Fun W/ Photos

And red lips. RAWRRRR

Definitely need to work the red lips more in the future. Makes me feel fancy. Especially when dressed head to toe in Target ;)

Bonus Mile

Exercise: 7.85 mile run. Planned for 7 miles but took a different route and ended up close to 8. Bonus!

Running and exercise have really been on the back burner with all the holidays. Seasonal fun and tons of baking have been occupying all my time. My pants finally took notice. It's no good :) I'm definitely looking forward to training for some small race... and not baking nearly as much. Although I haven't gone off the deep end I could definitely use fewer cookies in my life.

And now I'm going to negate my exercise for today and go eat some tasty barbecue with the parental units! That's the perfect balance ;) Right?!

I wasn't going to run tomorrow because I've been running everyday but then it occurred to me that I'd feel weird not running the last or first day of the year. So I guess I'm on a streak. Sweet, dude.

Hope you're having a relaxing Sunday!

Rainy Day Play

Exercise: Hoping for 30-40 minutes of elliptical and strength but won't freak out if it doesn't happen. I ran a great 8 miler yesterday so a little rest on this rainy day won't hurt.

I'm sitting in the car on this drizzly Saturday while Little Man naps in the back. He passed out cold on our way to an indoor play area and it really worked out for the best. I got to finish reading my 3rd book this month! Nuts.

I started reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn at the end of November and enjoyed the writing so much I decided to read all her books. I give Gone Girl an A-, Sharp Objects a B and Dark Places a B+. I don't read many crime/ mysteries anymore so it was refreshing to read fiction with creepy twists and turns...although some were a bit contrived. All the books were dark,  but great. I would recommend them all.

Little dude is awake so now it's his turn to play and read. Have a great weekend!

Lazy Days

Exercise: 1.5 mile walk...slooooow

Music Man and I were discussing how yesterday and today both feel like extended Sundays. And that it will probably feel like that until next Monday and then it will start over again after the new year. So weird having holidays early in the week!

We have been enjoying all the family time and went to a very cool museum together yesterday. It happened to be a special 'Snow Day' there so the little got his first taste of snow. He loved it! And then spent the remainder of the day hanging out together as a family

Today was another lazy day. Little Man and I did attend a great play date this morning but lazed around until nearly 4pm. Then we peeled ourselves from the sofa to ride bikes and hug trees ;).

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more productive. But, heck, I blogged 2 days in a row. Christmas Miracle!

Have a great Friday!

Winter

Exercise: 3.1 easy miles

December has been so much fun. It's the first year that little man actually gets Christmas so we've been having a great time enjoying winter festivities and creating new traditions. We had a tree trimming party, have taken numerous walks and drives to see Christmas lights, Little Man got to see Santa and recited his list including: trains, caboose, pizza and chocolate ;). I am pleased to report all his Christmas wishes came true.

I hope you are having a lovely season and end to the year. I'm starting to feel like next year is going to be awesome!!!

Moms Run This Town

Exercise: 8 easy miles, Sunday marathon primer

Sunday I ran 13.1 as my final long run prior to the Malibu Marathon. I've been playing with my pace to see what will work best since I haven't run a marathon in 4 & 1/2 years. I ran my 20 miler too slow, my 22 miler under-fueled and under-rested and went out too fast last Sunday. Today I ran a pace for 6 miles that I'm hoping is sustainable for 26 miles, I booked mile 6-7 at around 8 min pace to make sure I still had gas left in the tank and finished the eighth mile as a cool down. My projected finish is 4:30, but the hills may slow me down so 4:45 seems reasonable?!?! Hopefully :)

If you live near the San Fernando Valley and are looking to run, walk, or run/walk with other mothers at least once a week (or know someone that does) I have created a new Moms Run This Town group on Facebook. It's totally free and all you need is a pair of running shoes! The first meetup will be a 2.5 mile walk around the lake (2 times) on Tuesday ** EDIT**11/20** from 9:15-10 and then we'll let the kids play after. If you can't make this meeting just comment here or on the Facebook page and we can figure out what times and days work best in the future.

Have a great rest of your week!

28 Days Later

Is one of my favorite movies and also about how long it's been since I've blogged. I've thought about ending this little blog because I just haven't had time to post and I feel guilty to have let down the 4 people that regularly follow it ;) But I will be keeping it because it's fun to have a record of past thoughts and endeavors. So I'll just be posting when I have time or something exciting enough to tell the world.

So here's what I've been up to:

1. Training for the Malibu Marathon November 11. I've managed to complete a few long runs including 18, 20 & 22 milers. I feel nervous but pretty prepared. I have a few goals but my main objective is to finish happy under 5 hours. If that could be closer to 4:30, that would be cool.

2. Family trip to Lake Havasu. So much fun and pretty relaxing. 3 solid days boating and open water swimming while staying in a house right on the water. So great.

3. Halloween Festivities. It's the first year Little Man really understands it and it has been so much fun. Since October 21st we've had a party or some Halloween oriented event. Now I'm getting really excited for Christmas.

4. Preschool update: I'm still there, it's annoying and I'm getting frustrated. We're giving it until the end of the semester and at that point we'll decide whether we stay at this school, find another, or postpone until Little Man is a little older.

And here are some crappy photos from the past month :)

Five for Friday

1.18 miles! Boom!
2. Get to spend the rest of the day in yoga pants while Little Man feeds me grapes... or throws them at my head
3. Homemade pizza for dinner
4. Thinking about switching to WordPress since Music Man has a host and created a page for me
5. Dude, it's Friday!

Date with Music Man

Exercise: 6.5 mile run. 9:57 avg pace

 

 

Yesterday's mommy workout killed me. I didn't realize how tough all those squats, lunges and leg raises would be on me but now I can't walk down stairs. Sign of a good workout :) Needless to say my run this morning was a little slow and painful.

Music Man and I got to go on a date on Sunday to see one of our favorite bands, Wilco. We saw them at the Hollywood bowl which is always a fun outing. We had decent seats, a bottle of Pinot and some tasty picnic food complete with homemade banana cupcakes w/ cream cheese frosting. So good.

One of the fun things about going to the bowl is getting there from the valley. Multiple freeways, Hollywood traffic and stacked parking can make for an annoying night so we've started taking alternative transit. We drove to the subway next to Universal Studios, hopped the train to Hollywood/ Highland and then walked the mile to the bowl. It was funny because the last time I was on the stretch from Hollywood/ highland to the bowl was when I ran the Hollywood half marathon. It made me nostalgic and want to run it again.

I didn't take any photos of our outing but MM did. He was downloading a new blogging ap to my ipad and did a test photo upload with a few of the pics and a random one. I love what he chose so I just left them below as is. Cute.

Have a great rest of your week!

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Just Your Daily Crisis

Exercise: 4 mile walk and 30 min circuit w/ mommies

Ahhhh... Today has been one of those days, just one thing after another after another. Little Man was woken up at 6 by loud people on the street which caused me to miss my workout. Music Man woke up early so I could at least get a walk in (xo!). Then the coffee maker decided to stop working (crisis!!!) While Music Man was fixing the coffee maker Little Man broke one of his favorite toys and then lost one of his others and that resulted in tears and whining. It's a case where one thing was annoying but the avalanche of crap made me freak out. Maybe the pmsing had something to do with it ;)

After the coffee maker was fixed and I was calmed down the morning smoothed out. I met up with some ladies in my MOMS club for a little circuit training while the kids played. My legs are already sore from the bevy of squats and lunges. After all the playing Little Man fell asleep in the car (ftw) so I got to have a leisurely shower and a nice lunch with MM.

Now I'm back at preschool for the afternoon. I'm definitely going to be the last parent to leave. I didn't mind when there were a few other parents here but now it's getting a little depressing. Not because I want to leave him (not entirely ;) but because I want him to be confidant without me. Otherwise he's doing extremely well and still loves school.

Here's to the rest of the day going smoothly. Hopefully for you too!

Parks and Rec

Exercise: 50 mins elliptical, arms and back

Just a quick drop in. If you're at all interested in seeing the park I run through, when I get to run :(, watch this last episode of Parks and Recreation. Or older episodes of My Name is Earl, Modern Family, The League, Arrested Development and pretty much any other show...ha. Sometimes I'm so proud of my little corner of the ghetto. But beware, I hear there are man eating coyotes there stalking cute couples ;)

Gradual Separation

Exercise: 84 boring minutes on the elliptical

Right now I'm blogging from Little Man's preschool (and eating what's left of his lunch) where I've been spending my Tuesday's and Thursdays the last 3 weeks. The preschool requires a gradual separation, meaning the parents don't just drop the kids off and go, we stay until the children are ready for us to leave. The school administrators think it makes the kids more confident. I think it's great but sometimes I wish I could just leave him and he'd butch up. ;)

The process takes longer for some children and I'm pretty sure I'll be one of the last parents to leave. Little Man is a little clingy. I do have faith he'll let me leave soon. He loves school and constantly asks to "Go school Now? Go paint, play doh, trucks!"

Today I'm doing my second trial separation; I just told little man I was going to the car and would be right back, but I'm just sitting in a separate room. If he gets upset I can get to him quickly. If things go well the next separation will be a bit longer until I eventually leave him on his own and can run errands or workout independently for the first time in 2 1/2 years! I don't want to rush him but the idea of free time gets me super excited.

Music Man has been out of town all week so I've been very busy with the Little Man, hence my excitement for getting some free time. My workouts have been all over the place since I can't run and can only use the elliptical when the Little dude is sleeping, otherwise he gets too intrigued by it and wants to play on it too. So I've been working out some early mornings and some late nights depending on schedule. I can't wait to have MM back and to be able to run again!!!

Hope you all are well and I leave you with some fuzzy pics of Little Man enjoying school.

Slow Feet, Quick Feet, Well Feet, Sick Feet

Exercise: rest and healing

So I'm down and out due to my big toe. It's crazy how something as insignificant as a toe can completely derail plans. It's just an ingrown toenail but I wasn't smart and continued to run on it hoping it would just go away on it's own. No such luck. It got super infected and ridiculously painful. Nice.

So now, no running or heavy workouts for me for 10 days or until the infection is gone. Luckily I can still use the elliptical or I might lose my mind. I have surgery to completely stop ingrown toenails, because I'm prone to them, scheduled for mid November. This is immediately following the marathon, but if the toe doesn't heal I have to move the surgery up and it has about a 4 week healing time. It depresses me just thinking about it.

The good news is I LOVE my doctor! I have an HMO so was just randomly assigned a specialist but he couldn't be a better fit. He explained to me that surgery was imminent but respected my wishes to hold off until post marathon. Then he asked how many marathons I had run and how many more I planned to run. I told him I was hoping to move onto ultras and he asked if I had any interest in running Badwater!?!? I have never had a casual conversation with someone that randomly brought up Badwater. It's on my bucket list so I found it so cool.

It ends up he's an ultra hiker, often logging 30+ mile days. He's hiked Whitney Portal where Badwater ends and he's done many hikes along the PCT which I found extra interesting because I'm currently reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed (and loving it.) He even stopped in the middle of the appointment to give me camping and hiking tips which eased the pain of having my toe poked :) He stopped cutting into my toe to google this:

Source

He was great at distracting from my pain. 

The lame news, besides my toe sucking, is I may have to drop from the full Malibu Marathon to the half or drop out all together depending on my dang toe. I hope to maintain my fitness with the elliptical but am not looking forward to being stuck inside indefinitely. I'm sure I'm being a tad dramatic but that's how I roll. 

Hope you all are having a rad weekend!

Toe Up

Exercise: active rest, walk, bike, etc.

Yesterday I opted to run 8 miles instead of tackling a long run. You always hear it's better to under train than over train and my training has been pretty spot on thus far so a shorter run was just fine. And I'm so glad I only did 8 because it was effing torture.

I don't want to get too graphic, but by mile 4 I thought my insides were going to explode. I kept having to stop and walk until I got to the nearest restroom over a mile away. It didn't offer any relief so I jog/ walked the rest of the way home. Longest 8 miler ever, took me almost 90 minutes to complete. Ughhh.

Today I planned to run but I've been running with a painful big toe the last few days that has now become grossly infected. Yay. I'm hoping to get into a podiatrist today but am so nervous to get diagnosed because I'm pretty sure I won't be running for awhile. Never good to hear during Marathon training. Or ever really.

This So Cal cloudy, gloomy day perfectly reflects my attitude. I'm feeling very sorry for myself at the moment. Time to turn my focus to being grateful for all the awesomeness in my life.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Tying Knots

Exercise: hoping to get in a midday nap elliptical and weight session

While I was in Vegas I had a 16 mile run on the schedule but abandoned it to do more important things like swimming, eating at buffets, drinking margaritas and watching two of my favorite people tie the knot. I did run 10 miles and probably walked a few miles but it's not the same. Music man will be out of town next weekend and throughout the following week so I plan to do my long run of 17 miles Friday or Saturday. I'm wondering if I should try to do another longish run tomorrow; like 12? Or is that mileage too much too close?

By the way, I found a discount for the Malibu Marathon and decided to go for it. It's November 11th so I know I have enough time to train, it's just getting the long runs in that is difficult. Training for the Bulldog built up my base so I just need to expand on that. We don't have any other big trips, events or awesome Vegas weddings planned for the near future so I should be able to remain consistent up until the race.

And speaking of awesome Vegas weddings; here are a few photos from the night. I have some other faves to post when I get a chance

Have an awesome week!

Not Quite Clandestine

Exercise: 10 super slow miles in North Las Vegas

Sleep was non-existent last night due to a toddler and husband that are very particular to sleeping in their own beds. I'm sure the few beers and glass of wine I had didn't help either :) But I was pretty exhausted this morning. I was mentally done with my run before I even started but I powered through for 10 miles. Slow but done!

I'm loosely following a training plan that had me running 16 miles today and there was just no way. Music Man and I are staying on the strip tonight so I told him we had to walk 6 miles to make up the difference. 6 miles in fancy shoes, not sure how that will go down... see ya tomorrow blisters.

Tonight's festivities include a very hush-hush wedding!!! Makes the occasion so much more fun that it's an intimate affair. I offered to prepare the bouquet and the bride allowed me to do it. So much fun having a small hand in the preparation.

That's all for now. Have an awesome Saturday!

New Hairs

Stability Ball Workout

Practicing Safe... Salad and other yumminess

Today I'm hosting a family potluck and play date for my MOMS Club. We have a boat load of tomatoes and basil in the garden right now and it's 1000* so making a caprese pasta salad seemed like a no brainer. Yesterday I picked up some fresh mozzarella from Trader Joes and although I had farfalle (bowtie pasta) at home I bought some orcecchiette because of it's cute round shape. I thought it would be a super cute dish to serve but instead I got this:

MMMMMMMM.... Condom salad, my favorite!!! The al dente texture does not help. Oh well, I figure I'll add some fresh spinach leaves and the green might break up the condommy look. Can't win them all.

I have made some meals that were a bit more successful and some were even out of my comfort zone. In the last few months I've been in a bit of a food rut making the same oatmeal, turkey sandwiches and bbq chicken salad over and over and over.

First, I made some cashew cream that was incredible. I've found that I probably have a lactose intolerance so cashew cream is my savior.

I just rinse about a 1/2 cup of raw cashews and soak them for a few hours. I drain them and then throw them in the blender and add a tbsp of water at a time until the the mixture is nice and creamy and then I season as I would alfredo or whatever. Maybe some garlic, nutmeg, a pinch of nutritional yeast. Super tasty. For the pasta above I just blended in some random leftover marinara and the result was rich, creamy, deep. I would eat this stuff alone, it was that great.

Then there is wild rice with steamed veggies and mmmm sauce. The mmmm sauce came about because I had some leftover homemade hummus that needed to be used and I just threw in the other ingredients she suggested and it was awesome sauce, literally. And yellow peppers, my favorite veggie ever. For this week.

OKRA! Breaded and baked. So very good. Weirdish dinner, Music Man called it "a meal of cubes", but it was so good and now I need more okra in my life. I trimmed and cut up the fresh okra in bite sized pieces. I dredged in rice flour, then egg, then an unmeasured mix of corn meal, rice flour, a little coconut flour, s&p,  garlic powder, onion powder and a dash of cayenne. Served with corn and bbq tofu.

And lastly, is cashew cheese pizza with my beloved peppers. Served with 3 berry salad with goat cheese, pecans and balsamic. For the cheese I made it a bit grainier, like ricotta by doing what I did with the cream, just blending less. I added a bit of salt, pepper, nutritional yeast and garlic powder to make it more savory and it was pretty great. The crust is a homemade multi-grain with wheat flour, almond meal and flax meal. I used a basic dough recipe of 2 cups flour/meal combo, 1 t salt, 1 cup water, 2 1/4 t yeast and 1 t sugar. just warm the water, put in sugar or honey and yeast and let proof. Mix flour with salt and then mix everything together in stand mixer, food processor or by hand. let rise for an hour, punch down, let rise again, roll out and let rest. Heat oven to 400 while dough is resting and bake for 8 minutes. remove from oven, top the pizza and bake for an additional 5-7 minutes.

Enjoy!