June Challenges (#RWRunStreak Alternative)

Life always likes to get in the way of my monthly challenges. See: College graduations, job interviews, and a back muscle strain/pull. But, here I am again, trying to plan one for June. Unlike the other challenges I’ve planned, this one is just going to include my personal goals for developing my overall fitness.

I’m finding myself desperately wishing I could handle Runner World’s #RWRunStreak, where the goal is to run at least a mile a day between Memorial Day and Fourth of July. No matter how badly I want to do it, I know I shouldn’t attempt it because of how injury-prone I am. So instead, my #RWRunStreak alternative is:

  • Have a decent run at least three days a week (by setting a goal of at least 30 minutes a day, instead of a distance goal, so I don’t push myself too hard)
  • Complete 3 days worth of Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred a week
  • Attend at least 2 ballet classes a week (there are 3 offered at my studio)
  • Stretch everyday for at least 10 minutes (baby steps, since previous goals have just led me to give up).
  • Have a dedicated rest day.

I’ve planned my goals at like this so I can try to get in better general shape and fit in some sort of cross-training in now that I’m gym-less (not that I really ever did much at the gym either). I might try to squeeze in some swimming as well, since I (probably) still have access to the school’s pool.

What are your June goals? Are you attempting #RWRunStreak?

Liebster Award!

2013-05-17b

First of all, thank you so much to Alice in Danceland for nominating me for the Liebster Award that’s been going around the blogosphere again recently. I’ve been nominated before but didn’t have the time to take part at the time–but now I do! The rules are as follows:

Here are the rules for accepting the award:

  • Thank the person who nominated you and include a link back to their blog.
  • List 11 random facts about yourself.
  • Answer the 11 questions given to you.
  • Create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate.
  • Choose 11 bloggers with 200 or less followers to nominate and include links to their blogs.
  • Go to each bloggers page and let them know you have nominated them.

11 Random Facts:

  1. I began dancing ballet a year ago.
  2. I also recently began running and fell in love with that as well.
  3. I’m obsessed with Hello Kitty and once tried to start a Hello Kitty blog.
  4. Before starting Adult Ballerina Project, I ran a blog called A TV and A Girl about my obsession with TV. My friends make fun of the blog title and started calling me Avatar Girl.
  5. The only reason people ever ended up looking at that blog was because I did a video tutorial on how to do Quinn’s braid from Glee. It got a surprising amount of hits on YouTube for how crappy the quality was.
  6. I don’t have cable and instead I watch almost everything on Netflix. I just finished Fringe, I’m trying to finish up Bones.
  7. When I do watch TV, I watch Scandal using my crappy TV antenna.
  8. I have super flat feet which has caused a lot of shin splints during both ballet and running.
  9. I’d be lost without my foam roller and compression socks.
  10. I’m working on doing more freelance writing now that I’ve graduated.
  11. I also love turtles.

 

11 Questions asked by AliceinDanceland:

  1. What is your favourite to-go stretch or exercise? Pigeon’s pose or downward facing dog. Pigeon’s Pose for my hips, downward facing dog for my shins.
  2. Favourite genre of music? alternative rock.
  3. If you could attend any professional academy or university in the world, which would it be? Hmmm…this is a weird question to answer since I just graduated. But probably Columbia for journalism grad school.
  4. If you could live in any other time period, what would it be? Can I chose the future? I’d want to see all the new technology that develops.
  5. What is your favourite social media site and why? Twitter. I love that I can tweet a lot more than Facebook updating.
  6. What is your favourite dessert? Fried ice cream. My mom made me an awesome fried ice cream cake for my graduation.
  7. What do you miss most about your childhood? Not having any responsibilities.
  8. What has been the biggest challenge in your life thus far? I think trying to find a full-time job will be a huge challenge I now have to overcome.
  9. What is one thing you want to improve about yourself? I want to both improve in running and ballet–and get better at updating ballet.
  10. How do you like your water? Plain? Infused with fruit juice? Seltzer? Plain!
  11. Any plans for the upcoming summer? Part-time internship with Campus Philly, freelancing, hopefully a job.

 

11 Questions for the Blogs I nominate:

  1. Why did you start blogging?
  2. If you were stuck on a desert island and could only bring 3 items, what would you bring?
  3. What is the significance of your blog title?
  4. What are your other hobbies?
  5. What are your summer plans?
  6. What is your favorite fruit or vegetable?
  7. Who is one celebrity you are dying to meet, alive or dead?
  8. If you could  change to any career, what would it be?
  9. What is your favorite animal, and why?
  10. If you had to give up a form of social media, which one would you give up?
  11. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

 

11 Blogs I nominate:

  1. The Active Gamer
  2. Under the Purple Magnolia Tree
  3. LoveBallet89
  4. Ballet Shoes and Mickey Ears
  5. Live and Be Awesome
  6. The Spicy Mermaid
  7. Back to the Barre
  8. Some Assemble Required
  9. The 109th Bead
  10. Thanks and Kittens
  11. Diary of a Slow Runner

Check it out: Our new Ballet Book Club

English: Book shelf

I’ve decided to host our book club over at GoodReads, and you can join it by following this link here. It’ll be the easiest way to create discussions as well as vote as to what books we should be reading (I’m thinking about one a month–since I know we’re all super busy).

If you don’t already have a GoodReads account, its super easy to set up, and you can even just set it up by linking it up to you Facebook account. GoodReads is a super easy way to share with your friends what you’re reading, what you want to read, as well as book reviews.

Make sure once you’ve joined that you introduce yourself and vote for what type of book you’d like to read first!

What book do you recommend we read first in the Ballet Book Club?

Ballet Studio and Instructor Reviews + Poll

I am finally, finally headed back to ballet tonight. I can’t wait, even though I know it’ll end up making me super sore.

Otherwise, I just wanted to remind everyone that you can still submit studio and teacher reviews at the following links:

Studio Review

Instructor Review

Those that have been submitted have been posted under the resource tab, so check them out! If anything is incorrect, feel free to shoot me an e-mail at adultballerinaproject@gmail.com.

Lastly, I was just curious if readers preferred stretching/ballet advice in video form or text/pictures. So let me know by taking the short poll below!

 

#AdultBallerinas TweetChat November 9th, 6pm EST

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Hey Ballerinas,

Don’t forget that we’re holding a TweetChat tomorrow at 6:00 PM EST. It’ll probably go for at least an hour, so if you can’t join us right away, feel free to jump in whenever you can.

We’ll be using the hashtag #adultballerinas to keep track of each other and reply to each other. Using TweetChat.com is an awesome way to easily follow just our conversation and not lose track of whose saying what to who in our conversation.

My twitter is @kristengillette and if you’re looking to get other adult ballerinas to follow you before we get to chatting, comment below with your Twitter handle and I’ll tweet out the names of everyone when the TweetChat starts!

Look forward to talking to all of you!