books » britta//unfiltered

Treadmill Necessities

Jan 272012

Posted by Britta on January 27, 2012 at 2:48 pm in Sweat 1 Response »

Hi everyone! Wow.. it’s Friday already? I really, really meant to stop by and chat earlier this week, but you know how life goes…

Plus, I have had absolutely zero drool-worthy food finds to share, because we have been trying to deplete grocery supplies around here. The fridge is pretty bleak -

Please notice that main food items currently include Budweiser, whole milk (yes, Brandon drinks whole milk. I KNOW.) and Baileys. Umm…

One standout I gotta mention – I used up the last of some tempeh that was kicking around the cheese drawer and made taco-seasoned tempeh as recommended by Beth over at Beth’s Journey. I used it in a yummy burrito bowl while Brandon had some leftover ground beef tacos.

I love her recipe ideas so much!! Remember the lasagna bundles? I’m planning on making those again soon, too.

My half marathon training is going great, even better than expected I would say. I am fully able to run 3+ miles without walking, and can comfortably do a 10 minute mile pace (which is kind of my goal for the race). I’m looking forward to kicking it up a notch to “real” training in a couple weeks, since technically I’m still in prep mode. I haven’t had any knee pain so far (knock on wood) and I’m hoping to keep it that way with improved stride techniques, stretching, diligent cross-training and working in some foam rolling. I’ve been doing all my runs on the treadmill – my sworn enemy. Two things have made a HUGE difference in tolerating the tread the past couple weeks –

Improved music-listening. I know a lot of serious runners think listening to music while you run is weak, but I NEED the jams to power through. The Skull Candy earbuds I used for traveling kept falling out of my ears while I ran, so I picked up a Sony pair meant for working out from Target and got a Belkin armband sleeve for my iPhone while I was there. I like listening to Spotify for some variety, and the armband keeps Siri cozy and safe. My friend Courtney sent me a really awesome playlist recently, so that has been a huge help, too!

Kindle on the treadmill! I normally hate trying to read while I run, but this is the first time I’ve tried jacking up the font size on my Kindle to help with the bouncing/reading issue. I get sooo bored on the treadmill normally, so this has helped the minutes fly by and I can see it really helping if I’m forced to do long runs indoors. Plus – this will help me hit my reading goals for 2012!

I’m reallyyyy excited for this weekend because I am headed back to Madison to visit my main girl-squeezes, Marie and Katie Smile I don’t think I’ve been back since the weekend of the lasagna bundles! I’m excited for a fun weekend and to squeeze in at least one sweat sesh with a workout buddy.

Have a great weekend everyone! I’ll try to check back on Sunday with a running progress update and news from the weekend.

Linkity-links to clickity-click:

Katy Widrick on how willpower is a muscle that you gotta WORK!

10 questions to ask yourself daily for a successful life (printing this!)

All The Food You Eat is Why You’re Fat
super interesting! “One study–which sat people in front a bowl of tomato soup that could never become empty–found that people didn’t notice that they weren’t making a dent in their dinner and that they ate 15 ounces of soup (as opposed to nine for people with bowls that emptied at a normal rate).”
and this is why I eat off of our small-sized plates like a weirdo. I am a life member of the clean plate club and usually STILL go back for seconds!

Reading List for 2012 and a Lazy Saturday

Jan 082012

Posted by Britta on January 8, 2012 at 12:24 am in Goals, Life No Responses »

I didn’t do anything I didn’t feel like doing today. It was pretty awesome. I felt just one twinge of “Ah! I could be getting so much done right now!” but I tried to just take the day to relax. When I’m traveling, the weekend time gets set aside to do things around the apartment and in the city that I don’t get a chance to do since I’m gone most of the week. Since I’m lucky enough to be working at my “home office” for a little while, I get to accomplish more “normal things” during the week than usual (cleaning up, laundry, etc.). I’m letting myself soak in the time I get to be working in Minneapolis, because there’s no way of knowing how long it will last or when/where I’ll be going on a new project Smile

So, I spent the day doing lazy/relaxing/fun things. Like making a potential reading list for the year – it’s posted on my “Reading List” link and below –

One of my goals this year is to read 20 books total, including 5 book related to health or fitness. The “fun” books are mostly books I feel like *everyone* has read or heard of, and I would like to read things that are just for fun more often than I did last year. It was harder than I expected to find health/fitness books I was excited to try – any other suggestions? I’m looking forward to the selections I made and really want to try to set aside the time to read them in the coming year. I just got a library card, too – hopefully I can use it to knock some of the titles off the list!

(yes, the Christmas decorations are still up. I didn’t get to enjoy them much in December so I’m keeping them up until tomorrow!)

Other than putting together the reading list, I did 30 minutes of at-home yoga, spent lots of time lazily browsing news, blogs and Pinterest (just got signed up – I’m excited to try it out), and made plans with a friend to work out this week. We are going to try to meet up for a yoga class, and she shared this awesome Minneapolis-specific tip with me:

The Metrodome offers indoor running in the winter on Tuesday and Thursday nights for $1. I’m definitely going to try that out – I am not BFFs with treadmills and would love to get some variety in my half marathon training.

I also snuck in a solo trip to Whole Foods. B hates to browse and wander at the grocery store. He wants to be in and out of there as efficiently as possible when we shop together, so shopping alone is kind of fun when I’m in the mood. Delicious salad bar dinner is a plus, too. I got some fun new staples to try out (fish sauce to try Thai-inspired cooking, sunflower oil, and white balsamic vinegar) and ALMOND BUTTER IS BACK IN MY LIFE! after probably a 2 month vacation.

I missed you! I did forget a coupon that was the whole reason I went to the store.. guess I’ll have to go back this week. What a bummer Winking smile

Really – such a treat of a day. Laziness and alone time are great once in awhile. It’s a full moon this weekend! Do you have fun weekend plans? Take an hour or two to read, relax and unwind if you can spare the time – it’s so worth it.

Things to Share

- If you are using Spotify (and if you buy music online, in my opinion you should be using it!), take a listen to this SXSW 2012 Playlist. I’m definitely not a music expert, but I love this playlist. I feel like you would, too. Pretty songs.

- One of my best friends sent me this Jezebel infographic on how online dating is taking over the world, because she knows I think online dating is totally the future. I took a few classes in college on optimization algorithms and linear programming (yep, nerd) and learned about how mathematicians,engineers and scientists are getting reallyyy good at predicting what individuals might like and prefer based on information and patterns (ever heard of the Netflix Prize?). I’m totally convinced that someday, computers will be better at figuring out who we should date than we are (… if they aren’t already). What do you think?

- An article in the New York Times talks about how yoga can “wreck your body” – the debate in the comments is pretty interesting, too. I think like any other exercise – consult experts and research, know your limits, and do what works for you.

Inspiration for a Healthier and Happier 2012

Jan 032012

Posted by Britta on January 3, 2012 at 11:10 pm in Goals 9 Responses »

Happyyyyy New Year! Okay, I’m a couple days late to the party Smile We were busy having a crazy amount of fun with friends on New Year’s Eve – we did fondue -

and since then we’ve been cleaning up from the fondue, enjoying new Christmas presents… oh, and I’m in heaven because I haven’t had to travel for work in almost two weeks! Great start to the New Year.

Another way to give the New Year a kickstart was putting together an inspiration board. I got the idea from Gina at The Fitnessista – I’ve been eyeing hers since I started reading her blog, and was excited to indulge in a little arts and crafts time to get one together for 2012. I didn’t make the deadline to submit my inspo board to Gina’s site, but I wanted to share it here. I’ll warn you.. I’m not the craftiest person.. but if you’ve read my blog, you know I’m all about setting goals as a means of motivation, and who doesn’t like playing with scissors and glue once in awhile?

A lot of people don’t like setting resolutions on January 1st for various reasons – it can create a lot of pressure to start a lot of big goals at once that fizzle out quickly, it’s cliché, January shouldn’t be the only time to set goals… name a reason! I think if you set New Year’s resolutions – more power to you! (I love Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point’s ode the the January joiners – any motivation is good motivation!) Plus.. I’m really just a goals geek. Any excuse to talk about big dreams is a win in my book. My inspiration board combines what I have decided are the most important goals and motivational themes I have set for myself over the past few months with a few new intentions for the year ahead. Take a peek:

Main themes I tried to include – balance, calm, fitness, contentment, focus and energy.

- Wake up earlier. Wanna hear something sad? This was my New Year’s Resolution last year. The only one. And I failed at it. It’s on the board this year because my schedule has gotten so much crazier now that I’m not a student, and I recognize I need to dedicate more time to what’s important to me. Mornings are the time, now I just need to learn not to hate them.

- Travel to new places. B & I want to take a long weekend together sometime this year, and I have friends allll over the place who I would L-O-V-E to visit. I’ve got some frequent flier miles saved and a few leftover days off set aside. I’ve never been one to make travel a huge priority, but I’d love to take advantage of the opportunities I foresee cropping up this year!

- Read 20 books. Pretty ambitious. In 2010, I read 15 books. In 2011, I read 11. Key to this goal is reading material with some variety, including 5 books on health/fitness. I read a lot for work, so I want to fit some just-for-fun stuff in there, too.

- Volunteer

- Set monthly goals (on da blog Winking smile )

- Blog 3x per week and re-design my blog: I started this blog as a kind of goofy project during my last year of college as a way to stay motivated in health and fitness, share what is going on in my life with friends and family, and hopefully make a positive impact on anyone who stops by to say hello. Somehow along the way, I got really attached to the ol’ bloggy, but I’m not 100% proud of everything that’s here. I have soo many fun ideas of things to share and ways to present thoughts and fun projects for you to try, and I’ve been struggling with spending enough time on the blog to get that excitement across. Gonna work on it.

- Pay off goal loan: I’ve mentioned a couple times that I have student loans, which I am attempting to pay down aggressively. I’m proud to say I’ve already paid off almost 13% of my balance before even going into repayment, and I have one loan left that I am targeting by my birthday this year. Watch out, you evil debt!

- Explore Minneapolis. In addition to travel, B & I have talked about having more adventures in our own back yard – both Minneapolis and St. Paul have amazing restaurants, theatres, museums and sightseeing, and we have yet to see most of it!

- Do yoga. No times per week or per month here, just try to do it more.

- Make more $

- Be a better… employee, creative (future) businessperson, writer, blogger, motivation to myself & others, daughter, sister, girlfriend, friend, and community member. I don’t want to be Superwoman, I just want to remain mindful of all the roles I take on in life.

And the big one…

- Train for the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon. I actually signed up today. Holy crap. Getting a real training plan together is my mini-goal for the week, as well as getting my muscles woken up to prepare for the craziest fitness goal I’ve ever taken on. May 6. It’s coming.

That’s it! (? it?! am I crazy?!) These goals are definitely lofty and aspirational but I’m going to give them my best shot – I’m looking forward to 2012 as my first full year as a “grown up”, and I’m determined to make it the best year yet. Did you make any goals for the New Year?

(Amazing quote from my favorite Madison yoga studio, Inner Fire. Namaste, New Year!)

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