When life gives you lemons……squeeze them in the b*tches eyes and run

Wow, it’s been a crazy few weeks. Sorry I haven’t updated much. Mother Nature continues to be a giant douche. And it seems everywhere I turn lately people are just cranky and not nice. Drivers on the road nearly running me over and neighbors parking so no one else can park and threatening to call the police on a bunch of elderly people that mean well, but suck at life. One of my best friends gave me a bit of advice a few years back and it always comes in handy around these type of circumstances - "don't let the bitches get you down". Works on so many levels.

I work for a large pharmaceutical company that is doing “Capacity Planning” and “Future State Discovery” (aka – how many people can we get rid of and still make money?). It has been going on for about a year and it makes for a very stressful work environment. We are told to focus on our work and try not to be distracted by the fact that your badge might not work when you come in tomorrow. I try to make the most of it and look on the bright side; at least I have a job …… for now.

The one bonus to this craptasic scenario is that my company has an onsite fitness center. So, while Mother Nature has made it difficult to train outdoors, I have been utilizing this employee benefit every day after work.

Monday I did some strength and an hour on the elliptical. Tuesday I did my new favorite “jump rope-run-bike” workout. Wednesday I did more strength training and elliptical. Then Thursday, my plan was to drive into Boston and run the Newton Hills for the first time this year. Unfortunately, we left too late and got stuck in traffic and couldn’t find parking then just ended up doing an out and back to BC. It was still about 9 miles of hills, but not the same scenery.

Friday was the mother of all bad days. My computer crashed and I was unable to do any work so I sat and stared at a blank screen totally helpless and annoyed. I left early because it was driving me nuts. I went home and decided to take a rest day and use the free time to go grocery shopping and do my laundry and watch a few movies.

Saturday morning was another Lowell Ladies run with my prego friend Kim and our running buddies. Yup, she’s still running. You have no excuse if you say you can’t get to the gym or go outside for a walk – She’s 37 weeks pregnant and STILL running! It was cold and windy but we managed to finish a nice 5 miler (plus 3 miles for me to and from her house).


Sunday I got up early and did my 14 miler then took a quick ice bath and a hot shower and met some friends at my favorite restaurant in downtown Lowell – Life Alive. Lunch was awesome. I got home, relaxed, and made plans with some other friends to go back to Life Alive again the next day because I actually had the holiday off.

Life Alive Monday was delicious as expected and my friends convinced me to take another rest day because I ran a total of 22 miles over the past 2 days so I went home after lunch and watched a few movies before going to bed.

This week was almost identical to last week. Go to work, then the gym or a run, and home.

Wednesday night was the annual condo association meeting. It’s always entertaining and stressful. There are only 8 units in my condo association. Half of the residents are elderly; one resident is a completely insane psycho; one resident is a new girl that doesn’t say much; then there’s the young couple that didn’t even show up to the meeting; and me. We do the best that we can with the resources we have available to us and every year the psych guy threatens everyone and yells the entire time. The elderly woman that is the treasurer tries to justify wasting money. Everyone else just sits there.

This year I couldn’t take the chaos anymore. I stepped up and facilitated the meeting. I showed the treasurer all her accounting errors and demanded that we stop throwing money away on non-essential stuff. I cut the psycho off mid-rant and made him leave because he was off topic and disrespecting everyone. After he left I blew through the agenda and adjourned the meeting within 15 minutes. Hopefully, we can follow though on all the action items and keep the crazy guy from killing us all. We already have a report on file with the police department and if he tries anything I’ll put his ass in jail.


Thursday was a pretty normal day at work followed by an awesome hill run in Lowell after work. I went with my friend Scott and took him on the hilly non-hill 7 miler. It felt really great. The weather was perfect; in the 40s and partly sunny. The roads were sort of clear from some of the warm weather melting everything. Cars were still not nice and I had to jump into the snow bank a few times but overall it was a fantastic run.

Friday flew by and after work I went to the fitness center to get my body composition measured again. I could tell immediately when Beth wrote down the first few numbers that I had changed significantly since the last time she measured me. The first few numbers were in the single digits. We plugged the numbers into an online calculator and hit “calculate”. I’m down to 16% body fat!!!! No wonder my clothes feel huge and everyone keeps asking me if I lost more weight. I can’t believe it. From couch potato to lean marathoner in three years, blows my mind.

I went home and baked cookies for Dana Farber and Saturday I volunteered at their long run in Lexington. I didn’t think it was suppose to be very cold, but when I got to the water stop we were working, the wind picked up and cut right through me. I was shivering for 3 hours and I still needed to do my own long run. I got home and put my running stuff on, but with my fingers still numb, my legs really stiff and still frozen, and the clock ticking away the daylight hours, I decided to skip my run and warm up instead. I fell asleep on my couch and woke up 3 hours later. So, I guess I needed the rest.

Now it’s Sunday morning and it’s SNOWING AGAIN!!!!!! I have a 3-mile race this afternoon and I wanted to try and squeeze in a few miles before the race to get my long run in for the week, but it might be too dangerous while it’s still snowing and the roads are not cleared. We’ll see if it looks better in an hour or so. In talking with some of the veteran runners at the Dana Farber training run yesterday, they were all convinced that a tough training season means a nice race day. I really hope they’re right.

Happy “I’m single and I hate cheap chocolate and hallmark cards anyway” day!

I will be so happy when I don’t have to see another friggin’ Valentine’s Day commercial or chick flick on TV for a while. I mean, I love a nice romantic comedy now and then, but it’s nauseating in February. Even Facebook was flooded this morning with status updates wishing everyone lots of love. Blaghhh.

Last week flew by. I did two days of intense intervals on the dreadmill and stationary bike, one day of easy lifting, and a day of easy elliptical exercise. Friday night I went to Trader Joe’s after the gym – BIG MISTAKE. Traffic was terrible and it took me forever to get there and what should have been a quick trip to restock on peanut butter turned into a “everything looks good because I’m so hungry my stomach is eating itself load up on junk and eat it on the way home” trip. I was able to resist the sea salt brownie bites and chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels, but caved and got some mango sorbet and Trader Joe’s version of Doritos.

Saturday morning I went for a run with my lovely lady friends of Lowell. The plan was to do 5 miles, but I ran from my house to my friend Kim’s house which adds a little over a mile and a half each way for me. So, the total for me was about 8 miles and change. Kim is 36 weeks pregnant and still running! She’s proof that anything is possible. It was a great run, the sun was out, there was little to no wind, and we averaged about 10:00 minute miles. Here we are before the run:

After the run I had to rush home, freshen up and wrap a present for Kim’s surprise baby shower. I made her a hand stitched baby quilt. It came out so cute. It had little elephants, giraffes, alligators, and birds on it. Here’s a photo of her holding it up for everyone to see:

Saturday night, I just went home and finished my laundry and took a nap. I was sort of bummed out because I hitched a ride with one of my running buddies to the shower and on the way back to my house she was trying to fix me up with her ex. I appreciated the effort, but the more she talked about him and why I should date him, the more irritated I got and the more I just didn’t want to hear about it. He use to make her pancakes after she stayed the night and so we just referred to him as “Pancakes” and I kind of felt like saying “I don’t want left over pancakes, I want eggs and bacon!” Instead I just said “no thanks”. Then when I got home all the commercials and chick flick marathons on TV made me even more bummed out. Thank God I had a nice long run to look forward to the next day to make me feel better.

I woke up early Sunday morning and had my breakfast and tea and headed out. I felt pretty good. My legs were a little heavy and it was colder than the day before, but overall it was not too bad and it hadn’t snowed in a few days so that was a huge bonus because the roads were actually sort of safe to run in. The miles flew by. I couldn’t do my favorite 16 miler because some of the roads are still too narrow so I did the same hilly modified 16 miler that I did two weeks ago. I got to mile 7 and my iPod shuffle died, it was ok though. It’s been a while since I ran without music and it was kind of nice. I needed the “me time” anyway. I made it to the last 4 miles and felt really great so I picked up my pace and finished the last 4 miles the fastest and just in time for lunch! I had leftover Sesame tempeh quinoa and then went to the grocery store to pick up food for the week. I decided to try a new recipe and made Moroccan Vegetable stew with cous cous for dinner. It made my whole house smell amazing. Spices like cinnamon and cumin filled the air and then danced on my palate when the stew was ready for tasting. Before I knew it, I was thinking to myself “CRAP! Tomorrow is Monday!”

Another reason I love running

I did another intense sweat session at the gym yesterday. (Jump rope + 1.5m dreadmill run + 2m stationary bike) x5 increasing speed on the dreadmill with each interval. Afterwards I had an amazing dinner - baked haddock, quinoa and wild rice, steamed green beans, but I was still hungry so I ate an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream AND still had a negative calorie balance for the day! Boooyah!

What a week

Last week after running a TON of hills I started out easy. Monday, I just did a short sweat session at the gym, lifting and then doing some intervals on the eliptical. Mother Nature was still being kind of douchey and the roads were not safe to run in with another monster storm in the forecast.

I didn’t let it get me down. Tuesday, I registered for the Chicago Marathon in October! I’ve never been to Chicago so it will be really fun. A few of my friends signed up too so we’re already getting a small group together for the trip. After work I did another dreadmill workout. (100 jump rope jumps + 1 mile run + 2 mile bike) x 5 It’s pretty intense and by the time I finish I’m usually starving so it’s a good substitute for an outdoor run dodging traffic and snow and ice.
Speaking of snow and ice Mother Nature delivered MORE to us on Tuesday and Wednesday in a one-two punch combo storm. It was not nearly as bad as the whiteout conditions two weeks prior, but the freezing rain and sleet on Wednesday made it bad enough that for the first time in the 10 years I’ve been working at my company, they closed the site. I had planned on taking a vacation day anyway because I’m sick of dealing with the lack of parking situation when I get home, but I didn’t even need to use a vacation day. So, I didn’t get to the gym on Wednesday and I didn’t go for a run, but I DID shovel for 2 hours. Then, my a-hole neighbor that doesn’t know how to park his giant SUV came home just as I was finishing shoveling all the snow out of the street to clear the parking spaces in front of our condo and he plowed right into the snow bank with his car knocking over everything I had just shoveled!!! He even tried to park right in the friggin middle again until I told him to back up so other people had space to park too.

Thursday was insane at work because of all the stuff that didn’t get done Wednesday because of the snow. I was running around all day like crazy right up until quiting time. I went to the gym and did an extended version of my new favorite indoor dreadmill workout. (100 jump rope jumps + 1.5 mile run + 2 mile bike) x 5 It took me about 2hrs to do it, but it felt AWESOME!

Friday, I was torn. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. The Stair Climb race was Saturday and I didn’t want to do too much and go into it tired, but I also knew it was only going to take me 8-10 minutes to complete so I felt weird “tapering” for a 10 minute effort. I decided to rest. I always say it’s better to show up a little undertrained than injured and not able to race at all.

The rest totally paid off. Saturday morning I went to the Race Up Boston Place. My start time was 9:29:00am and I’m so psyched I got to go early. My adrenaline was pumping from the moment I woke up. I was so nervous and excited. I brought my jump rope with me to warm up a little before the climb. Finally it was go time. I lined up and waited for the clock to tick to my start time and the volunteer said “go”. I tapped my timing chip on the mat and started climbing. I went every other step and used my arms to help pull me up. It was tricky to find a good rhythm at first because the floors were all uneven and weird. One flight would be 3 stairs and the next would be 11 and then 7. It was really strange and not consistent. I realized after I made it up to the first turn I forgot to start my watch so it was a few seconds off. I was still doing awesome. I did the first 10 flights in 90seconds. I could hear the person that had start 15 seconds ahead of me and some other climbers only a few flights up. I was catching them! I passed one person, then another person, then a guy came up behind me and passed me. Before I knew it there was only 5 flights left to go. I stayed right on the heels of the fast guy that passed me and picked up the pace. I kept telling myself only 8 minutes of suffering. Push through it! I MADE IT. 41 flights, 789 stairs. 7 minutes and 58 seconds!!!!

I was coughing and hacking my lungs out at the top and one of the elite racers said to me “you did it right”. It was awesome! Only a short walk down to the 39th floor for a very nice recovery zone with tons of free stuff including my new favorite thing – Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt. It will be in stores soon, but not soon enough. I was very pleased to see that almost all the vendors there were supplying All-Natural and organic products.
After I recovered and enjoyed some more frozen yogurt my friend Jenna and I headed back down to the lobby to watch the other climbers go. I met up with my friend Jenine and her team of Fit Climbers from the Fit Lifestyle Studios in Melrose and saw a few familiar faces from Boston Fire and Portland Fire. Then as luck would have it, of all places in Greater Boston for it to happen, the fire alarm went off, in a building FULL of firefighters! We thought it was just a mistake until the volunteers started saying “it’s not a drill – GET OUT!” I guess there was a real fire somewhere in the building. Kind of random and funny at the same time just because the whole place was crawling with firemen. We got lunch at B-good after and then spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the eye candy.

Sunday, Mother Nature finally gave us a break and provided a nearly perfect day for training for Boston. It was about 35 degrees and sunny. Most of the snow in the streets melted and just a few spots were icy, but not bad at all. It felt like spring. I did my 14 miler with ease. I should climb ~1000 steps (we did an extra 25 flights after the climb) before every long run. I averaged under 10:00 miles for the entire run and I felt amazing. I hope Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction is right and we are really getting an early spring, but I’m not going to hold my breathe. I’m guessing that Mother Nature still has a few challenges up her sleeves for those of us that are trying to train for a little race to be run in Boston on April 18th.

I LOVE HILLS!!!!

Friday I ran the hilly non-hill 7 miler after work (after I did some upper body strength training and 30 minutes of intervals on the elliptical). Then I got to work baking my oatmeal awesomeness cookies for the Dana Farber Group run.

Saturday morning I got up early and went to Lexington for the Dana Farber group run. It’s so great to meet the new team members and see so many familiar faces from last year’s team too. Everyone LOVED my cookies and raved about them as they came and went from the water stop I was at. It was a gorgeous day out for a long run. I was kind of jealous watching them run their 12-15 miles. I couldn’t wait to get home and go for my own little run.

I got home around 1:00 and changed into my running clothes (only one layer of pants and two tops!). It was so nice out; almost 40 degrees and sunny. I felt great! I was even able to run negative splits and finish the last 3 miles of the run wicked fast. I got home and some of the snow in front of my condo had started to melt so I changed into dry clothes and grabbed my shovel. With another storm forecasted for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I wanted to clear as much snow out of the street as possible. I shoveled for two hours. I moved two giant snow banks from one side of the street to the other side. Smashed up the ice and frozen hard packed snow under the snow banks and moved that too. By the time I was finished there was room for 3 cars to easily park on the street and I was friggin starving!!!! Needless to say, I went in took a hot shower, ate dinner, and fell asleep on the couch by 7:00pm.

Sunday I got up early to do my long run. It was a little bit cooler than the day before and cloudy; made me wish I did my long run the day before. Still not too bad out though, in the 20s. I started my run around 9:00am and wore my yaktrax because it was still below freezing and the roads were kind of slippery. I didn’t want to risk falling and hurting myself even though the roads looked dry for the most part. I couldn’t run my normal 16 mile loop because some of the roads are way too narrow because of the snow and I was nervous about crazy drivers and no space to bail if someone gets a little too close. So, I modified my 16 mile loop and basically did my 14 mile loop with a 1 mile out and back added on 3 miles into the run. I should have picked a better spot to do my out and back because the 1 mile section I chose was a giant hill. I basically ran all the way to the bottom of it and then turned around and ran up it. The whole time I was thinking, it’ll be a mile before I get ALL the way to the bottom of this huge friggin hill. NOPE. Ran all the way to the bottom to make it exactly 1 mile out and back. Then I just continued on my normal 14 mile loop. Took off my yaktrax for the last 4 miles and felt like taking training wheels off and riding my bike for the first time. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!! Here's the elevation profile:


Overall, the run felt great. I was thinking the whole time, I can’t believe I go out on my Sunday mornings and run 16 miles AND I love it. It still blows my mind that I use to hate running and now I run for 2-3 hours at a time FOR FUN! And then when I’m done I willingly submerge myself in a tub full of ice water for 20 minutes. If you asked me 5 years ago to do any of that I would have laughed at you and now I’m the one that gets laughed at when I suggest such activities to my friends.

After the run and ritual ice bath, I met up with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time and we had planned to go to Life Alive in downtown Lowell. It’s this amazing ‘organic oasis’ that we both love and I pretty much only go there when we go out for lunch or dinner together. We had been trying for over a month to connect and plans kept falling through and finally both of our schedules lined up. We headed out my door to go to Life Alive and talked about what we were going to order and how much we love it there and then we got there and it was dark and there was a sign on the door saying that they were closed on Jan 30th for an employee appreciation party! WTF???? What about customer appreciation? We were so upset we must have looked like two little girls that dropped their ice cream cones.

We went to another restaurant around the corner and it was AWFUL. Not just because we were still bummed about not having Life Alive, the food was gross, the service was slow (and the place was empty), and it smelled funny, like there was rotting food imbedded in the carpet. We both just barely nibbled on our food and DID NOT ask them to wrap up the left-overs. Then we tried a small coffee shop down the street hoping for a little dessert to redeem the horrible experience so far and it was closed too. Apparently there is some weird holiday in Lowell on January 30th that causes every business to be closed and no one told me.

To top it all off, the movie we wanted to see was no longer in theaters and we watched a movie on-demand called Vanishing on 7th Street (available now before it’s in theaters). It’s no wonder they released it on-demand first. It was horrible. Really slow and stupid with a lack luster ending that made it seem like they just gave up on the movie and stopped filming before the plot actually finished. We had some delicious homemade food and Newman’s Own cookies. But still the afternoon was pretty disappointing all around. Thank God for the company of my friend because the afternoon was such a let down that to experience it alone would have been wicked depressing. Together we could laugh about it and at least try to make new plans for another day when Life Alive would be open.

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger…….runners.

OK, so I was going to complain about the snow, but it’s not ALL bad. It’s made me take a few rest days that my body definitely needed, I’ve gotten creative with my workouts, and it’s a good challenge to prepare me for anything on race day. I was starting to feel a little warn out at the beginning of the week anyway and if I had pushed myself I probably would have gotten sick. Instead I kind of took it easy this week.

Monday I did 60 minutes of intervals on the elliptical. Tuesday I did another stair climb work out and on the last set of lunges, I heard something in the front of my right hip snap and felt a little give. No pain, but still worrisome. I was planning on doing another 90 minutes at the gym after the stairs, but I skipped it and went home to ice my hip. Wednesday I was a little sore, but walking fine and managing stairs fine. I emailed all my athletic trainer buddies and determined that I most likely snapped a tendon over a bone, like plucking a guitar string. No biggie. Proceed with caution and monitor pain. I took a rest day Wednesday just to be safe. I don’t want to get injured and not be able to run Boston. I’d be devastated.

It worked out really well that I took a rest day Wednesday because the Sesame tempeh quinoa that I made for dinner Sunday and packaged for lunches was so friggin delicious that I had already eaten it all by Tuesday and had no food left to have for lunches for the rest of the week. So, after work I went to the grocery store and got more food for the rest of the week. Sometimes it’s hard to believe the volume of food I consume now. I lost 100lbs. and I think I eat way more now than I did when I was overweight. I just eat REAL FOOD instead of pre-package processed foods that are full of crap your body doesn’t need. I still love food and eat everything, but I find healthy alternatives to the junk I use to eat. Trader Joe’s makes Doritos that are out of this world and Ben and Jerry’s fair trade milk and cookies ice cream is a yummerific treat. Dried fruit is like candy and I eat peanut butter by the spoonful.

Thursday I returned to the gym for one of my new favorite sweat sessions that Mother Nature inspired with the last storm making it impossible to run outdoors. (100 jump rope skips + 1 mile on the dreadmill + 2 miles on the bike) x 5 It’s kind of fun and I get in 5 miles and it doesn’t seem that bad because it’s broken up and I’m not on the dreadmill for a continuous 45 minutes. Plus, I’m totally spent by the time I finish the last 2 miles on the bike and there’s a puddle of sweat on the floor beneath me. That always makes me feel like I accomplished something.

Speaking of burning a ton of calories, someone told me yesterday that they wore their heart rate monitor while removing the snow from their driveway with a snow blower after the latest storm Mother Nature brought our way. Aside from the walking back and forth, I can’t imagine that it is nearly as good of a work out as shoveling by hand. I googled shoveling and it burns an average of ~400 calories per hour so you can imagine how shocked I was to hear this person burned 2000 calories in 2 hours of snow blowing. They mentioned that their driveway is long and uphill, but still, that’s more calories than I burn running a half marathon!!! Unless they were running with the snowblower or at their max heart rate the entire time I have a very hard time believing it was accurate. I may have to wear my heart rate monitor the next time I shovel for 2 hours to see if I actually burn more than 400 calories per hour. I might end up doing that tonight because the plows didn’t really do a great job of clearing my street and there are more neighbors with a serious lack of parking skills than there are open spaces.

Oh yeah, and there’s only 80 days until the 115th Boston Marathon and the finish line looks like this:

Wow, I’ve been busy!

Thursday at work they had a free health screening so I checked it out. I know I’m wicked healthy, but they were raffling off an iPad so I figured I’d get in on that. They were testing blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, and my favorite – BMI. Plus, I haven’t actually had my cholesterol tested in a while so it was interesting to see what the results were now that I eat “REAL food, but not too much, and mostly plants” (thanks Michael Pollan). My cholesterol is 160mg/dL; 59 HDL, 87 LDL, 66 triglycerides. All well below the desirable ranges. My fasting glucose (since I did the test at 6:30am and hadn’t eaten since about 6:00pm the previous night) was 78mg/dL; also well below desirable levels. And my blood pressure was 114/54mmHg. I probably could have gotten even lower blood pressure if I had to wait a little while because I basically ran over to the screening and got right in.

Last but not least, BMI……now, I’m 5’8” and on Thursday I weighed in at 164lbs which gives me a BMI of 24.9. Just barely making the cut for being overweight; to which my response was “BMI is BULLSHIT!” Last time I had my body composition tested I was at 17% body fat, extremely lean for a female in her 30s. Calculating whether a person is overweight only based on their height and weight is a totally flawed method. Not to mention it’s a horrible way to measure someone’s overall health too. I know plenty of people that fall into the range of “healthy weights” based on BMI, but they eat fast food and have high blood pressure and cholesterol and much higher body fat than me. Anyway, enough about that, I know I’m healthy, I just hope I win the iPad. After work on Thursday, I continued my stair climb training with another 5 flights workout followed by 20 minutes of upper body strength training.

Friday the nasty weather in New England continued and the roads were still not ideal for running on so I stayed indoors. YUCK! I did the same interval I did earlier in the week. (100 jump rope skips + 1 mile on the dreadmill + 2 miles on the stationary bike) x 5 As much as I hate the dreadmill, this workout makes doing 5 miles indoors tolerable. The entire workout takes me a little under 90 minutes to complete. I am dripping sweat all over the place by the time I get to the second round and I create a lovely puddle of sweat beneath the stationary bike by the time I’m totally done. So, even though I HATE the dreadmill, I get it done.

Friday night I met some friends and we went to Nashoba Valley Ski area. Not to actually ski, just to hang out in the lodge. I use to ski back in the day growing up in Maine, but that was when lift tickets were $25 at Sunday River. I can’t afford to ski now. It’s ridiculous. We had way more fun staying warm and watching other people ski and listening to the AWFUL cover band play. Some of our friends decided to narrate a couple that was fighting off in the distance and the fake fight they came up with was so funny I was laughing so hard I was crying. Then there was a very odd looking couple making out at the bar that they narrated for too. Needless to say there were few words in that fake conversation, but it was still very amusing. Overall it was a really fun night with all my running friends, not skiing at the ski area.

Saturday morning I got up and went outside! YAY! It might have been in the teens and a little windy, but it was sunny out and the roads were pretty decent. I did the 7 mile hilly non-hill loop and felt AMAZING. After four days of being stuck inside, running outside despite the cold temperatures felt like Forrest Gump must have felt when he finally broke out of his leg braces (I know I’m blonde, but yes, I do realize he is a fictional character). After the run, I quickly changed my clothes and had a snack, some water, and headed out the door to meet some friends at a ten story building in Andover for more stair climb training. Ten flights ten times and for fun I through in a 10 burpees on the last 5 reps for a total of 100 flights and 50 burbees. I was able to do the first 4 reps in about 90 seconds and then I got tired and slowed to a pace of about 2 minutes for ten flights. I think if I can push through the pain and fatigue on race day (and not run 7 miles prior to climbing) I should be able to finish in under 8 minutes. I think I need to be around 7 minutes to win my age group. Cross your fingers for me.

Yesterday, the forecast was for single digits with wind chills in the negative numbers. I was not looking forward to running my 14 miler. I had a feeling my water bottles would freeze and I’d have to take my last gel without water and that was not motivating me to get out the door and get started. Then I got a text from my friend Kim and she offered to check on me part way into my run to make sure I wasn’t frozen solid. So, knowing she would be out there I ran out the door and started my run.

I wore my yaktrax because I was a little nervous about black ice, but once I got going the roads were actually totally dry and I took the yaktrax off and stuffed them in my pocket. I made it to the spot where I had told Kim to meet me and she wasn’t there. Then I realized I told her to meet me where I would be when she planned on leaving and didn’t factor in the amount of time it would take for her to get to me from her house. I kept running and hoped that my directions were good enough that she would find me and right when I hit the 7 mile mark on my run I heard a horn honking behind me. She found me! YAY! I was maintaining a very good pace and felt amazing. The temperature was actually a lot warmer than expected, a balmy18 degrees. The sun was out and there was little to no wind. I chatted with Kim for a few minutes and grabbed a tissue from her and continued on for the last 7 miles of my run. I finished the last 3 miles of the run the fastest and felt awesome when I was done. Made the ritual trip to Rite Aid for my ice bath supplies and spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching some movies.

Last night I decided to try a new recipe that I had found for Sesame Honey Tempeh Quinoa. It seemed sort of simple so I added to it. I made some brown rice to mix in with the quinoa and added cubed tofu to the tempeh and steamed some kale and broccoli and diced up some roasted beets and put it all together and topped it off with some sliced almonds. OH MY GOD! It was delicious. “Delicious” doesn’t even do it justice. It was out of this world. I seriously can’t wait to get home tonight and eat the leftovers. It might be my new favorite meal. It was pretty simple to make and packed full of healthy super foods. Maybe I’ll post the recipe here so everyone can try it.