Hello! I've been away for quite a while, it's been a busy/crazy past several months with a lot of small things going on and a few big events. Here's a {very} short run down of what's been going on during my absence:
1. I got my first nephews in November (Yes, that was plural. My sister had twins!) 2. I completed my internship at COSI Exercise Science Lab 3. I finished my undergraduate coursework and graduated with a Bachelors of Science majoring in Exercise Science Education! I've also been at somewhat of a writer's block. So from here I'm going to go with some of my New Years goals. I'm not big on resolutions, but I do think the new year is a good time to re-evaluate your habits and tendencies and come up with ways to improve. So that is what my list is, ways to improve myself. 1. Continue my physical activity, but increase to more regularly throughout the week. 2. Compete in 4-6 races this year *Triathlon *Biking *Running Just fun ways to keep myself motivated and be active! 3. Plan and stick to a budget *With getting a job and big-girl responsibilities this is a must! 4. Plan a menu for my meals for the week *Along with that add in one to two non-meat meals *Eat as fresh, organic, and locally-grown as possible 5. Be more spontaneous *I'm a planner, a big, big planner. Sometimes its okay to live by the seat of your pants, and I think I need to a little more 6. Blog more regularly! I"m sure there's more, but no need to overwhelm myself. One thing I also want to write down/list out is my life list. I got the idea from the Nutrition Nut (awesome blog which gives me a lot of inspiration!) and I've been meaning to make one, so that is my project for my next post. So write to you soon! Much Love <3 - Britt
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I am lucky enough to live in a city that has an amazing abundance of food choices. Not only are there hundreds of unique and delicious sit-down restaurants, but there is also a growing number of faster service/semi-sit-down all-natural/organic restaurants also. One of my all time favorites is called Northstar Cafe. The food is a little more expensive then most faster-ish food restaurants, but I will pay for it (most) any day when I know I’m getting a great quality and deliciously cooked food. The menu has the main categories of soup/salad, sandwhiches, pizza, dessert, and a few misc. But there is hardly anything on it that I wouldn't order. So much is so so so so delicious, but one of my all time favorite meals to order is their Square Meal It has brown rice at the bottom with sautéed red onions and red peppers mixed in, topped with spicy black beans, an avocado, and tortilla strips. It is so tasty and so filling. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Another one of my favorites from there is their chocolate truffle cookie. It’s huge, chocolately, with a melt-in-your mouth/almost gooey middle texture with chocolate chips mixed throughout. I didn’t get it this time, but you can bet I’ll get it next time! I can’t wait to eat my leftovers.. I think I’ll go have a bite now. Cheers! BK Another school year has begun. With just a little over a week and half under way I can’t believe I’m finally in my final quarter of undergraduate school work. The start of a new school year is always exciting to me. Between new classes, seeing old classmates, and a new place to live there’s a lot happening with a new school year. I am starting my 5th year of school and I have been (un?) lucky enough to have moved every year I’ve been in college. My parents would probably lean more on my unlucky side of it, they certainly do not have a fondness of moving. I’m really good at packing a lot in small spaces, and even though I hate clutter and too much stuff, I always seem to jam pack my rooms. (I cannot wait to have a house/apartment mostly to myself to actually be able to spread out and not live out of one room). With a room FULL of stuff moving is always fun. This year it went pretty smoothly with only one item not being able to found in between moves, so I’d say it was a success! I’m happily settled in to my new residence for the year and am very excited for all that this year holds for me. I live in a house with 10 other girls (I know it’s a lot, but it really is awesome), and have loved getting to know them better and having atleast one other person around at all times is also a perk. I lived with just one other person the past two years, and I liked it, but the increase in number of people this year is a nice change also. So here are some pictures of the move from one place to another. (*Note: there was a two week period between places, leases not meeting up is uber annoying, but what can you do about it..) *Note: Sorry for the poor picture quality. Most of these were taken with my phone My old room. I was in the process of packing/moving if you can't tell. Putting together my [huge] closet! Really bad picture, but you get the idea. It's big! My dog chole hiding from all the loud noises of assembling my closet/wardrobe My (mostly) finished room! On the day of move-in (with the parents help) I also celebrated my birthday with my family in Columbus. The day of my actual birthday my parents were out of town visiting my middle sister in D.C. so we celebrated a week early. We went out to eat at an amazing Italian restaurant called Marcella’s and the food was delicious. Since it was my birthday I got a free dessert and my choice was a no-brainer. I decided on The Profiteroles dessert. It’s 3 cream puff pastries, but instead of being filled with cream they’re filled with chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio honey ice cream made from a local (completely amazing) ice cream shoppe Jeni's. It was absolutely delicious :) I received a tshirt quilt made by my mom (Love it!), which is actually on my bed in the picture above, a cute homemade apron and mug rug from my brother and sister-in law, and payment towards a bike rack from my brother, sister&husband, and brother&wife. I unfortunately do not have the pictures of me with my gifts or with my parents from that night, but when I get them from my dad I’ll have to add them. I also received, in the mail, the game/ice breaker Table Topics from my sister who lives out of town. I first saw the game when I was visiting her in San Fransisco two and a half years ago and am very excited to get to use them in the near future!
That’s all for today folks. Toodles, BK So my birthday day didn’t go exactly as planned as you may have read here. But I still ended up having a good day in the end thanks to my amazing family and friends. I was able to get a ride from one of my roommates to the Pharmacy and to pick up my football tickets (Go Bucks!) and then mainly hung out at home the rest of the night. My brother paid me a visit a little later in the afternoon and showed up at the door with these: My mom called him and filled him in on my fun morning and then he stopped over with flowers from him and my parents! They are absolutely gorgeous and have been a beautiful centerpiece on our dining room table. They make me smile everytime I see them.
A couple of my roommates and I decided to get pizza from a delicious local pizza parlor and we also watched Bridesmaid. Which was hil-ar-ious. Loved it. I was also surprised with a birthday cake and candles. Have I mentioned how awesome my friends are already? Yes? Well I’m going to tell you again anyways, they are the best. Hope everyone had a great weekend! Toodles, BK As I showed in my first post I completed two triathlon races this summer. One I completed in May and the other in mid-August. I am happy to say I at least did these two, but I wish I could have done more. No matter how free I think my weekends will be they always end up becoming filled to the brim. There is definitely no time to fit in a 2-3 hour race that may be 2-3+ hours away from home. But at least I did two. The most recent race I completed was the Sylvania Duathlon/Triathlon on August 14 and here’s some info on that race: I was lucky enough to have my parents and boyfriend there supporting me and we left my home town at 5:00am to complete the hour and fifteen minute drive up to Sylvania. I wasn’t able to go to the race site ahead of time so I wanted to get there with plenty of time to get my packet (which I still haven’t received my t-shirt yet, they were out the day of… hmph) and get set up in transition. We arrived at the race-site about 6:30 which allowed me a decent amount of time to prepare. I haven’t gotten in to racing too seriously so I don’t need much time to warm-up, as my “warm-up” normally consists of the jog to transition area to set-up and then another jog to the start line. Another awesome aspect about this race is that there were about 10-12 members of the OSU Triathlon club racing so I saw quite a few familiar faces and it definitely helped me to relax. Gabbing away/Setting up my transition area. Did I mention this was my first Olympic distance triathlon after only completing two other sprint races and one indoor race? No? Well it was, and I was nervous. I tried to act like I wasn’t, but the butterflies were in full motion that morning especially as I had been training, but nothing great and definitely not as much as wanted to. But, I digress, I was able to get everything all set in transition and hand off my extra bags to my parents before heading to the start line about 7:15 (it was a 7:30 start). My wave didn’t start till about 7:45 so I had plenty of time to relax freakout before the canon start. Yes, there was a canon start to each wave, it was loud, and I jumped each time. Also a side note, once or twice on the canon start a few wood chunks were shot every which way, a little dangerous, but I don’t think anyone was hurt. Hanging out before our wave started Ready. Set. GO! The swim wasn’t an in water start but it was slow-ish walk into the water and then swim. Oh the swim. For a non-swimmer 1 mile is loooong, like way long. I was also mis-lead as to where we turned to go back so my psyche was completely off for the second half of the swim. I came out of the swim with a 32:54 time and as my boyfriend put it I looked (and felt) rough. The caffeine/carb drink I had before racing did not sit well during the long swim, but after about halfway through the run to transition the sick feeling started to pass and I was once again feeling okay. If my face looks white that’s because I felt like crap… but no worries it passed! Another note about this race is that you notice I am wet here. This is absolutely normal. I just swam in a man-made lake for 32 minutes. Fun fact: I remained wet for the entire rest of the race. It started raining during the swim (I didn’t notice it, weird huh? J ) and stopped for a brief time at the end of my swim to the beginning of the bike leg, but then started and did not stop until close to the races finish. Luckily for the spectators there was a large building that they could stay inside during the race. Also this is a fun fact because for my very first sprint triathlon it started pouring down rain during the bike leg and did not stop till after the race also. Unfortunately for the spectators there was no place to stay dry and many of them got almost as soaked as the participants! Mom hanging out while I’m out somewhere bike riding in Sylvania The rain was never horrible, but still not extremely enjoyable either. The best part about the rain is that it was not 100 degrees outside as it was the day before. So I suppose you could say that I was grateful for rain (I’m so indecisive). But back to the race… Transitions and I do not get along. I did absolutely awful in T1 and T2 for this race. T1 = 3:28. T2 = 3:12. I can’t quite remember what occurred in T1 that made it so long, but it was, and I can’t change it now, so moving on. Trying not to fall over in my slippery shoes.. The bike: 24 miles. This is a great course to do your first Olympic distance triathlon. One of the main reasons is that the bike is flatter than a table. When I say there were no hills, I mean there were absolutely NO hills at all. The hardest part about the bike was the rain picked up, but other than that, it went well. My time was 1:26:22 (avg. mph rate of 17.3) which was faster than what I had expected, so I was happy. T2: awful. I did have to make a quick potty break which added to the time, but my transitions needs worked on like woah. The Run: 6.2 miles, 59:27, 9:35 pace. The run went fairly well also. I know I could have pushed myself harder, but I’m bad at gauging how much oomph I have in me for long races and generally tend to err on the side of caution with my pace throughout most of a race. I know I could have pushed myself more as there were plenty of water stops available and electrolyte replenshers throughout the run, but I didn’t, and even with water and cliff shot blocks I was just getting very fatigued at the end of the race. Almost there! I was tired, relieved, and excited at the end of the race. It was great to finish and see my parents and boyfriend there for me. It was great to have the support of my fellow Tri-Club members at points throughout the race. And it was great to feel the accomplishment of finishing an Olympic Distance Triathlon! While I have a ton of room for improvement I’m happy with my performance. I’ll mark a little notch in my list of completed races and I’m already looking forward to the next one. D and I after the race Awesome fellow Tri-Club members I have many improvements I want to make for my next race, but I must first decide what my next race will be! Fall is a busy time for college Triathlon teams, but due to finances and a crazy internship schedule on my end I don’t think I’ll be able to participate in any more races till winter/spring quarter. This isn’t for certain, but I’m not making any promises to do any races either. My training wasn’t very consistent before this race and it has really slacked off since then, which is pretty ridiculous and annoying. I’ve been crazy busy, but that is still no excuse for the non-existent physical activity in my life right now. I’m hoping with the beginning of fall quarter in a few short weeks I will be able to get back in to training mode and a regular schedule. I’m feeling sluggish and I need it.
So I’ll keep you posted on potential races in my future and also expect a goals post in the coming weeks for the rest of 2011! Cheers, BK p.s. I need to remember to get pictures with my parents at my races. p.p.s. Let me know if you have any questions about my race or racing in general! I love questions/comments and will answer them to the best of my ability! p.p.p.s. Funny side note. I was home a couple weeks ago and had my swim cap from this race out and my dog decided it was an awesome toy. She was just as interested in playing with it as she was her squeaky, actual dog toys. Doesn't take much to please dogs. She was so cute about it, so I didn't mind sacrificing the cap for some doggie play :) You know how your day is looking like it's going to be great and then all of a sudden everything flips around on you? Well, today that happened for me. I"m being optimistic in that I still have hope for the rest of the day, but this morning has been not so much fun. The Background: I have been looking forward to today for a month or so, why?, well because today is my birthday! I am not like many college students who think birthday's after 21 are not important, nope, I love birthdays. Parties, cards, friends, family, cake, ice cream, and so much more, who wouldn't love them! But I digress, earlier in the week my plans for today changed and I was a little frazzled, but I put that aside and made new plans and was newly excited last night and going in to this morning. The Blunder: I woke up a little before 7 a.m. (yea, my rough day started early) excited for the day. Literally 10 steps later and a short flight of stairs and *poof* my excitedness stopped and was replaced with a pain in the neck situation (pun intended!). You see I live on the third floor and to get to the second floor I have about 6 steps, a small landing, and 6 six steps more. Well on going down the first set of steps instead of going from #4 to #5 to #6 step, I decided to go straight from #4 to #6 on accident. :-\ A fall, slide, and hard faceplant into the wall later and I was hurting. I hit the wall pretty hard and my face, neck, nose were throbbing, I also heard a little crack upon hitting, so I decided the best thing to do was go to the ER to check it out. I called my mom (she loves getting these calls from me I swear...) and told her what happened then my next phone call I got lucky in that my big brother has no classes on Friday's and he was able to pick me up and take me to the hospital (thank you so much!) so I didn't have to make any one else miss class and/or work and got to spend a little time with him. At the ER, the xrays came back negative (whew!), I have no numbness or tingling, but I still have alot of pain with any type of twisting of my neck so the Dr. decided it was best to send me home with a brace and wear it for a couple days up to a week till it feels better/I have my check-up. If it doesn't feel better I'm supposed to follow up with a Neuro surgeon, but hopefully all I'm dealing with is a lot of angry muscles *fingers crossed*. So with meds and rest here's hope for a hopefully uneventful, fun, rest of my birthday day! Cheers! -BK p.s. Thanks for all the birthday love so far today on facebook, texts, cards, and calls it's definitely helped brighten my day I’m getting closer and closer to the end. What end is this? Well that would be my undergraduate career. I can’t believe that it’s already been over 4 years that I have been college. I have made many changes as to what date the “end” would come and also many changes to what is going to come after, but what is going to come after is a whole-nother topic entirely! Today we’ll stick with just being done. I’ve been trying to be more live one day at a time as opposed to planning everything, because I am a major planner. I’m trying, it’s hard, but not knowing exactly what you want to do in life helps with the whole spontaneity thing. So yes, I’m almost finished. This has been occupying by time for the past several months: And let me tell you, it feels dang good to be almost done. It will feel even better when I am done. So good that I believe a celebratory margarita will have to be bought. I think I can squeeze at least one in on my tight budget. Here’s what’s in/was in my way of being done: 1. GRE (a.k.a. 4 ½ hour long, poke-my-eyes-out standardized test requirement for graduate school) I took on August 30 2. Internship for my program that goes from Sept-Dec. Only two school-y things in my way, and although the test was not fun, I’m so stinking ecstatic about being done I don’t even care! I’m also really excited about my internship, which helps also. During my internship I’ll have no other classes, no tests, and no homework (well not really anyways). We’re required to do a final project for it about our experience and also fill out forms each week stating what we’re doing on our internship, but that’s it! (Note: this is not to down-play my requirements or the work I’ll be doing, it will not all be easy-schmeasy, but I feel after all I’ve done it’ll be a nice fun work compared to un-fun GEC’s and some majors classes the past 2 ½ years) I’ve grown so, so, so, so, so tired of school in the past year it’s crazy. I know part of the reason is because my traditional 4 years was up this past June though. Do you know how hard it is to stay motivated when so many of your friends are done with school and are no longer plagued by meaningless classes and homework and finals? Well really hard. Senioritis at its very core. But I can’t be all celebratory too soon (I mean hey I still have to graduate!), so all that will come in December when I’ll take my turn doing the in-famous senior crawl and the walk in my cap and gown. I surely don’t want to wish away time, but man am I excited for that day. So I’ve just been typing what I’ve been thinking and now forgot what I had intended this post to be exactly. But I suppose it is what it is by this point. I’m not quite sure where to go from here so I’m going to end it and leave you with a few tidbits of knowledge/facts and a picture. Enjoy! *The reason fit people can have lower resting heart rates (RHR) is due to a more efficient beat/pump. With each beat they can pump the same amount of blood as what an un-trained heart can pump in 2-4 beats *Increasing the amount of blood coming and going with each beat is known as an increase in Stroke Volume (SV). You can increase the amount of blood flowing at rest from 55mL to 100mL by training! Why is this good you ask? Well I’ll tell you! : ~More blood with each beat means more oxygen that is carried to the rest of your body and more importantly (for working out) to your muscles ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ~Increased oxygen allows the muscles to continue to function ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ~Which means you can train longer and harder ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ~All leading to improved fitness I love fall, but I would enjoy getting to boat and relax all day on a lake again before next year, can I go back?...
Toodles! <3 - BK p.s. Sorry I didn’t do so good about the “less-wordy” part. I’ll try, but I make no promises since I’m just starting out, I’ll get there eventually. Hello! I’m not sure where to begin, so I’ll begin with introductions. I’m Brittany, an almost graduated college student in the major of Exercise Science Education (4 months left!!!), I am a proud Ohio State Buckeye student and fan no matter what, I am a licensed Physical Therapy Assistant, I love fitness, health, and exercise (yes they are all different things), I am a Triathlete, I am a runner, my family and friends are my whole world, I don’t know what I want to be when I “grow up”, I love reading blog sites, I love ice cream more than words can describe, and lastly (for now) I’m fairly certain I’m going to be terrible at blogging for quite a while. J I have been reading obsessed with blogs for the past year to year and half. I’ve thought about starting my own before, but never thought I needed to because initially the only blogs I read were family blogs telling about what they were up to since they lived far away. Well 1. I do not live far away from most of my family, and 2. My life can’t be that exciting to blog about. So what changed my mind? Well firstly I found blogs about hobbies (first about sewing, I looove to sew and find new patterns, etc. etc. and I need to get better at it…) and also my career, school, and a talk that was given to my sorority about social media’s and networking. Add all this on top of me wanting to spread healthier ways of living and the truth about your body and how it reacts to exercise and voila! In to the blogging world I go. Also after I discussed the idea of starting a blog with my wonderful sister-in-law she sent me a message with the link to a nutrition/health/life blog done by a college student (which is an amazing blog; see Nutrition Nut on the Run) and thought, well I suppose I can do this after all and I was ready to jump in! I do need to work my consistency though. If I’m going to get in to the blogging world I need to do it with my whole being. I have an issue with falling in love with a hobby, going all out at the beginning and doing some things with it, but then letting it fall behind (see above statement about sewing.. sigh) due to another hobby popping up or not budgeting my time well between school and work and said hobby. So dedication is what I will be working on. Dedication is also really important with health, fitness, nutrition and exercise so it’s like a 2 for 1 deal! But continuing on... I told you a little about me and some things that I classify myself as in the first paragraph but now I want to tell you one thing I’m not. I am not a journalist or English major. I do my best to use the correct grammar, but Lord knows I’m going to screw it up, and probably a lot too. With starting the blog I would eventually like to take a writing class or two learning more about writing for the public (i.e. journals, newspapers, magazines, etc.), but that’ll come eventually. Okay I believe that’s enough rambling for now. I will definitely try to make my posts much less wordy. Now I will leave you with a picture or two of some of my recent adventures and recent purchases. Enjoy! Much love,
BK <3 |
Brittany
Hi! My name is Brittany. Welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere, it's constantly a work in progress :)
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