ashleyd /

Swimming Along the Bosphorus

As I mentioned in my Under Armour What’s Beautiful Challenge vlog earlier this week, Bo and I have made it our goal to work out together each day on our trip. While yesterday was a rest day for me, this morning we spent 45 minutes together bright and early. We were in bed last night by 10:30 and therefore woke up at 6:30 in order to reset our body clocks and get started early!

We checked out the hotel gym before decided to head out to the pool for a swim workout.   IMG_8708 IMG_8709 IMG_8710

We opted to swim in the outdoor pool as it is 34 meters and heated to a warm 80 degrees. The views of the big ships coming down the river and the sunrise was a perfect way to motivate me to choose swimming as a workout. For those of you who have read my blog for a while you know I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve swam laps in the past year. Bo, however, is a very strong swimmer who often swims 1-2 miles two to three times a week.

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Bo put together a workout for me ahead of time keeping in mind that I needed to finish the workout feeling challenged but not defeated.

My workout: 100 meter warm-up, 3×300 meter freestyle with short break in between each 300 meter set

His workout: 100 meter warm-up, 3×500 meter freestyle with short break in between each 500 meter set.

Overall, it was a perfect morning workout and I am excited to spend at least half of my vacation workouts in a pool. Bo promises I’ll feel stronger as soon as tomorrow’s swim!

Are you a swimmer? If yes, what is your stroke of choice?

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ashleyd /

Under Armour’s What’s Beautiful 3.0 Challenge

As someone who works in marketing, I am always interested to see how brands decide to build community and interact with their fans and consumers. Therefore, when I followed Under Armour’s launch of their What’s Beautiful campaign last year I was excited and immediately in love with the platform. Their campaign, What’s Beautiful, allows the Under Armour “every woman” serve as the voice of the brand. Through their site women around the world can make their personal challenges public and gain support from friends around the world. I mean heck, check out the last winner, Kacey C! Her story is awesome!

I am partnering with Fitfluential to share the Under Armour message with readers and friends alike. The campaign partnership couldn’t come at a better time. I need something to keep my body strong and help push me a bit harder. The next 2 months leading up to our big move is going to be absolutely insane. In addition to packing, saying goodbye to friends and family and finishing our NYC bucket list (sort of) I’m traveling 25 days!

  • Miami 5/13-5/15 (work)
  • Istanbul 5/21-5/27
  • Geneva 5/28-6/1 (house hunting)
  • Seattle/San Francisco 6/4-6/7 (work)
  • Geneva 6/16-6/19 (work)

My What’s Beautiful Challenge is all about putting your body and health first even when life gets stressful! My team is all about putting your body and health first even when life gets busy! I find that we often let stress get in the way of our progress. As Bo and I prepare to move to Europe I know the months of May and June will be full of stress. For this reason, I’ve partnered with some of my accountability partners to put a weekly goal in place for each of the next 8 weeks. if you want to join in the movement to put yourself first then I’d love for you to join! #IWILL

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Tonight I completed the TICK MARKS challenge which is a list of things I want to check off along the way to help me achieve my goal! You can check it out here and join in the fun!

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The campaign is all about redefining the female athlete and is open to ANY woman! So join in the fun and follow along on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram! We’ll be using the #iwill and #whatsbeautiful hashtags on Instagram and Twitter while I’ll also be sharing my journey on this blog. If you’re participating feel free to post your team link in the comments so I can support you!

How do you put YOUR body and fitness first when life gets stressful?

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3 Easy Healthy Travel Tips

Greetings from Cincinnati!

In case you missed it, we spent the weekend with our friends exploring Cincinnati! It was such a fun weekend that we didn’t want it to end! Monday mornings are especially tough after long, fun filled weekends!

Bo flew back to New York City last night while Amy, Ryan and I relaxed in their basement watching The Impossible and chilling. We kept things simple last night by enjoying some healthy snacks during the movie and then making easy taco salads for dinner!

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This morning, before heading to the office together, Amy and I went out for a quick, easy 3 mile jog around her neighborhood.  It’s amazing what a few hills can do for a 3 mile run! Holy heck this run wasn’t easy but it sure felt great when we were done just a short while later. There were two monster hills that we ran and each time I just kept telling myself to push through to the top. While getting up at 4:45 wasn’t fun and neither of us were that talkative during the run due to the hills and exhaustion, it still felt great to know we finished our workout bright and early.

I’m traveling for work this entire week and will spend the next four nights in a hotel room and each day in meetings. It’s easy to get off track and use the different environment as an excuse to take a few days off from healthy eating and workouts. But, as I’ve mentioned before, I believe that I feel even better if I can keep up with my normal routine as much as possible. Here are a few things that I try to do while traveling to stay energized.

  • Go to bed as early as possible. Sleep is always such an important part of how you feel but we rarely get enough. Take advantage of the time away from children and loved ones to focus on getting a few extra minutes of sleep! I do my best to avoid watching tv while traveling as I know I’ll stay up far too late!
  • Bring your own water bottle! Between air travel and the dry hotel and meeting rooms I tend to get very parched during business trips. I start each day by drinking a bottle of water and then ensure that I drink one before bed too! During the day I carry this bottle with me to each meeting and refill it during breaks. A water refill is a great excuse to stand up and walk around but can also save money since I get to refill it versus buying a fresh bottle each time!
  • Move as much as possible! Maybe the gym isn’t for you. Regardless of your fitness level, always pack your workout shoes and at least lace them up for a short walk around town or the office park. Need to call your loved one to catch up after a long day? Try walking up and down the hotel hallway if you don’t feel safe outside alone. You’ll be surprised just how far you can walk during a 30 minute phone call! If you normally work out at home, use this travel time to try something new using Pintrest as a great source for travel workouts! My 35 minute full body workout and 45 minute full body workouts don’t require any machines and will leave you out of breath!

Hopefully this week I’ll create another workout for you guys as I know I’ll grow bored quickly. Unfortunately my hotel isn’t located near a park so I’m limited to running around a corporate business park or on the old treadmill.

How about you? How do you stay healthy during travel?

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