I WILL!

Good news, y'all.

I'm getting hitched!

A couple weeks ago, my handsome man planned a romantic evening and changed his status from "boyfriend" to "Beyonce", I mean, "fiance."

This is why I heart him so much:

And this is how exited we are about getting married. 

I don't think this will become a wedding blog, but if I post some wedding related things, forgive me.

Also- In the Episcopal church, the couple responds with "I Will" instead of "I do." My personal favorite part of the whole service (makes me cry every time) is when the congregation is asked if they will love and support the couple, and they reply "We Will!" So beautiful. I am more excited about planning the service than flowers and table decorations, but I am fortunate to have bridesmaids who are good at the latter. They make me feel like I can do those kinds of fancy-crafty things. SO MUCH LOVE EVERYWHERE.


Ultra-getting-married-love

Elise

Roids

I am currently taking steroids, and after day 1, I am 99.99% sure I would never take them to be better at a sport.

Lesson of the day: Taking steroids doesn't make you ripped. Steroids help you body recover more quickly. This means that you can get back in the gym doing higher weights and reps than you would if you weren't taking them.

Example: Most people can only lift their max once every 3 days. On steroids, you would probably be able to lift your max twice in one day.

I am taking steroids to reduce the inflammation in my ear (caused by the car accident/driver's side air bag deployment) that is causing slight hearing loss and a ringing in my ear. My new ear specialist tells me I have a 50/50 chance of this working.

Basically, I am on a SUPER high dose of roids for 2 weeks. I started today, and I am not a fan. By afternoon, my heart was racing a little bit. Now- I have a raging headache. And in general I can tell that my body doesn't feel normal. All things that I would rather not have. Therefore- I will not be taking roids recreationally.

The benefits are obviously important- we need to fix my ear. But these also might help my poor knee that is trying so hard to heal. It has made progress, and maybe a little inflammation relief will do the trick.

We shall see what other side effects I have, but until then- you can find me in the gym, beefing up. HA just kidding. But I will be at the gym because I do that anyway.

Ultra love,

Elise

PS- a lady in my fundraising department ran her first ultra this past weeked. she had a gnarly cut and bruise on her leg to prove it. can't wait til I get my chance. put me in, coach.

Never let anyone tell you how to....

Drive.

A week and a half ago I had a car accident. I was driving down a major street- 2 lanes both ways and a 3rd right turning lane going my direction. Traffic was heavy, and the two main traffic lanes were back up about 3 blocks. The right turn lane, however, was wide open. Since I was about to turn right at the upcoming intersection, I got into that right lane.

And then I hit them.

The people in the lanes next to me had waved a left-turning car on through so they could turn into the white castle. The car that was turning left didn't even see me coming- perhaps didn't even look.

At impact, my side airbags deployed. Either the airbags or the shock of the accident caused me to lose my hearing for minute. I just sat in the car- my ipod still playing the Lord of the Rings. Once I came back to my surroundings, I got out of the car to see if the two people in the other car were okay. But at that moment, 4 men in the Army came running across the busy street to help. One gentleman walked me out of the street and the other 3 checked on those two people.

At this point, I still can't ear out of my left ear. I am also shaking and crying. The nice man asks me if I have  phone/my insurance etc. I tell him it is all in my purse in my car (thank goodness I was not texting or even looking at my phone). He graciously goes to grab my things, and hands me my phone. The phone is my new iPhone 5- which I had activated 20 minutes before and had no idea how to work. Through my tears I manage to tell the man that I don't know how to use my phone and he calls my boyfriend for me. Unfortunately, my boo was in the studio with his phone off. Thankfully, my boss had texted me minutes before and thus, her number was in my phone.

She came to pick me up. By that time I had spoken to my dad and he told me to go to the emergency room to have my hearing checked out. My sweet wonderful boss took me there, and stayed with my until my boyfriend picked me up after I got checked out. I have an appointment at a hearing clinic tomorrow.

The people I hit:
1. had no insurance
2. had a suspended driver's license
3. did not own the car they were driving
4. were most likely not wearing seat belts
5. had to be cut out of their car
6. went straight to the hospital in the ambulance

I have no idea what happened to them. But I do know what is going on with me. I am jittery driving in the car and hyper-aware of everything. I have had my neck adjusted twice, and I got great relief from going to yoga the day after the accident. My soreness went from 100% to about 10%. But I also struggle with how to feel. I feel bad that I hit these people. Yes, it was 100% their fault in many different ways. The accident should have never happened because they should never have been driving in the first place. But I have changed their lives in a HUGE way. The driver might go to jail, and I am certain that their injuries were worse than mine. I know that I am not supposed to feel bad about this, but I do. And i suspect that I will feel bad for a while, much like I will be jumpy in the car for a while.

At the end of the day, I think that I just will plan on not ever having a car accident again. Can I get an amen?

Ultra love,

Elise

Awesome.

THIS.

I spend most of my time with these two people: The man in the socks and the sweet sweet face staring at you.

I spend the other parts of my time at work and working out.

I recently went on a lovely vacation to California with the sock man's family, sans sock man. It was very relaxing and very fun. what did I do? I ate food. I slept. I read books about dogs. I played with a baby, a toddler, and two 4 year-olds. I went on a 45 minute barefoot beach run. And I went to California Bikram Yoga.

I am about to describe that experience to you. However, I have been informed (from various other renditions of this story) that most Cali studios are NOT like this one. Most are super intense- like, the front row can't sit down ever or drink water .

(Side note: Luna just licked the WHOLE top of my man's recently filled with Arnold Palmer Tervis Tumbler. HA!)

This studio was the opposite. I am going to run through a few bits of dialogue, and please read this in your most breathy California female accent.

"You are doing soooooooo awesomeeeeeeee. This just feels sooooooo gooood. Okayyyy, now if you are comparing yourself to anyone else in the room, just laugh at yourself. This is not a competition. You should not be working hard. This is about just breathing and being in this room. Don't push yourself" ---------- if any of you have ever been to a bikram class, you would know that the WHOLE FREAKIN POINT is to push yourself. otherwise you wont make any progress. I wanted to ask this lady if I should just leave....

and to top it all off- this is the story she told during our rest times.... dont forget your breathy voice...
"So a few years ago, I had to get my neck adjusted like every week. One day, my chiropractor was like, When was the last time you cried? I think you need to have a really good cry. So I was like, whatever. But that day, my grandmother was in the hospital and I went to visit her. When i got there, I just cried and cried and cried.... I swear, I never had to have my neck adjusted again."
I nearly lost it. For real? really? what is this story?

Needless to say, I did not go back to that studio after that. I dont need any of that feel-good BS. That's why I have a dog. When I go to work out, I want to work out, ya know? So i just ignored her for most of the class and imagined what Tu would have been telling me to do. Worked fairly well. :)

Next blog post is going to be about Gerry, my favorite work out teacher man, and his Cardio Blast class. Gerry is the ultra best. YEAH.

Ultra Love,

Elise

Barre None

My whole body feels like jello. If you could have seen how many times I had to retype that sentence because my fingers won't even go to the right keys, you would believe me.

I am going to type this next sentence without any edits as proof:
myboyd feels like hello becuase i tried out a new fitness thingyu. I'ts called the Barre Method. (enough of that)

This is what the website says about the Barre Method:

"BarreAmped is an intensive body shaping experience designed to produce reliable results, no matter the client. The method is influenced by classical and modern dance (though it is not a dance class) and utilizes a barre to achieve optimal positioning. Insights from Pilates, yoga, and orthopedic stretching also balance the method’s unique approach.

The precision-oriented technique focuses mainly on small, isolated movements within deeply held and challenging postures. BarreAmped is proven to increase metabolism, burn fat, and lengthen tight muscles. With commitment to the technique, you get recognizable results exactly where you want them."

In this post, I had planned to try to explain to you what we actually do in class. However, I only have memories of intense burning sensations in all of my limbs as well as excessive shaking throughout each exercise. Therefore, you will have to wait until classes 2-5 (I bought a 5 class groupon) for a more in-depth prescription--- I mean, description. See? the whole jello thing still going.

I remember that we started with arms. There was pulsation and mini-circles. Then we did legs. Squats-ish happened. Lunges-ish happened. I think we did planks and push-ups. There was a whole slew of core stuff. I was told to zip up my abs more times than US gold medals. We stretched at the end. My legs were shaking even during the stretches at the end.

All I know is that I will not be able to walk tomorrow. I will not be able to sit on the toilet tomorrow. And I freakin love it. After my groupon is up, I am for sure going to buy a package. The Barre Method- check it out. See if you have it in your city, and be amazed.

Ultra love,

Elise

Ps. My handsome man got me flowers tonight. Perhaps he felt sorry for me? Or was celebrating my incapacitation?

Live Well & Rock On

There have been a couple things preventing me from "living well" lately. And by "living well" I mean, being able to really push it-push it real good- in yoga. and in spin class. and while running.

Let's start at the very beginning- a very good place to start... It all began when one day during yoga, I realized that my right knee really did not enjoy tree pose. See picture below.

The thing about Tree pose is that it is supposed to be a hip opener- not a knee hurter. As you can see in the picture above, the intent of the pose is to gradually push your knee back so that both knees are in one line from the side. You use your hip muscles to do this- the more your knee moves back, the more open your hip is. In general I had made some good progress in this posture, but this knee issue took be back to square one. The REALLY bad thing about my knee isssue though, was that it did not get better. I can't tell you the number of weird knee tweaks I have healed with the yoga, but this one just wouldn't go away. The really STRANGE part of this knee issue, was that I only felt pain if my knee twisted inward- like above. I could bend and stretch and whatever without any problems at all. Running didn't hurt either.

Problem number 2. When I was moving from CT to TN, I did something to my neck one night. Like my knee issue, I thought it would go away with some good old fashioned yoga shit, and, though the yoga made it better, my neck (all the way to my shoulder blade) was always tight ad painful. Add these two problems together, and most exercise generated some kind of pain.

Enter stage left: The Rock Doc.

My handsome man has been going to see the Rock Doc for a while now. He is a fully certified and licensed chiropractor who got tired of the humdrum life in an official office setting. So he decided to work from home, particularly for "athletes, musicians, and friends." My handsome man counts in the "musician" category, and I count in the "friends" category (girlfriend? friends with benefits? no idea). My neck issue finally irritated me enough (and I knew it wasn't a "go to the doctor and get surgery" kind of injury) to go with my boo to see the Rock Doc.

1. I was SO EXCITED
2. I was SO NERVOUS
3. It was SO WORTH IT
4. I love the song "What Makes you Beautiful" by One Direction. I was BORN to love boy bands. FOR REAL. This song just gets me GOING. I wanna dance and jump and sing and get funky! YOU DON'T KNOW YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL!

At first, I was just on the fancy table face down. He gently pushed on my back to get a read on what was going on. I was half expecting him to be like "You do yoga! your back is perfect!"- But I already knee something was wrong, otherwise I wouldn't have gone. So sure enough, he quickly found one vertebra that was out of whack. CRACK. He pushed it back into place pretty quickly. Then he felt around a little while longer and found one more than needed some fairly technical adjusting. It was a two-parter. I don't really understand more than that, except this one was in line with my diaphragm, so when he did part one, it totally knocked the breath out of me.

Round two of adjustments was with me on my side. On the right side, you cross your left knee over your body and stick your right leg off the table. Then dude kinda sits on you. Rude, I know. But so worth it. At this point, he had told me that there was something crazy town going on with the left size of my pelvis/lower back- right where they connect. Apaprently, the muscle that connects them was just straight up contracted- all the way up my back. So, he needed to adjust my pelvis and lower back a little bit. Well, the side crack TOTALLy got my lower back, but Doc soon discovered that my pelvis just WOULD NOT move.

He said at some point I must have fallen pretty hard on that side (I'm thinking it was when I slipped on ice in CT) and then scar tissue had just turned the joint into solid rock. He said it would take a few more sessions to work that out because he was gonna have to slowly push through that scar tissue. But for real y'all, he tried a couple times and just could not get my pelvis to adjust. You know me- ultra all the way.

Next was the neck. Which was terrifying. There is a part of me that really doesn't ever want to get my neck done (it's the most important thing!!!!) but that is where I have been hurting, so I knew it was necessary. For about 10 seconds he was just kinda massaging my neck, then CRACK. It didn't hurt, but it scared me. I almost got off the table. But he promised to be gentler on the other side. And he was.  

The next part- I sat up on the table and he kind of lowered me back onto the table before smushing me- I think this gets my mid back. This was doing part two of the two-parter I mentioned earlier.

Last- he checked on my limbs. He could tell right away that my left knee was rotating in on itself. To fix this, I have to do some stretches. But I am pretty sure it is also related to this pelvis stuff. He cracked my right elbow. And oogled at my toe-thumb. It seemed like he wanted the challenge of trying to make it grow and look normal. I don't think he has a shot in hell of making that sucker grow. We shall see.

I will write another blog about my first yoga class post Rock Doc, but I will leave you with my new "rules."

1. No running until we fix this pelvis thing. It has made my left leg 6mm shorter than my right leg. NO GOOD, KIDS.
2. No more sleeping on my stomach. Bad for my neck.
3. I have to do knee and neck stretches each day.

Sorry for the long post. SO MUCH TO TELL YOU.

Ultra love,

Elise

Tu

There is a new yoga man in town, and he is the $hit.

Tu came to my yoga studio a couple weeks ago. I have had his class 4 times since then. In the past four classes I have made more progress that in the whole past year. Something about this dude, he just pushes me in the best way possible. I freakin love it.

The first class, I was kinda feelin out what kind of a teacher he was. You know, everyone always does this. Oh a new instructor, I don't have to work hard. I can just go easy on myself because he doesn't really know what I can do. WRONG, LADY. Second set of half moon, Tu says to me

"Elise, don't let procrastination become a part of your practice."

Well, $hit.

Na'mean?

At that point I knew that this class was going to be no joke. And they are as serious as a serious person would be serious. What I like most about Tu is the way that he does the dialogue. Instead of just saying everything, word for word, he picks a different person for each pose and uses them to talk through the posture. For example, with me in standing head to knee:

"Okay Miss Addington, lock your knee more. Kick out with your standing leg. Don't lose focus. *** I fall out of the posture** Miss Addington you want to end the posture pushing your hardest, not going easy on yourself."

He really knows how to give you the corrections that you can actually fix. He pushes you to a level that you can handle, and he demands that you don't wimp out. I am just wiped at the end of his class. I LOVE IT. LOVE IT. like really.

To close, I want to share the way that he does the dialogue for the breathing exercise at the beginning. He snaps when you are supposed to change from inhale to exhale, but stretches one hand up to the sky. Its amazing.

Someone come to visit me and take his class. FO REAL.

Ultra love,

Elise

And I'm BACK in the game!

please pardon my long absence, I was busy writing final papers, graduating from Yale Divinity School,

 moving to Nashville, securing a job, and then taking some time out on the beach.

The beach was fabulous, obviously. But what was even more fabulous about this time was that my handsome man and I took the time to go on beach runs pretty much everyday. I should qualify this statement with the public service announcement that I HATE SAND. I especially HATE SAND IN MY SHOES. (Or in bodily orifices slash skin folds) Therefore, we ran barefoot, which was what the cool kids would have us do anyway. My feet got tired at points (come to think of it, my legs did too), but it still was exhilarating.

The best part was on one of our last runs, I got very angry at something my handsome man said (cant remember now, but that's the way it goes, eh?) and, demonstrating my abounding maturity, I just took off, running faster than he could. Y'all, I kicked into some gear I never knew existed. It felt like I was running in a magic land of sparkle puppies and rainbows raining peanut butter M&Ms. I have never felt that way on a run before- I guess you could call it the runner's high gear. I wish that I could find it again- maybe I will someday. I probably just need to make my dude come on runs with me and push his buttons til I get mad again. I see this as being a very logical and intelligent idea.


After getting back from the beach, I started my new job. My new job has superb benefits, one of them being a membership to ALL THE NASHVILLE YMCA's. If you don't drop your jaw at this, then the Y's in your city are not nearly as FABULOUS as Nashville's. Since being here, I have jumped back into the spinning saddle. Though my butt bones are still not 100% used to the abuse, I am SO HAPPY. I get to spin on my lunch break, and I am starting to think that I will need to go to class Monday through Friday, not just M/W/F...

As a part of my job, I went to a conference in Black Mountain, NC. Besides running every day (and not seeing any bears- thank you sweet baby Jesus), we went on a hike one morning. I hiked SLASH FREAKING ROCK CLIMBED from that red roof in the background.

 (On a side note- rock climbing is NOT my thing. I have midge hands and toe-thumbs that aren't very reliable. Thus, using my hands as a main source of power is not on my list of intelligent things to do (unlike my idea of how to get back to my runners high)-- however, since I wasn't warned of the rock scaling that was at the top of this hike, I went on it anyway. Somehow I managed to get to the top. thank you sweet baby Jesus)

Besides all that exercising I've been doing, I am still practicing yoga. On Saturday I had the BEST CLASS EVER. there is a new teacher here in Nashville, and he is FOR REAL. I will do a post on his classes soon after I have taken a few more.

Get excited- now that I am no longer in school, I will be able to post some more. YEAH!

Also, Luna is doing just fine. We play fetch everyday and she has gotten to go on some great trail runs. Happy Luna= Happy me.

Ultra love,

Elise

Luna's first day at the beach

since there will be a severe lack of posts in the next couple months as I prepare to graduate and look for a job/place to live, here is a little bit of Luna to tide you over.

not sure if this video is going to work, but if it does. yay. This is Luna's first time in the ocean- notice she is scared of the waves right at first!

The New Year

my only new years resolution was to eat pizza ONLY once a week- aka, there must be 7 days in between the times I take a bite of that greasy delicious cheesy ranchy yumminess. torture.

other than being amazingly awe

some at this resolution, while spending most of my days dreaming about pizza, I have changed up my gym routine. last semester, i pretty much went to yoga every day of the week (well, i guess more like 6 days a week). I did this for a number of reasons.

1. i like yoga. duh.

2. the yale gym is dirty and smells like smelly people all the time.

3. sometimes, yoga people can be a little crazy and cause drama. i need LESS of that rather than more.

but, like any exercise routine, too much of the same thing means you stop seeing results. thus, i knew it was time for a little change up. the change up looks like this:

Monday: Run and/or gym. (sometimes I run with Luna, sometimes i run at the gym. sometimes when new years resolutioners are hogging all the equipment, i combine random bits of cardio) added to the run is weights. each week varies on what i have time to do.

Tuesday; yoga

Wednesday: Run and/or gym

Thursday: Yoga

Friday: Run and/or gym

Saturday and Sunday: Yoga

At the gym, I am alternating between 3 main workouts.

1. LEGS! wooo woo.

2. circuits- i do this mainly when i do not have alot of time. i do biceps, triceps, pushups, shoulders, one leg squats and burpies. KILLER.

3. Upper body-- full round of upper body. gotta build those guns.

Though this update is short, at least it's an update. Take it or leave it. Oh and here is a picture of Luna!

Ultra love.