Pro Compression socks review

Pro-Compression-headerThe Guy got a pair of pro compression socks to review, and he’s had them for a little over 3 weeks. As I’ve stated many times he’s a marathon runner, and a 5x Ironman triathlete, so he’s no stranger to compression socks.

Pro-Compression-MarathonHe went for the subtle black Marathon sock in L/XL, there’s a sizing chart on their website so if you’d like a tighter fit than the already difficult sock to get on, get a smaller size. I can’t imagine how much harder those would be to get on your legs. The Guy tells me that these have more compression than the other few pairs he owns. He said they’d be great to put on during a long flight or long car ride especially after a run. Knowing him, he’d pump out a good long run right before we get on a ten hour plane ride to visit our family in Canada.

Every Sunday afternoon he heads out for a 20+ km run and comes back looking for a belly full of food. He’ll be wearing them when he gets back from his 30km run this afternoon — no big deal right? He only uses the compression socks for recovery, not during activity. Although some people use them for both, he simply doesn’t like the look of almost knee high socks on him. These pictures are totally posed for the review, and normally wears pants when he puts on a pair of compression socks.

He was acting so hilarious one day when I asked him to put them on to see how they compare to the other brands he’s used. He asked me (the person who hates feet, or even touching them) to put them on him. Oh the things we do out of love. They were so tight, even I couldn’t get them on. I had his legs smooshed in between mine as if I was the one putting them on my own feet. I didn’t realize how difficult they’d be to put on. Since, I’ve never did anything longer than a 10k distance on a run before, nor do I stand up for hours on end working. But he was saying stuff that made me laugh until I cried and snorted. You know I’m laughing hard, when. This guy, I tell ya — he’s a funny one. And while it it had nothing to do with the review, I thought I had to tell you all about it.

Pro-Compression-socksI’ve also lucked into giving away a free pair for one lucky reader. You must be a US resident.  And for those who want a pair now, feel free to use the discount code BLG14 for 40% off Marathon Socks and Sleeves.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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Visiting Hofsas House in Carmel-by-the-Sea

Hofsas-House-HeaderFor my husbands birthday I surprised him with a two day honeymoon to the 3rd romantic city in the world Carmel-by-the-sea, California. You see we got married in less than a week, and immediately packed up our belongings to move to the United States. We never did have a chance to have our honeymoon, so I took it upon myself to book a small one for us. The only thing I told him leading up to his birthday was to clear his weekend schedule, something I knew would prove to be difficult.

Imagine an unplugged weekend where you reconnect with your loved ones. A beautiful place where the entire town shuts down at sunset and is completely quiet. Street signs, and store fronts made from wood, no street addresses to get to a place, just the customized names on houses or businesses. This is Carmel, a welcoming and friendly atmosphere from everyone who was visiting and living there. The incredible pacific coast line was simply breathtaking. Today, I’m taking you through our trip and stay at the Hofsas House.

Hofsas-House

Romance-pkg-on-bed

Wine-and-Cheese

Laying-on-rose-petalsWe called Hofsas Hotel in Carmel-by-the-Sea our home for the past two days. The location of Carmel-by-the-sea is about a square mile on Carmel Bay. Hofsas House is walk-able to Carmel itself, where it has many boutique stores to meander through, a diverse selection in restaurants and wineries, everything in walking distance.

Once we collected our room keys and walked in through the pink dutch doors, we were taken back by the hospitality. Our room was completely decorated into this romantic honeymoon suite with rose petals, fireless candles and Hershey kisses (an added upgrade guests can request for a fee) with a massive king sized bed with treats and a dog bed off to the side for Alfie. On our bedside table there was a bottle of wine and a cheese platter from The Cheese Shop, which guests can order to their room for $30. Talk about a warm welcome, hey?

Hofsas-House2The three of us (Alfie came too!) took off for this two day weekend to explore this town for the first time. We have heard a lot about this place and its beauty. We were welcomed with open arms, even after arriving an hour later than anticipated due to traffic, from the charm of the Hofsas House, which is in its 3rd generation of the family run business. We had about an hour to get ready for supper at The Grill when we arrived. Perfect time to re-curl my hair, swap out my cozy clothes and change into a silkier blouse and skinny jeans for our date night.

Fireplace-Alfie-and-ICarmel is much cooler at night, so we took advantage of our in-room fireplace and had a cozy fire each night. There’s nothing quite like sitting in in front of a warm evening fire.

Enjoying-our-fireplace

Hofsas-House-breakfastThere were trays available if we wanted to enjoy our continental breakfast in the comforts of our room.

Hofsas-House-Carmel

Selfies-at-Hofsas

Hofsas-House-looking-out

Alfie-chewing-on-boneCarmel is known for being incredibly dog-friendly with tons of restaurants catering to your pooches. At Hofsas House, not all rooms are dog-friendly but the ones that are take special care and go the extra mile to make your family pets feel much more at home. Alfie is crated and we bring his with us when he travels, but to our surprise he hopped on the plush dog bed in front of the fireplace to chew on one of his bones that we picked up in Carmel at Diggity Dog.

Hofsas-House-dutchdoor

Carrie-of-Hofsas-HouseCarrie Theis started working at Hofsas House with her Grandmother Donna Hofsas, the founder of Hofsas House over sixty years ago. Carrie has since taken the position full time and moved to Carmel to run Hofsas House. You can tell she takes great pride in not only the business aspect of Hofsas House, but she truly lights up, talking about Carmel. She gave us many suggestions as to what to do while we were in Carmel along with supplying us with wine walk tour tickets, and reservations to The Grill, a fantastic restaurant where we had a delicious 3 course meal, which I’ll talk about in an upcoming blog post. Our impression of Carrie is that she doesn’t care just about the business she runs with the family, but more about the village itself.

Out of the 38 rooms on the Hofsas House property they are each decorated differently. Looking past the retro feel to the room we had, it has its charm. The room itself was huge and we had a lot of extra space which felt comfortable. I got sparkly eyes looking out the Dutch doors in the morning when I realized the view we had. There’s nothing like waking up in the morning and taking in the Pacific Ocean air. It’s clear I missed the ocean living in central Canada for a number of years after growing up in Newfoundland.

Arriving-at-Hofsas-House

Alfie-and-me-outside-HofsasSaturday night we were completely wiped from our day adventure to Point Lobos where we had a picnic lunch provided by 5th Avenue Deli. We hadn’t planned on staying all afternoon until the sun set, but the place was more breathtaking than we had imagined. More on that spot soon! I loved the hospitality we received from Carrie and everyone at Hofsas House last weekend. Since we are so close to Carmel, we’re excited to return sometime to explore the other areas we didn’t get a chance to. Big Sur is definitely on our to-visit list, along with a trip to the neighbouring city, Monterey.

Hofsas House Hotel

San Carlos St, Carmel, CA 93921, USA
Phone: 831-624-2745

To learn more visit – www.hofsashouse.com

Our stay was hosted by Hofsas House, however the opinions in the blog post are 100% my own.

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What I Ate Wednesday #5

WIAW-HeaderFolks, it’s time. It’s time to take a photo of everything I’ve eaten in the run of a day and post it on the blog for everyone’s enjoyment. I do have to say, though that sounded sarcastic, and it was kinda supposed to — I actually do enjoy seeing what people eat in the run of a day. Kinda gets me motivated to cook something different for once.

It’s been since July that I posted a What I Ate Wednesday (thanks to Peas & Crayons for organizing these WIAW’s). Let’s jump right in, details at the bottom of the post. Many of the items I ate aren’t photographed. Sometimes, I get too hungry man. With that being said:

Banana-Nuts-Water

Snacking-after-workout

Coffee-before-climbing

Campbells-Tomato-Bisque

8:42a: I pour myself a glass of icy cold water from the fridge, then grab a banana and a handful of raw nuts (with mini m&m’s), because I’m too lazy to put together a real breakfast. Does anyone else hate their bananas with even the slightest bit of brown on it? It’s the last one, and I could’ve easily chucked it in the freezer for smoothies, but I took one for the team, and ate it. Brown spots and all.

10:36a: Since I’m about to head to the climbing gym to do yoga and boulder after (and try to get this one V3 boulder problem I’ve been working), I want my belly to be full until I can get a real meal in. I turn on our new Dolce Gusto and make myself a hot cuppa tea before changing into climbing gear, then grab a Taste of Nature bar while I head out the door.

2:30p: After climbing and yoga, I’m ravishing. I swung by Whole Foods and picked up two sandwiches from their deli counter and brought it home with me. Not pictured. I ate it while driving home. Ha!

7:03p: I was on my own for supper, so I heated up my favourite tomato bisque soup (Campbell’s, you’re mmm-mmm-good) a tall glass of milk, with a few cheese and crackers on the side (I snapped the picture before getting the milk + cheese + crackers).

9:45p: The Guy and I are slowly getting through his birthday ice cream cake, so we had a piece of that later on too. No photo, because I’m an animal and cannot take a photo of something so delicious.

Taste-of-NatureYou may notice the abundance of posed photos of me hanging out, eating a Taste of Nature bar. I received a number of boxes from the Canadian “granola” bar company to try out this summer. I brought a ton along with me to Lake Tahoe when my husband was going to do his 6th Ironman, but it ended up being cancelled. I’ve been treating these bars as a special treat every once in a while, or when I’m late and feeling rushed and need to get something down in my belly. They’re also great to pop into your purse for on the go.

Taste-Of-Nature-barModelling my manicured climber hand with the bar in front of the Ironman Lake Tahoe athlete village. Why not. There’s something different about these bars that I find irresistible. I’ve had a couple of these Himalayan Goji Summit bars throughout the Lake Tahoe adventure (which unfortunately got cancelled).

I’ve been taking these bars to the climbing gym to snack on, since I’m there hours at a time, between yoga and bouldering I get a little famished from time-to-time. Some of the bars are paleo friendly (the Brazil nut one I have contains some brown rice syrup and whole grain brown rice crisps, and seeds which aren’t paleo friendly) but for the most part they taste pretty awesome. Then again I love these types of bars.

If you’re interested in the facts, here are some Taste of Nature highlights:

  •     Bars are under 200 calories
  •     6 flavours available in the USA: Brazilian Nut Festival, California Almond Valley, Quebec Cranberry, Canadian Maple Forest, Himalayan Goji Summit, and Persain Pomegranate Garden
  •     Bars are $1.99 each
  •     Non-GMO, Gluten free and 100% certified organic bars with nothing artificial, no filers and no added sugar.

Disclaimer: I was sent a few boxes of Taste of Nature bars in exchange for my review. Options are no one else’s but my own.

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