Hello Loves! How are y'all?!? Life is great right now. Busy and I know I've been MIA. Let's catch you up on things! Socially - Two of my favorite ladies birthdays - AC and Rachel! We got together at PJs last week for the birthdays and Game of Thrones. We had an amazing time. Friday I went to happy hour with two of my girls from work at On The Border. BEST happy hour deals - seriously, the best ever.
Last week was rough for me. Not really sure why. I'm stressed, overwhelemd, had a rough week at school and CrossFit. Saturday I went to the city with Nilda & Jenn. We did yoga in the park then headed to Mercer Cafe. It was my FIRST time doing breakfast in Philly, and the food was AMAZING! I needed it. Jenn also talked us into going to work out with Donnie (her fiance) at his place - 19125 Fitness! It was a BRUTAL workout - love getting my ass kicked!
After we died, I went home showered and let the girls out. I headed back over and we headed to Three Monkeys Cafe. First - they have a FABULOUS drink called "Grape Soda" and it was amazing!
It was a great end to a fabulous night with my girls! Lots of talking, laughs and spending time with my loves! Much needed time. Also got to hang out with my Rachel that night. I needed the day with just girl friends. No major thinking. No stress. Good friends. Good time. And a really good drink haha Food wise - my staying on track is going great! I've been cooking up some mean dishes lately! I've been trying a lot of new things - like the top rack in the picture. Breakfast sausage, onions, garlic, cauliflower rice and tomato sauce. Holy came out awesome! I was kinda of stoked! And yes, the bottom of it is Paleo Chocolate Cookies -- I've like perfected my recipie finally. I'm pumped! I need to share them with y'all one day.
Hey y'all! Happy Tuesday! This fall is flying by. I think between school, training and life - I am super busy! I'm loving it! This weekend I competed in my first Olympic Lifting Competition. Liberty Barbell Club (inside CrossFit Center City) held the Hookgrip Classic. It was an amazing experience. I learned a ton - about how I lift, how to get better and build more speed, tips for wrapping my thumbs to help with my hook grip, etc. We started with snatch....
I opened with 39kg....Hit it no problem...
Second attempt was at 43 kg...I missed the first try so tried again...
No problem! I got really frustrated by this only because I should have locked out my shoulder on the second lift and had it. I really wanted to get over 100 that day, but it wasn't in the books. Lots to learn from and move on. The girls in my class were awesome - made my snatches look like nothing. Def not quite as excited for my 100# snatch anymore haha. Time to get bigger and stronger! Next up was the Clean and Jerk. Seriously - I love these two movements so I was happy!
First attempt...I'm not really sure what weight I did haha. Coach took care of that. I think maybe 45kg? Not 100% positive on that one though. First one felt great. No issues and looked decent.
Second attempt...first thing I said to Justin when I got back to the seat was "that felt fast" haha. I thought I flew, but after looking at it - I really didn't haha. The last attempt...
61 kg. Not a PR for me, but felt and looked good. I had JUST PR'ed my C&J two days prior to this, so I am stoked I got this up!!
I've learned a lot from that experience. I can't WAIT to do more OLY competitions - I loved it. Major things I took from this: 1. I NEED OLY shoes. Like majorly need them. They are on my Christmas list, but I may have to splurge and get some earlier if I can swing it. 2. I need to pick up my training. I need to get more serious and step it up. 3. I HAVE to clean up my nutrition. I think to myself, what could I really do if I just cleaned it up a little bit more. I have been doing good - primal Sunday - Friday night....no drinks during the week and so forth. I did have two drinks this week on Wednesday. But it was birthdays of two of my closest so that was needed. After the OLY comp, Caitlin got Nilda and I flowers! She's awesome. She was my first CrossFit Aspire friend and is my main lifting partner outside of Nilda. Without those two ladies, I'd be lost in the gym. I also treated myself to a Philadelphia Cupcake after the comp...and I don't regret it. It was AMAZING! I also had drinks with both my Coaches, Shamus and Nilda in the city...I loved it! I need to do that more!
That night - Teralyn (who is typically more proud of what I do then I am of myself haha) wanted to get drinks to celebrate. We headed out for some drinks and the Ohio State game! Rachel and Holly came up too! It was a great night and a perfect end to a fabulous day!
Hey Loves! Know what I just realized?!? I didn't fill you in about my awesome weekend. Last weekend I participated in the MS City To Shore Bike Ride. I rode my bike 80 miles (couldn't do the 100 this year). The picture to the left is the main part of my team minus Paul and his daughter Emily. I meet the guy on the far left - Mr. Sieber - on the first mile of the same ride four years ago. The girl on the right of me (in the white jersey) is his daughter, Ro. I ended up becoming great friends with her since then, and I've rode with them every year since. The year I meet them, I was biking with a team from South Jersey, but I really didn't know anyone. I have been living here about 2 months. I was suppose to crash down the shore and stay with the team, but I ended up after the ride that year back at the Sieber's house. They fed me and welcomed me like family. They've been stuck with me ever since! I honestly look forward to the ride and getting to see them. Ro's schedule has finally changed and hopefully we are planning on doing monthly happy hours. Anyways, it was a BEAUTIFUL day for a ride.
The weather was perfect and I had a great ride. I've already signed up for next year and am looking forward to it. Justin & Alycia said we can design some CrossFit Aspire jersey. I can't WAIT! I love my box, so rocking them while riding will be a great idea! Ro has MS so she gets a special jersey.
Me & AC
Me & Allie - Birthday Girl
Tricia and me
Sunday was spent with my CrossFit loves for my girl Allie's birthday. They cooked out and we all brought some food/drinks/sweets. It was a fun afternoon with some of my favorites. Much needed relaxing day after the bike ride Saturday!
Hey y'all! Can you believe it's October already? I swear life seems to be FLYING by lately! Let's chat what's going on in life and some goals I need you to help hold me accountable for!
Life! Life is FABULOUS right now! Have I told you that lately? I am seriously the happiest I have been in a very LONG time. I have made a lot of personal changes since end of May/early June and I am reminded more and more every day how I definitely took the right path for me. School is fabulous - even with all the changes. It's more work and planning, but I am really loving it. I have great munchkins, as I always do. I'm a little homesick right now. It always comes and goes in phases. This is the first September and October that I'm not making a trip home. We are doing the Princess's birthday in November this year, so I will be home twice then!
CrossFit. Yo, CrossFit is kicking ass right now. Pardon the language but seriously...if you don't follow me on twitter or instagram you may not know that I hit a HUGE personal PR...
100# Snatch...did it! Triple Digit baby!! I also hit a new OHS PR....95# for 3 reps.....
Then added 10# and hit 110# baby!!! I still can't believe it!
It's been awesome month of CrossFit stuff for me, but I want to do more and I need help. Here is what I know -- sometimes I get overwhelmed. I don't know how to figure it all out. I need mobility help and mobility WOD is one of my goal for October. I want to learn more about it and figure it out and how to better use it. I also want to incorporate 2-3 Gymnasty WODs in a week. Plus I want to really clean up my nutrition - strict Paleo Sunday - Friday night. Gives me Friday nights and Saturdays to relax some. So, there is the three main goals:
1. Adding Mobility work into the week - 4-5xWeek for at least 45mins/1hour.
2. Adding 2-3 Gymnasty WODs a week - Tuesday and Thursday nights with Nilda and maybe another day!
3. Food - No going out or alcohol during the week -- strict Primal instead of Paleo as I want some cheese and greek yogurt sometimes.
Last but not least, I'm getting back to running!! I'm starting this week - a track night/speed session with my girl Kelly from the box, plus Aspire Run club on Sunday mornings and one decent run a week! What's your goals for October? I promised some people to talk more about my running/CrossFit schedule...it's coming :)
Last - as you all know I am an ambassador for Delta Labs and I have 5 samples from Delta Labs - the Hair, Skin & Nails -- who wants to try it? I've been taking it for about two weeks and I love it! Leave me a comment below and tell me what are your goals for October! I'll pick 5 random winners :)
Also - Delta Labs is donating 10% of ALL proceeds this month to #BreastCancer -- check out the information in this video from Bex!
Hello Loves! Happy Saturday! I'm finally getting into the groove of school, training, studying, and life, so hopefully back to semi-regular scheduled blogging!! The weekend after Labor Day aka the awesome California trip for Dumbo Double Dare (which you can read about a short thoughts here) was BUSY! I had made plans to keep the Peanut all weekend + had a school BBQ and CrossFit BBQ Saturday and run club fun Sunday. I took the Peanut with me to everything - she's good like that. She spent about 6 hours in the pool on Saturday and two hours on Sunday. I LOVE that little girl - she's such a joy to have around and take care of! The school BBQ was fun - at my work BFF Nicolella's house. Her dogs are AWESOME - seriously, they dive into the pool and swim to the bottom to get the ball - how cool is that? Peanut and I thought it was super cool - wonder if Scarlet would jump in?!?
Got to the Aspire BBQ late, but my bestie Jilly was there! I got to see her and her hubs, Tommy. I LOVE love LOVE them! Seriously, would be lost without them. As always, I had a good time with my Aspire crew. Didn't really talk to a lot of people. Peanut and I didn't get there till late, so most people were in conversation. I got to talk with TLyn and Kelly a lot, so that was good! Relaxed by Sandy's fire pit. I love her backyard/house - so relaxing and makes me feel like I'm home. It was a LONG day for both Peanut and myself.
Sunday started with Aspire Run Club........
I love my Sunday runs with the crew. Our turnouts have been growing steadily and I love it. Jess has even started coming. She is brand new to running, and we all know how much I love working with new runners. Ev comes too now! Such a good group. The boy I have been hanging out with is in the picture too...but no disclosure on that...yet ;) After Run Club I also stayed and did some clean work with Caitlyn.
Got a new Clean and Jerk PR at 130#!
Kelly, Me, Coach Alycia
September 11th brought about the 9/11 Hero WOD - that thing was something different. I really had to push myself. I've been having some issues on my right shoulder, so it was a lot on my shoulder, but I did it. We, as CrossFitters, do this to pay our respect and show we remember and value the lives lost. There was NO way I was giving up! Took about 42 minutes, but it was done. I did 95# for the lifts and 24" for the box jumps!
I LOVE the thought of Steve's Club and really want to get involved - such a good thing and...some of my students are even in it...
Jake & Nilda - teammates
TLyn, Me, Nilda
I had a great time, as always. I love doing CrossFit stuff, especially with my CrossFit crew. It was good to see JC - one of my students from last year, and glad he has found Steve's Club. Was good to hear how hard he has to work to get to the box to train and to keep his grades up. Will have to check in on him! Had fun with my girls...and cheering on the other teams, from our box and others.
Team Snatchtastic - Jamie & me
I was lucky enough to pair with Jamie. She's the best. This lady is seriously AMAZING! When everything went down with my ankle, she was there when it happened and held my hand, she helped me with the girls before I took them to TN, she took me to and from the gym. Not to mention she is a BEAST! She got 1st in her last competition because she completed like 21 deadlifts in a min - I wanna say at like 175 or something too - amazing!
We had fun! At least I did. I was the second to last heat, so I got to watch everything go down. Lots of handsome CrossFit guys to check out ;)
As always, this past Sunday started with Aspire Run Club. It's just becoming a normality at this point haha!
This week has been good - Back To School Night at school and we got treated to sweet new cups from our administration! Love them! I am so blessed to have a job I love so much. I've taken a lot of time off this week, but yesterday I went and played with my snatch to see how my shoulder was feeling. I do have my FIRST EVER Olympic Lifting Competition coming up...and....
I hit my FIRST EVER TRIPLE DIGIT SNATCH!! 100#!! Can you tell be the end of the video how excited I was?!? Even with my broken ankle this year, I've made most of my goals already - and just keep updating them!! CrossFit has changed my life! Can't wait to get my L1 here soon and start changing other people's lives!
Finally...last but not least...my last part of my DumboDoubleDare Racecation!! You can see Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed out. So obviously, my Saturday ended fabulous. Dinner with one of my favorite people in the world - My Tony! Always makes me wonder what would have been had we never moved apart from each other. I got home at a decent time and got to bed - half marathon mornings - especially runDisney ones - always have a early start! I was texting my girlfriend Ro all morning to see where she was so we could meet up. We finally linked up at the corals. She has not been training fully, and clearly with my broken ankle and not being able to run haha neither had I. I only had a goal to finish the race and enjoy it. That was her goal too!! In all my Disney races, I've never stopped at all the stops. I'm always scared I'll be to slow and get held back. This time, I did it anyways. I am a HUGE Disney fan so I can honestly say that all the stops made the day so much more fun!
Our first stop was Monsters Inc. I absolutely LOVE Monsters Inc. Heck I went and saw Monsters U with no child - some people probably thought I was weird....eh' whatever haha :) While we were waiting for Monsters Inc. - because there is always a line for pics, but totally worth it - I was texting Shireen. Her and Jamie were running the half too... she ended up meeting up with us right after our Aladin picture...which isn't up haha! I just picked a few to put up!
My FAVORITE stop was with the toy soliders from Toy Story. There was three of them and three of us so....how stinkin cute are we? And totally side note - look how much more I'm leaning out? I've been stuck on the scale but people keep saying I look smaller. I can't tell, but this picture def helped me see. Always a bonus!
We also stopped and had our picture taken with Darth Vadar. As we were leaving, a storm trooper was walking out. We were kind of complaining out loud when he charged towards Ro and she got a cool pic. Then he turned and bolted towards Shireen and I. I LOVE this pic too!
Of course, we stopped and took pictures in front of the castle and it's super cute! And as a HUGE sports nerd, I thought it was totally cool we got to run (or by that point my ankle was sore so we were walking more so then running haha) Angel Stadium.
There was a car club on the back stretch - I love cars so that was really cool. Some awesome classics and the people were very supporting. By about mile 11 I was definitely getting tired from lack of running. My ankle was sore (no more so then I knew it would be) but didn't hurt to bad. By 12-12.5 my ankle was DONE. I knew I would finish, but couldn't wait to be off of it. Mama was right at the 13 mile mark and complete changed how I felt. Just knowing she was there for a race made ALL the difference. I never thought it could make that big of an impact, but it was awesome. I hope she knows (or she will when she reads this haha) how much it meant.
I know I've said it before, but CrossFit has changed my life. There is NO way I would have completed those 19.3 miles Labor Day weekend without it. For not really running and 6 months prior having broken my ankle, I am STOKED.
My time stunk, but I had a BLAST, made new friends and finished!! After the race, we headed back down to San Diego. We grilled out and relaxed for dinner. I crashed HARD that night! Monday morning I woke up feeling good. Ankle was sore, but not to bad. We spent the day with my God Family. Cookout and kids and family - BEST time. I caught a redeye back to Jersey Monday night and went back to work Tuesday morning! It was a great trip and just what I needed before school started back. :)
~xx
M
PS there was a L1 seminar at my San Diego hotel that started the day I left...BOO!
Hello loves! Finally getting around to updating all of y'all on my awesome Disney racecation. You can find Part 1 here. After an awesome night out with my God-sisters, Friday morning was an early start. We definetly had a head start since I was still on East Coast time. Mama and I headed down to Chula Vista to pick up God-Mom then got on our way to Disneyland! They dropped me off at the expo...which if you haven't heard by now, it was a not so hot experience. I'm not going to complain or whine on here...stuff needs to be changed by next year's event, and I know RunDisney is doing their best to get it done.
God-Mom & Mama
After the expo GodMom, Mama and I went over to the parks. We went to Disneyland. It was SUPER hot. We did some of the smaller rides. The ladies also got themselves those fans...you know that spray you too! Haha they were funny! We rode the train around and did a couple rides. I made sure to go see the Iron Man exhibit. Incase you don't know - IRON MAN GEEK! Seriously - total geek out moment there. I left early and headed back to rest. Mama and God-Mom stayed and did some other stuff.
Me, Shireen and Jamie
Saturday morning I woke up and got ready for race time! Ro wasn't going to make the 10K because she did not get her packet in time. I got ready in my sweet new Sparkle Athletic skirt and Raw Threads shirt. Obviously I was nervous about my ankle. I did not have a goal time or some PR I wanted. Goal was to finish out the weekend with a healthy ankle and races done. Thank GOD for Shireen and Jamie. I meet up with them around mile 2 and they saved me. I totally held them up, but they were sweet enough to stay with me. By the end of the race, I had two new race friends (both from California, so totally have to get out there for a race haha). We had lots of fun talking and getting to know each other. I really enjoyed their company and help. For not running more then two miles since before I broke my ankle and it having been six months, I was pumped. Now for the coolest part of my whole trip. I have been running for about five years now - everything from 5Ks to Full Marathons - and I've never had family at a race to cheer me on. I had actually just finished telling my new friends about how my Mama was there to support me. As we came into the last half mile or so, we came around the corner and Mama was THERE! It honestly MADE MY WHOLE RACE!! I've had friends at races before, which is always awesome, but to actually have Mama there was awesome. We finished the race and I headed back to the hotel. I grabbed a shower and then had some brunch with Mama & God-Mom at the hotel. They went to the park and I watched the Buckeyes play and then a nap.
Once I woke up - I headed over to the park and hung out with the ladies. It was super hot again. We just did some shows and a ride or two. Nothing major. (My recaps aren't uber fun huh? haha) It was a fun day, but I was scared to be on my ankle too much. I really want to go back and have more time at the parks. After hanging out for a while, we headed back to the hotel. One of my ex-boyfriends and favorite people in the WHOLE world lives out there so we decided to go to dinner. It was honestly amazing to see him, and that could be an understatment. It was like time hadn't passed at all.
Me & Tony
Didn't skip a beat. Always interesting to be reminded of such an amazing time in your life! Him and I had such an amazing relationship. We ended up spliting due to distance, but I'm happy we can still catch up and be such good friends. You never know what will happen ;)
It was a good dinner and relaxed night to have before the half marathon. I made plans to meet up with Ro and Shireen for the half marathon. Next up...the amazing half marathon :)
Hello Loves! How are y'all?!? Life is great right now. Busy and I know I've been MIA. Let's catch you up on things! Socially - Two of my favorite ladies birthdays - AC and Rachel! We got together at PJs last week for the birthdays and Game of Thrones. We had an amazing time. Friday I went to happy hour with two of my girls from work at On The Border. BEST happy hour deals - seriously, the best ever.
Last week was rough for me. Not really sure why. I'm stressed, overwhelemd, had a rough week at school and CrossFit. Saturday I went to the city with Nilda & Jenn. We did yoga in the park then headed to Mercer Cafe. It was my FIRST time doing breakfast in Philly, and the food was AMAZING! I needed it. Jenn also talked us into going to work out with Donnie (her fiance) at his place - 19125 Fitness! It was a BRUTAL workout - love getting my ass kicked!
After we died, I went home showered and let the girls out. I headed back over and we headed to Three Monkeys Cafe. First - they have a FABULOUS drink called "Grape Soda" and it was amazing!
It was a great end to a fabulous night with my girls! Lots of talking, laughs and spending time with my loves! Much needed time. Also got to hang out with my Rachel that night. I needed the day with just girl friends. No major thinking. No stress. Good friends. Good time. And a really good drink haha
