Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Boot Camp Workout #2

After 4 weeks of doing workout #1 we've decided to change it up. Same routine each exercise 30 sec, 10 sec rest in-between. 1 minute break between rounds.

Round 1:
Squat Kickout
Arm Raises
Single Leg Raise Crunch
X's
Leglifts

Round 2:
Knee kick pull down
kickouts
plank
jumprope
step ups

Puerto Vallarta Review

*Photos taken from Villa Premiere Website*




My hubby and I traveled to Puerto Vallarta in June for our 5 year wedding anniversary. We stayed at Villa Premiere Hotel and Spa in PV. It was glorious!
It's about a $20 cab ride from the airport. The hotel is located north of the main drag, south of the airport. It's about 1 mile from downtown.

When we showed up we were handed champagne as we checked in. We were asked what pillow we would like. There were 6-7 options ranging from type of material, down, cotton. Firmness etc. Then we were to choose our scent of the room a selection of our seven exquisite essences, Basil, Cinnamon, Java Citronella, Eucalyptus. A scent they would spray in there daily. After our check in, while they set up our room with scent and special pillows, we were given a 5-minute neck/back rub. Awesome!!

Our room was gorgeous. Every room in the hotel has an ocean view. We got the premiere room which included a jacuzzi tub in the room and a king bed. Robes and slippers were also in the room. Though the slippers were super tiny on us. We also had a fridge stocked with sodas, water and beer. (We did the all-inclusive package.)

The room was very clean and roomy. I loved it. We were on the 7th floor (top floor) and we had beautiful views. The only funny thing about the room was the jacuzzi tub looks into the room, it has shutters to close it off from the room/bathroom. But the shutters aren't fully sealed so when people are doing their business in the bathroom, people in the bedroom could hear everything.

The two pools were nice. Everyday new towels were set out, each lounge chair was covered with new towels. The towel cart had books/magazines and sunblock. There was shade if you wanted it, swim up bar, beds in shade or on the beach or held up by rope like a swing. So many options to layout/relax. I loved how we were located a decent ways away from downtown that the beach was empty, it was nice to be alone in paradise. The bonus is that if you stay at Villa Premiere, you can go to the sister hotel next door and use their pools/restaurants there. Next door is the family hotel while Villa Premiere is the adult only hotel. 16 years old and up. We only tried one pool next door but perhaps if we stayed longer we'd have checked out that hotel a little more. Part of the reason we didn't hang out much next door was because we were doing this trip without our kids and seeing kids for me reminded me of what I missed.

Spa at the hotel. There was a spa on the 2nd floor of the hotel. I was expecting great prices. I was hoping for Thailand massage prices but got prices higher than massage prices here at home. Just an ie. 50 minute massage was $118. At home at my favorite spa/bath house Watercourse Way a 60 minute massage + 60 minutes in the hot tub/steam room/sauna of my choice is $120. 2 hours for same price. Totally not worth it to us.

Gym: I used the gym 2 times at the hotel. Well air conditioned. Views were beautiful. Very clean. They had cool bottles of water. Clean towels on all of the machines. Cool damp wash clothes in the fridge. So great! I used the treadmill both days. And only a little bit of weights on one day. I'm gonna say it's the best hotel gym I've ever used.

Restaurants: Because we were all-inclusive we ate all but one night at our hotel. The food was good. Of course we were limited to only one menu because we were at a down time. I would have liked other options not that there weren't enough choices for me to have a different meal each night, but funny enough the one night we go out was the night they opened the other restaurant. I wouldn't have changed my all-inclusive though. I loved being able to order drinks all day at the pool. I loved ordering snacks by the pool or in the middle of the night from the 24-hour room service menu.
The one restaurant we tried out was Cafe de Olla. It was recommended by a friend. One thing to note about the restaurant is that it's cash only. We ended up only ordering 2 margaritas and shared a meal of fajitas. I could tell the margaritas didn't have much alcohol at all. The fajitas were good, nothing to brag about but good.

Vallarta Adventures
:
Not having kids on our trip we decided to live it up a bit. We booked a trip with Vallarta Adventures, we did the Outdoor Adventure package which meant speed boating, ziplining, rapelling and mule riding. SO MUCH FUN!! I totally recommend it. It's a 6 hour trip and I enjoyed every minute of it. FYI for the photos they take of you during the adventure, for one photo it's $15. For all photos of you it's $29, but if you're in a couple for all pics of both of you turns out to be $29 each: $58. We bought our pictures because there were a lot of good ones. The photographer did a great job.

Sans Music

Early May I started running with a couple of my coworkers. I didn't listen to music during my runs with them because I was encouraging them, giving motivation, etc. I then made it a habit to not bring my ipod with me. So going on 2 months of no music during my lunchtime runs. It's been liberating, my pace has been the same, if not faster. I usually don't run races with my ipod. In fact my first race I ran with music was this last April during the Artichoke half, but that was weird circumstances and I NEEDED the music to even be out there running. Most of my races I have someone running with me so it's conversation getting me going. But now that I've been doing 3-4 mile runs w/o music, who knows, maybe my long runs will be in quiet.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Bike Speaker/Jog Stroller Speaker

During my training for my bike century ride, I wished several times on those long 5-8 hour rides that I had some music. I biked with friends so it wasn't so bad, we'd chat etc, but occasionally we'd lose each other due to hills or speed. Those were the times that I wanted music. My century ride was in 2008.
Fast forward to last summer, I had two kids and a jog stroller. Sometimes I'd use my iPod, but other times my daughter wanted to listen to music so last year I asked for this for my birthday.


It's awesome, it's the iHome Bike to Beach Speaker
It even comes with a remote! I'd put the speaker in my cupholder on the BOB jogger and hand my daughter the remote. She'd be content flipping through songs during my run. :) This last weekend I busted it out again during my jog stroller run, fortunately my 11 month old didn't have a choice of music and I was able to listen to my running playlist while he was content with his Cheerios.
I haven't had the opportunity to use it on my road bike yet, but I'm eagerly awaiting the day I get to use it.

Book List 2010

2010 Books:

1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
3. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
4. Toddlers Gone Wild! Rants from a Mommy Brain by Rebecca Eckler
5. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
8. Switchcraft by Mary Castillo
9. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
10. Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
11. The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
12. Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde
13. The Importance of Being Married by Gemma Townley
14. My Life in France by Julia Child
15. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
16. Made in the USA by Billie Letts
17. A Wild Affair by Gemma Townley
18. House Rules by Jodi Picoult
19. My Horizontal Live: A Collection of One Night Stands by Chelsea Handler
20. Through The Heart by Kate Morgenroth
21. As Nature Made Him: The boy who was raised as a girl by John Colapinto
(Insane story, true story! A little bit more technical than I liked, but I'm glad I read it.)
22. What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandel by Zoe Heller
Bit of a lackluster ending.
23. What The Dead Know by Laura Lippman
Book club book, enjoyed it.

Currently Reading:
Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin
I think I've predicted the ending, but we'll see. I enjoy Emily Giffin's books so I'm flying through it.

I'm so excited because I also have the new Jane Green book waiting at the library for me. "Promises to Keep" We'll see how that one goes, I've noticed that her books have converted from chick lit to hen lit. Meaning older women book.
I also have Jennifer Weiner on my waitlist at the library. Guess my favorite chick lit authors have once again all decided to release summer reads.

More songs on my playlist

I haven't made a new spin playlist in a month, but I have updated my running playlist.
Here are some songs I've recently added to my ipod.

Knock You Down-Keri Hilson
1901-Phoenix
Liztomania-Phoenix
In My Head-Jason Derulo
Replay-Iyaz
Do You Remember-Jay Sean
Bedrock-Young Money
Hotel Room Service-Pitbull
Good Girls Go Bad-Cobra Starship
OMG-Usher
All the Right Moves-One Republic
Solo-Iyaz
Rude Boy-Rihanna
Nothin' on you (B.o.B. feat. Bruno Mars)

Sunday, June 13, 2010

I've created a monster

Well, not a monster but a following.

A coworker of mine said her doc recommended more workouts. So in order to fit in a workout/work and school we decided to do lunchtime workouts. I had already been running 1-2x a week so she joined me on those runs, slowly working up her mileage. Well another coworker said she'd join us but walk instead. So now it's been an encouraging thing, we all try to go Tues and Thurs at lunch, if one of us can't make it we make sure the others go. And our group has increased in size, it now can range from 3-6 people going.

And then I found a bootcamp workout in Women's Health Magazine, you can see the details here.
We run 0.35 miles to a local park near our work, then do the workout and run 0.35 miles back. 3 of us do the workout, now grown to 4 (parttime).
The workout: Do each move in Round 1 30 sec each. Rest 10 sec between each. 1 min rest between Round 1 and 2 or 2 and 1. Do twice.

Round 1:
Squats
Pushups
Bicycle Cruches
Jumping Jacks
Regular crunches

Round 2:
Walking Lunges
Squat Jumps
Tricep dips
Standing High Knees
Mountain Climbers

We do this workout once a week and boy does it kick my butt. The first time I did it my chest hurt from pushups. Last week it was my quads. We figure we'll do this one for a month and then change it up for next month. Switch out some exercised to change things up a little.

Blog Haitus

I've been on a non-self imposed blog haitus. Work cut out my access to blogger so I cannot add little tidbits throughout my work day. And I've been super busy after work every day getting ready for my trip. (I'm currently in Puerto Vallarta!) This was the first trip in years that DH and I took just the two of us. Two years ago we spent our anniversary in Vegas, this being our 5 year anniversary and our kids being a decent age to leave with the grandparents we decided to head on a 4 night/5 day trip. I'm having the time of my life! I'm so relaxed, I've been skyping the kids every night, it's been so wonderful. I totally recommend parents to take some trips alone.
The couple of weeks prior to the trip was chaos, I had to get the house prepped for the grandparents to stay. I had to prepare a ton of baby frozen food and type up instructions for the kids schedule. Anyways, I'm hoping this is the end of my blog haitus for a while. My goal is to keep updating weekly.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Books Read 2010

2010 Books:

1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
3. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
4. Toddlers Gone Wild! Rants from a Mommy Brain by Rebecca Eckler
5. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
8. Switchcraft by Mary Castillo
9. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
10. Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
11. The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
12. Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde
13. The Importance of Being Married by Gemma Townley
14. My Life in France by Julia Child
15. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
16. Made in the USA by Billie Letts
17. A Wild Affair by Gemma Townley
18. House Rules by Jodi Picoult
19. My Horizontal Live: A Collection of One Night Stands by Chelsea Handler
20. Through The Heart by Kate Morgenroth