Meet Mary!

Get ready for another GUEST POST! Have a great weekend everyone!

-Alexis and Shelby

Hello Health Nuts! I’m so excited to be a guest blogger and share with you all about my experience so far as a vegetarian. I'm an avid runner, much like Alexis and Shelby. As you can see being active is definitely a huge part of our friendship!

Although I’d like to say my choice to eat Vegetarian was something that I had given plenty of thought and pondered for weeks on end, the truth is that after watching just one video narrated by Paul McCartney about the horrors of animal slaughterhouses (meat.org) and doing a little of bit of online researching of the lifelong health benefits, I decided I wanted to simply give vegetarianism a “test run”. As days of this “test run” turned into weeks and weeks into month, I can now proudly say that I have been a faithful Vegetarian for six months and am still going strong! (If you had told me this a year ago I would not have believed you).

I currently live with Alexis in our sorority house—a very vegetarian-friendly place. Our sorority’s new chef, Brian, provides a vegetarian option for every brunch, lunch, and dinner he prepares making it easier than ever for me! In addition, our kitchen is stocked with veggie burgers and other high protein, meatless foods like oatmeal, soymilk, and peanut butter.

Of the past six months, I have found these first few weeks of the fall semester to be the easiest for me due to the large number of healthy vegetarian options at my fingertips. In comparison with this past summer, when I worked as a camp counselor in New Hampshire, it is quite a relief to now be living in a place with so many great alternatives to meat. At camp I would find myself having a soy peanut butter sandwich for lunch multiple days in a row, not fun!

However, Brian is not around all the time and our sorority house is obviously not the only vegetarian-friendly place in Charlottesville. My new favorite veggie option when dining out is Rise Pizza. This quick-serve, locally owned restaurant in the Barracks Road Shopping Center of Charlottesville has everything from gluten-free pizza crust to the most well priced gourmet veggie pizzas and spinach salads that I have found at UVA! I have been to Rise four times already this semester, including one trip for dinner after the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon. The simple thought of Rise Pizza waiting for us made the traffic-filled trip go much faster! Not only is the food fantastic but Rise employees are super nice as well: When we thought Alexis had lost her ring in the Rise trash, the manager delved his bare hands into the bag where she had thrown her food away on a determined search to find it. A very accommodating bunch I’d say! Check out the menu for yourself: http://www.risepizzaworks.com/index.html

That's all for now. I hope to be doing lots more posts in the future here as I learn more about how my newfound vegetarianism has affected my health! Have a great weekend!

-Mary

Sixth Half-Marathon, Check!

Hey everybody! I know I may have freaked some of my friends out with my Facebook status after the race, but I really felt it was a notch in my belt to finally run myself to the point where the medical tent was necessary!

My experience in my sixth half-marathon, and the second time doing the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon was far from ordinary. Upon waking up early last Saturday for our drive to Virginia Beach, I noticed the extreme cold that had come upon me. Despite a good 11 hours of sleep the night before I was feeling pretty awful. I did everything to shake it - cold medicine, Wellness Pills, Zicam, EmergenC, and at least 200 ounces of fluids throughout the day. I drank so much in an attempt to drink away the cold and hydrate for the next day. I had a steady mix of vitamin C drinks, different forms of electrolytes and lots of water. I try not to drink too much water the day before a race, as well as the morning of. After hydrating with so many electrolytes for race prep, you don't want to wash the electrolytes out of your system.

Shelby, Mary and I had an awesome drive out to Virginia Beach despite my sickness. We were on a mission to find a Qdoba for a pre-race lunch and eventually ended up at a real mall with an H+M, Forever 21 and California Pizza Kitchen. It was heavennn and much better than shopping in Charlottesville!

Upon arriving we headed to the convention center for the Health and Fitness Expo. This was Mary's first race outside of the Charlottesville Half Marathon and it was Shelby's first half-marathon, so it was pretty cool for them to see so many vendors and sponsors out there.

After picking up our packets we headed straight to the Larabar booth for free samples galore!

Then we went searching for running accessories!

Later on that night we checked into our hotel room in hopes of getting to sleep by about 8:30. It was only a dream though, as I somehow managed to lock the keys in the car. The AAA man came eventually but my stretching routine and pre-race shower were postponed until he arrived. I didn't get a very good night of sleep, mainly due to all the sniffling and coughing. This was probably the first sign that I should not have done the race the next day, but I was not going to let a stupid cold get in a way of the race.

The next morning we made our way from Norfolk to Virginia Beach, getting pumped as ever for 13.1.

When we got near the start, we encountered some more car drama - in the form of parking this time. Long story short, I founded myself sprinting about 8 blocks to a 7-11 for some cash and on the way back I started to feel very feverish and tired. This was sign number 2 that I should not have done the race.

Yes, I know I'm stubborn.

The race started off well. I started off in Coral 7 with an anticipated finish time of 1:55. My PR (personal record) is 1:57 at the Charlottesville Half. That race is incredibly hilly, so compared to the flatness of Virginia Beach I figured such a PR would be pretty easy to accomplish.

I was well on my way in the first couple of miles, hitting 9 minute splits with very little effort. And then once the first incline came about my cold really started to hit me. My sinuses were hating me, and it became a lot harder to breathe. Every time I tried to speed up, I began to feel very nauseated. The first 6 miles went pretty well, and if I could have kept up that pace I would have a good chance of finishing sub-2 hours. But my body was not ready for that, as I eventually need to take a couple of breaks. I'm estimating I stopped for at least 10 minutes. Mile 8 and 9 were by far the worst, and it was around then that I noticed a pain in my left ankle. This has happened a lot to me in the past with long distances so I didn't worry too much about it. The last three miles are usually the easiest for me - when my adrenaline kicks in and all I care about is crossing that finish line. Not this race. My body was completely exhausted and it really started to affect me. I remember feeling pretty delirious. At this point, adrenaline was not enough to get me sprinting across the finish. I kept at about a 10 minute mile pace for the last 2 miles.

I reached the finish at 2:19, a time I am not proud of. Accounting for the 10 minutes of rest, I was able to run the 13.1 in 2:09 technically. Even so, I'm proud of myself for finishing. It feels like a very different type of accomplishment, and made me feel really confident about my fitness being able to go to that distance while feeling that sick.

After the race, I meandered around for about 20 minutes looking for Mary and Shelby. I eventually decided to sit down for a second and give my legs a rest, hoping they would find me. And then I collapsed. About 25 minutes later I woke up, with a person sitting next to me telling me I should head over to the medical tent. I disagreed and found myself myself attempting to walk over to look for Mary and Shelby at the car. 30 seconds I was back down on the ground. I got the strength to get back and went over to the medical tent.

I recall slurring my words and not making much sense of the situation, so excuse me if this sounds a bit hazy. I told a volunteer there that I was not feeling well and felt very faint.

His response: "We can't help you."

"Are you serious? I don't know what to do."

"There is no doctor here that can help you."

"Is this not the freaking medical tent? Isn't this your job?"

Eventually a woman came to "help" me. Without really listening to my symptoms or even asking about a medical history, she just gave me a salt packet and told me to leave.

I'm extremely disappointed and this experience really makes me question whether or not I should continue doing races on a bigger scale with soooo many participants. Running such long distances puts a lot of stress on your body that can cause just about anything to happen. The volunteers at the medical tent at this Rock n' Roll race were so unhelpful, and quite rude. I totally understand how stressful caring for tons of runners with various injuries and ice requests. But this was different. I'm quite apprehensive about running in Rock n' Roll races in the future because of this, so hopefully I'll eventually be convinced otherwise!

Soon after, Mary and Shelby found me crying to my momma by the car... and were quick to cheer me up. We headed back to the hotel for showers and made our way back to Charlottesville in time to get some time in at the library. Post race meals were Mo's and Rise Pizza (gluten-free for me!).

I've been still fighting this cold the past few days.. my body was totally out of whack on Monday. Luckily I haven't been too sore since the race, so I think that shows that my body is in good fitness and ready for that distance. I did a nice long strength workout tonight, and was able to increase my weight on the squats- good sign my legs are recovering well!

I'm going to be taking a vitamin C drink supplement several times a day in order to ramp up my immune system so I'll be able to tackle school and upcoming races with ease. We're two weeks away from the Pepsi 10K here in Charlottesville and then it's time to PR at RICHMOND!!!

Sorry for the long time in between posts everyone. I'm really trying to make blogging a part of my routine so please keep following and giving us feedback. We love it!

And one last thing: CONGRATULATIONS SHELBY! One half-marathon down, lots more to go!

-Alexis

Running. It's Cheaper Than Therapy.

Today I've decided to go a bit off the beaten path of our usual posts and write to you all about my love affair with running, and how it came to be. Maybe it's the cram reading sessions of Eat, Pray, Love that I have been doing (in prep for a movie night with my momma) that are causing this emotional purge. Bear with me today, because I've got a lot to say!

So often people tell me I'm crazy for running so much, and wonder how I could seriously love it. But let me tell you, I'd be a lot crazier if I didn't run. The best bumper sticker I ever did see simply said: "Running. It's cheaper than therapy."

And it's true! I feel I am at my truest self when I've been consistently running 25-30 mile weeks. For me, running and yoga are my time. They are opportunities to be relieved of stress. But they do so in very different ways.

Yoga allows me to put all my thoughts and worries into a little pocket within my brain, and focus solely on the poses. These poses require me to connect the mind and body, forming a meditative state that allows me to just be. I can't wait for the day that I'll be able to practice regularly again.

Running is different. Running is a chance to face head on whatever may be bothering me on any given day. I'm only responsible for putting one foot in front of the other, leaving my mind free to think. This is why I say I am most in tune to myself when I have been running regularly. It is my time to form opinions, to reason and to (however corny it may sound), figure myself out.

During my travels to South Africa and Peru particularly, my runs were my time to analyze the many things I had seen and learned. I would compare and contrast the many intricacies of a new people and new cultures and I always seemed to come to the conclusion that however different we may seem we really aren't that different at all.

My first six mile run occurred during the month of April during my senior of high school. I'd been accepted to my two top choices for college and no amount of debate with my family and friends would spark a decision as to which track to take. I was doing my usual three mile loop after a long discussion about majors, programs, dorms, food, etc. A ways into the run I realized that I was on to something. My body and my mind weren't ready to stop running until I had fully reasoned this decision. Running that extra three miles at the time was a risk for me, but I knew I was strong enough mentally to counteract the physical lacking. If I could take this risk, then I could take the risk of moving 3,000 miles away. The University of Virginia was the perfect place for me. The principal slogan of any economics class, the greater the risk the greater the reward, held true in this case. And it holds true in running as well. The bigger my goals, the happier I am after accomplishing them.

Running is a means to deal with heartbreak and sorrow. After Yeardley Love died last year, I found myself running an hour or so a day. I ran immediately after vigil, putting my sadness into an energy that allowed me to cope with that tragedy.

It has been during runs that I have decided to pursue a boy, start a relationship, and eventually end that same relationship. And it was running that helped me to get over him. It has been while running that I made the decision to travel to South America. I know what I want and I go for it, and I know this aspect of my personality has become stronger because I am a runner. I have made specific life goals for myself during runs. I have challenged myself to go further not just in terms of mileage, but in terms of my own life. I have been able recently to overcome what seemed to be an insurmountable amount of emotional stress during my many runs, in turn making me realize my true priorities.

I must honestly tell you though that sometimes I'm not ready to face my own self. It's these times you'll find me in the gym or at yoga. This is when I crave the endorphins but am not prepared to face the root of the problem. I think that's why I create so many goals in regards to running, and register for so many races. I know this year is going to be stressful, so by making time to run with the pressure of at least four major races in the next three months, I'll be able run through the stress.

The word hobby doesn't do this favorite activity of mine justice, but in any case I'll use it. It is this hobby that has created some awesome friendships (ahemmm Mary and Dettke). It's taken me to some awesome places and allowed me to push myself beyond my mental limits. The marathon was quite a fete for me, but I am not proud for my physical self because that alone did not take me to the finish line. It was my mind that pushed me to a new limit and in a sense carried me to the end.

Now I don't mean to preach to you all that running will change your life. Only you can do that. But it doesn't have to be through running. It can be through hiking, or knitting or photography or anything! Just something that allows you to really think.

Well clearly I belong in some temple, praying to the gods of running. So I'm gonna go eat a gluten-free cookie. I hope yall were able to bear all this mooshy running talk, but when you're in love you just gotta shout it from the rooftops!

I LOVE RUNNING!!

-Alexis

And So the Visit Begins!

Hey everyone!

Sorry I have taken a mini hiatus from posting. I've been so busy you know eating, concert-going, running, and straight up lounging...it's a rough life I know. It's been so great getting to take some time off while Ryan has been visiting.

My family welcomed him to SD with this lovely breakfast at Hash House A Go Go. The portions were just right don't ya think?

My mom and I split a scramble that I in a way custom designed: bacon, tomatoes, and avocado. SO GOOD.

Ry went for the french toast:

And my dad took on the challenge of devouring the Bacon Waffle.

Afterwards a run was necessary! I showed Ryan my little route from the house to the golf course and he kicked my butt! I forgot how fast of a runner he is naturally, but it was great for me to have someone to run with and up my motivation!

Then we napped by the pool before heading downtown to the House of Blues for the Temper Trap concert! It was a great show and you all should check em out! Their most popular song is Sweet Disposition but I really really like Fader and Love Lost as well. I LOVE music and am thinking about doing some more music related posts in the future so look out for that.

Today I showed Ryan my favorite trail in San Diego, around the San Elijo Lagoon. My butt was once again kicked, but it felt great to push it. From there we headed to my fav restaurant, Naked Cafe, where I proceeded to devour some Sesame Ginger Tacos sans flour tortillas and with extra veggies!

Then it was off to the beach for the rest of the day. Finally the sun has come out in San Diego!! We also tried Whisknladle tonight for dinner in La Jolla but I forgot to snap some photos of my delish grapefruit/corn/avocado summer salad and seared scallops! So sorry but let me tell you it was yummmyy.

Tomorrow we're going to Disneyland and then to Newport Beach to do some more beach chillin' up north. This time we will be joined by Jenny and Danny whom I cannot wait to seeeee!! I've done some research on the food situation at Disneyland, and found some awesome gluten-free options that include pizza! I'll have to let you all know how that goes.

-Alexis

Food iPhotography

So remember that 9 miler I was supposed to do yesterday. Didn't happen.

Man I was soooo bummed.

The second my right foot hit pavement my calf was throbbing. I told myself to just try and run it off, maybe I was just stiff from my longer run the day before. But no, the pain only got worse. I made it about a mile and finally made myself turn around and drag my discouraged butt home. I knew that I would be able to do the run but it may leave me injured. I have a month of training left and enough time to fit in about three more long runs, so missing out on this one was not a huge deal.

My mom sensed my disappointment and she knew just the cure. So we ventured out for a Target/Jimbo's run that got me in a great mood. I decided to try out some delish lookin' recipes from Eat Live Run. My momma and I threw together some fish tacos with guacamole and homemade mango salsa:

and I made a gluten-free blueberry crisp with gluten-free flour and oats! So so goood!!

I met with Rob again today to do some measurements so he could determine what exercises would be best for me. He also filmed me running in all of my different running shoes (yes I own more than one pair) and with or without my custom orthotics I'll be seeing him again tomorrow to learn the exercises and also to go over my running footage! I'm really excited for this because he'll be filming me do the exercises so I will now exactly what the proper form I need to be in, and it will be pretty impossible for me to forgot how to do the exercises!

I found out from him today that my hips are wayyyy out of line. I'm thinking it has something to do with sitting at a desk 8 hours a day working on a computer that's on the right of the desk, which is the way my hips are aligned to. So I'm going to try and remedy that situation tomorrow and move some things around in my workspace. But because of this I'll be taking a break from yoga for a little while. It's worse for my body to be doing certain poses when I'm not in proper alignment, so I'm going to work on that and focus on running for a while and go back to yoga when the time is right. I'm bummed, especially because I'm pretty much in love with my yoga studio here in San Diego but it's more important for me right now to become a stronger runner.

For now, I'm seriously looking forward to Ryan coming in on Wednesday, seeing Jenny and Danny on Friday, venturing to Disneyland, and havin' one of my fav running buddies in town especially since I will be making up that 9 miler this week.

My favorite members of the Virginia Swim team (Danny and Jenny!):

That's all for today! I also wanted to apologize for the crappy iPhone photos I've been trying to pass off as legitimate food photography. My baby, aka my Canon Digital Rebel, is off for repairs after some major Peruvian over usage. Not to worry only a couple more weeks of dealing with my Food iPhotography and then we'll be good to go!

-Alexis

Meet Skylar!

Yo yo! Today we've got a pretty great surprise for you all: it's guest post time. You'll be hearing from one of our BFF4Ls Skylar! He's your typical endurance athlete, a pretty freaking talented one at that. Below is a photo of all of us from the Charlottesville Half Marathon during our first year at UVa. Sky decided to just do the race for fun and told Mary and I (I being Alexis) that he would run with us and enjoy the experience. That lasted for about 25 seconds.. thanks Sky! We quickly forgave him for running on ahead when he finished SECOND in his age group at a distance he had never before endured. Skylarr you did ittttt yeahhhh!!

The crew:

Enjoy the read, along with your Sundays!

Greetings, Virginia! My name is Skylar and I’m the one that’s not like the others. Cross-bred with an adrenaline nut that spent his early days mountaineering and jumping out of airplanes with a once-neurotic fitness addict, it’s no surprise as to what popped out…

Me sliding down the continental divide in the Wind River Range of Wyoming on my NOLS backpacking course last summer. I spent 28 days in the woods, basically. It reinforced my psyche for nature. Like Shelby, I am also climbing a Colorado Fourteener soon: Holy Cross. Pictures later if I take them…

I am now planning to go mountaineering next summer in Bolivia, climbing the mountains Pequeno Alpamayo, Huayna Potosi & Illimani! Yes, I just copied and pasted that.

Here is my dad. If you asked me what I would be like when I’m 58, this could be it…

This picture was taken during my first time tandem skydiving by the photo dude. Props to him for capturing some sick shots. This is just one of the many photos he took. I’m the guy in purple pants. Obviously, I like purple.

The photo guy also made a sweet video of my jump, but I don’t have it with me right now. Maybe another post…

I’ve always had a good idea of what makes me a happy person, but every now and then I can get a bit sidetracked. I can’t say for sure that I have found it, but I’m pretty damn close. In fact, I can sum it up in 2 words: endorphins and adrenaline.

I’m an endurance athlete, always have been and always will. I played soccer all through childhood until the 10th grade. While I was a decent player, I was able to stay competitive because of my speed and inability to tire out. Often times the coach would just put me at sweeper and let me run the entire game.

It wasn’t until the junior year that I thought, “Hey Skylar, I think you could put your talents to something else. You don’t even like soccer that much.” So I joined the cross-country team and fell in love, almost.

I couldn’t get enough of running. Like many would say of the activity, it turned into a drug. What happens when you stop using a drug that you’re addicted to? Withdrawal. And by withdrawal, I mean college.

During my first year or so at UVA, running didn’t seem to be a priority for me. I began to lift instead. While it did add muscle mass, I wasn’t happy with myself, I knew something was missing.

Luckily, I found mountain biking, which has become my favorite spring-summer-fall activity to date. I like it almost as much as I do snowboarding, which is the single-most enjoyable activity I do. I re-found my passion for cardio and endurance, along with some adrenaline, in mountain biking, which also has reacquainted me with my other love, running. I guess I’m a polygamist. (I should probably stop saying, “love” or I’m going to kill it’s meaning) In fact, I just signed up for the XTERRA Triathlon at Walnut Creek Park on August 22, which involves an 11.6 mile trail ride and 4 mile trail run. Super! More on how that turns out later…

All this cardio, along with a friend of mine, sparked life into my lifting routine. As a college student, there simply isn’t much time to lift, run, party, etc. So I have started incorporating both cardio and weight training into one: circuit training. I usually start out by running 3 miles or so, to get the blood flowing. Stretch after. Then I pick 6 exercises that encompass a majority of the muscles, and do them consecutively in a row, without resting. Then rest for a minute, and repeat. Do this 3 times initially, and see how you feel. I like to focus on lifting my body weight in different ways. For example, I will pick push-ups (try varying this with small weights), pull-ups (vary the styles: bicep or lat specific), dips, abs, and alternate some other dumbbell exercises. I sweat bullets doing this. I think circuit training will really help me in preparation for my triathlon. Oh yeah, and make sure you eat afterwards. Protein is key. Try mixing peanut butter, milk, a banana, and berries in a blender.
That was a brief bio, and I hope to write more in depth articles later!

Always wear sunscreen, get adequate sleep and take your multi-vitamins
-Skylar

Improvisational Crackers

Hey Errrybodyy! Alexis here!

Today started off great. I got to sleep in...until 7:30 yikes. I'm really getting a little taste of the real world this summer yeah? Cathy, my boss, surprised us with tons of new cheeses to try from Whole Foods. You know you've got a good setup when your boss allows for food tastings at work! I improvised and turned my apple into "gluten-free crackers" and chowed down on some almond butter. I'm pretty sure almond butter is a requirement for all health bloggers to eat on a regular basis.
After work I headed straight to Solana Beach for a quick run by the ocean before an INTENSE yoga practice this evening. I think I may space out my runs and yoga sessions more between each other in order to properly hydrate for each work out. If you all are ever in the San Diego area you really need to check out Haute Yoga in Solana Beach. Everyone there is so welcoming and helpful and it's a really calming space to allow for the best yoga practices.

I thought I would give you all a little run down about what's going on with my diet before I dive into all the great stuff I learned from Rob Yang on Tuesday!

In high school I began to develop some serious stomach issues. I would flip flop between feeling super bloated to having major cramps. After months of pain and discomfort, I finally saw a gastroenterologist. After several different diagnoses and an endoscopy I found that I had developed small stomach ulcers and had Helicobactor pilori.

H. Pilori in a nutshell: This bacteria causes a chronic low-level inflammation of the stomach lining and is closely linked to duodenal and gastric ulcers and even stomach cancer.

A lovely close-up:

So definitely not a great thing to have in your system, let alone at the age of 15. It's very rare to develop H. Pilori at such a young age.

My stomach is very sensitive and there are certain things that definitely trigger the same kinds of problems like caffeine, too much dairy, and gluten of course.

In high school I was able to avoid these things, but when college started it became pretty difficult. Take It Away sandwiches, Bodo's bagels, and beer pong called to me, to the point where I began to ignore any stomach issues. But as the end of second year came upon us and stress increased, it made the problems even worse. By the time I was getting ready to leave for Peru I realized that a lot of the symptoms I had previously experienced were back.

I'm an adventurous person though, and couldn't deny all of the wonderful foods I'd been offered while in Peru. It was also pretty tough to communicate in a foreign language, let alone talk about an intolerance that's not even well known in the States. So from the start I made the decision to lay off the gluten as much as possible and when I got back to the States I'd cut it out of my diet completely.

It's hard to make this type of major change so I wanted to meet with someone to help me shape my diet better for my college lifestyle and in order to obtain proper nutrition for running, etc!

Look out for a post about the meeting very soon!

As of now I'm majorly looking forward to one of my best friends RYAN coming to visit in less than a week! It's going to be a lot of running, good eating, and beach chillin'.

That's all for now! Enjoy your Friday!

-Alexis

No! Not Speedwork!

Hey everyone!

I'm squeezing in a quick post today and will inform you all about my meeting with San Diego nutritionist Rob Yang by the end of the week!

My life at home has been so busy. I'm working 40 hours a week as an office clerk to make some extra money to pay my parents back for all of the wonderful traveling I was able to do this summer. So working 8 hours a day and fitting in workouts has been rough but definitely worth it.

Now that I've been running for a while, it's time for me to start improving my race times. To do this it's going to take a lot of speed work. And if you know me, you know I pretty much despise speedwork. I'm sure I will fall in love with it eventually someday though. For this upcoming race I'm going to throw in more tempo runs and longer distances at race pace to get me ready for a half in September (which is going to be Shelby's first!).

This morning I did a 40 minute tempo run, my first tempo run in a WHILE.

What is a tempo run you ask? I found a pretty great definition for it at news.runintown.com:
"Tempo runs are workouts where you run at a steady pace that is around 70% to 80% of your max aerobic capacity. Tempo runs are just past the point where you begin to build up waste product in your legs at a rapid rate during a run, which is called the lactate-threshold velocity."

According to the running phenom Hal Higdon when training for a half-marathon a tempo run should be "a continuous run with a buildup in the middle to near 10-K race pace."

The run went well. I was pretty sore from my trail run yesterday, which was a pretty amazing 5.5 mile run with views like this.

Since my quads were feelin a bit rough I took a longer warm up and then sped up significantly for about 15 minutes. It was hard because the trails around my house in San Diego are pretty hilly but I enjoyed the challenge. Then it was a nice cool down to the Kings of Leon Pandora station on my iPhone. It was an awesome way to start the day.

-Alexis

Welcome Part II

Welcome again to Virginia is for Health Nuts!!! I know Alexis already did a little intro on us and why we decided to write this blog but I wanted to write a little more about my experience with health, diet, and all things healthy thus far!

I grew up in Denver, which is also an incredible place to live a healthy lifestyle and I filled my childhood with tons of sports and activities. At one point or another I have played tennis, golf, swimming, lacrosse, basketball, and soccer. While each of these sports carried its own allure and their own successes and failures, the form of activity I was always drawn to was running.

I have had an on and off again relationship with running since I was about ten years old. My dad was always really into running, in fact he believes running will cure just about anything, and so he got me into it at a really young age. I started running a bunch of 5K races when I was 11, and I even got some awards for my age group (although I can’t imagine there were that many people competing). I continued running with my dad sporadically up until high school. Then my freshman year of high school, I ran cross-country for my school but for some reason running no longer carried the same allure as it use to. I was turned off by the competition of it all and only running to beat out someone else. I spent the rest of high school focused on playing tennis and only running every now and then when I would go to the gym.

I had always had a fascination with the east coast and when it came time to apply to college, I took the plunge and decided the University of Virginia was the place I wanted to go. I absolutely love it and the active culture of Charlottesville inspired me to start running again. I re-found my passion for running. It is now something that I do for me- it keeps me sane, grounded, strong, and healthy. I plan on running my first half marathon this September, which I am incredibly excited about (and a little nervous for!).

Growing up in Colorado, I have also always loved hiking. It is a big thing in Colorado to climb some of the 54 14,000 ft. mountains that we have. My dad and I have completed two so far! I will be writing about my experience climbing the third in a couple weeks!

I hope to write about all my ups and downs with running, healthy eating (trying to figure out what that means to me), and all the other random, trying to be creative ways I can think of to get exercise! Get ready for lots more things from Alexis and I!!

-Shelby

Welcome!

Welcome to Virginia is for Health Nuts!! Shelb and I are so excited to start up this blog in hopes of keeping ourselves on track and inspire other college students to maintain healthy lifestyles.

Our decision to blog about staying fit all started out when Shelby met me in D.C. after returning back to the States from a month and a half of studying abroad in Peru. While my experience was AMAZING (a post about my trip is coming soon!),

I came back feeling awful. Not only did I come back with some extra baggage (ten pounds to be exact) I also came back with a significant amount of symptoms that result from gluten intolerance. The second I landed in the States I immediately stopped eating anything with gluten in it. It's been about 3 weeks of living gluten-free and I have seriously never felt better!

So besides catching up after not seeing each for so long, we spent a majority of our day searching for a good salad and also talked about our goals to stay healthy during the school year. Shelby has been interning this summer in D.C. at a marketing firm and has learned a ton about social media. She came up with the fantastic idea of creating a blog to get us going, allowing us to learn more about the blogging world and to keep up our healthy lifestyles.

A little bit about me:

I grew up in San Diego, an amazing place to live if you want to lead an active life! While California is definitely a great place to grow up, I wanted a change of pace and decided to go to school on the east coast: the University of Virginia.

Charlottesville, being one of the fittest cities in the country, has been an awesome place to attend school. I am constantly motivated when I see all of the runners around Grounds (what we called "campus," don't blame us blame Thomas Jefferson!). I also started working at the Aquatic and Fitness Center at UVa which has caused even more inspiration to exercise regularly.

I played tennis all of my life until a serious ankle injury kept me off the court my senior of high school. Tennis was the only way I knew how to stay fit, so I soon realized I would have to figure something else out. So I started running and have been addicted ever since! At first I could barely run a mile at a time but I soon improved. Within 6 months of my first "real" run I had finished my first half marathon.

From then on I had set a new goal of running a marathon the next year. It was the hardest thing I have ever done! While it took me longer than I had hoped, this just caused me to make a new goal. I hope to run a full marathon in under 4 hours and 30 minutes by the end of next year!

After the marathon my knees were hurtin' so I decided to start yoga classes at Haute Yoga in Solana Beach and quickly found a new passion. I've brought this new hobby with me back to school and now practice at Bikram Charlottesville. I now balance yoga and running as a part of my exercise regimine.

Not only do I hope to write about my "obsession" with exercise, I also hope to log my entrance into the world of being gluten-free. I know it's going to be a tough journey, but I am so excited to finally feel better! It's important to note that I do not have Celiac disease so I'm not an expert on that, but for anyone else out there that has a severe intolerance to gluten I'm here for ya!

Happy Monday everyone! Keep lookin' for a post about my travels to South America!

-Alexis