Tag Archives: after work

Work + School + Running = Exhausted

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Today I’m grateful that I completed an exam successfully at school, after a full day’s work, then came home and ran a 5K before showering and zonking out on the couch with the pups.

Well, its officially been 8 days since I’ve posted anything and I have to say that I’m exhausted and overwhelmed.  I’ve been keeping up with my training despite it being the end of the school year AND I’m taking classes myself.

There’s so much to do!  Regardless, I’ve been averaging under 9 minute miles just as I’ve wanted to and I’ve been running 3 times a week.

Once school ends next Thursday, my schedule will be fee to run in the mornings and I can increase that to at LEAST 4 times a week (preferrably 5)

Summer, why can’t you get here sooner!!!!!???????

April 7th and 8th: Lazy Funk

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laziness

I am really grateful for having had such a fun and active weekend but, to be honest, Monday and Tuesday evenings were rough!

I usually change my clothes the minute I come home from work and prepare to go out for either a run or a bike ride.  But on Monday when I walked through the door of my house, the only thing I could think to do was EAT.  I was so hungry and fatigued that I ate dinner at 4:30 pm.  I told myself that I would give myself an hour to digest my food then go for a run at 5:30…. 5:30 rolled around and I was on the couch spooning with my dog Max, fast asleep.

Tuesday evening was similar.  I had all the good intentions in the world to go for a quick run before I went out to see a Panthers Hockey Game…  That only resulted in yet another early dinner and cuddle session with my yorki-poo.

Plan for Wed… bring a bigger lunch so I’m not so hungry when I get home and don’t think so much about whether or not I want to run when I get home.  Just get dressed AND GO!

Weeknight Workout Epic Fail

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I wasn’t able to do my routine run on Monday because of a terrible rain storm that didn’t seem to let up for hours. Eventually, I threw the whole notion of running out the window and decided to eat dinner and relax with a glass of wine. I knew that on Wednesday I’d have to stay at the school until 8pm because of “open house night” and that on Friday evening I’d be rushing to the airport for our weekend get-away. On Tuesday I came home exhausted and unmotivated but, I decided that I didn’t have any choice in the matter but to put on my running clothes and head out if I was going to get any mileage in this week at all.

I felt achy, heavy and sluggish the minute I started running but convinced myself that once I had finished a mile, I’d be warmed up and less irritated by the whole thing. Unfortunately, it had just finished raining and the pavement was sending up waves of scorching humidity towards my face. Now I was achy, heavy, sluggish AND uncomfortably hot. I thought this was supposed to be fun? But, again, I decided to press on and just keep going, hoping I’d eventually get in a groove and “auto-pilot” would kick in.

For me, “auto-pilot” is that point in any run when I am no longer making a conscious effort to move my limbs. In fact, I’m not even thinking about the fact that I’m running anymore. I’m meditating solely on the sound of my feet hitting the pavement and my mind is blank or focused on observing my surroundings. Unfortunately, this wasn’t happening for me.

As I miserably pressed on, I saw an older, heavy-set woman wearing a cotton t-shirt and pair of heavy sneakers trotting along. I tried to make myself feel better by feigning a sense of superiority because she was obviously “not a true runner” and I huffed and puffed as I passed her on the sidewalk. One mile down and not only was I STILL not having any fun, I had now developed an uncomfortable stitch on the right side of my rib cage… But I continued forward.

My pace became irregular and I began to exhale more aggressively to get the carbon dioxide out of my lungs. That gave me no results so I started to do all the tricks in the book like the “lift your arms” thing, then I tried the “slow your pace” thing and eventually the “stop completely and walk for a bit” thing but nothing got rid of the stitch which had now turned into a full-on cramp… And that’s when it happened.

That’s when the cotton t-shirt lady passed me. (gasp)

Immediately thereafter, the cramp got so bad that I couldn’t breathe right so I called my boyfriend and got picked up alongside of the road, panting pathetically. I was only a mile and a half away from finishing the only run I was probably going to do this week and I had totally chickened out because of a stupid cramp and a fast old lady in non-dry-wick fabric.

I had defeated myself, really. I had let my exhaustion, my stress, my pride and my neuroses get the best of me. That’s my problem… I limit myself by not getting out of my own head.

In what ways have you defeated yourself on a run? How have you worked to over come this? How do you feel when you hit YOUR “auto-pilot”? Please share.

Healthy and Fast Weeknight Meal #1: Gazpacho

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Yummy and fresh

Yummy and fresh

I used to make the excuse that I was too tired to cook dinner after work waaaayyyyy too frequently. Unless I snuck over to my mom’s house and mooched a home-cooked meal from her, my excuses usually led to either too many calories (half a box of mac and cheese one night, the other half the next) or too few calories (a bag of low-fat microwave popcorn and a can of Coke Zero). Either way, the choices were horrible and the food tasted like crap… which, coincidentally, was how they made me feel.

The truth is, I was always the one that helped my mom prepare meals growing up and am usually her designated sous chef for holidays and family gatherings so, there was really no excuse for me not to have known how to feed myself a little better. Despite whatever culinary skills I may delude myself into believing I possess, however, you actually need very little (if any) skills in the kitchen to prepare some basic and healthy meals during the week. Trust me, your body will thank you and I bet you’ll save a lot of money as well. Take-out and prepared foods at the supermarkets are REALLY expensive and often not that healthy.

Monday afternoon, I received an email from my boyfriend with this link, along with the following message: “I’ve been craving gazpacho for a while. Would you make this for me, please?”

Spanish vegetable soup for dinner on the first day back to school and after a SERIOUSLY SWEATY hot yoga class?… I was up for the challenge!

Now, I may not be a lot of things, but one thing I am certain that I AM is practical. Practicality comes in handy when you need to get a task done quickly and efficiently. Weeknight Cooking Tip #1: The first thing you should always do when making a new recipe for the first time is analyze how you could simplify it without taking away its nutritional value or flavor.

If you open the link to the recipe, you’ll see that it calls for 2 lbs of fresh tomatoes. Can you imagine having to slice and dice 2 lbs of fresh tomatoes and adding water to get them to the right consistency?!… not to mention having to worry if they were sweet, unripe or mealy when you got them from the produce isle? In the words of Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Instead, I used whole, canned San Marzano plum tomatoes in their own juice. These can be bought in 1 lb cans and have a sweet flavor and the perfect texture.

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Everything else was easy. I just dumped it into the same bowl and blended it! Notice I said “bowl” and not “blender.” Weeknight Cooking Tip #2: Invest in an emersion blender (hand-held stick blender). It will be the best $45 investment you ever make for your kitchen and you will be eternally grateful to me for having given you the brilliant idea. It will save you so much time and mess that you’ll be more willing to make recipes that used to make your kitchen sink look like a war-zone. I use mine to blend my pumpkin soup right in the soup pot, sauces on the stove, smoothies in plastic cups and even salsas in their serving dishes.

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From prep to finish, I think the whole meal took me about 15 minutes to make. And voila! We had a pretty healthy and delicious dinner on the table.

The recipe suggests adding either basil or cilantro as a topping to the soup. Cilantro is DEFINITELY the way to go here because it pairs better with the chipotle, if you ask me. Some people have a bizarre aversion to cilantro, however, so do what tastes best to you…

How about the protein, you ask? Well, some gazpacho varieties are traditionally garnished with chopped hard boiled eggs. We always have a carton of eggs at home so I boiled a few of these up and served them along side the soup. If you are vegetarian/ vegan, however, it would be just as tasty with some sauteed extra-firm tofu cubes floating on top (maybe dust them with a little onion powder, garlic powder and cumin)!

Weeknight Cooking Tip #3: Make enough for left-overs! Guess what the best thing about this meal is?!… We had it for dinner today too, which meant NEITHER of us had to cook 😉

Do you have any go-to weeknight meals?
Is there a web site you love to go to for to search for recipes?
Any great cooking short-cuts you’d like to share?
Any great gadgets YOU think are must-haves for they kitchen?
Please share! As always, I love hearing from you.