Tag: ‘fitness’
June 18, 2010 at 8:39 am
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book to review.
You remember Dara Torres, right? She’s the forty-something, mom who has six-pack abs. You know, the one who swam her way to three Olympic medals two years ago, beating kids who hadn’t been born yet when she attended her high school prom. Depending on your outlook, she might inspire you to be fit despite your age or just make you feel depressed that you’re not in as good of shape as her. If it’s the latter, you now have a better chance at trying to keep up. Dara’s revealed some of the secrets of her training regimen in a book titled Gold Medal Fitness: A Revolutionary 5-Week Program written in collaboration with writer Billie Fitzpatrick.
The book has a conversational tone that intermixes Dara’s personal experiences with the technical information of her routine, making it an easy read. The program is based on what Dara’s learned about training smarter as she ages, and thus is targeted at women. As a swimmer, Dara’s program is focused on [...]
March 22, 2010 at 11:19 am
I woke up at four o’clock in the morning to catch my flight to Baltimore for FitBloggin’ 2010. Waking up at that hour does strange things to my body, making me simultaneously feel like I’m going to barf and that I can talk to angels dancing on the wings of the plane. Hopefully they’d remind me to pull my hair back before vomiting. My odd mental state also made me very wary of sitting so close to the jet engines.
My Paranoid Traveler’s Syndrome made me worry that the glass was going to break and I’d be sucked into the turbines like a bird with bad luck. Thankfully, the plane remained in tact, but this also meant that I spent the flight being taunted by ads in the seat pocket advertising free wifi that was not working on my flight.
When questioned, the stewardess just shrugged her shoulders, which is the universal gesture for, “I’m just a stewardess, not a cable repair man.” While I rather hate to use this cliched phrase, major FAIL, Airtran!
When I [...]
October 13, 2009 at 9:53 am
If you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly recommend you check out the latest project from Shauna and Carla a.k.a. DietGirl and Miz Fit. These fab ladies have overcome time zone differences and the winter sniffles to bring you a fitness podcast called Two Fit Chicks and a Microphone. They solicited names for the podcast a few weeks ago, and this title is far more clever than the only one I could think of, which was “Not the Jillian Michaels Podcast.” Hey, it’s got great SEO! (Half of you are now mumbling, “What’s an SEO?”) This week’s episode is all about running. New podcasts should be published every two weeks or so, and you can even find them in iTunes! Congrats ladies, and keep up the good work!
If you haven’t already, be sure to enter the $100 gift card giveaway in association with BlogHer and Pepperidge Farm. The contest is open until November 2.
Finally, a big congrats to my friend Stephanie O’Dea, who appeared on Good Morning America today to promote her new book, [...]
September 21, 2009 at 9:19 am
Unlike my first running of the IrishFest 5K, I didn’t witness an unofficial “Escape The Cops 5K” on my way to the starting line. This year’s race also wasn’t at night like the one two years ago was, so they did not hand out any glow sticks :( But by God, there were bagpipes!
I sat on a folding chair waiting for the race to start, when a thirty-something man in a grey shirt and square-frame glasses came up and said, “Excuse me, but do you know what pace you plan on running?”
“I have no idea,” I told him honestly. I haven’t been tracking the distance I’ve been running while training, just the amount of time I spend running. “Maybe a 12-minute mile pace?” I said optimistically recalling my average pace a year and a half ago.
“Do you mind if I pace off of you? I haven’t run a 5K for almost two years and it would help a lot if I could pace myself with somebody.”
“Sure,” I told him.
“I just thought I’d ask you…because you [...]
June 8, 2009 at 7:59 am
I used to exercise because I knew it was the only thing keeping the world from exploding. I would dash onto the trail immediately after work so I would have enough day light to complete my runs. I would lift weights as I watched Good Morning America. I did Pilates so much I found myself able to roll backwards and then leap up off the mat. I did this for months and months after I got my horrible, awful, no-good headache. I did it because I knew if I didn’t the universe would collapse and we would all die, because it was only the force of me exercising five times a week that was preventing total world annihilation.
But after about 8 months of the pain and the pathetic push-ups, I stopped. The running shoes stayed in the closet and my Pilates mat stayed in the corner and my weights just stayed put, period. And the world did not explode. The universe did not end. This was a very bad thing to discover. I needed to [...]
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