Monthly Archives: October 2012

WIAW {10-31-2012}

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Hey guys, happy Halloween!

I’m running a bit behind (I squeezed in a 12-miler before work this morning) so let’s get right to the food, I’ll be showing you my meals from yesterday!
Spooky Snacks and Healthy Halloween Treats

As always thanks to Jenn for hosting!

{5:15 am} Pre-run Snack

Classic date stuffed with sunbutter that successfully fueled me through my 7 mile recovery run on the dreadmill.

{7:00 am} Breakfast

For breakfast I had oats in a jar. I cooked 1/2 cup oats, 1 1/2 cups water, and 1 tsp chia seeds on the stove until it started to boil. Then I added in 1/2 mashed banana and 2 T PB2. The oats came out tasting nice and peanut buttery and tasted great in the dark chocolate dreams jar!

When I got to work at 9, I drank some coffee with almond milk and stevia.

{12:00 pm} Lunch

I had some leftover soup from last week (it’s still good so I’m still eating it!) with half an avocado sliced on top. The two didn’t really go together but the avocado definitely cooled off the soup a bit. Plus, I’m under the impression the avocado (and hot sauce) make everything better :) .

I finished off lunch with two mandarin oranges.

{3:30 pm} Snack

My stomach started to grumble around 2 but I put off eating anything because I thought I was dehydrated. Half of a bottle of water later + a Vitamin Water later it was still grumbling so I had a mini Larabar that I got at the Chicago Marathon expo.

{7:00 pm} Dinner

I’ve been loving these huge fall-inspired salads. The one above is actually from Monday night and is loaded with a baby spinach/baby kale mix, sliced mushrooms, mandarin oranges, roasted brussels sprouts, walnuts, and dried cranberries.

The one I had last night had a base of steamed kale and was topped with mushrooms, roasted brussels sprouts, roasted butternut squash, dried cranberries, walnuts, and TJs light champagne vinaigrette dressing.

Both of these salads were delish and I actually struggled to finish mine last night.

{7:45 pm} Dessert

I mixed pumpkin, Life’s Essential Protein powder, and pumpkin pie spice together and crumbed in a piece of dark chocolate with ginger. I served it with an almond butter spoon.

What are your favorite salad toppings? Mine change pretty regularly but right now I’m loving roasted veggies — particularly brussels sprouts.

Have a great day!

Thriller in Schiller Race Recap

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As I’ve mentioned about 93,082,048 times, last Sunday, Kelsey, Emily, Katie, Alyssa, and I had a blast running the Thriller in Schiller 5k.

The Thriller in Schiller is a trail run located in Schiller Woods Forest Preserve about 30 minutes outside of the city. Kelsey offered to drive us so I’m not sure if the preserve is accessible via public transit but it most likely is– it seems that it’s possible to get almost anywhere in Chicagoland with little hassle.

The race was super easy to find thanks to some signage (our directions just said “turn right” and didn’t provide a street name) and race day packet pickup went swimmingly. Speaking of packets, each of us received a bib, a tech t-shirt, a pint glass, and a few coupons to local sporting stores and RoadID. What an awesome amount of stuff for only $25!

It was bit chilly so we hung out in the car until a few minutes before the race when Kelsey, Emily, and I finally put on our costumes: CONEHEADS! [remember that costume making party?]

Group shot with Katie as a runaway bride and Alyssa as a ref.

It seemed that almost half of the field dressed in costume which I thought was great. There were some really cool costumes too like pacman, the characters from Wizard of Oz etc. The costumes made the race feel really run and laid back. This would be an awesome race for a newbie runner in general.

Before we knew it, the race was about to start. It wasn’t tip chimed (FYI) but the pool was small enough that we were able to position ourselves at a comfortable place in the pack. None of us were running this for time– more than half of us were injured and I’d run 18 miles the day before– we just wanted to have fun!

The first part of the race took us through the woods on a leaf covered trail. The trees were marked but it would have been nearly impossible to get lost because for the most part everyone ran together. There were also a few obstacles like trees across the path that we had to climb over or duck under. It definitely kept things interesting with cones :).

We looped around for a bit (do I even need to tell you how beautiful running in the woods was?) and then came to a big obstacle, a small river crossing! There was a big tree sprawled across the river but you had to be careful not to slip or you would step in muddy and cold water. We all managed to get across and stay pretty dry but then I turned around and took this picture of Kelsey. Can we talk about how no one behind her is in costume?

The course kept twisting and turning through the woods and then we emerged and crossed over a small road onto a wider path where we ran an out and back to the finish line. Katie and Emily were both dealing with their injuries at this point but the rest of us had fun high five-ing the people running the other direction.

About 37 minutes later, we neared the finish line.

Woohoo we did it! We were greeted at the finish line with our pint glass, our times (announced), and water, bananas, and candy. There was also beer and hotdogs for sale. How fun! We hung around long enough to find out that none of us had won the costume contest *sniff* and then freezing we headed back to the city with big grins on our faces, we’d had so much fun!

The Thriller in Schiller 5k is a trail run that literally took us over a river and through the woods. It was challenging but friendly enough for newbie trail runners like most of us. More importantly we all had fun and most of us will be returning on December 1st to run the Schiller Chiller (5k and 10k available).

I want to thank Art for organizing and putting on the event and for offering me a free race entry. I had a blast and can’t wait to run his next race!

Note: All pictures above are mine or were taken by race photographers and posted on facebook for anyone to use.

Have you ever run a trail run? Are you running the Schiller Chiller?

Monday Things {10-29-2012}

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1. After an incredibly chaotic week at work, Ian and I went out to sushi on Friday evening. We decided to try sushi x in River West [again] because neither of us could remember if we really liked it the first time we went (over a year ago and I think pre-blog).

We both really enjoyed it! To start I had their salad with ginger dressing and Ian had hot spinach with peanut sauce and then for our actual sushi, we split a caterpillar roll and an order of white tuna and hamachi nigiri, I had an avocado roll, and Ian had their omega roll. It was delicious!

2. Saturday morning I woke up super early and got my long run on. Before I headed out I had a rice cake with sunflower butter, raisins, and chia seeds and then during my run I had a mocha clif gu shot (1/4 at mile 10, 12, 14, & 16). This way of fueling really seemed to work for me and I could see the difference in my mile splits! Most importantly, it was absolutely gorgeous out and I had a wonderful run. I can’t wait to get out there next Sunday!

3. When I got back from my run, I refueled with an amazing smoothie. I blended 1 frozen banana with 1 scoop protein powder, 1 cup almond milk, 1 big spoonful of chocolate peanut butter, and maybe 2 T oats to thicken everything up. It was awesome!

I also made a veggie hash to hold me over until book club at 2:30. I pan-fried a sweet potato, onion, and mushrooms and then added lots of spices and tomato paste. I topped the hash with TJ’s fat free black bean dip.

4. We had our book club meet-up on Saturday afternoon and Diana was sweet enough to host this month. We feasted on lots of fall dishes: maple butternut squash casserole, apple butter, hot cider, and pumpkin hummus [...to name a few] and attempted to actually discuss last month’s book Dark Places by Gillian Flynn (author of Gone Girl). We all really liked it and some of us liked it even more than Gone Girl. It’s definitely worth reading!

5. After book club, I met Ian at Hackney’s to watch the Michigan-Nebraska game. I don’t have much to say about the game but we did enjoy a nice, light dinner.

I wasn’t too hungry after book club but I figured I should eat something to help my muscles recover so I ordered a glass of wine and a garden salad. Ian also ordered a wedge and some fries for us to split. Fries covered in ketchup seriously have to be my favorite “junk” food. Yum!

6. Sunday morning I woke up early to eat breakfast before heading over to the Thriller in Schiller. I had two buckwheat & chia waffles topped with sun butter, pumpkin mixed with pb2 and pumpkin pie spice, and a drizzle of maple syrup. This hit the spot and was easily digested before the 5k (10 am).

7. The Thriller in Schiller was an absolute blast! Our costumes were silly (Kelsey, Emily, and I dressed as coneheads) and the course had just enough obstacles to make it challenging but not too intense. I’m going to do a race review/recap tomorrow but all I can say is that I had so much fun and I am seriously considering running the Schiller Chiller 10k on December 1st. Hey, maybe I’ll even wear a costume to that :) .

8. I didn’t have coffee before the race and I felt awful/tired/sick afterwards. I went home, ate some soup, and parked my butt on the couch for a few hours. Much needed!

9. After running some errands (including grocery shopping!), I made this awesome salad for dinner.

I’ll admit it would have been better had I made the tofu included in the recipe but as I don’t do soy I skipped it. Next time I’d make the tofu glaze and use it on salmon or something else to add another flavor/texture to the dish.

10. Ian and I spent our Sunday night catching up on our DVR. It was just what I needed!

11. My appetite has been off the past few days (and my throat hurts so I hope I’m not getting sick!) so I decided to keep breakfast light today and have some cereal. I mixed 1 cup puffed millet, 1 T walnuts, 1 T pepitas, and 1 T raisins and topped it with about 1 cup almond milk, 1 small banana, a sunflower seed butter spoon, and a little honey.

Delicious!

12. Ian just told me the market is closed today because of Hurricane Sandy and he has the day off. Everybody on the East Coast keep safe!

What did you do this weekend?

Marathon Training Week 12 {Goofy Challenge}

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This was a really fun training week!

Monday – Off
Tuesday – Lactate threshold 10 miles w/ 5 miles at 15k pace (7:15-7:20 min/mile) (avg 7:36 min/mile)
Wednesday – Recovery 4 miler (avg 8:31 min/mile)
Thursday – General aerobic 11 miler (avg 7:57 min/mile)
Friday – General aerobic 7 miler w/ 8 x 100 m strides (avg 8:11 min/mile)
Saturday – 18 miler long run (avg 7:51 min/mile)
Sunday – Thriller in Schiller 5k (avg slow!)

Total Miles= 53.1

I switched things up so that my long run would fall on Saturday and I could enjoy the Thriller in Schiller. I was nervous about loading up on the miles later in the week but it went alright. During my long run I tried a mocha clif gel with caffeine and really liked it, you can definitely see the difference in my splits below (I took 1/4 of the gel at 10, 12, 14, & 16) and just look at mile 17! I probably ran a little conservatively but that’s just fine. I also recovered with a water bottle of strawberry lemonade nuun.

The Thriller in Schiller was so much fun that it deserves it’s own post! Keep your eyes peeled, my guess is it’ll be up Tuesday!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Five for Friday {10-26-2012}

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1. As nice as the random burst of hot weather was, I have to say I’m glad that it’s cooled off. See our apartment building turned off the air conditioning on October 1st and as we’re one of the top units on our side of the building it tends to be warm in our apartment during the winter (heat rises yo!). The return of hot weather has made our apartment more than a little uncomfortable and unfortunately we can’t open the windows because a certain furball likes heights/danger and we don’t have screens.

2. The presence of Naturally Nutty in my fridge has me craving breakfast quesadillas again. Why is pepita butter so good with melty banana?

Everything is always better with HUGE grapes.

3. Runs this week are going well. After my tempo 10 miler on Tuesday, I ran 4 miles recovery-style on Wednesday and then yesterday I ran a general aerobic 11 miler and ran into Emily! [I love running into people I know on the lake path, it definitely makes me feel less crazy for being up and running at 5:30 am!] Today I ran a general aerobic 7 miler with 8 x 100 m strides, tomorrow will be my long run (18!), and then Sunday is the Thriller in Schiller. What a fun week of running.

4. Last night I made this soup recipe and it was awesome! I really really liked it but I was a little impatient in waiting for the soup to be done. I tried to taste some and I ended up burning my lip pretty badly. Let’s just say I’m sporting a nice blister today. The soup was so good, it might have just been worth it?

5. I can’t wait until it’s officially the weekend! Not only has this week been BUSY but my weekend looks so fun! Ian and I are going out to dinner tonight, tomorrow I have my long run + book club, and then on Sunday I’m running the Thriller in Schiller with a bunch of my friends. Can it please just be 5 o’clock already??

What do you have planned this weekend?