MY COMPUTER CRASHED!

Apologies, apologies all around!  I have been MIA for the last 3 days — and it looks like it’s going to be even longer (more like a week!) because…*drumroll please* MY BRAND NEW MAC CRASHED!  Yes I opened it up to a glorious white screen with a flashing question mark.  As if my computer was saying, “I’m looking for all the pictures of food, all your amazing dance songs, all your school work…but it’s not here!”

I stayed remarkably calm ONLY because I know that apple people are the BEST!  We called and the guy was basically like, “take it to a Mac doctor STAT!”

So it’s in surgery, they think it’s just a bad hard drive — so I get a NEW one!  Luckily I’m under warranty so it’s free!

Long story short, please don’t give up on this Blogtastic Blog just because I’m missing for a few days — I promise, I’ll be back before you know it, letting you know what I’m eating and how I’m living!

HAPPY TUESDAY, FRIENDS!

This Post Is Going To Be Long — LIKE MY 10 MILE RUN!

Here is the story of my 10 mile run from yesterday — Saturday.  I woke up at six and needed to eat something that would stick with me through 10 miles.  OATS!  These oats were boring and the picture isn’t great either.  But they did the trick.

Cinnamon, almond butter, crasins, and pumpkin seeds.

By 7 I was out the door to pick up Kirsten and drive to our destination.  We were both nervous because we were running with a HUGE group of people — the Todd’s Road Stumblers — a 300 strong group of runners in the areas all training for various races.  But when we got there it was awesome — because we all know runners are the nicest people on earth! 🙂  We were running between a 10:30 and 11 minute mile which was great for us!

It was very cold but we stuck it out!  It felt so awesome to finish that amount of miles in one run without stopping or anything!  When we finished we started our tallies on the 500 mile club board.  We tally the miles that we run with the group on a big board.  When you get to 500 miles with the group you get a champagne toast, a shirt, and your name on a 500 miles roster!  Exciting stuff.

When I got home I HOUSED a peanut butter cookie Lara bar.

The moment I finished this I hopped into a tub full of Dr. Teal’s epsom salt.  By the way, the new shoes TOTALLY helped my achy joints!

While in the tub I noticed my purple toe!  Hello, old friend.  I’ve missed you!  You can’t see it too well, but trust me, it’s under there, just waiting to come out.  It’s the second toe.

Then I ate lunch.  Leftover Singapore Mei Fun.

Then I napped for 3 hours.  It turns out, 10 miles will really take it out of you!

I woke up hungry!  Go figure.  Half a whole wheat muffin with hummus later I was set.

Then it was time for Atomic Cafe!  This place is so good!  It always make me think of summer!  We had some homemade sweet potato chips — AND they told me how to make them at home without a deep fryer (it involving a wok and some oil!)

Then I ordered chicken and shrimp kabobs over couscous with asparagus and red and yellow bell peppers.  I put hot sauce and lime juice all over the whole thing!  Amazaballs!

OH yeah!  There were black beans too!  Here’s what it looked like after I dug in!

Before you say anything about my serving of asparagus left untouched — I boxed all of this up!  Unfortunately I LEFT IT ON THE TABLE! FAIL!!!!!  I was so looking forward to eating these leftovers.

What a good day!  Happy Sunday everyone!

I’M BACK!

And I was only gone for a day!  Sorry I didn’t post yesterday, friends.  I came home after school and Kellen was HOME!  I was shocked!  So my “evening” started a little bit earlier than usual and I just didn’t post!

B-fast was EPIC!  I had some leftover spicy black beans, tomatoes, and onions from the sweet potatoes Thursday night.  So I heated those up, cooked up an egg and some egg whites with some spinach and threw some hot sauce on the top!  CRAZY GOOD!

I ate first snack on time!  9:00 🙂  Purple grapes. Theirrrrrrrr Grape-y!

Lunch was leftover rosemary whole wheat pasta with swiss chard, broccoli, and chick peas.  It was even better than the night I made it!

Second snack was awesome!  Celery with peanut butter, crasins, and pumpkin seeds.  I love the sweetness of the crasins mixed with the peanut butter.

And, as always, TGIF chinese!  I got something new!  “Finally,” you say, “no more steamed broccoli and shrimp!”  I chose Singapore Mei Fun.  It’s a spicy noodle dish with crab, shrimp, onions, chicken, carrots, bok choy — just a little bit of everything mixed with some curry and hot peppers.  Deelish!

Pasta!  In prep for my 10 mile run — not really, I just like Singapore Mei Fun.  More on my 10 miles later!  It was exciting!  I haven’t gone that far since 2001!

Happy Saturday!

Closeup Picture Day!

Every picture I took today was super closeup!  Go me, trying to be artistic!  Here’s the b-fast round abouts 6am:  Chia-oats!  Oats with chia seeds, crasins, almonds and almond butter.

It’s 9am, time for first snack — oh wait, no it’s not!  You don’t have time to eat!

It’s 11:15 — Time for an amaza-balls salad!

The dressing you ask?  An amazing take on the dressing you get at japanese steakhouses in your starter salad!  This was made courtesy of Cashews and Hummus — Thanks, Lady!  She had miso —  I didn’t so here’s what was in it:

Into the blender went:

2 carrots

a bunch of ginger slices — I don’t know, maybe 1/8 cup?

rice wine vinegar — a couple glugs

BLEND!

It was awesome!  What was not so awesome was when the asian dressing mixed with the greek dressing on some parts of the salad (leftovers from last night’s greek wrap).

Around 12:30 I had the grapes I was supposed to have way back at 9am.

2:45 and all the kiddos are gone for the day.  Guess who’s about to eat her own hand — Whitney!  I had one piece of my portobello bbq quesadilla left from the other night which I made quick work of.

4:30 time to eat!  Banana and peanut butter.  I wish you could have seen me trying to tackle this thing!  As I’m putting on the nut butter the banana falls out of the peel all over my papers! EEEE It’s still a good banana!

I was at the gym by 6.  Here’s what I did:

1 mile on the indoor track then moved to the treadmill for two miles.  In those two miles I somehow managed to get in a hill workout.  My incline looked like this 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 1, 6, 1, 7 — evenly spaced throughout the two miles.  When I was on a 1 incline I did some 1:00min intervals.  Then I did another mile on the indoor track.  Then I did 5 gradual progressions a total of about 5 miles.  This was a great workout and I feel very accomplished! WOOHOO!

I came home and saw some sweet potatoes on the counter.  Hello sweet potato dinner.  I nuked the potatoes for 15 minutes.  While that was happening I put some chopped tomato and onion with a can of black beans on the stove.  To that I added 1/2 tsp of cumin, some cayenne pepper, and some chili powder, then I added a little salsa to that.  I only had a little sour cream to top these babies so I had to stretch it by adding some yogurt and some Laughing Cow original swiss triangles.  I topped mine with cilantro!  It was 8:00 🙂

Also, running does amazing things to your feet.  When I used to run I lost the same toenail 4 times — it’s permanently jacked up.  So now my feet are getting back into the running groove and I’ve got a stunna of a blister going on my big toe!  And I know this is only the beginning! 🙂

Happy Little Friday!

Short And Sweet

That’s what this post is going to be.

B-Fast — Carrot Cake Oats!  Here’s how you make them:  Find a carrot that needs to be eaten.  Grate it up (good arm workout!).  Put some cinnamon on it and nuke it for about 40 seconds.  In another bowl make your oats.  Put the carrots in the oats.  Then mash up half of a banana and add it to the mix.  Top with whatever you want (I added nutmeg, pumpkin seeds, and crasins!)

You can actually see the carrots!

First snack!  The other half of the banana from b-fast with peanut butter and Galaxy Granola!

And before I went to school I had a glass of Shakeology. I’ve been craving it lately!

I tried to calibrate my running do-hicky today.  I ran a known distance and then reported it on the site — it had said I had run about 1/3 more than I actually did!  FAIL!  Hopefully I fixed it! 🙂

Dinner post later — Greek chicken pitas!

Okay, it’s later!  And here are the Greek Pitas — well, greek wraps, as it were.

Here’s what you need:

Chicken

lemon juice

wraps

fat free yogurt

mint

cucumber

tomato

red onion

garam masala

and the recipe!

It was yum times — plus, we had leftover chicken and cucumber/yogurt mixture!  Hello tomorrow’s salad!

Happy Wednesday-snowday, Friends!

Dear BBQ Sauce, I Love You.

My run yesterday was….tiring.  I have run before in the past (after high school) but I never did any sort of running workout/training.  I would just go out for a while and come back — no hill work, no intervals, no accelerations.

With the new half-marathon training I’m doing I’m back to those running workouts that were such a gigantic part of my life during high school.  And they are tiring!  Plus, I am terrible at pacing (I used to be great at pacing)!

Yesterday I did 4 miles — 1 mile warm up, 2 miles with 2x(1:00, 1:30, 2:00) intervals, then a mile cool down.  It exhausted me.  Here’s why:

In addition to the new shoes I got yesterday I also got this nifty gadget that tells me my pace.

So during my warm up I check out my pace — 7:48 mile pace! What-the-WHAT!?!  No, no.  I do not run at that pace.  Except I guess I do.

Don’t worry it didn’t last long (plus, I’m not quite sure this do-dad is calibrated quite right yet…)

After my first 1 minute interval I was feeling the wrath of my poor pacing.  While I did finish, I massively slowed down my pace throughout the workout, finishing my last interval at the same pace as my warmup.  However during my warmup I felt great — during the last interval I was ready to yak.

But that’s the whole point of the pacing watch thing.  To help me pace myself better!  I WILL get better in the future!

A bit before my run I had half of this delicious Larabar.  It was apple pie flavored.  It had figs, dried apples, walnuts, and cinnamon in it.

I ate the other half of this bar after my run.  Then I started dinner.  We had BBQ portobello/chicken quesadillas.  Mine had portobello, Kellen’s had chicken.  Both were delicious.  I used this recipe from eatingwell.com.

The recipe says it takes 45 minutes to make — it really only takes about 25 minutes.  Quick and easy and the recipe is made for two servings.  Perfect!

I also made some coleslaw to go with them.  Rather than cabbage coleslaw this was broccoli slaw!

All it took was 1/4 cup of mayo, 1T lemon juice, 1T white vinegar, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp salt. Mix with the broccoli — Done.

Mine

Kellen's

It was an awesome dinner and a good end to a Happy Fat Tuesday!

*Drumroll Please* Brooks To The Rescue!

So that little running shop is pretty neat!  They even threw in some extra stuff for Kirsten during out trip!

After trying on a pair of Nikes, Asics, and Sauconys I finally settled on a pair of Brooks.  I was very surprised because I have been an Asics wearer my whole running career.  I did go back to the Powerstep insert though — they have a brand new version that feel great!

Here are the new kicks!

Let me back up though…before I even left the house I had first snack.  Roasted pine nut hummus with carrots and cherry tomatoes.

Remember the big salad that I had been dreaming of.  It came true at the Whole Foods Salad Bar!

This bad boy had kalamata olives, quinoa, tabouli, spinach, romain, cherry tomatoes, red and yellow bell peppers, turkey, pumpkin seeds, blue cheese crumbles (a few too many, maybe), and balsamic vinaigrette. YUM!

Okay, time to try out the new shoes!  Happy Fat-Times Tuesday!

NEW SHOES TO THE RESCUE!

I have been thinking about eating all night!  I feel asleep thinking about eating a big salad a la Hungry Hungry Hippie and then actually dreamed I was eating one!  I clearly feel like I should be eating more veggies!

But not for breakfast!  I had oats with coconut milk, chia seeds, and almond butter with a side of grapetastic grapes!

I got some good advice yesterday about my achy joints after my long runs on twitter.  I was informed by Running Mastery that achy joints on long runs can come from too much mileage too quickly or worn out shoes.  I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job slowly upping my mileage BUT my shoes are old and busted — as in, I got them over a year ago and the inserts date back to the early part of the past decade!  Okay, so I hadn’t re-vamped my running shoes in a while.

Luckily, Kellen came home yesterday and said he had just gotten a brand new pair of soccer pants to tend goal in.  I quickly shot back, “I need new running shoes.”

“Well played,” he replied.

So today I’m off (hopefully) to John’s Run Walk Shop to procure a new pair of shoes and inserts.

I’ll let you know how it goes with updates later!

Happy (FAT) Tuesday (the most productive day of the week — look it up!  It’s a fact!)

I Don’t Eat Super When I’m Home All Day

It’s been snowing like crazy all day!  It looks like a blizzard out there with all the blowing snow!  The strange thing is, in some parts of the yard the grass is barely covered and in other parts of the yard…well, you’ll see how deep it is.

I had to try some of Whit’s savory oats after I read about them.  Yes, with days off I have had time to go WAAAAAAY back in some of my favorite blog’s archives — don’t act like you haven’t done it!

Here they are:  A few oats (maybe 1/4 a cup) with one egg and one egg white, tomatoes, and Louisiana hot sauce!

That was at about 7:30am.  By 10:30 I was ready for first snack (as I mentioned on Twitter).  Only I saw my leftover chinese food in the fridge and just went for it!  Only, it wasn’t great — the veggies had gotten mushy as had the rice — it normally holds up so well, I don’t know what went wrong this time!  I only downed about 1/3 of it 😦

So it truly did end up being a snack…but not a great one.  THEN I had lunch at around 2:30 — a veggie wrap thing with bbq sauce and a little sour cream.  I don’t know, I saw some things I liked and put them in a tortilla. BOOM! veggie wrap thing!

Then I took Phyn out.  While walking around with him I took a step into what I thought was 4 inch snow and THIS happened!

Do you see how deep that snow is?  I’m wearing Kellen’s boots and the snow nearly fell into them!  It was up to my knee!

Here are some of the drifts:

Then we came inside for second snack — SNICKERS! From the lovely Valentine’s care basket!

Dinner tonight is whole wheat pasta with broccoli, swiss chard, garlic, chickpeas and parm! Post update to come 🙂

AAAAAnd here it is.  It was pretty good and will make for some yummy leftovers tomorrow.  Also, I ate a lot today!  I am super full!

Wow! That flash was bright!

MORE APPLE CRISP! OH MY YUM!

Happy President’s Snow Day!

The Abominable SnowDog!

Dear Alberta Clipper System,

Welcome!  You have provided snowy fun times for Phyn.  For me you have brought a workout in the form on cleaning my car off.  And for the state of Kentucky you brought a beautiful winter snow-scape.

Cheers!

Whitney

It’s Phyn Star in the snow!