Birthday Countdown

It is exactly one week until my birthday. Holy crap I haven't even planned anything. WHAT. THE. HELL. Ah well, guess we will just see what happens. I'm thinking a trip to Magic Mountain.

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Um heck to the yes. I've been in CA for two years (on July 4th) and I still havent managed to get to Magic Mountain. Last year we went to San Diego Wild Animal Park. Seriously go if  you live anywhere close or are visiting. We got to see the handler feeding the cheetahs. Amazing experience.

My knee is feeling mucho better. Probably because I've been threatening it...or perhaps because I've been lazy and my idea of cross training has been taking CB on long walks and taking pictures of the pretty flowers.

he peed on this immediately after

Eating taco left overs out of obnoxious orange bowls probably helps too.

This was later topped with froached eggs and more tapatio...of course. If you poured it on Chuckaroo Id probably eat him too.

TOMORROW I RUN. Hallelujah.


What shoes are you currently running it? (I need new ones)

What did you do for your last birthday?

Will you buy me some shoes so I have something to wear for my birthday?

The first step

I don't like writing this because I don't want to think about it. I've seriously been bummed all day about it. It being my IT band and its hurting me. Tuesdays are usually my easy run day but not today. My IT band in my left leg has been feeling tight for a month or so now and causing some hip discomfort, but oddly it always felt better when I ran. So I've been icing, stretching, and foam rolling the crap out of it. To no avail I woke up and my knee was hurting.  So this is new....and not good new. My knee has never been the painful thing, but today it is. Part of me wanted to run through it, but I knew better. I know better. So here I am, icing, stretching, foam rolling and not running. I'm hoping that a few days of cross training and rest will get me feeling better. It's not unbearable pain, but it definitely doesn't feel great and I don't want it to get worse. So here is to healing and patience, something I don't always have enough of.

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On a much happier note, have any of you been watching switched at birth? I'm such a sucker for abc family sometimes and this is one of those times. Check it out and we can gossip about it!

Also my 800s yesterday went really well. Though I'm sure it was not too helpful with  my leg situation, I felt really good during. Um 800s are much harder than 400s. WHO FREAKIN KNEW?! I did 10 min warm up and cool down and 4x800 with 400 recovery in between. I was super sweaty and loving it. Heres to healing so I can do more of that soon!

So sleepy after our walk

Gotta have a picture of CB for good measure.

Summer lovin

After a fun weekend in the sun, life has left me with a lot of homework and chores to catch up on. It was definitely worth it. It's starting to get seriously warm here in the CA and little black Charlie was panting up a storm after only being outside for 5 minutes. It's definitely time for early morning walks so the little dude doesnt over heat. So we came inside and I made some breakfast while Charlie did a little foam rolling.

pb&j protein oats in my favorite bowl

 

 

he did this himself 

Now I'm waiting on my coffee to be coffee. Theres nothing better than a glass of iced coffee on a hot summer morning.

brewed double strength. works like a charm

And its a little too hot outside for a track workout for my liking, so another gym sesh for me.
Half mile repeats are on the schedule and I'm feeling good.
Happy Monday!

Do you prefer iced coffee during the summer?


Do you get up before the sun to do your workouts or do you hit the gym when its too hot?

Lazy weekend

Last night Matt and I decided to go see Bad Teacher. Turns out it was a seriously funny movie. Up there with Bridesmades for a recent favorite.  Jason Segel is golden the entire movie. Before the movie I made pizza and Matt brought home some tasty beer to go with.

They were both pretty good. The Cherry Wheat was a bit too heavy on the cherry for me, but it was still tasty. I expected a kind of fake cherry flavor, but it wasnt at all. Just a bit too sweet. The foxtrot was my favorite of the night. It was sweet and malty with just a little touch of hoppiness. That is one thing I can't do in beer. Too much bitter hops blech.

I make pizza almost every week. Its so easy and quick but I didn't take pictures. Fear not, I'll try to remember next week and include my sorta kinda veggie pepperoni...or something.

I woke up this morning wanting to go for a run but I felt pretty terrible and didn't think running would help so I put it off until tomorrow and decided to make these strawberry scones instead. I used almond milk instead of  cream and made them minis and they turned out to be a perfect little breakfast.

I ate three and decided to save the other half for Matt. I'm so nice.

I also scored some baby pink tempo shorts and a super light tech shirt at tj maxx for $22 total. I love a good deal. Happy weekend.

What's the last movie you've seen in theaters?


What are your weekend plans?

A recipe and A race

As promised, a delicious, and one of my go to recipes using mickey sweet potato rounds.

Sweet Potato Salad
2 sweet potatoes
1 cup/1can black beans
1 red bell peppers
1/2 a cucumber
1/4 c broccoli slaw/confetti
carb of choice
big bunch of cilantro, chopped
2 limes worth of juice
2 Tbs evoo
2 Tbs Balsalmic
dash of cayenne and salt

Cut sweet potatoes into rounds and roast for ~20 minutes. Let cool and dice.
Dice red bell pepper and cucumber. To make "confetti" I peel a broccoli stalk and then chop up the peels. Quick and easy.
Cook your carb. I used rice because its what I had but its delicious with quinoa or small pastas or nothing at all!
Put everything in a big bowl and mix it on up.
For the dressing mix together the lime juice, cilantro, olive oil, balsamic and seasonings to taste.
Pour over the salad and either refrigerate it to let everything combine and get super yum or devour on the spot like I did.

Eat out of the face of an animal to make it taste even better

What you dont eat out of owl heads?

The recipe is super versatile. Thats not even the original that included mango (so good, but I didnt have any) and corn. Now its turned into a throw everything in a bowl and mix it up.

It is especially good while eaten after a long adventure with Sir Charles.

Who was on the trail of something until he got distracted by another dog.

On our walk I decided I was going to start training for the Long Beach Half Marathon (10/9/11) even though I was just planning on focusing on getting speedy. I'm not completely sure if I will end up running it but the motivation won't hurt and it wont make me any slower. I'm going to give it some time before I commit and register, but its a definite maybe.

Whats your favorite go-to recipe?


Are you ever undecided about registering for a race?

3 days without running water and FRS

OK so we didn't completely not having running water, but we didn't have COLD water at all. I'll start from the beginning. Sometime during the day Tuesday I'm trying to fill up the water pitcher but lo and behold, no cold water. I knew the water hadn't been turned off because I just washed my hands. So I just go about my day per usual not really paying too much attention to it. Then I try to go down to the laundry room that is directly below us but its closed. UM, what? There's a note on the door saying there has been a "plumbing emergency" and that some units may be experiencing no cold water, but not 20 minutes later I hear one of the guys saying only us and one other unit don't have cold water. What the heck, management? Why didn't you just knock on my door/call/leave a piece of paper telling me instead of me being confused all day. Anyway, nothing really happened about it Tuesday or Wednesday but finally on Thursday they jack hammered through the concrete and fixed it, YAY!

So just a couple things. It doesn't seem that living without just cold water would be too hard, and it's really not, but there were it's disadvantages. One of these was that the toilet tank wouldn't fill so we had to fill it ourselves. Not fun. Also, showering was an issue. Our water goes from icy to boiling in about 1 minute and I do not like for my skin to melt off in the shower. Oh well, a couple days without a shower never hurt anyone I'm just glad everything is back to normal.

So Thursdays are usually my rest day (or one of my rest days if im being lazy hehe), because I'm mostly gone from about 5:30am- 8:45pm with the exception of a quick run home to bug Charlie. It's a long day without going to the gym. But, I felt pretty off on Wednesday so I decided to suck it up and go for a quick tempo run after class yesterday. So after work, I headed home for lunch and took Chuck-a-roo for a walk to his favorite neighborhood park.

When 7:45 rolled around I was feeling a little tired, as I was expecting. Good thing I remembered that at the race expo a couple weeks ago I snagged a couple bottles of FRS and decided to give one a try. I don't usually go for pre workout drinks and I definitely don't go for energy drinks (other than coffee) but this sounded pretty good and good for you. Guarana and Taurine always make me feel terrible so I avoid them at all costs, but FRS has quercetin which didn't seem to affect me like that. I just felt like a normal person and I didn't feel crazy during my run either. I had the apricot nectarine flavor and it mostly just tasted like fruit juice. Overall a solid product and one that I can see buying again when in an energy pinch. Check em out.**

To top off a long day, I had a great run, and that made it all worth it. It was just a 35 minute tempo run + lots of stretching but it felt good. Warm up and cool down at ~9:50 pace and 13 minutes at ~8:30 pace. It felt good and sweaty. It also felt good to come home and eat a delicious dinner that I have a recipe to share with you later in the day! Happy Friday.

Have you ever had to go without hot or cold water?

When is your rest day(s)?

(**I reviewed FRS on my own, they didnt pay me I just like the product.)

Changing Plans and Speed Work

Summer is for summer school, right? Right! Or at least for the next few weeks until my class is over and i get a REAL break (applause).  Because spending a couple hours a night M/W/Th in a classroom for a measly 5.5 weeks was going to make my fall semester not as killer you bet I took that deal. So here I am taking an upper division Statistics class (Probability, if you wanted to know) when I could have almost absolute freedom. Really it's not so bad. It's good to keep my math brain sharp.

So after my Monday class that gets out at 7:45pm I headed to the track to do my workout. So the sun is starting to go down as I'm looking for the closest open building so I can change. (Um seriously everything is closed in the summer. Thanks, School.) On top of that, there are no lights at the track. SO WEIRD. So I just decided to head to the gym and do it on the indoor track. Oh poor me, I had to use an indoor track.

Really the only problem is that its not posted anywhere how many laps is a mile. Inconvenient and an oversight if I say so myself. I wont bore you with all the details but it turns out I am terrible at pacing myself and in the end decided to jump on the treadmill for my workout. I did 5 quarter miles between 7.5-8mph with slower jogging in between. It was hard but manageable compared to the one I did on the track.

I was worried about the track thing the whole last half of my class, but in the end it all worked out. It's usually like that. Theres always another way to get something done.

And I silly pic of Charlie and I after a run for good measure.


Is it easy for you to change your running plans?

Were/are you the type to take summer school?

Meet Charlie

This is Charlie, or Sir Charles Barkley, officially. He is my 3 year old Corgi Chihuahua mix and just a bundle of fun and love. Being young hes got tons of energy and loves to run. He can run for days. Really, I think he would run all day if I let him.  He's a great little running buddy even if he would rather not be on the leash. So without further ado the many sides of Charlie have earned him many names other than his usual "Charlie."

Roo, when we run and he jumps around like a kangaROO
Poops (hehe) when he's being a mischievous little thing
Sir Charles when we are being silly
Wiggles when someone gets home and he wags his whole body
Prancer because he does just walk, he prances
And those are just a few of the seemingly endless nick names for this little boy. But now he is prancing around to go outside, so you must excuse me


Questions:
Do you have a dog?
Do you give your pets nick names?