Good evening,
I shouldn't complain but I think I might. I have been very work centered and have had little time to enjoy life's pleasures. I've been eating leftovers from the fridge - no pasta shall expire in this house! - and I've been trying to sneak in runs whenever I can. For example, yesterday morning I got up early to run with B-May but also be ready for my Dad to pick me up en route to Maine to visit my grandmother. It was worth the trip not only to see my grandmother but also to retrieve my car that she has been driving for a while now. It's good to have my wheels back but I haven't rode my bike since Thursday morning to work. It's Saturday now. Ooops!
Back to the subject of the run: it wasn't too fast or far at all - two miles - but it was a nice wake-up call that kept the coffee at bay. As I get older coffee is becoming more enticing each morning and I make strong efforts not to drink much and develop the headaches that some of my co-workers do. It would be awful to be addicted to caffeine and not know it until your head hurt. That's messed up. So I find that running or riding my bike to work really helps with that and keeps me from needing the pick-me-up. It's in the ride and the run!
Today was a basic eating day, perhaps dinner will hold more interest though if I make it, I doubt it. For breakfast I put together an egg sandwich of oatmeal bread, a fried egg and a slice of cheese. I enjoyed a corn muffin on the side with liberal amounts of butter and because I drove, I stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way to work for a small black coffee. I don't wanna get addicted but I'm not going to let any sugar or milk dilute it either! Lunch was PB and J with leftover Sun Chips which are losing their appeal over time. When I was eating my sandwich however I multi-tasked and threw two kayak racks on my car for B-May and my's upcoming paddling adventure scheduled for tomorrow - weather pending. I'm looking forward to a picnic lunch somewhere on the bay and an afternoon of kayaking, getting to know our area better.
Here's to tomorrow!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
A Productive Day Off
Good afternoon,
Just doing what I do after a good run: downing a Nuun. I've written about these before but they're worth mentioning again. It's a simple electrolyte replacement that gives me my soda fix but are only the size of Alka-Seltzer tablets that - bonus - come in a recyclable container. They're awesome!
This means that I just got back from a good run. Indeed! A little 4.1 mile jaunt down to Newcastle and back again at a 9:17 mile pace. I can be happy with that indeed! I have been reading Zen and the Art of Running recently over lunch - an uneventful grilled cheese on soon-to-expire bread with an egg on top - and read about pacing. This seems like a very good idea as a means of getting faster, which I want to do but I am content at present with what I can already do. This is also in perfect congruency with the pattern of my running - content with 1 mile, all of a sudden doing 2 - and so forth. So check in for faster runs, haha.
Breakfast was oatmeal, something I have truly fallen in love with since our move up North. It's been a reliable and filling and wholesome meal that I fall back on frequently when I'm without eggs, or pancakes or something similar. Okay, this brings me to the reason for my post:
Stuffed acorn squash. There are some asparagus above in the oven tray which complemented the garden veggie quite nicely. B-May put together a mixture of diced corn muffins, Craisins, pecans, onions, spinach and peppers for a crunchy filling even before we dived into the squash itself. Acorn squash comes apart easier than grapefruit - and without the shooting citrus - and, no surprise here, tastes like squash. I liked it a lot. I was quite full and remained during almost all of our movie last night, Fistful of Dollars, a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western classic. Actually, I was hoping to catch a different plot than the one I ended up seeing but I was glad that B-May stayed awake and attentive throughout. Always a wonderful way to spend the evening.
Off to shower as my stink is getting into the computer I feel...
Later!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Post 40!
Good morning,
Though it is a lousy morning...B-May and I went for a short, two mile run today. It was drizzling the whole time and we were sore from life I guess. I put in a fast 5K yesterday (translation: 8min miles) and felt a little tight as a result. Our next event is the annual turkey trot in Andover, MA - the Feaster Five. Unlike last year, we will be running the five mile run, not the 5k. One could say we've graduated. Actually, this was a goal of ours and now that we can regularly put down five miles, or more we're excited for a good result.
We have agreed to a grocery ban for the remainder of November. There are some exceptions: milk, bread and other perishables. But the point is that for the most part, we are not visiting the grocery store for much at all. This is an effort to save money but also to be a little more creative with what we have. Call it an Advent awareness or something. So for example, yesterday at work, I had Annie's organic macaroni and cheese with tuna mixed in. It was excellent and filling and I barely had room for half a brownie.
I should note where this brownie came from: B-May's sister who ran the Somerville 5K with us came up for the day to shop with her sister and before I had to go to work, we all went to Ceres Bakery in town. Excellent sandwiches! Wow! I had a tofu on ciabatta with sprouts, spinach and a tomatoes with a rich horseradish drizzled on top. Incredible.
Today I made pancakes to keep up a semi-tradition of pancakes on Sundays. They were excellent compared to the last time I screwed up nearly an entire batch. Chocolate chip pancakes, plain pancakes and banana pancakes - I covered them all! I've been trying to incorporate power foods - to me, ones that are found at the end of a race on giant tables - into my meals. Here's another example: after my "fast" 5K yesterday morning I mixed up my usual oatmeal with peanut butter, syrup, cinnamon and a banana. This was very filling and I could feel a very present pick-me-up after having it all. And that was without milk! We ran out for a while so I had to make do with water. Never a bad thing. Water is my favorite drink.
Last big note: Friday night B-May and I along with another couple, Robbie and Christina, took part in Portsmouth's restaurant week. It was a fantastic excuse to eat monstrous amounts of food with a pittance of a check compared to its usual rates. I had a seafood cocktail trio of crab, lobster and jumbo shrimp for an appetizer, a Longboard beer to wash it down. For my entree I enjoyed a massive slab of swordfish swimming in a light lentil soup and topped off the meal with a chocolate mousse before heading out to catch some jazz with a couple beers to end the night. It was indeed filling and I think that sheer amount of food kept me from running any faster when I did my "fast" 5K.
Another website worthy of note: runningahead.com This is a neat online training log that allows users to map out usual routes and input them as part of workouts. I have since saved a number of my routes and being able to recall them quickly makes choosing a distance easier than ever. I usually end up trying to retrace an old run trying to distinguish one turn-off from another before giving up and inventing something new. While I am a little hesitant of abusing certain routes, I have been able to use the program to see when I getting bored and use their map software to spice things up.
I have a dude-day ahead of me: a college buddy is coming up from Boston and the plan is to drink coffee and beer and listen to records with some errands such as picking up another PS2 controller also on the docket. So off I go!
Though it is a lousy morning...B-May and I went for a short, two mile run today. It was drizzling the whole time and we were sore from life I guess. I put in a fast 5K yesterday (translation: 8min miles) and felt a little tight as a result. Our next event is the annual turkey trot in Andover, MA - the Feaster Five. Unlike last year, we will be running the five mile run, not the 5k. One could say we've graduated. Actually, this was a goal of ours and now that we can regularly put down five miles, or more we're excited for a good result.
We have agreed to a grocery ban for the remainder of November. There are some exceptions: milk, bread and other perishables. But the point is that for the most part, we are not visiting the grocery store for much at all. This is an effort to save money but also to be a little more creative with what we have. Call it an Advent awareness or something. So for example, yesterday at work, I had Annie's organic macaroni and cheese with tuna mixed in. It was excellent and filling and I barely had room for half a brownie.
I should note where this brownie came from: B-May's sister who ran the Somerville 5K with us came up for the day to shop with her sister and before I had to go to work, we all went to Ceres Bakery in town. Excellent sandwiches! Wow! I had a tofu on ciabatta with sprouts, spinach and a tomatoes with a rich horseradish drizzled on top. Incredible.
Today I made pancakes to keep up a semi-tradition of pancakes on Sundays. They were excellent compared to the last time I screwed up nearly an entire batch. Chocolate chip pancakes, plain pancakes and banana pancakes - I covered them all! I've been trying to incorporate power foods - to me, ones that are found at the end of a race on giant tables - into my meals. Here's another example: after my "fast" 5K yesterday morning I mixed up my usual oatmeal with peanut butter, syrup, cinnamon and a banana. This was very filling and I could feel a very present pick-me-up after having it all. And that was without milk! We ran out for a while so I had to make do with water. Never a bad thing. Water is my favorite drink.
Last big note: Friday night B-May and I along with another couple, Robbie and Christina, took part in Portsmouth's restaurant week. It was a fantastic excuse to eat monstrous amounts of food with a pittance of a check compared to its usual rates. I had a seafood cocktail trio of crab, lobster and jumbo shrimp for an appetizer, a Longboard beer to wash it down. For my entree I enjoyed a massive slab of swordfish swimming in a light lentil soup and topped off the meal with a chocolate mousse before heading out to catch some jazz with a couple beers to end the night. It was indeed filling and I think that sheer amount of food kept me from running any faster when I did my "fast" 5K.
Another website worthy of note: runningahead.com This is a neat online training log that allows users to map out usual routes and input them as part of workouts. I have since saved a number of my routes and being able to recall them quickly makes choosing a distance easier than ever. I usually end up trying to retrace an old run trying to distinguish one turn-off from another before giving up and inventing something new. While I am a little hesitant of abusing certain routes, I have been able to use the program to see when I getting bored and use their map software to spice things up.
I have a dude-day ahead of me: a college buddy is coming up from Boston and the plan is to drink coffee and beer and listen to records with some errands such as picking up another PS2 controller also on the docket. So off I go!
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