Monthly Archives: July 2014

Art on the Run

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One of the nice things about Minneapolis is all the art on the street.  Murals, sculptures, flowers, etc.  I recently took a route that took me past quite a bit of art.  In front of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, past some murals, and back past the Minneapolis College of Art and Design‘s Sculpture Garden.

Here are a few pictures, but the interesting part was this quote that I got in my email the next day:

Every run is a work of art, a drawing on each day’s canvas. Some runs are shouts and some runs are whispers. Some runs are eulogies and others celebrations. When you’re angry, a run can be a sharp slap in the face. When happy, a run is your song. And when your running progresses enough to become the chrysalis through which your life is viewed, motivation is almost beside the point. Rather, it’s running that motivates you for everything else the day holds. – Dagny Scott Barrios

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A Month of Cross Fit

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This week marked the 4th week of doing CrossFit at Solcana.  I wrote about some of my initial thoughts here.  One month in and I would say it is going pretty well.  Getting up at 5am 3 days a week is a little challenging, but knowing that I’ve “registered” for the class pushes me to get out the door.  I’ve been riding my bike as it is only 1 mile away. Some days after working out it is a little hard to ride home.  My arms are wobbly on the bike!!

Last week a co-worker asked me if  I feel any stronger. I kind of laughed as most days I feel weak or sore from having worked out! But I have felt stronger when working out so that is good.  Plus, 4 weeks isn’t really enough time to really see or  feel much difference yet.  It takes at least 6 weeks to really see or feel differences.

I’ve been posting pictures of the workouts on my Instagram feed.

Some have been super-crazy like Jackie on Crackie:

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And others are a little more normal…  like “The 7”

IMG_20140707_071905No wait, that was brutal!  My sister and I had been discussing CrossFit and some of the crazy things that happen, like tire flipping.  Well, that week some tires appeared at the box! And sure enough we got it out and flipped it down the alley in teams!

 

 

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Last week, I had to workout at home and I was given a great sheet of “at home” or “road” workouts.  Some are super-crazy, so I picked a few that seemed tamer like this one below: 
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So all in all, it has been a good month.  One of my concerns about joining was the timing of it all.  Would I actually be able to get workouts in or not.  I missed 3 workout sessions at the box over the month, which isn’t too bad.  All of them were related to Christy’s work schedule.  It is hard to find a babysitter for 5am!!  It is good to have a class to attend and the accountability that it brings.  Plus having a coach there to teach and encourage has been extremely valuable and the main reason I wanted a box – not to mention all the equipment.

30 Days: June into July

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The June 30 Day Challenge was to write a blog post every day. I missed 4 days from the month.  Which isn’t too shabby. Several of those times I thought about something to write and then totally forgot to do it. I did enjoy writing, even though it felt forced sometimes.  Sometimes I had a great idea and then struggled with finding the time for research and writing.  I wrote a bunch of the simple posts via my tablet’s WordPress App.  That is a pretty easy way to write a basic post – but it stores them on the device which makes it difficult to start writing and then update later or add pics or media.

I didn’t do a really good job of recording all of my mileage and it was a little challenging to always remember which way I did my commute.  But my May stats are:

Running – 50 miles

Biking – 85 miles

Crossfit – 11 times (some were core work at home)

Yay, I finally got my running mileage up.  50 miles isn’t anything to get too excited about, but it is definitely and improvement.  The biking mileage on the other hand is a significant drop.  That is partly due to the fact that my commute is now half of what it was during the school year! And a week off during vacation.  I’ve also switched into half marathon training mode – instead of riding mode.   Though I do need to be careful since I’m doing Powderhorn 24.  I joined a Crossfit box about halfway through the month so that is an addition to my training program!

July’s 30 Day Challenge is to be outside for at least 15 minutes each day.  It seems super easy, so we’ll see how it goes.  I would think between my running and biking that I’d easily hit that. Plus at summer school we go out for recess which ends up being about 15 minutes.

Other goals for July are to be consistent at Crossfit and to get some fundraising posts up for Team World Vision.