Slacker!!!

I've been slacking big time the past few days. Not really super busy, just not into blogging I guess.

Wednesday's run:

Yesterday's workout:

Cardio: 10 minutes + 3 minute cooldown (roughly a 8:20 mile)

DB front squat 3x10 @ 17.5lb dbs
Romanian deadlift 3x10 @ 25lb dbs
Plie Squat with calf raise 3x10 w/ 30lb db:

Cardio: 10 minutes of hills @ 8:30 mile pace. 3 minute cooldown

Sumo squat and leg raise 3x10 with 30lb barbell
Toe touch 3x15
Ball twist (3x15

Cardio: 18 minutes on the elliptical plus 5 minutes cooldown.

5 minutes of stretching

I thought when I went out for my run this morning that I would keep it slow, my quads were tired like crazy. I kept glancing at my Garmin and making myself back off. I'm happy about these splits but I wish I could have gone slower (I couldn't make myself). I will probably pay the price tomorrow but fortunately it is an off-day. I think this 3 on, 1 off schedule is perfect for me.
I'm really looking forward to sushi tonight with DH! I haven't had sushi in far too long. I wanted to go see The Time Traveler's Wife but he suggested we go next weekend instead since we have a busy day planned tomorrow. We are going to the early Husky football practice at 8:45. Get some errands done and then we are going to the Taste of Edmonds in the evening with some friends (DH's bff from KINDERGARTEN and his wife...they've been friends for 31 years)

It's getting hot in here...

Le sigh! At 10:00 last night when I went to bed it was 85 degrees in my living room....this morning when I got up at 5:45am it was still 79. I'm just thankful we have AC in our bedroom so we can sleep at night...I actually moved my work laptop in there yesterday afternoon and worked on documentation from bed. LOL.

Last night I made a delicious dinner though I was breaking a sweat the whole time. I really wanted sweet potato fries but really didn't want to turn on the oven. No SP fries for me. :(

Super Sloppy Joe's
Adapted from Rachael Ray 30 Minute Meals

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
• 1 1/4 pounds ground turkey breast
  
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon steak seasoning blend, such as McCormick brand Montreal Seasoning
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 small red bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2c chopped carrots
  
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• Trader Joe's multi grain hamburger buns

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add oil and meat to the pan. Spread the meat around the pan and begin to break it up.

Add sugar and Montreal Steak seasoning to the skillet and combine. When the meat has browned, add onion and red peppers to the skillet. Reduce heat to medium and cook onions, peppers, red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce with meat for 5 minutes.

Add tomato sauce and paste to pan. Stir to combine. Cover and reduce heat to simmer and cook Sloppy Joe mixture 5 minutes longer. Using a large spoon or ice cream scoop, pile sloppy meat onto bun bottoms and cover with bun tops. I personally eat mine open faced so I can fit more meat/veggies.

This recipe is a fave of ours, and it appeared the 'skid' liked it a lot as well (he went back for a 2nd sandwich). The hubs wasn't hungry when he got home from his 2nd job, when it gets hot he doesn't eat as much. I hear a lot of people say that, I am so envious...my appetite is not deterred by anything (except for stomach viruses). I swear I am a bottomless pit.

We also went for froyo before DH had to go to his 2nd job yesterday...which hit the spot.

Last night when I went to bed I asked the 'skid' if he wanted me to wake him up this morning for a run. He said yes...I figured he'd just roll over and go back to sleep at 5:45 when I woke him up but he got up and was ready to run. Here are the stats from our run, I think the ascent/descent numbers are a little high but I could be wrong I suppose. Our first mile was all uphill and we were still waking up. I'm very happy with miles 2 and 3. I woke up with a raging headache this morning (despite drinking a gallon of water yesterday easily), so I wasn't into more than 3 miles.

We came back and made protein shakes, mine was a Green Monster with the following:
1 cup ff cow's milk
1 scoop Optimum Nutrition chocolate whey
1/3 frozen banana
5 strawberries
1 TB Natural Peanut butter
4c baby spinach

The 'skid' had
1 cup Simply Orange Orange Mango juice
1 scoop Optimum Nutrition vanilla whey
2/3 frozen banana
5 strawberries

Definitely hits the spot after a sweaty morning run (it was pretty humid).

I think we'll either hole up in the bedroom with laptops or maybe make a trek to Starbucks for awhile to keep cool. Our house has zero shade and has east/west facing windows so we just get hammered, oh and crappy insulation. I'm bitter, can you tell? Oh well, I guess at least our house is still worth more than the mortgage so I should be thankful for that!

TGIF!

Busy, busy Friday. I've been on the phone all day it seems. :)

Quick update for the middle of my day, and a few fun links.

Breakfast this morning was the last of my container of Fage (I used the tub for a bowl LOL). 1/2c Kashi Go Lean Crunch (Honey Almond Flax) and 1/2 Multi-grain Cheerios, and 6 sliced strawberries.

Morning snack was a Key Lime Pie Larabar. This was my first time with a Larabar and it will NOT be my last. This was so delicious, the texture was great and I love the short ingredients list of whole foods that I recognize.

• Dates
• Cashews
• Almonds
• Unsweetened Coconut
• Lime Juice Concentrate

I managed to sneak away for a lunch break run, the 'skid' wanted to go with so off the two of us went. I don't know if he was going easy on me, or if I'm not as old and slow as I think but there was never any separation in our running. At the end he was going fast and I kept up (though his legs are WAY longer) and even pulled ahead! Here are the stats from our run, I am going to really like running with him while he's here and quite honestly it is nice to have something that just him and I can do WITHOUT the hubs.

After our run I made a quick Green Monster and got back to work. I made my choco PB cup flavor one, the 'skid' had a sip and I could tell he was surprised it didn't taste like spinach (I could see him watching me add the spinach). Maybe we'll get another convert to the GM Movement?

Without further adieu, here are some fun links if you need some Friday/Weekend reading material.

First off some EYE candy for the ladies.... Becks courtesy of Twirlit.
Yummy Tummy courtesy of Twirlit, I'd like to give the cami a try!
Electronic Cigarettes? WTF! Courtesy of Fit Sugar.

Labor of Love

This morning was TUFF (yes, I meant to misspell tough...inside joke). I knew I had to be up at 5:30 for my run, to start work at 6:30 since I have to leave at 8:30 to pickup the 'skid' from the aeropuerto. I tried to go to sleep at 10, but of course I had another bout of insomnia (mental note: pickup melatonin tonight). I don't think I fell asleep until 11:30 or closer to midnight. The hubs overslept this morning (his alarm goes off at 4:45, which he turned OFF. I told him at 5 that it was 5 and he bit my head off....so of course I was gloating when he freaked out at 5:15 about the time). I couldn't fall back asleep so I just got up (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em).

I choked down a Kashi TLC bar because my tummy was about to eat itself. Leaving the house at 5:30am is as close to a sunrise run as you'll get in Seattle in the Summer. It was already very light out, but the sun was just starting to rise. I didn't take my running sunglasses 'cause it wasn't super bright, thankfully I didn't regret that decision.

I started off super slow, as you can see by my Garmin stats:

I think it takes a few miles for my legs to wake up. I did my fave 4.2 mile loop (with the monster hill). Some dude was hanging out the window of his truck waving at me, I seriously wonder about people sometimes. I ran to the top of our hill, and wanted to run a little more so I ran around our little neighborhood a few times. Came in the house to this:


His tummy was also eating itself...you can see their catnip banana in the background. The hubs laughed at me when I brought it home for them, but the love it. What can I say, my cats like fruit? They also LOVE their catnip cherry (they've gone through two of them, one had the stuffing coming out).

Fed the beasts, took a shower, then made a green monster. I'm a nice kitty mommy and don't turn on the blender while they are eating since they hate loud noises.

By request...a pic of my haircut. The cut looks the same, I just got color done. I should have taken a pic on Saturday, I have ZERO patience for doing my own hair, so it never looks as good.
Pardon my messy kitchen.

I have my Starbizzle FREE PASTRY coupon printed out. For those on the West Coast you have until 10:30 to get your free pastry. :) I'm going to stop and get mine on the way to the airport. :)

ALSO! Make sure to vote for Danica's Nectarine Raspberry Sorbet over fresh fruit! She's in the top 5 for the myrecipes.net best summer dessert contest! The contest ends on THURSDAY!

Friday's run stats

Here they are:

I can't think of anything better...

Nice title, right? I don't think anyone reads them anyways.

So I actually woke up before my alarm went off this morning (only 4 minutes early). Which is surprising because it was far less than my usual 8 hours. I strapped up with my gear and took off for a run. My intention was to take it super slow this morning, which is good because my body didn't want to go any faster. I didn't think about it, but I did my leg workout yesterday afternoon and I finished at 5:15pm. I left for my run at 5:50am, yeah barely more than 12 hours of rest.

I also didn't eat anything before I left, but I really don't think they played into it. One thing I've noticed is that when I workout first thing I don't drink as much coffee (if any). I did drink one cup this morning after my delicious Green Monster (chocolate peanut butter cup style).

I have to leave at 9:30 for a 10:30am meeting, I'll probably be home at 1:30pm. I have a quick Costco stop I'll make on the way home because I need more spinach, and I will drive right by a Costco. I'm trying to figure out what food to take with me to eat during my meeting. Probably a wrap and some grapes. I'm already the weird food person and I rarely go into the office. The last lunch time meeting we had there was pizza, I took a bar of some sort to eat while everyone else had pizza. I made a deal with myself that if it was GOOD pizza I would eat some (like Pagliacci, for the Seattle locals). But if it was crap like Domino's I would eat the bar. Yeah, it didn't look good so I ate the bar.

I don't think I look overly skinny (I hate that word btw) because I do carry a lot of muscle mass (especially around my shoulders) but I got some comments like "you need to eat some pizza, put some meat on your bones". Ahh, typical "Lazy B" culture...

I digress, I suppose I should do some work before I leave. ;)

Busy Worker Bee

So I've been meaning to post since before lunch but I've been too busy with work, every time I clear something off my plate something else comes up. Tuesdays are always busy for me at my job, it's the day I have to answer all support queries for our project so it's a lot of email all day long. I was happy that I got my run in at lunch (I pretty much cleared my plate and marked myself away for lunch as fast as possible LOL). I'm happy that I shaved about 5 seconds off my time for the hilly mile. But otherwise my times are almost identical to the times I ran this route at a few weeks ago.


So I was going to post last night after I made the black bean burgers...but I was really just too pissy and wanted to wallow in self pity. First I blended the peppers and onions together, which resulted in an epic failure because I blended too much and it was liquefied. A food processor is really necessary for this. Next time I'd just saute the peppers and onions and call it good. So to try to save my mixture I added ANOTHER can of beans and another scoop of oatmeal. It helped but they were still a little soft.

Well to add insult to injury I was slicing a sweet potato for oven fries, and a couple of baby reds for DH and I freaking cut my finger with the sharp knife. Right around the finger nail bed. BRILLIANT! Stupid thing wouldn't freaking stop bleeding, it didn't hurt but was just an annoyance. So yeah, all I wanted to do was feel sorry for myself. I had my burger on an Orowheat sandwich thin (my first time with one), some TJ's guacamole and tomato. The flavor of the burgers was outstanding (I used cumin, chili powder, and Tapatio hot sauce). I can't wait to make them again and recitfy the issues I had.

I had a delicious Green Monster for breakfast (along with my java). Morning snack was pre-run fuel (Rainier Organic bakery cinnamon raisin toast with TB of Almond butter).

Lunch was a wrap (morningstar farms, hummus, tomato, avocado, cucumber, and spinach), some rice works sweet chili chips, and a bunch of grapes.

I have a cute cat picture but I don't have time to upload it now (have to use my other computer), but I will post it later. :) Work beckons.....the things we do for a paycheck!

Multi-tasking....

Ahh, I slept sooo good last night! New mattress (and all new pillows) for the win.

I got up and had my requisite two cups of coffee this morning (both with vanilla creamer). Then I felt like a Chocolate PB cup Green Monster this morning. In went the following

• 1 Scoop ON Chocolate whey protein powder
• 1 cup unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze
• 4 cups baby spinach
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 big TB Adam's crunchy peanut butter
• 1.5 cups of crushed ice

It was actually GREEN today!

I did some benchmarking tests for work and then dug into a pre-run snack around 9:30. A few cubes of pineapple and this:
My run today was just so-so, I didn't feel good about it and I don't know why. Times seem a little slow, but the first mile is mostly up hill (there's a slight descent only to climb another hill). I also kind of got lost (I went down a side road that wasn't marked DEAD END but was a dead end).
I did 100 crunches (standard and crossover).

Okay, I'm on a conference call so time to devote my full attention to this!

Booo

Today has been mostly uneventful have gotten a lot of laundry done today in between meetings and while on conference calls. I went for a run earlier and was really disappointed in my time, mostly because the stupid trots came back. I did NOT have any dairy today, the only thing I can think of is whey protein might have caused it. I had to stop and walk a few times to keep everything in! I know TMI. So I did 4.3 miles in roughly 36 minutes (~8.22 mile pace). Which isn't that bad considering I stopped to walk, and the first mile is basically all hill. Does anyone else get the trots like I do? A few weeks ago I seriously almost had to duck into the woods... Any tips for dealing with them? It doesn't happen every time and previously my problem was dairy within an hour or so of a run.

I also did side planks, I did the right side hold for 30 seconds and then into an advanced side plank for 30 seconds (both arms straight and leg extended). Then flipped over and did the same on the left side...finished with 60 seconds of a regular plank. Repeated that twice before hopping in the shower! My arms are still shaking.

Anyways...on to a more pleasant topic. I am tired of not having a watch for my runs, my old watch went MIA. HOWEVER, I mentioned to my mom that I really wanted a Garmin training watch. Well Costco has them on sale right now so she ordered one for me as an early birthday gift, I cannot wait! I'll probably get it from her this weekend. Soooo, if you've been thinking about getting one and belong to Costco they have them for $149 SHIPPED. Killer deal.

Today's eats so far, no pics as I've been too lazy.

Breakfast: Green Monster
1 scoop ON Extreme Milk Chocolate whey protein powder
1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze
1TB TJ's Raw almond butter
1 frozen banana
4 cups of baby spinach
1.5c crushed ice

Pre-Run snack:
1 slice Ezekial Cinnamon Raisin toast w/ 1TB almond butter
1 sliced Fuji apple

Lunch:
Wrap (Flat Out multi-grain w/ flax, Sabra's sundried tomato hummus, MorningStar pizza burger, spinach, broccoli slaw, tomato, avocado, red pepper)
1 bunch of red grapes

I'm going for a pedicure after work (yay) and to meet my friend Michelle for Happy Hour after that.