Eco-Chic Dolls: For the Aspiring Environmental Activist

Ok so no, I'm not a 6-year-old and technically I shouldn't care about this, but If I were, I would want one of these dolls!

I saw these Planet Pixies on Tree Hugger and absolutely couldn't resist! They're soft dolls for children 3 and up (which should have been a clue that I'm not the target audience...) made with certified organic cotton, water-based, all-natural dyes. They're each named for a different part of our planet in peril: Anyu the Ice Pixie from the Artic, Kayla the Marsh Pixie from the Everglades, and Maya the Tree Pixie from the Amazon.

They also come complete with information about the region they represent and what the tiny tots can do to help protect the planet from an early age.

OMG so cute.

I may be ordering one...(Now back to relevant 21-year-old girl blogging...)

2009 National Swimming Championships

The team after the last day of competition

We finally made it back to Manhattan after what felt like a week of nonstop swimming in Buffalo. I'm absolutely exhausted, and I'm also one of the only people on the team not fighting off some kind of cold, flu or other ailment.

But what an amazing week it's been! 

Erie College's Natatorium 

We started every day with warm-ups around 9 am. Preliminaries began at 10 am and went through until about 12:30. Then we'd grab lunch and some days we'd rush back to the pool for diving at 1 pm. After diving came nap time, and then back to the pools at 4:45 for another warm up. Finals began at 6 pm and went until about 9 or so. I really haven't done that much consecutive swimming...ever...and my body now feels a little like overworked taffy.

Captain Kristen, Coach Mike, me and Gwen at the banquet on the first night.

In between our races and workouts, it was so exciting to watch the rest of the meet. There were some absolutely amazing swimmers and we saw quite a few record breaking times (a 19 second 50 free and a 54 second 100 breast....INSANE). It really inspired all of us to work even harder for next season and to make sure to stay in top shape. One of my favorite parts of meets of this size is the finals when the top 8 swimmers are paraded out to the blocks to music. It's so much fun to watch! 

I swam four events, three relays and one individual. The 100 backstroke, the 200 Medley Relay, the 200 Freestyle Relay and the 400 Freestyle relay. 

To be honest, I didn't really have a chance to place in the 100 back. I'm so happy to have qualified (I qualified for the 200 back as well...but decided not to swim), but right now I really don't compare to some of the girls on the other teams. I held my own though and had a really strong preliminary swim. Then, to my surprise I was moved on to the consolation finals! (The top 16 from the prelims go on to finals: top 8 to the real finals, and the rest to the "consolation" finals...this is cool but also meant I had to swim it again in a few hours!) I ended up dropping a second off my time in the finals which is great.

The 200 medley relay had some pretty fierce competition as well. I swam backstroke and had a pretty good split of 35 seconds. We didn't place but were happy with the results until we found out our team and two others had been disqualified! (Apparently someone left the blocks a millisecond too early...sucks, but oh well!)

The freestyle relays were another story. We had pretty good competition, but knew we could pull off some solid times. The 200 came first and to my surprise I swam a 29.5 second split! That's the fastest I've ever gone (in case you don't know swimming numbers: the guys that win do their split in 19 seconds or faster and the girls do it in 23 seconds or faster...so my 29.5 is relative, but pretty fast for me!) The other girls on our relay swam even faster and we won 6th place medals!

6th Place in the 200 Free Relay!

Then, the last night of competition, came the 400 freestyle relay. I think they save it to the very last second because it's pretty exciting and pretty competitive. We just wanted to place in the top 8 to get medals and more points, which meant winning our heat. Going into it we weren't sure it was possible because one of the girls from our rival team had posted a super fast time earlier in the 100 free individual event...faster than any of us swim. But the race came together well and we ended up winning our heat by a few seconds and securing 8th place medals! I swam a solid split even with water in my goggles!

My 8th place and 6th place medals from the 400 and 200 Free Relays

Overall FIT won 9th place in the meet (out of like 15? 17? something like that...) That may not sound super exciting, but we're a really small team and a first year team. I think we definitely proved ourselves and earned the respect of the other more established teams! We left the meet on a definite high and to be honest I'm really sad the season is over. I can always keep swimming on my own or with friends, but there really is nothing like competing with a team!

The essentials: cap, nose plug, goggles, and athlete credentials.

National Swimming Championships

So, our little first year team from FIT is way up in Buffalo, NY this week for the NJCAA National Swimming and Diving Championships. We've been here since early Tuesday morning (I was up at 3:40 that morning to catch a plane...) and leave on Sunday. 

There are at least 17 (maybe 19, I'll check and confirm) teams in the competition and all of them are amazing. The team that dominates is actually from near my hometown in Florida, and they are insane! I witnessed a guy swim a 19 second 50 free style this morning....!!!!! (That's actually why I wrote this post. I wanted to share the insanity of what we saw...he broke like three records!)

So, I swim this evening in the 200 free style relay, tomorrow in the 100 backstroke (yes, I qualified for this AND the 200 backstroke! How in the world did I miss that?!) and Saturday in the 200 Medley relay. I won't be breaking any national, state, regional or pool records, but I'm hoping to at least break some personal records now that I have all my season's times down on paper.

More posts and lots of pictures to come!

Birthday!

This post really doesn't have anything to do with training, racing or the environment, but read on if you're interested!

I'm 21!

My best girlfriends from back home in Florida came to surprise me this weekend for my 21st birthday in NYC! What a treat! I've lived here for three years and they've never been to visit before this weekend. We had a blast visiting museums, shopping and mostly eating.

Wednesday night I had early birthday dinner plans with my friend and former roommate Lindsey at Cafe Spice, one of our favorite Indian places. She greeted me outside the restaurant and we sat down at a table for two.  I noticed three people at a table near us wearing huge sun hats that covered their faces and suddenly it all clicked! Those silly hats could only belong to my friends (Anna, Tayler and Jordan)! I was so surprised I couldn't even talk...or eat, really!

At midnight I ate a Billy's Bakery Cupcake (Cupcake # 1 of the weekend) in their hotel room and opened a few presents from my mom.

Thursday (my actual birthday) I had to work, so they met me for lunch in Union Square. The girls at my internship were so sweet and surprised me with beautiful cupcakes from Cupcake Cafe (cupcake #2, #3, #4 of the weekend). 

That night I took Anna to my favorite yoga studio, Yoga to the People for a Birthday yoga session. After that we all went out for a late dinner at Veselka, the best Ukrainian restaurant ever.

 

Friday we toured The Metropolitan Museum of Art. They have a contest going on now called "Have we Met" where visitors take pictures in and around the Met of their experience. Here are some of our brilliant entries:

That evening I gathered all of my friends from NYU, FIT and Florida for dinner at Cafetasia, a fantastic, chic, cheap Thai Restaurant. They lost my reservations and gave us horrible service, but the food was amazing as always and we had a wonderful time.

We ended the night with a little bar-hopping and celebrating at Crumbs Cupcakes (cupcake # 5 of the weekend...in case you're counting or wondering, that's too many cupcakes!) The next day, tired and out of it, I took the girls shopping in SoHo.

What a wonderful Birthday weekend! I'm so lucky to have such wonderful friends!

This week is Nationals for Swimming in Buffalo, NY - More posts to come!

Ocean College Swim Meet II

Yesterday the FIT swim team got up early to head out to the Jersey Shore for the second match with Ocean College's fantastic swim team. None of us were feeling particularly motivated that morning...it was cold outside and even a bit chilly on the pool deck. But I was excited to be swimming the first meet in our new swimsuits and caps (check it out above)!

I swam four events:

The 200 Medley Relay: Backstroke

The 50 Freestyle

The 100 Backstroke

The 200 Freestyle Relay

Since our team is only about 10 swimmers and Ocean's has, oh, at least 40 or so, we had no chance of "winning." But we did well and by the end I was feeling great in the pool. 

I actually cut about 5 seconds off my 100 Backstroke time, but was still 4 seconds too slow to qualify for Nationals. I figured I'd make it next year when my coach told me I had actually qualified for nationals in my 200 backstroke! What? When did this happen!? (Actually, I know when it happened since I've only competed in that event once...) Hmm, that should be interesting!

We finished the day with a trip to Panera Bread (a suburban treat for us Manhattanites). Now we're looking forward to Nationals in upstate NY in two weeks!

Before, During, After

These are some of the greener, more natural things I'm trying to fuel and compliment my workouts.

Before a hard workout:
Organic Dried Dates


A running buddy told me she's been eating dried dates to fuel her before workouts, and so I looked into the nutrition information. She's right: the fruit has a lot of great carbs to help you get a pre-workout kick, plus they're delicious.

or

Pro Bar


My work used to represent Pro Bar, so we have a few samples in the back room. My superviser encouraged me to help myself and I'm totally hooked now. The bars come in tons of natural flavors and are totally unprocessed and organic (I love every flavor I've tried so far!) They have a good deal of calories, so I make sure to eat them before a workout. They're also chock-full of protein, omega 3's, carbs and potassium.

During a hard workout:

Liv Organic Sports Drink


I've mentioned this product before, but the more I drink I the more I love it! This is obviously formulated to be a sports drink, so it has a good ratio of carbs and sodium to re-hydrate.

or

Coconut Water


It's definitely an acquired taste, but coconut water is a wonderful natural re- hydrant. It too has the perfect mix of sodium and carbs to replenish the body. I've been squeezing hot yoga and swim workouts into the same evenings and I usually down one of these in between to make sure I'm hydrated. So far I've only tried the flavored variety (which are all tasty), but I have a plain coconut one in my bag for this evening.

After a hard workout:

Kiss My Face Active Athletic Body Wash


I think hard workouts should be rewarded and this is the way to do it. It's made with Birtch, which is an anit-inflamatory, arnica which soothes sore muscles, and ceder, which is supposed to be calming.

Back in the Game

I've been so busy since arriving back in New York: school, new internship, working out, and on and on and on! But this past weekend, I got back in the game. 

Friday night I spent time on the runway for my designer friend Kate Goldwater, at a fashion show for an animal charity...which meant there were dogs...in costumes... It was pretty adorable, I'm not going to lie...

Saturday morning I headed up to Central Park to meet two girls from my new internship at Organic Works Marketing for a nice 5 mile (plus 2 extra for me) run in preparation for the More and Fitness Magazine's Women's Half Marathon in April! (Somehow, between me and another runner in the office, we've gotten several girls signed up! How exciting! Watch out for Team Organic Works come April 26.) 

The day was a welcome break from our recently frigid weather. At 10 am, it was about 34 degrees, perfect for running if you ask me, and it warmed up wonderfully throughout the day. I dressed comfortably and brought some Pina Colada flavored Cliff Bar Shot Blocks to chew on in my great new running belt.

We chatted about family, friends, and mostly working out, (but not about work...that's not allowed.) The run was nice and easy for me, and I added a mile warm up and a little over a mile cool down after I parted way with my new found running buddies. It's so nice to have someone to keep you company on a chilly morning! 

Sunday I dragged myself onto my bike for the first time (since being back in the city) in the cold (no, it didn't stay warm for long) night air to get to swim team practice (also a first since being back). The ride was short, but I was surprised how difficult it was! I'm was worried that I wasn't in cycling shape AT ALL! My riding buddy Jack is great conversation and, as always, I was completely enamored. All of a sudden I realized the ride was so hard because my back tire wasn't inflated properly! How stupid and unacceptable of me not to check before running out the door! (But at least it wasn't me...;)

The two hour swim practice was the cherry to top the sundae of my weekend. In short: it kicked my ass.  We incorporated a lot of stretching into the practice, which felt great. The actual swimming was difficult and exhilarating, and I remember why I love swimming. It's really not like any other sport. I've been really active since being out of the pool, but swimming works my body in a completely different way. 

I've also managed to make it to yoga a few times (as per my goals for the year) Hot Yoga and a regular vinyassa flow session. 

It's nice to settle into a routine again! 

Check back later this week...I've been working on a new Athlete's Green Product Guide that's not to be missed.