Summary – November 14-20

Wow!  It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve done a summary.  So exciting.

I’ve been keeping the distances pretty short, with my longest runs being seven kilometres.  And no real speed or hill work yet.  My left hip is still giving me issues so I haven’t even been doing any weights besides a few easy upper body exercises.  And I took Saturday as a rest day and did an entire hour of yoga.  An hour.  A full honest-to-goodness hour.  I was counting down the time about halfway through.  I was pretty sure that at one point every limb would give out and I’d do a not so graceful yogic face plant.  Namaste that.

I’ve been trying to do at least some of my runs on trails.  The trails near my house are not very challenging and it means I don’t have to drive anywhere.  The down side is that I walk my dogs through this area all the time so it gets a bit repetitive.

Sunday was the first day that it actually felt like winter.  When I woke up I found a dusting of snow on the car.  I guess now I have to dig all the winter running gear out of storage.  For some reason, my run felt really good.  It may have been the fact that I took it easy yesterday (except for that hour of yoga) or my body is finally remembering what it feels like to move.  It’s taken long enough.

Diet…wellllllllll…see here’s the thing: I was on a course all last week and I didn’t feel like fighting through crowds of people to get groceries so I bought my lunches a lot and then scrounged stuff together at home for dinner.  And for the most part my lunches were fairly healthy.  Except one.

Some of the folks in class were talking about restaurant called The Burger’s Priest and one item called “the option”.  It’s portobello mushrooms around cheese and deepfried on a bun.  The way they made it sound, I expected a monstrocity of buger goodness.  So I went there for lunch.  What can I say?  It sounded like a challenge.  When I looked at the buns on the griddle, I realized there were no monstrocities here.  I ended up getting “the priest” which was the option on top of a cheeseburger.  It was good. It was quite good.  Just not $12 good.  I think the guys were taken aback when I told them that I could have finished a second one.

But that small indulgence has been balanced out with some good meals that were heavy on vegetables and healthy stuff.  Maybe not a lot of salad-type stuff but I did make one of my absolute favourite (and quick) meals: soba noodles with lots of veggies in a gingery orangey beef broth.  All I do is heat of some no-salt beef broth (and yes I used store bought for this) with some minced ginger, minced garlic, and a spoonful of marmalade.  While that comes up to a boil, I chop up veggies and that can be anything that’s in the fridge.  Because I don’t like to fuss with multiple stages (because if I’m cooking this my brain is on autopilot) I shred carrots instead of slicing them.  Once the broth is boiling, I toss in the soba and in no time they’re done.  If I have something tougher like broccoli stems, I add them them to the broth with the noodles.  I do the last minute flavour adjustment with some soy sauce, hot sauce, sesame oil, and sometimes fish sauce.  Then add in the veggies.  The heat of the broth warms them through.  If I have tofu or leftover meat, I add that with the vegetables.  It may not be authentically anything but it is fast, tasty, and *gasp* good for you.

So here’s the breakdown:

Monday November 14: 5 km (32:19 min)

Tuesday November 15: 5 km (40:19 min) this run was through some very technical trails but I forgot my headlamp so stopped sooner than I had wanted to when I could barely see the trail.  My bad.

Wednesday November 16: 50 minutes on the elliptical

Thursday November 17: 7 km (45:29 min)

Friday November 18: 5 km (31:52)

Saturday November 19: did I mention an hour of yoga?

Sunday November 20: 7 km (44:00 min)