A quick hour of skiing before the park crowds.. to celebrate the New Year!

I had to work this morning and I also wanted to ski before the crowds of people that will decend on the park for New Years Eve. They are having a candle light walk, ski, hike starting at 4pm. This is far too many people out on the ski trail for me to handle. 

 I've been skipping my run to ski. I love the cross training. It  just really tires me out. I am not sure I'll be awake come 11pm when the NYE Ball drops in NY. Better take a quick power nap. 

Just a quick recap of 2015.... 

January - 

Steve and I took a candle light walk through the woods on snow shoes. It was a Christmas gift from his brother. 

February- 

We celebrated Celina's 15th birthday. A new driver in the family. 

We went skiing in Duluth and on Buckhill. The kids both tried snow boarding. 

March - 











Easter

April - 

Washington DC
May - 

Steve's 50th Birthday

June- 

Lots of watching Logan play soccer and a tourney in Duluth

July

Grand Marais, Camping

 and kayaking on Lake Superior

August

South Dakota camping and Horseback riding for my birthday

September

 Back to school, Celina 10th grade, Logan 7th grade

Fall Soccer for Logan

 Fall Tennis for Celina

October 

Halloween

November 

Kendra and Logan's birthday

Thanksgiving

December
Christmas

Evan Turned 2

Paul's birthday

Tim's birthday

2015 is coming to an end..

2015 might be coming to an end, but not my cross country skiing. We have a nice amount of snow and I should be able to ski every day. I have to admit, I was a bit sore all over the last couple of days from skiing. 

Its the good kind of sore, when you know that other muscles that are under used are getting a workout. I love how cross country skiing uses your legs, arms and core. I have the non-wax skis which provide resistance and just don't glide as easily as the waxing ones, so I have to work a little extra hard to get moving. I only notice the difference when I ski around people with wax skis and they are able to glide so much more easily. I'm okay with the non-wax since I want to keep it easy to ski and I want a good workout. That's the point right, just to get in a hard workout? 

I skied at my favorite park Wednesday afternoon, but kept thinking I need to get to the new cross country skiing park that is a little farther away, but it would be a nice change to have another place to ski. I do the same route that I've been skiing for a few years and I'd like a change. This is the part where I am always afraid to do something new. I like the known and this is a little out of my comfort zone. A new trail sounds exciting, but also there are so many unknowns, will I get lost, will I be able to figure out the trail.. Will I be skiing for miles and miles and have a hard time getting out of the woods and mostly I don't want to forget about my safety. You never know who is out there on the trails. 

Steve and I finally got into the dentist. We had to find a new one and they luckily had an opening at 8am. It felt great to get my teeth cleaned. Unfortunately, I'll be going back on the 6th to get a cavity filled. Steve had a cavity filled and his teeth cleaned plus he too needs to go back to get one more filling replaced. Guess that's what happens when you don't go to the dentist as often as we should. 

My other new jacket and yoga pants.. I'm treating myself for my weight loss reward. Day #74. Not sure I should be counting last nights dinner and dessert as a success on my diet. 

New Years Eve is always Crazy, so we decided to make last night our night to eat out and celebrate the new year. We went to get pizza at Savoys in St. Paul. I'm so happy Logan's taste buds are growing up. He loves supreme, minus the mushrooms. He is okay with picking off anything he doesn't like, but managed to try the mushroom this time and I didn't hear any complaints. This is a huge difference from last year when cheese pizza was all he wanted. We ate the entire pizza between the four of us. That's just what happens when you have to wait an hour to get your dinner. Glad there are no leftovers to tempt me. 

 After dinner, we drove over to Cosettas to get some dessert. We split everything four ways including an oatmeal cookie and some macaroons. I did not need to eat this, but it's a treat. Once in awhile is fine plus, we all shared so we only had a small slice of each. 

I was doing so well on my daily calories and then comes dinner. The meal that is not planned out very well. I'm going to try tackling that in the new year. I'm making a list of meals for the week and trying to do more healthy meal cooking myself. This should keep me busy making a meal and make better healthy choices for dinner. 

I've got to get serious about getting back into these skinny red jeans. I might still wear yoga pants 99% of the time but I'd like to wear this again at least 1% or have it be an option. Week 20 is the goal date. I'm on week #11 so I still have time to lose the weight I need. It's not an all or nothing. If I don't make that goal, I'm still going to keep at it, keep trying to fit back into those jeans but this is a completely do -able goal right now.. I'm close. I can get into them, just can't zip them up and they are not comfortable. Must be able to wear them and feel good, not stuffed into my jeans. 

Happy New Years Eve.. enjoy your last day of 2015. 

Here's what I'll be doing on my last day of the year..
Yoga 1 hour - done
Daily exercises/planks - done
Blog - done
Work for 3 hours
Stop at the store/bank
Cross country ski 1+hours
Make dinner with the family or get Chinese takeout? 
Play board games
Read and /or watch a movie. 
Watch TV at 11pm when the ball drops in time square if I'm awake. 

We've been invited out to dinner, to a neighbors but I think just staying home and spending it with the kids this year will be the best way to ring in the new year! 

What went down in 2015?

When I think about 2015, I can sum it up as a great year.  

I started out all worried about keeping up exercise with working out at a different time then ASAP after I wake up in the morning. I learned over the year that I can take my time, wake up, stretch and still will go run or do some cross training. I am still a morning workout person but slowly am learning it's okay to cross train in the evening and afternoons. I don't always have to run. 

I learned to take more rest days this year then I ever had in the past. Having more rest days did not make me gain weight, or lose my fitness or even stop me from continuing on with running and cross training. This was a big fear and I got over it. 

I had to re-teach myself how to eat healhty. Gained some unwanted weight from just not being mindful of food, slowly junk was creeping back into my diet. I have always written down what I ate, just not kept track of calories. I knew my challenging time of day was afternoon to dinner for just eating what ever I wanted. What I did was to write down the time I ate, what I ate, and how many calories. I'd total up the number and record the total. I try keeping my calories per day from 1500 - 2000, I go over some days. I'm still a work in progress. 

I lost some weight. Still in progress. Doing it slowly and healthy. Eating real foods, limiting sugar, fried foods and eating more veggies. 

I got out of my comfort zone and signed up to play Soccer on an Adult league. I knew nothing about playing soccer other then watching my kids. I'm happy to say I played all year round. Love it. I was by far the oldest but they never made me feel like the old one on the team. I even coached a boys in-house soccer team this summer. It was very rewarding and I loved every minute of it. 

I ran a half marathon this summer, that I did not train for. I didn't PR but I finished it. Ran with Celina in a 4 mile St. Patty Day race. My goals were to just have fun at this race and not worry about my time. 

I increased my daily plank time to 2 minutes, for a total of 10 minutes of planks. 

I didn't get to the gym enough to lift weights. I was on a gym break from burn out. I hope to get back into the gym next year and at least lift weights 3 times a week. 

We traveled a bit last year, Duluth, Grand Marais, Washington DC, South Dakota, and Brainard. 

Real Fresh Snow.. the kind that keeps falling

I was super excited to get fresh snow this morning. I could not wait to get out to ski. I had to work in the morning but right after lunch I was off to cross country ski through the woods. 

The snow kept falling the entire day.. just a little bit, but continuous. I could have used some ski goggles. 

The trails were groomed and a big new sign was up notifying those walkers to keep off. This made me smile! There were quite a few other skier out there but mostly I was all by myself. 

How do you like that.. exactly 5 miles of skiing in one hour and 10 minutes. I'll eventually add on the expert hill. I'm just skipping it for now till I get use to skiing again. It's enough just to ski for 5 miles. I don't need to add a huge hill to climb just yet. 

I want to check out some other ski parks close to home. It's always fun to do a new trail instead of the same thing every day. My ski pass will be good for those trails too. I'm going to get good use out of the $20 I pay each year to ski! 

Sticking to 1500 - 1800 calories per day. It not always easy, especially at night when I want to eat and eat. I decided that if I wasn't going to weight myself, then I needed another way to see if I was making progress other then just try on some of my skinny, skinny jeans. I got out the good old tape measure and recorded my waist, hips and thigh. 

Get out your shovel.

Minnesota finally got some snow.. or more then just a dusting. I'm guessing we got 5 inches. Steve and I were up early shoveling the snow off the driveway. Lucky for us we have nice neighbors with snowblowers that help with the end of the driveway where the plow pushes all the snow about 6 ft in. That's the tough part of shoveling, that plow snow! 

We finished up the driveway in exactly 16 minutes. I know because we were out there at exactly 6am. Quick and fun with some good exercise. I love how all the neighbors are out early all doing the same thing. It's the only time you see many people out in winter.  Of course there are those people who never lift a finger and get the driveway plowed even if we get an inch of snow. I always have to laugh at people that are physically capable, but choose not to get some quick exercise and have fun doing it. 

I'm not running this morning since the roads are snow covered and I don't trust the drivers going by to not hit me running. I'd rather be safe plus, its going to be a great cross country ski day. 

Any snow over 3" or was it 5"? The parks will groom the ski trails. I won't have to make my own trail over the walkers who refuse to not walk on a marked ski trail. I really, really hope I do not see boot prints from people walking on a paid ski trail! There will always be that one person who thinks it does not apply to them to follow the park rules. If I see them, they will get the stink eye from me. I'd never say anything because I'm not going to be rude but really?? Stay on the walking trails people! Or at least don't walk on the ski trail, walk beside it, but not on it. So Rude! 

We got this for Celina to make pasta noodles out of zucchini. I can not wait to see how it works. I've heard mixed reviews. I'm hoping that it does work and we can have low cal veggie pasta. We will have to try making some today since I purchased zucchini.

 Happy Snow Tuesday.. get out there and play in the snow! 

I'll take a long afternoon nap with that 6 mile run.

Six miles of running really makes me tired some days. Yesterday I was full of energy all day but not this Monday. 

Right when I finished my run, I ate a big salad and was still hungry.  I reached for some vanilla Special K cereal and had two small bowls, hold the milk please!  I had to take a very long afternoon nap after all that food. I was dead tired. I had to make sure to not sleep for too long. Celina had a doctor appointment to test for strep throat, that came back negative. She did have a chest x-ray and what do you know, she has pneumonia. Fluid in her lungs on the right side. She should start to feel better in 24 hours. For now, we all hope no one else gets sick. 

My mile times were slower today. I was having a hard time just wanting to run in the cold. It was still around 18+F.  I kept track of my times and miles on each loop. I just ran around our neighborhood on the road since the path is ice/snow covered. 

T1 = 14:46 minutes @1.52 miles

T2 = 29:36 @ 3:06 miles total

T3= 44 minutes @ 4.6 miles total

T3 = 57:26 minutes @ 5.91 miles total

I did wear my GPS but I have yet to download my split mile times. 

I've already decided tomorrow I'm not running. I'm going to go cross country skiing in some fresh snow. That's the plan because we are suppose to be getting this huge snow storm starting any minute. They predict any where from 5 to 10 inches. I'm hoping for at least 5 inches which is enough to have the trails groomed and enough so I don't end up falling from lack of snow cover. I can not wait to get back out in the woods! Love it! 

After Eleven Weeks, Could I have lost 11 pounds?

It's week #11 of my health eating diet. I'm hoping that I could lose at least a pound a week. It's slow going and very hard to tell what weight I've lost. I am afraid to step on the scale because I don't want to get demotivated if I didn't lose at least 11 pounds after all this time and effort. Okay, some days were completely off on my calories and if I didn't lose at least 11 pounds it was all due to taking in far too many calories for the day and week. 

I did reward myself with this brand new outfit. Jacket and new yoga-legging pants. I did something yesterday that I never do. I just picked out all size medium and left the store without trying on anything. You know what? They all fit and they fit perfect! I purchased one more jacket in gray for my other reward. I'm trying and won't quit trying to make healthy food choices. I'm always going to eat what I want but the not so good stuff I really want to cut back on, which is exactly what this diet is teaching me. To learn about good food choices and eat less of the processed, sugar, high calorie foods. 

Dinner time I load up on veggies. Logan made the chicken and I split a breast with Celina. Dessert, I had another salad. It is more of a treat. Roasted broccoli, peppers with onions, and small potatoes. 

A good old chilly run through the hood.

I start out all over dressed to run. When it's 18*F you have to bundle up till you warm up! 

I felt speedy this morning. Maybe that's because I had 5 days of no running. 6 miles with an average pace of 9 minutes and 13 seconds. Not bad, not bad at all. I ran the road neighborhood route which is a little less hilly but still has pretty much the same amount as the path route. I am guessing the speedy miles was due to the cold and multiple rest days. I think that guy I was racing on mile 2 made me run faster, 8:19 minute mile faster! I never did let him pass me. Eventually he went straight and I took the longer route. 

It sure took me awhile.. 10am to get out there and run in 18+F but I did it and was glad to be done! 

No time to rest. My afternoon plan was to shop! Steve and I drove to Burnsville and shopped at TJ Maxx. We both found clothes to buy. Me, more workout clothes, of course! I tried really tried to find some non-workout stuff, but that's truly all I wear. We found 3 pairs of jeans for Steve and a new gray sweater-shirt. I even found a new pair of Nike gloves and a head band for Celina. She is always borrowing my gloves for driving the car. 

I wanted to go see Minnehaha falls today. I saw a photo of it semi frozen and wanted to take photos of the falls. It did not disappoint! 

It was really cold and we didn't dress warm enough. We really needed hats!

All the ice-cycles hanging from the rocks looked super pretty. 

We had an hour parking pass but instead we raced back to the car after only 13 minutes! Burrrr.. 

It looked all nice out with the sun but don't let that fool you! It was cold!