Category Archives: Miscellany

February 18, 2013 · 7:40 pm

Oh heyyyyyy!!!

Hi there! So. I’ve been thinking lately about how I haven’t posted here since…um…well, last year. Hello 2013! I’ve also had several requests to resume blogging, you know, from the four or so people that read this thing. So here I am. Hi! Truth is, I have a lot going on. What’s new? The other truth is, so much has happened that I really don’t know where to start.

But I realized something. I don’t have to do a play by play of the last three months for you. The bits and pieces will come up as they come up, and that’s all there is to it. The most major thing I’ve had going on (and the main reason things have been crazy and I’ve had no time for extra curricular activities such as updating this dear old blog) is I started going to school for massage therapy late last September. I Love it. Yes, capital L. But it has also meant that I have been juggling several different part time jobs all while trying to maintain some semblance of a training schedule. Not easy people, not easy.

But the month of February has provided some much needed down time with a reduced work schedule. I have actually had time to do things like cook food and map out a training plan. I even cleaned a little the other day and read the first chapter of a book. Like a real live fiction novel, not Anatomy and Physiology or Business Mastery.  Whether or not I started on chapter 2 is beside the point.

So what is the point? Yeah, I was starting to wonder that myself. The point is, here I am! I am not going to sit here and promise that I will have a new post comin’ atcha  every day, but I have actually been missing my little corner of the interwebs where I can ramble and show you embarrassing photos of myself making out with a tub of peanut butter pretzels. So what I’m trying to say is I’m back! And in the most awkward segue ever, look at these pretty pictures of winter running!

Christmas day trail run at Lapham Peak:

And a winter wonderland run in my neighborhood the morning after a snowstorm:

Oh winter, you are so beautiful and I hate you so much.

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June 24, 2012 · 8:50 pm

Das Boot

I know I’ve been absent around here for the past couple weeks. I have been putting off writing about this update, because frankly, it sucks.

I started having some minor pain in my foot the week after Memorial Day, or the week before I went to San Diego. It started on Tuesday with some soreness in the bottom of my foot when I started running. After a couple of miles, it went away, and I thought it was no big deal. I ran a couple more times that week, and same thing. A minor annoyance that almost felt like a bruise on the bottom of my foot. Then cam San Diego. As I mentioned, I ran/walked/jogged probably 20-25 miles over 8 hours, much of it on concrete. By the Tuesday after the race (June 5th), I couldn’t run on it at all. I went to my group run, started gimping, and I knew right away something was wrong. I gave it a mile to see if it would loosen up at all, but I ended up stopping and walking back.

I took a week off. I biked. I got acupuncture. I swam. I got massage therapy. I took another week off. When I was still having pain while walking two weeks later, I made an appointment with a foot specialist, pretty much convinced that I had a stress fracture.

I went in on Wednesday (June 20), and the good news it that the x-ray was clean. I was diagnosed with peroneus brevis tendonitis and a 5th metatarsal bone bruise, right where the tendon connects.

 

source

The doc asked me how aggressive I wanted to be in treating it, and I told him I wanted to heal as fast as possible so I can get back to running. He said the best way to heal it fast would be complete immobilization for a week. He gave me the walking boot, and I’ve had the thing on ever since. I can take it off to drive and  shower. He wanted me to keep it on at night, but I just couldn’t sleep with it, so in comes off when I go to bed as well. I have also been icing it once a day at night.

This coming Wednesday I can take the boot off and see how it feels to walk around. If I have no pain, I can slowly start biking, swimming, and even a little running. But if there is any pain at all, I need to stop. I will not be doing the Door County Triathlon on July 22nd, because even if I am healthy enough to race, I am severely undertrained at this point and running the race would likely flare the whole thing back up again and I would be back at square one. It is more important to me to be able to run and race in the fall than to do the tri.

In the meantime, I have still been enjoying the heck out of summer. Steve and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on June 21st with a great dinner at an Italian restaurant.

We have been boating, strawberry festivaling, hanging out with friends, and getting stuff done around the house. We have been installing new interior doors, painting said doors and trim, and working in the yard just to name a few things. I am trying to stay positive and looking forward to running as soon as I possibly can. The break was nice, but I plan to start posting more frequently as I recover and get back to training.

Have you ever dealt with an injury that sidelined you for any length of time? Was it easy to get back into the swing of things?

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April 11, 2012 · 8:25 am

Make it Count

First of all, watch this video. Very cool!

Make it Count

 

Second, I’m sure many of you have seen the Food List Challenge on Facebook. It is a list of 100 foods to try before you die, and you are supposed to see how many you have actually tried. I love a good list, so I decided to copy it here and highlight the things I have tried in pink. Some of them I had to Google to find out what it even was. Turns out I have tried 60/100. There were a few things that I would try, but many that I can confidently say will never pass by these lips. Like sweetbreads, haggis, and Spam. Oh and carp. Seriously? Gag me now. Here’s the list:

1. Abalone

 2. Absinthe

 3. Alligator

 4. Baba Ghanoush

 5. Bagel and Lox

 6. Baklava

 7. Barbecue Ribs

 8. Bellini

9. Bird’s Nest Soup (had to google this one: A few species of swift, the cave swifts, are renowned for building the saliva nests used to produce the unique texture of this soup.) Uh, no thanks.

 10. Biscuits and Gravy

11. Black Pudding

 12. Black Truffle

13. Borscht

 14. Calamari

15. Carp

 16. Caviar

 17. Cheese Fondue

18. Chicken and Waffles

19. Chicken Tikka Masala

 20. Chile Relleno

21. Chitlins

 22. Churros

 23. Clam Chowder

 24. Cognac

 25. Crab Cakes

26. Crickets

27. Currywurst

28. Dandelion Wine

29. Dulce De Leche

30. Durian

 31. Eel

 32. Eggs Benedict

 33. Fish Tacos

34. Foie Gras

 35. Fresh Spring Rolls

 36. Fried Catfish

 37. Fried Green Tomatoes

 38. Fried Plantain

39. Frito Pie

 40. Frogs’ Legs

41. Fugu (Pufferfish)

 42. Funnel Cake

 43. Gazpacho

44. Goat

45. Goat’s Milk

 46. Goulash

 47. Gumbo

48. Haggis

49. Head Cheese

 50. Heirloom Tomatoes

51. Honeycomb

 52. Hostess Fruit Pie

 53. Huevos Rancheros

 54. Jerk Chicken

55. Kangaroo

 56. Key Lime Pie

 57. Kobe Beef

 58. Lassi

 59. Lobster

 60. Mimosa

61. MoonPie

 62. Morel Mushrooms

63. Nettle Tea

 64. Octopus

65. Oxtail Soup

 66. Paella

 67. Paneer

 68. Pastrami on Rye

69. Pavlova (haven’t tried this but it looks delicious)

70. Phaal

71. Philly Cheese Steak

72. Pho

 73. Pineapple and Cottage Cheese

 74. Pistachio Ice Cream

 75. Po’ Boy

76. Pocky

 77. Polenta

78. Prickly Pear

79. Rabbit Stew

 80. Raw Oysters

 81. Root Beer Float

 82. S’mores

 83. Sauerkraut

 84. Sea Urchin (one of the most disgusting things I have ever had in my mouth)

 85. Shark

 86. Snail

87. Snake

 88. Soft Shell Crab

89. Som Tam

 90. Spaetzle

 91. Spam (I honestly don’t think Spam has ever crossed these lips)

 92. Squirrel

 93. Steak Tartare

 94. Sweet Potato Fries

95. Sweetbreads

96. Tom Yum

97. Umeboshi

 98. Venison

 99. Wasabi Peas

100. Zucchini Flowers

How many things on the list have you tried? Anything you want to try or would never try?

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March 4, 2012 · 9:13 am

Random wrap-up

Ready for some randomness? Ok, here we go.

Remember when I said I was going to my Wednesday night trail run? Like for sure? Well my cousin Kelly called and invited me over for dinner. I could not pass up an opportunity to eat Mexican food and hang out with these munchkins.

Can you tell they just got back from Disney World? I did manage to hop on the bike trainer for 45 minutes beforehand, so that’s something.

Thursday I forced a double treadmill run, 7 miles in the morning and 3 after work. The morning was horrible, the after work was pretty decent. One out of two is ok. Friday morning I went back to basics. I ran 8 easy miles outside, no music, no checking my pace. It was refreshing. Then snow happened.

It is pretty, I will say that. However, we were forced to move Saturday’s Team in Training practice to the indoor track. I ended up with 13.7 miles of running in circles. Um, fun?

And that brings us to Sunday. I have tentative plans for a snowy trail run sometime today. On one hand I don’t really care if I get out and run today, but on the other I know it will be a beautiful run and I’ll probably feel better afterwards if I get it done. This coming week I will really start ramping up the mileage in preparation for the 50 miler. I feel the funk starting to lift, and I am excited to begin to like running again.

Enough about running. Yesterday I tested out my new jumbo muffin pan by whipping up some chocolate chocolate chip muffins.

I used this recipe, but with quite a few changes. I subbed 3/4 cup ww flour, 1/2 cup coconut milk & 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt for milk, 1/4 cup coconut oil & 3 TB applesauce for veg oil, added 1/2 tsp salt & 2 TB hot cocoa mix, and reduced sugar to 1/4 cup brown, 1/4 cup white. I also added extra chocolate chips (regular and mini) because there is no such thing as too much chocolate. They are delicious, especially warmed up and slathered with peanut butter.

And one last bit of randomness. Every day my cat can be found sprawled out over the floor heat register. Such a glutton for warm and cozy comfort.

Oh, to be a cat…

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February 10, 2012 · 1:01 pm

Five things Friday

Since I missed Three Things Thursday this week out of sheer laziness, I preset you with Five Things Friday. I hope the two things bonus will make up for my motivational failure. Without further ado:

1. I am racing an 8k tomorrow, and not looking forward to it for several reasons. I feel like I have completely lost all sense of speed in my legs over the past few weeks. Also, it is going to be cold, like really cold. And windy. Wind chills approaching -20. And it’s been snowing all day. Crap.

However, I am going to suck it up and not think about any of that, because tomorrow’s race will be about something much more important than myself and my incessant complaining about the weather. I will be dedicating the race to Sherry Arnold, a 43 year old wife, mother, and teacher from Montana who went out for a run on January 7th and never returned. There is a virtual run planned in her honor, and more information can be found here. Consider printing out your own bib and dedicating your workout tomorrow to Sherry. It doesn’t have to be running, it can be anything. Just move your body and think of Sherry. Simple.

2. I managed to try several new recipes this week worth mentioning:

Easy Nutella Brownie Cups - I brought these to my running group’s “holiday party” and they were devoured. Only three ingredients. Make them.

Quinoa Burgers – One of the best “burgers” I have made at home!

Curried Greek Yogurt Egg Salad - I have been craving hard-boiled eggs. Craving = satisfied.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Banana Bread – Yes, just yes. I found a wonderful use for my pb cups. Check out this pb to chocolate ratio:

I don’t know if I can ever buy Reese’s again.

The last one is not so much a recipe as an amazing snack combo that I have enjoyed every day this week:

3. As I mentioned, my Tuesday night running group had a “holiday” party this week. There was so much delicious food it was ridiculous. Pretty sure I ate at least eight homemade cookies, along with chips, guacamole, salad, bread and beer. Wednesday night I ran with the local trail running group. I brought the aforementioned Peanut Butter Banana bread to share after the run. This was the treat table:

You may notice my bread at the bottom right. The huge container in the back contains an entire tier of red velvet wedding cake. There were also about seven different varieties of cookies, macaroons, and baked goods. But don’t worry, there were some grapes to balance everything out. I don’t understand why I never lose any weight from running so much. Weird.

 4. I think I am going to stop at Target today for a couple of items. Necessities like paper towels, Chobani, shampoo, and perhaps a little Kleenex or TP. Does this happen to anyone else at Target?

How do they do that??

5. To the person that found my blog by Googling “ate too many pretzel m and m’s,” welcome. I feel your pain.

Tell me something totally random. And…go.

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February 5, 2012 · 8:15 am

Spring-like running

Remember how I couldn’t stop thinking about this? Well, it happened.

Please promise me, if you do one thing today besides sitting on the couch and stuffing your face with chips, dip, beer, guacamole, chili and cookies during the Super Bowl, let it be making this french toast. Please, thank you, and you are welcome.

In other news, the state of WI continues to be spoiled with spring-like weather. This makes me incredibly happy. Running in the February sun in capris and a long sleeve shirt? Yes please!

Saturday morning I was down at the Milwaukee Lakefront coaching a new group of Team in Training athletes. After putting in 4 miles with the team, I headed out for 10 more on my own. Running long on roads is not ideal since I am training for a 50 mile trail race, but I can’t argue with this scenery.

 

Post run I treated myself to a soy mocha from Alterra Coffee, aka the best coffee in Milwaukee.

Today’s agenda includes hitting the trails for a 7-8 mile run, grocery shopping, and working around the house. My productivity this weekend has been astounding thus far, and has included cleaning, touch-up painting, priming trim, and making training calendars for Steve and myself. I have no plans to watch the Super Bowl, instead I think I will actually cook a dinner besides roasted vegetables.

Are you watching the Super Bowl? Do you care who wins or are you in it for the commercials?

Did you get outside this weekend?

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February 2, 2012 · 1:50 pm

Three things Thursday

1. Yesterday I got to have a lunch date with this guy:

He loves it when I take his picture while he is trying to eat.

I got my haircut downtown (soooo far away now that I am a suburbanite), so I took the opportunity to meet up with Steve for lunch since I wasn’t too far from his office. The restaurant we chose, Zak’s Cafe, was perfect because they served breakfast until 3pm along with their regular lunch. I have been thinking about french toast for about a week now ever since I saw this on Pinterest and had to have it.

 

Craving satisfied. But I will still be making the pb banana version very soon.

2. This week’s episode of Glee made me so happy. MJ for-eva!!

source

3. I am leaving work early today to go running. There is a running/networking group that meets twice a month to, well…run and network. Basically I am getting paid to run. I should do this professionally or something.

Tell me something about your Thursday. Anything.

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January 19, 2012 · 8:03 am

Three things Thursday

1. I got this cute Valentine’s Day mug yesterday and it made me extra happy to drink my coffee this morning. My grandma got the same one and I hope she enjoys using it today as well.

2. I kept my smoothie small and simple this morning.

3/4 cup coconut milk

3/4 frozen banana

1/8 cup peanut flour

2 TB cocoa powder

1 TB chia seeds

I did this to make room for a slab of cornbread on the side. I made this recipe last night (the spiced version) and it is already over half gone. I am the only one eating it. This morning I heated up a piece and topped it with a heavy smear of peanut butter, a drizzle of honey, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. This was the best breakfast I’ve had in quite some time.

3. I made apple sauce yesterday in my crock pot. It was so easy I have to share. I peeled, cored, and chopped 9 apples (I got an entire bag of apples off of the reduced produce shelf at the grocery store the other day for $1.50!).

I put them in the crock pot, sprinkled them with a little lemon juice, added pumpkin pie spice and a drizzle of maple syrup.

I set the crock pot to low and six hours later I had deliciously sweet and perfectly spiced applesauce.

4. Ok, there is a forth thing, sorry. I did an easy run this morning on Phillip and my legs felt quite a bit better. I threw in some 60 second pick-ups at race pace and while they didn’t feel great, it was much better than Tuesday’s attempt. I am hoping with one more rest day tomorrow I will be ready to rock on Saturday morning.

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October 31, 2011 · 9:25 pm

The house

I don’t think I mentioned it on the blog, but Steve and I closed on a house last week. Yep, we are officially moving out of the city and into the suburbs. Finding a house in our desired area and within our budget was a bit of a challenge. Most of the homes we looked at were either

1) Super old. Like over 100 years old, which could be ok for some people, but we didn’t want to deal with oil burning heat tanks and all of the problems and work that come with a house that old.

2) Complete gut jobs. We are willing to do some work (as you will see), but some of the houses were complete remodel jobs which we had neither the time or money to tackle.

3) Plain weird. We saw some crazy things during our house hunt, such as a master bedroom with a master bath attached, but no door. And nowhere to put a door. Um, I don’t want to hear someone using the facility just on the other side of a half wall while I am sleeping. We also saw some amazingly gaudy fixtures, interesting DIY repairs, and many more things that made us scratch our heads.

Or some combination of all three of those things.

We were starting to worry that we would never find the perfect house to meet our needs. On our wish list included three bedrooms,  a two-car garage, a place to park the boat, a decent layout, and a small manageable yard. It doesn’t seem like that much to ask for, right? Well, after much searching, we finally found our house.

It needs work, but it’s mostly cosmetic. We are knocking out half of a wall to open up the kitchen, installing all new flooring, and painting the entire house. A ton of work was completed over this past weekend thanks to the help of my awesome family, so everything already looks quite different than the pictures in this post. I am still going to show the “before” pics here though, so that I can show the updates as they happen.

So without further ado…

The kitchen:

Living room:

Family/dining room:

Master bedroom:

Guest room:

Bedroom three/office:

Full bath:

So as you can see, lots of cosmetic work to be done. I will be updating with before and after photos of the rooms as we work on them. As I said, everything already looks quite different.

I am managing to fit in some running here and there, but to be honest it is taking a back seat right now. We are in sort of a time crunch with the house because we hope to move in right before Thanksgiving. Please pardon my lack of blogging and running-related posts for the next few weeks, things are getting crazy up in here!

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October 18, 2011 · 7:41 am

I’m getting old(er)

One year ago today, I celebrated my 30th birthday by running 30 miles. I will not be running 31 miles today (you know, work and cupcakes and stuff), so I started off the day with a brisk 3.1 miles instead. I am pretty sure that’s practically the same thing. Right?

Also, I woke up to this when I opened my computer screen:

It will be a great day indeed. Smile

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