Good morning – Happy Hump Day! Hope everyone had a good Tuesday. My day was pretty good – I started off with a nice breakfast of oatmeal with banana and peanut butter, along with a side of light cranberry juice. A very filling breakfast.
It was such a filling breakfast that I didn’t even have a mid-morning snack – so unlike me. But lunch was filling enough as well, I had leftover chicken and spinach bulgur from the night before. This meal was very hearty.
Afternoon snacks were Chobani yogurt with Kashi Go Lean cereal (aren’t you so sick of this snack – maybe I will switch it up on Thursday) and an apple.
After work, I headed to the gym to try to squeeze in as much of a run as possible. I ran a decent 4 miles in 33:26 and then was going to stop, but saw that there were one or two treadmills opens, so I ran another mile for a total of 5 miles in 42:30. Then I noticed people waiting so I hopped off and did some ab work. I slacked on doing free-weight arm exercises, but oh well.
So far, this week I am doing okay with my marathon training. Here is a link to access my training plan through Google Docs. I like using this program because I can update it from anywhere. Here’s a brief snapshot of my progress so far:
I can’t wait until it starts getting warmer and light outside later so I can do my longer week workouts outside — running 8 miles on the treadmill would not be fun.
After the gym, I was craving veggies in a really weird way, so I came home and made a giant salad for dinner with Mediterranean lettuce, carrots, goat cheese, raisins, and walnuts. I drizzled Newman’s Light Balsamic Vinaigrette over top.
It was delicious and hit the spot, but then I was craving some dessert (very much like me). I decided to try to make Tina’s 3-Minute Oatmeal Raisin Cookie into a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie. I followed her original recipe, but added peanut butter, swapped out raisins for chocolate chips, used protein powder in place of flour, left out the cinnamon, used Truvia instead of brown sugar and voila!
The addition of the peanut butter made it a little gooey in places, but I was okay with that. I also doubled the original recipe, which produced a GIANT cookie – totally unnecessary. Somehow, I managed to eat it all, but wouldn’t double it again in the future. Here was my final recipe:
Thanks again to Tina for this great recipe and congrats to her on her two-year blog birthday!
Lastly, here are a few health headlines that caught my eye:
Slimmer Doesn’t Always Mean Fitter – I am still trying to determine what my “best” weight is for running. Hopefully I can figure it out by May – just in time for the marathon! How about you – have you PRed or run better when you were either heavier or lighter – how did you find your ideal running weight?
Rules Worth Following, for Everyone’s Sake – I am buying Michael Pollan’s new book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, published in December 2009. I really want to read his other books: In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but I think Food Rules has moved to the top of my list. This NY Times article gives a great overview of the book’s main ideas, as well as some general info/facts about healthy eating. Have you read any of Pollan’s books? Will you be checking this one out?
Have a great Wednesday everyone. I’ve got some exciting plans tonight: I’m going to the ballet with Katie and trying some authentic Greek food beforehand! I’m super excited! See you tomorrow.
Eat, Read, Run 
I really want to know if losing about 5 pounds would make me faster…but I don’t want to actually lose the 5 pounds! I love my food!
I’ve been meaning to try the 3-minute cookie – I am such a cookie monster 🙂
In terms of best running weight, it’s a tough call. On the one hand, if you’re lighter, you can run more efficiently. However, if your body weight gets TOO low, problems like anemia and lack of energy can start to affect performance. I think if you’re training consistently and eating healthy most of the time, you’ll end up at the right weight.
I agree, but I do think I ate a bit too much during my first marathon training, which caused me to gain weight. I used the whole “I’m running a marathon and can eat whatever I want excuse.” So this time around, I am trying to maintain my diet a little better to avoid overeating and adding unnecessary weight to my body.
Yum- enjoy the Greek food! I’m about halfway through The Omnivore’s Dilemma… it is really interesting and very eye-opening. I will definitely be looking into his new book- thanks for posting!
I have yet to read any of his books, but they are on my list. Just got the Kind Diet yesterday and I’m interested to try some of the recipes.
On another note–if you’ve read Born to Run, you might be interested in checking out my interview with Chris McDougall at http://www.misszippy1.blogspot.com
It was lots of fun to chat with a writer/runner like him!
Yes! I was actually on your blog yesterday during my lunch break reading that interview! I couldn’t leave a comment, I think because of some security settings on my web browser here at work. But it was a really great post and I loved your interview.