New Directions

Hello hello!

It's been some time since I've hopped on the old blog, but I've decided to take it in a new direction. Shortly after my last post about marathon training, my plans were derailed MAJORLY by injury. I didn't end up running a marathon, and this years' triathlon plans were out the window. It was a major bummer, and I decided maybe a running blog wasn't for me.

Way too many nights of icing put me in a sad state

So I'm back now, and with some new ideas on how to share life.  Justin + I are in it together this round, and instead of focusing on workouts and how things are going health and fitness-wise, I'm going to cover more of our lives in general. Don't forget this though: There will still be health. There will still be fitness. There will just be more of everything else in between now, too.

Charlie is happy to be the center of attention on a blog again. He's such an attention whore :)

How cool is this?  We were there! More on that later though

Life is good, and we're just getting started. So stick around, it's going to be a good story, and if nothing else, Entertaining At Best

Updating...

This blogging thing went by the wayside pretty darn quick. I didn't really think that my daily occurrences were all that interesting.  And then, when they became interesting, well...... I just didn't blog them. So I'm going to try to update the past four weeks in the next post or two.

Let's start with some good eats.....

Brussels Sprouts. We buy sprouts in 2lb bags at Costco, and usually just roast 'em all up at once to save time.  hen, we have an easy veggie for lunches or dinners on the go.  Plus, they are tasty tasty

I made this pizza the other night. We love pizza and usually try to have Pizza Friday every week.  Usually it's homemade, but sometimes it comes from Costco as well.  This pizza was a from-scratch whole wheat crust, with San Marzano tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.  Freaking fantastic.  It was gone that night!

Here's a granola that I've been making weekly.  It's nice to have on hand, and is healthier and more affordable than store bought cereals or granolas.  Super easy too---oats, flax meal, maple syrup, almonds, raisins and a touch of coconut oil!

The last food picture of the post!  This was our Valentine's dinner. We don't usually do anything special for Valentine's beyond cooking a nice dinner together. This time it was a recreation of a favorite dish from a recent visit to NYC--sesame noodles and scallion pancakes. I don't remember where I found the scallion pancake recipe, but the sesames noodles were based on this recipe here. Generally we kept the ingredients similar, just heated it up instead of serving the noodles cold. It was definitely a keeper for the regular recipe rotation!

Outside of food, things have been trudging along for each of us. Justin has been busy at work, and I have been busy finding things to keep myself busy. I managed to knit this scarf and two others for my cousins...my first knitting project completed from start to finish on my own!

Running wise, we have been in the midst of training for the Lincoln Marathon. The training consists of four runs a week, and generally we've been sticking to the schedule pretty well.  We also haven't had any major injuries to speak of; so really, it couldn't be going any better at this point. It's been nice to work in some speed days on our lower mile days too! Here's a sample of what a week looked like in February:

Well that was an easier update than I thought it would be.  Next up: my trip to NYC!!!

lazy friday

I seriously need to figure out how to be more productive on a day when I'm home all day.  I feel like I accomplished nothing.  yeesh.

It started out ok....a morning bowl of oats with a side of eggs.  It went downhill from there.  I sat down to get some things done on the computer before hitting the gym, and the workout part just never happened.  Lucky for me I get to go with The Captain tonight, so hopefully I'll get enough steam to have a good workout then.

Then this afternoon it was more of this:

Lunch....

...leftovers from last night--chicken and veggie fritata with sprouts and a bagel thin

Followed by a walk with my pal.  Charlie is the kind of dog that needs at least an hour of exercise per day, so I thank the Lord for 40 degree days in February where I can get his butt out of the house and worn out :)

yay for warm(er) weather!

 
After the gym, we have a sushi (yay!) date with my uncles--we're on a constant quest to find good sushi in Lincoln, which unfortunately is not going well.  Here's to finding a place we like!
Happy Friday!

Starting gun!

**I'm going to preface by stating that I love blogs that break things up with good photos, and I want my posts to resemble that, but today I'm going to be seriously lacking in pictures.  Obviously I know how to start things off on the right foot :/  **

Welcome to my blog!  I won't be sharing this with anyone for a while--at least until I get a few posts under my belt and figure out how this whole thing is going to work.  But, I'm here and ready to go!
I'll start by setting out my current goals and how my training is going to look:


Right now I am training for the 2012 Lincoln National Guard Marathon on May 6--my first full marathon!  I'm running four days per week, and lifting in between.

Typically my schedule looks like this:
Mon-rest
Tues-short speed work (3-6 miles)
Weds-mid week, mid distance (5-10 miles)
Thurs- lift
Fri- short run and lift (3-6 miles again)
Sat- light cardio or yoga
Sun- long run (8-20 miles!)

I've been surprised at how well this is going so far--even The Captain is sticking to the plan.  This weekend we've got a 12-miler coming up, and we have been talking all week about how we're looking forward to our long run together!  My family thinks that's nuts, that we're beyond the point of having lost our marbles, but it really is a good time--we get a long time to just chat and have fun together.

 ...after our long run during a quick visit to NYC!

After the marathon, I'm not really sure what my race calendar is going to look like--but I want to get a couple short distance triathlons in the early summer, and maybe a destination race on the east coast if we can work out a vacation in July.  Based on how well all of that goes, I'm thinking about registering for my first 70.3 tri this fall--but don't quote me on that.  This season is well under way, I'm excited to be racing--and Charlie is happy for me too! 

Either that or he is disappointed with the obvious lack of photos in this post.....