Thursday Power Toning Class

Every Tuesday and Thursday I teach a fitness class for the faculty and staff at Colgate University. It's a joy to teach this class every week. I do my best to keep it creative and cater the work to all levels of fitness as much as possible with the equipment provided, which can include, kettle bells, stability balls, free weights, straight bars, step bench, and  resistance bands. This week the class did the "Tabata" type training, where they work for 20 sec. and rest for 10. It moves fast, and is exciting!  The great aspect about the Tabata routines are that you can combine any type of exercise in different groupings that compliment each other.  On Tuesday, we did only 2 rounds of 4 different exercises with a total of 12 exercises. Thursday was a little tougher, and we did 5 rounds of 4 exercises for a total of 12 exercises.  Thursday's routine looked something like this:
Group I - 5 rounds
1. Standing Cross Crunch (knee to elbow - Insanity move)
2. Low Boats (lay on back, hands by hips, contract and lift body to a low boat position, lower and repeat)
3. Bridge with alternating L/R leg lifts
4. Up down planks (elbow to hands and vice versa)

Group II - 5 rounds
1. Power Pose with heel lifts (squat with feet together, and raise heels)
2. Mountain climbers (running in plank position)
3. Standing side to side lunges
4. Fast feet shuffle like "Flash Dance"

Group III - 5 rounds
1. Scissor Legs (lay on back, legs straight up, open and cross legs)
2. Hold Sumo squat (deep wide squat with toes slightly turned out)
3. Jumping lunges or step lunges alternating legs
4. Push ups

That is the workout - I hope you enjoy!!

First Time Compote

Fruit is the essence of living off the land, so having a supply of wonderful fruit makes a belly happy.  I saw the pears sitting in the fruit bowl looking very sad, and brown. I also had a large collection of kiwi. I decided to look up a recipe for compote.  Very basic stuff, you cook the fruit, add a little juice like, wine, or citrus, cook, add a sweetener, cook, then cool before the fruit gets to mushy. It's a glorious desert with yogurt and pecans!   Here is a picture of the compote after sitting in fridge for a bit.  Add this to fresh Vanilla Yogurt and top with crushed pecans and enjoy!

Compote recipe:
Sliced Pears (2)
Sliced Kiwis (2)
splash white wine
splash lime citrus
Log Cabin Brown rice table syrup
cinnamon
a drop of almond extract and vanilla extract.

(*The original recipe calls for Vanilla flavored sugar. sounds easy enough)

Upper Body Fitness Routine

The feedback for the lower body routine was so good, that we tailored it to an upper body routine. This is SO easy to do with two light free weights and you can do as many sets as you want. Four sets of this will take less than 40 minutes. I recommend a little full body warm up such as light jogging in place, or a few Zumba moves, or whatever strikes your fancy.  The routine is as follows:
15 Push ups
30 sec. straight arm plank
15 Bicep curls
30 sec. spiderman crunches
15 Bench or floor dips or table top swing throughs
30 sec. Right side plank (elbow or straight arm/lift your leg for more sensation)
15 Lateral raises
30 sec. Left side plank
15 Overhead presses
30 sec. Table top pose

That's it!! It's really not too hard, and you can increase the reps to 20 for more intensity and duration. Have Fun and remember to cool down with a few stretches of the shoulders, chest and arms.

Fitness on the GO!

For the past year I have been teaching a fitness class at Colgate University called - Tone & Stretch two days a week. Every class is something a little different, and we incorporate, yoga, pilates, strength, stretching, balance, core, etc. into each class with the goal of targeting all areas of the body.   This week I took an idea that I found on a website called: fitsugar.com and designed a 40 minute class consisting of 10 exercises grouped into five sets of two. This was by far one of the most fun, challenging, and fitness packed routine I have done.  The routine can be modified with weights, without weights, and using different exercises upper and lower body.  Wednesday's class (pre-Valentine's day) targeted lower body with core sprinkled in between. After class I received a number of emails about how much they LOVED the class. One suggestion was to make every Wed. "Boot Camp Wednesday."  Let's get to it,   here is the routine and we used a kettle bell for the wide squats, and two light ones for the step lunges.   We did the entire routine FOUR times through with no breaks.
15 x Wide stance squats
30 - sec. straight arm plank
15 x Narrow squat (power pose with arms up)
30 - sec. spider man crunches (straight arm plank with crunching knee to same side elbow)
15 x Rt. leg forward step lunges then Lf.
30 - sec. Mountain climbers
15 x Push ups
30 - sec. Right side plank (elbow or straight arm)
15 x Rt. leg rear step lunges then Lf.
30 - sec. Left side plank

It was a BLAST!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blues Cruise 50K October 2011

The Pagoda Paces are a running club based out of PA who hosts the annual Blues Cruise 50K trail run. The run takes place at the Blue Marsh Lake, Reading, PA. This years course featured a single loop consisting of 95% single track. The first time I ran the Blues Cruise was 2007. The course was so much fun the first time, that I decided to run it again.

Usually runners prepare for a 50K similar as they would a marathon, such as logging in long runs of up to 20 miles. Usually that is how I normally would do it, but in this case, I can't resist signing up for events with no more than a 10 or 13 mile long run. So be it, that is how I prepared for the Blues Cruise the first time, and the second. Needless to say, that's the hard way. Either way, as long as you cross the finish line, that is what counts.

Running on trails is a wonderful experience, of putting you one with nature. The serenity of it all, the quiet of the forest, the challenge of the terrain. This year, the terrain was muddy, slippery, and wet. We crossed a nice river, which reminded me of Xterra Guam, but MUCH colder.

Half way through the run (mile 14 or so) I was feeling dizzy. Luckily the aid stations were well stocked with goodies that I was able to get enough sugar in me to recover. Drinking coke and gatorade got me to the finish line. The volunteers were very helpful, and encouraging. They'd say things like, "You are doing great!" They even offered me some beer, since I probably looked like a needed one to numb the pain! HA! All the positive reinforcements they offered were music to my ears. It took quite a bit longer to finish this year, but walking away with 1st. in my age and 5 overall female was, well, an accomplishment. Another 50K under the belt feels good.

I hope to return next year. Cheers! Run on and run strong!

Lake effect Snow Storm

Second season in central NY is exciting. Syracuse has been reported to have 95 hours and 10 minutes of snowing. It's snowing now, and it's going to snow some more, making it great conditions for fun in the snow to x-country ski and snow shoe. I am looking forward to some outdoor exercise that is something different than running. After completing the 100 mile and the 100K run last August, I have been enjoying less pounding and find myself getting in some great swim workouts with our new head swimming coach, Fernando. He is very highly respected in the swimming world, and an absolute joy to work for.

The raiders swim team is feeling the positive vibrations, and we showed our stuff in the snow one evening. We are looking forward to winning more meets after training trip to FL. and doing well at the Patriot League Championships in February @ Bucknell.

I am drinking an iced coffee, that I requested Jayne bring out to the course. It might be considered contraband!!!

I really enjoyed the scenery, and that is one of the major reasons why I wanted to enter this event. We ran over the same stretch of road for 50 miles on Sat. and I thought, how am I going to look forward to running over the same stretch of road the next day for 44 miles?? Believe it or not, I actually looked forward to running the 50K the next day.

The snow cap mountains in the background look absolutely majestic. When Jayne and I ran the 9 mile trail section of the 50K on Sunday, we ran in those mountains.

Here I am taking a walk break. I am so close to finishing, and that guy behind me ended up passing me when we did our turnaround at the 3 mile mark on the last out and back. I don't remember Jayne running with me here. I think I was in the delerious state. Not quite euphoric, but still delerious.