Back to Blogging— With a New Sidekick!

This is the first time I’ve sat down to write anything other than I thank you card since my son, Rider, was born three-and-a-half months ago.

I’m so mad at myself for this. A few years ago when I was an editor at Weight Watchers Magazine, I blogged about my experience losing weight and eventually training for an Ironman triathlon and it was incredibly rewarding. Sharing my struggles with food and the craziness of that Ironman journey in small blog posts helped me to process the experiences and now when I look back at them, I remember that time much more vividly.

I thought I’d do the same with my experience of becoming a mom, but there was never a time when I could sit down alone and process my thoughts. Before having a baby, I wrote in my journal often. Drinking my morning cup of coffee and writing by hand in my journal was the quickest way for me to feel calm and get ready for the day. I’d often do that a few times a week and since having Rider, I’ve done it once and that entry was stopped half way through because he woke up needing to be fed and I haven’t touched the book since.

Instead my days were spent watching way too much TV, scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, and googling various things Rider did to make sure he was a normal, healthy developing baby—all while breastfeeding or pumping. When he was sleeping or hanging out in his swing and I had a chance to eat a meal—until I finally got the hang of breastfeeding him while eating. It’s not bad at all, except for the crumbs that occasionally fall on his head. He doesn’t seem to mind though—, I’d be at the computer again eating with one hand and pouring over the site Kellymom.com (to get answers to my seemingly endless questions on breastfeeding) with the other.

But now that the haze of new motherhood has lifted a bit, I have some time to write a blog post now and again. I still haven’t gotten a second entry in my journal. Rider seems to have a sixth sense and always needs to eat just when my fork touches a plate of hot food (I’ve gotten used to eating most things cold now) and when my pen touches the page of my new journal. I’ve decided to resurrect this blog, which I started to chronicle my experience loving all things girly (makeup, dresses, poufy ponytails) and also loving sports which are decidedly “un-girly” like Crossfit (which gives my calluses) and triathlon training (wind burn, goggle marks, thigh chafing, need I say more?). I do plan on getting back to those activities, but for the time being motherhood is the next great endurance event. Just like doing an Ironman or running up all the steps of the Empire State Building, being a mom has so many non-glamorous moments, but all three are more rewarding than you can ever imagine.

I hope you’ll follow along as I record what I learn along the way, my journey to get back in shape (15 lbs and a big belly pouch are keeping me from wearing my pre-baby clothes), and keeping track of this new test of my stamina called parenthood.

Back to Running with the Scotland Run (10K)

Credit: NYRR

I signed up for the Scotland Run because my husband was doing it and I needed a little push to get back into running after a break. I assumed this race would be a regular old 10K, but I was pleasantly surprised by how just unique it was.

My husband, RJ, picked up our bibs and swag bags the day before the race. When I got home from work and rifled through it, we were both impressed to receive a t-shirt, a wool winter hat in the Scottish colors (blue and white) and a reusable cloth bag. Pretty good for a 10K! The hat was cute and unlike most items I find in a typical swag bag, I thought, “I’ll definitely wear this!”

Apparently RJ had the same idea because when I stumbled out of bed the morning of the run, he was already making his pre-race breakfast and wearing his in the kitchen. When we got to the race start in Central Park, we noticed half the field donned them too. I wore mine for the race as most other people did, contributing to the sea of blue and white that took over the park’s loop that day, but my hardcore husband had taken his off while muttering something about it not being in his race plan…

Read the rest at Travlete.com here.

We did it! GoRuck Light, completed!

I’ve written about the crazy event my Crossfit friends and I were doing, called the GoRuck Light. Here’s the story of how it turned out:

As I got out of bed the morning of the race, I thought Why am I doing this? I’m no stranger to marathons, triathlons, and obstacle races, so I figured this would be another one to add to the list. But, in the days leading up to the event, I was becoming increasingly skeptical that I’d enjoy it. I’d originally signed up because a bunch of my friends from my local Crossfit gym were taking it on and it sounded fun. The GoRuck Light is touted as a shorter, less intense version of the GoRuck Challenge, which is a simulation of the team-based training found in Special Operations. A cadre, an experienced member of Special Operations, leads thirty participants through a series of challenges to test strength, determination, and teamwork. Technically, this isn’t a race, but a team event. This is the beginning of a review I wrote for Travlete.com, so to continue reading, please click here.

Crossfit Open WOD #1 (13.1)

My friend, Dee, picked me up at 5:30 am and we headed to our box together. In her car, we were talking about the first workout of the Open. It was:

AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 17 minutes of:

40 Burpees


45-pound Snatch, 30 reps

30 Burpees

75-pound Snatch, 30 reps

20 Burpees

100-pound Snatch, 30 reps

10 burpees

120-pound Snatch, as many reps as possible

 

We decided we’d just do the best we can and would aim to get 100 points. You get one point for each exercise that you complete, and in 17 minutes we hoped to get through the 40 burpees, then the 45-pound snatch exercises, and then another 30 burpees. Dee thought a 75-pound Snatch was too much for her to lift, and if it was too much for her to lift, it was definitely going to be too much for me. I was even worrying about the first round of snatches. I can lift 45-lbs, but to do it 30 times in a row was going to be tough. Any move that involves a squat or an overhead lift are tough for me and a snatch is a combo of both.

When we got to the box, unlike when I joined the gym last year, the early a.m. class was packed. In the last year, the gym (and Crossfit in general) has become a lot more popular and the small classes I started with have become much larger. This morning, there were about 16 athletes. As Dee and I took off our coats, Brandy, the owner of our box walked in and so did two other coaches that work the evening classes. With Andy, our morning coach there, and then these three others we had 4 coaches and they all had clipboards and were breaking us into groups to do the WOD. We learned that each athlete had to do the WOD while a coach counted for us and made sure all of our reps were legit. The broke us into three different heats so I could do the WOD. Fortunately, I was in the first one so I’d be able to get it over with soon.

Brandy was the coach that would be judging me. I got the weights for the 45-lb snatch on the bar and had the weights for the 75-lb standing by even though I didn’t expect to make it. I’d be doing my burpees under a pull up bar and each time I jumped up from the ground during the exercise, I had to tap the bar with both hands. Adding in that higher jump, made the burpees a bit more challenging.

Just as I was about to start, Brandy asked how I was doing and I was so close to crying. I had gone out the night before for my birthday and had two glasses of wine, as well as a big dinner and dessert, I had a cold, and I was not at all expecting this to be so official. I didn’t know that four coaches would take over our morning class and be judging me with clipboards in their hands. She calmed me down and told me to pretend it was a normal WOD and to just take each exercise one at a time.

The buzzer went off, our 17 minutes starting ticking down, and I jumped to the ground to begin my first burpee. I did ten in a row and Brandy encouraged me to take a break, but I said, “No, I can do a few more.” I wanted to get fifteen finished before resting. I stopped at number fifteen, swigged some water, and then when back for another five. This time, as Brandy suggested, I only did five burpees at a time with a short break in between each set.

When I finally got to the snatches and starting performing them, I thought, Wow, 45-lbs is surprisingly heavy. How will I do thirty of these? Brandy encouraged me to take breaks in between every few and eventually I was getting tired and my form was getting sloppy so she had me taking breaks in between each rep. If I didn’t do the exercise properly, I’d get a “no rep” which means I couldn’t count it as one of the thirty and would need to redo it. “No reps” are terrible because you waste your energy and muscle power on a movement that doesn’t count and just tires you out for the next one.

I finished the 30 snatches with 7 minutes to spare. After another swig of water, I was back to burpees. Again, I did fifteen in a row, took a break, and then broke the sets of burpees into five at a time. I finished the 40 burpees, 30 snatches, and 30 burpees, so I got the score I wanted of 100 points and I had a minute to spare. I started loading the bar with the extra weight to take it up to 75 pounds for the next set of snatches as the buzzer went off.

Brandy signed the slip on the bottom or her clipboard as did I (like I said, it was very official!) and then when I went back home, I uploaded my score to the Crossfit website. Before I even put my score into the site, I was feeling great. I started the morning out about to cry and then I finished with the score I had aimed for. Once my score was in and accepted, I saw my ranking. I wasn’t last, not even close. Sure, I was happy that I wasn’t in last place, but even if I was, I would’ve been happy with my performance anyway. Crossfit is definitely about getting stronger and overcoming physical obstacles, but it’s also about overcoming mental obstacles (like being freaked out that a room full of people are watching you do a WOD) and I definitely did that in the Open WOD 13.1.

 

 

 

 

Conquering the Crossfit Open

When I joined Crossfit just about a year ago, it was just a few weeks before the Crossfit Open. The Open is the first section of a three-part competition to find the fittest athlete on earth. The Open consists of five workouts, one per week that test different aspects of fitness, including heavy lifting, speed, agility, etc. Any person can sign up for the Open and can either take the workout at a Crossfit affiliate or take a video of themselves doing the workout and post it on the Crossfit website to be verified. It’s all very official. The top athletes from those five workouts, make it on to the next round, and then the top athletes from that round move on to the Reebok Crossfit Games, which consists of the 100 incredible athletes competing against each other for the title of the fittest on Earth.

This time last year, I had a twice per week membership to my box (the Crossfit slang for “gym”) and I’d always check the website where the workouts were posted before heading out the door and going. I liked some workouts better than others and if I noticed the WOD (workout of the day) was mostly heavy lifting, I’d usually opt to go for a run in my neighborhood instead.

One Friday morning, I went to the box for my morning WOD noticed that there was an extra buzz of excitement at the box that day. Everyone (and by “everyone,” I mean the four other people that came to the 6 am class that day and our coach, Mike) was talking about this thing called the Crossfit Open and about the first WOD of five that would take place over the next five weeks. Since I was still relatively new, Mike filled me in on what it was while helping to set up everyone else’s workout stations and making sure they complied with the standards of the Open. For me, he set up a modified station. I don’t remember what the workout was but I think it included toes to the bar, which I modified by just lifting my knees, while I hung on the pull-up bar. And it also included box jumps, so Mike set up a pile of mats and let me jump on those instead.

Since it was an Open WOD it had just a bit more intensity than usual and Mike encouraged us to really push ourselves. After that I went to the rest of the Open WODS each Friday because they were such a diverse group of good workouts. Some of the WODs required women to lift a weight that was completely ridiculous for me. Since I wasn’t in the Open, I modified the weight to something I could actually lift, but I decided that next year, I’d sign up for the Open, which meant that I’d have to lift the minimum amount of weight required. I knew there was no chance I’d get very far, but all I wanted was to be  be able to do the workouts legitimately without a modification, which is required for the Open.

Well, here we are a year later and two weeks into the 2013 Open. In my next posts, I’ll let you know how my first two Open WODs went!

 

Getting Ready to GORUCK

It’s all Coach Andy’s fault. At the beginning of our morning Crossfit classes, he’d been talking about how much he enjoyed participating in a GoRuck Challenge last year and how proud he felt at the end. So, even though the race sounds crazy, a few of my friends and I decided to sign up.

It’s a team-based race that takes about 4 to 5 hours to complete and covers between 7 to 10 miles. Apparently, it’s a mixture of running as well as some Crossfit-style/body weight movements (like burpees, squats, push-ups, etc). The catch is that you have to wear a pack with bricks in it (two bricks for the ladies, four bricks for the fellas) while you race. You don’t find out what’s involved or even where the course is until you show up to a designated location on race day.

Here are my bricks wrapped in bubble wrap, which will hopefully prevent them from hurting me while doing burpees, push-ups, etc.

And here’s my trusty pack.

What drew me to this is the team aspect though. If someone on my team is having a hard time, another teammate can hold his/her pack for a while, do extra burpees for him/her, etc. And technically, it’s not even a race, because we’re not competing against other teams, but just working together to finish as a group.

For the past three Saturdays, I’ve been meeting my fellow GoRuckers from Crossfit Queens at the Astoria Park track for practices. Coach Andy has been leading us through sessions involving some of what I expected, (push-ups, squats, and burpess) and the unexpected (wheelbarrow walks and bear crawls) all with our heavy packs on. He says that for the GoRuck, anything goes, so he wants us to be prepared.

In the one he participated in, they even made teammates carry other teammates for part of the race, so we’ve practiced that, too.

My friend, Dee, carrying me as she runs from one side of the field to the other.

Phoebe’s turn!

Coach Andy leads us through a series of jumping and squatting with our packs on.

Practicing wheel barrow walks with Dee.

 

Shortly after signing up, I had a moment where I thought, “what have I done?” but I have to say, after three weeks of training, I’m really enjoying it. I’m not exactly enjoying running with bricks on my back and I never enjoy burpees, but I’m loving the camaraderie with my fellow teammates. I went into this knowing only a few of them, and in just a short time we’ve all become quite friendly. I guess crawling through mud and carrying each other on your back will bond you pretty quickly. I’m looking forward to competing with them and, of course, celebrating afterwards!

Blue Plates and Big News!

The cardinal rule of blogging is posting consistently and I’ve been terrible at it lately. But, I’m back and looking forward to blogging about all things health, fitness, and food related with my girly girl take on them. The reason I haven’t posted since December is because I’ve been swamped. Drum roll, please….. I have a new job!

I started earlier this week as a Senior Editor at PARADE Magazine, which is America’s most-read magazine with about 70 million readers every Sunday. I’m excited to be covering celebrities and editing Walter Scott’s Personality Parade, where people (like you!) can write in to ask Walter a question about your favorite celebs, sports stars, movies, music, books, and pop culture news. I always read that page for celebrity and pop culture tidbits when I was growing up, so I’m looking forward to working on that page now. If you happen to have any questions for Walter, submit them here. We’re always looking for new ones!

After I was offered the position, RJ and I celebrated with a homemade dinner (of pesto gnocchi and crispy kale chips) on those special blue plates that I received at my shower. Exciting!

First meal on our blue plates!

Now that I’ve wrapped up my work on Weight Watchers and am settling into the new position, I’ll be back to blogging regularly (with a minimum of one post per week). Looking forward to being back in touch!

 

An Easy (And Lovely!) Post-Workout Hairdo

Sometimes it’s tough to balance beauty and fitness. I’m always on the lookout for tips and tricks that make managing both easier and I believe this hairstyle is one of them!

For the past few years, I’ve been washing my hair daily. I know, I know… daily washing is terrible for your hair and can make it dry and brittle. But I hate starting my day without clean hair. I’d give the shampoo bottle a break every once in while on a lazy Sunday, but I was washing it almost all other days.

Now, I’ve found a way to give my shampoo and blow dryer a rest, while still liking the way my hair looks. Introducing… the sock bun!

”Hi! I’m a sock bun. Nice to meet ya!”

Here’s what it looks like from the front.

I my find hair stays in place a bit better when it’s unwashed, plus with this style my hair is completely out of my face and looks neat. Best of all, it looks so fancy! I can’t tell you how many compliments I’ve received since I started wearing my hair this way.

Here’s how you do it:

1)   Cut the toe off of a sock and then roll the sock into a bagel shape.

2)   Put your hair in a ponytail and place the sock bagel around the base of the pony.

3)   Extend your ponytail up high and move the sock bagel to the tip of your pony.

4)   Start rolling your hair around the sock bagel.

5)   Continue until you’ve covered the whole sock and have created a full, beautiful bun.

6)   I actually never use bobby pins to secure it, because it stays so well on its own, but you certainly can. I just spritz with hairspray and I’m done!

Here’s a great step-by-step tutorial on this blog, “Dream, Create” here.

I promise that it stays in place all day long, too. My only word of caution is that if you had an intense arm workout that day, your upper arms my be burning by the time you finish your sock bun. For the first few times I tried this, I had to make a couple of attempts to get it right. Combine that with the pull-ups I was working on earlier in the day and I was quite sore!

Do you guys have any other easy and pretty ways to wear your hair post-workout?

The Classiest, Healthiest, and Quite-Possibly Easiest Pizza Recipe Ever!

I love to cook, but one of my absolute favorite recipes to make is this Caramelized Onion and Fig Pizza. It’s satisfying, makes the house smell great, includes the calming quality of chopping onions, and will get compliments every time.

In fact, this is the very first meal that I made for my husband, RJ. For our fourth date, I invited him over to my place for dinner. I needed a recipe that would be delicious (so he could see what a fabulous future wife I’d make), yet I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard. It was a Thursday night after all, so I didn’t have all day to slave away.

I thought this pizza would do the trick. It’s a recipe from Deena Kastor, a marathon runner and Olympic medalist, and was published in Runner’s World. A perfect meal for two dating triathletes! Now, I don’t know if I should give this recipe all of the credit, BUT after we ate, RJ did invite me to meet his parents that weekend. I told you this pizza was good!

Here it is:

Chop two large onions and sauté in a pan with 1 T. olive oil and a dash of salt until translucent. Then, add 1 T brown sugar and 1 T balsamic vinegar and cook for five to 10 minutes.

Perfect start to the recipe – these make the house smell so good!

Roll out whole-wheat pizza dough onto a cookie sheet. You can use store-bought dough, homemade, or do what my mom taught me and pick up dough from a local pizza place. For just three dollars, I have great pizza parlor-quality dough each time.

The dough is saying, “Load me up with those delicious toppings already!”

Load the dough up with the onion mixture, 1 c of fresh arugula (or more. I like a lot.), 6 chopped dried dates, and 4 oz of crumbled goat cheese.

Loaded up and ready for the oven.

Put it in the oven and bake at 450° for 15 minutes. Cut it into six pieces and drizzle each slice with some balsamic vinegar. Viola! You’ll have delicious, healthy pizza that just may land you a husband. (Just kidding… or maybe not!)

Finished! Slice me up, drizzle me with balsamic, and let the compliments roll in!

What are your healthy, yet very-compliment-worthy recipes?

Blue Ribbon Days (or A Genius Way to Celebrate Without Ice Cream Cake)

Now that I’m settling into married life (our wedding was just about two months ago) I’m starting to use all of the great gifts that I received from my shower and wedding. One gift we haven’t used yet, but RJ and I are looking forward to, is a special set of plates that a received from six of my mom’s cousins. The gift was one blue place setting (a mug, plate, salad plate, and bowl) that came in a wicker basket. It included a note that explained that this place setting was for when someone in our family had a “blue ribbon day” and deserved to be recognized and rewarded. I love this idea!

We can’t wait to use these!

It actually reminds me of a Carvel ice cream commercial from a few years ago. In the commercial, it shows a mom surprising her child who got an A on a report card or hit a homerun with an ice cream cake to celebrate. Although I am a HUGE fan of ice cream cake (especially those crunchies!), it’s nice to have a way to reward and celebrate someone that doesn’t involve adding extra sweets or whipped cream to a meal.

What I love about this concept is that it still involves sitting down to eat a meal together, which is very important. It takes what could be an ordinary meal and elevates it to a special status without extra calories and without giving the message that when you accomplish something you need a reward in the form of sugar and icing.

RJ already told me that we will definitely be taking out the blue place setting on the day I get a pull-up. Here’s hoping it’s soon!

Do you have any other ideas for ways to celebrate that don’t involve cake and ice cream (even though I do love those, too!)?