South Korea, Here I Come!

I can’t believe today is actually here! I have been waiting for and anticipating my trip to meet Brian in Korea for so long and now I am actually on my way. Crazy!

Workout

I knew I wanted to get a decent workout in before traveling for the next one million hours so I set my alarm for 4:30 a.m. and was at the gym and waiting when the doors opened.

My goal was to shave about 30 seconds off of my last 5k run but my body wasn’t feeling it so early in the morning and I ended up adding about 30 seconds instead.

My first mile went by in 7:08. The second in 7:14 and then I slowed…big time…and knocked out the final 1.1 miles in 8:34 for a final time of 22:56.

Still under 23 minutes so I’ll take it.

After my workout I got myself ready for the airport and my long flight. Complete with compression socks to keep my blood flowing nicely over all those hours.

The purple really sets off the pink jeans, huh? 😉

Once dressed and prepped i did some final things around the house…Took the last of the trash out…washed one final load of laundry as to not leave anything dirty…and enjoyed the quiet of the morning with Telli.

Before I knew it my parents were at the door and we were loading up my bags into the car!

I said my last goodbye to the monster and put him in his cage, trying to keep it as “normal” for him as possible so that he didn’t get unnecessarily worked up like when Brian left.

(A little blurry but he was actually looking at the camera!)

I was super close to crying but I kept it together for him. And more so for my mom, who definitely would have broken her strong act if she saw me upset (Sorry mom I’m sure I just made you break it now though!).

(A little better…)

Things were pretty smooth sailing once I made it to the airport with one glitch at baggage check. But after a slight nominal fee to check a third bag that they wouldn’t let me carry on, we were back in business. Even better for me now though because I don’t have to worry about carting around a carry on.  Not to mention, I was prepared for whatever may happen and had my purse packed in that carry on with my jewelry inside so all I had to do was a quick unzip and grab that out and it was good to be checked!

Smart packing, people! 🙂

Breakfast

When I made it to my gate, I accessed the food situation and decided on McDonald’s maple and fruit oatmeal for breakfast.

Not the healthiest oatmeal but better than the other options I was presented with!!

When I went to board this first flight, the Delta clerk at the gate told me that my seat was already scanned as having entered the flight so, “if it was taken when I got to it, just to come back out and let her know”.  Umm, hello lady, I am not fighting the one way traffic back off of the plane to let you know that your airline made a mistake.  Luckily for me, even though my seat was taken, I was able to get a better one in couple rows ahead of my original one.

I went from a middle seat in a full row to a window seat with an empty seat next to me.  More room to spread out and relax! 🙂

Now it’s time to sit out this flight until I make it to Atlanta and get on board my flight straight to Incheon, Korea!

It’s go time baby!!!

Question:

Do you usually travel with a carry on or check all of your bags?  I think it is so much easier to check them but for short trips a carry on is just easier for quick airport in and outs!

Under 23!

I did it!!! I reached my 5k goal that I wanted to get to before leaving for Korea! A 5k in 22:23!!! I told myself I wanted to finish one in under 23 minutes before leaving and today I pushed myself to do it!

There was a couple of times that I wanted to quit, one time that I wanted to puke and a few times that I wanted to slow my speed but I pushed it out and kept a 7:19 mile/min pace to achieve my goal!! Anything is attainable if you set your mind to it! 🙂

Workout

After busting my butt to complete my 5k, I started my final week of phase 1 of Body Revolution with workout 3.

It was especially hard this morning after pushing my legs to the limits during my run but, again, I pushed it out and felt great when I was done!

Breakfast

I had to put together a quick breakfast because I have to be out of the house in a hurry this morning so cereal it was!

Peanut butter Cheerio’s with banana slices, chia seeds and almond milk.

Look how pretty my flowers from Brian are blooming. What a nice breakfast view! 🙂

Quick shower and I’m off to the dentist to pick my molds to use to whiten my teeth! Kinda excited! Is that weird? Then I have a full day of final Korea preps with my friend, Jeremy, followed by another send off dinner with my friend, Lindsay! Busy, busy day!!

Question:

Have you ever bleached your teeth?  What method did you use?

It’s Close!

This whole no snooze button thing is already getting easier. Telli woke me up seconds before my alarm went off this morning and as soon I reached for my phone to check the time my alarm started beeping and I was ready to get the day going.

Apparently Telli is adapting to the early rise as well since he woke me up on cue today.

Workout

I wanted to get a 5K in this morning and see if I could shave some time off of my last 5K trial run, which I did in 25:20.

I used a run/recovery method that looked like this:

24:14, baby! Only 46 seconds over my 5K PR. It’s all coming back, my legs are feeling great and my speed is so close to returning. Woohooo!! 🙂

After testing myself on my run, I completed my last round of workout 1 in phase 1 of Body Revolution.

I upped my weights again and pushed through the hardest modifications of each exercise to really get the most out of the workout. And by upping my weights, I mean I was using 7.5 lb dumbbells, I wasn’t pounded out chair squats with front raises with 20 lb weights, or anything!

I’m so excited for week 3 to start and to see what workouts 3 and 4 have in store for me.

Breakfast

As soon as my run was over I already knew what I wanted for breakfast and it helped push me through the final half of my workout when I got home.

Chocolate Protein Banana Peanut Butter Pancakes

Quite the mouthful but quite the delicious mouthful.

Ingredients:

• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 Tbsp. egg beaters
• 1/3 cup almond milk
• 1 Tbsp. cinnamon raisin swirl peanut butter
• 1/2 banana, mashed

Mix all of the ingredients and cook as you would usual pancakes!

Look at the pockets of banana snuggled in with the chocolately goodness!

Great follow-up to my workout this morning!

I’m training my replacement in the afternoons and staying an hour late which means I get to go in an hour later as well…loving this extra time in my morning!

Time to finish catching up on The Bachelor from last night before heading into work for the day.  So happy that they finally are showing Ben confronting Courtney about her actions and the way she has treated the other girls!  It’s about dang time!

Question:

Did you watch The Bachelor last night? Who do you want to win?

Eggs in a Baguette Boat

I thought I was going to get off easy this morning with my snooze button deal but not having to set an alarm since it is the weekend after all; however, apparently my body still wanted to get up early so I was up and at ’em at 6:30 a.m.

No complaints though because an early start to a Saturday full of errands and a long to-do list is never a bad thing. Plus morning here is just around bed time for Brian in Japan so some skype time to start my day and end his was perfect!

Workout

I was the gym pretty much on time as they opened their doors for the day to get in a quick 5k on the treadmill.

Time: 25:24.

By the end of the run I didn’t feel exhausted or like I had to give it absolutely everything I had which, to me, means I’m slowly getting my speed and endurance back. Yay!!

After my run, I did my first round of phase 1, workout 2 for the my last week doing workouts 1 & 2 of body revolution.  Again, I tried to modify every workout to the hardest option that Jillian demonstrated.

Upper cuts for 60 seconds with 5lb dumbbells in your hands really makes you feel the burn! Loveeee!

Breakfast

Since Saturday’s allow for a little bit more time in the kitchen for breakfast, I put together a creative meal to use more of my whole wheat baguette (it’s almost gone, I promise!).

Eggs in a Boat

I hollowed out a portion of the baguette by cutting out a strip down the center and removing the bread from that area.

In a bowl, I mixed together one egg and some additional egg beaters (I was going for egg whites but grabbed the wrong container!) with one chopped turkey sausage patty and a chopped Laughing Cow babybel cheese, salt and pepper.

I poured the mixture into the baguette bowl and baked it for 30 minutes at 375.

The egg mixture cooked inside of the bread to a fluffy, cheesy perfection.

And the bread came out toasted and crunchy.

This would be perfect to make for a group for brunch.  Simply use a full baguette and then slice into pieces!

It’s getting to be late morning so I need to get a move on!  I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday! 🙂

Question:

What is your favorite weekend breakfast?