Happenings..

We had a fun and scary night at the Castle of Chaos with Jack and Racheal on Monday. When we took the picture on the left we saw that it almost looked like a lightsaber above Eric's hand. Of course we got excited about that and made the picture on the right happen.

 Did you know Cheesecake factory has other desserts besides cheesecake? Yeah who would have thought.. or cared... except when we went there after the haunted house I wasn't feelin' that dense cheesecake so I ordered a peachy peach smoothie and it was so great, and of course HUGE so I was nice and shared.

 Eric is still holding strong to his end of the deal he made with his friend to go to the gym daily. Lucky me, I have a gym buddy!

I ran 1 mile on Tuesday! The first mile since St. George and it felt great to be running again, but I didn't want to push it since it was just a trial to see if my foot would hurt after. Good news! It didn't hurt so I ran again on Thursday and did 2 miles. Since I haven't had any other pain on my foot this week, I'm going to start running more this week! Yay! No more Pilates! Just kidding, I'll never get sick of doing my 10 minute solutions video.

 My office was given a face lift this week! New flooring and a window. Bring on the light!

(Instagram) Back to my sweatshop yoga class and finally mastered my twig pose!

Happy Fitnessing!

What fitness goal have you accomplished recently?

Favorite smoothie flavor?

Haunted house or haunted corn maze?

Late Night Thoughts

I meant to post this on Tuesday after staying up late Monday night pondering life.
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I need a new goal. A new workout goal that is. Getting out of bed early to workout became twice as hard since I'm not training for any races and don't have any other particular workout goals. I'm thinking I may sign up for a Thanksgiving 10k or something. Before the St G Marathon I thought I wasn't going to want to run again for a while. I still haven't run since the race. My achy foot is starting to feel better since I've rested so much. Maybe the forced rest has caused me to want to run more. It's the whole you want what you can't have kind of deal. I think I'll try running again this week. Other workouts on the menu include spin and yoga...

...same old, same old.

I've been thinking about trying something different like a power pump class or maybe even a kick boxing class, which is something I've never done. Another thing I've never done is committing to a full workout program like Insanity or P90x. Maybe I'll give one of those a shot. 

Which should I try? Insanity or P90x?

Ever ran a race on Thanksgiving? 

Injuries Suck and Lettuce Wraps Don't

Uh, oh. I've got some nasty pain near my right 5th metatarsal.

I started feeling it right after I finished running the Timp half in July and it's been off and on light pain until immediately after I crossed the finish line of the St. George Marathon 10 days ago. Since then the outside of my right foot has ached by the end of the day and anytime I stand or walk for longer than 5 minutes.

Injuries suck but as a runner, it's really hard to avoid them.

I just hope it's not something serious. I should probably get it checked out ASAP. Until I get it figured out it's going to have to just be yoga, pilates and spin for me. I went to Zumba last night and wanted to die after jumping and dancing around for an hour. I knew I shouldn't have done it but I really wanted to hang out with Larissa.

Can we please talk about how cute her little bump is and how I am so proud of her for working out everyday even when she is 7 months pregnant! Go Larissa!

Tonight I made a staple in the Hansen house. Lettuce wraps. I just sauté ground turkey with mushrooms, Tamari, red wine vinegar, and Cholula. I season it with Realsalt, pepper, red pepper flakes, onion salt and ginger powder. Wrap it up in lettuce and toss some avocado on it (because I'm kind of obsessed with those amazing green veggies) and TA-DUH! Dinner!

I've probably mentioned that I hate cooking but this meal is easy and Eric and I both love it! Bonus:: it's a healthy meal too. Yay!

Happy Fitnessing!

Real Talk About Running

The past couple weeks I've been avoiding this place. I had a great run in the canyon a few weeks ago with friends but since then, running has sucked. I really can't narrow down why. I don't know if it's because I'm just tired and overworked or maybe I'm not getting enough nutrition but I have had a few terrible runs lately and an even worse attitude towards running.

A couple Saturdays ago I completely skipped my long run. Just because, and I've never done that before but I really didn't care to wake up at the crack of dawn, especially on a Saturday to do something I had absolutely no motivation for.

This past weekend I ran the Timp Half Marathon and let's just say I had a very different experience from last year. I started too fast and by mile 9 I was struggling to hold my pace. I knew I started too fast within the first few yards but I usually finish a race thinking I started too slow so I just went for it. However, never in a half marathon have I had to STOP running because of exhaustion. By mile 10 I was walking/running and then mile 11 hit me with some nasty sciatic pain that caused me to come to a complete halt. I could not move without a stabbing pain in my lower back. I took a moment to stretch it out and was able to walk again and then run soon after to finish. I felt like I barely finished though and had a somewhat disappointing time of 1:56. ugh. At that point, I was really wishing Eric would have been at the finish line to cheer me up instead of on a scouting campout. Darn.

I really thought I could have done it in under 1:50 but I also think I have been setting unrealistic goal times which only leads to disappointment when I don't meet those goals.

I do this in my training runs too, which is another factor as to why I hate running these days. Lately, I am not able to complete training goals due to exhaustion which makes me feel like a wimp.

I'm not saying you shouldn't challenge yourself but I need to be more realistic in my goal setting. For example instead of saying I wanna finish the St. George Marathon in October under 4:15, I'm switching that goal to finishing in under 4:32, which is under my last marathon time. A great accomplishment I will focus on is finishing in under 4:30. But.. if I finish in under 4:32 that will be fabulous.

It's always hard to remember, but at this point in my running "career" I can only compete with myself. Trying to compete with other runners is only going to upset me when I don't beat them or run more mileage than them. I shouldn't grab my self confidence from the fact that I can run faster or run farther than another runner. Focusing on the mental and physical benefits of running and the personal goals I can accomplish is what is going to keep my relationship with running going strong.

Happy Fitnessing!

Neck Brace.

Yes, that's me, and yes, that is a neck brace.

Yesterday during a dance rehearsal, (dancing in an alumni dance for my old studio next month) I was trying a new lift with one of the other dancers where I was lifting her from off a bench, and in order to make room for her legs, I twisted my head to the left too far. Ooops! Now I look like a freak with this awesome neck brace, but as long as I keep my neck supported it doesn't really hurt. I just hope this injury doesn't conflict with my running........... :/

Speaking of running, another thing I did this weekend was a wonderful 7 mile mind clearing run. I had so much I wanted to get done yesterday and running just seemed to annoy me but I knew I needed to keep progressing with my mileage so I made myself put on my gear and get out the door. By mile 2 I was totally in the zone, making great time and loving everything about life. *Sigh*... it was a great reminder of why I run!

Happy Fitnessing!

Tip From a Body Builder

Right now I am feeling suuuuper happy about the fact that I can wiggle all my toes! That means my little toe is almost all better. It still looks a little bruised but that should go away soon. I feel like I might be able to run this weekend! We'll see. I have been able to do everything else this week... spin, yoga, pilates and zumba, but I wanna run! :)

I wanted to share a little tip I picked up from a friend's blog on food prep. She is pretty amazing. A mom of two and training for a body building competition. She is very strict about her diet but has made it easy to maintain because of all the food prep she does. The past month I have been practicing this whole food prep thing and it has worked out really well! Each week I will cook a couple chicken breast in the crock pot, shred that up and store it in the fridge. Separately I will cook a cup or two of short brown rice (organic and soaked in water the night before to reduce acidity) and store that in the fridge as well. BTW- I don't have a rice cooker but I found this recipe and it works like a charm. This is just a small part of what Nikki does but I am taking it one step at a time. It is so nice to have these two staples in the fridge during the week. There are so many different things you can do with chicken and rice! I also make sure to keep lots of veggies around as well to mix in with them if I want to kick things up a notch. :)

The chicken I use.

Top: Chicken and rice with avocados and red peppers. Bottom: With red peppers and green peas

Top: With avocado, sauteed yellow squash and a hint of fresh Parmesan cheese. Bottom: With grapes :)

Thank you for the tip Nikki!

Happy Fitnessing!

Tuesday Tip #5

About halfway through my run yesterday at a neighborhood track I needed to take a pit stop so I hurried back home only to discover that I was completely locked out! Oh no... I proceeded to try to break in and I won't go into the details but just know I ended up with a bruised and swollen toe.

Ah! In that moment I thought all hope was lost and I would never run again, like I was going to be paralyzed or something. I tend to be a bit dramatic, but I really was depressed because I could barely stand up and it was only an injured toe! After lots of ice, elevation and sleep I woke up feeling better but the toe was still swollen. The swelling has gone down throughout today and I am really hoping it continues to heal quickly. I want to run!

I came across this article from runnersworld.com back when I injured my IT band a few months ago and found it very helpful to know what to eat when injured and to prevent further injury. I looked it up again today and it made me feel a little better. Take a look and consider it my "Tuesday Tip." What the real tip should be is... just because you saw Aaron Cross jump from high ground in The Bourne Legacy this weekend doesn't mean you too are capable of those moves without injury.


Happy Fitnessing!