Archive for August, 2010
-
Last day of the summer
The last day of August is coming to a close. I’m glad that soon we’ll be seeing cooler temperatures and better running weather soon.
I’m not so glad that Sunday’s run made me really sore. Unusually sore. I thought my training has been pretty good – not great – but not bad either. Only a couple of weeks ago, I ran 11 miles on my treadmill so I thought 10 miles outdoors would be fine. When I trained for my marathon, I interchanged running long runs on the treadmill when the weather didn’t allow running outside. Granted, that was a different treadmill… Maybe that has something to do with it.
Anyway, I’m chalking it up to a lesson learned and a note to run the rest of my long runs outdoors. What I’m experiencing is called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (or DOMS). One of the things you can do to relieve this is light exercise – just going for a short, easy walk is good. Another thing I should have done more of after my workout was stretching. I do light stretching after all of my runs – I believe this is VITAL – but on harder workouts, I should be doing more stretching. Longer, deeper stretches and not ignoring muscle groups that I take for granted.
My quads and right buttock were apparently taken for granted. Right now, they are not. Believe me.
Right now I’m watching Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
In high school, I listened to a lot of Pink Floyd. The Wall, The Dark Side of the Moon, Pulse (thanks to my brother’s collection for that one), A Momentary Lapse of Reason and Wish You Were Here were my favorite CDs. I think it was right around the time that the Spice Girls exploded in popularity. Considering what was out there, I don’t blame myself for my Pink Floyd phase at all.
End tangent?
Tomorrow is my first day coaching Girls on the Run. I am super nervous.
It’s also the first day of 30 Days of Self-Love.
-
Hot runs and buns
This morning I got up to run a scheduled 10 miles. I knew it was a little bit warm outside, but I was not prepared for how quickly it became HOT.
After 6 miles, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, and my pace was starting to suffer. I was getting tired and hot but not dehydrated. Ada went with me for about 7.5 miles and she is worn out! I’m glad I didn’t take her any further because I tried to get her to drink a couple of times but she wouldn’t drink much. It was bad because I knew she had to be hot too.
At about 8 miles, a man slightly ahead of me stopped his bike to offer me water. I had to have been looking really bad at this point, so I decided to take that as a sign to turn around and cut my run a little short. I did 9.5 miles. (p.s. how nice of it was him to offer?! I wasn’t dehydrated–just hot–so I was ok, but there have been times that I’ve been really thirsty and lusted after the bottles I see bikers drinking out of…)
Hopefully next week will be better – it’s supposed to be 15-20 degrees cooler so that sounds good to me.
I found out on Friday that I will actually be head coaching for Girls on the Run which starts this week. It’s a lot more responsibility than I had anticipated and it’s going to be a lot of work. I’m a little nervous to be honest. But as my mom said, “The more you put into it, the more rewarding it will be.”
Things I Cooked This Weekend File
1. Yesterday I made DESSERT HUMMUS which I saw on Evan’s blog at www.foodmakesfunfuel.com. I made it without the chocolate chips since I didn’t have any on hand, and with low carb syrup because I’m watching my sugar intake (but not my chemical intake…). It was still really yummy! It sounds so weird – chickpeas made into something sweet – but this stuff is dangerous. It’s kind of scary how much is left in the fridge. Maybe Mark has been sneaking some. (I seriously doubt it though…)
2. Low carb, gluten free buns. You heard me. A friend sent me the link to these and I was intrigued. Three ingredients = buns.
They smelled like scrambled eggs in the oven so I was nervous. I tried it with a turkey burger and all the regular burger fixings. Verdict?: It’s no sandwich bun, but it’s a good replacement if you are looking to cut out carbs or gluten. It did taste eggy (cause that’s what it’s made out of) but I could close my eyes and pretend I was just eating a burger. Mark really liked them too.
I’m off to relax for a bit. This weekend has been busy with errands and running around and such. She looks the way I feel:
-
Black hole of money
Hello
Yesterday after work I needed nut butter. We had been out for 24 hours and this is a huge problem. Whole Foods is conveniently very close to where I work so I stopped off there.
MISTAKE. Do you have certain stores in your life that are black holes for money? Whole Foods is one of them — so is Target and Walgreens. I can’t leave those stores without an armful of stuff I didn’t intend to buy when I walked in!
I wandered around in Whole Foods when the purpose was to buy nut butter and cream of tartar. Two things. I left with a very heavy bag — three kinds of nut butter (SSHHHH. I know!), arrowroot, cream of tartar, an apron, chicken sausage, pumpkin seeds, and Artisana Cacao Bliss Coconut butter. After leaving, I realized I also needed cream cheese. Isn’t that always the way?
I took pictures but I forgot to bring my adapter thingy into work so pictures will come later. Oh fine, here is one:
That’s the Cacao Bliss stuff. I also was looking for some Garlic Gold, but didn’t see any. I think our Trader Joes has it.
I saw the arrowroot, debated buying it, and figured I could use it in something. The jar says it’s used as a thickener. Anyone have any ideas on how to use it?
I am a member of Healthy Living Blogs! It’s a resource of all healthy living blogs where you can search for blogs by country or state, which I think is a really cool feature. Here’s more info:
Healthy Living Blogs is a new resource for the health blogging community. Created by Lindsey of Sound Eats, HLB is a site designed to enhance the positive community of the healthy living blog world. Bloggers and readers can explore the site and find more blogs to love, bloggers in their area, and forums to deepen healthy discussion and support. If you’re interested in having your site listed on HLB, simply send the following information to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com and check the site out for yourself!
Email subject line: MEMBERS
Your name (please share if you prefer to go by first name, first and last, or however you prefer to be known on the Internet)
Blog Name
Blog URL (please start with http://, not www.)
Your twitter handle, if applicable
Your location (if you prefer not to disclose this information for privacy’s sake, that is completely understandable. We’ll simply include your blog listing in the A-Z listing, not by location, too)
Any specific labels (i.e. vegan, gluten-free, weight loss, running, etc.)It was really easy to join!
Last night I cajoled Mark to go to the gym with me. I have no trouble motivating myself to run, but going to the gym is kind of a drag sometimes. We did some weights and walking on the treadmill.
I used to think that walking on the treadmill would not be a good workout. This is false. I think I learned from Angela that walking on the treadmill can really kick your butt. As long as you keep the pace brisk and jack up that incline, I can get my heart rate as high as it is when I’m running.
Last night I only did 15 minutes but kept my pace between 3.8-4.0 and the incline at 8, 10, and 12%. Also, it makes a huge difference if you hold onto the machine. My heart rate drops about 15-20 beats per minute if I’m holding onto the machine. This means that I’m cheating myself out of a harder cardiovascular workout — pump those arms! I look like an idiot, but I’m getting a good workout. Walking fast on an incline builds leg & butt muscles better than running. Walking fast is challenging and builds muscle partly because walking becomes inefficient at a certain speed. Have you tried walking on the treadmill?
Hope you all have a good weekend!
-
Greek yogurt, defying the laws of physics
I eat a lot of yogurt, and usually I just get the plain, nonfat kind. I’m pretty particular about it. The flavored stuff has so much sugar and bizarre ingredients added that I usually won’t touch it. Don’t get me started on Yoplait. It’s not yogurt if you ask me. Plus, eat the real stuff, and you get to eat a lot more volume. More food = good, right?
There is always a lot of buzz in the healthy living blog community about Greek yogurt. In fact, I see it so much that I sometimes wonder if anyone ever eats the non-Greek stuff like me – Greek yogurt is expensive! But it’s good, and here’s why: the texture is awesome. It’s creamy and thick – it just has good mouthfeel. Secondly, there is a lot more protein in Greek yogurt. The only difference between regular yogurt and the Greek stuff is that the Greek kind is strained. In fact, you could make it yourself if you wanted to.
- In a 6 ounce serving of Fage 0% you get: 90 calories, 0 g fat, 7 g carbs and 15 grams of protein.
- Non-Greek plain nonfat yogurt has: 80 calories, 14 g carbs and 8 grams of protein (which varies slightly from brand to brand).
I forgot to mention that Greek yogurt also defies gravity.
Those Greeks are smart!
I didn’t sit down today to go on and on about Greek yogurt but that’s exactly what happened.
I ate some before my run and I will also add that it makes good pre-run fuel: I had an awesome 6 mile run this afternoon. I didn’t feel tired and felt like I could have kept going. Disclaimer: I apparently have a stomach of steel and dairy doesn’t bother me.
After my run we went to Sweet Tomatoes. We’re not cool and we like salad bars so don’t judge.
There is an unwritten rule that if you’re eating salad for your main meal, it should at least be three inches high.
I like eating at salad bars with my husband because I never feel judged for how huge my salad plate is. In fact, I think we are subconsciously competing about who can make a bigger salad. Mark just told me that he thinks his was “way bigger” and now I wish I had taken a picture (that’s what she said).
Oh, there’s a lot of stuff in there. Eggs, blue cheese, peas, chickpeas, cauliflower, celery– I pretty much just threw the salad bar on my plate.
This soup doesn’t photograph well, but it was really good. It’s called Canadian Cheese and smoked ham, but it was more like Canadian Cheese soup with an essence of ham. That’s not a complaint, just semantics…
I’m out. Goodnight!
-
What did you have for dinner?
This month’s issue of Marie Claire had a really interesting article showing what women around the world eat in a day. The women varied from a tribeswoman in Namibia, a girl who works at a theme park in the U.S., to a woman in Venezuela, to a woman in India who drinks her urine in the morning as a cleanse. The article showed the calorie totals of their day, the womens’ heights and weights, and a picture of them in front of the food they ate in a typical day. (Unfortunately they didn’t give a sneak peak of the article on their website so you’ll have to run out and see it for yourself!)
It was certainly a loaded article – but I found just the facts really interesting. The food some of the women ate was stuff I had never heard of, so I found that interesting. Plus, there is something inherently interesting about reading & looking at what people eat! Am I preaching to the choir right now or what?
For the longest time, my dad has always asked me what I ate for dinner whenever I called at night. Well, Dad, now you can even see the pictures!
I wasn’t feeling well this afternoon or evening so my princely husband cooked me dinner. He made me an omelette and turkey sausage.
It was really good
Thanks honey!
About Me
My name is Michelle and I like to write about running, food, and fitness in general. Check out my About Michelle section for more!
