The Spartan Race in the Poconos and Wedding Recon

Hi all,

Today was my first day back in Charlotte after almost a week and a half off and I was certainly thrown right back into things! I couldn't wait until work was over to write my post about the Spartan Race!

Let's start from the beginning, Saturday morning we said goodbye to all of our PFEW friends and students. If you don't know what PFEW is, check out this post from the beginning of the week that explains. After we left, we headed to Mifflintown, Pennsylvania to see my friend Lindsey get married at an amazing farm out in the middle of nowhere. It was such a beautiful wedding and so unique to the couple. I couldn't stop thinking about how I can't wait for mine to come around the corner! Her dress was stunning, seriously, look at this.

 

 

 

and look at how adorable these kids are! The suspenders are so cute!

 

We left the wedding early to head towards the Poconos because we were leaving bright and early on Sunday morning to go and run the Spartan Race. This would be our 2nd Spartan Race, as we ran our 1st one last year at the White Water Center in Charlotte. It's a 5 mile race that is littered with obstacles and a lot of mud. We had so much fun last year that we thought we would try it in another state!
When we got to the race, we realized exactly what we had signed ourselves up for - a course that would be nothing but climbing the face of a mountain. Here is a photo of the course if that helps give perspective, that my dear, dear friends is a 2 mile track straight up a ski slope.

Can't we just go get a coffee instead?

I am not going to lie, I got pretty nervous about this course because while I do put hills into my workout, they aren't hills like this. Also, it was about 90 degrees at 10 in the morning, so needless to say, it was a daunting idea. I did learn from last year and wore more functional clothing, leggings and a 3/4 sleeve shirt to protect my knees and elbows from the rocks, scrapes and bruises.

Before shot

We were off and running in the 12:15 heat and the first obstacle was a grueling hike straight up, people actually dropped out within the first 10 minutes because of the difficulty and everyone was walking, there was no running up this mountain. Then when you finally got into the first clearing, you were handed a 15 pound sandbag (20 for men) and with it on your shoulder, you hiked an 80 degree mountain face for the next 1/2 mile. That was probably the hardest thing that you did through the entire race followed by army crawling under barbed wire, jumping over 8 and 9 foot walls (thanks for the boost Dwayne), swimming, cargo nets, rope climbs and everything in between. If you fail at one of these obstacles, you have to do 30 burpees before you can move on. No easy task but luckily out of all the obstacles we only had to do them 3 times. A lot of that has to do with our teamwork, we cheer each other on, Dwayne gives me a boost to the top of the high walls until I can pull myself over and I solicit people for water when he gets dehydrated.

All in all, it was a grueling race but when we got to the final obstacle and could see the finish line, we grabbed each others hand and jumped over the fire pit, (oh yes, you heard correctly, you jump over fire) and ran through the finish line to get our medals, banana and a much deserves glass of water.



The Muddy After Photo

These races destroy your shoes because you are walking through mud pits and lakes with them on. Luckily, I was in need of new running shoes anyway and so I sent my year old, worn out hot pink Adidas AdiZeros out in a blaze of glory!

I can't wait to go shopping for a new pair!

When you are done, you also get a ticket for a free beer for completing the race so we triumphantly found some shade, ate our bananas, checked our final scores/times and got probably one of the most well deserved beers in race history.

A Coors Light never tasted so good.

 We finished the whole race in about 2 hours and 30 minutes and were in the middle of the pack when it came to results. The winner of the race, did the entire thing in 41 minutes, that's insane!

We went back to the hotel, cleaned up our bumps and bruises, got a well deserved hamburger and passed out to get up early in the morning and come back to Charlotte. We were both really excited to see our puppy again - we missed his little waggy tail while we were gone. He was excited when we picked him up and once we finally got him in the car, he immediately flopped because the happiness was just too much to handle!

Look at that smile!

I was so happy to be home after a week and a half away and now starts the process of unpacking and washing everything. That is going to be started tonight and I am sure that it will be a long process but I also get to talk to my best friend April about my wedding shower in Pittsburgh. So excited! : )



Hey, Does Your Blog Look Different?

Hello all!

You may have noticed that my blog has changed, ever so slightly. I realized that the blogspot has some more dynamic blog looks and I decided to play around. I really like the new one and I am hoping that it will help make the different older blog posts more accessible to folks. In other words, feel free to look around! ; )

I didn't intend for my workout yesterday to be a killer but it definitely was! I am a huge advocate for circuit training and have recently really tried to put it into my routine pretty often because the Spartan Race in the Poconos is coming up in a few weeks. (gulp)

It looked something like this if you want to try- I promise it will leave you sweaty and the constant change from one exercise to another makes it pretty face paced!

Cardio
25 Minutes Elliptical Hills
5 - Uphill Sprints for 30 seconds year (equals 5 minutes 30 sec sprint/30 sec rest)
Circuit
1 Minute Jump rope
10 Push Ups
10 Lunges
1 Minute Jump rope
1 Minute Plank
10 Dips
25 Sit ups

Repeat circuit at least 3 times! It was over before I knew it and I was on fire afterwards!

So, for those of you who read my post yesterday, I am sorry to announce that the package that I had waiting for me at home was not full of nutritious freebies but was full of something just as good! I had forgotten that a few weeks ago, I had ordered a hard cover book for our engagement photos with the hopes of it being used as our guest book.

However, when it came, it was much smaller than I thought it would be - darn. I think that the use of the black and white photos make it quite romantic though so perhaps we can use it as a coffee table book.

I guess I am still waiting for my health food delivery and in the mean time I am going to keep chipping away at stuff for the wedding and keep on jumping on that treadmill. Aroo!!

My First Dress Fitting and My Thoughts on the Abercrombie CEO

Hello all,

This weekend was excellent because I got to relax but also because I had my first dress fitting! I have to admit that when I bought my wedding gown that it was hard to truly imagine what it would look like when it actually fit me. The dress is 2-3 sizes too big because it was a discontinued boutique style and so I bought it off the rack.

Obviously, I can't show a picture but this is a pretty good representation.

Saturday morning my friend and a I went back to the boutique to meet the women doing my alterations.These two women were certainly pros! I thought it would be some long, drawn out process of measurements and in reality, all I had to do was put the dress on and they pinned me into it. I got a really good look at what the dress will be like when its finished and even got to tell them exactly how low down my legs I wanted my "mermaid" style skirt to be. They also showed me something called a 5 point bussel? Acted like I was supposed to know what that was - I didn't so I just smiled!

It was also interesting because when I first put the dress back on, the first question I was asked was "So are you planning anything drastic before your wedding?" I was confused at the question but then I realized - she meant was I planning on changing my body drastically before the wedding. I said no and she started telling me stories about how she has had women come in telling her that they are going to lose 40-50 or 60 pounds before their wedding and somehow she is supposed to know how to alter their dress before they have actually done so. It is an interesting business - this wedding stuff. . The entire relationship I have had with my fiance, I have weighed the same thing and been a healthy person. Why before we make the biggest commitment to each other would I try to make myself look like a different person? Don't get me wrong, I will surely try to step up my workouts and work on my muscle tone but drastic weight loss? No.

It's killing me that I can't share pictures! Obviously, that would ruin the surprise. So, instead I will just share this.

I love ECards!

I will have the first round of alterations back at the end of July and I can't wait!

I have also had a few people ask me about my thoughts on the Abercrombie and Fitch CEO's latest snafu in the lime light. For those of you who don't know, he publicly said that he doesn't sell larger sized clothes in his store because he doesn't want fat people wearing them. His clothes are for the cool kids. An article about it is here.

Now, a lot of people have gotten outraged by this and are talking about petitions and boycotts and everything else. My opinion on this may surprise a few people, but honestly I am on his side.

Say whhhaaa?

Do I think that the way he said it could have been done better or think that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? Absolutely, but everyone knows that Abercrombie and Fitch is for tall, skinny rich kids whose parents are wealthy and stupid enough to pay $50 for a tshirt that said A&F on the front.

I don't walk into stores like DressBarn or Babys R Us and get outraged because they don't have clothes in my size. I am NOT their demographic - maybe they are selling strictly to middle aged house wives or children. There are even stores out there that cater STRICTLY to larger people - when was the last time that you were outraged at a Mens Big and Tall store not selling clothes for my 5'1 frame? The beauty of our market is that we can have multiple stores that can dig out niches and this has been A&F's for a long time. I remember never going there when I was in high school because even their 'short' pants were 3 inches too long and when I was a size 6 at Old Navy, I was a 12 there. So, I chose not to shop there anymore because obviously, I wasn't who they were trying to sell to.

I think it's time that we stop being SO HYPERSENSITIVE about everything and spend more time getting outraged by the things that matter. Why aren't people as outraged about genetically modified foods and its backdoor legislation or even as outraged that the population of obese people has tripled in the past 20 years? Maybe, people should be more outraged about people not taking care of themselves and less outraged about those same peoples inability to buy jeans from 1 of 1,000 different retailers. Priorities people, priorities.

Life Updates (Big Announcement) and My Next Year

Hello all my blog followers- of which I am sure there are only a few at this point if any because I haven't blogged in quite some time! Sorry about that but life in Charlotte has been absolutely crazy with my job sending me all over the country and working 50-60 hour weeks at times.

Also, can't forget to mention taking care of this little guy: ) Who isn't so little anymore! He has changed from my 30 pound puppy to a 60 pound cuddle monster.

As you can see, he is obviously quite the handful even if he is a puppy school graduate! I decided to take blogging back up (if my schedule will allow it) because there is a something quite important that I need to really focus on my health, fitness and stress level control to get ready for in the next year. If you are a close friend you already know what I am talking about. If you are just as avid reader of the goings on in my life but from a distance, it is my job to tell you that I, Mackenzie Farone, am getting married in a year.

 

 

My amazingly and devestatingly handsome now fiance proposed over Thanksgiving dinner at a cabin in Bryson City and now we are taking that leap down the aisle after about 4 years of dating. I couldn't be more excited and stressed at the thought of planning this thing and the only reason is because we live in Charlotte, North Carolina but will be getting married in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So, I figured a good stress reliever and a good way to keep myself on track to push a little harder than my normal fitness routine could be to blog! So my dear, dear friends this blog will now become (at least for the next year) my health/ fitness/ talking about wedding plans blog.

 

 

We have finally chosen a venue in Pittsburgh after a VERY long weekend of searching but we haven't signed a contract yet. Once we do, I will certainly let everyone know! I am so very blessed to have had one of my old college roommates and an amazing friend of mine take our engagement photos while we were in Pittsburgh. Rachel Tokarski is an amazing photographer and I can't wait to see what she does with our wedding photos next year! She actually blogs too about her photography and she does a ton of sports photos for Pittsburgh Hockey teams - you can't beat that! Check her out here http://racheltokarskiphotography.blogspot.com/.  They aren't edited yet, we are still in the process of choosing but I thought I would share some of my favorite raw photos!

 

The one thing that I will say is that the weekend of searching for venues, seeing friends (which I loved) and running around was stressful and I noticed a major change in my body when I got back including stomach gurgles, tiredness and my brain wasn't functioning on all levels. I figured what a great time to get strict again about my healthy eating habits! I have one year until the wedding where I will probably be looked at and photographed more than any other time in my life sooo... I should get it together. Plus, it will help me more than I can imagine with handling stress.

Don't get me wrong, health and fitness had still been a HUGE part of my life even if I wasn't blogging about it but my workouts have turned from 5 times a week to 3 times and my company candy dish has been calling my name on a daily basis. SO! come with me on my fitness journey with just a dash of wedding 'goings on' in the mix too.

Yesterday was a detox day full of fruits and vegetables and I could tell the damage I had done with a week of no exercise and bad eating habits because I felt sick on the treadmill. This only happens when my work out comes as a total shock to my body.

Today, I started off with the yummiest of yummy breakfast shakes full of super foods! I suggest this green monster to anyone!

- 1/2 cup Almond Milk
-1/2 cup strawberries
-1 cup spinach
- 1 scoop of protein powder
- Ice

Let me know what you want to hear about! Future blogs will contain my workouts, new recipes, trials and tribulations of exercising and nutrition. Also, I will update everyone on exciting steps in the wedding planning process including the venue, save the date designs, my beautiful wedding party all right up until the big day!!