WOW. I seem to have gotten a bit behind on posting, haven’t I? Thanks to Jenn, we can catch up somewhat in the form of WIAW!
Friday afternoon, I finally made it home. I was really excited to do 14.4 at my home Crossfit! Since they only have 2 rowing machines, those of us not officially signed up for the open did an 800m run instead of rowing. I wasn’t sure how this workout would go-I’ve never been able to do toes to bar before! I ended up doing it for the first time ever, and getting 5 reps in before I kept failing and decided to just finish with knees to elbows so I could continue in the workout. I ended up getting up to 15 cleans before the 14 minute time ran out.
For my first dinner at home, we ordered food from a local favorite and I had chicken and rice soup. 85% of the reason I order this is because of the avocado!
Plus a side salad.
One of the perks of being home-raiding the pantry and or freezer. We always have amazing fudge sauce on hand, so I made a sundae with frozen yogurt and zucchini bread (on the bottom). The zucchini bread was from the freezer!
For breakfast before Crossfit Saturday morning, I stuffed a whole wheat tortilla with sunflower seed butter, raspberries, and banana, and microwaved it until it was warm and gooey.
At Crossfit, most of the other people were doing 14.4 so I got to choose my own workout from the WODs that everyone had done for the week. I chose one that looked fun-it included pull ups, hand stand push ups (which I did with a box), and front squats. It was a very poor decision to chose anything that involved hanging from a bar, after so many toes to bar/knees to elbows the day before! My hands were SO done!
After Crossfit, my family and I drove down to Monterey for a little weekend vacation. On the way, we stopped at a little bagel shop that we used to always go to when we had softball tournaments.
A turkey and avocado sandwich on a whole wheat bagel.
Taro bubble tea, which actually turned out to be blended-which meant it was a smoothie like texture with tapioca balls at the bottom. I actually enjoyed this flavor-I’ve never tried it before!
For dinner the first night, my family ordered room service and split salads, potato skins (I haven’t had these in YEARS), and roasted artichoke.
Sunday morning was my long run day. I’m officially in taper! 9 miles it was for me! I made sure to carb load up before running.
I’m slightly concerned that I haven’t had my typical pre-run breakfast a single time before a long run during this training cycle. I’ve done a few of the runs in the afternoon, which I’ve never done before, and I guess I just didn’t bother with it before then.
I found a trail that took me from our hotel, along the water through downtown Monterey.
I was probably not nearly as well rested as I would have liked to be but the run went fine! The thing was, we ended up not getting to eat lunch until super late! We finished lunch around 4!
My family decided to walk around Monterey in search of lunch, and I was instantly drawn to a little restaurant that was all about artichokes.
To start, we shared a fire roasted artichoke and artichoke dip.
For my main dish, I ordered a turkey and avocado sandwich on a croissant. It came with roasted artichoke soup.
This definitely hit the spot after 9 miles. More importantly than lunch, however, was dessert. Which is basically how my family does vacations. DESSERT.
A brownie hot fudge sundae from Ghiradelli. Yummmm.
For some crazy reason, we weren’t hungry for dinner yet! On my run, I found that there is a little Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey, which we had never heard of! We rented a 4 wheeled bike-car thing, which was a lot of fun!
The biggest attraction of Fisherman’s Wharf was the caramel apples, and we picked up a couple for later.
I also saw Divergent-I’ve been listening to the audiobooks of the series on my long runs so I was excited to see it! I thought it was pretty good. My gripe is probably only because I read the book, but I felt like they left out a lot of details that while if they included everything the movie would be insanely long, I felt that without them the movie was a bit confusing.
Dinner was cheese and crackers and a caramel apple.
Monday was our last morning, and we drove to Carmel to explore the little shops. A highlight? Cheese tasting!
Followed by tasting lots of little tapenades and sauces at a fancy little foodie store. We walked away with some quality white balsamic, which I cannot wait to use!
For lunch, we stopped at a Mediterranean place with amazing hot bread. I had some delicious and perfectly cooked salmon with saffron sauce.
They also brought out a little complimentary dessert!
After lunch, we walked down to the beach to soak up some beautiful views.
Before dessert round 2!
In my family, if you don’t roll home from a vacation, you’re not doing it right! There was lots of great food over the weekend, but I’m definitely happy to return to a routine today!
How do you eat on vacations?
Leftover chicken breast, sweet potato, and cumin roasted cauliflower.
Cauliflower crust pizza. It was good but it didn’t really resemble pizza in the sense that it had to be eaten with a fork!
Mixed berry fruit tart. We tried a sample at the grocery store and had to get some!
Friday night after 14.5, my mom and I planned to go to the Giant’s game but it was a pre-season game and the weather didn’t seem like it would be that nice so we opted to stay at home and watch the Veronica Mars movie (I really liked it!) and get Mexican take out. I got my usual Teriyaki Tacos, and whipped up some homemade guac to go on the side!
While I couldn’t get a pretty picture of this, it was definitely a highlight. I finally tried banana “ice cream”, which was simply frozen banana blended until completely creamy. I had to make use of my Vitamix while I was home, and this put it to the test!
Quesadillas with mozzarella, tomato, and avocado with bruscetta and a side of butternut squash soup. Since Ashley is constantly posting melty, cheesy goodness with avocado inside, I just had to try it out!
