First, thanks for all of the happy birthday wishes. It was a happy weekend. But I have to say 30 isn’t off to the greatest start!

I got my first migraine headache on Saturday night and it completely freaked me out. I couldn’t sleep because my head hurt so bad so I got up at 1:30 a.m. to Google “headache on one side of the head starting behind the eye.” It was the craziest, most intense pain. I don’t get headaches often and I’ve never had one like this so it was a little scary. I’ve now had a residual headache in the same spot for the last three days that dull aches and comes and goes. I honestly just think the headache is the result of stress and exhaustion. I’m so happy that I’m finally able to take a huge step back and chill out. Has anyone else started getting migraines later in life? I’m praying (hard) that this was a one-time thing.

Second, the AC in my house stopped working yesterday. The unit is making a crazy weird noise. I’ll have more details on that tomorrow but I’m pretty prepared for one thing…it won’t be cheap to fix.

And third, I had to get cavities filled today. That’s not fun to start with but I had to get like 5 shots in my mouth because there’s something about my bone structure that has always made it hard for dentists to get me numb.

Bad things come in threes (says my Mema) and these are just life things. I’m pretty determined not to let this stuff stress me out and make me think this is any indicator of how this new year is going to go. Just bad timing, right?

In happier news, this week is all about detoxing from birthday cake (delicious while it lasted!), eating clean and good workouts. I kicked it off with a double green smoothie from Whole Foods.

I went out for dinner last night at Basil for a friend’s birthday. I ordered the Basil Chicken and instead of rice I asked them to add extra veggies to the dish.

After dinner we stopped by another friends condo who lives on the 35th floor of a building downtown. The views are amazing! We were lucky to catch the sunset as we chatted.

Late morning snack to hold me over to lunch after teaching and practicing (well, for 30 minutes but that’s better than none!) yoga this morning was watermelon, blueberries and a hard boiled egg. I have officially entered the time of year where I am obsessed with watermelon. I ate it last night, this morning and tonight. I just crave cold, sweet, juicy watermelon.

Lunch today was chicken and corn chowder before getting my dental work done. I wanted something that would satisfy me but not make me feel gross as I has people mess with my mouth for hours. I loved this soup because they used tons of chicken, corn, pureed corn, onions and stock to make it thick and hearty with no cream.

After my dentist appointment I got crazy with birthday thank you notes. When I finally somewhat regained the ability to chew I had an apple with peanut butter.

I needed a low impact but high sweat workout tonight so I took my friend Lauren’s spin class at the gym before teaching yoga. This was officially the third spin class I’ve taken in the past year. So hard. It gave me the cardio fix I needed but spin is still just not my fave workout.

And finally, dinner tonight was a stir fry of eggplant, asparagus and red peppers with panko coconut curry chicken.

So there’s a big snapshot of everything that’s been going on over the last few days! Hope your week is off to a better start than mine.

Metro CrossFit celebrated its one year anniversary on Saturday and I planned a throwdown to celebrate! Typically, throwdowns are a little more chill than official CrossFit competitions. The idea is that you invite athletes from your gym and other CrossFit gyms in the community to come together and workout.

The past few weeks of my work life have been dedicated to throwdown planning. The bulk of the work was in emails and social media to get everyone aware of and registered for the event. Once the event got closer I had to schedule everyone into heats and assemble a volunteer team to help pull off the day of logistics.

I felt pretty good going into Saturday. I had over 80 athletes scheduled to complete the workout in 9 heats. We had three kegs reserved and a food truck booked to serve meals. I actually felt pretty relaxed and confident which is usually not the case for me going into big events.

The throwdown went off perfectly. We were set up and ready to go long before anyone arrived, the turnout was awesome with over 150 in attendance, every heat went off on time, the food was delicious, the beer was flowing and the workout crushed everyone!

Lots of action pics to share to give you a taste of what the day was like!

Girls RX heat lined up for wall balls.

The apparel that was literally getting printed on Friday afternoon. A huge thank you Ink Floyd for pulling it off!

Men’s heats – ground to overhead.

Took these sweet pups about 2 minutes to figure this trick out. SO CUTE.

This shirt = awesome. The back said “Time for ____ (blank).”

Food truck courtesy of The Herban Legend and so delicious.

In addition to cute puppies we also had cute kids. Check out the form (attempting) to lift a 35# kettlebell.

Cheering every athlete to the finish.

Including myself. I wasn’t planning on doing the WOD but got pressured into doing the last ladies heat. I’m really glad I did the workout but I felt like death when I finished. (Surprise birthday party the night before was NOT kind on my body.)

I cannot even express how appreciative I am for everyone who came out to celebrate our first anniversary. It’s been an amazing first year an I cannot wait to see what the coming years hold for Metro CrossFit!

]]> http://www.peanutbutterrunner.com/throwdown-one-successful-year/feed/ 6 http://www.peanutbutterrunner.com/surprised/ http://www.peanutbutterrunner.com/surprised/#comments Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:25:18 +0000 Jen http://www.peanutbutterrunner.com/?p=9830

I have been totally spoiled over the last week. My friends have truly made my 30th birthday so special…I am still a little in shock over all of it! I thought that last Sunday’s pool party was wonderful and I never expected or dreamed that anything else was planned.

My Friday turned out to be pretty amazing. It started with yoga.

Then there was a sushi lunch. After lunch I had an appointment with my favorite esthetician Ariana Loredo for not only a brow/lip wax but also a facial with an enzyme peel and extractions. I figured if there was ever a time to treat myself to a facial, turning 30 was a good excuse. The facial was so relaxing and Ariana included a neck, arm, hand and scalp massage. My skin was seriously glowing when I left.

After my facial a kombucha and coconut cranberry macaroon were calling my name. I spent the rest of the afternoon in a frantic dash to finalize everything for our Metro event on Saturday before heading home to shower and get ready for dinner and drinks (I thought) with girlfriends.

The plan was to meet for a drink before our dinner reservations. Well, we never made it to dinner because when I walked into Reid’s where we had planned to meet, I was greeted by 25 of my friends shouting “surprise!” It was CRAZY and I was totally surprised. My heart was racing, my face was flushed and I was speechless.

My friends Diane and Winnie (you should recognize them from girl’s weekends to Asheville and Chicago) planned the party for me. I seriously can’t remember the last time I had a real birthday party…maybe when I was a kid? I am pretty much in disbelief that I’ve had two parties in a week.

My sweet friend Lina was there along with many other yogis and the owner of Metro! I can’t believe that they even reached out to my boss. It was so special to have her there!

Sweet Tater Katie even made a special Friday night out appearance and I was thrilled to see her walk in the door! My friend Rachel (far left) kept tearing up and telling me she was just so happy to see me happy and smiling. It makes me happy that others are looking at me and seeing/feeling happy again. (Did you get all that?)

The cake was massive and delicious and I am still plowing my way through it. Red velvet with a thick layer of frosting from Edible Art.

I can’t even describe how I felt on Friday night. Full of joy, love, hope and gratitude. The end of my 20s was full of ups and downs. I’m ready to embrace a new phase of my life and to really figure out what I want and who I am. Here’s to entering my 30s stronger, more focused and ready to live my life to the fullest.

Today is my actual birthday but this weekend has been so crazy with the surprise party, my work event and a wedding that all I’ve wanted to do is relax. I can’t wait to share the rest of my weekend with you in the next couple of posts!

My week has been consumed by Metro CrossFit. First, some of our coaches were out on vacation so I covered double the amount of classes that I usually do. And second, I’m in final crazy planning mode for our first anniversary throwdown and celebration on Saturday.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since we opened our doors at Metro CrossFit. The growth of our box and community has been amazing to watch. I can’t wait to celebrate with the Charlotte CrossFit community on Saturday! We’re having a WOD, kegs and a food truck. It’s going to be so much fun!

Event planning has been quite a task since we’re hosting a workout where timing and heats are essential. I am crossing my fingers that everything goes smoothly!

This week has kind of been a wash with food and workouts. I had a really bad day on both the personal and professional front on Wednesday so I took a rest day and went for a long walk with Sullie while I talked to my grandmother to decompress. After the walk I went to Whole Foods to get some salad toppings and was blown away when a customer service representative comped my food because I had to wait for another issue to be resolved with another client. I looked at her and said, “I’ve had a really long day. Thank you so much.”  I came home and made a salad with leftover rotisserie chicken and a bunch of other random toppings.

Lunch today was pretty noteworthy. I had a wrap with spinach, grilled portobello, hummus, feta and sundried tomatoes. I ate an apple on the side. And how beautiful is my wrap picture with my new lens!?

I think I sent approximately 100 e-mails this afternoon trying to handle all of the communication prep for Saturday. It was my goal to have as much done today as possible so that I can relax tomorrow. I have an appointment for a facial and brow waxing and want to get my nails done. I have a special birthday dinner planned with some friends tomorrow night and I want to kick off the weekend right.

Dinner tonight was a jalapeño cheddar burger from Whole Foods topped with a honey mustard aioli. I roasted asparagus and potatoes on the side.

And I couldn’t resist taking a picture of how many spices I pulled out of the pantry to season the potatoes and asparagus. I have a post planned for you called, “How to make food taste good.” Number one on the list will be SEASON YOUR FOOD!

Bedtime for this girl. I’m going to be super productive (and then super relaxed) tomorrow!

When people ask me if I’m into photography I explain to them that it’s not a “passion” exactly but I take pictures every single day. So by default of doing it so much and wanting my photographs to look nice, I have kind of gotten into it. I’m not motivated to go out and take a class or spend time just playing around with my camera but I do want to take better pictures and keep improving my knowledge and skills around photography. Does that make any sense at all?

I have had a 50 mm lens for my Nikon D3100 on my wish list for quite a while. Yesterday I decided to quit wishing and treat myself. I got the Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8g.

“This updated classic with a fast maximum aperture is ideal for everyday shooting, perfect in low lighting situations and great for producing images with beautiful background blur (Bokeh). The AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G includes Silent Wave Motor technology (SWM) for fast and precise autofocus, M/A Focus Mode Switch for seamless changes between manual and autofocus operation and an aspherical lens element for outstanding optical performance with high contrast.“

I have a lot of photo-worthy events coming up in the coming weeks so the timing was perfect. Once I made the decision to buy the lens, I couldn’t even wait for it to be shipped and delivered so I did the buy online, in store pick up thing from Best Buy. I can’t wait to play with my new lens! It’s definitely giving me a little incentive to spend more time on my photography.

Do you enjoy photography? And what’s your favorite lens to shoot with?

In other news…

I drank some juice that tasted like dirt yesterday morning. Carrot, kale and ginger. Sounds appetizing, was not appetizing. At least Sullie is cute in the background.

Tuesday’s WOD was awesome – “Running Elizabeth!”  Cleans are one of my very favorite movements and I always love running WODs. Our strength work before the WOD was 5 sets of 5 deficit deadlifts. I can’t tell you the last time I deadlifted (not my favorite movement!) so I was proud that I worked up to 115 and felt really good about my form.

It’s been late nights at the gym this week so meals have been more assembly than cooking. Last night I made a great burrito bowl with cilantro-lime rice, black beans, slaw, rotisserie tequila lime chicken from Whole Foods, avocado, sour cream and salsa. I wish you could see all of the layers in the photograph.

And packed lunch today was another bowl combination but this one was much different than last night’s. I started with a bed of power greens (baby kale, chard and spinach) and then topped it with lentils and quinoa that were tossed with tomatoes, olives, avocado and red wine vinegar, sauteed tofu, goat cheese, spinach and artichoke hummus and sour cream.

Have a great day!