5K.. trying to speed things up.

I woke up early this morning and drove down to Foxboro to run a 5K with my friend Erin and her sister Stephanie. It was HOT!!! Here we are before the run!

Here are my results!

 150   24:37  7:56   14 19-29   30 F   940 Liz 

I finally ran under 8 minute pace. Barely. But it really motivated me to run even faster. I can't wait to run a 5K in the 23s! Thats my next goal. But... I did sign up for a 10K in Milton in a week. Goal there is to break 50. But I've never run a 10K though so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. But I'll try my best!

Okay so after the race, I went to lunch with Erin and Steph and I got a salad with avocado, feta, tomatoes, chicken, carrots and balsamic vinaigrette. Then I went hardcore shopping. Bought a few things at Ann Taylor Loft, even more at Old Navy and even more at Banana Republic Outlet. I got home around 5pm exhausted but excited to go out with my girlfriends. I ate a sandwich with jalapeno cheese and prosciutto. Sorry no pictures.

Then we headed to Brighton. Got some drinks on the patio at Devlins. I got a Strawberry Martini and a Vodka and Red Bull. Then we Brighton bar hopped. Next we went to Brighton Beer Garden. We ordered our drinks then were trying to figure out how to pay- we all only had cards... then all of the sudden, the bartender said a nice gentleman paid for our drinks. We never found out who that person was but who cares, free drinks! The Cavs/Magic game ended and that bar totally cleared out so we went to another bar where Dana's friends were- Boyne Bar in Allston. My friends had some drinks and I hung out for a bit longer before making Courtney leave so we could get late night pizza. I was bad! It was 1:45 in the AM and we had to drive about two miles to find anything open (the four pizza places near where we were, were already closed). What can I say... 2AM pizza is delicious... once in awhile!

I got home around 2:15 and slept straight until 10:15. Impressive right? For breakfast I made Dave and I sunny side eggs and toast. Then I grocery shopped and cleaned the house. Planned on a long run today but that didn't happen! For lunch I made a delicious sandwich inspired by this tiny sandwich shop we used to go to all the time when I worked at Mullen, which I have no idea what it was called and only have a vague idea of how to get there now. Aww.. memories. The sandwich was a Curry Chicken Salad wrap with grapes. We had one cooked chicken breast left so I chopped that up, chopped up some grapes and added 1/8 Cup of Plain Greek Yogurt and 2 Tablespoons (about) of Curry Powder and Salt and Pepper. Then I put this together on the Arnold 100 calorie buns. Dave and I enjoyed this sandwich with some chips and salad. Then WE CLEANED house. My relatives are staying with us this week because my brother is having his graduation/wedding celebration on Friday.




For dinner, I made Chinese Honey Glazed Cod over Spinach and Portobello Mushrooms with Asian Spicy Noodles. Here's what I did:

Chinese Honey Glazed Cod over Spinach and Portobello Mushrooms with Asian Spicy Noodles

Ingredients:
1 pound of Cod cut into two filets
3 tbsp. of honey
2 Tablespoon of Tamari
1 Tablespoon of Rice Wine Vinegar
2 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil
2 tbsp. of sesame seeds
1 Cup of Spinach
1/2 Cup of Mushrooms

In a Corningware or deep pan add the ingredients of the marinade and wisk until combined. Then add the cod filets and turn to coat. Set oven to 400. While oven gets hot, let the fish marinate. Add the spinach and mushrooms then sprinkle the filets with sesame seeds and bake for 15 minutes.

While the cod bakes, make the spicy noodles. I use the Fortune Yakisoba Stir Fry Noodles that are Hot n Spicy. To the noodles, I added spinach, mushrooms and roasted red peppers.


Then I plated- here is the delicious dinner now!



Now on to the days I've missed. Wednesday night, Courtney slept over and before we went to bed, we made Breakfast Cookies from Gina's page. Here's mine:

1/2 cup oats, 1 tbs almond butter, 1 tbs nutella, 1 tbs coconut, 1/2 ts cinnamon, 1/4 Cup of Almond Milk.

Nutella is the enemy! But so amazing!

Courts was more like an Oatmeal Raisin cookie and mine was a bit chocolatey. SO you mix everything together and let it hang out in the fridge overnight. In the morning, it's one big breakfast cookie! Look how happy Courtney is!

My cookie:

Courtney's:



Thursday I ate the cookie for breakfast, a wrap for lunch and leftovers for dinner. Before dinner, I ran on the treadmill for 3.1 Miles really fast!

Date	5 /21/2009
Route	Treadmill
Distance	3.10 mi
Time	23:42
Pace	07:38/mile

Friday, I enjoyed another breakfast cookie and for lunch, Gretchen and I went to Sakurabuna and shared a spicy scallop roll, rainbow roll, alligator roll with shrimp tempura, eel, and avocado, and a salmon and avocado roll. It was amazing and we escaped from the office without any urgent phone calls! Wahoo!!


For dinner, Dave and I went to Legal Sea Food and we were REALLY DISSAPPOINTED. I could post the pictures, but its not even worth the effort. Our grilled calamari appetizer had plastic inside the squid. We couldn't eat it and the manager came over and explained it was cartilidge from the squid. I asked if that meant we could eat it, and he said no yet they didn't take it off our bill. We both ordered Salmon and Daves was grilled on what looked like a panini press it was so smooshed and it was totally overcooked. Mine was underseasoned and just eh okay.


This if my breakfast cookie for tomorrow. Oats, Almond Butter, Almond Milk, Dates, Raisins, Nutella... yummy.

Okay so I'm caught up to date now! Now off to the week ahead!

Yummy Foods

Started off Tuesday morning with some oats microwaved with water for 45 seconds, mixed with strawberry yogurt and raspberries.

For mid morning snack, I had this fruit leather.


For lunch I ate some cottage cheese (not this whole thing, don't worry), some strawberries and my wrap I made before- the contents are in yesterdays blog. I'm eating these all week so I won't be taking any more pictures of lunch!

For dinner, I tried something new and different. I was in the mood for something interesting and I was inspired by two recipes I saw in Everyday with Martha Stewart.

The first was for a Salmon Salad. I had just bought canned Salmon from Whole Foods so I combined that with Red Onion and Sauteed Spinach. I took half of that mixture and decided to make Salmon Cakes. I combined the Salmon, Red Onion, and Spinach with one egg and bread crumbs. Then I formed patties and grilled! It was super tasty! I made a dressing of Red Wine Vinegar, EVOO, Oregano and Mustard. I plated the dish with Israeli Cous Cous, the salmon salad and the cakes on the side. Then I poured the dressing over top.


On Wednesday night, I knew I had Ground Turkey to cook, but I wasn't sure what to make. So I googled "Ground Turkey" and Enchiladas popped up. I looked up tons of recipes- close to ten and I copied and pasted them into a word document and read them all on my commute home. When I got home, I decided to combine a bunch of them together into my perfect enchilada! Here's what I did:

Ground Turkey Spicy Enchiladas with Enchilada Sauce:

1 lbs ground turkey
1/2 Onion, diced
1 clove garlic
1 cups salsa
1 can diced fire roasted tomatoes
1/2 of green bell pepper diced
1 pkg wheat flour tortillas
2 cups Mexican blend cheese (I used Soy Cheese, blend of 'Mozzarella' and ‘Cheddar')
ground cumin to taste
2 Tablespoons of Chili Powder
1 4 ounce container of diced jalepenos

Enchilada Sauce

1 Tablespoon of Canola Oil
1 Tablespoon of Flour
1/8 Cup of Tomato Paste
1 Tablespoon og Chili Powder
1 Teaspoon of Oregano
1 Cup of Chicken Broth
A good couple squeezes of Srichi Hot Sauce (I like it extra hot and spicy!)
1/8 Cup of Catalina Dressing


Instructions:

First, soften the onion, garlic, tomatoes, and peppers in saute pan for about 8 minutes. Then take off the heat. Then, brown the ground turkey. When browned, add the veggies back in and then add the spices and salsa. Once combined, start the process of making the enchiladas. I took some cheese out of the package and had my tortillas ready to go. I added the cheese to the tortillas then spooned a big mixture of the turkey filling in the tortilla. I rolled it and put the open side bottom up. Then I baked for 15 minutes at 400. While this was in the oven, I made the Enchilada Sauce. Check out the prep!


The Enchilada Sauce I made by combining the Canola Oil, Flour, Tomato Paste, Chili Powder, Oregano, Chicken Broth, and Catalina Dressing and then letting it bubble away for ten minutes. When the Enchiladas were done, I took them out of the oven, added the sauce over them and sprinkled the cheese on top and baked for 5 minutes longer. And here's the final result!


I also made Kale Chips from Gretchens page. They were a nice addition! And I made my famous tasty guacomole dip to sprinkle on top of my enchiladas.

Memorial Day

Started off Memorial Day weekend with Apple, Oatmeal, Cinnamon Pancakes. Here's what I did.

Apple, Oatmeal, & Cinnamon Pancakes:

Ingredients:
2 Apples, cored and sliced
2 Cups of Fiber One Pancake Mix
1 Tablespoon of Cinnamon
1 Cup of Oats
1/2 Cup of Brown Sugar
1 and 1/3 Cups of Water

Mix together in large bowl and then start forming pancakes. Flip after three-five minutes on each side. Serve with more apple slices and Maple Syrup.

For lunch, Dave and I had some leftover pizza, then we headed to Southie to enjoy some rays at Castle Island with friends. During the day, I drank some sangria and snacked on pretzels and chips. While the girls suntanned, the guys played cornhole.

Before we left the beach, I didn't want to miss the beautiful kodak moment, so we got a picture of the girls in front of the water and we even formed a pyramid!! I think everyone on the beach was super jealous!

After we left Southie, we dropped my roommate from college (bottom left) Debbie off at the airport and then headed home to cook up some dinner. I pulled this Chicken out of the freezer and defrosted it and also made some corn on the cob. I also grilled up Eggplant, Summer Squash and Zuchini on the grill. For dinner, I had a piece of Chicken, Corn and some grilled eggplant and zuchini. Here's my plate:


I'm not sure how the chicken was seasoned but it was spicy and sweet! I think I will look back in my blog later and see how I made this! The corn was perfection and the grilled veggies were delic! After dinner, I made the lunches for the week. I made myself whole wheat lavish wraps with hummus, grilled eggplant, zuchini, squash, roasted red peppers, regular goat cheese and raw goat cheese and spinach! I can't wait to eat these this week! Yum!


And for dessert, I had a glass of Almond Milk and Adora Disk! This is my new daily dessert!

Back to the daily grind tomorrow. Tons of work to do!

Boston Run to Remember Half Marathon

I woke up this morning ready to run but the weather was terrible! At 5am, it was pouring and thundering and lightening! But when I started driving into the city, the weather got better, and by race time, it was HOT! Like 75 degrees HOT. For breakfast, I had a cup of coffee, half a Lara Bar and Toast with Smart Butter.

I ran the race with my roommate from college Lindsay. We ran track together in college and she's a distance runner, I was much more of a sprinter though. She just ran a marathon a couple weeks ago so I was excited to have her pace me. The race started off really fast. There was so many people that it was hard to get our pace going. Stats:

Mile 1: 8:27
*This felt pretty good, not too fast, not too slow... wish we stayed consistent!

Mile 2: 7:10
*This was so dumb because I think it ended up KILLING us!

Mile 3: 8:48
Mile 4:8:44
Mile 5: 8:44
Mile 6: 8:48
*We stayed consistent for the next four miles even if it was really hard and totally not enjoyable. I felt like we were both just hanging on. The next couple miles proved even harder for us as we slowed down even more...

Mile 7: 8:53
Mile 8: 8:53
Mile 9: 9:32
*We stopped to get water at this mile marker so thats the reason its so slow, but we made up for it at the next mile.. too bad we couldn't finish that strong!

Mile 10: 8:06
Mile 11: 9:33
*This was one of the longest miles I've ever run, again, we were just holding on... couldn't wait for the finish line!

Mile 12: 9:04
Mile 13.1: 9:20

A couple of my friends saw me at the finish line and said it looked like I was almost crying! I ended up finishing in a faster time then last year. But not by much.

 1477 270/1088 F1929 1:54:07  8:43   Liz   

I think I ran last year in 1:54:45. Certainly wasn't able to break my goal of running under 1:50. Maybe next year! But I do know FOR SURE that I can't start off that fast!!! eeek! The race was also REALLY hot. I'm not used to running that kind of weather. It was still pretty fun though and we got medals!! You know I love medals!

And here we are after the race!

When I got home, I made Dave and myself an omlet with cheese, spinach, prosciotto and guacomole with some toast. Totally hit the after race hunger!

Then I napped for a few hours, and when I woke up, it was raining and HAILING! I've never seen hail, it was insane. Check out some of these pictures!

After the rain stopped, Dave and I cooked some pizza. Dave was the pizza man and he stretched out the pizza dough. Here he is in action:

And before it's cooked:

Chicken Sausage, Spinach, Cheddar, Mozzerela, Zuchini, Tomato Sauce and Proscuitto. Delic!

And my slice with some salad:

Now off to do something fun before bed!! We may go play some bball or tetris on the Wii. Night everyone!