbed the Empire State Building!  Each trip up the stairs was 144 steps. I lost count on the 13th trip (58 minutes of climbing is a long time and I was distracted by my partner), which is a grand total of 1,872 steps....that is more than the 1,860 steps to get to the top of the Empire State Building, if only I would have actually been there!  Side note, my calves are absolutely on fire today!  I could barely walk when I woke up, it took quite a while to loosen them up. 

Wednesday Workout

5.2 miles- trail run

1:02:00

Today's run was an adventure!  My running buddy and I didn't really know the trail system very well, but we explored and made our way around.  My calves slowed me down a little to make those 5 miles pretty tough, but it was fun and I'm hoping running on a softer surface helps keep my legs more fresh for longer runs.  

Pre-run:  bagel with cream cheese

Post run:  

Skinny caramel latte with Brita

+

Breakfast burrito: eggs, peppers, onion, queso 

+

Yogurt, paleo crunch (from Foodie PenPal), banana

Today's Tip: If you're experiencing DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) try doing some light exercise, ice your muscles, apply Bio-Freeze, or stretch/yoga.  What are some ways that you deal with DOMS?

A New Week + Fitness Plan

Friday Workout
Cross Fit workout (see below)

Saturday Workout
11 miles- easy pace
2:00

Friday's workout was a killer! I did not want to finish it, it would have been much easier to just give up, but I kept on trucking.  This workout was way more cardio-like than I  expected it to be, so I didn't fret when I had to jet out of the gym right after this workout. 

Kicking Cardio Workout

4 rounds as fast as possible

27 box jumps (20" box)

20 burpees

15 knee-to-elbows

11 hang cleans 

Time: 22:25  = exhaustion! 

I can feel my long runs really starting to do their magic!  Granted this weekends run was at a pretty easy pace (we usually go faster, we're terrible at pacing ourselves on long runs), I felt awesome during the run.  When we were finished, I felt like I could have kept going!  This is the first time I have ever felt this way, and I am continually amazed at how the human body adapts with a little hard work :)

Fitness Plan

Monday: Cross Fit WO

Tuesday: Run 6-8 miles

Wednesday: Long lift

Thursday: Run 5-8 miles + Yoga

Friday: Cross Fit WO

Saturday: Long run 13-16 miles

Sunday: Happy Easter...rest day!

Happy Monday!