Tag Archives: running

Football Time and hungry kitty

Are you ready for some football???  Yippee!!

The day didn’t start so well for one member of the household.  I went to get  a new can of Pixie’s wet food out and realized that I must have forgotten to pick some up at the store!  She gets dry food and her daily treat is 1/4 can of the wet, which she adores.  Me, not so much on smelling that first thing in the morning.

 

I felt bad about that.  Poor kitty.

I was able to make breakfast for myself, though!  😈  I made the banana bread breakfast pudding topped with coconut butter.

Along side my Broncos mug to kick off football season!

This rain is something else. I grew up in the Southern Tier of NY and seeing all that under water is very sad.  WTF is up with the weather this year?

We did get a break in the rain and I went out for my C25K workout today.  This is week 6 day 2, which was a 5 minute warm up, 10 minute run, 3 minute walk, 10 minute run and cool down.  Took 25 minutes.  Leg is still doing okay, but I am not running very fast.  I think it will just have to stay that way, which is fine (sort of…).

Lunch break for me.  I really love peanut flour!  It is packed with protein and I can make it however I want.  I can make it thick and spreadable or thinner like a dip.  I can sweeten it or not.  Good stuff.  I get mine from Netrition.

Not to mention it is pretty good on homemade sourdough!

After lunch, we walked up the street to Agway to get  a can of wet food for the crackhead Pixie.  They did not have any Friskies, which is her favorite. She is very picky.  Morris has got nothing on her!  I did  try the 9-lives and she wasn’t thrilled, but she ate it.

I think she forgave me.

Work slowed down this afternoon and I made up a latte for myself:

Topped with honey drizzle and nutmeg.  Delicious!  Funny how yesterday I was so snacky and today I am totally fine.  Interesting thing is that I felt very satisfied this morning.  Sometimes after I eat a lot like that the next day I feel a food hangover.  Today, I was fine.  Weird.

I decided against leftovers again for dinner and opted to cook up some chicken!

Served with a mix of strawberries and cantaloupe on the side.  I am not sure those 2 fruits go together very well.

Tonight is football! I am so excited for the real season.  Hopefully as a Broncos fan I won’t have to wear a bag over my head this year. It’s also the return of football dinner picks where John and I do picks each week and the loser has to buy the winner dinner of her choice that week.

My prediction for this year’s superbowl?  Saints vs the Ravens.  Watch and see  :mrgreen:

I am so rooting for the Saints tonight.  Geaux Saints! Sorry Ali!

Question: What’s your superbowl prediction this year?

September Goals

Welcome to September!  I love September.  John and I just said this morning how this time of year is “our time.”  We love the cooler weather, the fall leaves, the warm food, football, the approaching holidays.  It’s just a great time of year!

I was up and out for day 2 of week 5 for C25K.  That was a 5 minute walk, 8 minute run, 5 minute walk, 8 minute run, 5 minute walk.  The intervals do make it go by fast, but I hate to say that running is mildly boring for me now. Maybe if I ran a little faster it wouldn’t seem so slow…

I was inspired by fall again for breakfast.  I did the banana bread breakfast pudding, but used pumpkin instead with a tablespoon of maple syrup mixed in.

That stuff on top you ask? Well, even if you aren’t asking, this is it:

Maple cream!  Squeeeeee!  I love this stuff.  My mom traded me a jar of maple cream for a jar of my orange marmalade.  Yum!

With breakfast in my tummy, I thought about this month coming up. Here are my goals for the month of September.

1. Do 1 new recipe and post it each week. I kind of am in the rut of my typical meals and need to shake things up. A couple slow cooker meals for sure.

2. Keep going with Couch to 5K. I think the next week or two will really tell me whether I can continue or not with my leg.  I am not as optimistic as I was in August.

3. Volunteer for something or join a book club/something like that.

4. Celebrate 15 years of marriage on the 28th. We should make it to then unless John really annoys me somehow.  LOL.

5. Do Pilates 2 times a week. I need better flexibility and Pilates always does that for me and strengthens my core to boot.

So – goals done.  Nothing crazy like in August LOL.

I also decided to celebrate the coming of fall with my lunch bowl – the candy corn dish!

I was sniffing the bags of candy corn at the store to get my high (didn’t purchase yet), so this will have to do for now.

I have not snacked on this granola.  I wonder if it will actually go stale.

Work was a slog today.  I was really productive, but the one PA that I was working all day is a horrible dictator.  Slurred rapid speech, making lots of mistakes.  It is hard on the brain to listen to that for very long.  My brain is exhausted.  It needs it to be Friday.

I was happy to see the latte arrive.

Usually cats love milk.  Pixie has absolutely no interest in milk or people food.  Which is a good thing.  In fact, she does not like a lot of the cat treats either.  She just loves the catnip.

Finished out work and went to marinate the boneless pork ribs to grill for dinner.  They weren’t thawed yet.  🙄  John was feeling totally wiped from his busy day (as was I), so we decided on cheap date night!  We walked half a mile up the street to here:

Pizza time!

This was good, although a bit too much pizza for me.  I did have tomatoes and broccoli on it, so I got in some veggies at any rate.  Funny how after we sat around talking a bit, I wanted ice cream.  Guess it is the wheat.  I didn’t have any ice cream, but I thought it was interesting.  I will have some blueberries later during Project Runway!

Time to chillax…

Question: What is your favorite pizza topping?

So why run at all?

I cannot believe it is Thursday already.  Gorgeous day on tap around here as well.  I took a rest day for the most part today.  I have put 200 miles on my bike since June 1st.  It’s making lifting hard to do.

Breakfast was a cooler weather classic – pumpkin cream of wheat!

Mornings in the 50s will make you want the warm stuff.  This was topped with some honey and toasted pecans.  Tasty!

So busy with work.  I think they are close to losing my primary account because it has been so behind.  I really hope not as I love this account and would have to be placed on another one – and who knows if I could be as productive.  I can only do as much as I can and hope some other people step up to the plate like they have been asking.  It does make it a little stressful.

That did make the morning go fast and I had a porch lunch and talked with John for the first time of the day (I was already working when he got up).

Don’t you love these outdoor lunches?  I would eat dinner out here, except the sun is blazing on the porch at that time of day thanks to the city cutting down our big tree when they redid the road.

So, I thought I would talk a little more about running.  I keep going back and forth as to whether I should continue to pursue it or not.  Unless you are a new reader, you know that my back has caused leg problems for running.  For a while, I thought I could run again and kind of had my mojo back, but then the pain became worse.  So I stopped.

For me, running was something that was a *huge* obstacle for me.  It was that one thing I could never do as an overweight child/adult and running always symbolized fitness and health.  I thought if I could conquer that giant mountain it would kind of close that old “fat book” so to speak.  So I trained.  And I started running 5K races.  And I began running some longer distances (the longest being 8 miles). I did a triathlon and duathlon.  I was running!  I could run!

Then I herniated the disk in my back and just being able to walk without pain again was enough let alone running.  I never was quite the same again after that.

It is almost like admitting defeat to not run.  Like I am less of an athlete.  Like I have let something get the best of me – which is probably the worst part of it.  That I am somehow taking the easy way out by not pushing through and doing it anyway.  I know that isn’t true.  I know that pushing through pain and doing something despite injury is not what you are supposed to do, and yet the thought is there.

Not sure if any of that makes sense or not.  It is so very hard to close a book on something permanently.

Let’s move on to less serious stuff, shall we?  Like latte time!  This is an iced almond milk latte with some chocolate chips.

Pixie is snoring away in the background there.

I had a real craving for pizza for dinner, but John suggested a froyo ride, which also sounded good to me on a hot day!  So, I just did my old go-to dinner of an omelet.

Broccoli outside of it tonight, feta cheese tucked inside.

It was a very nice night for a ride.

I snuck John into my yogurt picture 😈  My yogurt was honey almond flavor.  No topping tonight since it wasn’t a long ride and I had the chocolate earlier in the day.  One of the things I have to take in account when I am in weight loss mode.

And guess what?  No flat tire!  Yay!  We have to buy new tubes before our next long ride.  We have bought 5 tubes and gone through them all!  I am shopping for a new tire as well, but that might have to wait for next paycheck.

So much for a real rest day, but it was only 12 miles and we weren’t biking too fast.  Guess that is 212 miles this month so far 😀

To run or not to run, that is the question

So cold this morning.  So cold!  It was minus 5 degrees and I was not wanting to go out in that weather, so I stayed home instead :mrgreen:   I figured I would either do a rest day or ride the trainer later.  No running today, and I will address that below.

So, I made up breakfast!  I did the 1-minute muffin topped with peanut flour (mixed with water).  Plus some of the platoon of strawberries we have now – thank you K-Mart!

No work this morning, so I was able to get right into today’s soap batches.

A funny note about our wedding rings.  We get tons of compliments on them.  Our original bands (which John did also lose … maybe he is trying to tell me something??) were gold with channel set diamonds and not many people commented on them.  I don’t wear that one because it is several sizes too big and I never had it resized. When John lost his first ring, we decided to buy new ones and ended up really liking these rings:

– and they were only $20 each!  Gotta love it.  I am so happy he found it!

Time for lunch! I did have a bunch of peanuts this morning while moving around the house.  I really am starting to head to Crack Town with those.  Not quite sure what is up with that.  Those may have to go up high now.  So, I made up a nice salad to eat.

This had chicken, greek dressing, and a few chopped pecans.  Simple, but very tasty!

I have been thinking a lot about running lately, particularly after last weekend.  Ever since I herniated my back, which was about 11 months ago now) – running has been a little problematic for me.  It took me a long time before I was able to run again and I never made it back to my previous form.  I still have a little remaining permanent numbness/hypersensitivity in my knee left over from that injury, plus a tiny bit of residual weakness in that leg. Gotta love nerve injuries. 🙄

While the actual act of running does not bother me, what I have found is that there are consequences the next day.  The day after I run, I always feel pain in my knee and a tiny bit in my back.  I took me a long time to put two and two together (hello Sherlock).  Whenever I run, the next day = pain.  This last Saturday was the worst.  I had run on Friday, and then Saturday my knee was bothering me and I stepped onto a stepstool and got shooting pain in my knee.  What is it with me getting pains or hurt when I am not doing anything? That is when I began looking back and realizing this pain happens the day after I run.  I am assuming it has to do with the high impact of running on the old herniated disk/nerve.

So, what to do.  Right now, a medical workup is out because I am one of the many uninsured and am not sure any diagnostics would lead to me be able to do anything about this if you understand what I mean.  I don’t want to go through all of that and be told it is what it is, which always seems to happen at the doctor’s office.

The thing is, I feel somehow pressured to keep running.  I wanted to do a duathlon this year, and possibly a half marathon, but right now I just don’t want to train for those.  I want to ride my bike, which thankfully causes no issues for me.  I feel like I am *supposed* to run.  However, I don’t know if running is really good for me if it causes problems.  I do want to do a few smaller races because those are fun (and I love the swag!), but not sure I want to do big events.  I would have thought that at a year out from an injury that I would not even be talking about it, but there you go.  Maybe I will just run periodically and not really do any training with it.

Dinner time!  Didn’t reading all that running talk make you hungry? It did me.

On the menu tonight was some ground pork from the smokehouse.  Burgers are good.

Happy 40th anniversary to Starbucks!  To celebrate, guess where are tonight? 😀

1st Annual Blogger’s Healthy Heart Weekend!

Okay – are you ready? Time for the 1st Annual Healthy Heart Virtual Run/Walk!

First off, you don’t have to run if you are unable to. I just want this to be a focus on getting healthy. If you want to walk, that’s fine. Elliptical bunny? Knock yourself out! Take a long bike ride? Go for it! The only stipulation is that you need to take a picture of yourself before, during, or after your event and send it to me. I will post the pictures here. Get creative, too! You don’t have to have your face in the photo if you don’t want to.

Date: Just before Valentine’s, of course! February 11th, 12th, and 13th! Feel free to chose Friday, Saturday, or Sunday to complete your event.

Distance: Your choice. I think most people standard a 5k, but I know many of you are training for an event, so you can use whatever distance fits in with your training plan. It’s all about a healthy heart, not a specific distance. Extra kudos to anyone who bikes 100 miles in 1 day, though!! 😉

The good news? There are some prizes to be awarded! These will be chosen randomly from those that submit entries.

Prizes include:

  • – A bag of fresh roasted coffee by yours truly!
  • – A weighted jump rope provided by Harbinger Fitness. Please visit their site for a lot of other fitness equipment, including the lifting gloves that I was lucky enough to win, as well as core strengthening products, mats, resistance bands, etc.

  • – A box of the dark chocolate mint cups that you see featured here. Great portion controlled snack 😀

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After you complete your event, please email me the photo and what you did at javaqueen01 (at) yahoo.com .

Please post below if you would like to participate and what you plan to do! Feel free to post about it on your blog if you have one and see how many people we can get to participate! You may grab the logo above and link as well.

Paying the football piper

It was a dark and early morning when I got up to run.  Am I the only one that forgets that it is a new year?  Guess when you stick to the same schedule it will feel that way.  Definitely not running outside!  I snagged a Vanilla Almond Luna bar as a pre-run snack.

Gym still not crowded this morning.  There were a few people there, but they were regulars.  I was wondering if it was people moving to a different gym.  A Planet Fitness opened up in our mall and it is only $10 a month, so maybe people from my gym (whose memberships expire in January) moved there.

I hopped on the treadmill and ran for 5 miles at an 11:00 pace with a bit of speed work in the middle.  I thought about taking a walking break in the middle when I changed soundtracks on my mp3, but I just kept going through the whole thing.  Sometimes it can be precarious doing that while running, at least for me.

One thing about running longer is watching people come and go – and somebody *always* has to make a comment about how long I am on the mill.  You know, I never comment on other peoples’ workouts, and yet everybody feels the need to comment on mine?

I was quite hangry when I got home.  I made up a bowl of banana custard cream of wheat topped with PB and jam.

Good thing is was really hot or I would have just poured it down my throat in one shot!

Lots of work today.  Things are all back to what passes for normal around here.

Since I cannot satisfy my blueberry fix anymore, I can at least get another berry fix for lunch!  I pulled out an old standby of greek yogurt, cereal, and strawberries.

Cereal is in the house and I am doing okay with it.  It’s not even up high.

As I am sitting here typing this, I am noticing that my chest muscles are sore today.  That almost never happens.  Must be from doing different exercises now that my shoulders are better.  Normally 15# DB flyes don’t cause soreness, but with a several-month layoff, guess that is another story.  It’s a good sore, though.

Afternoon snackage:

and some of these because I was hungry:

John won the last week of football picks.  Boooo!  I ended up 1 game up for the whole season, though (go me!).  Of course, this week’s defeat, which was a flaming defeat by 5 games, meant dinner out tonight.  John chose 99.

John in celebratory Heissman pose:

Not amused:

99 serves popcorn to munch on, which is kind of fun and different.

I created a meal of things I wanted off the menu from the side items and asked that they be brought as a single meal.

I chose a side salad:

With some broccoli :mrgreen:

and some of the jammin’ crab chowder:

Nice to get everything I wanted and nothing I didn’t!  The soup was very good, too.

I was not too full after dinner.  We walked around a bit and headed across the street for an apertif!

I have a decaf americano.  That is a good way to order decaf as it is made fresh.

It’s so nice to have an evening where I don’t have to work!

Quick soap primer and who’s buying dinner?

I was ready for a Thursday morning run today!  Last night we had some fierce winds blowing through, and I had totally anticipated going to the gym for a treadmill run this morning as I don’t like running in the cold and wind.  Cold is okay, but not both (wuss).  It was 38 degrees and I saw the flags still, so I decided to run outside as the sun came up.  I had a Balance bar (desperately seeking any natural light here).

New flavor of S’mores and pretty yummy, I have to say.  I bundled up and headed out.  It was a nice run today.  Just through the neighborhood, passing kids waiting for the bus.  The sun peeked out over the horizon and I just zoned out with my tunes on.  4 miles later and I was back at home!

I was ready to eat a filling carby breakfast, so I made up some steel cut oats.  What I do with these is to put a serving of these in a container and cover with a cup of boiling water.  Then I put it in the fridge overnight.  The next day, they only take about 8 minutes to cook instead of the 20 it takes if you do them from scratch.  I am all about saving time, especially when I am hungry!

Done pumpkin custard style and topped with craisins (10g) and pecans (5 whole).  I add some molasses to the cooking water, which gives this a fabulous flavor (and some iron!).

Lots of work to do for job 2 today.  Well, pretty much every day with them.   It’s nice with them in that I don’t have to work holidays or even weekends unless I choose to, as an independent contractor.  Job #1 actually have to work on Thanksgiving since my regular work days include Thursdays as an employee.  We do get extra for working holidays and there is not always a lot of work except for the NICU, which never closes.  I don’t mind so much, though.  I can take my computer down to my sister’s house where dinner will be and check in from there.

Lunch time:

That”s gravy on that chicken!  I got some at the store for some unknown reason.  I was surprised at how low calorie it really is.  It was a nice change to add that instead of hot sauce.

Finally finished up the soap order.  Now I am feeling some relief from getting that done, although I am loving how the house smells.  Here is a quick chemistry lesson of how it is made.  Soap is a combo of oils, water, and an alkali (aka lye).  The lye combines with the oils and creates a chemical reaction called saponification – and the result are soap, water, and glycerin molecules.   Melting the solid oils (cocoa butter, shea butter, coconut oil)

The lye solution (must be extremely careful with this stuff – very caustic)

Melted solid oils, olive oil, and goat milk in a bucket and the added lye solution:

Scent and color added. Blended up until it gets to be a gravy-like consistency.  Then poured into molds:

Then it sits in the mold overnight.  During this time, the soap will actually get very hot as it goes through its chemical reaction.  Funny how such weird ingredients make some good stuff.  Pretty cool!

Snack time included a latte:

Plus a couple mint cups:

Unfortunately, my football picks let me down this week and I owed John dinner.  He chose Arthur’s:

Someone didn’t really want his picture taken:

I started off with a salad:

Then we split a cheese calzone with feta inside:

Come to momma!  The crust at Arthur’s is more biscuit like – similar to Chicago deep dish style.  Good stuff.  I went to pay and found out they didn’t take cards and I don’t carry much cash on me most days.  That meant John ended up paying.  Ooops!  That’s one way to cheat out a meal :mrgreen:

There will be a gingerbread donut from Dunkins tonight while we geek out to MST3K, but I don’t have a photo of it.  Just to let you all know…

Question: Have you ever had a job where you had to work on holidays?

I love eggs, let me count the ways.

Almost the end of the week.  Funny how I took a day off and I still have to work 5 days in a row.  Gotta love 2 jobs, right?  I wanted to run this morning, but it was rainy and drizzly.  That meant heading out to the gym to visit the hamster wheel there.  I put on Hot Club of Detroit, set the machine at 5.5 mph and went to it.

I mentioned this on FB earlier, but I always have issues with mile 2 – no matter how long I run for.  The first mile goes by fast because I am adjusting to my pace and a fresh and all that.  For some reason into mile 2 to 3,  the little voices go in my head like,  “I want to stop.  I don’t like running.  This is taking forever.”  I know that if I just keep going those thoughts will pass and I will feel fine, but they sure are annoying!

I ended up doing 4 miles.  Probably a little further than I needed to go, since I only had a 100 calorie protein drink before I left.  So, I was really ready for breakfast!

My Irish porridge oats done banana custard style.  These are so good.  Well – all oats are good to me, so I guess I don’t need to say that all the time LOL!

Busy working morning on a dreary day.  I wanted something spicy for lunch, so buffalo chicken here we come!  With laughing cow blue cheese:

The sun was wanting to come out while it was raining and we saw a rainbow today:

Everybody make a wish!

I tried a new-to-me protein bar today.  Everlast.  They were on sale at Hannaford as they are clearing them out.

This was actually pretty good.  Less calories than other protein bars (160) and no sugar alcohols or other crap.

John said he almost suggested pizza for dinner tonight, but good thing he didn’t because I probably would have gone!  Instead, I made an egg/egg white omelet in the GT express with some pepperjack cheese inside:

And speaking of eggs, here are 7 reasons why you should be eating eggs from Every Day Health:

  1. The egg is a low-calorie powerhouse. With only 80 calories per large egg and a useful 6 grams of protein, it can be scrambled or even fried with just a dab of butter and still come in at under 100 calories.
  2. Eggs have vitamins and other nutrients. An egg supplies many essential nutrients including vitamin A, the B vitamins B-12, riboflavin, and folacin, and the minerals iron, phosphorus, and zinc, along with choline and DHA, essential nutrients for brain health.
  3. The egg has less cholesterol than we thought. According to recent research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one large egg has 213 milligrams of cholesterol.
  4. Egg whites can be part of your daily menu. It’s best to eat no more than three or four whole eggs per week, but egg whites have only 15 calories per egg, no cholesterol, and no saturated fat, so dieters can eat as many as they want. Not only that, egg whites taste better than store-bought egg substitutes. (Hello custard oats!)
  5. Eggs make a great weekend breakfast. “One great role eggs can play is in making weekend food seem special without overdosing on calories,” says Dr. Roberts. “For example, scrambled eggs and whole-wheat toast or a fried egg and Canadian bacon on Sunday morning can become a special weekend breakfast without adding anything to calories beyond a regular weekday cereal meal.”
  6. Eggs are an inexpensive protein source. Eggs are economical, especially when compared to steak or even a hamburger.
  7. Eggs aren’t only for breakfast. “Think like the French and don’t dismiss eggs as a great dinner food,” says Roberts. “It takes a mere couple of minutes to whip up an omelet, so you can keep eggs in the fridge for quick dinners when you get home and are too tired to cook or go out. A two-egg omelet with a slice of whole-wheat toast and an apple or orange is a great weight control meal.”  You all know I love breakfast at any time of day!

Pink item of the day:

The lotion is actually pink, but fading light doesn’t catch that very well.  Shorter days are here!

The Breast Cancer Site

Question:  How do you like your eggs?

Running and quilting friends

Yes – I won the week’s football picks!  Thank you Ravens last night 😀  Now John has to take me to dinner this week.  :happydance:

I woke up feeling ready to run.  It was a perfect morning to run.  50 degrees, not windy, cloud cover.  Yes.  I had a date for a wee bit of fuel.

Then I did my hill route.  I have not run hills since before I herniated my disk in April, so it has been a long time!  I just have been at the track or flat routes (or the dreadmill).  I was surprised at how easily I did the hills.  Biking really does make running a lot easier.  Except it seems slower :mrgreen:

I extended my route a little bit and ended up at 3.7 miles today.  It felt great!  I need to start doing bricks to prepare for next month’s duathlon.

I wasn’t sure what to make for breakfast, and John was using the waffle iron, so I decided to do protein pancakes, except I made 1 giant one.

:cough: with a little cream cheese icing on there :cough: That was kind of fun.  Sort of like fair food!

I had a question posed to me about if I lose weight on the long bike rides.  The answer to that is no.  In fact, I always gain about 3 pounds from the long rides.  I think that is a combination of eating different foods on those days, plus water retention from muscle use.  The scale always drops back down over the course of the next couple of days.  I am so used to seeing that now that it doesn’t freak me out.  It did at first, but then I realized the weight would just drop off without me doing anything different.  Maintenance isn’t always staying at the same exact number.

Lunch time today and I tried another protein crepe.  I think I may give up on this recipe.  They just are a little tough with the protein powder.  I was hoping the whey would make a difference, but it did not.

I filled this crepe with chopped cooked chicken, sauteed broccoli and a sun-dried tomato laughing cow wedge.  Flavor good. Texture bad.

One of the best things about blogging has been the wonderful people that I have met virtually.  Sometimes I can’t believe that I actually have not met some of these people in the flesh, because I feel like I have known them for a long time!  Debby is one of those bloggers with whom I feel a real kinship with because she is kind of like a twin of me.  She has lost 100 pounds without surgery and is quite the animal lover.  She is also an incredibly talented lady.  Debby asked for my address last week because she wanted to send me something.   I really had no idea what it was.

When I opened the box, my jaw fell on the floor to find this beautiful quilt inside!

It has a coffee theme.  Now how did she know that I love coffee??  Check out that detail!

I laughed when I saw this:

Indeed….

You all need to bug Debby to put up an Etsy shop if you have  seen any of her other quilts on her blog.   She is that talented.  So thank you again Debby!

Pixie does not get to lay on this quilt LOL.

Speaking of coffee – I had a latte with another pumpkin scone.

I am doing good not eating these in multiples.  Sometimes I can do that.

I finished up work right about dinner time today.  John had the grill out and did a couple chicken thighs.  I thought I would have a different veggie since I had broccoli at lunch.

Yum!  It is really hard to cook bone in meat on the grill, I have to say.

Not a terribly exciting evening planned.  Just an evening of garden puttering and some relaxing tonight.

Not to mention a snack plus some decaf.  Seedless grapes were on sale!

Question:  For those of you that blog, what is the most surprising thing you have found?

Lifting Move of the Week Roundup

It was a nice cool morning today.  It had rained, so the air was fresh.  I decided to do a run outside today.  No lifting today, so I didn’t need to go to the gym.  I hit the pavement for a good 3 mile run.  It felt good.  Once the long ride is done this weekend, I am going to do more running because I have to start training for the duathlon!

I was hungry when I got back.  Pumpkin can had been opened earlier in the week, so I incorporated that into breakfast.

Pumpkin custard cream of wheat topped with crystalized ginger and burnt toasted pecans.

Conference call at work today.  Sometimes I worry about my job with this company.  Another reason why I took on the other one.

Lunch break was standard.  I need to do some different stuff for lunches.

So, since I am not lifting anymore this week in a taper down/rest week before my big ride this weekend, there is no lifting move of the week today.   However, I thought I would take a moment to link to all the videos that I have done so far in case there is one that you have missed 😀 As always, feel free to comment on my form (good or bad), as I am not a trainer or anything.

Arnold Press Stiff-leg Deadlift YTWL
Barbell Deadlift Dumbbell Pull Over Incline Chest Fly
Cable Squat to Row Prone Cuban Snatch Captain’s Chair
Horizontal Wood Chop Face Pull Barbell Chest Press
Close-Grip Lat Pull down Nosebreaker Upright Row
Reverse lunge with single dumbbell

Youtube was being funny tonight, so hopefully these links will work.  Dang – I have done a lot of these!

Afternoon snack!

I like these bars.  They are the store brand organic bars.  Simple ingredients and 150 calories.  Not much protein, though.

I was feeling an omelet for dinner!  It came out perfect.

Filled with sauteed broccoli and feta cheese.  Yum.  And a bowl of fruit on the side:

I laughed at some of the comments yesterday about me putting cinnamon on the cantaloupe.  I put cinnamon on pretty much anything, but not normally melons.  It’s just this cantaloupe was so blah.  Not sweet and pretty tasteless, which was a bummer.

John did some clothes shopping tonight with a gift certificate.  The store was in Saratoga, so we headed down and decided to go out for coffee for a change 😳

This is Saratoga Coffee Traders:

Comfy and casual.  Plus free wifi – so I am blogging while enjoying my latte:

They do an awesome latte here.  So, so much better than Starbucks, but Starbucks is only 7 miles from home whereas this place is 15+ miles away.

And just in case you really wanted a video today, here is Pixie doing what she does best – napping!  I woke her up for you.

Don’t you love how I can get my hand in her stomach and she doesn’t even care?  I would do a Facebook page for her, but her status would always be sleeping.   Laziest.cat.ever….