Fun and Run Sunday

Posted on March 8, 2010 | 12 comments

Good morning all – it’s Monday again already. Whoever decided that weekends should only be two days and the work week five days was a cruel person. I think it should be reversed.

I’ll start by giving you a quick recap of Sunday, which was a busy and beautiful day. I woke up pretty late  – around 9:15 and had a light breakfast of granola with blueberries and blackberries.

I kept my breakfast light because I was attending a fun blogger lunch at noon. I met up with Lindsay around 11:45 and we walked over to Candle Cafe. I’ve eaten dinner there before, but had yet to try brunch/lunch.

I was really craving some breakfast-brunch food and was excited to see waffles on the menu. I ordered the waffles, along with a much-needed coffee. The waffles were delicious – they came with banana, apple and candied pecans on top. I gobbled them right up while enjoying some lively conversation with five other fellow bloggers. Here we are:

From the front left, that would be me, Lindsay, Katherine, Dori, Ashley and Melissa. Katherine and Melissa had just finished a run in Central Park and oh how it made me jealous. I decided I needed to squeeze a run in at some point in the afternoon. It was a lovely gathering and the conversation was wonderful – I can’t wait to do it again in the near future!

After my brunch/lunch I headed home to start the dreaded laundry. I settled on doing two loads and then squeezing in a run – the sun was beckoning me.

I finally made it out around 4:15 and headed to the promenade along the East River. My run yesterday felt good, but it didn’t feel fast and although I should have been taking this run slow as a recovery, I decided to test my speed a bit. Here are my stats:

Mile 1 – 8:04
Mile 2 – 8:08
Mile 3 – 8:23
Mile 4 – 8:03
.52 – 4:35

Total Mileage: 4.52 miles in 37.13

It wasn’t particularly easy to maintain that pace, but it did feel good to be moving faster. I’ve decided I definitely need to work more fast runs like this into my week, along with some hill-work. It’s time to get serious if I want to try to qualify.

Have you ever tried to increase your speed – what kind of workouts did you do?

After my run, I cleaned the apartment a bit and then made some dinner. I was inspired by this recipe from Cooking Light.com, but definitely made some changes.  

Pasta with Chicken and Spinach

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup)

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups of wheat pasta  (9-ounce) package fresh cheese tortellini (such as DiGiorno)
  • 1  tablespoon  pine nuts
  • 1  teaspoon  olive oil
  • 6  4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1/8 cup of chopped onion
  • 1  (6-ounce) package fresh baby spinach
  • 1/4  cup  (1 ounce) preshredded Parmesan cheese
  • 2 Laughing Cow Light Swiss Cheese triangles
  • 1/4 cup of dry white wine
  • 1 tablespoon of butter
  • 1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
  • 1 large chicken breast 2  ounces  prosciutto, thinly sliced

Preparation

1. Cook pasta according to the package directions.

2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add nuts to pan; cook 1 1/2 minutes or until toasted, stirring occasionally. Then add garlic and onion to pan; cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add spinach and chicken to pan; cook until chicken starts to brown and spinach is wilted. Add the wine and butter – cook for 2 minutes. Turn down the head and add laughing cow cheese and mix until evenly distributed.

3. Add pasta to the pan and toss with chicken and spinach mixture.

I enjoyed my meal with a glass of red wine.

It was very yummy and the Hubby said he liked it much better than some of my recent “crazy concoctions.” 🙂

After dinner, we settled in to wait for the Oscars to start. To make it a bit more interesting, I printed two ballot forms from online and gave one to Hubby to fill out and one for me. Here’s my blue ballot:

A little while later I decided I needed a snack for the start of the show. I slathered some peanut butter on a few triscuits and finished up the blackberries.

And then we watched The Academy Awards. And boy did they go on forever! For some reason, I didn’t think this year’s show was all that funny or entertaining. I just kind of kept waiting to check off my ballot boxes.

What did you think of the awards?

As I said in a previous post, I wasn’t such a huge fan of The Hurt Locker, but my instincts told me it was going to win. And indeed, I was right. I ended up winning our ballot guessing contest by only missing 7 categories as opposed to the Hubby who missed 10. He picked Avatar to win more awards and I agree with him that it should have won more, but my gut said it just wasn’t going to happen.  

By the time the awards were over it was waaay past my bedtime. Hence, I’m a tired little lady this morning, but will hopefully wake up as the day progresses. Have a great Monday all!

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Feeling Better 15 Miler

Posted on March 7, 2010 | 7 comments

Happy sunny Sunday afternoon all! I hope everyone is having a great weekend and got a chance to enjoy some of this nice weather.

I started my weekend off very low-key on Friday night. I was exhausted from a busy week and came home to veg with the Hubby. We were super lazy and ordered pizza, stayed in and watched the movie 2012. I know what you’re thinking – terrible movie, but actually….I didn’t hate it like I thought I would. It was very action packed and absolutely ridiculous at times, but it held my attention.

I went to bed around midnight on Friday and was up and out for my long run on Saturday by about 8:30.  I fueled up with my usual English muffin with peanut butter and banana (no pic).

Happily, this long run wasn’t a terrible as the last one, but I’m still not feeling fast enough to even come close to qualifying for Boston. Here are my stats:

Mile 1 – 10:17
Mile 2 – 8:41
Mile 3 – 8:57
Mile 4 – 8:56
Mile 5 – 9:10
Mile 6 – 8:29
Mile 7 – 8:57
Mile 8 – 8:45
Mile 9 – 9:13
Mile 10 – 9:06
Mile 11 – 8:46
Mile 12 – 8:42
Mile 13 – 8:58
Mile 14 – 9:42
Mile 15: 8:53

Total Mileage – 15.05 miles in 2:15:56

And I brought my hand-held water bottle along this time. When I trained for my first marathon I went with the fuel belt hydration method, but it annoyed me every now and then. I decided to try out the handheld version for this training. I didn’t mind carrying it too much. It was a little heavy and cold in the beginning, but it was also cold outside, so that probably didn’t help anything. I was glad I brought my water. I tend not to feel as thirsty when I’m running in colder weather, but my body really does need more hydration than I think.

What is your preferred hydration method for long runs?

After my run I was pretty tired. I had planned to do laundry and clean a bit, but I ended up being pretty lazy. I refueled from my run with a Chobani yogurt with Galaxy Granola and Apple Pie Larabar.

It was a lazy afternoon and a lazy dinner. I just had some Kashi Heart to Heart Cereal while we watched The Hurt Locker. I know this movie got rave reviews, but I wasn’t really a fan.

So who else is excited for the Academy Awards tonight?!! I can’t wait. I just got back from a brunch/lunch with a few fellow local blogettes (love that term) and I’ll give you a full recap tomorrow – it was lots of fun. But for now, it’s time for lots of laundry, hopefully a quick 4-5 mile run, figuring out what’s for dinner and getting ready for the Academy Awards! Have a great Sunday all!

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Friday After Five Already?!

Posted on March 5, 2010 | 7 comments

Holy Cow – where did the day go? It’s already Friday after 5 p.m.! And my day started super early with a 5:40 a.m. run with Katherine and Liz. Here they are:

Oops and Bodhi of course! Can’t forget him – he was our guard dog for the run. Aren’t they just the cutest?

We ran from York to Central Park and then ran a little ways along the outer drive and back. There were a few other runners out as well. We ended up running about 4.5 miles – a nice start to a Friday morning. 🙂 Thanks girls!

Now for a quick recap of yesterday’s eats. Yesterday’s breakfast was Kashi Heart to Heart with blueberries.

Lunch was a salad and my afternoon snack was Chobani with more Galaxy Granola (unpictured).

My day was busy and flew by. I didn’t eat my yogurt until about 4:30 p.m. Then after work I headed to the gym to squeeze in a 5-7 mile run. I definitely ate my yogurt too close to my workout – oh the stomach pains! I managed to finish 6 miles in 51:33 – I just could not force the last mile. I’ll never do that again.

Luckily, by the time I left the gym my tummy was feeling better and just in time for a nice stomach-jarring dinner: tacos.

I packed them pretty full…

To be honest, these didn’t hurt my stomach at all. I was wary about eating tacos the night before a morning run, but they didn’t bother me in the least (thankfully for my running companions – hehe). I made myself three tacos, but was so ravenous I ate four.

And yes, I apparently still needed dessert.

Blueberries and blackberries with more Galaxy Granola.

Now it’s the end of the day and time to head home. I am looking forward to a quiet evening at home with the Hubby watching a movie, maybe making some pasta, and heading to bed early cuz I have a lovely 15-miler planned for the morning. Hope it goes better than last weekend. 😦

What’s on your weekend agenda? Are you going to take advantage of the nice weather forecasted? Do some spring cleaning? Or maybe just relax?

I also have a Sunday lunch planned with some UES bloggers which I’m pretty excited about – so stay tuned and have a great weekend!!

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Lots of Updates!

Posted on March 4, 2010 | 9 comments

Happy Thursday – we are almost at the weekend! I definitely need a break. I’ve been exhausted this week and super busy. My morning run did not happen today, so it’s off to the gym for me tonight.

Updates! Updates!
Before I recap yesterday’s eats, I wanted to point out a few updates on my blog. First, there is a new section on the top navigation bar called “Reviews.” This section will be for book reviews, product reviews, restaurant reviews and anything else I can think of. And in that section, I just posted my latest book review of The Historian. I also updated my “Currently Reading” page. You should check them all out!

Secondly, stay tuned for my very first product review to come shortly. My food recap will give you a nice sneak preview.

Breakfast yesterday was delish – oatmeal with banana and almond butter.

I snacked on a nice big apple around mid-morning (no pic) and then for lunch I had chicken breast deli meat with mustard, a slide of American cheese and baby spinach on an Arnold’s sandwich thin.

I also had a Chobani blueberry yogurt with some granola.

The granola in my yogurt was this kind:

Galaxy Granola
I received a sample package of Galaxy Granola on Tuesday evening and gave it a try with my yogurt. Galaxy Granola is baked in fruit rather than oil, which means it has 70% less fat than most other granola. The sample pack Galaxy sent me to test out had three flavors:

Vanilla with almond, cranberry orange and not sweet vanilla. I tried the not sweet vanilla first (blue bag) and used it in my yogurt. I was expecting that it might have a less-flavorful taste, but it was really good with just the right hint of sweetness, but not overpowering like some of the more sugary granola out there. I’ll have a full product review coming soon!

This granola also has no artificial ingredients, no oil, no corn syrup and no processed sugars – nice! Galaxy recently started a blog called fruitnotfat and they are on Facebook and Twitter. Plus, in honor of National Nutrition Month, they are giving away a bag of their delish granola to the first 50 people to contact them. So head to their site quick – it will probably go fast!

On to my afternoon. I completely forgot that I had signed up for another camera class until I got the reminder on Tuesday morning from Adorama. The class was from 6 -9 p.m., so I knew I would need some snackies to hold me over.

Around 4 p.m. I ate a Larabar and some veggies with balsamic vinegar.

This Adorama class was called EOS Discovery Day and it was all about the basic functions and tools of an SLR camera. This class was much better for me than the last one I took. The instructor was great and talked about so many things: ISO, shutter speed, aperture, auto focus, exposure, flash and helpful photography tips. They also provided us with a great booklet filled with helpful, digestible info (not like a camera manual). That booklet really made the class worth the money for me. I took a lot away from the class, but now it’s really going to be about practicing what I learned and getting comfortable with all the settings.

I was seriously wiped out and hungry after that class and finally got home around 9:45 p.m. I snacked on some triscuits with cheese and also ate a big bowl of blueberries and blackberries.

I set my alarm last night for 5 a.m. with grand plans of going for a morning run, but I was zonked out. I plan to hit the gym tonight to try to squeeze in 5-7 miles.

Have you ever taken a camera class? What’s the most helpful tip anyone has given you about an SLR camera (from a class or anywhere)? How long did it take you to get comfortable with your SLR options and move away from the automatic mode and into the “creative modes” (as the instructor called them)?

Have a great Thursday all – talk to you on Friday!! 🙂

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Taste Buds and Tax Time

Posted on March 3, 2010 | 19 comments

Hello blog world! How’s everyone’s hump day going so far? I didn’t get up and run this morning, so it was kind of nice to sleep in a bit. It was rainy and dark outside, so I was happy to snuggle under the covers. Here is a quick run-down of yesterday’s eats.

Yesterday, after my run with Katherine, I had a lightish breakfast of an English muffin with peanut butter and jelly. We were all out of bananas. Sadness.

As I headed to work I was hit with a big wave of hunger and knew I needed to stop for something else to nosh on before I got into work. I stopped at the little shop next door and got a coffee, banana and seltzer. For some reason, I was really craving seltzer water, which is not a normal thing for me.

Changing Taste Buds
I’ve never really been a fan of seltzer water until I had it a few weeks ago at my old boss’s apartment. It’s so funny how your tastes can change just like that! I also didn’t used to like onions or tomatoes and now I love both!

Do you have any foods or drinks like that – that you disliked for a long time and then all of a sudden discovered you enjoy?

Coffee is another one for me. I never drank it until my first job out of college and I’ve been hooked ever since. I also don’t know how I got through 8:00 a.m. classes in college without coffee.

So I ate my second breakfast and then didn’t have lunch till around 1:30. I picked up a salad and some salt and vinegar pop chips.

Later in the afternoon I snacked on a chobani yogurt with kashi go lean cereal and a Larabar.

After work I headed home and quickly gathered my stuff to head to our tax preparer. I barely had time to think about dinner, so I ended up just chowing down on a bowl of Kashi Heart to Heart cereal with a little bit of granola and almond milk.

Tax Time!
The Hubby and I filed jointly for the first time this year and boy does the government like to tax married people. We didn’t end up owing anything, which is good, but we didn’t get as much back as we wanted either.

I used to love tax season because I would get a nice big refund check. Now I get more nervous that we’ll have to pay.

Do you love or hate tax season?

I’m just glad we got that over with.

Health in the news…

Even More Reasons to Get a Move On: Duh – exercise is good for you and helps with aging. Nothing too new here.

Check out this site: http://www.eatright.org/Public/ maintained by the American Dietetic Association. It has some great info in honor of March being National Nutrition Month.

In Obesity Epidemic, What’s One Cookie? 

Foodborne illness costs U.S. $152 billion annually: study: Very scary data – I hope that Congress actually tackles food safety standards this year.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

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Delicious Dinner and Garmin Gripe

Posted on March 2, 2010 | 15 comments

Good morning – how is your Tuesday going? Mine has been pretty busy and productive so far. But first, let me talk a little bit about the dinner I went to last night.

Megan from the  Runner’s Kitchen organized a dinner gathering with a few fellow local bloggers and blog readers. We all met at Caravan of Dreams for what turned out to be a delicious meal. Our group of girls consisted of myself, Megan, Katherine, Liz, Irina, Jess, and Jacqui.  

Katherine and I traveled from the UES together and quickly realized that neither one of us is very good at navigating. We got ourselves a little lost and ended up showing up about 10 minutes late. Oops – sorry!

After we finally managed to point ourselves in the right direction and get there, we quickly settled in to look at the menu. Caravan serves organic vegan food and the menu was gigantic. I seriously experienced a slight feeling of panic because there were soo many things I wanted to order, I wasn’t sure how to narrow it down.

I settled on the: BURRITO MONOSKI with seitan, black beans, brown rice, sautéed vegetables, guacamole and salsa. I didn’t snack much yesterday, so I was ravenous and wanted something filling. We placed our orders and our salads arrived quickly – I pulled out my camera, turned it on and watched as it told me to change my battery pack. I’m a bad blogger. Seriously – everyone’s food looked amazing and smelled amazing. I’m sorry I can’t back that up with some nice photos. 😦

I chose the burrito monoski because it sounded great, but I was also interested in trying Seitan for the first time. So what is seitan?

Source: “Although it is made from wheat, seitan has little in common with flour or bread. Also called “wheat meat”, “wheat gluten” or simply “gluten”, seitan becomes surprisingly similar to the look and texture of meat when cooked, making it a popular meat substitute. Seitan is also high in protein, making it a popular protein source for vegetarians.”

I can say with all honesty that my meal tasted like a regular chicken burrito. Maybe even better. It was flavorful and large and had plenty of guac and salsa – what more could you want?

Caravan also has a diverse tea menu – yay! I ended up ordering the dessert tea, which had a delicious vanilla flavor and aroma.

Our dinner was very nice – I was at the end of the table, so I feel like I missed out on chatting with some of the girls on the other end, but overall it was great to talk about running, good food and more NYC restaurant recommendations than I can even remember. These girls knew their restaurants and I was trying to keep all the names in my head – no such luck.

Katherine, Liz and I headed back to the UES together and Katherine said she was game for a run the next morning. YAY!

So today my training plan called for a 7-mile run, but let’s be honest, with the way I felt after my Sunday 14-miler, there was no way that was happening. I was still sore and thought that a nice 4-5 mile run sounded manageable.

We met at the crack of dawn…actually pre-dawn, there was no sun yet, and set out for a run on the streets of NYC. I finally got to meet Katherine’s dog Bodhi and he was so adorable and such a good runner. I loved when I would have to run a bit behind him because there wasn’t enough room for the three of us on the sidewalk and he would look behind him every now and then to see where I was – like he was checking on me. 🙂

Last night, Katherine and I had been talking about running on the city streets and how she had heard from others that Garmins don’t work very well. I told her that mine worked perfectly last time and I thought we’d have no problem.

WRONG! Katherine was indeed correct – my Garmin seemed to have some problems locating us and ended up telling us we were running super slow, then super fast and then that we hadn’t run as much as we thought.

Katherine used www.mapmyrun.com to map out our route and it looked like this more or less:

It came out to be a 4.56 miles. Now, here is the Garmin run:

Look similar right? Well, when you zoom in a bit, things get a little funky:

It seems like we were zig-zagging and cutting corners left and right, but we really were not. At then end, I ran from Katherine’s apt to my apt, which added about .29 more to the total and according to Garmin the run only reached 4.29 miles. According to mapmyrun, when we reached Katherine’s apartment we were already at 4.56 miles.

So who knows what the precise mileage was, but I am a bit annoyed that my Garmin seems to have such a hard time when I run the city streets.

Has anyone else who lives and runs in a major city (with lots of tall buildings) experienced the same problem?

I like running on the streets when it’s too dark for the park or promenade, but guess I will have to settle for a general estimate of my mileage.

The highlight of the run though was most definitely when we saw the sun rise at 6:04 a.m.!!! So early!! Daylight Savings here we come! 🙂

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Ouch, I’m Sore

Posted on March 1, 2010 | 4 comments

Happy Monday all. It is a happy one for me because I woke up this morning to see sunlight streaming through our windows! To me, that means Spring is right around the corner (knock on wood).

However, my happiness was flattened a bit when I climbed out of bed with some terrible aches and pains. Oh yes, my 14 miler yesterday really left its mark. Hubby was probably right when he said that I should have scaled back my long run after such a long break. I probably should have only attempted 10-12 miles, but I really like to stick to my training plan as much as possible. I’m a little stubborn. 🙂

Anyway – thanks for the words of encouragement following my fearful 14 miler yesterday. I’m very competitive and I don’t like failing – so the thought of not qualifying in May was really scaring me. I’m going to chalk my bad run up to my sickness and hope that the next few long runs are much better.

As far as yesterday’s eats go, my pre-run breakfast was an English muffin with peanut butter and banana – unphotographed.

After my run, I refueled with a Chobani yogurt and Kashi Go Lean.

I was so tired from my run that I took a little nap after my yogurt. When I got up, Hubby and I set to work cleaning the apartment. Mid-way through I needed a snack so I had a Kind Bar.

A little while later, I also had an apple with cheddar cheese (no picture).

Dinner last night was leftover venison chili. Chelsea asked me a while back where I am able to find venison. The answer is: my hunting hubby. 🙂 I wrote a post a while ago about hubby’s hunting and why I support it. I was a little bit wary of eating deer meat initially, but I’ve really grown to like it now.

Have you ever tried venison?

A little while after dinner I had some dessert:

I’ve been doing pretty well with not eating sweets, but the cravings are still there. Hubby has been making fun of the massive amounts of gum I have been chewing. 🙂 Hey – whatever works right?

I have got a busy week ahead of me. Tonight I’m meeting up with a few local bloggers for dinner, tomorrow night we’re getting our taxes done (our Friday night meeting was canceled because of the snow), and I’m taking another camera class on Wednesday night.

Have a great week everyone!! Think Spring thoughts and hopefully March will come in like a lamb and out like a lamb!

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A Fearful 14 Miles

Posted on February 28, 2010 | 11 comments

Don’t worry – the title of this post has nothing to do with anything unsafe happening to me on my run this morning, it just expresses my state of mind during and after my run. I woke up this morning to see the sun shining and the temperature hovering around 37-37 degrees. All signs pointed to me running my 14 miles outside. Thank goodness because the thought of running 14 miles on the treadmill seemed daunting.

I headed out around 9:00 a.m. – I woke up a bit late today. My trek to Central Park wasn’t even so bad – the streets are much clearer and the intersections only have a few big puddles here and there. I made it into Central Park and was thrilled to see the drive completely cleared and filled with runners!

Hooray – I hopped on the drive and began my run. And within a few minutes I noticed that my pace was slower than normal. I thought to myself: “This is fine. I’ve had 9 days off from running. I need to ease back into it and should be taking things slow.”

I’ll let you in on a secret ritual I have: I always tell myself that my speed and pace for every run don’t matter. That way, I feel less pressure and don’t get nerves before my runs. However, although I tell myself this – I always still try to push it a bit to reach my ideal times.

So I told myself the usual and then was very upset when I wasn’t running faster. The marathon is not so far away anymore and I my speed needs to be stronger. I know, I’m a big complainer, but this run just made me very nervous that I can’t actually reach my BQ goal. Anyway – here are my stats from the run:

Mile 1 – 9:31
Mile 2 – 8:33
Mile 3 – 8:56
Mile 4 – 9:13
Mile 5 – 8:59
Mile 6 – 8:37
Mile 7 – 8:48
Mile 8 – 9:03
Mile 9 – 9:11
Mile 10 – 9:09
Mile 11 – 9:05
Mile 12 – 9:06
Mile 13 – 9:10
Mile 14 – 9:55

Total mileage – 14.11 in 2:08:22.

I already know that people are going to tell me that looks like a great run. It didn’t feel like a great run. And if I look back at my recent runs, I’ve been hovering around 8:30-8:45 for most of my mile splits and was feeling great! This run was soo hard and I felt like I was really pushing it and still only hitting about 9 minute miles. I’m just getting nervous. :-/

Now that I’m feeling better, it’s time to start really sticking to my training plan and kicking it in high gear if I want to have ANY chance of qualifying for Boston.

Sorry for the long rant – I think I’m just trying to rationalize my bad run and pump myself up.

Anyway, here are my eats from Saturday:

I made a breakfast cookie yesterday that actually wasn’t that great. I was kind of just making up the ingredient amounts as I went and I should have stuck to the original recipe more closely.

Later in the afternoon I made myself a weird little sandwich – it had beans, grape tomatoes, a slice of cheddar cheese, baby spinach and salsa on an Arnold Thin. It was a little messy, but it hit the spot.

I was very happy when Hubby offered to make venison chili for dinner. I used up some leftover pasta and added it to the chili in prep for my Sunday morning run.

And finally, for dessert I had some walnuts with raisins.

So those were my eats yesterday. Kind of boring, but I never like to try anything too crazy the day before a run.

And I was seriously in bed by 11:00 p.m. last night and didn’t get out of bed until 7:45 a.m. this morning. That was a lot of sleep, but I think I needed it.

Here’s my question to you all – do you ever get nervous that you won’t be able to meet a goal you’ve set for yourself? How do you handle that fear?

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Busy Bee Me and a Break

Posted on February 26, 2010 | 5 comments

Good morning. I promised I would be back, but I’ve been MIA once again. Things have been so busy at work and then I’m so tired at home that I haven’t had much time to blog. Today I am working from home again because NYC got dumped on! I honestly did not think this snow storm would amount to much, but I woke up this morning to see mounds of snow outside. I contemplated heading into work, I even showered, ate breakfast and started gathering my things, but then decided to check with my boss to see if it would be okay to work from home. Thankfully she said yes!

So I’m working from home, but am actually showered this time! I feel so productive. Rather than recap all my eats for the past two days, I’m just going to highlight two that were particularly delightful.

On Wednesday morning I made Oats in a Jar! Oats with banana poured into my almost-empty peanut butter jar.

And now I will shamefully admit that I haven’t run at all this week. Between getting sick and having lots of work to do, I decided that a one week break from my training program might be okay. I am hoping I will return to the treadmill and road will more energy and excitement. But I have a 14 mile run planned for tomorrow and I don’t see that happening. I’m moving it to Sunday – maybe the Central Park road will be cleared by then.

I also wanted to post my Wednesday night dinner, which was pretty good.

This recipe was from Cookinglight.com: Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomato-Mushroom Sauce.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 chicken breast half and 1/2 cup sauce)

Ingredients

  • 4  teaspoons  olive oil, divided
  • 4  (4-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
  • 1/2  teaspoon  salt
  • 1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
  • 2  cups  presliced mushrooms
  • 1/3  cup  finely chopped shallots
  • 3/4  cup  fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
  • 1/4  cup  sun-dried tomato sprinkles (I used sun-dried tomato from a jar – cut up)
  • 1/4  cup  dry white wine
  • 1  tablespoon  chopped fresh parsley

Preparation

Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Add chicken to pan; cook 4 minutes on each side or until done. Remove from pan; keep warm.

Reduce heat to medium. Add 2 teaspoons oil, mushrooms, and shallots; cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in broth, tomato sprinkles, and wine; cook for 1 minute. Spoon sauce over chicken; sprinkle with parsley.

A few of the reviews online said it was bland, so I was testing as I was making it and found it was a little bland. So I added more wine then called for, as well as a few spices. I let it cook a little longer as well and I think the sun-dried tomatoes I used really added flavor. It came out pretty well and Hubby gave it a “good.” I also had a nice glass of red wine with my dinner.

So that’s my past few days. I also received an award from Katie at FittoWed, but haven’t had a chance to re-post and spread its joy yet. Hopefully tomorrow. I’ve been such a slacker on my blogging to-do’s. What I hope to get to this weekend:

  • Post and pass along the award from Katie
  • Post a book review of The Historian
  • Post the new book I’m reading…
  • Write a great post about my run on Sunday (which WILL happen no matter what)!

So that’s on my agenda, along with getting our taxes done tonight (if the tax guy doesn’t close because of the snow), cleaning the apartment in a big way, and relaxing a bit. 🙂

What are your weekend plans?

I said to my friend the other day, that I feel like I’ve been a bit of a slacker when it comes to my personal-life “to dos” lately. I’ve been so awesome about checking off my work to-dos that everything else has fallen to the wayside. But I am feeling sooo much better now and am really hoping that taking my short break from running with fill me with renewed enjoyment and motivation to run again.

Do you ever need to take a break from running or exercise to realize just how much you enjoy and miss it?

Have a great weekend all!

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You Can’t Handle the Truth!

Posted on February 24, 2010 | 13 comments

Haha – yes you can. That line from A Few Good Men just kept popping into my head when I was writing my liar post yesterday.

I’ll tell you what my truth was after I recap yesterday’s eats. For breakfast I had oatmeal with banana and peanut butter and a small glass of cranberry juice.

I was so busy at work that I missed my mid-morning snack entirely and just at my lunch early – around 12:15. I had peanut butter and apple butter on an Arnold sandwich thin. Gotta say, the apple butter idea wasn’t too great. It had pretty much soaked into the sandwich thin by the time lunch rolled around. Live and learn. I also had a small bag of carrots as well.

My afternoon flew by, but I squeezed in two snacks. Chobani yogurt with Kashi Go Lean cereal and a small bag of walnuts and raisins.

I skipped the gym and my run again yesterday just to be on the safe side. I am hitting the gym tonight for a 3-4 mile run though. I headed home and Hubby and I cleaned up the apartment a bit after our lazy sick weekend. It was atrocious.

After the cleaning was done I made a quick dinner. We had some leftover cooked pasta that needed to be eaten, so I used most of it up with some Newman’s Sockarooni pasta sauce and a side salad with grape tomatoes and feta cheese.

I’m finally feeling like I have my normal appetite back. Since about Saturday through Monday I haven’t feel very hungry or very excited about food. So strange. I was excited for this hearty meal though and gobbled it up.

Ok – now for time for the truth. My one and only truth from yesterday’s post was:

2. I’ve never had a cavity.

All the rest were lies – all lies! To be fair, some of my “outrageous lies” weren’t so outrageous. It was really hard to think of good lies. Basically, I love reading fiction and tend to avoid biographies at all costs, I absolutely HATE feet (except for baby feet), my husband proposed to me on a beach, I’ve been living in NYC for almost 4 years (not 5 – although it feels like 5 sometimes), I can speak 1 language – English (although I took German all through high school and two years in college), and lastly, I have TERRIBLE vision (I literally can only see the big E on the chart without my contacts).

So that’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Thanks for all your guesses! I do believe that Jess was the only person who guessed right. 🙂

And thanks for all the support on getting healthy again. Each day seems to be getting a little better. I got momentarily freaked out that maybe it was sinus infection, but I’ve been researching the symptoms and I haven’t been experiencing any of the headaches or facial pressure that typically goes along with a sinus infection. Plus, I’m thinking that even if it is a sinus infection, the antibiotics I’m taking would probably help get rid of that as well.

So that’s that. Can you believe that we’ll be into the month of March next week?! Time to get back into my training mode – the Poconos Marathon will be here before I know it!

Question of the day: What’s your favorite thing about spring?!

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