Snow!

We are getting a lot of snow today so unfortunately I wasn't able to run outside, and I didn't work out at all actually! How odd. I had to work a little late and then I ran over to the mall to find some things for my trip.

I ended up getting some black yoga pants from Aerie to wear on the plane, a couple dressy tops from Express and a couple pairs of pants from The Loft. It was a little more than I would have liked to spend but most pieces were on pretty big sales and I had a coupon for Express.

Last night we went to dining week here:

http://www.lemongrasscny.com/

And, no I didn't actually order this although it looks delicious. I just wanted to give you an idea of what a good job they do with presentations there. There were a lot of interesting dishes I wanted to try, but I stuck with a very safe choice off of the specials menu, the Green Curry chicken. It was very good and quite spicy.

Tonight I got home late and made a quick egg salad with a Thomas' mixed berry english muffin. I'm obsessed with them!

speed workout

Last speed workout before next Thursday's race (leaving Saturday!)...



1x800m int
6x400m int with 400m recovery in between fast intervals.
about a mile warmup and cool down so between 5 and 5.5 total.
I forgot my watch but from one of the other girls I think most the 400m were between 1:28 and1:32ish? I know there was a 1:29 and a 1:28 I was happy about! Not sure about the 800m...



Had a bit of a side cramp warming up again. Odd. I thought it might be from G2 (Jeter Juice as I refer to it) so I ate a clif bar and 1/2 of one of these pre-run:


I had the tropical punch flavor which I like because it tastes good. Yeah, so I'm bad about the artificially sweetened beverages. I'm kind of a diet soda junkie too.

Made a quick spinach salad with a hard boiled egg, a couple strawberries, feta and balsamic and had a berry english muffin with it when I got home.

Monday Monday

Workout today: A little bit of bowflexing (10 mins mostly chest/arms) followed by 40 mins bike and then some abs and planks on the floor.

Last night's dinner:

Roasted Garlic Cous Cous with Mushrooms, Spinach and Feta

Pan Seared Sea Bass with Kalamata Olive Tapenade

It came out pretty good. Not the best looker (the tapenade tastes a ton better than it looks!) It seems like Sunday's are the only time I have to make something cool for dinner. I need some quick week night ideas!! We try and eat pretty healthy during the week and we both have pretty simple tastes as far as preparation goes. I'm not really one for a lot of rich sauces or antyhing. I really like fresh food simply prepared so this was a complex meal for me.

Anyway, I can't take a focused picture to save my life so I don't have one of it plated.
Tonight we just baked some lightly marinated chicken breasts, steamed asparagus and leftover cous cous...which is good hot or cold!!

Tomorrow will be a long day with my last speed workout before the big race (next Thursday -March 4th)!

weekend...minus the work part.

Had to go into work yesterday but it went well so not a bad weekend.
This is the last weekend before I leave for Africa!!

I really wasn't feeling the whole workout thing yesterday and knew I needed to run so I dragged myself to the park. It was windy so I told myself I could turn around after a mile as long as I tried to run fast. I did mile 1 in 7:36 (into the wind) and mile 2 in 7:18. So 7:54 overall. I have run 2 miles faster than that so I'm hoping running into the wind slowed me down.

Today I ran and didn't take my watch but I mapped it out using
www.mapmyrun.com and It said 4.58 miles. This was an awesome run. I didn't bring my watch so wasn't worried about time and it just felt really good. Maybe the last 1/4 mle was tough because I was pushing it but overall it felt awesome. Based on ipod timing (Where I add up the lengths of all the songs that played while I was running) it was 36:54. Which I think is just over an 8 min/mile pace? I'm mostly happy about how good it felt though. I don't know if its just that its getting towards the end of winter and I'm tired of running in the cold weather or what but I've been sort of unmotivated.

Going to make a fun dinner tonight so I'll try and post a pic.

sleepy

So tired today. Spent the night visiting with my sisters and only got 2.5-3 hours of sleep oh well.

I mentioned in my first post I used to be a skater. I have to say how disappointed I am with the results of the Olympics last night. I'm a fan of Evan Lysacek, I like his skating and think he has great technique (minus the step up into his axel) and he looks great out there...long clean lines. However, I don't think he won the olympics. Not even close. And don't even get me started on Johnny Weird ending up 6th! Jeremy Abbott was my favorite on the US men's team but he lost it by messing up in the short. I think Evgeny Plushenko's difficulty put him way above everyone else. What happened to all the quads? Kurt Browning was landing clean quads in competition over 20 years ago!! Evan didn't even do a triple axel-triple toe combination. I think skating is a sport because of the tricks, jumps and spins, but mostly the jumps. When they changed the scoring system they lost that. I guess some people are happy with it this way and this is what they want skating to be but I am vehemently oppose it! I don't think its a sport anymore when you lose the emphasis on the difficulty. You make it a dance. Which is fine and entertaining but it shouldn't be called a sport and it shouldn't be an olympic event if that is the case. With enough practice anyone could do the footwork and transition moves but not everyone is capable of doing quads. When you look at what Shaun White does and the advancements in that sport (snow boarding) even though its relatively new it's so innovative and exciting, how can you compare that with this watered down skating we are seeing? And White goes for the hardest tricks even though he doesn't need to because he's a true competitor and he wants to set a standard for the future not just settle for a gold medal. I'm not sure who would want to keep watching skating if this is the way it is headed in the future. I'm a skater myself and am not interested in watching anymore.

Finally!

Ugh, long day at work but good overall.
I ate decent, and fit in a workout.
I walked at lunchtime (We have long hallways at lunch) and then when I got home I did 30 minutes on the bike trainer followed by 10 minutes of lifting and another 5 or so of ab work. It hurt.

Then...we went here:
http://www.bcrestaurant.com/dinner.html

It is dining week downtown so they had 3 courses for $25.
We had a bottle of wine, Ravenswood Cab (meh, drinkable but not exceptional)
and I had ceasar salad with calamari and rainbow trout with beet/walnut/couscous.
Also had bittersweet chocolate torte but most of mine is in the fridge now (I was full).
Long day tomorrow so I'm headed to bed soon. Night!!

Speedwork...

So tired. Since when did my speedwork night become my long run night too? haha. I really need to pick it up again with the longer runs after this 3.5 race I have coming up.

Okay, we did about 1 mile warmup and 1 mile cool down with
800m = 3:08
600m = 2:21
400m = 1:31
400m = 1:33
600m = 2:25
800m = 3:26 (Totally died on this last one, the girl I was running with smoked me...luckily I was too tired to be embarassed.) I think we did 600 recovery between the 8s and 6s and 400 recovery between the 4s and 6s. So, I'm guessing a little over 5 or 5.5 miles altogether?

Either way, glad I went. Not the best day of eating but I did a little better. Nothing noteworthy, although I am having a couple of bites of dark chocolate with dried raspberries in it from the bar I got for Valentine's day and a small glass of zinfandel right now.