Just a few of my faves. 🙂
Much more here.
Month: December 2014
Waaaaaaaah (Sick)
After a successful first week of Big Sur Marathon training, I. AM. SICK.
Sometimes I’ll get a little sniffly but can fight it off by eating well and getting lots of sleep, but there was no fending it off this time. I’m certainly not bedridden, but there’s plenty of sneezing, nose-blowing, and mouth-breathing happening.
Armed with Mucinex and ZzzQuil, I hope to make a miraculous recovery before New Year’s Eve. Cross your fingers.
On Sunday, before my descent into complete sickness, I hit the gym and did 20 minutes of easy spinning on the stationary bike for my cross training. (I know 20 minutes isn’t very long, but it’s better than nothing?)
Then, Aaron and I went to my mom’s house to watch the Seahawks WINNNN over the Rams.
Why tackle when you can karate chop?
My mom and I then ventured to the Bellevue Botanical Garden to check out the Garden d’Lights. So festive!
Shockingly, our gentlemen elected to forego the d’Lights, and stayed home to watch more football. They missed out.
By the way — as I segue from that Instagram photo — I’ve updated all of my social media stuff to my married name, so you can now find me on Twitter @devonapass and on Instagram @devonpass.
If you’d like to follow my old Twitter handle, you’ll find delightful (?) commentary from this Russian (?) disc jockey.
I mainly just tweet my Instagrams because I’m lazy and confused. When I do compose original tweets, there’s a 98% chance they’ll be about Taylor Swift or Serial.
Speaking of that, WHAT THE F$@# JAY!!!
Maybe the truth of what really happened that winter day in 1999 will come to me tonight in my half-asleep ZzzQuil haze. HERE’S HOPING.
It was cold and rainy today, so I wimped out and did my long run on the treadmill.
It always sucks to have to exceed to 60-minute limit on the ‘mill, but I got through it with approximately 1.5 listens of Taylor Swift’s 1989 (ob-sessed). “Are we out of the woods yet??”
There was much sweat.
I also wore my new Jawbone UP24 fitness tracker for the first time, starting last night so I could track my sleep. I didn’t quite hit 8 hours, but made up for that with a delicious couch nap after running/showering/eating.
Naps are the best. You know how people tell pregnant women to stock up on sleep while they can before the baby comes? I’m not even pregnant, but I take this advice very, very seriously.
Work hard, nap hard. The best part of marathon training, after all the eating.
Did you have a good Christmas? We sure did!
We visit four houses for every holiday, so our Christmas started a few weekends ago at Aaron’s dad’s house, then continued on Christmas Eve at my dad’s house, and then capped it all off with Christmas brunch at Aaron’s mom’s house and dinner at my mom’s house. Whew! I’m terrible at taking photos apparently, so I just stole a few pics from my dad and Aaron’s mom on Facebook.
To sum it all up, we ate A LOT, enjoyed family time, and received everything we asked for and more in gifts. I got several fitness-related gifts, including:
– My fave Lululemon running shorts in POLKA DOTS, pictured above
– An armband to hold my iPhone 6, since it won’t fit into my fuel belt
– A Road Runner Sports gift card (I’m eyeing new socks and new shoe inserts)
– A Jawbone fitness tracker, which I’m so excited to use but need to exchange for a different size first
Woo-hoo! I’m all set for marathon training, and just focusing more on fitness in general!
I took a rest day on Christmas, but hit the treadmill today to get my three miles in. My first long run (8 miles) is tomorrow, so that’s exciting! More hill-hunting for me.
Last photo = more cloud-catching mountains. I’ll never get sick of them.
Merry Christmas! 🎄
Christmas Eve Run
It was a beautiful, sunny day, so why not take my 5 miles outside?
The best part about training for a hilly marathon (so far… three days in) is that I’m forced to find new places to run, since my old routine mostly involved the East Lake Sammamish Trail, which is super flat. Now I’m looking for hills, as many as I can find, and in the process I’m discovering some beautiful trails I never knew existed.
Side note: My favorite part about my town is the way the mountains catch the clouds. I marvel at this on the daily.
Now we’re off to my dad’s house to start the two-day Christmas extravaganza of eating and opening presents. Huzzah!
Merry Christmas Eve!
Weights day! This was tough to wake up for, but I’m glad I did. The empty gym allows me to blast the Taylor Swift album and even put “Shake It Off” on repeat a few times without anyone judging me.
Here’s my free-weight lifting routine, which I started before the wedding and resulted in me being able to lift Aaron (165-170 lbs., depending on how much food he had at dinner) in my wedding dress LIKE A BOSS. I mean, I could only hold him for like three seconds, but still. I’m proud that I could do it, and that it didn’t end horribly, horribly wrong.
Three sets of eight reps of:
– Bicep curl: 15# dumbbells
– Hammer curl: 15# dumbbells
– Shoulder press: 20# dumbbells
– Upright row: 20# dumbbells
– Tricep kickback: 10# dumbbells
– Chest press: 20# dumbbells
– Bent-over row: 25# dumbbells
After each set, I do 20 crunches, 20 bicycle crunches, and 20 of these ankle-grabbing thingies that I learned from Jillian Michaels that target your obliques. I haaaaaaate doing ab stuff, but I’m trying. Starting small.
I also need to add pushups, or sub in pushups somewhere. Those are the best. AND THE WORST.
Edited to add: OMG, I didn’t even realize today was Festivus!!! I’ve already participated in the feats of strength!
We had a very Christmas-y weekend!
On Saturday, Aaron and I enjoyed an early Christmas dinner at his dad and stepmom’s house with my mom and her fiancé. I love that our families are all hanging out together now that we’re one big family! My mom and I wore the same top (that we bought while shopping together, of course), so we had to get a photo to document the fact that we’re basically the same person. This is the kind of thing that makes me desperately want to have a little girl someday, in the hopes that she and I will have the same relationship that my mom and I do. To me, there is no higher compliment than to say I am just like my mom!
Sunday was Aaron’s mom’s birthday, and I swear Greta is getting YOUNGER and more fabulous each year. Want to know what a lifetime of healthy eating and daily exercise gets you? That gorgeous face! But everyone has to make an exception on their birthday, so we feasted on Chinese food while watching the Seahawks crush the Cardinals, and later ate ridiculously fudgy Pioneer Woman brownies that Aaron made from scratch. He is becoming quite the baker and cook; lucky me!!!
Greta has kept every holiday card she’s ever sent in a photo album, so flipping through it is so fun. I can see Aaron grow up from a little 8-month-old baby in 1986 (pictured, and ah-mazing) to the awkward teenage years and beyond. Most years included a family letter, so I now know about Aaron’s top accomplishments and injuries from each year. Obviously this year’s biggest accomplishment was marrying me. 🙂 But what a wonderful tradition and keepsake that is! We just sent our first holiday card this year, so I need to start our album.
And finally, today is Day 1/Run 1 of Big Sur Marathon training. This is a bucket list race, not a PR race, so I won’t be killing myself to run fast during training, but I will be running alllllll the hills to prep for the course. I just want to enjoy the race and the incredible Pacific Ocean views, so I probably won’t even wear a Garmin during it. But I do want to feel strong, so I’ll be putting in 4x/week running and 2x/week strength training for the next 18 weeks!
And the only way I’ll blog about it consistently is if I write on the bus to work, so here ya go. Hope you liked it!
Dev on Running 