Three Bullets for Thursday

• Do you like my fall decor? The eyeballs are courtesy of Mrs. Potato Head.

• I was on the phone the other night with my Triathlete/Marathon runner Dad, and he casually mentioned that he's thinking of doing a Tri in the Spring.  He's 65. Which just goes to show you can be active for as long as you want to. Go Dad.

• Alert the media, I bought a set of kettlebells, one 8 pound, one 10 pound.  I'm still using my 6 pound medicine ball and resistance band, but I thought I'd shake things up a bit.  I took another lovely bike ride yesterday, and the hardest thing has been to remember to ride with traffic, and not against it like when I run.  I don't know how you bikers do it, I've got ample padding in my rear, but I'm still sore when I get off the bike.  Ouch.

Mexican Veggie Soup with Brown Rice

I have been eating this soup for lunch the past few days, it's got a nice flavor, is full of veggies, and it's good for you (bonus).   I made it up as I went along, and I think it turned out pretty well.  So if you're looking for a new fall soup, here it is!

Ingredients:

2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into circles

2 stalks of celery, sliced thinly

1 large vidalia onion, chopped

4 large cloves of minced garlic

2 potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped

1 15 oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup frozen baby lima beans

1 can of corn, drained (I love nibblets)
64 ounces of stock (veggie or chicken, just make sure it's low sodium without MSG)
one 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
2 cups of cooked brown rice
2 teaspoons of chili powder

one bay leaf

olive oil

salt and pepper

Take a heavy stock pot, and coat the bottom with olive oil, about 2 tablespoons. 

Once heated, add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, a teaspoon of salt, and cook until softened, about 10 minutes.

Add the stock, and tomatoes, cook about 5 minutes.

Add potatoes, corn, beans, lima beans, chili powder, bay leaf, and several grinds of black pepper.

Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about an hour. 

Check to see if you need to add any salt or pepper, then add the cooked rice, and simmer for a couple more hours.

When serving, pair it up with corn bread, and it's especially tasty with some grated cheddar cheese on top.

Let me know your favorite soup, I'm always looking for more ideas!!

Are you going to get in a funk?

That's what Mike asked me the other night, after I looked at the weather forecast for the weekend, and saw that it was going to be perfect for fall running. I got into an particularly long funk two years ago, the last time I had a running injury.  But this time around, I'm not going to let that happen.  I'm going to stay busy in general, which I was all weekend.  I got in a few great bike rides, and on Thursday I did Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown....meltdown indeed, I was a sweaty mess after that, and was actually sore the next day!

I did a bunch of cooking this weekend, which I especially like to do in the fall.

So after picking pumpkins:

I made a batch of vegetable soup with a Mexican flair (I'll post the recipe, it turned out reeeeally good).

Baked a bunch of garlicky meatballs.

As well as some caramelized onion, goat cheese and walnut pizza with a beer crust (recipe HERE).

Finished off with an apple crisp, made from the 20 pounds of apples we bought at a farm stand, for $8.00.

So that was my weekend.

Bring on the yoga.

CEP Winner

Thanks to everyone who entered the CEP giveaway!  I loved reading about what everyone's favorite running distance is.  I myself love a run that is around six miles, and besides doing another marathon, I'm hoping to incorporate some more half marathons into my schedule as well.

Congrats to Cynthia at Balls in the Air, who was number 176 using random.org.   And don't forget you can use the code BLOG15 for 15% off an order at sportscompression.com.

Happy Monday!

I will cross train. I will cross train. I will. cross. train.

This morning was pretty typical.  I woke up, somehow mixed up my contact lenses and put the wrong ones in each eye.  Then I shook up the container of almond milk, which wasn't closed all the way so it went all over the place (I've done this several times in my life).  But then my Mom, who is visiting us after retiring from her job last week, put on my glasses by mistake.  She thought she had a stroke, and said "I knew this would happen as soon as I retired!!!"

I'm being good. No running. I took the advice of you triathletes out there, and went for a bike ride this morning.  The sun is out after days of rain and it took all I had in me to get on the bike instead of going for a run.  I rode for about 40 minutes, and I took it easy, just rolled along, do-di-do.....I felt like I was in a Country Time Lemonade commercial. 

I really am going to try and be good and let hammy heal, and suck it up and cross train.  I don't know why I have such a hard time with it, back in the days that I belonged to the gym, I would finish my cardio, walk over to the weights, and then keep walking.  I don't think I have it in me to sit there and do exercises, I want to just run around and get in a good sweat.  

At least the weather is starting to cooperate, fall has really kicked in, and I want to take advantage of our weekends while it's nice out.  I asked Mike what we were doing this weekend, and he pointed to the pile of wood in our driveway and said, "Stacking that!"  Well, I guess I can count that as cross training.

Last weekend was fun, I went on a wine tour of Seneca Lake, in the Finger Lakes, with my mother in law, her sisters, and my sisters in law.  It was a great day for it, my favorite vineyard of the six we visited was Four Chimneys, an organic vineyard that had a yummy Chardonnay.  The Finger Lakes are known for it's Riesling, which I'm not a huge fan of, I wish I had bought more than one bottle of the Chard.

Here I am with my sisters in law, note that for once Jeannine and I are not in running skirts.

Don't forget my CEP Compression sock giveaway, which ends Sunday....you can find it HERE!

Running Date

I've mentioned before that because the kids are back in school, I have three mornings a week of guaranteed running time (barring illness, or a pile of laundry).  I can actually make plans to run with others in the middle of the week!  My sis in law Jeannine and friend Norine (my friends and marathon partners) run pretty often at Green Lakes Park, which has trails that loop around two lakes, as well as up into woodsy areas, so we planned our first post marathon run together last Friday.  My friend Kelly and I have been trying to meet up for a run for months now, and as she's training for a 50k trail run this fall, I invited her to come along.

We ended up going the day after a huge rainstorm, and the trails were wet, and pretty muddy in some spots.  Started off around the lake, then headed up some steep inclines, I kept my head down for most of it, lots of roots and rocks to watch out for.  Here is Norine: 

It was so much fun to just clomp along in the mess, not worrying about pace, just running.  Well, and walking up some of the crazy steep parts.  I was hoping we could do about six miles, before we had to leave to pick up Miss Eliza at school, so we did have to watch the clock.  Here is Kelly when she realized the trail ended after we made a wrong turn:

Huh?

Got going again, and this is Jeannine and Kelly from the back when we headed back towards the lakes:

Once we made it back down, we had maybe a mile left to get to the car, which gave us plenty of time to get back home on time.  Kelly and I ran along, and we lost sight of Jeannine and Norine.  I suggested we back track a bit to see if we could find them, which we did.  So we ran, and ran some more. And some more.  When we got back to the point where we had stopped to look for them, we realized we ran that lake loop twice!  Once we figured out where we were, we got moving again, and that's when I knew I was going to be late for school pick up.  So we were booking along at a good clip, with not much of the trail left....and Hammy started protesting, big time.  So much so that I had to walk, which was annoying.  I felt like I had really pushed it, but didn't totally destroy it, so that was good. 

Back in the car, Kelly checked her Garmin for our splits, the first couple of miles were in the 11:00 minute range, which makes sense because we were climbing, and figuring out where the trail was.  The last mile was around 8:37! Which goes to show I have it in me to go fast, I just have to really want it!

After I got Eliza, and said bye to the girls, I popped some Advil, iced and rolled the heck out of Hammy, and felt okay for the rest of the afternoon.  It was stiff over the weekend, during an all day wine tour of Seneca Lake on Saturday, and during a Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk on Sunday (which we did for my Mom in Law Diane, and her sister Cathy who are both Survivors).

So I figured this morning I would go out for a short run, because I'm all amped up to tackle the 259 miles I have left in my 1,000 mile goal.  Made it half a mile, when Hammy said, "uh uh, no way, no how." So I walked some, started running again, and it said "weren't you listening? I said no way. Not now."  Which reeeeaaaly makes me mad, because I just had two weeks of solid, pain free runs.  I'm hoping I didn't undo all the progress I've made in healing.

I'm going to be good, as much as I don't want to, I'm going to take this week off.  I really, really don't want to.  But I'll be good. 

I think.

CEP Compression Sock Review....and giveaway!

I've read great things about compression socks, and have been eager to try them. So I was excited when I came home the other day to find a package from sportscompression.com on my doorstep, containing a pair of pink CEP compression socks to test out!

If you aren't familiar, compression socks and sleeves are used to help with muscle recovery either during or after exercise. The compression increases circulation, which flushes out lactic acid, thus helping to improve your performance. They also support muscles that have been injured, like shin splints or dreaded plantar fasciitis (which I've dealt with on and off for years now), by reducing the muscle vibration in the tissue.  You can read more about the advantages on CEP's website, http://www.cepcompression.com/.

I put the running socks on as soon as I got them out of the box to see how they would feel, I noticed right off how smooth they are, the stitch at the top didn't bug my toes at all. After a few minutes my legs started to feel lighter, the socks were tight to put on, but they felt good.

Sports Compression suggests that you wear them for 4 - 6 hours after activity, I ran 8 miles yesterday, and put the socks on right after I finished. I had to do a bunch of errands, and get Eliza to story time, so I waited to take a shower (it was raining so I figured I could get away with looking a bit skanky), threw my sweats on over the socks and got to it. My legs felt good all afternoon, I took the socks off at dinnertime when I finally got in the shower. By the time the Biggest Loser started, I put them back on because my legs were getting tired, and they immediately felt better.

I usually have a rest day after a run longer than 8 miles, but today when I got up, I felt like I could go for a run! I think the socks are great, I think I'm going to wear them on a run later in the week to see how they work while running, plus now that it's getting cooler they'll be a great addition to my fall running gear.

Thanks to David at sportscompression.com, here is a chance to win a pair of CEP Compression Running socks, AND if you can't wait to get a pair, you can use the following discount code on sportscompression.com for 15% off your order.  Use code: BLOG15.

To enter the giveaway, please go to sportscompression.com, click around, and let me know what you would like to try out.

For additional entries (please leave a separate comment for each) you may:

1. Be a friend of my blog, or become one

2. Follow CEP on facebook here, or twitter, here

3. Share the giveaway info, by blog, twitter, facebook, etc.

4. Let me know what your favorite running distance is.

Giveaway ends at midnight EST on Sunday October 10th.

*Note, I was provided with a pair of Compression socks for this review, my thoughts on the product are my own.