Want to Run....Kids Make it Hard!

After another enjoyable 'rest day', I'm ready to get back to running and the gym today.  I love Monday's because I know it's a rest day but by the time Tuesday rolls around, I'm more then ready to get back at it.

After Sunday's 15-miler, my glutes were a bit sore.  Which was odd.  Normally if I'm sore, it's my hamstrings.  Not that I mind glute pain....maybe I lost 1/2 inch of excess...um...ass.

Not sure when I'll run today.  Since my boys are out of basketball camp, I've got to try and work my schedule around childcare issues.  I'm bringing them to Fitness First this afternoon so I can take Body Pump which will be interesting.  Since my kids are 10 and 7, I think they will be a bit annoyed by having to hang out in a room full of babies and toddlers but I've got to try.  I don't want to give up the gym for the summer.  And it's only an hour....surly they can survive one hour twice a week, right??  Obviously I'm trying to convince myself this will workout just fine.  My issue is that if I wait until tonight to run (after my husband's work day), I wont do it.  It's hard enough to wait to go to the gym until 4:30.  Running in the evening has never been my thing.  But I don't think I can try to run at the gym before pump because 2 hours of them sitting in that room is too much to ask.  What do you guys with kids at home do?  And please don't tell me to get up at the ass crack of dawn to run because I can only do that for races or my long run on Sunday's.

I'll probably only run twice this week because our long run has been moved to Saturday because of the 4th of July.  We are going 18 this weekend and I don't want my legs to be too tired.

So yesterday I made another new smoothie!
About a cup of almond milk
Spinach (2 big handfuls)
1 tablespoon chia seeds
big handful of baby carrots
1 banana
1 orange
2/3 cup pineapple (this is an approximate measurement.  I typically use a 1 inch slice off a pineapple.)
1/2 cucumber
ice (not much ice because the Vitamix was full!)
This made 6 cups of liquid.  It was thick.  Really, really thick which I don't like.  I've been reading around the Vitamix message board and it sounds like people typically add a lot more liquid to their smoothies.  Some add 2 cups of water which sounds like a lot but may be worth a try to thin this puppy out a bit.  Aside from it being too thick for my liking, the taste was fine.  The banana wasn't the overwhelming flavor this time, it was more the mixture of orange and pineapple.  It smelled just like cucumber though!

And here is something else new to me that I want to try today - real oatmeal!  I say 'real' because anytime I've had oatmeal in the past, it's been the little packet kind.  You know what I'm talking about....good 'ol Quaker Instant Oatmeal.  Oh that Apples & Cinnamon flavor.  So good and yet oh so processed.  In my continuing effort to ban the processed crap, I'm going to attempt to do oatmeal the old fashioned way - cook it myself!  I found this recipe that looks good for Banana Berry Flax Oatmeal.  Sounds easy enough.  I'll be skipping the flax though because I tossed my ground flax.  Anyone have a good oatmeal recipe?

Hot Damn! A Good Long Run!

All day yesterday I was worried about today's run.  Last weekend's 13 was so freaking awful that I really have had a hard time getting over it.  I think part of it was the heat and the other part was not having enough calories.  Since majorly shifting the way I eat, I feel great in every way until I try to run more then 7 miles.  So yesterday I ate.  And ate and ate!  Honestly, I can't remember what I had for breakfast...huh...must not have been all that exciting.  For a mid-morning snack, I had more of that Quiona from the other night (can I just say that it gets better every time I have it? The flavors are more intense since they've been hanging out together for so long).  At lunch, I had an awesome salad with a ton of spinach, walnuts, blueberries, strawberries and a grilled chicken breast (first piece of meat in forever!) it was the best salad ever!  And I might have had a few beers since we happened to be out watching the USA soccer game....  For dinner, I made some plain old pasta.  I haven't had pasta in forever and normally when I crave it, I push it to the back burner but last night I figured, what the hell, maybe it'll help!  Before putting the hot pasta on my plate, I put a ton of chopped spinach, some halved cherry tomatoes, crushed red pepper flakes and a a bit of fresh mozzarella.  When the hot pasta hit the spinach, it wilted it just enough so that it wasn't mushy, but a wonderful warm tenderness instead.  This was a really good dinner and so easy.

This morning, I was up early - had to meet my running friends at 7:00 - and had a banana, a whole wheat English muffin with Smart Balance peanut butter and a ton of water.  We headed out nice and easy knowing that 1.5 miles in, we were going to hit a hill that is approximately 2.3 miles long.  That sucker goes up and up and up.  From then on, there were a few hills but all paled in comparison to the first one.  I felt very strong today which I really, really needed.  I carried Powerade Zero with me and munched on a power bar about half way though.  When we were done, I was thrilled that I ran the full 15.1 and was able to run the last 3 at marathon pace.  I know this shouldn't feel this good since I've been doing these training runs since January but after having to walk so much of last week's 13, this run felt like the first time I ever ran this distance.  It was a great day!  Incredible what a decent run will do for your mood, isn't it??


In random other news, I've been hearing a lot about products by Vega lately.  I'm specifically interested in their Sports Optimizer.  Has anyone every tried it?  Tried any of the Vega products?

Hope you are having a great weekend.  Tomorrow is an off day for me and back to green smoothies!  I'll try something new tomorrow and be sure to post it....I think I'll try romaine again!

A Successful Run....A Not So Successful Green Smoothie

Finally!  After countless crap runs, I finally got a good one in.  My schedule called for a tempo run today of 6 miles at 7.4 (8:06 pace).  I have to admit, I was expecting to get maybe 5 in at that pace since I've had zero luck finishing a run these days.  But holy hot freaking dog, I finally felt good.  I ran a half mile warm up then 6 at 7.4 and at each mile, ran at 7.6 (7:54) for one minute.  I actually had no problems with this run at all and have to say, I really needed that to happen.  I've been feeling like I'm back - although back from what, I still have no idea - but I shall try not to get to puffed up since I have a 16 - 17 miler coming up on Sunday and according to the weather man, it's going to be hot and humid...again.

I was no so lucky in the green smoothie department.  In my effort to expand on my greens, I pulled out the Vitamix cookbook and decided to give the "Sweet Lettuce Smoothie" a try.  Here is the recipe:
1 cup green grapes
1 cup romaine lettuce, chopped
1/2 medium apple
1 cup ice

Verdict:  Um.....yuck.  I really, really, really wanted to like this.  And I tried, I did.  I kept sipping on it for a good 15 minutes but I just didn't dig it.  And if possible, it got worse the more I sipped.  It almost had a bitter taste to it, if that makes sense.  And it wasn't sweet at all.  I may try it again though but use 1/2 cup of romaine and the whole apple.  Maybe.  It's pretty though!

After that debacle, I ran up to the grocery store to pick up beer for tonigh'ts free concert in my neighborhood (Gonzo's Nose, an 80s band - yay!).  There is a Starbucks in there so I decided to give the new (actually, I have no idea if it's new at all, but it's new to me) Vivanno a try.  Have you heard of these?  It's an alternative to the Frappuccino which are oh so good but oh so bad for you.  I have Drink This, Not That and was intrigued by the idea.  The quote from the book is, "The Vivannos trump any other frozen drinks on Starbucks' menu. Each one is sweetened with one full banana and fortified with  protein and fiber. That makes it a legitimate snack, not just a high-energy treat. And with an espresso shot, you get your breakfast and your morning buzz in a single vessel."  Added espresso?  Ok!  Is it clean?  I seriously doubt it but I had to give it a try.  Yum!  It was really good!  Not sweet at all which tells me the sweetness comes from the banana.  They only come in a grande size which will set you back 270 calories.  I like the idea of the banana and the scoop of whey protein, especially after my run.

Last night for dinner, I finally gave Quiona a try.  I feel like every time I turn around, I'm reading about this super food.  Sometimes it's referred to as "the mother grain", other times it's all about how it is a complete protein - meaning it stands alone - no need to make sure you have a grain with it as with beans.  It is super high in protein and is a good source of iron and potassium.  It's also high in B vitamins!  I bought Trader Joe's brand and searched for recipes online.  I finally decided to give this Quiona Tabbouleh from All Recipes.  I saw that some reviewers had suggested the addition of feta and I took their advice.

2 cups of water
1 cup of Quinoa
pinch of salt
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tomatoes, diced
1 cucumber, diced
3 bunches green onions, diced
2 carrots, grated
1 cup parsley, chopped

Cook Quinoa per package directions.  Let come to room temp.
Combine olive oil, lemon juice, salt, tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, carrots and parsley.  Stir in cooled Quinoa.

Modifications: I used cherry tomatoes that I halved simply because that's what I had on hand.  Also, I added some chopped kalamata olives, a bit of feta and of course some crushed red pepper!
This was excellent!  The Quinoa really doesn't have much of a flavor on it's own, I'm assuming that it takes on whatever you mix with it which makes for a versatile grain!  Prepping the Quinoa is a bit of a pain though, you have to rinse it really well and being that it's super tiny, that is an interesting job.  I put a coffee filter in a small colander and that seemed to work ok.  This recipe made a ton of food.  I had a side dish worth and a big 'ol sweet potato.  Yum. 

I got a tad more adventurous with today's green smoothie.  Well, that is if you consider cucumber and celery adventurous! This one has unsweetened almond milk (about 2/3 cup), 2 full cups of baby spinach, 1/2 cucumber, 1 stalk of celery, a big handful of baby carrots and 1 banana.  Oh, and a tablespoon of  chia seeds!  Verdict: no difference in my normal smoothie.  Again, the banana masks the flavor of everything else in there.  Although I will say that the more veggies I put in, the less I can taste the banana.  It's now a background flavor to....well, nothing.  Hard to explain but it doesn't have a ton of flavor.  I think next time I might had a small drop of honey to sweeten it up a bit.  I really want to get to the point where these smoothies are mostly veggies/greens and not a lot of fruit at all hence today's version.  I keep reading about people putting kale in addition to the spinach in their green smoothies and I think that may be what I try next.

As for the chia seeds, I think they may be the solution to my consistency problem that I was having with the ground flax.  This site has some interesting information about chia seeds and after reading it I'm starting to think I can omit flax all together because the chia is better.  Since they don't need to be ground like the flax, they don't change the smoothie texture.  I think I mentioned before but if you are just starting out with green smoothies, I would recommend starting with a yogurt base rather then almond milk.  The yogurt adds a nice sweetness and a much creamier smoothie.  I stopped using the yogurt because I'm trying to avoid as much processed sugars as possible.  I guess I could also go to greek yogurt, but I'm getting used to the almond milk.


On Tuesday, I set out to run the 10 miles on my schedule and had yet another crapy result.  When I was about 6 miles in, I started feeling really weak, kind of shaky and all around shitty.  I had to stop at 9 which just burns me up.  One more freaking mile and I had to stop?!  Seriously.  This has got to be nutritional.  I'm making so many big changes so quickly that perhaps my body is just not handling it well.  I feel great in every other way though and don't have problems with other workouts I do like Body Pump at the gym.  Then yesterday, I got most of my speedwork in.  Again, had a massive failure and had to stop before I finished the entire thing.

Here is what I did:
Warm up of 1 mile at 6.5 (9:13)
1 mile at 7.1 (8:27)
2 4-minute reps at 7.6 (7:53) with a 2 minute jog at 6.5 in between reps.
1 mile at 7.1 (8:27)
2 4-minute reps at 7.6 (7:53) with a 2 minute jog at 6.5 in between reps.
2 minutes at 6.5
.5 mile at 7.1 (8:27)
That's where I stopped.  That last .5 was supposed to be a full mile then I was supposed to do 4 x 1:30 at 7.9 with a 1:30 rest in between each rep followed by yet another mile at 7.1.  So.  Didn't quite make it.  This run ended up only being 5.5 miles.  I'm starting to get kind of pissed off.  I never had to stop in the middle of a speed session before when I was training for Delaware so something is definitely off.

Today is an off day from running, although I am going to do body pump, so I'm just trying to regroup and figure out what the hell is wrong.  Tomorrow I have only a 6 miler which better go off without a problem because this Sunday is a 16-miler out in the heat and I really don't want to go into it feeling down because of a crappy training week.  So! I'm a little ball of sunshine today, eh?

To end on a better note, head over to Fitbottomed Girls and read their interview with the incredible Tosca Reno.  Love her (although I'm still not giving up my wine)!  And love Fitbottomed Girls!

Relaxed After a Day of Rest

When I was training for the Delaware Marathon, Monday's were always an off day for me because we did our long run on Sunday.  I'm sticking with that plan and had a very relaxing day of rest yesterday.  Today I'm back at it though.  Body Pump at 4:30 - my kids will be at a basketball camp until 5:30 so it works out perfectly....not sure how the rest of the summer is going to go though - and I'll get a run in before.  I really need to get outside and run but by the time I drop the boys off at camp (1:30) it will be way too hot so back on the treadmill I'll go.  Today's run calls for 10 'easy' which will be brutal on the treadmill.  Hopefully I'll find something good on t.v.  Tomorrow is a speed workout hence the 'easy' for today.

So I wanted to post a few foodie items from yesterday.  I had a massive green smoothie for snack yesterday.

As you can see from the 'before' shot, I filled the Vitamix up! This one has almond milk, baby spinach, a banana, an apple, a big handful of baby carrots, chia seeds and some ground flax.  This was probably not the best smoothie to show you first since the color is totally unappealing but try not to let that distract you (and please excuse the bottle of wine in the background....that was for my evening snack).  The verdict?  It would have been great had it not been for the ground flax.  This is probably the fourth smoothie I've made with the flax and it completely changes the consistency of the smoothie.  It makes it really thick and not in a good way.  I actually poured this one back in the Vitamix, added more ice and blended it again.  That helped but I still think I'm ditching the idea of putting ground flax in my smoothies.  Anyone have this issue and if so, have a solution for me?  I've been kicking around the idea of putting protein powder in my smoothies but I'm worried it will have the same effect as the flax.

That sucker filled me up though.  I had it around 3:00 and was good to go until 6:00 when I had a craving for something crunchy so I had a Doctor Kracker smeared with some of this stuff:

Guacamole Hummus!  Weird, huh?  I spotted it at Trader Joe's yesterday and had to try it, I figured I couldn't go wrong with two of my favorite things in one dip!  The ingredients were pretty straight forward: Hass avocado, chickpeas, garlic, lime juice, onion powder, serrano pepper, salt, cilantro essential oil.  Two tbsp delivers 50 calories which isn't bad.  It was....interesting.  Not bad but not 'holy crap I have to have this every day' either.

You are probably wondering why I'm snacking at 6:00 instead of having dinner.  My husband is on a trip and usually when he is gone, I feed the kids then I eat way later after they are in bed.  I'll probably get bashed for this but I love the me time of having dinner alone in front of the tv.

When dinner time finally rolled around, I decided to try a recipe from The Flexitarian Diet book - Bay Avocado Sandwich - only I switched it up a bit. 

Here is the original recipe:

1 tsp Old Bay seasoning
1 lime, juiced
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 avocado, diced
1/2 cup canned garbanzo beans
1/4 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 green onion, chopped
1 small whole-grain roll
Wisk Old Bay with lime juice and oil.  Toss together with remaining ingredients and spoon into roll.

I made a few tweeks to this.  I didn't have onion so I omitted it and I used black beans instead of garbanzo beans.  I also added crushed red pepper flakes because I'm obsessed with them and put them on everything I make.  Then instead of putting it on a roll, I made some brown rice and spooned it on top of that.  First off, this made a ton, I know it doesn't sound like much but it really was a lot and with the brown rice,  it made quite a nice dinner (I only ate half of what the recipe made).  I loved, loved, LOVED this!  It was so fantastic!  On the side, I had some leftover bread salad from Father's Day (another awesome recipe that I got from Wegmans and will happily post if anyone is interested).  I was a happy camper!

Working My Way Back....

So the big move to Wordpress obviously didn't work.  I've been on Blogger for so long (between this blog and a personal blog) that I just couldn't learn all their new tricks!  Anyhoo....I'm coming back "home".

So much has happened since I last blogged, it's hard to know where to begin!  The major event was that I finally achieved my ultimate running goal: I ran the Delaware Marathon in May and qualified for Boston!  I know!!  It involved a ton of hard work, a very consistent training schedule and the power of positive thinking, all of which I'll get into in more detail later, but it was worth every bit of body pounding effort.

Next up, the San Francisco Marathon in July and Marine Corps Marathon in October.  I'm going to San Francisco with my running partner and we are doing it mostly for fun and to say we ran a destination marathon.  Neither one of us are ready to take the distance seriously - she is coming off Boston and I off Delaware - our mileage isn't up high enough but the idea was never to do it for a time goal, it was to bring our cameras along and see the sites stopping to take photos along the way.  I'm really excited as I've never been to San Francisco before and I think it will a blast to take this trip with Amy.  It's like our big reward for all the crazy hard training we did over the winter.

Marine Corps is simply because I deferred last year so it's paid for so I really should do it and everyone whose ever run it says it's a 'must do', blah, blah.  I need to get to training for it soon though.  It takes me a crazy long time to get used to running in the heat so I know I'll need to build my mileage up slowly.  Speaking of, I met Amy and some others for a 13 mile run on Sunday and it didn't go so well.  I've been escaping the heat by running inside for a few weeks now (top mileage of 13 miles) so the heat and humidity hit me like a brick this weekend.  It wasn't pretty.  I was dehydrated for sure by the end (didn't bring enough water) and had to walk several times.  Lesson learned: stop hiding from the heat during the week because you will only be screwed on your long run on the weekend.  Next Sunday we are meeting a bit earlier (7 instead of 8) and running 16.  Oy.

So besides the running, I've switched gyms (hello Body Pump! I think I've bashed it in the past but I'm not a convert and love it!!)  and made some pretty big changes in the food department.  This blog may shift in focus a bit...it will still be about running and training but I'm in the process of totally changing the way I eat and will probably blog about it quite a bit as I fumble my way through.

A bit of background first: I've considered myself a pretty healthy eater for a long time now but I also have a crazy hard core addiction to all things cracker-like, salty and processed.  I've noticed that no matter how much I run or workout, I always have a bit of the blahs and more than a bit of the bloats.  Also, I would never have more then a day go by without experiencing some sort of stomach pain.  Some days would be worse then others, but it was always there.  I knew I needed to stop with the bad habits I had like, oh, I don't know, taking the entire box of Wheat Thins to the couch with me when I get the 3:00 hunger pangs, and while that sandwich I was eating was healthy, the bag of salty chips next to it was not, but I never had that major kick in the butt to get me to change.  The fact that stomach pain on a daily basis (and sometimes being 100% laid up on the couch after a run because it was so bad) apparently wasn't enough.

Then one day, my husband and I were on a routine trip to Costco and everything changed.  We could hear one of the many demonstrators that are there from time to time and didn't think much of it until getting up close and seeing that she was making smoothies in some major blending machine.  Honestly, I was hungry and just wanted that smoothie sample so I pushed my way up, grabbed a little cup and drank the yuminess that I assumed was maybe one piece of fruit laced with a ton of sugary juices.  Oh how wrong I was!  She told me there was spinach in it.  Um, what the wha??  So she made another one for me to see.  In that one, I can't remember the exact mixture, but I know there was baby spinach, a full orange, a banana and then for the liquid, she used Welchs 100% White Grape Juice (something I chose not to use because I don't think it's a "clean food").  We stood there for a good hour eating soups and tons of different veggie smoothies and I was sold.  We brought our Vitamix home that day and I haven't looked back since.

The first couple of weeks I had the Vitamix, I used it almost on a daily basis mostly making smoothies but I did make a couple of soups and salsa too.  I didn't cut out all the other crap I was eating though, I was more familiarizing myself with the mixer.  This was 2 weeks before the Delaware Marathon and I got a bit freaked out because all that fruit/veggie/fiber (!) was having a, um, interesting effect on my digestive system and no way did I want to be caught on YouTube having one of those marathon trots moments so I put the machine away and kept doing what I had been doing in the eating department.  I'm crazy superstitious when it comes to running and routine and I wasn't about to change a single thing that close to marathon day.  You should have seen my shoes, they practically had holes in the bottom but there was no getting new shoes before the big day!

A couple of weeks after Delaware, I pulled it back out and started blending.  This time, I decided to make a major effort to cut out processed foods.  Also, at that same time, my husband had several back to back business trips so dinner changed too - no more fatty meats, it was all fish or all veggies for dinner.  Now I'm not trying to sound like an infomercial here, but I swear, after only 2 weeks (today starts week 3) of having a 'green' smoothie a day in addition to cutting out the processed foods and very little to no meat, I'm feeling 100% different...better.  The stomach pain is gone (again, no lie!) and my skin has cleared up (a major thing for me).  Also, while I knew I was having bloating issues, I had no idea just how much until I made this change.  I dropped 2lbs (not a goal of mine, this is NOT a diet for me, it's a lifestyle change for health) of pure bloated nastiness.  I should also note here that around this same time, I also saw the movie Food, Inc. which if you haven't seen, you absolutely must.  It will blow your mind and change the way you shop for meat.

Also, my energy level is so much better in the afternoon - gone are the grab something salty/crunchy at 3:00, now I have a smoothie.  The smoothie carries me to dinner.  In the past, I'd have the processed snack at 3:00 then by 4:30 I was crabby and hungry again so I'd grab something else.  An endless cycle.  The smoothies have really helped and I have to say, I don't even crave the old stuff anymore.  Occasionally I do want something crunchy so I'm in the process of trying to find better options for when that happens.  For example, I find that I like, not love, Doctor Kracker Flatbread.  It's a crunchy option just to take that edge of a craving off but honestly, I don't eat them much at all.  I have had the same box (contains 8 crackers) for 2 weeks.

So basically, my routine has drastically changed and the results have been incredible.  Because I noticed such a huge change so quickly, I became borderline obsessed with researching all things healthy, veggie based.  This is not to say I'm becoming a vegetarian, with two kids and a meat loving husband (who recently said, "All your veggie containers are taking up the entire fridge!"), I'm not ready to make that big of a leap, but I will say that I eat 99% plant based foods.  And there have been several meals where my husband and boys are eating chicken and I bake a piece of fish for me.  I've found many helpful blogs on the subject along with some great books.  One I like is "The Flexitarian Diet: The Mostly Vegetarian Way to Lose Weight, Be Healthier, Prevent Disease, and Add Years to Your Life" I found this to be a good introduction to going more plant based.  But so far, my favorite cookbook is by Tosca Reno, Eat Clean Cookbook.  There are so many fantastic recipes in there....many do have meat for the meat lover who wants to eat 'clean'.  There is also a magazine of the same title, Eat Clean, that I enjoy.

 Have I given up my wine?  Hells no.  Is wine considered 'clean'?  Nope.  But seriously, a girl can only make so many changes!  I have 2 elementary age boys, I simply cannot give up my wine.

Right now, I'm on the hunt for a source that will help me eat this way but still have enough energy/calories/endurance to keep up with my training.  I have noticed that once I get to about mile 5 on my runs, I start to fade in the energy department.  I think I may not be getting enough carbs which as runners know, is so important.  But what carbs to choose?  There is probably a good protein powder I should be adding to my smoothies too but I don't know if this is totally necessary.  So you can see, I still feel a bit lost and this is all still very new.

Now that I've written the longest post to date and probably lost a few readers, I close it out simply by saying, this is quite the journey and if anyone out there is on a similar one and has any advice, please please please leave a comment because I'll take all the help I can get!