Welcome!
Hey there! I'm Holly. A 40+ year old insurance-nerd wife, mom, beauty lover, and about a million other things in between.
This is the place where I share about our lives, what I'm currently loving, books I'm reading, plus-size style, beauty recommendations, health + fitness endeavors and anything else I'm finding interesting at the moment.
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Search Results for: CrossFit Games Open
March Progress Report + April Intentions
It’s going to be April, you all! Where the heck is the time going? We are a quarter of the way through the year and I’m all of sudden feeling like there is quite a bit left to do! Ah well…that’s why I make lists!
In February I kicked ass at work but felt a little out of balance. I wanted March to be more fun. In the end, I’m happy to report that this was pretty easy to accomplish! March was full of relaxation and doing things just because I felt like it. I always fear that if I allow myself to only do what I feel like, nothing will get done. But do you know what the weird part is? I got a metric ton of work done on my 2012 Goals WITHOUT REALLY FEELING LIKE I WAS TRYING. Funny how that works. There’s a lesson in there somewhere and I think the lesson is going to sound a lot like “Follow your passions and the rewards will come.”
I get it…but it’s still a bit of a struggle.
I read A LOT of books in the bathtub this past month — my bathroom might officially be my favorite room in our house! I’ll be telling you all about what I read next week — lots of good ones actually — but I’m most excited about this victory because if you’ve been around here the last two months, you know that reading has been sorely missing from my daily routine.
I also worked out with abandon! More than 20 times in March despite the fact that we had weekends full of wine tasting, Girls Night’s with my mom, and dinner parties with my family to throw and life to live! Fitness-wise, I challenged myself this month by participating in the CrossFit Games Open. I have a lot to say about that, so I will probably do so in another post. But rest assured it was a blast and I’m so glad I did it!
I made a lot of progress this month towards getting that first unassisted pullup (June is the goal date! I’m gonna make this happen) and I started doing regular push ups in WODs (aka, not on my knees.) There’s no going back now — and my knees are going to be so happy that I’m no longer doing scaled push ups this spring because: Dresses + Town Whore Knees = Not A Good Look For Me. 🙂
Speaking of dresses — I bought a bunch of new ones and now I am so ready for spring it is silly! (Wear dresses everyday for a week is on my Spring Bucket List, so I’m sure I will show them to you sometime soon. Dresses make me so damn happy!) The weather was FINALLY nice enough for me to wear this dress yesterday and man, I still love it! I think I need to figure out some new ways to style it because I want to wear it every freaking day!
One of the things I’m looking most forward to this spring (aside from new clothes) is some of the places we are going. We solidified some travel plans this month and I’m excited about all of them! In a couple of weeks we are going to Portland — it will be both of our first times so if you have any recommendations of things to see or do, wait scratch that — recos on WHERE TO EAT (ha!) please let me know in the comments! We are excited to be heading up there (it’s one part work, one part play) and it should be a great time. We also ironed out the details of our long Sonoma weekend — both of which are on the Dream Travel List this year. I seriously can’t wait! And finally, for Garrett’s birthday the plan right now is to try and make it out to New Mexico to see his parents. I really would like to make that happen because we had so much fun out there last year.
March also had me switching up our meal planning a bit. We did a stint with some Zone/Paleo for about a month and while we definitely noted some positive changes, it came at the expense of my creativity in the kitchen. But I’m not giving up just yet. I’m taking the things I loved most from Zone (smaller portions, more balanced meals, kick ass food prep) and incorporating that with some of our Paleo passions (meal planning, not eating as much dairy, not having a “cheat day” — can you believe I didn’t enjoy the cheat day? WHO AM I?) My passion for cooking things just isn’t worth giving up! Not even for weight loss, so we’ll see if we can bring back some kitchen creativity and still get to my goals. Remember what I said in the beginning of this post about following your passions? I think I’m going to take that approach with my weight loss strategy!
Last but not least, I took the first steps to making my Summer Garden happen for 2012.
I seeded my tomatoes a little late, but they don’t seem any worse for the wear. I’m getting ready to cut them back and maybe put them outside to harden. Can we all say a little collective prayer that I don’t kill them in the process? Pretty please? I can’t even tell you how excited I am to have fresh tomatoes and squash and who knows what else all summer long! Best part of the season last year, hands down. YUM!
So with all of that said…
Intentions for April:
*Trash the scale, continue to CrossFit for the joy it brings to your life
*Run a 5K just for fun (Local peeps, want to come? It’s such a good cause!)
*Get back to planning some good looking menus
*Travel and document the hell out of it (Yep, I haven’t forgotten about Project Life! I’ll have an update for you in April.)
*I may even do a Week in the Life Album this month. We’ll see!
*Wear some dresses, enjoy the weather
*Get the garden in the ground
Low pressure.
I think I’m enjoying this strategy, so why not keep it going. Let my goals bloom at their own pace. It’ll happen when it happens!
These Are My Confessions – Volume Three
1. I am drinking way too much coffee. Like, there is an amount that I drink that I freely admit is *too much* and I’m probably drinking a cup on top of that.
2. I am a little bit sad that the CrossFit Games Open is over (finished wod 12.5 this morning — more to come on that soon) but mostly just excited not to feel the anxiety about what the workout is every Wednesday night. Even though as a competitor my scores weren’t SUPER helpful to my box, I still made myself anxious thinking about it every week.
3. I am kind of in love with Fashion Star. Even though Jessica Simpson is a dummy and Nicole Richie is always someone I thought was obnoxious, it is fun television and the two of them are totally engaging.
4. I am counting the minutes until Friday. THE MINUTES. I’m not always the most productive when I’m doing this, ahem.
5. I haven’t watched ANY of the most recent season of Downton Abbey. I KNOW, right? They are all sitting on my DVR and I *want* to watch them, but it’s so many and I’m just not feeling like sitting in front of the tv lately. I should be fired from the internet. (While we’re at it I should probably also be fired for not loving Mumford & Sons or Lana del Rey. Both of them make me actually roll my eyes when I hear them. It’s an involuntary response.)
6. On the other hand I have ignored all of the following things in order to read recently: my laundry, paying bills, swiffering our awfully dusty floors, cooking dinner, and of course Garrett. IGNORED!
7. I may have eaten 2 string cheeses last night, mindlessly and standing right in front of the refrigerator. What is in those, man? Crack?
8. If you could see the amount of fingerprints on my glasses right now, you would wonder how I ever made it into adulthood.
9. I totally feed the neighbor’s cat even though Garrett always says not to. You guys IT IS SO CUTE! And I’m not feeding it tons of extra food or anything, but sometimes just maybe a little morsel of something. And yep, it keeps coming back. What can I say — food is an act of love! And I love this fluffy little orange cat.
10. I sort of feel like waiting until Hunger Games comes to Netflix. Does that make the World’s Worst Fan? Eh..it probably just makes me an old person who doesn’t like to sit in crowded theaters anymore.
Where’s my cane? Kids, get off my lawn!
🙂
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So what do you want to confess? You’ll feel better, I promise. I’m all ears.
Getting into The Zone
So I’m sure there are a million stupid puns and titles that I can use when blogging about my adventures with The Zone Diet, but I promise you I will try to go easy on those. I just wanted to pop in to let you know how the first full week went.
Preeeeeeeeeeeeetty good.
Well at least okay.
I mean it was cool most of the time.
Ack. There is not an easy phrase that will sum up how we did.
How about this: We survived and we are forging onward! That makes it sound like a grand adventure, yes? Let’s go with that.
Grand Adventure: Week One
I will be honest with you, it was an adjustment. About 3 hours into Day One I shot this video over to Larry (my trainer extraordinaire who is being our cheerleader on this Grand! Adventure!)
But honestly, then I had lunch and I was fine. When I weighed out my first portion of protein on that first day, I was fairly sure I was going to die of starvation. But what do you know — I did not! And I did not feel hungry at all the rest of the week. My fears — unrealized? So that was pretty great. And one of the upsides was that I not only felt satisfied, but light on my feet. That’s a good feeling.
It was not all sunshine and roses though. Weighing your food is a giant pain in the ass, folks! You will not hear me glossing over that. It blows. But everyone said that after the first week you will feel more comfortable doing that, and yesterday I realized if I am going to do something that sucks, instead of doing it 3 times a day I’m going to do it for 2 hours straight while listening to Lil Wayne and shaking my ass. So I did a little food prep WOD with my scale and measuring cup and actually it was kind of a blast. And this morning when I woke up, I was so happy to not even have to think about what I was going to eat.
Now my fridge looks like this and we have many (perfectly portioned) things to eat for breakfast and lunch:
It may not be the prettiest my fridge has ever looked — a food stylist, I am not! — but I don’t have to really THINK about weighing and measuring anything for a while. And that makes my heart go pitter pat.
On the menu this week:
Breakfasts
Sweet Potato Hash // Hard Boiled Eggs // String Cheese // Olives
Cottage Cheese with Berries + Canteloupe + Slivered Almonds
Lunches
Holy Hell we are having a lot of SALAD!
But I love salad, so I’m okay with this. Salad, salad, salad. YUM! It makes me excited about my little tomato seedlings growing strong in my kitchen. I’m ready for the summer garden!
Dinners
To Be Determined
The reason I am leaving dinners open (well sort of open, they will be comprised of chicken, turkey or ground beef) was that one of the things I struggled with last week was the feeling of having no creativity in the kitchen. And you know I freaking LOVE TO COOK. So that was a bummer.
But I decided since Breakfast and Lunch are basically taken care of all week, I am going to try and get a little more creative with dinner. New spice rubs, some more fun techniques — just be a little more “ME” in the kitchen now that I have my bearings about me. And if I have to measure that a little at night, I’m ok.
Oh, Shall We Talk Results?
Both of us felt notably lighter and better all week. The forced portion control actually worked well in that we didn’t feel hungry but very…I don’t know…more light and efficient.
At the end of the week, I was down almost 3 lbs, which ruled! I did weigh myself mid-week though (I couldn’t resist) and had gained 3 lbs and let me tell you I almost threw in the towel right then and there. But we all know the scale is a stupid stupid stupid metric for something like this. Do you struggle with Scale Addiction too? Please go read this then. I needed to hear it this morning! I may have Garrett hide the scale in April. Who knows? haha
Also I hit some PRs in the gym, so that was fun. This week’s CrossFit Games Open WOD was basically all heavy lifting (which I have not been focusing on for about 2 months) and so it felt nice to perform pretty well. I threw 100 lbs up over my head and HEY-O, I actually caught it a few times. Sweet. I’ll take it.
I feel like it was a great idea to combine trying Zone while the CrossFit Games Open is going on, because it gives me some motivation to stick to it in hopes that it will help me perform my best. My best certainly isn’t going to win any gold medals, but damn if I want to do it all the same! Anyway, there were highs and lows, but I feel even more equipped this week so I am running with it.
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What kind of Grand Adventures did you have this week, folks?
A Little of This…
I workout on Monday nights at 5pm. Then I hit up the Tuesday morning class at 5 AM, thus working out twice in twelve hours which honestly, sounds a lot worse than it is. Then I don’t workout again until Wednesday at 5pm which ends up giving me an entire day and a half off which feels like a rest day, even though I’m still getting in 3 workouts in 3 days. The efficiency of this makes me absolutely FULL OF GLEE! You are probably shaking your head right now thinking that I am one card short of a full deck but that’s ok — I take my glee where I can get it. Every once in a while though I do think about this line in an old Mimi Smartypants post and get a chuckle.
I enjoy making lists and spreadsheets and plans of attack, but I can get a little obsessed with efficiency. When things get really bad I realize that I am not only multitasking, but mentally rerouting my actual steps to maximize my efforts (I will take the laundry downstairs and bring X and Y on the way, that will save me a trip, blah blah blah). There is no prize for doing everything correctly, you know? At the end, we’re all just dead, no matter how sensibly and rationally we complete our activities of daily living.
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Oh, speaking of Workouts, I made this early this morning. Yes, that is my CrossFit Games competitor profile. Now don’t everyone start laughing at once. I feel kind of dumb mentioning it, but I’m pretty sure I’ve told you more embarrassing things, so hey.
Anyone can participate in the CrossFit Games Open and lots of people at my box are playing along so we are all being encouraged to sign up just to build up camaraderie in the box and to have the experience of participating. I waited until the last possible minute because I kept telling myself I had no business doing it because I’m not one of The Best Athletes in the Box, and then this morning I just decided what the hell! It will be fun to see how I stack up against other athletes participating (If I can even do all of the workouts at all.) So I’m doing it. Whatever.
(But secretly, I’m a little nervous even though it’s NO BIG DEAL.)
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I’ve been basically obsessed with reading Ready Player One for a bit (albeit slowly since my reading time this month has still been in short supply) but all the silly gaming and movie references have me wanting to lock myself in my house and watch terrible 80s movies. For a silly bit of nostalgia Garrett and I procured The Wizard the other day and I can’t wait to pop that bad boy in. I loved that movie back in the day! Also I’m pretty sure I spent the 80s wanting to BE Jenny Lewis, which frankly is not that far from how I feel today. HELLO?? She is freaking adorable!
You know Troop Beverly Hills is next on the docket, right? Well, that or Ladyhawke.
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Speaking of movies, I have EPICALLY failed at watching the Oscar contenders. This is why I am vowing that March will be the Month of Fun! I have spent a lot of time in January and February being productive and efficient, but you know what: EVERYBODY DIES AT THE END and there is no extra credit for being productive every god damn day. So March: Month of Fun!!! And do you know what is getting me all riled up about that? Making my Spring Bucket List.
There will be brunches.
There will be wine tasting picnics with friends.
There will be Theater Tickets.
There will be creativity.
There will be dress buying.
There will be Trail Runs.
There will be reading.
There will be PRs in the gym.
There will be self-tanner experimentation (HA!)
There will be awesome Paleo cooking.
There will be a Plan of Attack to lose THE FINAL FORTY. (Yep, I’m only 40 lbs away from the lightest I’ve ever been in my adult life. Could you die? I could die.)
And more importantly I will get back to posting some fun stuff around here that isn’t just me blabbering about many unrelated things at once. But I love you all indulge me in that anyway.
What are you looking forward to doing this Spring? My bucket list isn’t set in stone yet. I’m down to hear some suggestions!
The Week In Workouts
Another Monday here and another week to get in some good workouts. I need a clean slate after last week’s ups and downs with respect to gym time. To obtain better results you cn combine the workout with natural testosterone boosters.
Here’s how it shook out:
Monday
LIFT
Snatch: Spend 15 minutes working up to a heavy 1 rm – I worked up to 110 lbs and it’s like I have a mental breakdown afterward. It’s all in my head that I can’t catch 115 and beyond, so I’m going to work on that, dang it!
Then: 3 x 3 of Overhead Squats @ 50% of that weight with a 3 second pause at the bottom
METCON
For Time…
15 Snatch* (Rx’d was 95lbs. I scaled to 75lbs)
30 push-ups
400m run
10 Snatch
20 push-ups
400m run
5 Snatch
10 push-ups
Despite the fact that I don’t love running, I really loved this workout! It was challenging in all the best ways.
Tuesday
LIFT
Clean & Jerk
Take 15 min and build to a heavy 1RM, then
3Ă—3 Front Squat @ 50% of C&J w/3 second pause at the bottom of each rep
I ended up with a 1 RM of 155lbs on my clean and jerk, which I think is a new PR. It felt dang heavy, so I’ll take it. I’m also having a love affair with front squats lately. Maybe this sounds weird, but they are seriously THE BEST ab exercise. Heavier front squats always make me feel like I did a billion situps the next day.
3 Rounds For Time:
20 T2B (scaled)
30 KB Swings (53 lbs)
40 Double Unders
I broke in my new jump rope on this workout (I know, it’s obnoxious) and enjoyed myself.
Wednesday
Rest!
Thursday
Still Resting! Actually, I had planned to go to the gym this evening but Garrett ended up getting some good news at work and I was feeling celebratory, so we stayed home and cooked steaks and drank cider on the patio.
Friday
Ok, now I was just being lazy. This is what happens to me when I take a couple days off in a row. Someone asked me last week how many days I’d like to be crossfitting, and the answer to that varies. But mostly I can say this: I like to be active 6 days a week with 1 day of just complete rest. In my ideal world I’d CrossFit 4-5 days per week, do yoga 1-2 days per week (a mix of bikram, vinyasa or yin — depending on what is calling to me), and then do something active and outside 1 day on the weekend like take my dog for a longer walk or run or something. So that is my overall goal. It keeps me feeling alive, happy, energized and engaged. When I skip a few too many workouts I start to feel lethargic and then sort of fall headfirst into a bag of sweet potato chips on the couch — which is sort of what happened this weekend.
OBVIOUSLY I did not make that workout goal this week. 🙂
Saturday
Over the weekend I did this workout with a 53lb kettlebell because that is the only size we have at homoe (OOF!) and it was super quick and fun. Neghar’s You Tube Channel is awesome.
Garrett actually went to open gym (I couldn’t drag myself because I was SO DANG TIRED from the week, and he re-did Workout 14.4. Crazy person! He got 16 more reps though so he was pretty proud of himself. )
Sunday
On Sunday the beasty got a nice long walk, and then I ate a lot of sweet potato chips on the couch. We were both pretty thrilled.
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And that’s how this week shaped up! Any PRs or awesome workouts for you?
Fun Things To Read On A Friday
Well would you look at that! It’s Friday. 1/7th of your life is a Friday — so hey, that’s pretty rad.
Any exciting weekend plans? I have a lot of errands to run this weekend so I anticipate being really productive but also getting out into the sun as much as possible. It’s going to be in the 80s this weekend (SORRY/NOT SORRY) and something about that just makes me feel much more excited about being out and about and getting things done. Also, there will be eating dinner outside FOR SURE.
I’m heading to the gym tonight to do workout 14.3 (let’s just get this over with! LOL Did any of you do it already? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS) and then tomorrow we’ll be cheering on our friends doing it as well (feeling much more relaxed I’m sure.) And beyond that, not too much planned besides taking Buster to the park and just laying low.
But enough about all that chatter, how about some links?
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*Interesting perspective for the Fitbit Obsessed.
*If you are reading this post and thinking, “This doesn’t apply to me — I never lie,” you are probably lying to yourself: The Surprising Cost of Telling Small Lies
*Recipes I’d RULLY like to make: Grain Free Orange Scones, Spicy Roasted Cauliflower with Garlic Aioli, Cinnamon French Toast Panna Cotta,
*Good advice on loving the body you have.
*This is seriously the best book list I’ve ever read.
*A fun roundup of necessary CrossFit gear — I definitely second most of these. (And that double under thing looks pretty interesting if you are still trying to master them.)
*Stuffocation? Hmmm…that’s an interesting concept.
*No truer words have ever been spoken: “Never live anywhere without a bathtub. That would be like losing god’s phone number.”
*Need a week of meal ideas? Well here you go!
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Hope you enjoy your weekend, wherever it takes you!
2012: Year In Review
I’ve been a little moody these days, mostly because I’ve been shoving my face with sugar and awful-but-delicious treats, and I keep saying overly dramatic things like “WHAT DOES IT ALLLLLLL MEEEEEEEEAAAAAAN?” Well, okay, I’m not being that dramatic, but I have felt prone to reflect on how fast 2012 went by, which of course means I wonder if I actually accomplished anything.
The truth is: This has been a BIG year for me.
I forced myself to think back and really wrap my brain around all the great stuff that has happened, and I am so SO happy that I did. Any sugar related melancholy has all but been replaced by a feeling of extreme gratitude for everything I have packed in to the last 350+ days. 2012 has was a year full of challenges, surprises, accomplishments and most importantly SO MUCH FUN, so I thought I’d share some of the best moments.
Despite getting off to a somewhat embarrassing start, I still have so much love for this phone. I can’t imagine how I ever lived without it. Frankly it made this entire post possible, because every single photo was taken with it.
I stepped out of my comfort zone and participated in a local filmmaker’s project about Paleo. But what if I sounded stupid? But what if I looked lame? But what if my house isn’t decorated right or clean enough? But what if I have no idea what I’m talking about? But what if I just TRIED IT AND SAW WHAT HAPPENED? And what happened was I met some great folks and clarified my commitment to share my own story whenever the opportunity arose.
We took a road trip to visit one of my BFFs in February and had such a wonderful time. It was an epic weekend, actually and probably needs to happen again soon. Time spent with good friends is always worth the investment.
This book was the most entertaining, adventurous, when-can-I-get-back-to-it, page-turning book I read this year. It wasn’t life changing, but it was just so much fun!
I’m so grateful that Garrett + I continued CrossFit this year. Not only has it been great for both of us individually, but it strengthened our relationship during a really tough year. Having hobbies that we enjoy together is something I hope we continue for the rest of our lives.
We went to a number of weddings this year and enjoyed them all, but for Garrett this was the first year he has ever been a Best Man and he completely nailed it, giving a loving and heartfelt speech for his best friend and his awesome wife.
Portland was everything and nothing like we expected. It was the first real ADVENTURE we took all year and if you remember, we ate our way through that city.
Always say yes to pink pants. I can’t really recommend that enough.
The drink that got me through the summer this year had some surprisingly refreshing ingredients and wasn’t a million calories. WIN!
One of the things that blogging has brought me is an awesome group of local lady friends who I might never have met otherwise. This year we all made an effort to regularly get together for brunch, booze and gossip and it is something I feel so grateful for. Smart, supportive lady-friends? There’s not too much better than that.
We took a hike down in Marin County with friends and the view from the top was completely worth it to our weary legs. Getting outside to exercise was something Garrett + I did more this year than any other year and it was AWESOME. This will be continued.
We spent a summer weekend up in Lake Tahoe cheering on our athletes from our CrossFit box at a fun competition. Even though I’m just there taking pictures and screaming loudly, I always feel inspired when I leave a competitive event. I’m not in a season of life where competing is something I could do, but I’ll tell you what, it reminds me that I can always push myself a little harder and get a little better result.
We had a ton of fun celebrating the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games (GEEK OUT!) with traditional British pub food. We cooked up some Scotch Eggs and some Shepherd’s Pie and cheered on Team USA this summer.
I had been Paleo for 2 years before reading this book yet I found it so packed full of useful information I have now read it more than once. It also gave us the courage this year to try our first Whole 30 in August, which has (no exaggeration) been life changing. During our next Whole 30 I plan to share some of the nuggets that were the most illuminating to me after all this time, but if you are on the fence about picking this up: DO IT! I think knowing the WHYs behind the Whole 30 are really important for success.
This year we only planted a summer garden and even that didn’t do too great. We did end up with a lot of late season tomatoes though, so it wasn’t a total bust. I promise this every year, but I mean it this time: 2013 will be the year of multiple gardening seasons! Mark my word!
Um…you knew Buster would show up, right? I mean, obviously. The way Buster came into our lives is one of the many things that happened this year that felt like divine intervention. There’s really not much else to say about our days with Buster except that they have truly, so far, been THE BEST.
(Original Photo Credit: Dave Humphreys)
About 5 years ago I heard a woman speak about how veganism had transformed her life. Her passion was absolutely contagious and despite veganism ultimately not being the path for me, I remember thinking, “How awesome of a job would it be to get paid to speak from your heart about something so transformative?” This year I got to do exactly that, and while I was up in the gorgeous mountains of Colorado I realized that I had manifested something that had once been a fleeting “I wish” thought into Actual Real Life. That was one of the more powerful moments of my year. To everyone who organized, participated, attended or supported that event, I thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart.
The older I get, the more committed I become to having experiences than having things. My ideal day out? Good company, a good meal, good wine and absolutely nowhere to be. I turned 34 this year, and despite the back and forth that is constantly happening in my brain of “are you doing enough?” (which at this point is just background noise :)) I am by far the happiest I have ever been. My 30s have been good so far.
I have put a lot of pressure on myself at the end of the year because I keep feeling like I didn’t make any huge fitness strides. And then I remind myself YOU RAN YOUR FIRST HALF MARATHON, you idiot! How quickly we forget. I am really proud of that accomplishment, but more important than crossing the finish line, I feel like it opened up a whole new world of fitness to me. I have to remind myself that you can not be the fastest runner, heaviest lifter, best business woman, most amazing girlfriend/daughter/family member, awesomest house cleaner and most creative genius ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Everything has its season. The end of this year was for my running goals and for some recovery. Can’t wait to see what next year holds, fitness-wise.
My Facebook feed is sure glad that election is over.
I think that picture says enough. 🙂
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I want to thank each and every one of you who take the time to keep up with this site. The fact that you come back here to read, offer advice, interact, or share a laugh is a huge gift in my life and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t feel grateful for the opportunity to share here. I wish you all a wonderful and safe holiday, and I can’t wait to see what 2013 brings for all of us!
Thank you for being here.
