Feenin’ for some greens

KALE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh how I miss thee…. Been a while since I sauteed some of this up:

Kale is such a hearty green. I sauteed some red onions, threw in some chicken broth, cumin, S&P and voila! This stuff is so tasty! Hurry up Farmer’s Market season, I am itching for more fresh produce!!!

I did 20 minutes of cardio prior to my hour of of strength training. Then did 45 min. of physical therapy in the pool and another hour in spin class. Pooped. I am pooped. It’s so hard trying to train for a marathon when you’ve been side-lined from running for 3 weeks. One more week and I’m back at the dr. office. I cannot wait! All this other cardio makes me miss running even more. I do intervals and hills etc to try and keep the challenge up, but I will never get a runner’s high from being on the elipitcal or on a spin bike…I’ve tried. It just doesn’t happen.

I’m about two weeks into Spring quarter! The workload is light right now, but it’s about to get intense!!! I am excited for my research project this quarter! Just need to get approved before I hit the ground running on my work. Spring is fun. I feel renewed, some new sense of motivation. Maybe it’s nature, all the flowers and greenery, maybe it’s the fresh produce…maybe it’s the fact the I’ll be seeing more sun soon and get some much needed Vitamin D. Spring is one of my favorite seasons! Bring it on!!!!

Happy Easter!!

What a great weekend!!! Got off work a few minutes early in order to make it to Good Friday service on Friday evening. A very powerful service followed by happy hour with my sisters. Saturday I bought tons and tons of plastic eggs and candy for our Easter egg hunt on Sunday. Spent most of the filling them. Also went to Saturday evening service which was again, very powerful!! Saturday night I celebrated my friend’s 27th birthday at Sip a wine bar and restaurant in downtown Seattle. She was one of my best friends in elementary school, she and another one of my good friends from those young innocent carefree days. It was such an awesome experience to reconnect with friends from what feels like a lifetime ago! (Of course, silly me, forgot my camera for all these wonderful events.) After Easter service today, we had brunch at my dad’s house along with an Easter egg hunt with my family. It was so much fun!!! I really wish I had remembered to take pictures.

When I got home I enjoyed a tasty personal sized watermelon that turned out to be more like a couple-sized watermelon!!! So much juicy watermelon!

I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend. I feel rested and refreshed. Now for some studying…

New Kicks & A New Attitude

So I ordered some new Asics Gel Kayano 15s prior to my stress fracture diagnosis. My heart sank when they arrived. These are so snazzy:

Notice how the laces are contoured to the shape of your foot? I don’t know if it will make that much of a difference, but anyway! I am itching to break them in! Ugh. Have another week and a half before my dr. appointment. Hopefully I’m better and can get cleared for jogging on a treadmill or something.

I haven’t done much cross training lately. I was in a funk about not being able to run. The underwater treadmill just doesn’t do running justice, but when I think about it, I am so lucky and blessed to even have the ability to be so active. I have to stop focusing on the negative setback of a stress fracture and acknowledging how lucky I am and to be open to trying new things. Focus on what I can do. So. I have 2.5 hrs of spinning after my physcial therapy appointment this afternoon. Very pumped! I plan on bringing some sport beans to keep up my glycogen stores. I also bought some new biking pants which come heavily padded in the sit bones area! I’m excited!!

Underwater treadmilling & feelin’ kinda fruity

So my physcial therapy session was on the underwater treadmill this morning. Woot. Fun times. It was really awkward the entire time for me. I jogged, walked, side stepped and did some backwards walking on it. Love that it has no impact on my gimp shin! It was definitely weird though, trying to jog in the water. You shoulda seen me when the PT turned on the jets. I was all sorts of lopsided! Plus I haven’t worn a bathing suit in over a year and that was just not fun. Ugh. Weight gain is a b*@#!. But I am slowly working on it. Mind over matter. I know I can do this! I also hit the gym for some lower body and core strenght training. Felt good. My left lower body is so much weaker than my right. Need to work on that poor guy!

One of my favorite parts of spring is the fresh produce! I was definitely craving me some yummy fruity goodness, so I picked up some plums, strawberries, kiwis and pears!

I cannot wait for the farmers markets to start up again! What is with this stormy weather eh? If April Showers bring May Flowers, what do March showers bring?

A Sunday at Taste! Washington

Mo & I went to Taste! Washington this evening. It was basically a zoo of local winemakers and restaurants. Nuts! Tons of people tasting wine from booth to booth along with some yummy food to pair with it. It was super busy, but we wanted to try it at least once. I don’t think we’ll do it again though, too pricey ($75/person).

The best thing about this event for me were the freebies:

Lotsa Fiji water, Smart water, chocolate & truffles, gourmet salt, spice rubs, nutella, brown rice and more!

We were too full to enjoy all of the good food and since we drove, we couldn’t really drink too much. I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the different wineries. Too much to try. Not enough time.

I decided to give my shin a complete rest this weekend. No exercise at all. It felt weird, almost wrong to not exercise. I actually felt guilty. But I know I need to give it a rest if I have any chance at the marathon. I also bought a ton of calcium supplements so hopefully that will help mend my stress fracture. Tomorrow is my first time on the underwater treadmill with the physical therapist. Very excited about that!

Is it Friday yet?

Exhausted. I did an around-the-world cardio workout at the gym yesterday. 1 hr on the treadmill, 30 on the stepmill, 30 on the AMT. Pooped. I really wanted to get a kick butt workout in yesterday because of this 5 course dinner complete with wine pairings I attended. The chef is so kind to accomodate my gluten free needs so I am super excited, but also worried about my calorie intake. Hence the 2hr cardio session.

Words cannot describe how amazing the food and wine were. PHENOMENAL! I snagged a menu:

The portion sizes were perfect, I was full but not stupid-full. I got to savor every bite of each course. To give an idea of the portion sizes, the first course was 1 scallop with about 2 tablespoons of risotto. Pair that with a glass of wine and I was definitely not feeling deprived! So so so good. The icing on the cake was the pots de creme for dessert. Helllooo! Did I just die and go to heaven????? Oh man! I was the last one to finish my desert because I slowly savored each morsel.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMmm good! To top off the night, the winemaker was at the dinner and spoke about each wine pairing! One of my favorite parts of the night was getting to meet the wine barrel makers from France! Too cool. It was fun to try out my brokea$$ French. Had a really good night. Amazing food, wine & company. I couldn’t ask for a better night.

Needless to say, 5 glasses of wine definitely did me over. I was feeling just short of a train wreck this morning. Saw my dr. He confirmed I had a stress fracture. “No running, jumping or dancing for 3 weeks!” WTF. I did get cleared to do underwater treadmill running with my PT so I will give that a shot on Monday. I’m realy excited. The session only goes for 45 minutes so I definitely can’t do long runs on there, but I will be a cross-training maniac for the next three weeks, that’s for sure! Swimming, spinning, elipticaling maniac! I am really bummed about it, but I won’t let it get me down. I’m determined to finish the marathon in June so I need to focus on training activities that will allow my shin to heal. There’s no stoppin me now!

Dinner tonight was nummmmmers! Roasted butternut squash, yams & turnips with my quinoa. It really hit the spot!

Powering through it!

Only got an 11 mile run in yesterday. I was aiming for 13, but my shin was telling me no. At mile 9, I told myself to power through it, but then I realized I really need to train mindfully in order to do the marathon in June. I really need to be careful, especially since I might have a stress fracture.

Saw the physcial therapist again today. Man, she’s killer. Massaging out my shin, I really had tears well up in my eyes, but I told myself to power through it. Stop being a pansy. Tough it up. Blah blah blah….ouch! So we’ll see, my dr. appt is on Thursday…fingers are way super crossed that I’m ok!

This afternoon I cranked out 40 minutes of cardio on this eliptical-ish machine…I believe it’s called an AMT or something, it felt really strange, like moon-walking. Then I did an hour of strength training, side/front lunges, squats, core, pushups and handwalks. Good workout, I was beat! Gosh, I was so starving after my workout. Blended up a protein shake w/frozen blueberries and cooked up a big bowl of veggies:

Tomorrow I’m supposed to go to a 5 course dinner…eek! So I plan on spending a lot of time at the gym, maybe 3 hrs?? I’m just so worried about my weight gain, I’m still gaining! UGH! The scale said 128 today! It can be really really discouraging looking at the numbers on the scale continue to climb. I guess I just need to be really on point on my food intake from now on. My Vegas trip is May 7th!

Great grocery finds

Really excited to give these a try. Found some corn cakes in place of rice cakes. I really need to lay off rice. That stuff is dangerous to me. I haven’t been very careful lately and now I’m starting to break out in rashes again. Plus I never get any sleep when I eat the stuff. I get so hot at night and toss and turn. Decided to give the soups a shot as well, they’re quick and tasty for those times when I have zero time to make a meal.

Got an hour of intervals in on the eliptical in today and did an hour of strength plus 20minutes of light running on the treadmill Saturday. Ehh. Blah weekend. Did an impromptu wine tasting at a bunch of wineries on Saturday….bad idea. Mid-afternoon, bright sun and too much wine. Wasted an entire Saturday evening trying to hydrate and get rid of the headache.

Anyway, tomorrow I might try and do an easy long run, see how the shin holds up. I’m somewhat optimistic, hope it turns out well!!

Juicing it up!

So excited! I ran 6 miles today. I warmed up for abut 7 minutes and then took it easy at a 6.0-6.2 pace. My shin wasn’t screaming after about 8 minutes I couldn’t even feel it! I actualy felt good. I’ll have to ice today and probably won’t run at all tomorrow. I think I’ll need more rest days until I know more from my dr. I am **hoping** to do 13 miles on sunday.

I decided to drag out my juicer, dust if off and take it for a spin! Threw in some lettuce, celery, lemon, blood oranges and a pear:

Out came this delicious conconction!

So good and so refreshing! I haven’t really juiced since the summer. Produce is just so $$$ right now! My oranges and lettuce have seen better days and I didn’t want them to go to waste. My Breville is such a beast! Love it

Winter quarter is complete!

Yessssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!! I am absolutely relieved. Winter quarter 2010 is done. Done and over with! Woohoo.

I celebrated early last night with too many glasses of wine and tortilla chips while watching Idol. I felt crappy this morning, bloated. It’s amazing how your body just tells you, “Ick. Don’t do that anymore!”

I did about 50 minutes of walking today, each time I tried to get into a jog, my shin would cry bloody murder. Bleh. I’m really disappointed about it. Icing and attempting to rub it out. I feel like it has gotten worse since the PT session. I’ll just have to wait it out, and see what happens. I don’t want to push myself too far, I’ve spent so much time building my mileage. Anyway, I also did an hour of strength training, legs and some upper body. Strength training is so empowering. I love it!!! I really love doing squats and bench presses, it’s explosive!. What are your favorite strength training exercises?