Not posting, but still alive and well.
I’ve thought about starting up the blog again, but thinking isn’t the same as writing, so clearly nothing has happened.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be back, I just need to find my focus and figure out what to write about (since i’m pretty sure no one wants to hear about how I sat at my desk at work all day).
Be well!!! Talk soon!
Hi there!! Long time no blog!
I’m here. I’m recovered and i’m married. Yeah, there’s that.
Last I wrote I did a recap of the Sono Half and mentioned that I was dealing with some pretty bad hip pain.
I went to the chiropractor who diagnosed it as hip flexor issues. Thankfully nothing in the actual joint. He was adamant that I not run. I told him I’d still spin/cycle and while he wasn’t thrilled with that, he seemed OK. I told him that I was signed up for a 5 mile Turkey Trot. He said we’d see.
So from October 15th until November 21st I did zero running. Zero. On November 21st I attempted to run during Orange Theory. It was a tornado workout, so the longest stretch was 4:00. I figured that I should try to run. I ran and it thankfully felt fine.
I returned to the chiro who gave me the OK to run the Turkey Trot at an easy pace, paying attention to how I felt and if I had any pain I was to walk the rest.
The morning of the Trot was chilly, I’d say low 30s at the start. Thankfully full sun though. I started the run paying attention to every little thing in my lower body. Was that knee pain? Hip pain? What was that in my ankle? I let me self calm down a bit and found that while running wasn’t easy, nothing hurt. I planned to walk through the two water stops and told myself to try for 3 miles. At 3 I felt good, so I told myself 4. Then I said 4.25, which happened to be where water was. I walked through the water and then ran the rest.
I didn’t push myself, I just ran and tried to enjoy the race. There are over 3500 people running this one, so a great size. It goes through a neighborhood with a good amount of spectators, dogs, and people enjoying cocktails on their lawns.
I finished with a time of around 10:37 I think. While it’s nothing special, i’m proud of that time, especially after a month of ZERO running. Hooray!
The race did however confirm to me that I have no interest in running anything longer than 6 miles in the foreseeable future. And not that I needed it, but my chiro told me I wasn’t destined for marathons. Ha!
So that’s what’s going on here. What to work towards next? 🙂
I know that all of your lives (all two of you) have been on hold waiting for my recap of the Sono Half. 🙂
So I ran it. It wasn’t a good race for me. I kind of knew that from the moment it started. My breathing was off and the air felt thick. My pace was also way off. My effort level felt one way and my pace just didn’t match. I could barely get below an 11:00/mile. But I went with it. Just keep running.
We started towards the end of the pack, so there weren’t a ton of people around us. I ran up the first steep hill around mile 3, into the rolling hills of miles 3-4, which can be tough. I kept going.
Mile 6 has us running back through town, where I saw my family again. I commented that I felt like I was in last place because there was no one around. Even the crowd support had died down some. I kept going.
Around mile 8 my other half said “only 5 to go”, which didn’t really make me feel any better. Shortly after that, he picked up his pace and I didn’t see him again until the finish. I kept going.
Around 10 everything started hurting. I was tired and mentally struggling. I stopped for a bit to walk. Started running again and walked up a hill. The remainder of the race was a walk/run combo. I just wanted to be done. I told myself I’d run the last mile. I tried, but everything hurt. I ran a bit with my sister around 12.5 and then of course ran the stretch in to finish. I finished…and everything hurt.
I was not happy this race, but I did hide it VERY well from anyone else. I was talking to spectators, to race staff, to police. Making everyone laugh. At least I’m a happy unhappy runner 🙂
So the good news is that I finished it.
The bad/eh news is that I seem to be dealing with some pretty persistent hip/groin pain. I had some minor issues in this area prior to the half, but it never bothered me when I ran. Now it does. It hurts when I walk and really when I run. Advil makes it feel better but it isn’t fixing it, just masking it. I’m going to the doc on Friday and we’ll see. It’s now been over a week and I still can’t even jog across the street (I tried and paid the price).
I also decided that I’m all set with half marathons for now. Of course this can change in the future, but for now i’m good. Bring on the 5 and 10ks!
So before I go, I wanted to share this photo from the Chicago marathon. I always try to come up with good signs and I think the orange one was my favorite. I loved how it got smiles and thumbs up from the runners. Love that!
Have a most wonderful Monday!
Hi there!
Things have been busy, which is apparently my new normal. Lovely!
This past weekend was the Chicago Marathon, which I’m sure you already knew. It was also the International Chicago 5K!
I flew to Chicago on Friday morning. We picked up our bibs (5k for me, marathon for my sis) and hit up the Expo.
May I say a word about Expos? I get that maybe if you forgot something they are a great spot to pick it up. But if you really want to expose people to your brand, offer a freaking deal. Balega was there, which was great, but their pricing was exactly the same as at every running store I can go to locally. If you offer me a deal I can get only at the Expo, I WILL BUY MORE!! OK, i’m through 🙂
Saturday morning I went out for a couple of shakeout miles with my sister. While we’ve done a few races together, we’ve never actually run together as she is FAST and I am not. But for these miles we stayed together and were around a 9:30 mile. I don’t run at that pace but found that I was able to, so I was pumped. I decided then that in the 5K, I’d push myself a bit more than usual since apparently I could run 2 miles at a roughly 9:30 pace.
The 5K was self seeded, which is never good. I would have gone to the 10:00, but then my sister said to go to the 9:00, but then I was with a friend who told me to go lower as “we don’t want to be running with the people with the selfie sticks”. A truer statement had never been muttered. So I was closer to the 7:00, which I had to photograph because to me it was funny. I can’t run 7:00 for much more than 30 seconds.
The race started and I conveniently forgot that GPS watches don’t work in downtown Chicago. I kept looking at my watching feeling like I was really moving but seeing a slower pace. It was odd, but I persevered. Around 1.5 I was a little deflated that I couldn’t get below a 10:00, so imagine my surprise when I hit the 2 mile sign and the clock said 19:xx. I figured it too was likely wrong.
This part of the race was right along the water with a lovely headwind. That wind was tiring. I was ready to be done. We turned into the park and just had a sprint to go. I picked up my pace and finished with my watch telling me I ran less than 3 miles. Hmmm. Oh yes, the GPS issue!
(just grabbed this gem and it’s too funny to not share)
I had to wait for them to put official results up, but I was pretty psyched to see:
FINISHED: 29:42 (average pace of 9:34). WHAT???
My fastest 5K prior to this was the BAA 5K, and that was a 31:51, which puts me at a PR of more than 2 minutes! Hooray! It was a great way to start my Saturday!
After the race we went over to Cloud Gate and took the obligatory photos.
Then it was Sunday and marathon day. I obviously can’t go into much detail because I wasn’t the runner, but it will say it was a great race to spectate. We were able to see my sister 4 times! (mile 2+, mile 12+, mile 21+, mile 25+). So great!
She also KILLED it and nailed her goal of 3:10. Insane. I can’t even maintain that pace for a minute. AMAZING! One proud sis here!
So we enjoyed the rest of a lovely day in Chicago and then I flew home Monday morning.
My half is Saturday! I’m feeling good coming off the 5K, but haven’t run in a few days and will be taking it easy since all the walking in Chicago (+10 miles/day) took a toll on my poor feet.
Will recap for you next week!
So it’s been over a month since I posted last. I have no idea of where the time has gone! It always seems that this time of year speeds up. The summer starts to wrap up and then boom it’s fall-ish temps and then it’s snowing. Kidding about that last part, but time really is flying.
Grab a drink and put your feet up because this will be a long one…
Half Marathon Training
Still going. It’s less than 3 weeks out! Last I wrote I had just completed my long run (7 miles) with the group.
Labor Day weekend I went out on my own for what I was calling a 7-9 miler and did all 9. My average pace was also a bit stronger than in the past, so I considered it a win. I didn’t look at my pace at all during the run. It was an out and back and I calculated it to be about 7.5 figuring I’d do loops at the end if I wanted to get my mileage up. I got back to the starting point around 8 (I think) and told myself I’d go for 8.5. When I got to 8.5 I told myself to suck it up and do another half mile.
The weekend after I planned to do 9 or 10 on Saturday. Then I woke up on Saturday and just was not feeling it. At all!
What’s challenging for me is that I teach spin on Sunday mornings, so if I don’t get a long run in on Saturday, it’s gets tricky. I could do it super early or after class. I leave for class at 7:40a, so that would mean starting a long run at 5a or so. I suppose it could be done, but i’m not sure it’s something I really want to do.
So that Sunday we figured we’d run some and then I’d teach and then try to get more miles it. We ended up doing 4 slow miles before, then I taught, and then I hit a park with a 1/2 mile path after class for another 3 miles. 7 total plus a spin class. Not perfect, but not horrible either.
I’m losing a weekend somewhere, but nevermind.
Last weekend was 10 on the schedule. My other half went out around 7:15 and I went with the group at 8a. It’s interesting how the group runs vary because this time I wasn’t last. There were actually quite a few people behind me. He ended up crossing paths with us and we ran together for a few miles before he split off.
It was a hard run because it got HOT. I think it was around 82 when I finished and since it’s been such a cool late summer, it threw me off. I had to take some walking breaks starting around mile 7. Then just after 8 I ran by a friend I hadn’t seen in years, so I had to stop and talk to him. Obviously it just kept getting hotter, so I ran when I could and walked when I felt that I should. A training run was not worth getting light headed for. 🙂
10 or 11 for tomorrow! I’ve been feeling off all week, so I’m hoping that tomorrow is better.
Last Minute Travel
I’m headed to Chicago next week to spectate the Chicago Marathon! My sister is running and while I had always planned to go, I waited to book my flights and saw the prices go sky high. So when I found something slightly more tolerable yesterday, I jumped on it and booked.
I also signed up for the Chicago International 5K on Saturday. Should be a fun trip! Anyone else planning on being there? Running or spectating?
Wedding
This ish is getting real! I’ve started having dreams about the wedding which one or many things go wrong. My first dream had me in a dress that had the right top, but the bottom half was a pair of jeans. My second dream had the invitations with different start times on them, one of which was 9a, so people were showing up before I was dressed.
I had both my hair and makeup trials last week and amazingly they both went well! I was a little nervous about the hair, but ended up very pleased.
My second dress fitting is next week.
Now it’s all the smaller details that will likely make me completely insane over the next two months. Wish me luck!
Other Stuff
Still kind of doing the vegan thing. I did have a little turkey and chicken last week. I’ve also had some cheese. I’m eating eggs when I want to. No doubt though, it’s much less dariy than before. Surprisingly, my other half is doing better than me. He was the crazy meat eater and as far as I know he has truly eaten no meat since July.
I was going to post these next few pictures to tell you that my life hasn’t been only work and wedding stuff, but then I realized that these were all taken at work events (two for my full time job and one for One Bro). I think I need to work on some balance. But since they’re freaking awesome photos, I’ll share anyway.
Can you tell I love a good sunset?
I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about the Caribbean post-hurricane(s). The Caribbean is my happy place, most specifically St. Thomas, and they got hit quite hard. We were actually supposed to do the first leg of our honeymoon there, and now it’s a bit of a question mark. We’re doing all we can to help from afar and will see what we do about our travel plans.
So with that, I’m off. Probably won’t be back until either after Chicago or after the half. I will do my hardest to take photos and not just bore you with a ton of words. 🙂
Thing is, I love to write and I love to take pictures, I just don’t easily combine the two.
Happy running, happy friday, happy everything!!
Hello! It’s been a bit, but that’s OK. I’ve been busy, so it happens.
I hope you’re having a good week so far! Personally, I’m spending too much time thinking about how badly I want to take some time off. All things in good time.
So where to start?
Running
I did another group run for the Sono Half this past Saturday. My other half was going to do it with me, but he had other stuff to get done and the 8a start time was too late for him. It was a 7 miler.
It wasn’t great (and neither is that photo), but I did it! There was more walking than I’d like to admit, but at least I kept going. I was last in the group, which I’m totally OK with. I was lucky that the two people ahead of me were very nice and stopped to wait for me twice. They are both training for the Chicago Marathon so the 7 miler was just a part of their total mileage.
It got me thinking about running at the back of the pack. As I said, I don’t care if I’m the slowest or the fastest (hahaha!), but I think that a lot of people do care. I had this whole thought in my head that the race organizers should try harder to get the slower people to the group runs. In my mind, these are the people that won’t show up. Thoughts?
Food (I’ll break this up into vegan and non)
Vegan
This was a well intended meal, although only half of it came out as desired. My plan was to do a mushroom soup and then something similar to a BLT but with tempeh or fake bacon.
I had tempeh at home, so I went that route. I browned it a bit in some olive oil and then seasoned it with the Trader Joe’s Everything mix. Good in theory, but all the seasoning fell off so it tasted pretty bad. Oh well!
The mushroom soup was a success. And again, another Vegangela recipe. When you have luck with a site, why deviate? Here’s the link. I made a few minimal modifications, but nothing worth noting. It was good! The other half even liked it!
I also made vegan oatmeal raisin cookies (link here). Her recipe is for chocolate walnut cookies, but I swapped out the chocolate and nuts for raisins. I also added a bit of cinnamon.
While they tasted amazing, they looked pretty lousy.
They are made with coconut oil, which is liquid at high temperatures. They became incredibly flat and pretty much all joined together on the baking sheet. So I ultimately said screw this, and just threw them in a container where they morphed into a sort of crumble. Not a photogenic crumble, but a very delicious one. These were gone in a couple of days.
I’ll play around with them to see if I can get them to look like cookies, but even if I can’t, they still taste good enough to stick with.
I feel like we’ve been trying every vegan product we can find. Sunday we tried this.
The verdict? Not a fan. It was odd. I read the back of the package that it’s some sort of cheese substitute mixed with a fermented soy. Just odd. Not disgusting, just not great.
And last on the vegan front, I found the following two snacks that are both quite good (and unique).
Both good and all too easy to snack on. Maybe i’m better off not having snacks handy. 🙂
Non-vegan
I’m trying, but sometimes it just doesn’t work.
After my run on Saturday I wanted nothing more than an egg Mcmuffin, so I had one and enjoyed every second! So worth it! (still vegetarian, just not even close to vegan)
Last week I had dinner with some girlfriends and had a delicious jalapeno almond pesto pasta dish (probably had some dairy). It was so good I told my other half I wanted him to recreate it. So he went for it. It wasn’t a match, but it was still SO good!
That was on a fish day (we’re still eating seafood). Too bad dinner was served at 9:30p on a Sunday. I’m old…and tired.
Lastly, some pizza eye candy. Yum!
Neither of us ate this, but we heard it was amazing.
Fresh figs, speck, asiago and gorgonzola cheeses.
Drool away!
Life/wedding/other stuff
Hope you’re having a great week! Feel free to comment about anything mentioned above, I love comments!
Hello from the land of the sporadic poster! All good!
It’s Friday. I’m thrilled that it’s Friday. I actually had a short week (more on that later) but it still felt pretty long. I hate how that always happens.
Some highlights of the past two weeks or so…
DC! I was in DC last week for my “bachelorette party”. I put that in quotes because it definitely wasn’t your traditional party. I’m too old for that sh*t. 🙂
DC may be one of my favorite cities, so I was thrilled to have the party there. We stayed at a great hotel – shout out to the Kimpton Mason & Rook.
I’m still gathering photos so I don’t have a ton to share. But…there was one surprise guest! (see if you can find her)
The trip was a bit of the touristy stuff (mainly checking out the monuments) and then good food, friends, and good times.
Sunday night we saw Judd Apatow do standup, which was quite fun. Saturday morning we went SUPing. Also very fun, although the heat hit me a bit hard so I spent the last bit on my knees (versus standing).
We ate at some delicious restaurants and enjoyed lots of drinks as well. The hotel has a wine hour every day at 5p, so you can be sure we never missed one of those!
Running I’m running. Probably not where I should be for the half in October but I’m confident that I will get there. I’ve been having a REALLY hard time waking up in the morning, so I need to figure out the cause and work on fixing that.
I actually ran twice while in DC. Friday morning on the treadmill and Saturday outside. For some reason I love the treadmills with the virtual running paths. I ran through Germany! It’s the little things 🙂 Saturday’s run took us to the white house and then past some monuments (Washington, Korea, Vietnam). Love me some DC!
Right now I’m trying to decide between OTF tomorrow or attempting a 6 mile group run. I haven’t come close to 6, so I’m wondering if it’s stupid to even try. Hmmm.
Vegan I was not vegan in DC. I craved carbs and cheese…and eggs. Oh well! I’m back at it now.
I made this last night. African peanut sweet potato stew courtesy of Vegangela (again). As I was making it I wasn’t too sure about it. It seemed good in theory but I just wasn’t sure it would have enough flavor. It did! I added a bit more spice to it, but other than that I stuck pretty closely to the recipe and it was delicious! Give it a try!
So that’s what’s going on here. Hope you have a most wonderful Friday and a great weekend!
So far the vegan thing is going OK and we’ve actually had some very delicious food.
Although I do have to admit it hasn’t been 100% because I still am not sure how to substitute eggs. I did see that there’s a product out there, but the local supermarket didn’t have it. I also remember seeing the term “flax egg” in the past, but am not really sure what that means 🙂
I’m open to suggestions if anyone has some.
We both agreed that we are lucky since my other half is such a great cook, so he’s comfortable playing around and trying new things. We’ve been eating pretty well.
On Monday night we had pad thai. My other half made that and while not the most healthy, it was DELICIOUS! There was one egg in there, but we’ll work on that. Unfortunately I don’t have a recipe to share but will try to find out if he used one.
Tuesday night we had a version of pho with the shirataki tofu noodles. Sorry, no photo of that one.
Then last night dinner was on me and I made Quinoa Falafel with an Avocado Tahini Dressing courtesy of Vegangela.
Of course the majority of items in this photo are things I didn’t make (the pita, hummus, and tabbouleh). And not pictured is the delicious avocado tahini dressing.
Recipe is here although I did tweak it a bit.
I am most excited about this recipe because now I know that Vegangela is a good resource for recipes. There are so many recipes out there that people say are great, and then you try them and they just aren’t. I need to learn whose opinions I can trust. For example, I have a friend who I love dearly, but her taste in restaurants isn’t so great, which I learned the hard way, so I take her recommendations with a grain of salt.
I have a bunch more from her site cued up to try. Yay!
Please share recipes with me in the comments 🙂
Hi there!
I hope the title of this post doesn’t have you thinking you’re going to get all the answers to gorgeous skin. Sorry.
I’m getting married in just over 4 months (which is crazy). I’m also turning 38 at the end of next month (crazier!).
I think it’s a combination of the two, but i’ve been looking more closely at my skin and seem to be noticing every little issue. I don’t think these issues just popped up, but for some reason now i’m really noticing them.
I definitely dealt with acne in my teenage years and then again in my mid to late 20s after a bout with mono sent my immune system to the sh*ts. I’m pretty sure I could have won a “most frequent visitor” award at the dermatologists office. I did topicals, antibiotics, acutane, you name it. But I got past all that relatively scott-free. Yes, I have some scarring, but it’s not horrible.
After focusing on my skin a bit too much (and thinking about wedding photos, argh!) I came to the realization that it was time to spend more money, time, and effort on my skin.
Easier said than done.
There are so many products out there that I literally had no idea where to start (still not sure that I do). Rodan and Fields is all.over.the.freaking.internet, there are drugstore brands, department store brands, and natural products. Overwhelming.
I did a little research but pretty quickly got annoyed and overwhelmed (both by the amount of information and the lack of good content. Then I got a bit overwhelmed by the prices.
I know it’s my skin, I know it’s what everyone sees first, but I can not get myself to pay over $100 for any set of products. I just can’t do it!
So here’s what I came up with (and how) and we’ll see what happens. My plan is to take a picture before and then another in a month or so to see if there’s any difference.
Micellar Water – This stuff is honestly being mentioned EVERYWHERE. I like the fact that it doesn’t require water, which makes it fast and easy (and not drying). I’ve been using this on my face for a few days now.
The other brand I decided to try is the Ordinary.
I read a few different reviews/comments about the Ordinary and what attracted me initially was the affordable price point. My first order came out to roughly $40 and included 4 different products.
Since I’m totally a skin newbie, I grabbed the recommended regimen from their site and decided to give it a go.
Apparently they’ve become super popular rather quickly, so they were experiencing fulfillment delays and I had no idea when I’d get my products. So about a week after placing my order I was pretty excited to receive a shipping notification.
Looks like it will deliver today! Hooray!
I’m really looking forward to seeing how this goes.
As a side note, I felt comfortable going with the site recommendation because my skin is pretty average and not sensitive. 🙂
For daily use I use a moisturizer with SPF (right now I have one by Trader Joe’s and another from New Zealand with manuka honey).
So tell me, do you have any product recommendations? Anything for the chest area? (that’s my next spot to work on since I seem to have some creases, seriously, WTF??)
I’m also a sucker for masks, so I have a charcoal mask from Loreal as well as some random ones from a Trader Joes holiday pack. And of course there’s always the Queen Helen Mint Julep mask (speaking of which, I’m out and need more).
I’d love to hear any and all skin related input/thoughts.
Thanks!!
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