A Long Run and Sunday Eats

I slept so well last night.

Like, the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a very long time.

I did not wake up during the night one time. I did wake up at 5:45 AM long enough to decide that I’m going to be keeping Monday as a rest day, and then rolled right back over and went to sleep until Zach’s alarm went off at 7. Ahh, sweet relief!

I’m in a great mood today, because we have officially entered the period of time which it is appropriate to count down to vacation! Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve really been counting down since August began. I really can’t wait, and I have a few vacation related blog post ideas formulating in my mind.

Yesterday was long run day, and I had such a great run! I took a ton of pictures:

From left – right: Me taking a break near my favorite water fountain, my favorite view, and my nemesis/lucky charm, the Muscovy duck that lives in the park where I run. I would have gotten closer to him to take a photo, but I harbor a healthy fear of him, so that’s all you get.

Backtracking a bit, I thought I’d share my meals from yesterday with you. Prior to heading out for my run, I had some greek yogurt with granola and “fruit” (it was really just fruit syrup):

I also had some instant coffee (still no coffee pot), which is surprisingly not bad. I followed it all up with a glass of water and a probiotic (I’m going to do a probiotic post soon, because I’m loving them!) and caught up with some magazines while my food digested.

I had a great run, as I mentioned. My training plan called for 6 miles, but I had to pause my CardioTrainer app (which was tracking my miles) at one point because some guy and I were running a ridiculously similar pace. It was awkward, so I stopped and pulled over to let him go ahead a bit. Apparently I forgot to restart the app, because I didn’t notice it until much later. I estimated I had ran about a mile or so, so I just added an extra loop on at the end of my run just in case I was shorting myself. Well, when I got home, I logged on to Map My Run and I had done 6.81 miles! To be honest, I could have kept running too, so that felt great.

I had planned to make brunch for me and Zach when I got back, but he decided to go golfing with his dad, so I whipped up some lunch for myself. I was surprised that I wasn’t famished right after my run like I usually am, I guess the yogurt/granola combo is a winner for staying power. I’ll have to remember that come half-marathon race day.

I bought some local tofu at the Wild Ramp market which I really wanted to try. I’ll tell you this: I’m never buying any other tofu again. This tofu had the best consistency, I only had to press it for 5 minutes, and I was able to cook it without the tofu breaking up and turning into a scramble. Even when I buy extra-firm at the grocery store, it doesn’t have the firm texture I’d like. I made the Cast Iron Tofu  using Caitlin’s method (Healthy Tipping Point is hands down one of my favorite blogs!), added it to some sauteed Kale and served it over Ramen noodles. Yes, Ramen noodles! I’ll admit I love ’em.

I don’t know if I’ll ever cook tofu another way again. It was so crispy on the outside! I love the texture of tofu, so I left the cubes to be kind of on the large side, but if you made them smaller this would be even crispier. I had a few strawberries on the side also. All of the meals I had yesterday had amazing staying power, and this was no exception. I was full for a long time after I chowed this down.

I went to a 5:30 yoga for runner’s class (which was incredible!) Our instructor focused on the Piriformis, which is a muscle in your glute area. It’s a deep muscle that is hard to stretch, but we sure did stretch it. In fact, I didn’t even know that mine was tight until we started stretching it out. My legs feel  great today! I’m on a budget, so I don’t know if I can afford to shell out the $8 a week to go to this class, but I think I’ll try to make it at least a monthly thing.

After yoga, it was late and we had movie plans with friends, so I whipped together a quick dinner. Earlier in the day, I had made a batch of Indian Curry veggie burgers from the No-Meat Althlete veggie burger formula (found here.) So, burgers it was:

This was an amazing veggie burger! I basically just used the recipe at the end of that post for the Indian Patties, but I didn’t have chickpeas so I used Great Northern instead. Also, I subbed carrots and yellow squash as my veggies. Yum! I made it a double decker because I was quite hungry. Add some baked french fries (yay, health!) and some steamed broccoli w/ a bit of shredded cheddar and it was a yummy meal. I decided to put a dollop of plain yogurt on my burger, and it was a very good decision. After dinner, I was ready for some dessert, so I had a frozen greek yogurt bar (flavor: blueberry), and it was delicious.

It was a great day for food at my house, and I didn’t realize how much yogurt I ate yesterday until I typed it all up. I swear, that isn’t typical!

Question of the day:
What is the best thing you’ve eaten recently? 

Weekend Eats

Still sleeping not-so-great, still having not-so-great runs. Think they are related? Hmmm 😉

I thought I’d use this post to share some of the yummy food I had this weekend. I cannot for the life of me remember what I made for dinner on Friday night (that’s what I thought about while I was laying awake in bed in the wee hours this morning), so I’m going to start with Saturday morning.

I woke up feeling not-so-hot, probably due to the fact that Zach and I met some of his friends out pretty late and then ended up meeting up with another friend. We were out later than usual, and I still wasn’t sleeping so well. I decided I wanted to make something different, so I whipped this together:

 

I chopped up some green peppers, onions and a potato, and sauteed them in my cast iron skillet (which is my favorite thing on earth, by the way). Then I sprinkled on some cheese and cracked two eggs on top and threw it in the oven for about 5-8 minutes.

Oh. my. goodness. was this delicious. I served it up with a slice of whole wheat toast. Yum.

Saturday was kind of….blah. I ended up taking a rest day from exercise because I was so tired from not getting enough sleep. I ended up taking a three hour nap in the middle of the day! I don’t know if I’m a little sick or what, but you would think a three hour nap would be refreshing…nope. I was still so tired throughout the day. But, we decided to meet up with some friends anyway to go to the annual Ribfest happening down by the riverfront: 

Ok, not the healthiest meal, but it sure was delicious. I got the three bone sampler, which came with potato salad, baked beans and a cornbread muffin. The cornbread muffin was more like dessert, but I wasn’t complaining (I ate Zach’s, too). It was pretty good, but I wish we had stood in the longer line to get Carolina Rib King. Though our friends were keeping the party going, I was feeling too run down to go out, so instead Zach and I headed home to watch a movie. On the way back to the car, I made him stop at Tropical Moon so I could get some frozen yogurt:

 

I got the mountain blackberry flavor, and added fresh fruit, including….more blackberries! It was really good, but I think the craving was just a craving, because I was too full from the Ribs to finish it.

The movie we watched was Wanderlust with Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston — it was quite funny! I hope you check it out if you haven’t.

On Sunday, I woke up not feeling great (again!), so I didn’t get around to running until late afternoon. I cleaned house, made some breakfast, and went with Zach to get some new work clothes (for him). Then I decided I had really better get a run in, considering I’d already skipped a training run on Saturday. Here’s how my first week of half training went:

Since I wasn’t feeling so hot on Saturday, I had planned to combine Saturday and Sunday’s run into one long 8 miler, but I ended up not feeling great on Sunday either. 😦 I did end up doing 5.5 miles, so I ended up 2.5 miles short of my goal for the week. It’s not the end of the world, I’m sure I’ll have better weeks. I do need to figure out why I’m feeling blah though – I suspect allergies. Are anyone else’s flaring up a lot right now?

After my run, I made lasagna for dinner, and it turned out really well. When I make lasagna, usually I just throw a bunch of veggies in a bowl, mix in ricotta cheese, mozzarella and spices. Then I layer it with sauce and the noodles. Easy as pie (why is that a saying? Pie is kind of hard to make…):

Yes, I put corn in my lasagna. I had some leftover from something I made, so I threw it in. It was very yummy. After a relaxing Sunday evening, I thought for sure I would sleep well, but I think maybe I was too anxious about it, so I ended up tossing and turning all night 😦

To top things off, here’s what I had for a nice desk breakfast this morning:

Scrambled eggs with cheese and sriracha on a whole-wheat wrap, cottage cheese with blackberries and a cup of green tea (still no coffeepot!). Yum!

Question of the day:
What was the best meal you’ve had recently?