I saw the coolest thing yesterday.

| cheriarmour

When I first started teaching Zumba, one particular semester, (I’d started at State when I was in grad school) there was a pregnant woman who would always, always, come to my class.  She would wear this purple shirt, and hold her belly when the moves got a little too nuts for her.  It was almost her way of saying, “Chill out, not everyone in this class is 19, please respect that.”  It was a good reminder for me.  She would take it easy when she had to, she wouldn’t jump or anything crazy like that.  She always wore this purple shirt, and I believe she Zumba-ed til like 8 weeks before her due date.  She was safe, she seemed to know her limitations, and she stayed in awesome shape throughout her pregnancy.

“Isn’t that thing gonna fall out,” a few friends asked, astonished, when I’d mentioned it.

Cause that’s exactly what pregs wants to hear, while she’s afraid of eating fish, taking a sip of wine, and carrying a Birken that’s too big, that her baby is going to fall out of her vagina when she’s on the elliptical.  How else can we make women feel incompetent as mothers, folks, please, let me hear it!

But I digress.  I was driving home, I think from my own workout on Sunday evening, and was cruising down ridge road when I saw her.

The first thing I actually noticed was that she was wearing a cute top, I’m pretty sure from Lululemon, and it was in a cool color.  A kind of lime, and she shared my taste, as she was rocking the 3/4 running tights with it.  And then I realized, this woman who was cruising at a pretty decent pace?  Was a mom-to-be, probably well into her second trimester, and she was tearing up the sidewalk.  I’m inspired.

I now have no excuse to skip out on any of my workouts or any of my runs, if this mom to be can harness her inner goddess, well hell?! When is my excuse ever good enough?

I can’t believe it! 200!

| cheriarmour

I started this blog back in like December, as a part of my fundraising project for Haiti.  And 3 big races, and nearly a year later, we’re still going strong! 200 posts, and someone is still reading my nonsense. Who woulda thunk?

So onto the good stuff!

So here is the blog of my friend, Ghenet P, who actually was a resident of mine in a beautiful, all-girls dorm at Elon University, which, if some of yous are looking for a small, beautiful liberal arts school, you should super check it out.  If you think I’m awesome, you haven’t met some of the folks down at Elon.

So anyhoo, Ghenet reached out to me a little while back to ask how should she start running.

Ghenet
I know Perez is rude, stop judging me.

Totally fair, and totally legit question. My sister actually asked me the same a few days after Ghenet did. Anyhoo, for anyone of you that’s seriously thinking about starting to run, allow to to expand on the answer I gave Ghenet in an effort to seriously bring you guys over the our side.

So if you’re thinking about running, make it simple.  You don’t have to start with fancy gear or fancy shoes, (though the shoes are SO important), but here’s a good, simple way to start.

  • Do you have a goal in mind?  Like is there a race or something that interests you?  Are you trying to shed some college weight?  Are you just interested in changing up your fitness routine?  Okay, sweet, so you’re visualizing what you want.  So if it’s a race, sign up!  Etc etc.  I mean, you get what I’m saying right?
  • Put on your shoes and your socks, and a good bra, ladies.  Fancy running stuff is great.  And something that you should definitely look at, for shoes.  But for just starting off, I think it’s important not to get hung up on fancy watches and tops and things, unless you’re really into that.  For me, I was always really intrigued with the idea of running, so I kind of just started, and the fancy stuff (which is REALLY useful, I’m not going to downplay that) came later.
  • Intervals.  Ghenet, I sort of forgot to mention this to you to make your life easier, but you seem like you’re doing okay on your own 🙂 but if you’re like super new to working out, or you’re kind of high-risk in any sense of the word (recently recovering from an injury, new to working out, prone to damage), intervals are a great way to build up the strength and endurance to run for 30 or 40+ minutes straight.  The easiest way to do it, if you run with music is to design a plan for yourself.  Run two songs, walk one.  Or run one song, walk two, and shorten the intervals until you’re doing substantial distance straight.
  • Don’t sell yourself short.  I do this all the time.  I mean, I look like a supermodel, but I don’t always give myself the credit I deserve, ya know?  I kid, I kid.  But don’t underestimate your capabilities to run whatever event you want.   You want to run a marathon?  I bet you can.  Like, train and stuff, don’t just sign up for one next weekend, but just cause you’ve never like done something like that before doesn’t mean you can’t start.

So, I thank you guys for sticking with me for 200, and here’s to like 2 million more!  If you guys are lucky, I’ll write you a book, that way you never have to be without my wise words, right?  Black Bethanny Frankel over here!

Martin

| cheriarmour

Ready to be bowled over with emotion over how cute this is?

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Runners love their pets. It’s a proven fact. This is my new cat. He joined my family last week, and he spent the entire time without a name because I couldn’t think of one. But his name is Martin. He loves to play, loves to nap, and he’s a total escape artist. Pretty sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of him 🙂

Wedding weekend mission!

| cheriarmour

But first, a story.

So I dropped my rings off out the jeweler to be cleaned, as I’m going to a wedding this weekend, and when my boos I haven’t seen in a while ask to see my hand, I don’t want them to recoil in horror.

Two rings, my engagement ring, and a claddagh I wear that Austin gave me to replace a gross crusty one I’d been wearing for years.  I understand that the claddagh is an Irish thing, but I love the tradition, and my roommate went to Ireland our junior year in college, so whatever, arrest me if you don’t like it when I wear it.

When I go back a few minutes later to pick up my ring, the guy bounds out of the back room with my rings.

::points to my engagement ring::

“That is a cool-lookin ring!  And eh….explain this to me?” ::points to my claddagh.”

I was confused.  What about the claddagh ring was confusing to him?

“Oh, you must date a white guy, huh?”

I gave him a blank stare.

“You know, cause it’s Irish?  White guys are the only guys buying these things?”

I think it was surprised by my cool response, but he needs to mind his bidness!  Appreciate the compliment on my ring, but, the prying about the race of my fiancé is weird.

Moving right along!

We’re almost nearing the end of wedding season, and I’m attending another this weekend, this time in Cincinnati, Ohio.  That means another drive, coffee shops, and gas station food.  So the challenge for this weekend?  Let’s eat as healthily as humanly possibly with the potentially limited options that a gas station and road food has to offer.  I’ll take pics, and hopefully help you out for your next long trip.

Cycling Carrie Bradshaw.

| cheriarmour

So, if you’ve been following, we lost my grandmother last week.  It’s been hard, even logistically speaking, to get my runs and my workouts in, especially when we we had to make flights and travel plans last minute.  I’m desperately trying to balance working out with real life, and as of last week, it’s become tricky.

Despite the fact that it’s gotten a little hard to squeeze in the physical activity (especially considering that I have a marathon in less than 6 weeks,) let alone some of my shorter runs.  I’m trying.  I’m desperately trying to make all of this work.

So Saturday, after the funeral, I took a little bit of time to decompress and to figure out what I could do after spending some of the day on a plane, and the rest in a heightened emotional state.

The Z Hotel Opening Night 6/21/11 Long Island City, NY www.naskaras.com

I was really sort of surprised when I saw what hotel my dad had picked for us to stay in. Not that my dad is, by any means, a lame or anything, but it was so cool, and so hip that I was pleasantly surprised.  My parents are more the Charleston crowd, so this was a little different for them.

Queensboro

Like this was our view. This photo was taken, no filter, with my iPhone, of the Queensboro bridge into Long Island City. Not bad, right?

Anyhoo, so following the service, and the fact that I felt worn down from that, and from sitting around all day, I decided to figure out something I could do to get the blood pumping.  I pulled out that little hotel binder of info, and found out the hotel had some hipster bikes they loaned to guests.  So I google mapsed the nearest Starbucks, and got in the bike lane.

I felt, like absolutely overjoyed for 2 seconds.  I pulled my locs out of their little like hair tie thingie, and let the breeze blow them around.  I even smiled a bit.  Woo-hoo!  I’m Carrie Bradshaw, but with a bike!  And in Queens!  And then the terror set in.  It’s not my city, and I have never, never ridden in a bike lane with traffic before.  So yeah, I was a little terrified.  But black Carrie made it alllll the way to Manhattan for some snacks for us and my brother, and I came back, alive and well to tell the tale, and dang glad I did it.

Will I ever be a cyclist? Probably not, because I’m an absolute weenie, but it sure was fun to play one for a while.

That was a hard weekend.

| cheriarmour

Thus far, 2013 has been one of the best, most beautiful, most accomplished years in my entire life.  And I think with the absolute best years in your life, comes some not-so-fun things as well, just to remind you that although life is absolutely beautiful, that we’re all still human. It can’t all be fun and games.

Mid-week last week, we lost my grandmother.  And thus, started the whirlwind.  I quickly got a flight.  Put my clothing for the services on, as the flight cut super close.  And attended final services for my grandmother.

In absolute short, it sucked.  My family is a fun-loving bunch, and it was so hard, so hard to see everyone in such unusually dark clothing, and to see folks, who’re usually laughing, joking, and dancing, with such somber faces.  But I was impressed on how we were able to so quickly come together to send my grandmother off, and let her know we loved her and that she’d be missed here.

I’ll take today off my usual, and we’ll resume tomorrow.

Nice going, papermate.

| cheriarmour

The other day, I awoke feeling a little overwhelmed.  The laundry wasn’t folded.  The floors needed a vacuum.  And the stupid walls in my new place aren’t painted yet.  I hate, hate. HATE white walls.  So they best way I could think to deal with this, was to go to the store, and buy a new pen for me to write lists with.

I knew exactly which pen I wanted.  The little part for your fingers was really squishy and clear.  It came in blue and black, but blue, was, by leaps and bounds, exactly what you needed when you were scheduling appointments and writing notes.  The ink flowed perfectly, and it pen said, “I’m a professional, and I write like one too!  Maybe I will write a non-fiction book one day, that’s how cool this pen was.

So anyhoo, I go to Rite-Aid, and look for the pen.  It’s nowhere to be found.  But I did find this malarkey.

Fo Her

I’d seen the reviews for this on Amazon, but I really didn’t want to believe that a company would be so idiotic as to market “lady pens” as if a man pen wouldn’t serve us.  Maybe they felt like they weren’t connecting with their female audience.  So they slapped some glitter paint on a pen and called marked it ‘For Her’?  Uh.  Lemme tell you what BIC, you market a ‘For Blacks’ pen and slap something rude on the pen, we are gonna have some serious problems.  I am not the one.

The Investigation

I knew what pen I was looking for, and I couldn’t find a trace of it.  I’d recalled that it was a Papermate vaguely, and I set out on the hunt to find this pen.  I Googled and Googled.  Nothing.  I finally contacted Papermate directly though an online form…

Papermate

And got this.  By that time I’d figured out the pen, the Papermate Xtend (stick, not retractable).

And when I called Papermate, I found out that my dear, awesome pen, they’d discontinued in January.  Excuse me while my life crumbles to pieces around me.  So I did what any normal human being would do.

Amazon

I ordered a box of 12 online. So what. I’m obsessive and I will never need a pen again. So HAVE ME ARRESTED, I DON’T CARE.  Happy Friday the 13th y’all!

From my vantage point….

| cheriarmour

So I teach group fitness.  Which I’m sure you know if you’ve been around for a while cause I’m a dork and I love it.

I love it.  I knew from the moment I stepped into Koh Herlong’s Zumba class that I would love it.  My eyes would well up at a particularly beautiful song when I started like in 2003.  And that carried into teaching.  I’m obsessed.  When I hear a good salsa, I’ll Shazam it.   I love to salsa out on Thursday nights.  And I take every rare opportunity to choreograph something cool for my students.

The first thing people usually say to me when I offer them an invite to class? “Oh my word, I’m so embarrassed, I can’t dance worth a lick!”

Hohkay, calm down.  If I cared, or anyone else did for that matter how you danced, I’da quit long ago.

I will always maintain that we, as fitness instructors, we don’t make fun of our students.  Ever.  We just don’t.  Even if a student does something hysterical, I would jump off a cliff if I was giggling so hard that they thought I was making fun of them and then they never came back to class.  That said, there’s like a distinct 4 people who come to every class.

  1. The person who hides out in the back row, and thinks I can’t see them in the mirror.  I can see you I can see you.  Also, I walk around A LOT so I see you.  Even when you giggled when I dropped it low.  I saw that.
  2. The person who stands at the window and stares in.  Come in!  (Or leave, cause you makin me nervous.)
  3. The guy whose wife forced him to come.  I’m sorry.  As a bonus you get to stare at a lot of butts. If that’s what you’re into.
  4. The woman who’s bound to become an instructor herself.  This chick usually brings me to tears.  This girl comes every single week.  She knows your routines.  She picks up quickly on new ones.  She comes with a friend.  She comes by herself.  And when she catches your eye, you accidentally burst into tears, cause you know that was you a few years ago.  I’ve heard.
  5. The overachiever.   I love this girl.  She usually has a sexual outfit to wear.  She coordinates.  Does she know what’s going on in class?  Nope.  And she doesn’t really care.   She stand there, on the front row, and she don’t care who sees.  She loves to dance/step/lift weights/whatever, and what the teacher is doing doesn’t concern her. Because she’s dancing to the music of her mind.  Go head, do your thang.

So do we notice this stuff?  Yes, absolutely.  Are we going to make fun of you and tell you not to come back?  Absolutely not.  Look for whatever class speaks to you, and before you know it, you’ll be a total workout out fiend – whatever your workout of choice may be.

Workout tip for the busy people

| cheriarmour

A little tip for working out on a tight schedule

The one beautiful thing about working retail was that the store didn’t even open until 10, so I could feasibly run 10 or so miles before work, hit ’emwith the shower, and so sometimes even get back in bed before I had to go in.

I hear it’s not that way in real life, so here’s a little tippy to keep those pounds from creeping on when you start an office job.

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Along with some snackies, pack your workout clothes so you can either a, sneak away at lunch and get a little workout on, or b, go straight to the gym or to the trails as soon as work gets out, rather than stopping by home and getting distracted and skipping the precious gym time. It’s simple. But it works!