My First Half Marathon

It’s time for a recap of my first half marathon experience.

I want to premise this recap by reminding you all that I have been struggling with a colitis battle now for one month or so. A voice in my head kept asking me if I thought it was a good idea to run this race yesterday or not, not to mention the fact that I came down with a 24-hour stomach bug on Friday. Was my body trying to tell me something? I usually listen to my body, but not this time. After all of the training and anticipation of this race, there was no way I wasn’t going to give it my best shot. I HAD to do it. I didn’t care what time I finished in, I reminded myself it was okay if I needed to walk, I just wanted to finish. Period.

The morning of the race I woke up at 5:15 am, hopped in the shower for a quick wake-me-up spritz, put my running gear on that I had placed out the night before, and made myself my usual pre-run breakfast.

I had my usual pre-race jitters. It doesn’t matter if it is a 5k, a 10k, or a half marathon, I react the same way. I give myself plenty of time to use the facilities before a race (and this is if I’m in a flare-up or non-flare up). This is how my body has reacted to nerves for as long as I can remember; before basketball games, before dance competitions, before the Registered Dietitian Exam, etc.

We loaded up the car at 6:15 am and headed to the race.

Upon arrival, we parked, walked to our destination, checked our bags, and headed to the biffy’s (port-o-potty if you will). I forgot to take any pre-race photos and that’s probably because I was totally nervous and more focused on finding the bathrooms before we had to go into our start corrals.

7:15 am rolled around, and it was time to make our way to our corrals. We dropped my brother off in the 8:30 minute/mile area and Dana and I headed back towards the 9:30 minute/mile area. During our other long runs, we averaged a 9:30 minute/mile pace, but we knew that this may be far-fetched today since we had never ran this length before. We gave ourselves some slack and knew we could fall back if necessary, of course.

A woman sang a beautiful version of the national anthem and I tried to use this time to close my eyes and relax. It really was beautiful.

Then the race began. They started letting groups off by start time, and then held the rest, so we were walking in a slow pace to the start. It was a very dramatic moment to me, and it’s the moment that I noticed I had a rock in my shoe. I was about to start running with it when Dana told me I’m not going to want to run with a rock in my shoe. It turned out I had plenty of time to remove my shoe and dump out the miniature rock. Ok, all better. Now, get your music ready. It’s time to rock.

Our corral was set off and it was go time. Immediately I felt the excitement from the cheering crowd holding their awesome signs and from the other runners who were just as excited as I was to be running this race as I was. But I wasn’t about to let this excitement run me into an overly fast pace. We kept it low and slow. In the first few miles, we ran by the 35W bridge collapse memorial site which I had never seen before. We passed the rolling Mississippi River and of course passed hundred’s of energetic spectators and cheerleaders.

We made one bathroom stop around mile 2. Around mile 3 I started to get an awful feeling in my stomach. I thought it was maybe just the jitters and kept praying that it would go away. It felt like my stomach was completely empty and cramping at the same time, and it was bringing me to nausea. I thought that I might just be hungry as I hadn’t eaten for two hours now, so I snacked on a couple of Blueberry Pomegranate Gu Chomps. I also sipped on some water from the water stop and waited 15 minutes or so to see if the pain would go away. Not a chance. It only progressed and got worse.

I kept running up until mile 6, when I told Dana I had to walk. I HATE walking on runs. I don’t like stopping because 1. I find it harder to start back up again and 2. It slows me down and keeps me from reaching the finish line sooner obviously. When I stopped to walk I was fighting to inhale a breath and felt tears beginning to swell. What is going on with me? Then it was time to give myself a little pep talk (in my head of course): Melanie, your body is going through a lot right now with the colitis, the stomach bug, etc. You can do this though, I know you can, but remember that time doesn’t matter today. It is OKAY to walk. No one is going to judge you except for yourself, and you’ll get over it. Take care of yourself and you can finish. I began running again but was only able to run for about 5 minutes before needing to stop again to walk. At this point I made Dana go ahead because there was no way I was going to hold him back like this.

Once I talked him into going ahead, I walked for probably another 5 minutes or so before I tried giving the running a chance again. I was able to run for a long time after that but at a pretty slow pace. I would walk through the water stations and then pick up the running again. I would tell myself that I would run to the sign ahead, or run until I saw some of my family and friends that were there to watch us, and then I could walk but only if I really needed to walk.

When I saw mile 10 I thought okay, one 5k to go. I’ve done how many 5k’s? No big deal. Ha, well, that last 5k seemed like the longest 5k ever (and looking at my time it literally was my longest 5k ever). At about mile 11 we had to run up what seemed like a mammoth hill at the time. I ran up half of it, then walked the rest. I picked up the running again and told myself I cannot stop until I get to that finish line. I am way too close now, and there are so many people watching…and that was enough to keep me going.

I reached a corner where everyone was yelling, “You’re almost there! Just around the corner!” Sure enough, I rounded the corner and saw the finish line. Out loud I said ‘Oh, Thank God’ and I bolted to that finish line. They announced my name as I was running through and I felt such a great amount of pride at that moment. I thought I would get emotional but I think I was in too much pain to get emotional. In fact, Dana greeted me at the finish and it was a good thing because I felt like I was going to fall over. Immediately, a member of the medical team was at my side with an ice pack and water, and that was just what I needed. Well that, and to sit down, stat.

My official time was 2:20 which  makes for an average pace of 10:42 minutes per mile. I am usually a 9:30 minute/mile runner, but not today, and that is okay. I just finished a half marathon. Wow, what an incredible feeling.

We gathered with our family that had come to watch and then eventually conjured up enough energy for post-race photos.

In the photo above: Kevin’s friend Jeremy, Kevi, Me, and Dana.

My body was so unhappy at this point. That smile on my face and standing up there was taking every last bit of energy in my body. After photos, we made the lengthy trek back to our car (about a mile to our car…..blech) and I tried munching on a banana on the way. I felt such a void in my stomach yet everything sounded awful to me. The banana tasted extremely starchy to me but I know it was just an imbalance in my body so everything would taste off right then.

We headed back to our cozy home making one pit stop at Subway to pick up some lunch. At home, I immediately jumped in the shower, put on comfy clothes and settled myself on to the couch with water, Powerade Zero, and a blanket. This was going to be my spot for a while.

My day of eats minus breakfast which you already saw:

Newman’s Own Thin & Crispy Margherita Pizza that we protein-ified by adding some honey ham (and pineapple) making our very own Margherita Hawaiian Pizza. Num!

My favorite food from today: Froyo from Freeziac. I once again went with Cake Batter Froyo and added brownie pieces, cookie dough pieces, crunch bar bits, reese’s pieces, a dash of hot fudge, sprinkles, and one red gummy bear on top.

It was definitely a lazy food day. We were on the couch until about 3pm after watching a movie and taking a short nap. Then we decided to run and get groceries for the week. Once we got home, I returned to my spot on the couch which is where I spent the rest of the evening before bed.

As mentioned yesterday, TeamOrtho did an incredible job of putting on this event. I would love to go over what I loved about how they organized this event, as well as the amazing supporters and their encouraging signs, but I think I will save that for another post (this one is getting pretty lengthy).

Although I struggled throughout this entire race with some pretty awful stomach issues, I still finished. I will forever take pride in knowing that I completed 13.1 miles in the Minneapolis Half Marathon. If I ever decide to run another half marathon, I will run it when I’m not in a current flare-up. The trouble is, when I registered for this one I was completely healthy, but a lot can change in 3 months so it’s difficult to plan for. I know I can complete a more successful half marathon, without the pains, and actually be able to enjoy it a little more than I did this time around. I don’t think this will be my last one, but who knows!

I am so proud of my husband and my brother and myself for completing our first ever half marathon together. I am so lucky that I got to share this incredible moment with such amazing people.

Thank you for our cheerleaders who came to watch us yesterday, and for those who were cheering at home in spirit! Your love and support meant the world to me and my heart melts from all of the love I felt from you all.

Sorry for such a lengthy post, but this was an event in my life that will never be forgotten, and I’m so happy to be able to share it with you all.

I have the day off today to recover and to get a few things done around the house. I hope you have a wonderful day.

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The Day Before The Half Marathon

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I survived my first half marathon today! Unfortunately, it was a pretty painful run for me, but I will be saving these details for tomorrow’s post. All that matters though is that I finished!

Recap from yesterday

I did my best to get a good mix of carbohydrates and protein in my diet yesterday. Friday I stocked up on the carbs as well (that was when I wasn’t feeling well and only bread and fruit tasted good to me). I was building my glycogen stores!

Anyway, I began my day with my standard as of lately: Cream of Wheat sweetened with stevia, a touch of brown sugar, and cinnamon.

After breakfast, we walked a few blocks down the road to cheer on a friend of ours who was running a 5k race in our neighborhood. It was a gorgeous morning and it felt good to stretch the legs on our walk to the race.

We spent a couple of hours out there, cheering (she did awesome btw), supporting, and chatting before heading home.

I was starving by the time we got home so I snacked on a banana some peanut butter.

I made sure to drink A LOT of water throughout the day to hydrate myself well for race day.

We relaxed for a while, gathered some items from Dana’s parents for our upcoming garage sale, and eventually ate lunch. I heated up the last of the grilled chicken breast, sauced it with Kraft’s Asian Dressing. On the side, I had green beans.

In the afternoon, Kevin, Dana, and I headed out to pick up our race bibs, race chips, shirts, etc.

I was EXCITED! Team Ortho did a wonderful job with the production of this Minneapolis Marathon. We have run one other race with them when we ran the Get Lucky 7k in March (which was great too). Everything from registration, to race-info pickup, to the actual day of the half marathon, was very well organized and the volunteers were great too!  I would recommend their races to anyone.

When we got home from picking up our stuff, we fired up the grill. I wanted to make sure we get dinner in at a decent hour so that we had plenty of time to digest it, and sleep it off, so that we wouldn’t feel icky in the morning. I planned a protein and carbohydrate packed dinner. I gotta take care of my boys. On the menu: Super lean turkey burgers and sweet potato fries on the grill, and ketchup obviously.

The rest of the night was spent preparing for the run. I laid out my running gear, pinned my number on, placed my race chip on my shoelaces, packed our bag, charged the iPod, iced, stretched, and did anything else I could think of to make the next morning go as smooth and painless as possible for us. I’m a planner.

We got a good chuckle from the doggie when Dana put a backpack on his back. Moose is all ready for school. He’s always such a good sport, not to mention the cutest thing ever. I wish I knew what he was thinking at that moment. Probably something like, “Really guys? Again? I’m the brunt of your joke…again? You’re going to have to start paying me for this kind of entertainment.” Love you Moosey.

We got to bed around 9:30-10ish, and slept pretty well surprisingly. Excited to fill you in on the race details. Stay tuned!

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Carrot Soup Take Two

Happy Friday and Happy 8 Month Anniversary to my honey!

Recap of yesterday coming right up.

After my morning run yesterday, I whipped up a bowl of Cream of Wheat. This is a recycled photo from a few days ago as my breakfast yesterday was completely the same except it was in “to-go” form (plus I forgot to take a picture). I had a meeting yesterday morning and was running late, so I heated my bowl of cereal right before I left the house, and it was still fairly hot when I got there.

For lunch I made rice with soy sauce, leftover chicken breast with teriyaki sauce, and green beans. Mmm, salty.

And for dessert….I couple bites of banana with peanut butter. This is a very common dessert for me but I always forget to snap a photo.

Dinner was a real easy one last night. I took a batch of carrot soup I had made a while back, out of the freezer, and began the defrosting process.

In the meantime, I sliced three bread-butts from the freezer (I save the butts of the breads for croutons) into bite-size squares, sprinkled them with garlic powder and a little salt, and set them under the broiler. Voila. Homemade croutons to go on top of the soup; healthy and simple.

I also cut up some fresh cilantro and fresh chives. Reminder to self: I need to dry the chives this weekend before they go bad.

So what do you get when you take your carrot pumpkin soup, add croutons, and fresh herbs? THIS!

Here’s the recipe if you’re interested: Carrot Pumpkin Soup. I made this batch back in March. The only thing I left off on the March ingredient list was the chives and croutons as those are optional items.

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This morning I woke up not feeling so hot. My tummy feels pretty nasty. I am wondering if I ate a little too much salt yesterday? It’s a possibility that I am just feeling über dehydrated. I hope it goes away soon.

Anyway, I am off. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day in our  neighborhood. Have a great Friday.

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Beautiful Surprises

Hola! No messing around today. Let’s get down to business.

My day of eats yesterday….

Breakfast: Cream of Wheat with stevia, cinnamon, banana, and a teaspoon of brown sugar. Cinnamon apple tea on the side. This has become my usual breakfast lately. It sits very well in my tummy and it tastes good too!

Part of my lunch: Slightly burnt sweet potato fries with cinnamon maple Pb2.

Dinner: Tilapia seasoned simply with salt and pepper, leftover potato salad, and a plain salad with honey mustard. Call me crazy but my favorite thing on this plate was the GREENS. I have missed my green salads so much and although I’m still not going to go all out into the roughage types of foods, I am enjoying my small salads whenever I let myself have one.

After work yesterday I geared up to head out for a 3-mile run around the neighborhood. I ran an easy, relaxing pace, and it felt great to stretch my legs out. Just 4 days until the half marathon!

When I got back from my run, I found the sweetest surprise waiting for me in the dining area.

You always know how to brighten my day. Thanks, honey! They are gorgeous and make me smile every time I look at them.

Happy Wednesday to you all.

Question of the day: What is your favorite way to prepare tilapia or any other white fish?

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Will Run for Cake and Powerade

It has been a GREAT day so far. This morning I made my usual pre-run breakfast: peanut butter banana sandwich.

Then Dana and I headed out to St. Paul for a run along the Mississippi River. We had nine miles on the agenda today and mother nature surely lined up beautiful weather for us. It was about 60° and blue skies.

I ran with my iPhone and jammed out to 90’s Pop Radio. I was serenaded by the Spice Girls, LFO (what happened to them?), Meredith Brooks, Backstreet Boys, you name it. I knew every song that came on and thoroughly enjoyed having them cheering me on. It helped  keep my mind off of my aching knees, lower back, and hip flexors which I began to notice during the last couple of miles.

Please excuse the extremely unattractive photo. Who’s the nerd? Will run for Powerade!

After completing this 9 miler today, I am beginning to regain confidence in my endurance, and in my half marathon training progression. The half marathon is now just 3 weeks from tomorrow. We are going to be heading up north next weekend, which means we really only have one more weekend at home before the race. Yikes. However, I remind myself that I’m not out to set any world records, I’m just out to finish the race and then stuff my face with food.

I do know I need to keep working on the mental aspect of running because I can so easily tell myself that I’m struggling with a run and allow myself to call it quits early, when in retrospect I really could have kept running had I mentally told myself I was just fine. Last night, I pictured myself having a good run today, and finishing the run strong. I also read inspirational running quotes, and reminded myself of my personal tips for getting through runs such as using my arms to help pull myself up a hill and thinking about what I have to look forward to once the run was over (in this case: Powerade, family, pizza, and cake).

I felt incredibly accomplished after this run today. The last time I ran this far was August 2011 when Dana and I participated in a 15k in Edina, MN.

Once again, having Dana running by my side today made this run a whole lot better and much more enjoyable. I encouraged him to pose with his Powerade for this photo on our car  ride home.

After our run, we headed home. We cleaned up the house and I got busy in the kitchen in preparation for company. My mom, dad, and brother Kevin were coming over to celebrate my dad’s birthday and Mother’s Day.

I was in charge of the dessert today, and since I’d really like to improve upon my cake-making skills, I decided that this was a perfect opportunity for me to practice. I made two cakes and I baked them last night. I used a standard white cake recipe and a standard chocolate cake recipe and made one round pan of each because I was planning to make a layer cake. You know me though, I just had to try to make the cakes a little bit healthier, so I cut out the butter from the batter recipe and instead used Greek yogurt. How do you like that? The cakes turned out well! They were more dense than normal cake and we all seemed to enjoy the more moist texture, not to mention the flavor was great!

I made the two-layer cake starting with the vanilla white cake on the bottom, a layer of homemade buttercream frosting, then the chocolate cake, and lastly a whole lot more buttercream frosting. I did my best to decorate it but I’ll admit it looked pretty amateur. The frosting was NOT low-fat by the way.

The most important part was that everyone enjoyed it and I had a really fun time making it. I can’t wait to practice again.

Let’s back it up a tad here because we did eat lunch before dessert although I’m not opposed to doing the opposite. Dad wanted to compare two of our local pizza places for lunch, so they picked up one Hawaiian Pizza from one restaurant, and one Veggie Pizza from another restaurant. Mom also brought a fruit and veggie tray and we put out some snack mix.

Mmm..both pizzas were delicious but I preferred the Hawaiian Pizza which was from Red Savoy’s. Num. I went back for more goodies after this first plate of food.

Then we all hung out for a while and enjoyed the beautiful day together before diving into dessert (described above).

We sang “Happy Birthday” and dad blew out his candles. Another year younger, right dad?

I love my family so much. I don’t think I will ever be able to put into words just how much they mean to me. I know I have said this before and I will most definitely say it again.

They took off about an hour ago. Now the hubs is out cutting the grass and then we have a couple or errands to run before relaxing for the night. I am very excited to have a quiet night tonight.

I hope everyone is having an equally wonderful day, or has at least found one thing to smile about today. 🙂

Sorry this post was a little bit all over the place. I am in a very lovey mood. I’ll leave ya with this. Check out what mom brought me today.

Absolutely gorgeous. Thanks mama!

Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers.

What made YOU smile today?

Continue Reading Will Run for Cake and Powerade

Project Cleanse

The laundry is almost caught up, errands have been run, vacation photos ordered, and I am feeling good.

My Monday started off with my typical pre-run breakfast. I really missed my peanut butter and banana combo while I was away and was thrilled to have it this morning. Such simple pleasures I have.

After breakfast, I hit the pavement and completed a not so friendly 5-mile run. I felt like vacation has kicked my butt. I really think it was all in my head this morning and my brain kept flashing negative talk at me. I tried my best to turn the negative head talk into positive talk, but sometime it’s hard. I had to take a couple of walk breaks but still managed to finish at  a little over a 9-minute mile pace which for me is pretty good. I am hoping that today was just a “bad” run day and that my mileage and endurance progression will pick up again now that I am home and eating normal.

For lunch, I piled my plate high with veggies. In the mix was mixed greens, tomato, onion, chickpeas, feta cheese, broccoli, olives, and Newman’s Own Lite Honey Mustard.

Oh yes, I missed these salads too. I did eat salads while on vacation, but they weren’t the same. I snapped photos of a few of my salads while in D.R.

Not too shabby, right? Almost every day, they offered a salad bar that included cabbage, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, and then they mixed up other toppings from day to day (corn, peas, olives, etc). They had a few choices for dressings but I veered toward one in particular that was some sort of vinegar based mix with diced tomatoes and onions. It was light and refreshing.

The bread in the photos above was total awesomeness. I should probably try to recreate it at home. I am 95% sure that they were rosemary buns and I tried to enjoy at least one daily (along with some other freshly baked breads).

Although I tried to make healthy decisions on the trip, I also indulged in desserts daily. They had some interesting ones that I couldn’t quite figure out but noticed that many of the desserts had white rice baked into them.

**Side note: I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I ate a fish one night called Mori while at the Caribbean themed restaurant at our resort. I googled it and found out it is shark. Eek! I ate shark. That’s about as adventurous I get in the meat department. It WAS very good, though.

Now that I am back home, I am on a mission to get back on track with my healthy eating habits. Around Easter time, I lost a little control over my sweet tooth again. I have noticed that when I incorporate more added sugar into my diet like I have been lately, the energy it takes for me to run becomes greater. The last thing I need is for running to be even more difficult for me, and considering I have a half marathon coming up in less than one month (!), it is time to get back on track.

Project cleanse. I am so pumped and so motivated to get my body back to a clean slate. I’m not talking any colon cleanse; absolutely not. I will never do that and will never recommend a colon cleanse as it is highly dangerous and damaging to your digestive system, but I am going to eat as clean as possible and limit processed foods. Notice I said limit processed foods, not omit completely. These are my intentions at least. We’ll see how I hold up.

I am on a rant, and am probably procrastinating tackling the rest of the laundry. I really should really go do it so that I can finally be done with it. Also, I should go pay some attention to this little one.

Hope everyone is having a great Monday! My positive Monday talk is that I have been very productive this morning and am almost caught up with a week’s worth of laundry. I am so happy to be back and thrilled to be sharing my experiences with you. Muah!

 

 

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They Can’t All Be Good

Last night, we made one of Dana’s favorite meals: Fish Tacos. I enjoy them as well, but they don’t rank as high as to me as they do for him.

Dana got to work on cooking the tilapia in a pan on the stove top with lemon juice, salt and pepper, while I got busy chopping the veggies. I chopped up the leftover iceberg lettuce, making some of it into shreds, and some of it into cups to use as my taco shell. I do use regular tortilla shells sometimes too, just didn’t feel like it today.

For our tacos, I chopped lettuce as mentioned, as well as tomato, cilantro, and avocado. I layered all of the veggies into my lettuce cup, placed my perfectly cooked tilapia next, and lastly topped it all with roasted tomatillo medium salsa which really gets my nose running.

Forgive my flash versus non-flash photos. I couldn’t decide which lighting was better as neither was really helping me out much.

With flash:

Without flash:

Dana’s fish tacos were way prettier than mine so I made sure we snapped a photo. See, you can accommodate everyone in your household….carb or no carb.

I tend to feel a lot better when I go lighter on my carb intake, which is why you’ll notice I tend to skimp on them and go bunless with burgers, shell-less with tacos, choose salad versus sandwich, etc.

I have a minor gluten intolerance so it’s not to say I don’t eat breads, tortillas, etc. because I do, I just pick my battles. Some days I can eat a bagel and have no repercussions whatsoever in the stomach ache department, and the next day I will eat a bagel and feel like there is a blown up balloon in my belly. I continue to learn about my body and what makes it happy and unhappy every single day. I do love fresh bread though. Mmm…

The rest of the night was spent doing more laundry, packing, and relaxing with the guys.

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My morning today started out with a pre-run breakfast/snack. Half of a banana with peanut butter, and half of a cup of coffee. I would have loved more coffee but know it’s not a good idea considering I will be running outside sans bathrooms.

I suited up in my asics and headed out the door for a 5.21 mile run.

I will start off by saying that the weather was perfect this morning. Blue skies, birds chirping, and a cool breeze, so at least that part of the run was beautiful. There are good workout days and bad workout days, and this morning I definitely had a bad workout day.

During my first mile, it’s standard for me to struggle a bit but I know that my body is warming up and after the first mile I will usually feel better. Today though, I felt that struggle throughout the entire run. I was getting side aches on each side and tried breathing through them to work them out, but didn’t have much luck. My ears felt like I was on an airplane and they were full of pressure and aches. I felt dehydrated and out of breath with no stamina at all. It was a hard run.

I kept comparing this run to my Saturday run and I couldn’t believe how different I felt. I know this is normal but you always hope each run is going to be a good run. You can’t always get what you waaaannnntt.

I ran and walked 5.21 miles in 55 minutes. Not my fastest by any means but hey, I finished it. Hopefully my next run will be more enjoyable.

I am off to drink the second half of my morning coffee and head out for the day. I hope you have an excellent Tuesday.

Question of the Day: How do you fight through a “bad” workout day?

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Thai Inspired Lettuce Cups with Basil

Dinner last night came from all things leftover. Ingredients on hand: carrots, tomato, iceberg lettuce, cilantro, basil, and shredded chicken. Once my brain started rolling, I came up with idea of Thai inspired lettuce cups.

Place the lettuce cups on your plate, next pile on all of the ingredients listed above in the center of the cup, top it with Kraft’s Asian Sesame Dressing (or some sort of peanut sauce would be good), and give it a go.

These came together in about 5 minutes which was even better. The fresh basil really made this dish. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

I am trying to think of other ways to cook with basil this week. It is too good to let go to waste.

Any healthy recipes ideas out there that include basil?

In the five minutes of prep work involved in this dinner, I managed to eat at least two large handfuls of those Tostitos Artisan chips we had bought for Saturday night’s shin-dig. They taste like an improved version of Doritos Cooler Ranch chips. They are so addicting. At least this kind is whole grain!

The rest of the day yesterday was spent doing laundry and packing for our upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic. We are so close it hurts.

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Breakfast this morning was sweet and comforting in the form of a bowl full of banana slices, topped with PB2, chia seeds, cinnamon, and honey.

That will be my Positive Monday Talk. It was just what I needed this morning.

After work I will heading to the gym and will probably hit the elliptical, stair stepper, and arm weights. We’ll see though. Have a happy Monday friends.

Continue Reading Thai Inspired Lettuce Cups with Basil

Reunited with the Early Morning Run

First, a recap from yesterday….

I was at a workshop all day yesterday, and by the time dinner rolled around, I definitely felt hungry, but not super hungry. I hadn’t gotten my peanut butter fix in for the day yet and decided that sounded just perfect given my hunger status. If I don’t get PB for breakfast or lunch, why not get it at dinner?

I opted for my classic cinnamon PB2 and banana sandwich, and fresh juicy pineapple.

While I was eating my lame dinner, Dana was off in the kitchen creating a masterpiece. He cooked two eggs over easy, sautéed a handful of mushrooms, and plated his dish as such: toasted whole grain baguette on the bottom, then the mushrooms, eggs, shredded cheddar cheese, and lastly roasted tomatillo salsa.

Check it out…

I am such a proud wife! That looks phenomenal. That is restaurant quality right there. Someday when we open up a cafe, that will be on the menu, you wait and see. 🙂

After dinner we took the bear (Moose) out for a walk to soak up what was left of the beautiful day. After sitting on my hiney all day at work, it felt great to stretch the legs and fill my lungs with fresh air.

Later, we made a quick stop over at Dana’s parents to check out a light fixture and say hi, and then just so happened to “stumble upon” a self-serve frozen yogurt shop afterwards. When I say stumble upon, I mean we intentionally planned on going there and I was more than a little excited about it.

We went to Cherry Berry and I served myself Cookie Monster flavor and Cheesecake flavor, and then topped the frozen yogurt with cookie dough bits, brownie bits, Reese’s peanut butter cups, a few mini gummy bears, sprinkles, marshmallow fluff, whipped cream, and a little chocolate syrup. This baby was on point.

Oh yea…I’ve said it before but I wish I could eat this every day. I’m in trouble because we have two frozen yogurt shop’s coming to our neighborhood soon. Good thing it’s not free or else I’d be in real big trouble. It does tend to add up pretty quick as they charge you by the ounce, so that should help keep me out. Tee hee.

We got home and I pretty much crashed. An evening with a beautiful walk and amazing frozen yogurt is a great night indeed.

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Now, onto this morning.

Something happened this morning that hasn’t happened in a pretty long time. I GOT AN EARLY MORNING RUN IN (albeit inside because I’m too much of a scaredy cat to run outside in the dark by myself)! A while back I posted about all the positive’s associated with early morning workouts, and have noticed that since then, they have become few and far between.

This could be for a number of reasons:

1. Now that it’s lighter out later, I feel I have more time after work to be productive and workout.

2. It’s been darker in the morning which is completely un-motivating in terms of getting out of bed.

3. I refuse to run in the dark outside early morning or late evening so I have to face the dreadmill.

4. My early morning runs are usually not as successful as my afternoon or later morning runs (I tend to take it slower in the early am) therefore discouraging me from even attempting.

The run this morning was pretty ugly. I felt like each of my lungs weighed 50 pounds and my side was aching, but nevertheless, I finished three miles and am proud of myself. The endorphins are flowing and I am ready to face the day.

This doesn’t mean I didn’t reach for the large mug for my coffee this morning because I most definitely did….

I’ll leave you with that. Have a great Thursday!

Continue Reading Reunited with the Early Morning Run

Homemade Grilled Pizza

Yesterday I was out running errands in shorts, and this morning I woke up to see snow falling outside. Only in Minnesota. It isn’t going to stick at least, but gross.

Sunday was an amazingly productive day at our household. It began with a leisurely first part of the morning. Breakfast was a banana with honey, cinnamon, and a touch of almond milk PB2.

Sunday mornings always involve coupon cutting, reading the newspaper, and I always read Dana and my horoscope out loud.

Melanie: Scorpio

Dana: Pisces

Then off we went to Home Depot to return some unused pieces from the bathroom construction, and Target and Costco to restock the fridge. Neither Dana or I work late this week so I am thinking we should have some good meals throughout the week nights.

Let’s see, after our errands it was about 11:00 and we were both famished. The decision was made to eat an early lunch. I threw together a mediocre salad. I really thought it was going to be good but when I ate it just tasted “meh” to me.

In the salad was mixed greens, broccoli, sugar snap peas, tomato, carrots, shredded cheese, leftover grilled chicken and honey mustard. That sounds good right? Oh well, I can’t win them all. At least I got my veggies in.

After lunch we got to work on the house. I put on the Glee station on Pandora and began cleaning like a mad woman while Dana continued working on the downstairs bathroom. I cleaned for about 2 hours then was cleaning was happily put on hold because my mom was stopping by to say hi and check out our new bathroom. It is still not completely finished so I haven’t shown you guys yet. It will be very soon. Mom stayed for a little while and then it was back to work for me.

We were still on the prowl for our towel racks, toilet paper holder, and robe holders, so we set out to Kohl’s to take a look there. We have already looked at a handful of other places but haven’t seen ones we liked. Needless to say, Kohl’s didn’t have what we were looking for however we did buy towels for our bathroom. I bought two white shower towels, one gray hand towel, and one brown hand towel.

We are still searching for out floor mats but I think I will take a look at Macy’s next and see what they have. Anyway, since we didn’t find out towel racks at Kohl’s, we decided to head to Menard’s to see if we liked any there. We had looked there before but hadn’t decided upon any so we thought we would lood now that we are really in the buying mode.

We found our towel racks! Wooo!

Home we went to install the towel racks, toilet paper holder, two doors in the bathroom, a built-in vanity mini closet, shower curtain….I felt like Heidi on Home Improvement as I was Dana’s assistant with tools and such. I felt so handy yesterday!

In the midst of bathroom business (that sounds wrong, sorry), I managed to squeeze in a 30 minute walk on the treadmill in between assisting Dana and folding the laundry. I am still amazed at how much work that bathroom has been and it’s still not finished.

Let’s get to dinner because you are going to want to hear about this. It was homemade pizza night. I made this bread machine pizza dough  however I used only whole wheat flour, and cut the recipe in half as I wanted a thinner crust. I added all of the ingredients to the bread machine, set it on dough, and let it work it for an hour and a half.

Once the bread was ready, I plopped the dough onto a floured surface and began kneading it out to a circular shape. I then flipped it and kneaded a little more. I sprinkled a small amount of corn meal onto each side of the crust, then coated each side with olive oil cooking spray to evenly cover the surfaces.

In the mean time, Dana preheated the grill to medium-hot heat. We sprayed the grates of the grill, then slid the dough onto the grill, closed the lid and cooked the one side for five minutes or until the bottom began to brown and the top started to bubble slightly. We removed the pizza, brought it inside to “decorate” the cooked side.

I started with jarred marinara sauce (as much or as little as you like).

Then reduced fat mozzarella cheese, and a mixed cheddar cheese. Next, for our toppings: green olives, lightly sautéed mushrooms and onions, and Roma tomato slices.

We then turned off half of the heaters on the grill and turned the two remaining on, to medium heat. We sprayed the grates of the grill one more time, and slid the pizza on to the grill.

Close the lid, and let the pizza grill for 10-12 minutes on that medium heat. Remove pizza carefully and cut into triangles, squares, diamonds, whatever you feel like, and enjoy a seriously delicious homemade pizza.

I savored every bite of two slices, and had a handful of sugar snap peas on the side. This crust is so amazing and the fresh toppings are the best. I love making my own pizzas because you can regulate what goes into the crust, how much sauce goes on, how much cheese, and I like to make sure each slice has an equal amount of toppings. OMG, this was incredible.

After dinner there was dessert, but I am going to have to save that for another day because I have some errands to run and workouts to workout. 😉 Here is a sneak peek of what went down….

It’s chocolately!

Positive Monday talk: I have today off of work, I am a happy camper.

Question of the day: Did anyone cook up anything delicious this weekend?

Continue Reading Homemade Grilled Pizza
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