“Grocery Run”

My running journey has only recently begun.  I am in a beautiful part of the country known for its thoroughbred horses, and I’m  staying in a great hotel. I don’t have a car and I’m tired of the $30 dollars I keep having to fork out for meals at the great, but as usual overpriced cafe in the hotel. I planned on going to the state of the art work out facility and instead found myself asking for directions to the nearest grocery store.  

I pulled out my 16G iPod Nano and pulled up a recently discovered new tool, the Nike fitness workout tracker. I selected “Basic Run” and my workout music playlist and headed out the big glass doors, past the valet, and out into a very cold night.  All I could feel was the pavement under my feet and the endorphins pumping through my body. It was amazing

After two incredibly painful knee surgeries I used to be afraid of running again. I came up with all of the usual excuses. “I’m too big to run.” “I will hurt my knee again.” Instead I found myself running with three bags of groceries, and using them as weight for side arm raises at stop lights. I totally looked like a crazy person, but it was fun and incredibly empowering.

What are your recent running triumphs and tips?

Run Stats
Miles: 3.6
Average Pace: 19 Min Mile

Workout #1

DVD – “Kim Kardashian’s Fit In Your Jeans By Friday” Butt Workout.

My friends, keep an open mind.  I imagine that I know what you’re thinking.  “Kim Kardashian!? Really?”  Yes, really.  To be honest I’m not sure why I started with this one.  Maybe because I thought it was going to be completely ridiculous and make me laugh.  The truth of the matter is I have been humbled.  This workout video was great.  It literally kicked my butt! No pun in intended (well maybe a little pun intended).

You know that old saying, “you can’t judge a book by its cover”?  Well, the same goes for this video.  The outside is pink and has, of course, a picture of the video’s namesake on the front in skin-tight black workout clothes.  I was rolling my eyes before I even put it in.  As it begins Kim let’s you know she is no workout expert and turns it over to her trainer who leads the warm up and workout while Kim makes little quips throughout.  My legs were shaking by the end of the workout.  The sets were easy to follow and did I mentioned the workout kicked my butt?!

I am not a fan of Ms. Kardashian but her trainer was great and who am I to knock a business savvy woman who is using her fame to promote business products like this one.  Well done Kim.

I am going to keep my rating system simple.  If the DVD has a quality fun factor it gets a star.  If the DVD has the sweat factor it gets a star.  And finally if the DVD has the results factor (meaning I can see and feel results almost instantly) then it will also get a star.

Kim Kardashian’s “Fit In Your Jeans By Friday.” Gets 3 out of 3 stars. 

My Year Long Adventure

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the beginning of my year-long adventure.  Due to recent circumstances I have had to be creative in the health and wellness area of my life.  No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get the numbers in my budget to work so I could sign up for the local gym.

I attempted to run outside a couple of times and each time the cold air burned my lungs as I broke into a slow jog.  I thought to myself, “A few more minutes of this and I’m going to send myself to that big treadmill in the sky.  Oh boy!” Nothing like burning lungs to motivate me to exercise.

The next day I decided to give up on running outside and headed to my local library to scrounge for some cheap entertainment since my budget also does not include cable or the local movie theater.  While I was there I came up with this crazy idea.  I was scoping out the dvd selection looking for my usual chick flick with a hottie or two to tie me over for a few days when I stumbled across the workout videos.    A brief thought crossed my mind.  “I bet I could do a different workout video everyday for a year.  I could blog about it too like that Julie and Julia movie!”  I laughed out loud when I realized what kind of commitment I would be getting myself into.  I looked around and realized I was getting “the stink eye” from some of the library patrons nearest me.  I grabbed 7 random videos to get me started and headed home full of excitement.

For those of you who haven’t seen that movie, Amy Adams plays a woman (Julie) who decides to try a different recipe of Julia Childs every day for a year.   In the process she changes her life, one recipe at a time. That’s just what I’m going to do.  I am going to change my life, not one recipe at a time, but one workout video at a time.

So there it is, the birth of my crazy idea.  I hope that my experience this year will make you laugh, inspire you to workout, and that my reviews of the videos will help you when you’re on the lookout for something new to try.

Let’s get started!