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2012: Day 26. You Never Regret A Workout

January 26, 2012 by Heather

Hello there bloggies. Tonight is a brief recap, because I am exhausted, in bed, and nearly falling asleep.

The week is almost over but tomorrow will be the longest day of the week for me. Yesterday I had this for breakfast:

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Ha – not the entire container, but the last of it. Probably about 6 ounces or so. I added flax, chia, a few raspberries about about a tablespoon of PB2. It was a great breakfast and I did not eat again until lunch. I had the last of the turkey chili for lunch. And then I had a piece of this….


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OMG. The most amazing cake at work yesterday!!! I loved every bite of my piece. I wanted to eat half of the cake, actually. Wow. I was in some serious need of cake, apparently.

I had a late night at work on Wednesday and got home late, and skipped dinner and went to bed.

This morning I had a luna bar (peppermint stick which I love) for breakfast. I ate it slowly, along with some airborne and lots of water because I am pretty sure I’m getting another cold.

Lunch was pretty today – and I am glad that I had time to eat it:

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SALAD!! Yes, it’s back because I am running out of ideas :) In the mix: mixed greens, red pepper, tomato, carrots, green onion and tuna. I also had a ‘chunk’ of freshly baked bread to go along with it. Yes, I love carbs. They are the best. (I was glad for the tuna for some protein!)

I had a diet coke at 3:30 this afternoon because I had a lot of work to do and I felt like I could fall asleep at my desk. I made an effort to drink a lot of water, and took some echinacea and zinc.

I left work later than normal, it took a while to get home. I had dinner plans with a friend at 7 o’clock for noodles. But somehow I made time for a quick 30 minute workout in between my drive home and dinner. I was sort of really proud of myself for getting to the gym and getting on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes. I really wanted to take a nap instead. But as one of my friends says, “You never regret a workout!” Seriously – there are days that I live by this saying! Today was one of those days, and I was really happy that I did a little work out rather than skip it all together.

I met my friend at 102 Noodles on Ives Street in Providence. I have told you about 102 Noodles before, and tonight was another great evening there. I had the udon noodles with shrimp and coconut curry broth. It was amazing!!!

Ok. That wraps up the past two days. I’m going to bed. Good night bloggies! See you tomorrow.

Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Breakfast, Workout | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Random Thought for the Night

January 24, 2012 by Heather

Ok. I really need to be going to bed – but I had this random thought, and figured I’d put it out there. As I was unpacking my groceries tonight, I got to thinking. I would LOVE to see what an elite runner’s refrigerator and pantry looks like. (Of course I’m thinking Kara Goucher [my favorite distance runner] – but anyone else would be interesting, too) What do they eat? What are their “go to” foods??? I’m so curious.

I have been up too late watching the State Of The Union and other poli – sci geek things, and am now officially heading to bed. In case you have ever wondered the same thing – you can read this article based off an interview Kara gave after the 2009 Boston Marathon.

See y’all tomorrow!

Posted in Food, Health, Running | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

2012 – Day 24: The Nitty Gritty

January 24, 2012 by Heather

Ok, so no one said running was easy, or pretty. Sometimes the things you have to deal with are down right disgusting. Blisters anyone? Bleeding nipples? <– Ok, I’ve only had a couple of my guy friends experience this horrible issue, but it is one of the more disheartening aspects of this sport) Being hit by a snot rocket during a run? (um, yeah – that totally happened to me last spring!) There are lots of things that are not pretty and you just sort of grin and bear it.

The last couple of days I have been dealing with one of these ‘issues’ and since this is a blog where I discuss running, training and so on, I figured why not put it out there? So – a few weeks ago (maybe a month ago..?) I stubbed my toe very badly. I was lucky not to break it (looking on the bright side) and the last time I went for my monthly pedicure, we noticed that the nail had a crack in it. So I decided to put nail polish over the nail and hope things would just stay put. This totally worked for weeks until Sunday. After my seven mile run, something happened and I totally almost lost the nail, sort of. I freaked out. I used a band aid to put everything back in place, and yesterday I used NAIL GLUE to glue the broken part back to where it was. Then tonight I put clear nail polish over it to secure it again. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this works.

Tonight I ran four miles and only put a band aid over my big toe while I ran. I felt fine. I am hoping that by drinking milk (??? where do I get these ideas???) my nails will be strong and grow quickly… Seriously? These are the things that stress me out. Along with avoiding another case of runners knee and shin splints. Yikes. As one of my fellow running friends said to me a few weeks ago when we were both dealing with yet another issue, “Runners are special. Runners are not normal people.” I have to agree.

Fellow runners out there -if you have any suggestions on this issue, please feel free to email me or leave a comment. Do you think this method will work??

Anyhow. Back to more nitty gritty details of training.

On Sunday night I stayed up very late watching football. Of course I was thrilled by the Patriots win and I am very excited that we are going back to the Super Bowl. I was heart broken when the 49ers lost. That’s all I am going to say. (Oh, and I ♥ Jim Harbaugh) That’s all.

On Monday, I was exhausted. Most likely from staying up way too late and then not being able to go right to sleep after the excitement and heartbreak. So, I was tired. There was a breakfast meeting at work which meant that there were a lot of snacks around the entire building. Everywhere I went there were things to snack on.

Point being – is it just me, or do you find that when you are exhausted you snack more? I find that I snack more, and because I am exhausted it is a lot harder for me to think about what I am eating and make healthy choices. I want sugar when I am tired, I guess. So I had three munchkins in the morning and later in the day two brownies. Thankfully the brownies were cut into small pieces – which is why I had two :)

So, Monday was a bit of a disaster in the eating department – but I decided not to stress about it and just start over on Tuesday. To really drive this point home, I had a hamburger and a few french fries for dinner on Monday night. A real hamburger. Not a turkey burger. Not a veggie burger. Seriously.

Monday night was kind of fun and relaxing for me. I decided to take the night off from EVERYTHING. No training (thankfully I had the seven miles under my belt from Sunday!) No cooking. No cleaning. No chores. Nothing on the agenda. I watched part of a movie, and I read my book. I also spent time on the phone with friends and family, which was very nice.

After having a day off from pretty much everything yesterday, Tuesday was a day to get back on the wagon! I woke up closer to my normal early time. I try to wake up at 5:30 every day. Today I did actually get up at 5:40 which I felt was an accomplishment. I was out the door by 6:20 and I was at my desk at work by 7:20AM. An earlier start to my work day means an earlier start to the rest of my day (training, etc.) so this was a good thing.

Breakfast was at 9:20 this morning. A Luna bar:

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(It just happened to be my birthday bar from the Luna Bar company that I had this morning! It was lovely!)

I had a lunch meeting this afternoon and sandwiches, chips and cookies were provided. Exciting. I had half of a turkey sandwich (I removed the cheese and wished there was lettuce and tomato on it!) and half of a fresh tomato, mozzarella and basil sandwich – this is my favorite sandwich of all time at work. I had a cookie and a few reduced fat potato chips. Along with lots of water. (I drank a lot of water today to make up for my unhealthy eating yesterday)

After the meeting I went for a quick walk with a colleague because it was nearly SIXTY degrees and sunny today. We could not stay inside all day long. It was a wonderful walk. (Although once again – Climate Change is freaking me out.)

After work I drove right to the gym. I ran 4.2 miles and then left. I should maybe have done weights, or something else – but from the moment I walked into the gym I had just wanted to leave. But I am really glad that I forced myself to exercise :) As one of my friends always says, “You never regret a workout!” I agree.

Once I was finished with the treadmill, I walked over to East Side Market to pick up some healthy food! I figured if I stocked the fridge it would be easier to stick with the plan. I spent $39 total and walked out with enough stuff to last me the rest of the week, I think.

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6 Greek yogurts (they were on sale!)

3 apples

1 red pepper

2 tomatoes

1 bag of mixed greens

1 package of Dr Praeger’s veggie burgers

Arnold’s sandwich thins

2 Amy’s light and lean meals (I’m not usually a fan of these things, but I like to get them when they are on sale for the end of the week when I lose my energy to prep lunches)

2 Olga’s pizza shells. (Yum!! Homemade pizza tomorrow night?)

For dinner I had the second to last serving of the turkey chili. I garnished it with Cabot cheese, low fat sour cream, cilantro, and green onions. It was really great and the garnishes made it taste really fresh:

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I just love green onions and cilantro!! They are two of my favorite garnishes. One thing that I liked about having turkey chili over the last couple of days is that I was able to use all of the same toppings from the black bean soup. I did not have to buy any new garnishes for the chili. Yay for saving money, I guess!

Ok, I am now paying attention to the State of the Union, so I’m going to wrap things up. On to bigger and better things tomorrow. Hope you are all having a great week so far! See you tomorrow.

Posted in Dinner, Running, Workout | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

2012 – Day 23: Happy New Year!!!

January 23, 2012 by Heather

Hi there blog readers – Happy New Year! It is officially the year of the Dragon, and I hope this means good things for me because I am a double, fire dragon. :) Do you know your Chinese Zodiac sign?

I hope that you all had a great weekend. Did yours go by as quickly as mine seemed to?? I could not believe it when I walked into my office early this morning. I just could not believe that it was Monday morning already!

Because of the snow storm, I moved my long run into the treadmill on Sunday afternoon. But somehow I was able to get seven miles in on the treadmill. :) (This includes a 1/4 mile warm up and cool down, too)

Anyhow. I had a pretty decent weekend. It was quite a snow storm on Saturday – so I spent a lot of time doing things around the house and I felt really productive. On Saturday night I made turkey chili. I brought some over to a friend, and I have been living off the rest of it. I had some for lunch today at work, and two of my friends asked if I would be posting the recipe on the blog tonight – so here it is!

Hearty Turkey Chili – perfect for a winter night (and football!)

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound lean ground turkey (my package was a little over one pound, and it worked out just fine)

1 onion, chopped

1 1/2 cups water

1 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes and the juice from the tomatoes

1 can 16 ounce black beans, (or any other beans that you like! and I always tend to use reduced sodium beans when not using beans that I’ve prepared at home. Normally you can drain the whole can, but I used some of the liquid from the beans – half the can, and drained & rinsed the rest… I felt like I retained some of the good flavor by not rinsing the entire can of beans)

2 – 3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 tablespoon (or more if you’d like!) cumin

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

**salt & pepper to taste (I didn’t add either to the mix, I didn’t find it necessary!)

Optional: you can add one diced red pepper, one celery stalk but this time around I did not add either.

Garnish:

low fat cheese, sour cream, green onions and cilantro.

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Directions:

1. heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add diced onion and cook until onion becomes tender and translucent – at least five minutes. Once onion begins to cook, add garlic. Be careful not to burn the garlic.

2. Once onion and garlic have been in the pot for a few minutes, add turkey and break up, and brown the meat. Cook for at least ten minutes. During this time you can add some of the water if you need to. Cook until turkey is evenly brown.

3. Pour the rest of water into pot. Mix in tomatoes, beans. Stir. Add all seasonings but salt and pepper (save that for when you are tasting your final product!). Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

I hope you like this chili as much as I do! Because you are using a lean turkey, this meal is very low in fat and high in protein! :)

Posted in Cooking | Tagged | 2 Comments »

Winter

January 21, 2012 by Heather

Winter has arrived in New England – better late than never? That would be my usual spiel… but this year I was definitely benefiting from not having a lot of snow on the ground. I have had to move a lot of my running to the treadmill in the last couple of days – I am not a fan.   

Anyhow.

Here is a quick recap of the rest of the week. It snowed on Thursday night into early Friday morning. I woke up and struggled to get out of bed because I was tired. (Later in the day I was told how tired I looked – so I made sure to get some extra sleep last night, I’m feeling a bit more rested – but need more sleep tonight) I got to work late, around 8 o’clock. Will I ever get back on to my early schedule???? I hope so. I do not like getting in to work at 8 o’clock.

Breakfast was another cup of coffee and a piece of whole wheat toast with almond butter and jam. So. Good.

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I took a walk at lunch to get a fresh sandwich wrap for lunch. My wrap was a spinach one and I put lettuce, tomato, cucumber, hummus, mustard, red pepper and turkey into the wrap. It was amazingly good and so fresh which made it even more wonderful. I forgot my phone, so I was not able to snap a photo.

At 3:30 I had a snack of 1/2 of a promax low sugar protein bar and a small cup of coffee. After taking my car in for an oil change, I eventually got to the gym where I ran 4 1/2 miles. I did some speed work on the treadmill to make the run more interesting – and in an meager attempt to increase my speed.

It was a great workout. It was really fun to run a 7:30 minute mile pace for a bit! I am excited to do more speed work on the treadmill, I guess. :)

For dinner I went to East Side Market where I picked up a couple of things from their prepared bar because I did not have energy to cook. I made some good choices, I think. I came home, heated up what needed to be warm and fixed two plates, one for me and one for mom.

My plate:

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Green beans with almonds, brown rice with scallions and pecans (SO GOOD!!!) and 2 ounces of salmon with a spicy peanut sauce. It was a great dinner. I had Greek yogurt for dessert. I was very hungry after my run last night. Tea and the yogurt went a long way in helping. I did not want to snack my way through the entire night.

I went to bed around 10:45 last night after doing some reading. I woke up at 8:30 and it was snowing, again. I decided not to run because my hips were a little sore from my last two days of work outs.

I made oatmeal and great coffee instead! I thought the oats looked rather pretty today. They were very creamy thanks to the 1% milk I used (Stonyfield has the best milk, I think!)

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In the mix today:

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup 1% milk

1/2 cup water

teaspoon of Chia

teaspoon of Flax

Sprinkles of cinnamon

Splash of vanilla

Topped with brown sugar and almond butter. THE BEST OATS. I did not eat everything in the pot. I saved some for my roommate. :)
I was pretty snowed in here today. I did laundry, cleaned my room, made a pretty good batch of homemade turkey chili and got a lot of reading done. It was a pretty nice day and I feel like I got a lot accomplished around the house.

Tomorrow is all about football!! And getting a run in at the gym. Alas, I fear that I might be on the treadmill for a while – I wonder how long the snow will stick around..? Good night bloggies! See you tomorrow.

Posted in Cooking, Dinner, Running | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Black Bean Soup Recipe

January 19, 2012 by Heather

The other day I was reading another cooking blog, Je Mange la Ville and I came across a recipe for Black Bean soup. The moment I read the recipe I knew I wanted to make this. It was great to be inspired again to cook. (I’ve been a slacker – the Saturday morning healthy mac & cheese got me started again, thankfully.)

Here is the recipe (I have made a couple of changes):

Black Bean Soup with Cumin & Jalapeno (originally found on Je Mange la Ville ) adapted from a recipe in Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped (I used a good sized sweet onion)

1 carrot, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp ground cumin (I added more because I love cumin!)

1 jalapeño chile with seeds, finely diced(although the recipe called for seeds, I did not add all of the seeds from my jalapeño. I added a very small amount)

2 15 to 16 ounce cans of black beans 1 can undrained and the other can drained and rinsed (I used reduced sodium black beans, they be hard to find – but keep looking!)

1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes in juice (look for a can that does not have a lot of sodium to help reduce the salt in the soup)

1 14 1/2  ounce can of low salt (or homemade) chicken stock (If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, you can totally use vegetable stock or just stick to water – there is plenty of flavor in the rest of the ingredients!)

1 cup of water

Garnishes:

Cheddar cheese

chopped green onions

chopped fresh cilantro

hot sauce (if desired)

(I also really enjoyed eating my soup with some lime tortilla chips… I think you could add a little bit of lime juice to this recipe and it might add some more really good flavor. Next time I might try this…)

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium heat.

Add onion, carrot and garlic. Sauté until vegetables begin to soften, about six minutes (make sure not to burn the garlic!). Mix in the cumin, about half the jalapeño and 1/2 a cup of water. Sauté for another two minutes.

Add beans, tomatoes with juice, broth and ½ cup of water. Bring soup to a boil. Reduce heat to medium (or medium low), cover, and cook until carrots are tender, about 15 minutes.

Transfer 4 cups of soup into a food processor (or blender, or you can use a hand blender if you have one – and then you don’t have to transfer the soup) and puree until smooth. Return puree to pot.

Simmer soup until it slightly thickens, about 10 – 15 minutes. Season to taste, if needed, with salt, pepper and remaining jalapeño.

Serve soup hot, and garnish with any or all of the recommended above.

I had another bowl of soup tonight. I put a ton of cilantro (did you know Julia Child hated cilantro??? She apparently thought it tasted like dirt… I love it!) and green onions, along with some hot sauce, cheddar cheese and sour cream. Amazing.


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I hope you enjoy this soup as much as I do!

Posted in Cooking, Dinner | Tagged , | 2 Comments »

My Love of Beans…

January 19, 2012 by Heather

Just a quick post to tell you how in love I am. I love this black bean soup! It is amazing and simply put one of the best winter time meals I have made up in quite some time! I cannot wait to share the recipe with you tonight.

I have had a stressful couple of days this week but I am hoping to turn things around today.  :)

Breakfast was a piece of whole wheat toast and almond butter (no salt added from Whole Foods – great stuff!).  I had a “two bite” brownie to celebrate a friend’s birthday this morning at 11 o’clock. At 12 I went for a twenty minute walk outside. It was beautiful. It was cold but not freezing, there was no wind and we experienced about an hour long snow shower – and I got to walk outside in it. These are some of the things I love about winter.  Sunny snow showers and warm & hearty soups.

Lunch was the soup topped with some plain Greek yogurt, Cabot reduced fat cheddar cheese and on the side I had a couple of tortilla chips. My afternoon snack will be Greek yogurt with PB2, chia, flax and raspberries.

One random and great thing about making your own soups – you get to dictate what goes in your dish and how to season it. I seasoned my soup with cumin instead of salt and that is one reason I love it so much.

Tonight I have a 3 mile run scheduled and an hour long training session with CR. Can’t wait – even though I am feeling exhausted. I hope the physical activity will help me find some energy somewhere.

See you tonight, bloggies.

Posted in Cooking, Lunch, Walk | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

2012 – Day 18 National Soup Day

January 18, 2012 by Heather

Wow, I am so ready to hit the hay – but I wanted to do a brief recap before I do.

I was able to get up a little earlier than I did the day before, it has been hard to get up so early this week. Is it because it is so cold? I am not sure. But anyhow. I left the house at 6:30 this morning (better than 6:55 on Tuesday!)

Once I got to work, I had a second cup of coffee. At 9:30 I had a bowl of oatmeal with a small spoonful of almond butter on top:

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For a morning snack at 11:30 I had a handful of Kashi cereal (autumn crunch – it is the sodium free cereal that I found recently!) Lunch was a greek yogurt, raspberries, an Arnold sandwich thin with almond butter and jam. Pretty simple and basic. I must have been hungry because I forgot to take a photo of any of it!

I had a protein bar as a snack at 3 o’clock. At 4 o’clock I left and drove to the gym. I ran 3 miles on the treadmill at the gym and then I went to East Side Market to pick up some ingredients for the soup I had planned on making and was looking forward to all day.

When I got home, I had a bit of a scare – that was pretty much all my fault – and it took a little while for me to calm down. But once I got into the house, I went right into the kitchen and started chopping vegetables. 1 onion, 1 carrot, 4 cloves of garlic and 1 jalapeno pepper. I started cooking all of those in some olive oil in my Le Creuset french oven.

I am going to recap the entire recipe tomorrow. Unfortunately because I was so flustered, I just made the soup and just did not take photos of the progress while I was cooking. I finally ate around 8:40 tonight. The soup was wonderful!!! Wow. This is definitely a new favorite and I will surely be making it again soon.

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I added Cabot cheddar cheese, cilantro, green onions and low fat sour cream. Holy yum!!! This soup was perfect for a very cold day, which also just happened to be National Soup day!

Ok. I am falling asleep as I type, so I’m wrapping up and I will explain the recipe tomorrow. Let me tell you – you will want to make this. :)

See you tomorrow and thanks for reading!

Posted in Cooking, Dinner | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

2012 – Day 16 (Monday recap)

January 17, 2012 by Heather

It was really very cold on Sunday. Monday it was a little bit better. It was only in the 20s when I went to the gym on Monday morning – a vast improvement! I really had to force myself out of the house and I got to the gym and I ran for 35 minutes. I was happy to see that the gym was giving out some free swag on Monday morning:

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I haven’t tried it yet. I don’t normally do the flavored water drinks, but I decided to pick one up and give it a try. Perhaps I’ll try it over the weekend after one of my long runs.

Oh – before I went to the gym I had a light breakfast:

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Kashi, raspberries and 1% milk. It was quite an awesome breakfast.

After my run, I came back home and got ready for the rest of my day. My sister came down from Boston and my mom, sister and I went out to lunch to have a belated birthday celebration for me :)

We went to Luxe which is a sort of burger bar in Providence. It’s one of my favorite places. I ordered a turkey burger with sweet potato fries:

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For the record, I ate almost the entire burger, and enjoyed a few of the sweet potato fries. I <3 both the turkey burger and Luxe and the sweet potato fries which are done almost perfectly. They are thin, crispy and perfectly seasoned. Yum! The three of us also split a chocolate marshmallow milkshake. Everything was fantastic. For my birthday they brought out a mini chocolate mouse which was in a shot glass with whipped cream and a candle. It was so cute and the perfect size for me.

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After a late and large lunch, there was no need for dinner. But I had a lot of tea, to keep warm, and mom and I snacked on a few twizzlers while we watched the movie Scoop which was really interesting. (Also entertaining, amusing and funny – I do recommend it!)

I had a long day today, so I’ll report on it tomorrow.

I hope you all have had a good and productive couple of days! See you tomorrow.

Posted in Lunch, Running | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Sunday, Part II

January 15, 2012 by Heather

Ok, I officially love homemade mac & cheese so much, sometimes I want to marry it. I’m kidding, of course.

Today was a weird day. I did not feel like running or going to the gym. But I did decide to go to the mall after my mom asked me to go with her. She had some returns to make at Nordstrom. I figured walking around the mall would be better than being cooped up in the house all day.  I walked about 5,000 steps at the mall, so I guess getting out there was worth it. :)

I bought two pieces of running clothing while at Nordstrom. At one point I wondered if I had more running clothes than work clothes. Even though it seems like this might be true, it is not. I wish I could run more than I have to work – that much is true !

Is it weird that watching the US Marathon Olympic trials made me cry?  It was heart wrenching to watch the fourth place finishers. I was so happy that Kara Goucher made the team, and I think the women’s marathon team is really strong this year. I am excited to watch the event this summer.

I had mac and cheese for dinner. I decided to add some grilled chicken to the side, along with carrots and peas. I felt a little bit better that I had a good combination of protein, etc. for dinner. I might have more mac later though.

I am tired and I will probably go to bed early tomorrow. I am definitely going to the gym early tomorrow. I hope I am more excited about this tomorrow – because right now I just want to crawl into bed and sleep in tomorrow morning!

It is still very cold here. Which is probably why I feel like hibernating.

Posted in Running | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

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