Weekly Training Recap

I promised myself I would get out of bed for the last week of ashtanga yoga. So 4:45am I was up and at em for class. It was so cold out that by the time I got back after class, I snuggled up with Kyle and Ollie in the covers and fell back asleep until 9am. Can every day be like this?

Wednesday I woke up early for class again and I already miss my early morning ashtanga crew!

After work on Wednesday I hit the running group for a tempo run. I almost went sub 9 for a 5k. Whoop.

Friday I had the day off so I attended ALLOFTHECLASSES. Starting with a shake and flow class at noon.

And then I was back to the studio a few short hours later for an awesome power vinyasa class.

Saturday I considered running after work until Ollie made it very clear that she wanted to snuggle with her mama. I listened.

Sunday I woke up early for a super stellar power vinyasa yoga class.

 I had every intention of running right after, but somehow that ended up being 6 hours later. Oops. I did manage to run my longest run since the marathon in Bemidji (what?!?!) and at a great pace for me.

Weekly Reads: Extraordinary Means

Extraordinary Means is the newest book by Robyn Schneider. I loved her last book and recommend it a ton to teens at the library. I received an electronic advanced reader copy of this title to read and review and promote to library customers as I see fit. I really enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to any fans of TFiOS. It has the whole sick kids meet and fall in love, etc. but is awesome in it's own way.

My rating: 4 stars.


Summary from goodreads:

From the author of The Beginning of Everything: two teens with a deadly disease fall in love on the brink of a cure.

At seventeen, overachieving Lane finds himself at Latham House, a sanatorium for teens suffering from an incurable strain of tuberculosis. Part hospital and part boarding school, Latham is a place of endless rules and confusing rituals, where it's easier to fail breakfast than it is to flunk French.

There, Lane encounters a girl he knew years ago. Instead of the shy loner he remembers, Sadie has transformed. At Latham, she is sarcastic, fearless, and utterly compelling. Her friends, a group of eccentric troublemakers, fascinate Lane, who has never stepped out of bounds his whole life. And as he gradually becomes one of them, Sadie shows him their secrets: how to steal internet, how to sneak into town, and how to disable the med sensors they must wear at all times.

But there are consequences to having secrets, particularly at Latham House. And as Lane and Sadie begin to fall in love and their group begins to fall sicker, their insular world threatens to come crashing down. Told in alternating points of view, Extraordinary Means is a darkly funny story about doomed friendships, first love, and the rare miracle of second chances.

Summer Book Preview

As a librarian and self-proclaimed book nerd, I'm obsessed with books, and I try really hard to stay current on what's new and coming out to recommend to my customers. There are a lot of books I'm excited about for this summer, so I thought I'd share with you guys so you can get a jump on the hold lists on your library (or if you click on the links and purchase through Amazon, I'll get a small portion of the cost).

June

Royal Wedding: A Princess Diaries Novel

Love May Fail

  Enchanted August

  The Rumor


July

Armada

If I Could Turn Back Time



August

A Window Opens

  The Best of Enemies

I'll have book reviews coming on many of these as the summer progresses, so check back to see if they lived up to their hype! What am I missing from my list??

Weekly Reads: Greenglass House

 I signed up to read Greenglass House as one of the books on the South Dakota young adult book committee I'm a member of. It's a pretty large middle school read, and it fell toward the bottom of the stack of my to-read pile, leaving me to finish it down to the wire of when my review was due. And then I saw it on a list of read alikes for Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library. And then it won an award. Man I needed to get reading!

The book was a little slow in some parts, but overall the mystery kept me flipping the pages. I think kids will devour this, and it'd even make for a good classroom read aloud.

My rating: 4 stars.

Summary from goodreads:

A rambling old inn, a strange map, an attic packed with treasures, squabbling guests, theft, friendship, and an unusual haunting mark this smart middle grade mystery in the tradition of the Mysterious Benedict Society books and Blue Balliet's Chasing Vermeer series.

It's wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler's inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers' adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo's home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook's daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House-and themselves.

Weekly Training Recap

On Tuesday I did a quick tempo run to and from barreamped.

Tuesday's barre class was small and was tough as usual. I have no clue how I ran faster on the way home than on the way to the studio. Must've been that power I gained from the booty work.

Wednesday I managed to get out of bed for 5:30am Ashtanga yoga. I'm going to miss working on the primary series when this session is over!

Wednesday night I was messing around and showing Kyle a flow series, and ended up pulling a rib out of place. I did this at the beginning of yoga teacher training, and it had FINALLY healed, but one chaturanga later, I was back to where I started. I had to take Thursday, Friday and Saturday off to rest it.

Sunday morning I went to an awesome power vinyasa class. There were some uncomfortable moments in class, and I skipped chaturangas, but overall it felt great to be back on the mat.

28 Day TransFORMation Check-In Week Two

Day 8 

Friday kicked off with being able to have caffiene again! I had a coupon for a $2 grande drink from starbucks, so I thought I'd try their coconut milk latte. It was tasty, but it wasn't until bedtime that I did some research and found that the coconut milk they use has sugar and carrageenan. So that's why I felt off all day. Noted.

I had planned to bring my own almond milk but was sucked in by the deal. Oops.

Friday I had good energy levels and didn't even mind eating two pre-packed salads, as I was at work for lunch and at teacher training for dinner.

Day 9

Saturday I woke up really early to make a big breakfast, since yoga teacher training was going longer for the day. I had my usual awesome sweet potato hash with eggs and a green smoothie, and then struggled with a monster sinus headache all day. I didn't want my lunch, so I only ate one hard boiled egg with my salad, so I was hungry soon after, and then by dinner I just wanted to go and buy something that was made for me. I was feeling lazy. I half-assed some sweet potato lettuce wrap with salsa and guacamole, but it was just... meh.

Day 10

Sunday I didn't get up early enough to make a good satisfying breakfast, but I thought I'd be okay because we only had 3.5 hours of teacher training. Well that would be true if we weren't practicing for 2.5 hours of it. I had a green smoothie and that was not enough. I got lightheaded a lot during practice.

So when I came home from training and Kyle told me that Ollie wanted to take me out for brunch, I had zero will to say no, because I was HUNGRY. We had brunch at CH Patisserie. Yum.

My stomach paid for brunch almost immediately. Sorry tummy. 

And then I was back on track in time for dinner, and finally treated Kyle to the awesome breakfast hash I've been eating almost daily, but he had mostly been out of town for. He also splurged on some new knives so it doesn't take me days to do food prep. Whoop! Kyle also tried to convince me that we needed dairy queen after dinner, but I held strong.

The work week was hard because I was scheduled to work two evening shifts at the library. Which means two packed lunches each of those days. Which means the same boring "lunch time" salad I've been having. This salad had been the highlight of my meals each day, but when I started eating it 4 times in a three day span.... blech. The greens I picked up went bad quicker than they should have so that didn't help.

I definitely can tell that I didn't have time to prep any food for the week, and I paid for it. Kyle stepped up Tuesday night, and while I was at barre class, made a paleo princess feast. He grilled burgers with a little bit of nitrate/nitrite free bacon in it, and also asparagus and green peppers. I had a very happy belly and taste buds. I ate a LOT of food for dinner, as I had ran to class, taken an hour class, and ran home, and I love that even with feeling like I'm eating a ton of food, I never have that "ugh, I'm so full I'm going to die" feeling that I usually have when eating a lot.

Breakfast hash with white sweet potatoes. yum.

Additionally, Wednesday morning I treated myself to an americano for getting up at 4am for a yoga class. And despite drinking it after having a very filling breakfast, I was a hurting unit all day. I've often wondered if coffee was a digestive trigger for me, but I had assumed it was because I was usually consuming it on an empty stomach. Sad. Luckily, lattes seem to be okay. Just not cow milk lattes for the next couple of weeks.

I took my measurements before we started, and I was interested to see where they were halfway through. We're not allowed to weigh ourselves, and currently our scale's battery is dead, so I can't (I purposefully didn't replace the battery because I knew I wouldn't be able to not weigh myself!) so taking measurements is probably prohibited, but if it helps keep me motivated, cool.

In 14 days, I have lost almost an inch off of both thighs, an inch off of my booty (and that's WITH running added in and many barre classes where we focus on the booty for a good chunk of the class!), and an inch and a half off of my waist. I'm still feeling good, energy levels are good, sleeping well, and no stomach issues (save for the day with coffee, womp). 

Kyle and I talked throughout this week about how nice it is to feel full all of the time, and how we could see ourselves eating in this manner predominantly going forward with some leniency for social events, or date nights. We'll see if I change my tune in another couple of weeks. ;)

There were a lot less pictures of meals this week because there were a lot of repeat meals. So just copy and paste days 1-7 into days 8-14 and you should be set. Hopefully the next week brings some more variety. 

Fall Goal Race

Whoop whoop! A net downhill course in late fall?!? What better reason to get my booty in gear for potential PR shape, right?

See you in a few Niki!

It sounds like a few other 605 Running Club folks might be heading down for the race too. #run605 represent!

Yoga Teacher Training Weekend Five

Friday we kicked off teacher training at 4:30pm with a Manifest Flow lead by Lora. It was beautiful and incredibly thought provoking and brought me to tears. After class we went back to the studio to talk about energy.

Saturday we started the day with a Chakra Flow. After class we talked more in depth about Chakras, which is my favorite subject of the moment, so I was excited! 

We also spent a lot of time working on assists. I'm still fairly new to yoga, and the studios I practice at don't do a lot of assists during class, so I feel like I'm way behind on knowing what to do! It was nice learning and practicing on each other to feel more comfortable. We did some round robin practice teaching of the Surya Namaskar A and B as well as a portion of the Lotus Master Flow. Putting my memorization skills to the test!

Lora also talked to us about meditation, and took us through a 20 minute guided meditation. She really liked my shirt. :)

Sunday was spent practicing our surya namaskar A and B sequences incorporating the breath, sanskrit, and english poses. Each of us practice taught, which means we did about 40 total sun salutations in 2.5 hours. We got done early on Sunday because we had a 9.5 hour day on Saturday. Somehow Sunday felt longer than Saturday. Yoga messes up your sense of time, man.