Today, I’m blogging from Solvang, an adorable little Danish town completely decked out for Christmas. There’s not a not to do here besides eat delicious Danish pastries. There are worse things in life. 

Technically I consider myself a “healthy living blog,” and while these foods may not be your typical idea of healthy, healthy eating really is all about balance. How many times will you be conveniently within a mile of about 20 different bakeries, with a father who wants to go into all of them? Balance is trying one of everything…and then splitting it with your family. So here are some things from the past couple of days!

Monday before we left, I went to m gym for an abs class, followed by weight lifting on my own-I did my Jingle Barbells workouts. It was nice to have all the time in the world, and be able to take long rests between sets. I’m normally in such a rush! I followed that with a protein smoothie-I’ve been dying to have one of these for months. Yay for being home!

Milk, spinach, frozen banana, cocoa powder, a little protein powder, and a handful of ice. 

Lunch on the road was a bagel sandwich and thai bubble tea.

And then we arrived! Naturally the first stop was pre-dinner pastries. 

A blueberry “boat” (probably my favorite o the trip), custard filled pastry, and a Danish “waffle”-a pastry with butter cream frosting and raspberry.

Dinner was at Pea Soup Anderson’s. Anyone who has driven through California on the main, long stretches of road will be familiar with this place-there are signs advertising it hundreds of miles away, and since we were RIGHT THERE we had to get their famous pea soup!

In the morning, we went to the hotel’s hot breakfast. The oatmeal was a highlight-it was very vanilla and cinnamon-y.

Then, I went for a run with my sister and her boyfriend. I’m in WAY better than last time I ran with them (at the beginning of half training in June)-last time I was dying, and this time their pace felt comfortable. I think we covered between 4-4.5 miles? 

Then, on our way in to town, we stopped at a little drive in. I ordered a burrito with chicken-it was interesting, the lettuce, salsa, and guacamole were on the outside! A lesser known fast-I’ve eaten very few burritos in my life. And as a result, I never know how to eat them! I’m really uncomfortable eating them-I had one of my first burritos with my friends and they totally made fun of me for it!

And of course dessert.

We spent the afternoon walking around downtown Solvang and wandering into little bakeries. A highlight was our visit to the foot spa for a massage. Since we all know the sad shape of my feet, it was great. 

Guess what we did next?

We went to an ostrich ranch! I kinda really really want one. Or at least to ride one-is that a thing? 

We even got to feed them. They’re aggressive little guys! (Ok, maybe not little…) We had a bowl with a handle, and you held on the handle tightly while they went at it and just kind of hoped. It reminded me a little of water skiing-you hold on for dear life and hope, and there’s the adrenaline rush that something is going to go horrible wrong, like they will somehow peck your hands off.

My sister’s boyfriend feeding ostriches.

Since we were all stuffed with pastries, we ended up eating a late dinner at our hotel restaurant, which turned out to be really nice.

I ordered the vegetarian portabello mushroom burger, which had a lots of veggies, lots of cheese, and lots of mess. 

And since this is vacation, dessert happened (again) as well. Bananas foster and lava cake.

Everything has been delicious, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to go back to my routine. I wanted to do nothing all afternoon but curl up and sleep. But such is life. Everything is about balance. 

Oh, and one more though about my 5k on Sunday-I probably screwed myself over with pacing as well. I thought I could have held an 8 minute pace, but based on my pace estimates, my first mile was probably 7:30, and the last two 8:30-so if I go out that fast there’s no way I could hold an 8:00 pace! I think I need to practice running more at that pace-to get my body used to the effort as well as the feel. 

Have a great week everybody!

Favorite pastry? 

Most sororities here roll their girls out around 6, and get them black out drunk by 8. Yeahhh we didn’t do that. They took us to a nice breakfast with delicious pastries, and they gave me this:

SO CUTE. Breakfast was very carb-y, and I knew it would put me to sleep. Afterwards, I hit up the dining hall for some protein in the form of eggs and a little coffee. Yeahh my first class was interesting. I felt like the caffeine and carbs were at war in my body, one fighting to put me to sleep, the other to keep me awake. But I made it through. So maybe I can eat carbs if they’re always accompanied by coffee? Great plan, right?

For lunch, I decided I shouldn’t be spending so much money, and should take advantage of my meal plan, so I went to the cafeteria area to pick up a premade southwestern salad. 

Truffles are on my meal plan too.

I was sort of planning on an afternoon run and yoga, but my knee was bothering me a little. I think I did something funny when I was catching one of my heavy cleans in a squat. I guess the rest worked, because it feels fine now! Snack was a yogurt bowl.

I believe that is the end of my yogurt.

For dinner, I ventured to the far side of campus to experience the finest dining hall. It turns out it was faculty night there, so the food was extra good, and it is already the best dining hall on campus. 

Salad, breaded salmon, brussels sprouts that are actually cooked (crazy concept, right??), and the famed honey biscuits (in whole wheat and regular form). Yum! And dessert was chocolate fondue with the all kinds of things to dip. No picture though, whoops! Plus, since this is a peanut free dining hall, they had sunflower seed butter. Let’s be honest; I could never have that as my primary dining hall, and I’m glad it’s far away. I’d be 500 pounds! They had a menu up…they have CINNAMON ROLLS for breakfast. We have…toast. Meh. I’m sooo full though.

When I got back, I spent about an hour talking/complaining to my roommate about Nutrition and why our government stinks in this respect. I love that we can have conversations like this. There is some program that we saw that delivers produce to your doorstep, and I think we’re gonna split this. Kale is on sale…kale chips anyone? Finally something I can make in the kitchen that no one will want any of, haha!

So, some of you may have heard of Run for Boston. The idea is you get a big group of people together wearing blue and yellow and hold up signs saying Run for Boston, and then post them on the facebook page. Someone sent an email out at my school, and it sounded like it was going to be a big event. It was after dinner, and Iw as running on a very full stomach (and I may have eaten a cookie literally 2 minutes before leaving) but I figured a little stomach discomfort was the least I could do (it ended up being fine, by the way)

.

I was expecting to get there and see a huge crowd of blue and yellow.

Nothing. All I saw were 2 people in blue running, and some frat boys pledging. 

Shot gunning beers and then running in bathrobes and dresses? Why not?

I have never been so disappointed in my school as I have been regarding their response to the Boston tragedy. People talk about the “bubble” here, where you don’t really experience the outside world. I’ve never felt that more than with this. On Monday when I found out about the bombing, I went to the lounge to break the news to the people there. They knew. They just didn’t seem to care. I didn’t get it. How could their worlds not have shattered, like I had felt mine did? And today….really, no one could step away from their busy lives to show their support? I love my school, but my complaint is that they don’t seem to care about important events outside of school, and frankly I see that as a little selfish.

Either way, I’m glad I went. 

Once I reached my destination, I decided to walk, because it offers me more time to think. I can never seem to get lost in my thoughts while running. I’m too busy thinking about running. Walking, however, is perfect. I don’t often walk in peaceful places, so this was the perfect opportunity to gather my thoughts. 

I decided that not only is my body strong, but I could be getting more out of it. This Marathon tragedy has inspired me to really get into running and push my limits. I really want to do a long run on my birthday. I would LOVE to get a 10 mile run in, but given my birthday is coming right up, I’m not sure that is possible. So I’m going to run for as long as I can on that day. For the next couple of weeks I’m going to shift my fitness focus towards running. I’m nixing my timed mile on Friday in favor of a longer run. Since I ran a 5 miler last week, I think I’ll try 6 on Friday. Happy running!

What do you do while running? Think? Listen to music?