Day 67 – All the good things

Does anyone else have unnatural feelings for their crockpot? It’s the best thing ever. I made pulled chicken with black beans and corn. Last night we had it in burritos and tonight over roasted sweet potato with all the trimmings.

J is out of town this weekend so this morning started with me dropping him off before heading to work early. The plan was to run after work. I’ve realized that running at rush hour stresses me out – too much traffic and drivers not paying attention. So time to hit the trail.

This trail is right by my work and I can’t believe I haven’t run on it more before this. Soon it’ll be too hot and/or rattlesnakey for evening runs but today it was 50F and perfect. I took it easy and did a 3.88 mile out and back at 8.55 min/mile pace wtih 551 ft elevation. It was great! One of those – I could run forever runs. And I finished feeling energized and refreshed.

Because J is out of town I decided to purchase one of my favorite movies.

I LOVE this movie and even better while checking out Amazon I realized that I still had some gift credit left. Did you know they sell running shoes there? Well I couldn’t help myself. And these arrived today. Now I have this shoe in every color.

I’m currently rotating two pairs of these and have two brand spanking new pairs ready for when marathon training begins in June.

And I’m ending my night with an episode of Scandal and trying not to eat all of this bag of chocolates.

My Mom (and Nana) sends me Irish style chocolates every Christmas. These are new to me but amazing. I have one more pack and then I’m all out! Will have to stock up when I go home in September. Or visit the local British store – I probably can’t last without them for 5 months.

April mileage: 9.2 miles/14.8 KM

ATWRBR mileage: 131.1 miles/211 KM

Day 19 – Happy Valentine’s Day!

This morning I went to the gym and did my usual strength training workout minus lunges, squats and leg-press. I came home to this.

The way to my heart is definitely through chocolate. You can keep flowers and sappy cards I want me some chocolate. Yum! And a surprise! After all this time (8.5ish years) he still melts my heart. Aww………

I also know it’s the real deal because last night when I was making dinner he spontaneously asked if I wanted a glass of wine at the exact moment when I was thinking “My God, I need a glass of wine right now”. True love.

Dinner was sweet potato and black bean enchiladas plus all the fixins’. You might guess by now that I love avocado and jalapenos. They go with everything.

I also like to keep my Garmin close by at all times!

Another bonus today – the new series of House of Cards is on Netflix. I loved the first season. Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Kate Mara – the dream team. Can’t wait to start. Have to finish The Following first though – can’t have any unfinished business.

We’re pretty lucky in SLC that our weather has been pretty warm and mild – especially compared to the East Coast which has made running outside pretty pleasant. But we did get a weird hail/thunderstorm yesterday evening and just when I was leaving to catch the bus.

Biggest hailstones I’ve ever seen.

Today is a rest day from running and we have plans for a hike and then dinner with friends.  Enjoy your Valentine’s Day. My advice is to spend it with people that you love – whomever that may be!

Day 13 – My 22 min mile

Yesterday I picked up groceries straight after work and found this on sale. Friday night sorted.

It was J’s dinner choice last night – burgers and fries. Lucky for me he’s on board with healthy eating so it was black bean burgers with avocado and chipotle mayo, oven-baked potato wedges and zucchini, tomato, feta and cilantro skillet fry. Yummy comfort food. Paired with some homebrewed IPA. Perfect Friday food.

We watched the first two episodes of The Following. It was a little silly but good fun.

Today was long run day. I got to run in daylight (!) and even saw other runners. For the first time ever my Garmin was acting up – I had run almost 3 miles by the time it registered my first mile. A new record of 22.28 min/mile. I’m hoping it was just a blip. I had planned out my route and wasn’t too worried about pace so I kept going and plotted my route on Runkeeper once I got back. 6.46 miles at 8.42 pace – I’ll take that. Bonus – it started raining about 2 minutes after I finished my run. Perfect timing.

On the plus side my hip is totally fine. Unfortunately, my right knee (opposite side) was twingey. Not painful but the last thing I wanted to happen. I mean the PTs are meant to fix me right, not give me a new injury. I think my body hates me a little. Will take it easy -tomorrow is a rest day. Vitamin I. And have it assessed at my PT appointment on Wed.

For this run I figured I might be out for about an hour so I decided to bring my handheld water bottle and try out one of the Nuun flavors we got at the Park City Trail Series last summer.

Purple means Grape. And I found it not very grape-like and a little sickly sweet. I’m not sure if this is true for every electrolyte powder but it didn’t sit well in my stomach. More experimenting I think.

Breakfast was a feast – homemade pumpkin granola with Greek yoghurt and honey, my weekend homemade smoothie and homemade soda bread with as much jam as possible.

After breakfast I went to the local climbing store and got these bad boys.

My last pair went missing after a trip to the climbing gym in December so I’m ready to get back to my usual Wednesday night climbing!

I have a yoga class planned for this afternoon. It’s a new class – half core and half restore. So you work your butt off for 30 mins then get to stretch it out for the second half. Then tonight we’ll put on our fancy pants and head to the Utah Symphony! Happy Saturday.