Monthly Archives: March 2012

Boston Marathon: Taper {16 miler}

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I woke up at a shocking 5:45 a.m. today and put on my running clothes. After sleeping in for 4 weeks, being up so early felt rough and strange. While my sports doc had told me that I could run 20 miles this weekend, I didn’t think it was smart for either my heel or my legs in general plus I had a meeting with my new gym at 9 and couldn’t devote 4 hours to a 20 miler. 16 on the other hand felt do-able.

I fueled the same way as usual with half a piece of toast, sunflower butter, raisins, and walnuts and then headed out the door.

I knew my run was going to be tough and that there was a chance I might not finish so I brought my iPhone, public transit card, and cash. I wanted to be prepared for any situation. I also kept telling myself to run slow. My goal today was to finish the distance, not work on speed.

I’ve noticed since starting to run again this week that I actually feel like I’m in better CV-shape and can run faster than I could previously. However, my legs aren’t there right now so keeping a slower and steady pace is key.

My legs felt fresh off the bat and I let my pace get a little out of hand. With much effort I slowed myself down and felt pretty good until around mile 4 when my quads started to tighten up. This lasted until about mile 8 when the tightness shifted to my calves, I couldn’t win. When I was moving I felt fine but when I had to stop at crosswalks my legs were locking up. I fueled with half of a medjool date at mile 10 and the other half at mile 14. I kept myself moving and thankfully didn’t feel any alarming pain so I pushed and completed the entire 16. Whew!

Obviously this run wasn’t my best but I am so proud that I was able to complete one more long training run. I feel a lot more confident about my ability to run and finish Boston after today. Mission accomplished :) , training is so incredibly mental for me! Hopefully in the next 2 weeks my legs will continue to re-acclimate to running and it will continue to get easier and easier to bust out miles.

Also, I want to reiterate that if I didn’t have the marathon looming in the future, I would not have pushed my body 16 miles today. Unfortunately, the date of Boston is out of my control ;)

After my run I had to go to my new gym for an orientation aka pitch for personal training. I didn’t have time to eat anything between my run and the meeting so I grabbed a water at a 7-11 and headed over. When I left an hour later, my stomach was growling!

Breakfast when I got home was speculoos cookie butter baked oatmeal with banana sauce. Obviously I was so hungry that I dug in before I could take a picture. Oops!

I’ve spent most of today relaxing and watching X-Files with Ian, we have big dinner plans and I want to make sure I’m well rested :)

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

Evening Running & Gluten Free Products

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Ever since my heel injury, I’ve been trying to find out what was different about my marathon training this time around that would have led to an injury. I followed a similar plan, didn’t drastically increase my mileage, and have been running the same routes both long distance and short (I’m boring that way). Really, the only thing that has changed is my reliance on the treadmill.

For previous marathons I have used the treadmill at most 3 times per month for days when it was too cold/snowy/icy/hot to run outside. I have also never been as busy as I am right now while training and jam-packed days + homework has pushed my workouts to early early morning. As I’m not very comfortable running in the dark in Chicago, this has caused me to rely more on the treadmill.

Enter the dreadmill and running on it 3 or more times per week. Now, I don’t think that the treadmill is the only contributor to my injury (I also need to include more recovery runs, look into new shoes/orthotics etc) but the association is alarming and at least for now I am avoiding the treadmill like the plague.

What does this mean for fitting in my workouts? Well, I’m going to have to start running in the evenings (at least temporarily until its lighter in the mornings) which is going to be hard for me, I’m such a morning runner!

I could sit here and list the MANY reasons why I love running in the morning, but I’ll spare you and instead share one of the main reasons I decided to start running in the morning in the first place: stomach troubles.

I don’t remember having stomach aches before college but once I cleaned up my diet and made running a priority I started having stomach issues. In college, I decided to stop drinking cows milk and that helped with a majority of the problems at the time but even still I was always much more comfortable working out right after waking up.

While I was in undergrad, I worked at a social science institute that did a lot of research in Nepal and after graduating I was given an opportunity to visit. I saw a lot of interesting things and had many amazing opportunities while I was there including riding an elephant bareback and visiting Buddha’s birthplace. I also contracted a nasty parasite/virus/sickness that caused me to lose almost 10 pounds in three weeks (I was lucky and had two bouts of the nastiness).

Now I don’t know if whatever happened in Nepal exacerbated an underlying condition or created a new one but since then my stomach has never been quite the same. Sometimes I feel sharp pains in my abdomen and I can’t stand up straight but more often than not its annoying and uncomfortable bloating. Unfortunately this happens pretty often which is why I haven’t blogged about it before.

I’ve completely stopped chewing gum and drinking Diet Coke (two prior vices) to see if that would improve things and it did slightly. I also (pre-blog) cut out dairy which seemed to help things for awhile but it was never a complete fix. I’ve added dairy back in since then.

I tend to notice bloating after I eat starchy foods and sweet baked goods and so now I’m wondering if I have some aversion to either gluten or refined sugar. I’m obviously not a doctor and am not trying to undermine food allergies, they’ve very serious conditions, but I am trying to improve my health and help me feel more comfortable. I intend to see a doctor after I graduate when I have more time to both keep a food diary and work at elminiation diets (both take a lot of planning and dedicated time that I just don’t have right now) but until then I’ve started to add some gluten free foods into my diet to see if I can tell a difference. So far I have (but then again its so hard to know without complete elimination) and I’ve actually really enjoyed the products I’ve tried. Plus, gluten free oats were cheaper than normal oats at my Trader Joe’s last week so it was really a no-brainer.

If you are all interested, I can keep you updated on my stomach condition and if you’re not then I’ll never blog about it again, seriously just tell me! My main goal is to keep this blog as positive as possible while also keepying myself healthy and feeling good :) .

Now onto something less serious. Today was an example of a day that I chose to run in the evening and guess what? I planned my meals well and had no stomach pain (or heel pain!!) while running!

Wooohooo!

I’m off to take a shower, eat some dinner, and relax because tomorrow is a loooong run day :)

Peanut Berry Bars

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Ian didn’t like the pumpkin muffins I made yesterday. I guess the texture of the almond flour really threw him off, so last night I decided to get creative in the kitchen and this morning I have a new recipe to share with you :) . Now don’t get too excited, this is definitely a healthy tasting recipe, but if you’re looking for a yummy, not-too-sugary breakfast/snack bar, this recipe might just come in handy. Plus, I bet it would also taste good mixed in yogurt or warmed in milk ;)

Peanut Berry Bars
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 T peanut flour
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 cups frozen berries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease baking pan. I used a 9 inch circular pan and the batter spread a little thin so if you prefer a thicker bar, I would definitely recommend using a smaller pan.

Microwave berries until they are no longer frozen but not yet warm. The berries will start leaking juice and this is okay.

Add all of the ingredients except for the berries to a large bowl and whisk until well-mixed. Gently stir in berries and juice until the batter takes on a pinkish tint.

Pour into the greased pan and cook for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

 Let cool and then cut into bars.

Have you developed any new recipes lately?

Midweek Recap

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Hey guys, I hope you are all doing great :) . The week is more than half over, that’s something to celebrate about right?

I have to admit that as much as I love doing WIAW posts and joining up with other bloggers, I always feel so detached from you all on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that in the future but in the meantime here’s an update of the past day or so.

Tuesday evenings are usually calzone night in the apartment but after coming across this recipe earlier this month I strongly suggested that we give it a shot this week and I am so glad that we did!

I halved the recipe and made it in three smaller dishes- one for me to eat that night, one for leftovers, and then another (the larger one on the left) for Ian with sausage.

I debating making salad or a vegetable to have on the side but honestly the bubble up pizza was enough. It was also incredibly delicious, who wouldn’t love biscuit pizza?

It was nice outside and I’m always down for a walk so we headed to Kingoberry & Potbelly so I could indulge my froyo craving and Ian could enjoy a shake.

I had chocolate with coconut, blueberries, strawberries, and one of Ian’s shake adornments. I swear kingo’s chocolate flavor tastes like a Wendy’s Frosty!

I was so far removed from productivity at that point that I gave up even trying to do homework and we finished watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and called it a night. I ended up liking the movie more than I thought I would but I definitely recommend reading the books first!

On Wednesday I headed out for a run first thing. While I enjoyed the run it was HARD. My legs were sore and achey and my mind, body, and legs were not in agreement about the pace. Luckily I eventually loosened up (around mile 6) and felt more normal after. It’s hard to say whether my legs are sore from re-introducing running, not taking a rest day for almost 2 weeks, or a mixture of both but my legs are sure getting a wake-up call. I also want to note that if I wasn’t running a marathon in three weeks I’d be easing into running more slowly but unfortunately Boston is coming up fast!

I took advantage of being home all day to prepare some food for meals this week/weekend. I roasted brussels sprouts, made quinoa, and cooked some peas. I was obviously getting quite a lot of school work done ;)

Lunch was a mix of all of the above with nutritional yeast and barbeque sauce. Yum!

I managed to squeak out a bit of productivity mid-afternoon and then took a break to make some pumpkin walnut muffins.

They’re made with almond flour so they’re gluten free and they smelled amazing baking in the oven.

By dinner, I had burned out on being in the kitchen so I kept it super simple and made tuna salad by mixing two cans of tuna, tzatiki sauce, relish, and peas. Ian had his as a tuna melt and I had mine over spinach.

Dessert was one of the new Ben & Jerry’s Greek Froyo Flavors, Strawberry Shortcake, with a mini brownie. I definitely wanted more!

When I woke up this morning and my legs were still stiff and sore, I knew that today needed to be an easy day. I completed 45 minutes on the elliptical at a slow pace to shake out my legs and it seems to have helped so far. Unfortunately, I won’t be going to the evening cycle class that I had planned but my legs need a break!

For breakfast I had a cottage cheese parfait with fig jam, banana, crumbled cream cheese muffin, sunflower seed butter, and gluten free granola.

It definitely hit the spot :)

I’m off to start my busy Thursday, have a good one!

WIAW {03-28-2012}

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It’s time for another What I ate Wednesday post. These eats are from this past Monday, enjoy :) And like always if you want to find out more about wiaw or you want to link up, check out Jenn’s blog Peas and Crayons for more info.

{5:30 a.m.} Pre-workout snack

Before going to a 5:45 cycling class I snacked on the list crumb of a spinach cheddar scone that my mom brought me from Michigan.

They’re from a local bakery that uses good, real ingredients. They’re tasty too!

Class was tough but exhilerating, I left a sweaty mess but feeling great :)

{7:15 a.m.} Breakfast

Breakast was lemon poppyseed overnight oats with walnuts and cookie butter on top. I tried to use the same recipe as my lemon poppyseed oatmeal but didn’t realize that some of the lemon extract must burn off in the warm version and my overnight oats tasted like lemon pine-sol. Ick! I managed to dilute them a bit with almond milk but had to have a small cup of cereal afterwards to get the aftertaste out of my mouth.

From now on I’m sticking with lemon chobani for lemon-flavored overnight oats! With breakfast I enjoyed a large mug of Starbucks blonde roast with soy creamer and an adora disc.

My dual breakfasts held me over nicely until lunch time, no morning snack necessary!

{11:45 a.m.} Lunch

I happily enjoyed the last third of my grilled cheese sandwich from Friday night. It was a little soggy (I ate it with a fork and knife) but tasted just as good as if it were fresh.

I also had a small handful of my favorite new desk snack, sahale snacks sing buri cashews.

{3:00 p.m.} Afternoon snack

Before I headed over to my evening class I snacked on an apple while finishing up some work.

{7:45 p.m.} Dinner

Dinner was a duad of broccli slaw stir-fry with mushrooms, onions, tofu, and siracha

And half of the leftover fried taro with peanut sauce.

As delicious as this meal was I’m not sure it was worth the resulting fiber baby.

{8:30 p.m.} Dessert

Even a fiber baby can’t keep me away from dessert so I enjoyed some homemade banana pudding. This pudding was so delicious that Ian and I finished it off in about 2 days. Crazy.

In addition to the above food, I drank copious amounts of water on Monday. I’m not sure if it was cycling-related but I know my salty stir-fry didn’t help. Just call me camel from now on.

Now your turn, tell me what’s the best thing you ate today?