Monthly Archives: September 2010

Hey friends! How’s your weekend going? Good I hope! I just spent a great (although exhausting) day at grad school. When I got home the sun was shining and it was BEAUTIFUL out. I decided to stretch my legs with a walk and a little yoga. It felt good after sitting most of the day!

Yesterday in between work and class I went some where I haven’t been ALL SUMMER!

  The FARMER”S MARKET! We have several farmer’s markets in town. Because we have been gone every weekend I haven’t really had a chance to get to one. This is one of the smaller ones but it takes place in this lovely park downtown and just in case you don’t find exactly what you want it’s right across the street from the Co-Op.

Check out this crazy vegetable and the cutie next to it!

My main purpose in going to the market was not for vegetables but to find some nice home made bread to go with our dinner. I tried a new recipe I found in Weight Watcher’s magazine. Oso Bucco style stew in the crock pot!

  This was really easy and really tasty. Perfect comfort food for fall. I did find some pretty amazing bread at the market.

I also got suckered into buy this after I tasted a sample

Gingerbread pancake mix! Brian was quite happy when I offered to make pancakes fore breakfast. I NEVER make anything he’d be interested in eating for breakfast (he’s just not a green smoothie lover!). He topped his with a glaze he made himself out of powdered sugar (which I didn’t even know was in the cupboard, he said it was pretty old tasting) and water.

Mine topped with pumpkin butter and a banana.

Well, I guess I must be pretty tired as it took me a long time to write this post due to sloppy typing and spelling. I’m going to make a playlist for my 12 mile run tomorrow and then relax for a bit before calling it an early night!

Hey friends! Sorry for disappearing (again) for awhile! I hope life is treating you well.

The reason I’ve been so absent from the blog lately is that this is just a really busy time of year for me. This is the first day in a week that I haven’t had some event or work to accomplish for an up coming event at my church job, hence the reason I’m not wearing make-up. It’s also the first week of my new fitness class schedule at the Y. Yesterday morning I taught cycling and today I taught group strength and cycling (also why I didn’t bother with make-up). I also have grad school coming up this weekend and have been doing home work for that. Life is good, just busy. When I’m at work I am working, when I’m home and Brian is not I’m doing home work or house work,  and when Brian is home I want to spend time with him, not the computer. Pretty soon it will be hunting season and out schedules will really clash!

So, that’s what’s going on with me. Nothing too exciting. Still training for the half marathon coming up in just two weeks! I bought a ticket to a harvest dinner they are having the night before the race hosted by a really cool local coffee shop The Root Note. You may remember I visited there this past summer to get some home work done. I have my last REALLY long training run coming up, 12 miles on Sunday, if I can fit it in between church services! Shouldn’t be a problem I might just fall asleep during our 7pm service! I going to try a different type of nutrition on this run, gummy bears! They have similar levels of carbs and sugar as GU and are cheaper. We’ll see. I still plan to have the GU too and I’ll be sure to blog all about it!

Well, the husband just got home and poured me a glass of wine! Hope you’re enjoying the beginning of fall!

Hey friends!  Happy Labor Day! Sorry for disappearing for awhile there. I’ve had a busy couple of days!

This weekend the students at the University moved back into the resident halls. I spent the last few days on campus promoting the church that I work at, informing students (especially the new students) where we are located and what types of programs we offer. Saturday night I had an info table outside the dining hall during dinner, Sunday I had the same table during the brunch. Later in the day I hosted a pizza party for students. I was expecting between 40-50 students and I had between 70-80! Today I hosted a booth at a carnival on campus. It was nice and cool out so I brought Izzy and she LOVED all the attention! I think she helped to get more visitors to our booth too! It was pretty fun and I think I connected with a lot of students but I am EXHAUSTED!

During the two hour break I had yesterday I cleaned the house and finished some laundry. After I was done today Brian and I went grocery shopping. After all that crazy busyness I am happy to be enjoying a beer and catching up on some blogs!

I might have another beer with the venison burgers Brian is grilling for us!

So that’s what I’ve been up to! Nothing to health related really. This week I start my fall teaching schedule at that Y which includes 2 group cycling classes and a group strength class every week plus Zumba every other week.

Check out my NEW PAGE featuring some of my favorite recipes from other bloggers! Please note that this is a work in progress and I will be adding more as time goes on! Have a good rest to your weekend!

Hey friends! Hope you are having a great Saturday! It is BEAUTIFUL here! Sunny and cool the perfect way to ease us into fall!

My 8 mile run this morning was EXCELLENT! Much better than my previous 8 mile training run. I’m sure the weather had something to do with it! I got going a little later than I had intended and fueled up with an Arnold sandwich thin, some almond butter, and half a banana, my go to fuel for long runs. I didn’t start my run until almost 8am.  At that time it was about 50 degrees out and sunny. I decided I was going to do my favorite 4 mile run twice which is an out and back route with a water fountain at mile 2 (and 6 respectively). I figured I would leave some Gatorade at our house and stop to drink that half way through instead of wearing my fuel belt. This worked out pretty well! I thought I would get bored seeing the same scenery twice but I actually took a different route back during the first loop. Actually might try to do this 3 times next week to get in 12 miles. I also had these lovely ladies to keep me company. I just discovered Shauna and Carla’s podcast yesterday. I download a few episodes to see if I would like it and I LOVED it! It is very positive, informative, informational and entertaining. I listened to it the entire hour and twenty minutes I ran! You should really check it out!

Like I said my route lapped me around to our house at about mile 4. I shed my long sleeved layer and drank some Gatorade. Then I was off again. At mile 6 I took a GU packet and drank some water from the fountain. The last 2 miles seemed like a breeze! I also tried a new pair of socks that claimed to whisk moisture away. I must say my feel faired much better than my 10 mile run BUT I still got one blister on my right foot. I might have to invest in some blister powder or even a higher end pair of socks. Overall a great run! I’m really starting to love the 8 mile distance. 6 miles use to be the max I would go if I was running but I think 8 might be the new max once I’m done training, we shall see.

Speaking of half marathon training, I feel like I haven’t really written too much about it here on the blog, definitely a lot less than I wrote about training for the Olympic Distance Triathlon. Honestly, I haven’t found the training to be that big of a deal, only the long runs have seemed like momentous occasions to write about. The program I’m using really fit in well with my life and I didn’t feel like I was running ALL THE TIME. I seem to recall the last time I trained for a half marathon I got a little sick of running. This time I am really enjoying it! I’m actually a little worried about how I’ll fit running in once I start teaching 4-9 classes a week at the Y and the dance studio. We shall see!

Well, I need to figure something out for lunch, my hunger is so crazy after a long run! Then I need to work on some home work before heading to work for awhile!

Have a wonderful day!

Hey there! How did your Friday go? Mine was SUPER busy hence the reason I’m posting so late!

Last night kind of felt like a date night even though we didn’t plan it that way. I cooked dinner making  baked ziti using my own home made spaghetti sauce, a huge salad and a little red wine. It was picture perfect!

We were sitting around after dinner and realizing that there was nothing on TV. I checked out the movies playing at the local budget theater and low and behold! Eclipse was playing at 7:25pm. I casually mentioned this to Brian to which I received a grunt as a response. After about 15 minutes of scrolling through the TV again he said, “Okay let’s go.”  I enjoyed the movie as it was my favorite book in the Twilight series. Brian’s review of the movie was, and I quote,

“Did a third grader write that?!” I don’t think he liked it I thanked him for indulging me in my silliness and told him the next time we went to or rented a movie I’d let him pick without complaining.

This morning I slept in as today is a rest day for exercise before I tackle 8 miles tomorrow. I woke up to a gray blustery FALL like day. A morning like that calls for one thing and one thing only! Pumpkin oatmeal!

My oats contained

1/2 C skim milk

1/2 C water

1/2 C old fashion oats

1/4 C canned pumpkin (stirred in about half way through)

1 egg white for added protein (whipped in during the last minute)

I topped it with

Chia seeds

Flax seed

Shredded unsweetened coconut

A banana

It was delightful! I even wore my fuzzy pink robe this morning. Fall is most definitely in the air! I love the change of seasons!

To further my fall day experience as I road my bike to work I could hear the University’s band practicing “On Wisconsin!” Football, another sign of fall!

After a pretty busy day getting ready for the University students to move in tomorrow I’m kicking back with a glass of wine and a movie with the husband.

Hope you have a great holiday weekend! Be back tomorrow with a recap of my 8 mile run!

Hey friends! How’s it going? Good I hope! The weather has taking a turn today and I have the windows open and the breeze is blowing in! So delightful!

Today is my last full day off from both of my jobs until September 11th when I’ll be in class all day! Yikes!

The morning started of dark and rainy. Rather than risk getting soaked I decided to take my run indoors and headed to the YMCA. I had a 5 mile tempo run scheduled. The way my tempo runs work are as follows:

Run 1 mile at a comfortable pace (10:00 min mile for me)

Alternate running .25 miles hard (8:30-8:15 min. mile for me) and .25 easy (9:45-10:00 min mile for me) until you have 1/2 a mile left then run easy until you reach your goal of 5 miles.

I’ve done my previous tempo runs outside on the road and also on a track. I actually went my fastest on the track finishing 5 miles in 45 minutes. Doing the tempo run on the treadmill wasn’t too bad, it actually helped me to control my pace. I didn’t go quite as fast as I did on the track though and managed to do 5 miles in 47 minutes. I also did some core work and some major stretching afterwards.

By the time I got home it was almost 8:30 and I was STARVING. I made a nice cool green smoothie.

My smoothie contained

• 1 C skim milk
• 2 C spinach
• 1 banana
• 1 pear
• 5 ice cubes

It was pretty satisfying but about 2 hours later I was hungry again! So I snacked on an Arnold sandwich thin with almond butter on it.

Don’t you just love my decorative plate? 

My hunger was pretty crazy today so by noon I was ready for lunch! Can you guess what this is?

It’s Pumpkin Quinoa. I got the idea from Angela a long time ago. It’s the perfect way to use up left over quinoa or pumpkin. Pumpkin doesn’t have to be sweet, in fact it should be a little savory. it is a vegetable after all! I added a little of the fancy olive oil we bought on vacation and it gave it the perfect flavor. It’s also very filling! On the side I had an apple sprinkled with cinnamon and a glass of skim milk.

In and effort to clean up my  eating I thought I would start doing a few more posts on what I actually am eating!

I’m cooking dinner tonight, baked ziti and a big salad! I believe a bit of wine will be consumed as well! See! It’s all about balance.

Other than that I’ve been doing A LOT of homework for my grad school class starting in one week!

Hope you have a great day!

p.s. Last month by blog had over 1,000 visitors! That’s a new record, almost double my previous record! Thanks for visiting and I hope you come back for more!