Runner’s Block
Despite the number of runs I’ve been going on lately I’ve been having major runner’s block. As in I’ve been struggling. A lot. Take today for example. I had a simple 3-miler in mind and the weather was working to my advantage with semi-warm morning temps and a shining sun. Gorgeous weather aside, I struggled the entire 1.5 miles out and pretty much walked the second 1.5 miles back.
Zero energy. Zero motivation. Zero fun.
I’ve decided to take today and tomorrow off from running and see how I feel on Friday. Maybe I need a much longer running break, but we’ll see.
For now let’s focus on happier things. Like, say, food.
VOO’s are back this week.
Topped with pumpkin butter, Justin’s Choco Hazlenut and unpictured 1/2 a banana (trust me, it wasn’t pretty).
Pizza leftovers are the best.
These 3 slices of Boulder Pizza from The Med fueled me through what was actually a good 4-mile run after I got home from school. I felt sluggish and tired for the first mile so I kept a slow pace but then sped up and finished mile 4 at a 8:50 pace.
Okay, maybe I need to stop complaining about bad runs.
Snack was necessary upon return.
This amount of cashews, almonds and dates 2x.
Then I got to work prepping dinner in an attempt to get picture before the sun set. Notice the progression of darkness in these pictures.
Now mix these ingredients together in your mind and picture the outcome. Or check out the pictures of the original recipe or my pictures from last time.
Sadly I’m bad a halfing recipes and Angela’s High Protein Mashed Potatoes turned out wayyy too garlicky. Oops.
Luckily there was more to dinner than mashed potatoes.
Notice anything wrong with those green beans?
How about now?
How about that I forgot to cut them into bite sized pieces. Where is my brain? Maybe the beans would have cooked all the way if they’d been in smaller pieces. I kept them in the oven half an hour longer than the recipe told me to and they were still slightly crunchy! Good thing I tested the recipe out before Thanksgiving, huh?
Bite-sized pieces and crunch aside this dish was good. Like Campbell’s recipe good except it was made with REAL food and I felt 20x better eating it.
Sidenote:
You will no longer be seeing this product on this blog.
Although if you’re willing to pay $4 and be fizzed all over and have your hands stained with yellow I totally recommend this mango flavor.
Okay, you will be seeing it one more time but only because I only drank half and I have to finish the rest at some point!
Sidenote #2:
Yesterday it was 70*, this morning it was sunny and I was running in a t-shirt, this afternoon it snowed. Colorado, you are crazy!
How’s the weather where you are?
Extra Time
I got so much done on Sunday and I will continue to pretend it’s because daylight savings time gave us an extra hour in the day.
In all actuality, I woke up at 7:15 because my body didn’t get the time change memo but I enjoyed lying in bed for an hour before my alarm went off, telling me to get ready for breakfast with my family.
Before my parents sold their house, moved into a condo and completely renovated their new space my mom used to put on a lovely Sunday breakfast almost weekly. Now that remodeling is basically complete Sunday breakfasts are back on!
I munched on this fruit all morning. Thanks for feeding my strawberry addiction, Mom — since I’m too cheap to pay $6 for them!
A new food toy was purchased and I was all too happy to help my mom try it out.
Aebelskiver (pronounced “able-skiver”) pans are quite fun.
Do you see my evil deranged twin reflected in the microwave? And yes, I am using the tools you use to dig out crab meat to flip the aebelskiver pancakes.
Are they not adorable?
I was busy cooking the pancakes, while Beanie was in charge of egg scrambling.
And Joey was playing babysitter with my nephew.
So what were the adults doing??
I had a little of everything that wasn’t meat.
I put a tiny drop of Dark Chocolate Dreams inside the last three aebelskivers and made sure I snagged one. It was awesome, of course.
I also had about 3x as much fruit as on this plate…
After breakfast everyone decided to head over to a nearby park but sadly I had much more exciting things to take care of like grocery shopping and homework. Yes, you should be sensing sarcasm here.
Isn’t grocery shopping so much more fun when you get to take someone else credit card? I think so! Just kidding, I didn’t even go too crazy. At breakfast my brother asked us how much we spend on groceries a week and was shocked when I said we average $80.
Do you have a grocery budget?
I came home, did some homework (maybe did a little more blog reading than school reading…) then around 2 I realized I was HUN-GRY! ” Big breakfasts” do nothing to curb my hunger, unlike Joey who eats Sunday breakfast and not again till dinner! What a freak.
English muffin with hummus, black beans, spinach and cherry tomatoes + apple and peanut butter on the side.
Then I got busy in the kitchen, prepping dinner for Sunday and Monday.
With Thanksgiving fast approaching I’m busy trying out new recipes and Sunday began the first test runs.
First up, vegan green bean casserole. I used Mama Pea‘s recipe and Fat Free Vegan Kitchen‘s recipe as guides. I’ll recount my exact process when I post the final product on Wednesday.
Dinner was Thai-Spiced Pumpkin Soup and I was stoked to get a second chance at roasting pumpkin seeds.
We used Ashley’s amazing Rosemary Garlic Pumpkin Seeds recipe (except we halfed everything since we only had 1 cup of seeds).
I wish I had pictures of the end result but it was dark by the time they were done and let’s be honest those seeds were gone by the end of the night. What can I say? We like our pumpkin seeds!
Some went on top of our soup
but most met their end by being shoveled by the handful into my mouth.
By the way this soup was just okay. A little too rich and not enough kick for me, but we all know I ate it anyways.
We’re experimenting with a homemade lighting box for nighttime blog pictures (compliments of construction-savvy Joey). How do my soup pictures look?
P.S. I now have a recipe page!! Be sure to check it out and enjoy your Tuesday.
Late Start
Our plan for the day was breakfast, early afternoon run, dinner, movie but we ended up waking up late, eating breakfast late and running late.
My body keeps wanting to sleep in so I’ve been going with it.
When we finally got up oatmeal for two was in order.
Topped with choco hazlenut apples (1/2 apple, 1T Justin’s chocolate hazlenut butter, 1/2T almond milk — microwave 1 minute), cinnamon granola and mixed berry compote.
These apples may be my favorite oatmeal topping EVER.
When I finished I looked over to see that Joey was struggling to finish. What an amateur.
We digested for an hour then hit the road for a run. By this time it was already noon and 70*!
7 miles in 1:11:59 with one semi-long walking break — I was just too hot!
Came home and fixed up lunch for Joey who was STARVING.
Chickpeas cooked in olive oil + curry with roma tomato tossed in at the end then all stuffed into a pita with spinach. I decided a bowl was the best way to keep the pitas upright so the filling wouldn’t fall out.
Joey loved it.
It always takes my appetite a while to kick in after a longer run so I showered and sat in bed to read nap — oops! Once I got up I realized we had 2.5 hours till dinner so I cooked up a tiny meal.
Microwaved sweet potato, black beans, salt. Simple and tasty, except that I burnt my hand on the plate trying to pull it out of the microwave!
A few hour later it was time to head into Boulder for dinner at one of my personal favorites — The Med. This was a celebratory dinner for Joey’s cousin, Courtney, who just got confirmed and I felt so honored that she wanted me to pick the restaurant!!
I requested a table by the window and got most of my pictures taken before the sun set, yay!
Tapas (small plate appetizers) were ordered and enjoyed by all.
#1 Peel and Eat Shrimp with wasabi sauce + cocktail sauce
#2 Fried Polenta + Rosemary Honey. This has got to be one of my favorites!
#3 Mozzarella Marinara
#4 Deviled Eggs
#5 Another favorite — the hummus platter. That would include black bean + cilantro, thai curry + honey and red pepper + harissa.
We all deemed the red pepper the #1 hummus.
The sun had set so the pictures don’t do justice to my Boulder pizza — pesto, artichoke hearts, sundried tomato, spinach, olives and feta.
Also had a half of a piece of Joey’s with sauce, mushrooms and mozzarella. Both were delicious.
We planned on watching a movie at home but the roomies were headed to see Due Date and we willingly accepted their offer to join them.
The movie was HILARIOUS and we even had time to snag a sample of strawberry drizzled with white chocolate from Godiva beforehand 🙂
Hope you all remembered to set your clocks back yesterday!
Lauren Loves Good Food 