Muffinhead!

As a follow up to my post last Friday, here is ANOTHER local company making AWESOME outwear for dogs: Muffinhead.  Plus, if you buy between now and the end of the year they will donate $5 of every purchase to Family Dogs New Life Shelter, our favorite local shelter!  They have awesome jackets for dogs of all sizes!  You can't buy online but you can buy at a few local stores, so check them out!!

Just a few more miles

Time has literally flown by, however the miles have not!  Counting today there are 12 days left of 2010.  As of this very moment, I have 22.8 miles left to run in order to complete the 7 week winter challenge.  Lets do some math.  First, 22.8 miles/12 day s= 1.9.  I need to run 1.9 miles every day, including today (beyond the mile I already ran this morning).

Here's some more math: I WILL NOT RUN ON CHRISTMAS, that's a fact.  I also can't run every single day, my shins and body can't keep up with it.  So 12 days - 3 days = 9 days.  22.8 miles/9 days = 2.53 miles.  I need to run 2.53 miles 9 days out of the next 12 days in order to complete the challenge.  I know this is doable, I know I can make it but I don't have room for error...err drinking too much and staying up too late to run the next day!

I also still need to row 9500 meters!  I can't wait for this challenge to be over!!!

Woman's Best Friend

Let me start by stating the obvious, I LOVE DOGS!  The bigger the better, the more misunderstood, the more I love them!  Matt and I both have a soft spot for the bully breeds, the 'aggressive' breeds, the breeds least likely to be adopted.  That's why we have a Rottweiler and a Pit Bull and fostered a Rottweiler last year.  If I had my way I would have many more dogs!  Some permanent, some foster, all loveable dogs needing a second, or third chance!  However, our house is a bit small and our current work schedule doesn't allow for time to give a foster dog the love and attention it would need to shine!  HOPEFULLY once Matt falls in to a normal, semi-predictable schedule, we can foster a bully!  Since I can't foster/adopt right now, I figured I would share my favorites no-kill shelters, blogs and websites for dogs dogs dogs!

First, our favorite local no-kill shelter in Family Dogs New Life Shelter.  Yes, this is where Mary and Brian recently adopted Murphy and no, we have not adopted a dog from them.....yet!  Why do we love them so much?  Well there are several reasons, first, they love pit bull mixes!  In fact, they make videos about all of the pit, called piteos!  Here are a favorites (yes I've watched them all, yes I love them all!)


Boomer's Piteo from Family Dogs New Life on Vimeo.




Braden's Piteo from Family Dogs New Life on Vimeo.



Sallie's Piteo from Family Dogs New Life on Vimeo.



Second, we love them because they have a pack of dogs rather than dogs in individual kennels.  This helps them socialize the dogs, relieve shelter stress and let the dogs have fun!  We think this is awesome!  Third, we LOVE their mascot dog and the dogs on their homepage, we love everything about this shelter!

FDNL Mascot Triffi

Our favorite dog blog....BAD RAP!  It stands for Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls.  We love them because they rescue pit bulls, educate the community about responsible dog ownership and how loving and sweet pitbulls can be, fight bully breed legislation AND helped rescue and rehabilitate many of the Michael Vick dogs!  Take some time and check them out, they are on Facebook as well!  LOVE them!!

My favorite dog book would be The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption.  Not an easy read, made me angry, made me cry, but also made my smile!  I am so thankful to everyone involved in saving those dogs and cheer against the Eagles every time they play!  Any team playing the Eagles is my favorite team of the week!

Favorite dog accessory companies...I have a few!  First, locally run RuffWear.  Why?  Well lets start with the fact that their logo dog is a Rottweiler named Ursula!  Yupp, love it!  Second, because they are located in Bend, OR!  What's not to love about a local company?! Third because their products rock!  We have a backpack and boots for Po!  Remi doesn't have anything yet, but give us some time!

My second pick is a new one, but I already love them because they are donating 10% of their sales to BadRap PLUS giving you 10% off your purchase.  PLUS they are located in Seattle!!  All you have to do is enter the code BADRAP.  The company is called Idawg and they sell awesome cold weather/rainy weather clothes for dogs!!  I want to get this for Remi:

 And I want to get this for Po!

I hope everyone enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed putting it together!  Cheers!

Pancakes.Dogs.ChristmasCards

This post really has nothing to do with fitness, in fact it has more to do with eating, adopting dogs (not us, sadly) and getting in the Christmas spirit!

However, before I continue with my random thoughts for the day, I ask that if you read my blog that you follow me!  I'd love to know how many people are actually reading this little blog, I know it's more than 3, so click that little button and let me know my words go out to more than 3 people!

So all week I had been craving pancakes!  I know, super random, but I eat eggs every day for  breakfast and I just wanted PANCAKES!  So Sunday we headed out to OPH in Portland (for all you Salem folks so know how wonderful OPH is!).  I ordered blueberry pancakes, Matt got banana pancakes and we shared.  SO WORTH THE CALORIES!!  We then headed over the Family Dogs New Life shelter in Portland to look at a dog for Matt's mom and stepdad.  Check out their website here: Family Dogs New Life Shelter.  They are such a wonderful, no-kill shelter that LOVES PITBULLS!  They post fabulous videos, called piteos, of all the pits they rescue and we love every last one of them!  Here's a truth, I asked for a puppy for Christmas (an adopted, pit bull puppy).  Matt said not until we have a bigger house, then I can rescue all the dogs I want (or something close to that, but sounds good to me!).

Here is the dog Mary and Brian adopted!!!

 His name was Tad, but the renamed him Murphy!  So freaking cute, and yes that is one mean underbite!  I'm so excited for them and for Murphy, the perfect happy ending to our Sunday!

At the half way point

This 7 week challenge has consumed my life lately.  Each day I wake up thinking about how many miles I need to run and how many meters I need to row.  I usually plan to wake up early and run before work, but then hit snooze 5-10 times and wake up later than I would have normally.  I then figure out how many miles I can convince the dogs to run after work before heading to the gym.  The weekends are a good time to catch up on the miles I planned to run during the week, but didn't.

Today I hit 50.5 miles and 27,000 meters, I have offically half way there.  I'm also about halfway through the challenge, so I'm really excited I'm half way there, otherwise I would be in big trouble!

Po has been pretty good with the running, for a big guy he finds a decent, slow pace and stays steady for about 3 miles, with a little encouragement at the end.  Remi needs a pep rally before we even leave the house, but if you get her excited enough, she's a pretty decent runner.  Otherwise, it takes her about 1/2 mile to actually start running.

I'll update my progress on the weight loss at the end of the week.  Happy Holidays!

I have a problem

Step one - Admit you have a problem!

Yesterday I cheated on my diet which is not horrible, everyone should have a cheat day/meal whatever you like.  That's not my problem.  My problem is that now I can't stop thinking about how I'm going to undo the cheat!  I set my alarm to go running this morning before work, but lets be honest, I hit snooze 17 times and didn't run at all.  So now I'm sitting here at work thinking, damn!  I should have run this morning because it would mean less running tonight.  The dogs honestly suck at running, my next dog will have mad running skills!  They need the exercise as much as I do, so I will end up taking them after work, before the gym.  Problem is they run between a 10:30-12:30 pace, which although isn't bad and sometimes I enjoy a nice stroll, will take extra time to complete my miles tonight.  I'm actually ahead of my schedule for my goal, but since I cheated last night I feel like to HAVE to run today.  I literally wrote on my plan for undoing my cheat last night, in full anticipation that when I step on the scale tomorrow I'll see something I like!

In other news, Go Ducks!  We've planned a little civil war party for this weekend and invited Ducks and Beavs alike.  Our house is going to be packed to the brim and it's stressing Matt out.  HOWEVER, I am super excited to have friends over and of course am hoping for a Duck victory!

That is all.

Quick Update

I've neglected my blog for a few days so figured it was time for a quick update.  First things first, I reached one of my goals, in fact blew it out of the water!  My goal was to do 10 pull-ups on my own (a secondary goal was to do 10 without stopping, which I haven't tried just yet but am sure I could do it).  We had a workout on Monday that was 5 Thrusters, 10 pull-ups, AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) for 20 minutes.  I almost finished 10 rounds which resulted in 95 pull-ups!  Many people asked, well how many were consecutive.  Does it matter?  In my opinion, no!  I did 95 pull-ups, no they weren't consecutive and I often broke them down to 4-3-3 to get to 10, but again, does it matter?!  Crossfitters know that it doesn't matter, its an achievement and is awesome!  That is why I have not responded to anyone on Facebook who wanted to know how many were consecutive, as if that changes whether or not I achieved my goal, as if everyone is trying to qualify my achievement.  It doesn't matter, I'm not saying I did 95 straight pull-ups, but it was a hard workout and I did 95 pull-ups.  Whew, guess I needed to vent a bit!

Next, all those miles!  I got some new running shoes yesterday and I've already clocked 6 miles in them, yay!  I've made pretty good progress against the 100 mile goal, I'm currently at 39 mile, 61 more to go!  It hasn't been hard to get motivated to run because I have this goal I need to achieve.  What I'm worried about is that after the challenge is over, I won't have the motivation to run anymore.  I'll tackle that one when we get there, but I know I need to keep running, it's been helping me with my next goal, to lose weight/fat! 

I have lost 6.8 lbs and its been about 2 1/2 weeks!  I am so happy, I have never been able to lose weight this quickly.  The zone diet combined with 12-14 miles of running a week and 5-6 Crossfit workouts a week have helped with this goal.  It would take me a lot longer if I wasn't working out so hard and I'd probably have to be stricter with my diet, but it is so motivating!

I'm still working on the rowing, I've logged about 18,000 meters, so I have quite a ways to still go with that one, but it's still doable. 

Anyways, that's my quick update!  Have a great day!