Who knows her body really well?

Ok, so after a rather disappointing long run on Sunday, I took a rest day on Monday and bought some iron and B-12 supplements.  I stopped at Whole Foods on my way home from work just to buy some brown rice and supplements.  Seriously they should rename the store 'Whole Wallet" because they take it as soon as you walk through the doors.  I grabbed a small basket and walked through the produce section on my way to the supplements and found organic grapes red and green for 3.99/lb!  I've been looking for some yummy organic fruit to have for snacks lately and Hannafords has had nothign to offer.  So, I put two bags of each in my basket.  Then I found organic golden beets and regular beets in giant bunches for 2.99 - SCORE!  OK, on to supplements, got what I needed and moved on.  Got the brown rice and headed for the checkout.  A quick trip to the store for one or two things added up to $67.00!  Thanks Whole Wallet.

When I got home I started to cook some dinner.  Put the brown rice on first because it takes the longest.  Then started prepping the rest of the meal - shredded carrots and toasted sesame seeds tossed with a little rice vinegar and tamari soy sauce to make a slaw, set aside.  Sliced up the beets and put them in the oven to roast with a little water, salt and pepper.  Chopped kale, broccoli, carrots and steamed them - set aside.  Whisked together more tamari, a little honey, corn starch, and water.  Saute some tempeh and tofu chunks and throw in the sauce to coat.  Make some red quinoa and mix in with the cooked brown rice and some salt and pepper.  Now time to assemble the meal - first the brown rice and quinoa, then the kale, broccoli, carrots, beets diced up, a scoop of tempeh and tofu, a little of the carrot slaw and top with a sprinkle of sliced raw almonds - YUM!!!!!  I inhaled it in about 5 minutes.  Then took my supplements.

Tuesday after work I decided to test out how the rest and refueling worked.  Just a quick jog around the Charles.  I figured I would head out and see how the first mile went and decide from there how far to go.  WELL....the first mile was awesome!  I ran it in 9:35 significantly better than the 12:00 minute miles I was doing Sunday.  I checked my heart rate and it was right where it should be in the 140s (~70% of my max).  So, I pressed on and even picked up the pace a little (which usually never happens in the 2nd mile of this particular loop because there is a little incline right at the BU boathouse that always slows me down).  I got to the bridge where I needed to decide turn or keep going and decided to go easy and turn instead of pushing my luck and keep going.  Finished my run - 6 miles averaged a 9:20 pace!  AWESOME!!!!

The run would have been perfect if it wasn't for one small (well actually not that small) gross incident that kind of ruined it.  Somewhere along the way I stopped at an intersection to wait for the walk signal and looked down at my shirt and saw a giant greenish brown blob of bird turd!  Eeeeewwwww!  It was sort of raining a little so I didn't feel it hit me.  I tried to wipe it off with a leaf and made it worse.  So, I just kept running, nothing I could do about it.  I was getting the funniest looks from people like, "I wonder if she knows she has shit on her shirt".  It was hilarious.  Then, of course, as luck would have it, there was an accident on Storrow Drive and there were several fire trucks and about 20 Boston Firefighters all standing there as I ran past looking all cute in my running skirt and my shirt had shit on it.  Oh well.  They say getting pooped on by a bird is good luck.  Maybe it is, I'll let you know if I suddenly get lucky, although I doubt it will be with one of the firefighters.  hahaha

Wednesday was my weekly Ayer run with Kim.  I had missed it the week before because of work so I was excited to get there and run.  It was pouring rain when I got there, but the sun was in the sky just one town over from Ayer so I was hopeful that we wouldn't get soaked.  Kim was less enthusiastic.  I dragged her out and we started running.  We did a slight variation of a run we've done before.  The rain stopped within the first half mile of the run and then it got really warm and muggy out.  I almost would have preferred the rain.  We added on a little in the middle of the run to avoid the giant hill that we went up the last time we ran this particular loop.  I asked Kim if she was sure it would be enough, should have known better, she has internal GPS and knows distances really well.  It was exactly 5 miles right to the end of her driveway.  We averaged 9:40s which is awesome because Ayer is HILLY.

Last night I went for another run along the Charles after work.  There were thunderstorms looming over the city and I was torn - run or not run.  I went for it and figured it would be fun if I got stuck in a storm.  Maybe the bird turd was really lucky because I got 7 miles done at a 9:30 pace with some fun fartleks in the middle and finished up the run just as the rain started to come down.  Then I got stuck in traffic on my way home and sat on the highway for almost 2 hours.  It was torture because after my run I chugged about a gallon of water then had to pee wicked bad.

This weekend I'm doing a long run Saturday and another triathlon Sunday.  I'm hoping I can get home early this afternoon and sneak in a bike ride and maybe a short run and call it training for the tri since I really haven't trained at all.  Weather forecast is a lot better than last weekend so it should be a great couple of days.  Maybe if the bird turd luck continues I will actually place in the triathlon and win something.