4 Days Without Sweat

Hey!

How was everyone's weekend? I was pretty jealous of all the Thanksgiving celebrations going on in the U.S. I think I might start having two Thanksgivings just as an excuse to have pumpkin pie again :)

This week is going to be quite challenging for me on the workout front. You see, I crave a good sweat session pretty much every day. I will fully admit to being guilty of committing the "too much cardio" sin. What can I say, it makes me happy!

But, for the next 4 days, I am not allowed to sweat :( I have to go for allergy tests, which means I'll have patches on my back that I cannot get wet. So, no running, no going all out on the elliptical, no Zumba, no Step... you get the picture ;)

In an effort to be positive, I'm trying to think of this as an opportunity to focus on strength which, as you know, is a struggle for me.

As luck would have it, one of the Elf for Health challenges this week is to try a new workout. (If you haven't already signed up for Elf for Health it's not too late to join in the next round!) So I downloaded this barre workout from Cathe. I am a huge fan of her workouts and I don't doubt that I'll be feeling the pain the day after I do this one!

(source)

I also plan on breaking out my Chalean Extreme dvds.  I started using these around this time last year and it was the first time I didn't dread strength training so much that I just completely avoided it ;)

(picture source)

I'm still hoping to get some light cardio in, probably in the form of walking. Not much chance of my breaking a sweat doing that in Ottawa in November ;)

Any advice for me on surviving the next 4 days?!?!

UK Trip Recap - Part 2

Hi :)

As promised here are some pictures of the rest of my trip!

We took a day trip from London to Warwick Castle, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Oxford.  The castle was really cool; it is owned by Madam Tussaud's so they had wax figures throughout depicting every day life and they also had lots of activities set up for Halloween and characters wandering around like this headless horseman!

Stratford-upon-Avon is a really cute town where Shakespeare was born. We chose not to go into the museum there and walked around instead.  That's how we stumbled upon this giant teddy bear that I would have loved to take home with me.

Oxford was my favorite stop of the day. I will forever be a student at heart and I would have loved to study there. What a gorgeous campus! Who knows, maybe there is a PhD in my future?!

 

We also a day trip from Edinburgh to Loch Lomond and Stirling Castle. The lake was gorgeous and it was really nice to see some of Scotland's country side. Not to mention that our guide sounded like Shrek which is always entertaining ;) 

 

We spent the next few days in Edinburgh, which is such a gorgeous city! I loved the architecture and it is the perfect city for just wandering around and getting lost since there are so many interesting side streets to explore.  We went to the castle, which was my mom's favorite castle of our trip, and Holyrood Palace, shopped along the Royal Mile, and ventured up toward Arthur's Seat.

Oh, and on our last night we figured we should partake in some Scottish culture and tried our first whisky! That stuff was strong! Let's just say I don't think whisky will become my drink of choice any time soon ;) 

This was truly an amazing trip and I'm glad I got to go with my mom. Now she knows why I love Europe so much :) I really can't wait until my next trip!

UK Trip Recap - Part 1

Hey guys!

I hope everyone had a great weekend :) Mine was lots of fun; spent some time with a friend from out of town, went to my nephew's birthday party and enjoyed the extra day off today!

I just discovered PicMonkey this afternoon, which is going to make it a lot easier to share my trip pictures with you guys :) I'll have to break it up into a couple of posts so I'll start with our first couple of days in London!

Our first stop was at the Tower of London. I had been before but it's a cool place and I didn't mind going again :) We took one of free tours they offer which was really interesting since we learned a lot about the history of the tower. And of course there are great views of Tower Bridge from there.

We also visited Kensington Palace that day but oddly enough I didn't take any pictures. I did get some pictures of Big Ben and the Parliament Buildings though, since that is the area we stayed in. If you're going to London, I highly recommend the Park Plaza County Hall. Great location and the rooms are suites which was perfect for my mom and I since it gave us our separate living areas!

The next day we wandered around areas like Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square,Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, and Covent Gardens. In the evening we went to see Shrek the Musical and it was AMAZING :)  I've always loved the Shrek movies and this musical was hilarious, definitely one of my favorites so far!

On Sunday, after my half-marathon, we walked over to Buckingham Palace and had dinner at a really nice Italian restaurant. Monday was our shopping day so we walked around Oxford Street, and the Knightsbridge area. The highlight of the day was having Afternoon Tea at Harrods :) 

I'll stop there for now but I'll tell you about our day trips and our time in Edinburgh in my next post :)

Run to the Beat UK

Good Morning!

I'm back from my trip and almost fully caught up at work and on my sleep! I tried so hard to stay up last night to hear the US election results but just couldn't so I was happy to hear Obama was re-elected when I woke up this morning! Yes, I'm Canadian, but whatever happens in the US has a huge influence on us and, to be honest, I have more faith in Obama than I do in our own Prime Minister. Since this isn't a political blog, we'll just leave it at that ;)

The real purpose of this post is to tell you guys about the Run to the Beat UK half-marathon I ran while I was in London!

From the Run to the Beat Facebook page (source)

The race was on the Sunday, October 28, and by then we had already had 2 full days of sightseeing so my legs weren't exactly fresh, but on the up side the clocks there changed that day so I did get an extra hour of sleep :)

I had my usual bread, pb (not easy to find by the way; do English people not love the stuff as much as we do?!), a banana, and a few cups of coffee.  Then I took the tube to Greenwhich which was super easy and fun considering most people were on their way to run too :) I didn't take my camera with me on the day of the race, but I did get a picture of the O2, where the race started and finished, the day before when I went to pick up my race kit.

The race started about 10 minutes late, which I didn't mind at all since I was still in line for the washrooms when it was supposed to start! It was really cold and windy but thankfully the rain held off save for a few sprinkles here and there.

I wish I could give a detailed recap of the race, but the truth is I totally zoned out for this one! I tried to take in the scenery as much as I could but I was really just stuck in my own head for most of it.  I will say it was pretty cool to be running in neighborhoods that looked like the ones you see in British tv shows, and having people with English accents cheer you on is even more encouraging :P 

As this was a Run to the Beat race, there were bands and djs stationed along the course but I had my Ipod on the entire time; Taylor Swift's new album was keeping me entertained :P  This definitely wasn't the easiest course I've run. It was probably the hilliest, and there was one brutal hill at about mile 8 or 9 that made me want to hug the lady who was telling us that we had made it to top!

By mile 10 I was so ready for this race to be over.  We caught a glimpse of the O2 as we were running through one of the neighborhoods and it looked so close yet was so far away! I slowed down considerably for the last 2 miles, but I didn't stop to walk at any point during the race cause I knew it would be too hard to start running again.  I kept an average of around a 10:30 pace for a little over the first half of the race but that came down to 11:00 to 11:30 for the second half, so I averaged at just under 11:00/mile and finished in 2:24 which I was pretty happy with; still a 1 minute improvement over my last race :P

All in all, even though this wasn't my favorite race, I am so happy that I got to run in London :) I'll be posting a few recaps of our trip with lots of pictures soon!