vacay recap

Yay vacay! I love Martha's Vineyard with all my heart. I always feel like the luckiest person on earth when I am there. I know that is silly, but life is all about simple abundance, and I am so grateful for little things.

So the post is most just some photos, first fun and then a tiny bit on food and fitness!



Menemsha, I think rocks are gorgeous!

On the bike ride to Edgartown, you can kind of see the parasailer! (17 miles of biking that day.)

Morning in Oak Bluffs at the Inkwell More Menemsha

I didn't think I would ever post a photo like this, but I decided to join the bloggers in bikinis bandwagon.

On the ferry!





With the girls! My summer on the vineyard a few years back was literally the craziest time of my life. Even despite working 7 days a week and at least 3 nights a week, I really lived it up. I could never every handle that level of partying, competitive drinking and general debauchery again. But I am so glad I have the memories and stories, especially as I feel that I missed out on a lot of that going to school in the city.

Gingerbread Houses in Cottage City. Just my size.
Being a preppy poser on OB Harbor.

Beadniks..my beading house of worship.
Made myself a couple bracelets and a necklace. This place is AMAZING!

And Food and Fitness

Reading some blogs, pre-run!
Post run snack. The peanut butter clif bar is way better than the book!!!! Full reviews to come!
Post run stretch!

Okay, so I definitely have a lot of favorite cape and vineyard places to eat and foods I love. It was hard to pack a summer's worth into 6 days, but I did my best!

This is my annual (well it's been a few years now) calzone from Craigsville Pizza and Mexican. Spinach, eggplant, onion, garlic and broccoli.
Yup, every bit as excited to eat it as I look.

Mad Martha's ice cream. One of many ice cream place traditions. This one is sinful chocolate and oreo fro yo. I also managed to consume coffee caramel chip ice cream, twist soft serve, black raspberry chip ice cream, and lots of dough ice cream in that short time span!

Seafood chowder on menemsha harbor. Not as good as the Quarter Deck...I guess there isn't pure cream and butter!

Obviously, I ate (and drank) a lot lot more on the trip. But I didn't think to take photos. Some highlights included the unbelievable Tree Hugger Sandwich from Humphrey's...on their amazing 2 inch thick slices of doughy yet crusty bread. Coffee from Mocha Mott's. And a very late night Back door donut, so soft, fresh, melt in your mouth and warm from the oven. I normally really dislike donuts, but stumbling up to the back door of a bakery in an alley way when everything else on the island is closed is fun to miss.

It was pretty much all indulgence all the time, but worth it for sure. And shockingly the scale didn't reflect all the ice cream and other goodies, leaving me officially perplexed!

So sad to say goodbye!

Playlist of the Week: Girl Power

Sometimes you need a little girl power boost, these are some classics that really get me going! Clearly I have trouble picking one song per artist...so the choice is yours.

Enjoy! I'll be back on Thursday. HLD :)

All for You-Janet Jackson

Everybody-Britney Spears (this one always gets me moving, but all Britney is top notch workout music, Over Protected, My Prerogative, Toy Solider, take your pick.)

Lose Control-Missy Elliott

Dirty-Christina Aguilera

Suddenly I See-KT Tundstall

Shut Up and Drive-Rhianna

Fergilicious-Fergie

Buttons-Pussy Cat Dolls (or When I Grow Up or Wait a Minute or Don't Cha :))

Soak Up the Sun-Sheryl Crow

Disturbia-Rihanna

7 Things-Miley Cyrus

1,2 Step-Ciara

Get Me Bodied/Crazy in Love/Bills-Beyonce

Bounce with Me-Kreesha Turner

Hips Don't Lie-Shakira

Walk Away-Kelly Clarkson

Weekly Workout Wrap Up

Hi Everyone!

This is going to be quick because I want to get to the beach!

Monday: 30 minute elliptical, 10 minute rower+full body strength workout

2 sets of 12
-lunges with over head presses
-plie squat with upright row
-back lunges with curls
-squat and tricep extension
-leg press, in wide, legs together, plie and calve raise positions
-ad ductor abductor machine
and
-lots of abs: ball crunches, reverse ball crunches alternating push up and reverse crunch, planks, and crunches on incline bench

Tuesday: 30/60/90 Workout and 25 minutes on elliptical
Wednesday: 2 mile walk to work, 5 mile tempo run
Thursday: 20 minute elliptical and 10 on rower, ran out of time!
Friday: 3.5 mile run @ tempo pace because I had to fit it in before we hit the road, my parents would definitely leave without me!)
1 hour beach walk
Sat: 6.3 mile run and beach sprints (2 minutes x 4)
Sun: 10 mile run
2 hour kayak and mini golf planned

The run was really rough, I had to call in the big guns: Advice from my friend and stellar runner, Greg, "when I run and it's hard, all I think about is the next step. When it's really hard, I run harder to get beyond the pain." A bit extreme, but breaking it down to the next steps makes running manageable.

10 % of my less than fabulous feeling run was due to too much running. I almost never run 2 days in a row or more than 3 days a week, even when marathon training. For a couple reasons, a-I get bored of it
b-I have never been injured and I never want to be. Running is really hard on the body, so I am happy to integrate spinning, elliptical and classes into my workout regimen to maintain fitness and give my body a break from running. No more running for at least 2 days!

The other 90% was because when I woke up my ipod would turn on but the screen was completely white. WFT?!!!!!!!!!!! So it was basically like a giant shuffle, which is no good when you have random stuff like, Now That's What I Call Christmas on your ipod.

So I had a hard time getting past my ipod heartbreak. I am more obsessed with my ipod than is logical; I go no where without it. I heart it beyond words. And I do not want to replace it! Okay, sorry for the rant, but let's just say this was not me:

Long Run Lost

Sorry for no post yesterday, it took me a bit to get my wireless configured!

I will put a few links to things that I found interesting this week. I was planning to do some research on fitness tech, the Garmin, Polar watches, Nike Sport Band, etc. Because as much as I love the no frills aspect of waking up, foot to the floor and out the door, I think I should step it up a bit. I don't even have an armband for my nano! So suggestions or questions appreciated, I will be doing some research, possibly purchasing, and posting more about heart rate monitors, running watches, and running tech next week.

The one thing I will suggest buying is a portable ipod charger. I bought a Griffin charger last year to have in Europe, the thing is great. It charges fast and the charge seems to last longer than plugging my ipod into the computer. I keep mine at work, so I can charge during the day.

Today I planned to do my long run. I didn't want to bring my phone because it's too heavy. I thought about bringing my parents phone, but it quickly became apparent that in the case of emergency they could not be trusted to operate my blackberry properly.

So I decided to take my route map and $20. I figured I could resort to lying on the ground, flailing, screaming and causing a general scene to attract help if need be.

So I took off, I am fairly directionally challenged and always more nervous in unknown zones, but the route was beautiful. About 3 miles in I realized I had made a wrong turn, so I could go back and add a couple miles to my run or continue on my route for a 6.3 mile run and do my long run tomorrow (After I practice the route in the car, hindsight, love it.). I decided to do the former. When I got back to the hotel, I grabbed a bottle of water and did some beach sprints for good measure. Nothing gets your legs in shape faster than running on soft sand!

So my run was 6.3 fairly slow miles and 4 beach sprints @ 2minutes each with 30 seconds rest in between. I did the sprints listening to Hunger for the Great Light by DMB, which I have taken to listening to on repeat and Check Yes Juliet by We the Kings.

Tomorrow I have my 10 miles run on the agenda. In addition, my parents who are more active than any 60 somethings I have ever met in my life, have their own 6 mile walk planned, 2 hours of kayaking and some minigolf (which they take as seriously as Sunday Communion). So I will definitely do some kayaking and golfing too.

Here are just a couple links that I found interesting this week:

Internet Things I Don't Understand (Funny!!!!)

Love Food to End Emotional Eating

This bodysuit from American Apparel. I can't believe I would ever consider wearing a body suit (although I had several in 4th grade), but Rumi from Fashion Toast rocks this one. I actually went to American Apparel for the first time this week just to check it out. :)

Fashion 101: Your 10 Piece Foundation Wardrobe (curiously no bodysuit included :))
Wishing you sunshine on your long weekend.

Fitness Finds of the Week

Fitness Deals of the Week

Yoga is great because there is never a lack of free classes and great deals.

Check out any of these places for your daily meditation totally gratis:
Yoga for the People-free
Chelsea’s Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center
Integral Yoga Institute
Atmananda Yoga Sequence
For more info about all of the above check out this great article

This happens to be national Yoga Month, so Yoga Festivals are going on in cities across the country. Check out the website for more info. On Sept. 7th the festival will kick off in NYC, unlimited classes all day for $39 or one for $25. Bootcamp for Goddesses and Hip-Hop Asana jump out at me as looking pretty great.

If you want a little zen in your life but your find downward dog more stressful than soothing, check out these ideas for creating a calming cube.

Yummy “Healthy” Food of the week: Whole Wheat Edamamme Steamed Dumplings at Rickshaw. These replaced the no-so-good tofu dumplings. They are really yummy and super filling. You get a choice of soup or salad with six dumplings. I recommend subbing the peanut sate salad for the lemon sansho salad. Fun fitness ideas to try:

Outdoor Adventures-Hiking totally renewed my love of hiking. I actually like it more than I remember liking it in Girl Scouting. Maybe that’s because I no longer expend all my energy singing GS songs at the top of my lungs and running from bears that are THIS BIG!

I thought no one hiked in the city--we just aren't outdoorsy folk :(, but I did some serious asking and googling and found out there are a lot of groups that plan outdoor adventures, hiking, back packing, camping, white water rafting, climbing, etc.

Here are a few organization that plan group out-of-doors activities. They all have branches in other cities too.

Outdoor Bound

Meet Market Adventures

Urban Escapes

That’s it for this edition!

Just FYI, I will be away until September 3rd. While I am on Cape Cod, I will have wireless in my hotel, so I will do my best to get my butt off the beach and keep blogging. When I am on Island (Martha’s Vineyard) at the beginning of next week, I won’t be able to blog. I like to completely unplug from all technology when I am in my little island retreat.

Just in case something crazy happens and I can’t blog at all, have a GREAT Labor Day weekend!

Marathon Training: The Plan

Today I am doing the infamous TEMPO run!



For anyone who is new to running/training, a tempo run is a run that is comfortably hard and done for an extended period of time. In other words, running at a pace you feel your RPE to be at 6-7, so it's not easy to be a chatty kathy, but it is a pace you can sustain for several miles.


The tempo run serves several purposes:


-improves endurance
-improves speed
-increases your lactate threshold, more info about that here
-running at a fairly high intensity is great for weight and body-fat loss and sustained metabolic burn


So my run today will be from work downtown across the Brooklyn Bridge and back. A total of 4.75 miles. This is a fairly ideal distance for a tempo run. I am not a fan of pushing myself hard, I just love to stay in my comfort zone, but that is not going to get me faster, stronger or leaner, so a runner's gotta do, what a runner's gotta do.


And yes, I do sometimes say to myself when the going gets tough: i think i can, i think i can.

*Note: I ran into some unexpected obstacles on the Brooklyn Bridge, aka throngs of people. Seriously, the BB is like Disney World in that you hate to cross in front of pictures, but you will never get to your ride if you don't. Did I manage to block the pedestrian gridlock out of my mind since last time? Hey, NYC Gov...add a photo op lane! When I wasn't trying not to run into people or get run over by a biker, the run was great. Even better when I finished. Definitely got the glowy runner feeling today.

In preparation for my trip to Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, I searched for some runs on mapmyrun. I found a 11 and 6 miler right near where I am staying, so hopefully I can stay on track.

30/60/90 Workout

I have heard a lot about the infamous 30/60/90 Workout by Kristi Molinaro, trainer at Equinox Fitness. I think I first read about some celeb doing it in the Self Star Workout Issue. And I just googled it and found that NYMAG named it Best Fat-Burning Workout of 2008.

I have been really anxious to try it. I have a 3-day pass to Equinox, and I was all set to go today, but I really need to pack for vacay and clean, so I thought I would try the at home version from Fitness Magazine August 2008. Lame excuses! But I want to have 3 uninterrupted days of glory to try out Equinox.

You can find the workout in the August Fitness or on the website.

Basic overview, alternate cardio and strength moves, starting with 90 seconds of cardio and 30 seconds of strength for the first set, then 60 cardio and 60 strength and 30 cardio and 90 strength for the last set. Sometimes the intervals are a bit different, but that is the basic idea.

I used on online stop watch to keep my time. This worked out perfectly.

The workout took me about 36 minutes. I probably could have rested more between sets because it was really tiring at some points.

First Set: jump rope (cardio)/row (strength) was pretty easy

Second Set: Weighted Jumping Jack/Push-up-HARD, weighted jumping jacks are a great addition to any workout; the push ups made me realize the 100 Push up Challenge is probably a good idea for my weak ass...i mean arms.

Third Set: Speed skater/Tricep dip-not bad-had to put my leg down after 10

Fourth Set: Shoot the Basket/Bicep Curl-a little winded, but not too bad

Fifth set: Mountain Climber/Bicycle-wow, super tired by this point, more rest after 4th set advised

Sixth Set:Reverse Lunge kick/plank-pretty easy

*Props to Fitness magazine for making it really easy to follow and having great descriptions.

Good things about this workout:

-I could do it in my apartment with minimal space or equipment required

-I could listen to free tunes via i tunes radio

-I could wear pj pants and a sports bra

-only six moves and one time through, so you know you can do it

Cons:

-It was not boring, but would have been more fun in a group, so the class is probably even better

-On its own, it's not quite enough, so I (put a shirt on) went downstairs and did 30 minutes on the elliptical.

The workout is called the Drop a Jeans Size Workout and there is on accompanying Dessert a Day Diet Plan. Has anyone ever actually followed a magazine diet plan? Success?