Challenge Follow-up

So to say we failed the start of our home cooking challenge would be an understatement.  We ended up cooking a fantastic dinner on Tuesday and Thursday but ended up eating out on Wednesday, Friday, and all of Saturday.  We probably spent our entire month's dine out budget just over the weekend.

D wasn't feeling well Sunday so I made Whole Food's Chicken and Wild Rice Soup for dinner and decided that in addition to trying to cook more at home to be successful at weight loss personally I needed to track my food.  I started on Monday and so far have tracked each day.  We had obligations Monday evening that kept us out of the kitchen and had special Valentine's plans for Tuesday so today we are back to cooking at home.  After dinner we're heading out to the store to pick up food for the rest of the week.

Every day is a new day to do things better.  We're not going to beat ourselves up over the last week, we're just going to reset and try again.

Healthy Eating Challenge

We've decided to put a priority on eating healthier.  Overall we don't eat poorly, but we do make bad choices at times and eat out more than I would like which is not good for our budget or our bellies.  To help D and I improve our health and spend quality time together we've been trying to cook at home more.  Since I have a slight obsession with cookbooks, I thought I would challenge us to make home cooked meals 6 nights a week starting with tonight.

D had a teleconference this evening so I was in charge of making dinner and it was ah-mazing!  If D is sitting over the pan eating it, it has to be good right?

Tonight's dinner was Shrimp with Capers, Garlic, and Rice and Greek-Style Green Beans from Cooking Light's Fresh Food Fast Weeknight Meals cookbook. 

You can run! You can run! You can run!

It's no secret that I love half marathons.  When Disney announced the Tinkerbell Half Marathon at Disneyland there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to participate.  Not only did I sign up for the race, but my mom decided to sign-up too.  With this race, we took the opportunity to take our first ever mother-daughter trip.

This wasn't a first half for either of us, but I realized it was a special opportunity for us to share the experience.  In the other two half marathons that mom had done, I had run and cheered her on at the finish line but this time I wanted to be by her side the entire time.  Mom was so excited about this race and her energy was contagious.  She had picked out an outfit (because you can't run Tinkerbell without a little bling) in the fall and was ready to race.

We knew we'd be cutting the race time limit of 3:30 close so we planned to get as close to the front of our corral on race morning as possible to give ourselves as much of a lead as we could.  In order to ensure we made it across the line and got the medal I had us jog a minute after every 5 minutes of walking.  With the walk/run strategy we finished the race in 3:26 and what was even better was that I had a fabulous time with my mom and memories to carry with me.

Cooking Class

Last night I went to a friend's 40th birthday party.  She and her husband had just finished a major kitchen remodel and she decided after living for years in a house constantly under construction she wanted to have a dinner party as her birthday party.  As part of her party she hired a chef to come in and give a cooking class on making healthy and flavorful foods.

The first recipe we learned to make was a delicious feta tart.  It actually took relatively little effort and the topping choices are endless.  This is a great appetizer that I plan to pull out of my sleeve the next time we go to a party.  The second recipe we learned to make was Moroccan roasted vegetables.  I'm assuming what made it moroccan was the choice of spices we coated the vegetables with.  This recipe also turned out amazing and it is something I plan to add to our menus as the cold fall and winter months drag on here in the NW.  The chef also demonstrated making harissa, which is a hot chili paste, and saffron rice.  I've never seen rice cooked like pasta before but it turned out amazingly good and he had a dried lemon in the water to help flavor it, I didn't even know you could dry lemons.

I didn't think to take any pictures, but know that everything tasted amazing.  I'll take pictures and post them as I make the recipes down the line.

Victoria Half Marathon

A few years back I decided I wanted to qualify for Half Fanatics.  To qualify at the minimum level you need to either run 2 half marathons in 16 days or 3 in 90 days.  I had managed to get 2 in 3 weeks previously or had my 3 in 90 days lined up only to not complete them due to poor and inconsistent training on my part or injuries that kept me from participating.  This year I decided was the year I was going to qualify. I love the half marathon distance, it's enough to feel like I've really put a good effort in but not enough to make me feel completely beat.

Last Saturday Mr. B and I headed up to Victoria, BC, Canada for the weekend so that I could run my 2nd half of my 3 to qualify for half fanatics.  My first of three runs was the You Go Girl! half marathon in Tacoma in September which I trudged through with a major head cold.  I was not going to be deterred from qualifying this year!

We arrived Saturday, via the Victoria Clipper, and were able to check into our hotel early and drop our bags before heading off to lunch and the race expo.  At the expo, I got my race bib and prepared to head into the exhibitor hall to see what other races were being promoted and to pick up new replacement bottles for my water belt.

One of the first booths I saw was for the Rock n Roll run series and they were offering $10 off the new RNR Portland Race next May and a free t-shirt.  Sweet!  The only problem was that the person running the booth had gone to lunch.  There was a hand written note that they would be back by 2.  It was maybe quarter to 1 at that point.  I figured I could walk around the expo and check back knowing that I needed to pick up a few things.  To my disappointment, there were no vendors at the expo selling goods outside of the race sponsor selling race wear.  In addition, the race had maybe 25 total vendors most of which were for other races so I had to go to a local running store to find what I needed for the race.

Rather than do a complete race report, I'll list out my pluses and minuses from the trip.  Mr B and I had a great time getting away for a few short days and I would love to get up to Victoria again soon

Pluses:

• Timing chip on the race bib so no potential of forgetting the timing chip in the hotel room
• km markings helped me with my pacing, although I had to do more math (running and math don't always go together)
• A hotel only 2 blocks from the start is a wonderful thing and early check in.
• Victoria is a very walkable city, no real need for a car unless you want to go see Butchart Gardens
• A mini vacation close to home
• Amazing chocolate milk drink with protein at the finish

Minuses:

• Very small and sparse race expo.  No opportunity for race participants to pick up any sort of gear except race merchandise.
• The exchange rate, now that that exchange rate is nearly 1 to 1 the higher prices in Canada make it a more expensive trip.  It seems like some retailers still have a different price for goods sold in Canada versus the US.
• km markings...did I mention above running and math don't tend to go well with one another?
• Smelling fresh baked cinnamon rolls at the 3km mark knowing I have 18 more to run
• Feeling out of shape
• The long slow incline in the middle of the race I had managed to forget.

Live. Love. Laugh. Run.....What?

Live. Love. Laugh. is a favorite saying of mine.  It is a perfect way to express how I am trying lead my life. Run is because it is something that I have found that I truly enjoy.

I decided I wanted to start up a blog again to just sort of document what is going on in my life and what I'm working towards trying to achieve.  I plan to share my life as I try to eat healthier, lose weight, and continue to exercise and train for half marathons.