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Posts Tagged Ezekial toast

The Poor Example

Aug 31

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 4 Comments

Good morning friends!

WOW it’s Wednesday.  I am glad – I need a break from yesterday and get to work on some errands this morning.  Tuesday was a crazy busy day full of appointments and a good amount of time on the road.  You’ll be able to tell how crazy it was when you see my food recap – it’s a little scary.

I did get in a good leg workout yesterday morning between appointments.

Reverse Lunge Ladder – 100 reps per leg

Single Leg Straight-Leg Deadlift Ladder (with a kettlebell) – 100 reps per leg

Ball Squats - 3 sets of 33, 33, 34

Back Extensions on the Ball – 3 sets of 20, 20, 20

It doesn’t look like much but I had squiggle legs after the first two exercises.  The first exercise alone took 12 minutes to get through going up and down the whole ladder to and from 10, and it gets your heart rate going. The whole thing with warm-up was 40 minutes.

Since my upper body is still pretty sore from Monday’s workout and I just did legs yesterday, this morning we just did a 45 minute hilly walk right as the sun was coming up.  That was plenty.  I’ll call this my active recovery.  :D

So on to my bizarre food day.  It literally consisted of all snacks and not a single “meal”.  It started like any other, with some half caff before my early morning client:

I was running a little behind for my client’s session so I just had a scoop of greens powder mixed with water:

After her session and before my own workout, I had a piece of toasted Ezekial with miso, almond butter and a drizzle of raw honey so that I’d have a little bit of energy for my workout:

After my workout I had a scoop of egg protein powder mixed with almond milk, 1/3 banana and a squeeze of hemp oil:

I had a lot of documentation to work on yesterday before my next appointment and just wasn’t really hungry so when it came time to hop in the car for my long trek, I figured I’d just have a Larabar as I was running out the door.  But it tasted ‘off’ so I only ate about 2 bites (I’ve been running into this issue lately with Larabars, anyone else having that problem?):

I’d packed a Kombucha tea in a cooler to drink after my appointment to tide me over till dinner, but didn’t end up drinking it.  So it went back in the fridge when I got home.  I didn’t want to eat anything too substantial to keep from messing up my appetite for dinner, so I just had some Mary’s flax crackers, a little raw goat cheese and some olives.

But when dinnertime came around, I ended up not really being hungry and I didn’t want to feel ‘full’ for my last appointment of the day.  Unfortunately that appointment ran WAY longer than planned, so by the time I got home late in the evening my blood sugar was low, I was super cranky and ate food to soothe my nerves rather than based on what was the most healthful option.  Veggies just didn’t sound appetizing right before bed.  So I had a small bowl of Mom’s Best Organic Toasted O’s sprinkled with protein powder and topped with almond milk.

Overall this was a less than ideal food day – no salad, no green smoothie, my calories were too low.  Basically, an example of how NOT to eat!

I bet you know what I started today off with right?

A jumbo 30 oz green smoothie!

Ahh, that’s better!

– Shari B. =)

 

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Royally Refreshing

Apr 29

Posted by Shari B. in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Heeeellllllllllooooooooo! (Said in the voice of Jon Stewart as Queen Elizabeth…*)

*If you watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this makes sense. :D   If you don’t watch it, then watch this link first.  Jon Stewart loves to mimic the Queen and it cracks me up.  All morning long while I watched the Royal Wedding, all I could hear in my head was his voice every time they showed Her Majesty!

Happy Friday, friends!  Were you up bright and early to watch the excitement on TV?  While I didn’t set my alarm, I was up early enough (4:37 to be exact) to start watching shortly after William and Kate said their vows.  And while I’m definitely SO over all the media coverage that’s been leading up to this, I have to admit that it’s really refreshing to have something celebratory and happy on TV.  Between the heartbreaking weather disasters around a lot of the nation lately and then the circus act that is Donald Trump and the ‘birther’ issue, it’s been really sad to watch the news.

So this morning, what a wonderful way to start the day!

Except that I’m going to completely contradict myself and muck it up with this crassness:  was it just me or did anyone else find the, er…bodice…of Kate’s dress to be oddly like Madonna’s cone bra???

I’m just sayin’…

My awesome friend and equally awesome baker, Allison over at The Sunday Flog made scones this morning to celebrate the Royal Wedding. I am not nearly that motivated.  I did think of scones, considering a run to Starbucks to pick up one of their ‘petite vanilla’ ones, but I was much too cozy in my robe so Tea and Toast would have to suffice.

(After a royally refreshing glass of fresh green juice: 1/2 cucumber, large broccoli stalk, piece of ginger, 1 carrot, 2 stalks celery and 1/2 a green apple. mmmm green!)

***

While MSP and I were out on a walk last night before dinner, it occurred to me that our next anniversary will be our 10th!  WOW, a decade flies by quickly. I can only hope that William and Kate are as happy today as I was almost 10 years ago on my own wedding day!  I was so lucky to marry my best friend and that 10 years later, he’s still my best friend.

If you are married, what’s your next anniversary number?  Any fun memories from your special day? We actually had a Vegas wedding and it was perfect!  The Little White Wedding Chapel hooked us up with a limo so we rode to the Bellagio Botanical Gardens to take some wedding pictures.  We were married on a New Year’s Day, so the gardens were still decorated in Christmas colors and it was so beautiful!

Well blog buds, my laptop seems to be experiencing a Friday slump because each time I try to upload a photo to the blog, it keeps hanging.  (Maybe the Royal Wedding is crashing the internet after all…!! ;) ) So I’m going to hit the Publish button and get started on the Friday to-do list.  It’s a long one!

Have a FABULOUS Friday!

– Shari B. =)

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BEET This Crazy Club Sandwich

Apr 8

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking | 6 Comments

Well, it’s official.  I have the ‘crud’ that’s going around.  Still no voice, the uncontrollable coughing kicked in last night, the plugged ears and headache today, and even LESS voice than I had yesterday.  Whereas before I could talk kind of in a whisper, now nothing really comes out except for a few squeaks.

Sadly it doesn’t keep me from still trying to talk.  I just cannot be silent.  You know that vow of silence scene in Eat, Pray, Love?  I would never make it more than 18 seconds.

So today I wanted to make an effort to rest (so far I’ve not been all that successful at it) so that hopefully by the end of the weekend I can beat this thing.

And by resting, of course one means tinkering in the kitchen…

I saw a traditional club sandwich over at The Pioneer Woman’s site today and it sounded so wonderful.  Except for the bacon, the deli meat and the cow dairy cheese – all of which I’d end up having to pick off.  :)   But it did give me a spark of inspiration!

I’d purchased beets yesterday to roast for a salad but decided they had to be in sandwich form instead.  Here’s how my thinking process went.  First I wondered if maybe I should just do it as a wrap since beets are messy and stain everything within a 2 foot radius it seems.  Then I was wondering whether I really wanted to use all those pieces of bread to make a club sandwich (especially since it had to be a serving for ONE and I knew this wasn’t something you could really stick in the fridge for later) so I decided to make it as a ‘half’ sandwich.  Then I wondered what the heck I’d put between the other layers of the club’wich. Well let’s see, what goes with beets?  Goat cheese – which I had.  Hazelnuts or walnuts, which I didn’t have on hand, but hey how about some all natural peanut butter or almond butter?  Oranges and apples go with beets – again, no luck.  But I had apricot fruit spread.  And so on and so forth… Convoluted, I know.  It’s just how my brain works.  (And I haven’t even taken any cold medicine yet!)

And you know what else worked?  This sandwich!

Can you BEET This Triple Decker Crazy Club

In usual FitFeat fashion, this is definitely a “Build a Meal” not a recipe.  The idea of this is to figure out what you have on hand, be bold in pairing things together and you might just love what you created!

I start by putting a bunch of stuff in a pile on the counter.  Even when making a sandwich I make a MESS out of my kitchen.

Then I smeared some all natural peanut butter on half a slice of toasted Ezekial and apricot just fruit spread on the other:

In this layer went slices of beet.  Then I ‘closed the lid’ and on the top of it I smeared a mixture of greek yogurt with a little dijon plus some sea salt and pepper:

I ‘massaged’ some olive oil onto arugula (mainly so it would break down a bit – on such a narrow sandwich, I didn’t want pieces of greens falling out.  This makes them ‘stick’ in the sandwich a little better):

I layered on the arugula, some red onion pieces and some chopped fresh basil:

Next I smeared goat cheese onto the remaining halves of toast:

One half of the goat cheesed toast went face down and the top of it was smeared with a little more of the yogurt mixture, and then topped with some hard boiled egg slices:

Then the top was added along with 2 toothpicks to hold it all together for slicing:

Cut in half to make a tall tower and serve!

Did you follow all that wackiness?  Ezekial toast, peanut butter, beets, apricot spread, arugula, olive oil, basil, salt/pepper, Greek yogurt, dijon mustard, red onion, goat cheese, hard boiled egg. Did I forget anything?? Is that a Crazy Club or what?

It was awesome!  A little sweet/salty from the PB, sweet from the apricot, bitter from the arugula, kick from the onion, and creamy all over.  I think this might be the most unique sandwich I’ve ever made!  It was fun to look at and fun to eat!

What is the most unique thing you’ve thrown together with just whatever you had on hand? Did it taste amazing or did it get tossed?

Blog buds, I hope you have a FABULOUS Friday and an even more WONDERFUL weekend!  Comment lots – I’m stuck here on the couch and need the ‘virtual conversation’!  ;)

– Shari B. =)

(And thank you Ree aka Pioneer Woman for the inspiration to get me into my kitchen for some fun today!)

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A Toast to Miso

Mar 23

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking | 3 Comments

Good morning FitFeat friends!

Welcome to midweek!  :)   We’ll be halfway to the weekend at lunchtime today!

Speaking of lunch, I’m looking forward to mine today.  I picked up a nice piece of sashimi grade tuna that I’m going to crust with sesame seeds and wasabi powder then sear on a super hot pan.  I also bought a blood orange to go with it so I’m trying to decide if I want to juice it and reduce it with a little soy sauce or balsamic to make a syrupy drizzle.  For the side I have some broccoli slaw that I will most likely sautée. Mmmm I hope it turns out photo-worthy for the blog!  :)

So I have a new favorite toast obsession that may fall under the category of “Shari and Her Weird Food”!  I’ll let you be the judge of that.

It’s still my favorite delicious Ezekial toast – but I’ve been topping one of the pieces with MELLOW WHITE MISO! It’s delicious!  (In the pic above, the one on the right has the miso on it, left is almond butter).  Drizzle a little raw organic honey on it and I’m telling you it’s AWESOME!  A little salty from the miso, a little sweet from the honey.  LOVE IT.

I’ve also done the same thing on Ezekial sprouted grain English muffins:

I would say it’s no more than 1 teaspoon smeared on there.  You don’t want to go overboard because miso is a little high in sodium.  But it is a great source of trace minerals, and because it’s a fermented food it provides beneficial bacteria and enzymes (provided you don’t overheat it).

I’ve even mixed a little miso into Tofutti (dairy-free cream cheese spread) and smeared it on my Wasa crackers:

More reading on MISO:

From the last article in the list above, I found this interesting:  “Miso soup consumption is linked with up to a 50% reduced risk of breast cancer according to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.”

Do you enjoy miso?  How do you like to use it?

– Shari B. =)

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More Reasons to “Do Something Daily” – A Giveaway!

Dec 2

Posted by Shari B. in Do Something Daily, Giveaway Contest | 10 Comments

Hi friends!

WOW, we have a great group for the December Do Something Daily challenge!  Cindy, Joan, Julie, Carrie, Allison, Ashley!  Excellent!  So excited to have us all keeping each other motivated to keep moving this month!

It’s only Day 2 so there’s still time to join the fun if you worked out yesterday!

Spread the word:  Tweet it, Facebook it, email it.  Let’s get everyone moving!

To sweeten the deal a little bit, everyone who completes the challenge by working out / moving their bods all 31 days of December AND posting about it here at FitFeat in the comments section will be entered into a drawing to win a FREE Eating for Health book written by Ed Bauman, Ph.D. (the founder of the culinary school I’m attending):

*** AND… ***

a FREE 45-minute phone coaching session with yours truly.  You can use that 45 minutes to pick my brain on fit living – we can talk about exercise, healthy eating, healthy cooking during the call*, similar to the calls I conduct with my clients.  So start thinking about what you would do with that time!

Keep me up to date on your progress by posting in the comments sections at FitFeat and after December 31 I’ll assign each completing participant a number (using first names in alphabetical order) and then I’ll use a random number generator to draw the winner.

So now that we know what you’re all playing for, the question is:  What was your movement today?

The first part of my exercise today came courtesy of Margo, the Brooklyn Fit Chick.  Margo recently hosted a fitness DVD giveaway and I was lucky enough to be one of the winners!  The DVDs arrived last night (perfect timing!!) and so this morning I did a 20-minute endurance workout with Marta Montenegro.

It definitely got my heart pumping!  Bodyweight squats, pushups, burpees, knee tucks, etc.  I’ll give a better review of it after I’ve spent more time with the DVDs.  Thanks again Margo for the wonderful gift!  I LOVE to try out new fitness DVDs and mix things up with my workouts.  And I can’t tell you how fun it is to await the arrival of a prize coming in the mail!

After that, even though it was only 38 degrees, I knew I had to get outdoors.  The sky was blue and the sun was shining, so I couldn’t resist (Mother Nature is still smiling on Colorado – it will be 58 later today and 60 tomorrow).  I spent 40 minutes doing intervals of running “downs” and walking “ups” on a hilly loop in our neighborhood.

I had a pink face and cold hands when I got back.

So I warmed up with a Shari favorite of toasted Ezekial with raw almond butter and raw honey.  To spice it up a bit, I sprinkled on cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.  Oh. Emm. Gee.  I wanted to eat the whole loaf like this.  Try it – you’ll love it!

And a side of organic green jasmine tea:

Alright blog buds:  I better stop yappin’ so you have time to go get your workout done!  Make it a FIT and HEALTHY day!  Don’t forget to post what you did so you can stay in the running for the giveaway!

– Shari B. =)

* Currently the giveaway contests hosted at FitFeat are open to US residents only.

***

Shari Becht is a Fit Living Coach and ACE Certified Personal Trainer.  She is extremely passionate about teaching people how they can take steps to fit healthy living into their busy lives.  She has decided to take her love of nutrition one step further by enrolling in the Natural Chef Culinary Program at Bauman College and will graduate in Spring 2011.

If you or someone you know could use some help learning how to fit more “FIT” into life, please feel free to email her at shari [at] fitfeat  [dot] com.  For more information, click here.

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A Friday Hello and Some Random Reading

Nov 19

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking | 6 Comments

Hi blog buds!

Happy Friday!  Wahoo!  I’m so excited for the weekend.  Mainly because next week I have one day of class and then it’s time for the extended holiday weekend!  Yay!

Yesterday was pretty uneventful.  It started with a simple breakfast – which I figured I better share so that you guys know that I still eat most of the same foods I ate BEFORE I started school.  Toasted Ezekial with raw almond butter, raw honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mmmm so good.  This is one of those things where I think, why waste a bunch of time on a gourmet breakfast when something like this can taste so good with only 2 minutes of time AND be healthy for me???

After a client session, it was time to get busy on the knife skills!

Making sure my first cut came out close to 2″:

Check.

Square off my edges:

Check.

Cut a bunch of julienne strips then measure for 1/8″:


Getting pretty close!

I can’t tell you how hard I find it to “EYEBALL” measurements like 1/16″, 1/8″, 1/4″.  Hopefully this is close enough for a passing grade.  ;)

Next stop for these beautiful carrots – a spicy carrot soup (as further practice for midterms).

Random reading notes:

If you are looking for ideas for wine to serve at your Thanksgiving table (or maybe to take as a gift for your hosts) check out this article at Huffington Post.

If you are interested in trying some simple, healthful veggie sides at Thanksgiving, here is an article that our kitchen manager forwarded to us yesterday written by Mark Bittman.

And if you are looking for a book to read about culinary school adventures, you might check this one out:

It’s called “Under the Table” by Katherine Darling.  She attended the French Culinary Institute in New York and then wrote about her time there (she currently writes for Saveur).  Maybe I am biased as a current culinary student, but I really enjoyed this book.  It was so interesting to see the similarities and differences between classic culinary schools and the natural chef route like I’m taking.  This book helped me feel a lot better about some of the anxiety I’d been feeling when in the professional kitchen at school.  If anyone is considering attending culinary school, this would be a worthwhile read beforehand.

OK friends it’s time to start my long commute to school – it’s INDIAN food day, yum!  Have a FABULOUS Friday and I’ll see you again soon!

– Shari B. =)

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Can I Harness Some of that Excitement?

May 6

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 6 Comments

Hi friends!

Can someone tell me where the heck the weeks are disappearing to?  I can’t even believe it’s already Thursday and I haven’t had a post out here since Monday!  Spring is finally starting to act like it’s REALLY here for good so I’ve been trying to get outside whenever the weather (and job schedule) cooperate.

For example, a little off-leash dog park action:

I wish I’d captured on “film” the huge grin on Riley’s face as she scampered all over the place.   (If you have dogs, you know they SMILE!)  It’s been awhile since we’ve been to the BIG off-leash park over at the reservoir where there are acres and acres for them to run around in the woods and by the water.   The crazy beasts ran themselves silly and then came home and crashed out on the floor in the sunshine.

I admit that I enjoy running and hiking and other exercise, but I wish I could just be GIDDY with excitement to run around the way my dogs are!  I think kids are the same way.  Exercise is PLAY to them.  I try to make it that way by choosing things I like instead of things I dread, but I can’t say “giddy” is a word that describes it.  :D   However, if you are doing exercise that you don’t look forward to at least a little, then my friend you should look for other options!

I also got in a visit to the Bluffs this week for a 3.71 mile hilly run, which included 8 sets of 15 sec hill run repeats at the end of the session.

And I have to admit that as much as I love vacations, it’s still awesome to be home and eating MY OWN FOOD again!

Green smoothies:

Huge salads chock full of veggies:

Ezekial toast with coconut butter and raw honey:

Open-faced sandwiches:

Spinach salads topped with a some Chipotle vegetarian “burrito bowls” (because Chipotle is MSP’s all-time fave, and he could literally eat there everyday!)

Baked yams with vegan, soy-free Earth Balance:

And even a few new creation attempts here and there, like this roasted portobello mushroom topped with spinach and herbed goat cheese:

The mushroom was good, but not yet “GREAT”.  I think it needs some pre-cooking marinade.  When I get it feeling like it’s recipe worthy, I promise to share it!

How about you?  Any new food creations lately?  Any springtime outings to enjoy the weather?

– Shari B. =)

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11 Weeks Till 26.2

Mar 1

Posted by Shari B. in Marathon Training | 20 Comments

Happy Monday friends!  (Is it really here already?)

Which means another installment of MARATHON MONDAY!

When I was growing up, a phrase my mom often used was, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  Try as I might, I seem to break this rule more often than not.  I’ll definitely be breaking it today as I recap my 14 miler from this weekend.

To sum up this run in one word:  DISCOURAGING.

To start with, I had a pretty rough night of sleep leading into which doesn’t make for an energetic start to a long run right off the bat.

Since our meet up time was planned for 7:45 this week, I ate my pre-run meal at 6:00 am.  Two slices of Ezekial cinnamon raisin toast with almond butter on one and coconut butter on the other.

I made my date snack to take along during the run, this time using coconut butter in the pit ‘void’ rather than coconut oil.  I also crumbled half of a Coconut Cream Pie Larabar into a baggie to bring in my Camelbak.


It was 26 degrees at the start of the run and a little breezy so I took a fleece and a light windbreaker plus a scarf with mittens since we’d be running directly into the wind during the first half.  My calves were still sore from the Thursday run in my VFFs and for some reason my low back was stiff, so I arrived about 15 minutes early to get in a good warm-up and do some stretching before we took off.

At about the 5 mile mark, I was really feeling blah.  Just wasn’t feeling the run this time.  The spotty night of sleep wasn’t helping the situation.  My heart rate was running high, staying between 175 and 180 bpm so I kept trying to run a bit slower to bring it down.  I really prefer to keep it under 170 on the flats.  I had my fuel at this point because I was hoping for a little energy boost.

Finally we reached the 7 mile mark and turnaround point. As soon as we headed back the other direction, it became very clear that we’d been running a pretty good incline during that first half.  I knew we were running “upstream” along the creek, but didn’t realize how “UP” it was.  This is the elevation graph from my Garmin:

From there until mile 9,  I felt so much better.  My HR was back down to 164.  My knees weren’t screaming as badly.

We used the ‘walk one minute at every mile’ strategy again this time, which my heart rate was thankful for:

But unfortunately it didn’t seem to offer the same relief to my knees.

The run just seemed to drag on forever.  I felt cranky the last few miles and spent a lot of time ‘in my head’, questioning my desire to run a marathon.

I already knew I was going to be miserable the rest of that day.  Bags of frozen edamame weren’t going to cut it this week.

Gonna have to bring out the big guns:

I picked up 20 lbs of ice on the way home and built a torture chamber ran an ice bath in the spare bathroom.

I did two rounds of immersion of my knees and lower legs in the ice bath.  I had a hot bath (with Epsom salt) waiting in the other tub as soon as I got out of this one.  I’m not kidding you, my lips were BLUE!

Throughout the rest of the day I iced my knees three more times with bagged ice.

From a “FUEL” standpoint, since I was in such a hurry to get home and finish stretching, I scrapped the planned banana and glutamine drink.  While buying ice at the gas station, I got a GREEN MACHINE  by Naked Juice to chug in the car.  This juice is so high in sugar that I would rarely choose to drink this any other time – but is why it was perfect for replenishment directly following a workout where I’d burned 1,237 calories.

I drank the whole bottle.  66 grams of carbs (56 of which are sugars) and 800 mg of potassium.  After I was home for a while I had a hard-boiled egg for a shot of protein and two Umeboshi plums for a sodium boost.  I also took ginger root capsules AND bromelain for inflammation.

Then to top the day off, while I was in the car driving back from the run, I got a weird tickle in my right nostril like I inhaled something funny.  And I had one of those sneezing fits where I thought I was going to run my car off the road!  It was about 10 huge sneezes in a row and then my right eye got really squinty and watery.  It was BIZARRE to say the least.  I don’t know WHAT it was, but I felt like I had a cold the rest of the day:  I sounded congested and my nose ran nonstop.

I’m thinking I’m developing an allergy to distance running.  ;)

The best part of the whole run?  The SUN was shining and it was 50 degrees by the time we’d finished.  (I have to find a silver lining somewhere, right?  :) )

I didn’t have a stellar day and I had a lot of “pros and cons” running through my head the rest of the weekend (cons are currently winning) and questioning whether the knee pain is worth it.  The thought of having to add 12 more miles onto the distance I just completed almost brings tears to my eyes.   We’ve adjusted our training schedule to accommodate some out of town trips for each of us in the upcoming weeks, so from here on out we’ve planned the long runs for every other weekend.  So I’m hoping that putting some distance (no pun intended!) between this long run and the next will give me some time to regenerate some excitement. I know not all runs are great runs.  I certainly don’t expect that.  I’m okay with having runs where I’m just not ‘feeling the groove’.   It seems that every other run so far has been one without pain (meaning one is good, one is bad, next is good, etc.), so maybe when it’s time for the 16 miler, that will be the day my knees decide to be happy.  Time will tell!

Did I mention the sun was shining that day?  ;)   Ha ha!

Have a marvelous Monday blog buds!

– Shari B. =)

PS:  If you didn’t get a chance to see it, you have to check out yesterday’s Sunday Comedy post.  It’s short and it will bring a smile to your morning!

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12 Weeks Till 26.2

Feb 22

Posted by Shari B. in Marathon Training | 24 Comments

It was a dark and stormy night…

No, wait.  Wrong story.

It was a COLD and DREARY morning…

The kind of morning where one takes a look out the window and a sane person says, “hmm how about a second cup of coffee and a nice warm blanket?”  But no one ever accused me of being sane.  :D

When I checked to see what Oscar was wearing (Oscar is the little guy on my indoor/outdoor thermometer) he was totally decked out in his snow gear:

(He wears Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses when it’s warm out!)

So I figured I better bundle up too.

Not only do I look scared in that pic, I also look like I’m ready to rob the local saloon!  (Or maybe just the nearest Nike Outlet…)

Since there was new snow on the ground overnight, I even broke out the gaiters to keep snow out of my socks:

So I had my pre-run snack – one piece of toasted Ezekial.

I was close to home this time, so I didn’t need to pack up all of the postworkout gear that I had with me last week.

Driving up the road to the trailhead, I was thanking my lucky stars that we’d decided last weekend to make this week’s run a shorter one.  This kind of weather isn’t necessarily conducive to making me feel motivated

But you know what?  It ended up being a beautiful run.  The trail was soft with new snow (which made you feel a little like running in sand) and light snowflakes were falling.  We saw three deer in the first half-mile and I even saw a my friend Wendy along the trail!  Crazy Great minds think alike!  ;)

By the end we’d accumulated 6.39 miles and many feet of ascent (and descent).  1,130 feet actually!  The green line below shows elevation from my Garmin during the run.

The second big climb got the best of me and I had to walk for a minute, but overall I felt fantastic on this run.

Fuel during exercise was a Sunsweet prune at the 3.63 mark, with a sip of water.  I came directly home afterward to get my stretching done and had my a post-workout shake of chocolate Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer (one scoop) blended with water and half of a banana.

There was ZERO knee pain, no need for icing or soaking in the tub.  It’s amazing how 6.39  miles is what we now consider a “short recovery run”.  Next week – my longest distance ever:  14 miles.  I’ve completed five half-marathons at 13.1 miles.  So this will be the first time I go beyond that distance.  I’m looking forward to breaking that ‘barrier’!

I’m sorry – did I just say I was “looking forward” to a 14 mile run?  Told ya I wasn’t sane!  :)

Have a MARVELOUS Monday friends!

– Shari B. =)

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