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Running Mistakes

Happy Monday! First off, go check out my guest post today on Positive Thinking!

Since it’s Monday, let’s catch up on some weekend eats and things.

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Mango Chobani, mango, granola, and sunflower seed butter.

Saturday morning I had to go to the doctor’s office to get my blood stolen drawn for my nut allergy test. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had getting my blood drawn-I only left with one hole in my arm. Yeah, I’m one of those people with impossible veins to find. Last time I walked out with a bandage on each arm, shaking. I’ve had enough really bad experiences with it that it really is traumatizing for me now.

I also saw Despicable Me 2 on Saturday! My biggest takeaway! I want a guacamole hat! Where can I get one? Anyone want to make one and send it to me??

Also, fellow rowers out there, please tell me you thought about rowing when Gru was in that boat rowing and the minions were ‘coxing’ him? My whole family laughed at me because that sounded just about right.

After my intense desire for a guac hat, we decided to go to Chipotle. Fun fact: I’ve never been to a Chipotle before. I got a burrito bowl with chicken.

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The verdict? It was okay. I feel like I’ve had something else better somewhere else. I mean I liked it, but not sure I’d go there a ton again.

And frozen yogurt was conveniently next door, so it’s no surprise what came next…

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I had a big dilemma here. See that pink blob? I REALLY didn’t want that there ruining the picture, but I REALLY wanted to try watermelon sorbet. So guess what won out? Yeahhh. So the rest there is dulce de leche and chocolate froyo with blueberries and candy. At this particular froyo place, I always get too much candy. It’s in these dispensers where it comes out WAY too fast.

Other Saturday highlight? Watching Tim Lincecum’s no hitter 🙂

Sunday was my big run day. My longest run of half training. Unfortunately, I ate WAYY too much on Saturday and woke up with a stomacheache. I ate my normal breakfast and tried to wait it out, which worked. However, that kind of came back to bite me in the butt a little later on…

I actually have been really enjoying these long runs. My 6 mile and 8 mile long runs at the beginning of training were torture, mostly because I took them too fast. I felt really good on this run-I felt better at the halfway point than I have in my other, shorter runs’ halfway points. I felt like I could push the pace a little more, but my feet were kind of an issue. I had to walk a few steps every few miles to try and shake some of the pain out of my toes. I swear I’d be way faster if my feet didn’t hate me!

Around mile 9, I started to pay for some of my mistakes. Mistake 1: I tossed my water too early. I hate having to carry it, so when I’m close enough to being done I toss whatever is left. Not only did I toss it too early, I didn’t drink that much earlier in the run. I tossed it around mile 7 or 8, and my stomach started cramping at the end of the run, and especially badly in the last .3 miles. Mistake 2: eating breakfast too early before running. Since I delayed my run due to a stomachache, I was STARVING by the end of the run, and I definitely ran out of gas in the last few miles (in comparison to my 11 miler last week where I ran my fastest mile as the 11th mile). So in the future, I need to stick to my normal time frame (and eat better the night before). I think for race day, I’m going to carry an extra goo in case some thing like this happens.

But in the end? Who cares. I ran 12 miles. Pace Shmace. All I care about now is that I’m confidant I can finish the 13.1 miles. Image

I put my compression socks on first thing when I got back (and I immediately felt better-how is this possible?). I also drank a TON of water. I wish I had weighed myself before I left so I could have figured out how much water I lost. Next time. My legs were actually feeling pretty ok by the end of the day.

Post run lunch!

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Smoothie with pineapple coconut water, pineapple, and mango.

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Turkey burger and chips and guac.

I spent the afternoon basically not moving. I did write out my training plan for my next half though! How exciting is that?? Most of my training is actually before school starts, which is a little easier.

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I wrote out the same training plan as this time, but I’m not exactly going to follow it. I’m only planning on running 3x per week, instead of 4. I figured I’d have the 4 down though so I could pick and choose if I wanted to run more times. We shall see. Another major difference in my training will be the types of runs I’ll be doing. Most of my training runs for this race have been slow and flat. I’m going to work on running harder a little more the next time around, especially since I’m only doing 2 short runs (plus a long one). I also need to run more hills because I’m doing the Nike Women’s in SF, and let’s just say that it’s not flat.

Dinner was BBQ chicken salad. We had mango BBQ sauce so we added mangoes to the salad as well.

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Also in the mix-corn, tomato, red pepper, and avocado. Tossed in an olive oil/lime juice mixture. Yum!

I also had a huge blueberry bread craving. While this stuff isn’t at all healthy, it is the best thing ever.

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Can adding extra blueberries count as healthifying it?

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And it’s in bread (not muffin) form because everything is better in bread form.

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And who actually waits for it to cool anyways?

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I’m pretty sure I negated my entire run given how much of this stuff I ate 🙂

So good.

I have a ton of random things that need to be done this week-figure out self hosting, maybe order a Fitness is Sweet shirt, do some long-overdue Nutritional research for a professor, study for a midterm, and decide/book Healthy Living Summit…I better get to work!

Bread or muffin form? Muffins or cupcakes?

Good But Not Great

It’s Sunday, and I’m back at school! Let’s go through my day!

I began with a quick breakfast before hitting the gym. I decided to do some experimenting, attempting to capture that amazing buttery, cinnamon-y goodness of cinnamon raisin toast with butter, but in a healthier way. I started with my French Toast base. I mashed up a banana, and then mixed in milk, and egg and egg white, cinnamon, and vanilla. I ended up only using half of this mixture because I wanted my bake to be more bread-y. I tore up a slice of whole wheat bread, and placed that in the mixture. And the final touch? A mix of cinnamon and dextrose (this is a glucose heavy sugar, you could use regular cinnamon sugar) to fill in the cracks! After baking this in the microwave for 1.5 minutes, I topped it with a little Smart Balance. Here’s the result:Image

It was good, but not amazing. I didn’t really capture the buttery factor enough. Oh well. That with a smudge of peanut butter and a cutie, and I had myself a meal!Image

Not bad at all! 

At the gym, I went to Spin, and then made up yesterday’s missed workout. It was my favorite weights workout, plus a few embellishments. Here’s roughly what I did:

Back lunges from a platform(several inches)- sets of 3 each and decreased reps when weight got really heavy (I started at 135. last set was 175)

Single leg RDLs, 6 each leg, 4 sets. I worked up to 55 pounds. I supersetted this with 25 heel raises

A tiny (just a few minutes) of work on the erg trying to bring up my stroke rate (I have a lot of trouble simply moving fast enough)

1/2 kettle bell swing tabata (I did 2 minutes of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off)

3×1 minute weighted plank (Place plate on your back)

Plus stretching and rolling out! I’m usually really bad about stretching, and I want to try and make a better effort! This workout tends to work muscles that complement each other for maximum exhaustion, and I’m already getting a little sore! I love having go-to workouts that I know will make me sore every time. Single leg RDLs do that for me. No matter how many or what weight, I’m almost always sore from them. Just a disclaimer: I’m not a trainer, and please don’t try this workout if you haven’t worked with weights before!

My gym is right next to Whole Foods. How perfect is that?? I needed to pick up some things, so Whole Foods was my next stop. I had a short list, but natrually I had to explore the whole store!Image

Free smoothie sample anyone? I was just telling my friend the other day how I haven’t had any free samples in a while! Love them! At whole foods, I got some random healthy ingredients, and some dried fruit and nuts. Nothing too exciting, but always fun! Oh, plus some soups for this week! And after the grocery, guess what time it was?Image

Ohhh yeah. Not that that cake was mine….but wooo!

I had a great big salad while watching the game!Image

Rotisserie chicken, apple, walnut, dried cranberries, and of course, avocado! All tossed in balsamic vinaigrette. And on the side? Only the best bread ever!Image

Cranberry walnut! Plus it’s whole wheat! This is one of my favorite breads! I really wanted to try my hand at baking some myself over the summer, but I never got around too it. Seriously, this stuff is so good! Can’t stop at one piece!

At halftime, it was time for me to get to work. I’ve talked about how great it was to have protein bars in the freezer last week, so this week, I decided to make something as well.

5 Minute Peanut Butter Granola Bars! Recipe courtesy of Anne from fANNEtastic food. The recipe called for Chia seeds, and I knew I’d never be able to use up a whole bag before they went bad. But look what Whole Foods had?Image

How perfect is that? 3 shots was just about right! To this recipe, I added raisins and skipped the ground flax, because I didn’t want to open a whole new bag (which I ended up opening anyway….) Aaaand the final result?Image

I ended up deciding to roll these into balls because I liked being able to have a bite sized piece, so that became this:Image

Perfect! I like how these granola bars aren’t too sweet. What first attracted me to the recipe was that they had brown rice syrup. 

After my granola bars, I did a little experimenting. We had some leftover hazelnuts from a recipe over Christmas, so I tried my hand at hazelnut butter.Image

Add a few more whirs, salt, dark cocoa powder, and a few squirts of honey…Image

Not bad! It was a little dry. It probably could have used more blending but it was kind of difficult in my food processor so I left it. I ate a bit of this on bananas. Again for today, good but not great.

After the Niner’s game (!) I pitched for the first time since my last softball tournament 6 months ago. I’m considering trying to play this summer, and I suddenly had an itch to get back at it a little. It went surprisingly well! I was way less rusty than I was expecting! It was nice to be back out there.

Today was certainly the day of making interesting food. I whipped up another recipe from fANNEtatic food, Blueberry Apple Cinnamon Yogurt Bread.Image

Helper? Not so much….Image

While the bread baked up (the batter was certainly delicious, and no eggs so no reason not to lick the bowl!), it was dinnertime.Image

This is my all time favorite dinner. All recipe courtesy of Cooking Light. Cheese Souffles, Thyme Mushrooms, and an herbs and greens salad. The salad always tastes so fresh; half of it is whatever fresh herbs you have on hand or buy! Image

Such a great dinner. And the bread was finished just in time for dessert.ImageImage

Unfortunately, I took it out a little too soon so the middle wasn’t totally done. Instead of put it in longer, I decided it was fine, since I was planning on freezing most of it for later anyway, and when I freeze it, I always microwave it. Still delicious!Image

Ignore the sloppy spot in the middle…

After all that great food and a few episodes of Castle, I packed up and headed back. Ok, while I absolutely love my cats, I am allergic to them. That’s right. This future crazy cat lady is allergic to cats. I’m not sure what causes my allergies to flare up; the entire time I was home for break it was fine, but today, my allergies are going crazy! I guess that’s a sign it was time to come back! Although I’m sure I have a cat’s worth of fur on my person and on all my clothes…I found cat fur all over a shirt I was wearing the other day. The mystery? I had received the shirt that morning! How does Charlie do it? (Because it always seems to be his fur…)

I have a lot of work to get done tomorrow. I also have team weights, and I’ll probably hit up a Spin class later as well. Plus, I have a new book that I’m absolutely dying to read.Image

After a yearlong Biology project last year, I discovered a passion for the science of sugar, its metabolism, and its effects on the body. Dr. Lustig has a popular Youtube video, Sugar: The Bitter Truth. After stumbling across this video, I was hooked. I’ve watched it 3 or 4 times, and read several other books. Plus, I downloaded all the Podcasts and interviews I could find with Dr. Lustig, and listened to them while I ran (I know, nerdy, right?). I am beyond exciting. I totally forgot that the book was coming out this soon (January 2013 seemed so far away!), so I am beyond excited for this. I’m a little rusty on sugar metabolism right now, which is why I haven’t posted about it. But this seriously could not have come at a better time, during my 30 day no sugar challenge. After all, it’s a little hard to stomach all this with a belly full of cake. On my challenge, I’m not cutting out all added sugars, just sweets. In honor of the book release, and all the attention surrounding it, I am considering doing and blogging about a few days of absolutely zero added sugars to raise awareness of the sugar lurking in so many foods. I’ve done this for a few days before, and believe me, it is difficult to find foods. Especially bread. Trader Joe’s is one of the only places I’ve been able to find bread without added sugars. And this would be even more difficult at a dining hall, because ingredients aren’t listed on everything. So who would want to try this with me to raise awareness to the something so many food processors pour into our foods? We should be able to have more control over what we eat!

What do you think of a zero sugar day to raise sugar awareness?