Returning from hibernation

**yawn** **stretch** **looks into the sun** What day is it? What year is it? How long have I been gone?

I know. It's been awhile. Let me tell you why.

First of all, my Master's degree about sucked the life out of me. Every moment that wasn't work, running, eating or sleeping was doing homework. I graduated last May, but I honestly needed a couple months after the fact to get my life straight again. (ha! that's not even possible). Secondly, I had started a new job, but now that I'm about a year and a half into it, I can at least semi predict the work schedule. Finally, my Army National Guard career is booming and usually when things are booming, they require your attention.

So, here I am again and I'm going to try to be good about posting. Let's see how it goes.

Let me give you a quick recap so you know what's taken place since my last post (April 2014 - St. Louis Half Marathon):

-Run for the Dream Half Marathon in Virginia, June 2014 - This one was for fun, so I couldn't even tell you the time.

-Estes Park Marathon in Colorado, June 2014 - elevation about killed this poor South Carolina girl

 

-Athens Marathon in Greece, November 2014 - Amazing. I highly recommend adding this to your runner's bucket list.

 

-Dopey Challenge in Disney, January 2015 - There's a reason it's called the Dopey Challenge - 5k Thursday, 10k Friday, half marathon Saturday, full marathon Sunday.

 

 

 

 -Chicagoland Marathon in a suburb of Chicago, May 2015 - I PR'd this race by 17 minutes!

 

 



-Cremator 50-miler in Beaufort, South Carolina, July 2015 - Yup, I did it.

 

 



-Baltimore Marathon, October 2015 - I did this one with a friend, so no PR to report.

 

 



-Ultra Chili 50K in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, November 2015 - Very muddy trail run, very unpleasant.

 

 

-Wakulla Springs 50K in Florida, December 2015 - This one was actually very pleasant!

 

 



So, obviously, it was a busy year and a half. It was the year of Ultras and, oh yeah, Lyme disease. Now you're caught up! This brings us to the Charleston Half Marathon this Saturday. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Keep on running ;)

St. Louis Go! Half Marathon Recap

I know it's been a long time since I last posted. I know. I started a new job to go along with my two Master's courses and I haven't been able to perfect the balancing act yet. It may be some time before I post again, but I at least wanted to talk about the St. Louis Go! Half Marathon.

So, about a year ago, I talked about some of my goals. A quick recap - drink more water (does coffee count!), 7 min mile (I am down to 7:29!!!) and a sub 2-hour half marathon. Go! has sealed the deal with that final goal. Boom.

I was originally signed up for the full marathon, but then I was scheduled for a work trip so I stopped training for a full. Last minute, I got booted from the work trip so I booked a ticket to St. Louis, but I wasn't prepared to run 26.2 miles. So, I called up the race and they kindly dropped me down to the half, which I have been training for, hardcore, with my half marathon training group with Fleet Feet Mount Pleasant.

And boy, did it pay off.

I wanted that sub 2-hour so bad that it was going to be a heavy blow if I didn't make it. There was a point between miles 6 and 8, where the hills were so steep, they were sponsored. SPONSORED HILLS! That I really thought about slowing down, giving up and just accepting the time. BUT I thought about all those hills we ran during training, I leaned into that hill and I kept pushing! And it paid off!

My final time came to, 1:57:29! So, it wasn't even by the skin of my teeth with a 1:59:59 (which I would have totally been happy with) I had the tiniest bit of wiggle room.

I'm going to start working on that 7 minute mile starting tomorrow at our training run! And if you don't hear from me soon, don't think I've forgotten about you. I'm just trying to do it all!

Bragged too soon

I think I bragged too soon about being back up in the double digit runs and how amazing that 14-miler felt last week, because I did a 15-miler this past Saturday and Oh. Man. did it hurt. I'm talking walk breaks and a 11:53 average pace. Ouch. I know that not every run is amazing, but this one was really rough.

I'm hoping tonight's half marathon training will boost my spirits again because even my scheduled 4-miler yesterday, turned into a choppy 2-miler. Maybe this just isn't my week.

On another note, I have been a pescatarian for more than a year now (January 2013 was when I started) and I think I'm about ready to take the next step into vegetarian land. I just read Mayim's Vegan Table and she talks about how even fish can be bad for you because they swim around in contaminated water and then you eat the contamination. Obviously, I won't just jump right into it, I'll take it slow. Right now, I'm seeing how much fish I eat normally, then I'll start to phase it out. I'm going to try to hang out there for a year or so, and then maybe look into the crazy world of vegan.

Between Mayim's book and The Vegan Stoner I don't think it would be that bad. I've made one of the Vegan Stoner's recipes awhile back (tofu tacos) and they were delish. I just ordered the cookbook and cannot wait to start trying more recipes!

Back in the double digits

I have been wanting to try zucchini spaghetti noodles for some time now, and just bought this awesome julienne tool (Amazon for $6) to cut it in strips. This thing is seriously awesome. You just run it down the side of the zucchini and voila, zucchini noodles! 

I just tossed it in a pan with some sautéed onions, garlic and butter, then topped it with spaghetti sauce. I made two zucchinis worth for me and the hubs and it was really filling. 

My other exciting news is that I'm back running double digits for my long runs! I got in a 14-miler the other day and it felt really good. My race pace for a half marathon is 9:13 and my race pace for a marathon is 10:54, so I averaged 10:16's and it was great.

Finally, I have to give a shout out to these new shoes. They are flip flops that actually give you support. It's like the best of both worlds! I got them from my local Fleet Feet  and I have a feeling they are going to be my go-to shoe this summer. They're called Montrail Women's Molokini, if you're wanting to check them out.

A day of cooking...

Today wound up being a day of cooking. I got a whole new box of produce from Backyard Produce this past Tuesday, so I jumped in with both feet - butternut squash french fries, sweet potato, spinach and peanut butter soup, carrot and celery soup, and meatless crumbles. My freezer is now stocked and successfully keeping me away from the grocery store for at least another week.

Beautiful!

First off, butternut squash french fries. This gem actually came from last week's produce box and I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I started looking to pinterest for ideas to use it for. In the past, I've made butternut squash soup, that I wasn't that impressed with, and butternut squash mac n' cheese, that was very good, but the scale is creeping up so I wanted to keep it a bit lower calorie - enter butternut squash French fries.

Butternut Squash French Fries
(original post)

Needed:
-butternut squash
-salt

1. Take a potato peeler and peel off all the skin on the squash, then cut off both ends

2. Slice it lengthwise, and scoop out all the insides (if you want you can keep the seeds to roast them!)

3. Cut up the sections into fry-looking pieces. It won't be perfect, just wing it

4. IMPORTANT take the pieces and lay them on a paper towel, sprinkle with a bit of salt and let them "sweat." Let them sit for about 10 minutes you can preheat the oven to 425 during this time. This draws out all the moisture so your fries can get nice and crisp. Once the 10 minutes are up pat the fries dry

5. Place the fries on a lightly sprayed cookie sheet, then give the fries a little spritz of cooking oil and sprinkle a bit more salt on them

6. Bake for about 40 minutes, turning halfway through

I seriously devoured this in less than 2 minutes...and oh yeah, ZERO Weight Watcher points! Say what!!

Next off, I got my meatless crumbles going. This was a recipe from my mom that she gave me in a cookbook for Christmas with all her favorite recipes. She uses it all the time and I can definitely see why. It makes a huge batch of crumbles that you can use in place of the Morningstar Farms meatless crumbles, for a fraction of the price. Awesome.

Meatless Crumbles

Needed:
-2 cups brown rice
-2 cups lentils
-seasoning (I used tandori because that's what I had)
-1/4 cup olive oil
-1/2 cup wheat gluten
-1 cup rolled oats


















1. Boil rice and lentils with seasoning until tender. Drain any excess water

2. Add all the rest of the ingredients and give it a good stir. I also added more seasoning

3. Add to a baking pan and bake at 300 for 1 hour, stirring about every 20 minutes

It says it makes 10 servings, so I separated it into 5 freezer bags and tossed them in the freezer and I'll just pull them out as needed. Too easy.

Moving on to the soups...

Sweet Potato, Spinach and Peanut Butter
(There is no real original post for this one, I just kinda winged it and it turned out great!)

Needed:
-2 medium sweet potatoes
-2 1/2 cups veggie broth
-1 1/2 cup spinach
-garlic
-olive oil
-seasoning (I used tandori again)
-3 tblsp PB2, prepared
-3 tblsp pasta sauce

1. Heat up 1 Tbsp of olive oil and cook spinach in it for about 5 minutes, or until completely wilted

2. Peel and dice sweet potatoes

3. Add sweet potatoes, broth, pb2, pasta sauce, seasoning, and garlic

4. Simmer for about 20-25 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are soft

Tag team it and get both of those soups simmering!

5. Pulse in blender until it reaches desired consistency

I cooked lightlife italian sausages, cut them up and added it to the soup. It kind of reminded me of an Italian Wedding Soup. It was delicious.

Finally, my faithful carrot soup. I got carrots and celery in this last produce box, so I decided just to go ahead and cook them up. It goes along the same lines of this carrot soup just with celery instead of zucchini. You can really make a soup out of any veg you have. It's a beautiful thing!

Another year older.

According to the Army's physical fitness test, my running should continue to peak until I'm 32 years old. Is this true? Because I just turned 25 and I'm pretty sure I'm as slow as I've ever been.

I may be slow, but I'm still pretty proud of my running accomplishments. This past Saturday, I knocked out a 12-miler, which was my first double digit run since the Charleston Marathon Jan. 18. It hurt. It hurt so bad, but I did it! I did the first 5 miles with my half marathon training group, so that part was great. We talked about food for 5 miles. Seriously, for 5 miles. But the last 7 miles were hard. I ran over the Arthur Ravenel Jr. bridge, which come to find out is 823 feet worth of elevation in a 5 mile span. Ouch!

Sunday was my birthday, so all healthy eating habits went out the door because my hubs made all my favorite foods for one meal - poached egg on a bagel with hollandaise sauce and smoked salmon with biscuits and gravy and hash browns. I'm still paying for a 3-pound weight gain that I haven't shook yet, but it was totally worth it.

Monday we did a s-l-o-w 3-miler with Fleet Feet and then they tried to kill me last night.

So unsuspecting of what's to come the next night

Seriously, I did 4 miles in less than 35 minutes and that included a slow warm up mile and 5 slow laps on the track, and it still averaged to an 8:49 per mile pace. That. Is. Fast. For. Me. Maybe the Army is right?

So, what we did was after that mile warm-up through the neighborhood, we took it to the track - 1. fast lap, 2. slow lap, 3. fast lap, 4. fast lap, 5. slow lap, 6. fast lap, 7. fast lap, 8. slow lap, 9. fast lap, 10. slow lap, 11. slow lap. Followed by a half-hour ab workout, of course. Today, my head, back and legs HURT. It's supposed to be a rest/crosstrain day for me and as of right now I'm leaning more toward resting, but we'll see as the day goes on.

See!!! I'm excited!

You know you're a runner when...

You know you're officially considered a runner when presents from people start becoming running related, and you are extremely happy about it!

First, my in-laws got me a gift card to my favorite running store for Christmas, which I used for a new pair of New Balance 1400v2, and now for my birthday (this Sunday) my mom bought my registration into the Estes Park Marathon in Colorado for June and my husband bought me a new Garmin GPS watch with heart rate monitor. I have the best family, they know me so well!

With that, I finally got my marathon sign hung up in the hallway. Seriously, this is hands down my favorite project I have ever made. Thank you Pinterest.

"Every day is a good day when you run," Kevin Nelson.