"Oh No, It Snowed!" Workout

The first snow storm of the year hit PA on Wednesday! My area got a lot of wet, heavy snow.

I get so annoyed in the winter when the weather does not allow for me to safely run outside or safely drive to the gym and hop on a treadmill. And since I don’t own a treadmill, if it’s too slippy to run and too slippy to drive, I have to stay home! Boohoo!

This conundrum inspired me to create the “Oh No, It Snowed!” workout. Feel free to bookmark this post and bring it out on those winter days when you find yourself snowed in!

The whole point of this workout is to give you the endorphin high and happy/tired feeling us runners are addicted to! Believe me, when you are done with this workout, you will no longer be mourning the fact that you were snowed in and couldn’t run. You will be too tired to worry about that!

In the video, I demonstrate one entire round of the workout. But I urge you to do four rounds! That’s right! FOUR ROUNDS! Come on, you can do it! Put the video on loop and do it four times with me!

**In movements that involve your legs, R+L = 1**

Jelly says, "Come on, you can do it!"

How do you workout when you are snowed in?

Are you going to try my "Oh No, It Snowed!" workout with me!?

GO GET IT, ALI!!!!!

Ali @ Hit the Ground Running is running the Space Coast Marathon tomorrow! 

This is by no means her first race, but it is her first marathon!!!

Ali, you have trained hard and you have trained smart. Tomorrow is YOUR DAY! Embrace every moment and every step. During the challenging moments, remember how many people are inspired by you. 

HAVE FUN and enjoy the journey that is THE MARATHON!!!

Be sure to head over to Hit the Ground Running and leave Ali some love!

I Mustache You Some Questions

Kristina @ Blog About Running tagged me in the Mustache Survey! (That's what I call it!)
Thank you, Kristina! You can read her post here. And if you have never visited Kristina's blog, what are you waiting for??? She is smart, funny, and is PR'ing the shit out of her races right now.

On with the survey!

Four names that people call me, other than my real name:

1. Meg ⟶ mother-in-law and blog friends
2. Babers ⟶ Paul 
3. Doodlez ⟶ Paul
4. Mrs. Cooney ⟶ kids at school (I never took Paul’s last name, I am technically still Megan Michael, but I let the kids call me Mrs. Cooney.)

Four jobs I have had: (I wrote more on this topic here!)

1. Baby-sitter
2. Waitress
3. Cashier at a grocery store
4. Choreographer

Four movies I’ve watched more than once:

1. Forrest Gump
2. The Breakfast Club
3. You’ve Got Mail <----- HUGE guilty pleasure!
4. Tremors 

Four books I’d recommend: (I'm going to just go with the first couple that pop into my head!)

1. Gone Girl- Gillian Flynn

2. Bridget Jones' Diary- Hellen Fielding (fun read!)

3. Freakanomics- Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner (currently reading, love the pod cast)

4. The Catcher in the Rye- J.D Salinger

Four places I have lived:

1. Millersburg, PA     (18 years)
2. Indiana, PA           (4 years, college)
3. Ebensburg, PA     (4 months, student teaching)
4. Camp Hill, PA       (10 years)

Four places I have been:

1. Boston, MA
2. Denver, CO
3. San Francisco, CA
4. New York City

Four places I’d rather be right now:

1. Colorado
2. Hawaii (someday!!!!)
3. California
4. ????????????

Four things I don’t eat:

1. Peas
2. Skittles
3. Diet soda
4. "Lite" ice cream

Four of my favorite foods: (I am not going by health standards but TASTE standards!)

1. Ice cream
2. Pizza
3. Cheese
4. Sushi

Four TV shows that I watch:

1. The View
2. American Horror Story
3. Survivor
4. Big Brother

Four things I am looking forward to this year:

1. A summer vacation to Colorado!
2. Growing my personal training business
3. Running some RACES! (nothing officially planned yet)
4. ?????????????

Four things I’m always saying:

1. "Ayooooo!" (to Paul only)
2. "Please stop talking."
3. "I asked you to stop talking."
4. "Write your name on yellow." (The last three happen at work... if that wasn't obvious!)

Four people I tag: I really think everyone has done this already... I'm like the last round! So if you haven't been tagged yet, I officially tag you!

Tell me names people call you- other than your real name!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Source

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

I hope your day is filled with family, friends, love… and yummy food!

I am very much looking forward to going to my cousin’s house and seeing my whole family… some of whom I only see a couple times a year.

As for food… I can’t wait for my Auntie Eileen’s homemade cranberry sauce and my mom’s pumpkin pie.

I am not a Thanksgiving shopper or a Black Friday shopper, so this should be a very relaxing long weekend with Paul and the kitties.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Each day I have with Paul and the kitties is the best day ever. Especially the days when we are just chilling around the house in our jammies. That’s when we look at each other and say, “We’re so lucky!” I'm so thankful for that!

HAVE A GREAT DAY EVERYONE!

Why I Don't Like The Treadmill

On Tuesday morning, I had this weird idea that I needed to not only lift back, but run an easy 3 miles. I know where this idea came from. PA was supposed to get a huge snow storm on Wednesday and I would be unable to run outside or drive to the gym. "OMG I HAVE TO RUN TODAY BECAUSE I CAN'T TOMORROW!" panic settled in quickly. (It still remains to be seen whether this storm actually comes...)

Rather than run outside in the cold, change, and drive to the gym and lift, I decided to just suck it up and do 3 miles on the treadmill at Planet Fitness before lifting. I could get through 25 minutes or so on the treadmill right? It wouldn't be that bad!

It wasn't that bad. Aside from it being boring (even though I had a podcast) and hot, the run wasn't torture. But what I really didn't like what that I couldn't just listen to my body and RUN. I had to decide what pace I would run. And if I wanted to change my pace, I had to decide to do it. I couldn't just run in a way that felt natural.

Normally, I speed up on my runs without even trying to, so I bumped up the speed a notch or two every half mile. It still wasn't the same, though.

I don't mean this to be an "ANTI TREADMILL" post. Obviously, there are many instances in which I am so thankful to have to opportunity to run on a treadmill at Planet Fitness. Ice, pouring rain, snow, lightening, and dangerous wind gusts are some of the weather conditions that send me to the treadmill.

But given the choice, I prefer to set my on pace and "run my own run". I don't like having a machine control my pace.

Treadmills... thoughts?

How I Thrive on Thanksgiving

How I Survive Thrive on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving used to be an extremely anxiety ridden time for me. As anyone who has suffered from disordered eating knows, when you are deep in your own messed up brain, a normal day is anxiety ridden- let alone a day that is set up to allow you to gorge on food!

When I was deep into disordered eating, I did everything I could to make it out of Thanksgiving Day without binging and hating myself. It never worked. The reason was, I was too deep in my sickness. There was really nothing I could do but get better.

This will be my third Thanksgiving where I feel like I am at a healthy place to just eat, enjoy, and not worry so damn much about the calories.

**Note: I am always sure to mention that I am not totally over my weird fear/obsession with food. But I have gotten to an extremely happy place where I probably only have those moments of “controlly-ness” 10% of the time. I cannot be sad about that at all**

My goals on Thanksgiving are as follows:

Have fun with my family.

Eat yummy food.

Be happy.

This is where I need my head to be to reach these goals…

THERE WILL BE MORE FOOD TOMORROW. 

Thanksgiving is not the last opportunity I will ever have to eat. There is no diet on Friday, there are no foods that are off limits on Friday. Anything that is here at Thanksgiving dinner can be on my plate again on Friday if I want it to be. Thanksgiving is not the last day to eat this food. There will always be more food.

ONE DAY OF INDULGING DOES NOT MEAN I WILL GAIN 5LBS. 

A pound is 3,500 calories. I normally eat about 2,500 calories a day. That means, to gain just one pound, I would have to eat 6,000 calories on Thanksgiving. Sure, that is certainly possible, but I would really have to try to binge to get that many calories in me. (I will admit, it helps that I don’t use gravy!)

FOOD IS FUEL BUT FOOD IS ALLOWED TO BE FUN, TOO. 

Yes, I said it. It is okay to enjoy food that is not particularly healthy for you! That being said, I can still use the extra calories consumed on Thanksgiving as fuel for training! The Thanksgiving meal can be a great way to refuel after a hard workout and to pre-fuel for a workout the next day!

I have been thinking about the workouts I can do on Thursday and Friday to put the Thanksgiving Fuel to good use... but I don't feel like planning! The truth is, I train hard. Period. I don't think I have to do anything "extra" or "special" to make up for one day of indulgence. I am just going to do my normal thang and trust that my body will even everything out for me.

Do you get anxiety for Thanksgiving?

Any fun Thanksgiving workouts/races planned?

Weekend Wrap Up!

Happy Monday! This work week is going to flyyyyyyyyyyyy!

The sked:

Monday: Normal work.

Tuesday: In-service day (no kids, no meetings)

Wednesday:  In-service day (no kids, no meetings)

Thursday-Monday: VACATION!

I hope you have a short week, too!

I had a very chilly run on Friday morning. I felt great and my IT band felt very strong all week. I think I am turning a corner here...

Work was crazy. Lots of drama... all stuff I can't share with you. I mean, the stories I could tell... But I can't!

Friday evening was awesome! For once, I made it home from running errands after work and still had energy left to actually hang out with Paul and be a good wife! We played cards, made dinner, and started re-watching season one of American Horror Story. GREAT season, and the scariest, in my opinion.

Saturday morning was perfect! I woke up early, got all hopped up on coffee, and embraced my new love of cold weather running by getting in 8 chilly miles before 9am! I even saw "White Boy", the albino squirrel that lives in our neighborhood. Paul named him and loves him. You have to admit, he is pretty cute!

The plan for Saturday morning was to bang out as much Christmas gift shopping as possible. We knocked out all of our nieces and nephew as well as brothers and sisters. WE DON'T MESS AROUND!!!! I did not wrap the Christmas presents yet because I like to wait and do that when my house is decorated.

Coffee from Dunkin' thanks to a gift card leftover from last Christmas!

Paul says, "The only reason you're letting me out of the house this weekend is because I shaved."

Lunch at Panera... again, thanks to a gift card!

Turkey, avocado, and bacon panini with turkey chili.

You would think after an 8 mile run and 3 hours of shopping that I would be ready to take it easy for the rest of the day. Nope. There was still lots to do! Like go for an hour and half walk with my friend Bree. These semi weekly walks fly by so fast because Bree and I just chat and chat! I wish I had a picture from our walk because we were both wearing very cute socks. But I don't, so you will have to deal with this picture of us from a couple weeks ago!

Later that night, Bob and Rachel came over for game night. But that's not the big news. The big news is that they got ENGAGED!!!!!!

The best part about Sunday was that I had NOTHING planned. The second best part was that I had a really strong 10 mile run!

Can we just talk about how effed up PA weather is??? I mean, check out the various states of dress I ran in this week!

    

 Pic #1, TUESDAY = Feels like temp of 8 degrees

   Pic #2, SATURDAY = Feels like temp of 27 degrees

   Pic #3, SUNDAY = Feels like temp of 53 degrees

Oh, and it is supposed to get up to 70 degrees tomorrow!!!!

The rest of Sunday was the usual... getting ready for the week ahead and just lazing around while Paul watched football. As you know, that is how I prefer to spend my Sundays!

What do your Sundays look like?
Did the weather allow you to run in SHORTS yesterday!?
Do you watch AHS? What is your favorite season?

Just freaking eat some ice cream!!!!

A little over a week ago, Paul and I sat down and had a serious discussion. We were eating too much ice cream. The last trip to Dairy Queen was the straw that broke the camel's back. Something had to be done.

We vowed to give up ice cream for a few weeks. This should have been no problem. Last spring, we gave it up for a couple months. Two weeks should have been easy peasy.

Wrong.

The point of giving up ice cream was to eat less sweets. Well, do you want to know what I ate instead of ice cream?

- Donuts
- Fruity Pebbles
- Cookies
- Pudding
- Chocolate Cake
- Chocolate Morsels w/ Peanut Butter
- Canned Peaches

Yeah, our plan didn't work. It turns out, if I want sweets, I will find a way to get them- ice cream or no ice cream. The canned peaches was the last straw. I mean, holy shit, why do I even have canned peaches in my pantry, and who even EATS canned peaches? NOT ME!

Oh well, I learned a lot from this little experiment. I should just eat what I crave, rather than putter around the kitchen trying to fill a hole that can only be filled by ice cream.

Who Am I!?

Guys, I don't even know who I am anymore. I like running in cold weather!

I was so not looking forward to running in the cold this winter. But last week, I reluctantly got out all of my winter gear and fessed up to the fact that the cold weather was probably here to stay. I was right. This past week gave us PA'ers "feels like" morning temperatures anywhere between 8-23 degrees. Pretty freaking cold!

But it didn't suck! And on Friday morning, I was actually looking forward to a brisk, cold run! I had my Survivor pod casts loaded up and was ready to just zone out. I even wished I had time to run more than my normal 5 miles. Sometimes I am an icicle after 5 miles of running and need to go inside. But I felt good and could have gone for longer if had had the time. (Stupid work.)

I'm sure it will get colder, but I am going to try to keep the positive attitude I currently have about the freezing temperatures. 

Mind over matter, right!?

How do you feel about running in the cold? I know “cold” is a relative term. Depending on where you live, “cold” might be 50 degrees… or it might be -10 degrees and you’re laughing at me right now!