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Wednesday & Thursday

Wednesday morning I squeezed in a fabulous 20 minute upper body workout.  How, you might ask?  Scraping this solid sheet of ice off of my car:

The ground was a solid sheet of ice too.

Here are some icy pictures from that morning to make this post interesting, because after these next two pictures I'm going to talk about the details of my Thursday night speed work.

Icicles everywhere!

Unfortunately this picture is not super in-focus, but I like Japanese maples and I think this tree looks cool anyway:

Luckily the overnight and early morning freezing rain only gave me (another) 90 minute delay for work, and my gym was open that night.

Wednesday night workout: 1 hour of Spinning with a friend (second time this week), because she joined the gym I go to!  It was a different instructor than Monday night's class, so it was interesting to see how someone else runs things.

Thursday night:  I think I have lots of work stress building right now.  So I have lots of energy for sweating.  Since I didn't do speed work Wednesday night (schedule called for 35 min tempo run), I did some tonight. 

I had hoped to have time for a 35 minute tempo run before spinning, but I didn't get out of work early enough for that.  I know splitting it up into two sessions isn't quite the same, but it's better than nothing.  I think a 15 min and a 20 min tempo run would defeat the purpose, since the point is to do it for a prolonged period.  So I did intervals, split into two sessions (still not the same as all in one shot, I know).


Week 3 called for 6 x 400 @ 5k pace; Week 5 called for 7 x 400 @ 5k pace.
5k pace for me, based on my approximate goal half time, would be somewhere in the 9:28-9:45 range.

I had about 20 minutes before boot camp started, so I hopped on the treadmill.

I calculated the paces afterward, as my Garmin does not communicate with the treadmill.  I just hit lap on my Garmin for each change in speed.  Then I tried really hard to commit the distances to memory.

Speed Work session 1:
 @ 1% incline

Insert one full hour of Boot Camp.  Lots of crunches, bicycles, oblique crunches, planks, chest & tricep pushups, tricep dips, some jumping jacks, squats, various exercises with 5lb dumb bells-- tricep extensions (over head and while standing, bent over); and a bunch of chest and shoulder exercises. Several circuits of each.  I'm probably missing some.

Next came... Speed Work session 2.
 @ 1% incline

Since I was already warmed up, this next warm up was shorter. I felt good still after 3 repeats, so I added a 4th. (7th, overall).  I jogged for all my rest intervals (no walking).

I'm all screwy with my speed work/ tempo/ hills schedule - compared with what I originally set out to do.  But what is important is that I'm still doing one of those each week!

Here was my last speed work session, 5 x 400.  I'm happy that I was able to cut the rest intervals down from .2 miles on January 12th to .1 miles on February 3rd, and I was still able to hit the necessary paces each time! (Progress??)

Alright, that's enough of that for now.

We have more icy stuff on the way tonight and tomorrow, but the weather is looking good for my long run Sunday!  41 sounds tropical.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

My Big Fat Greek Yogurt

An exciting discovery: My Wegmans now carries Chobani Greek yogurt!  I can't believe I haven't professed my love for Greek yogurt here before.



While my first experience with Greek yogurt was Fage, and I really like Fage - it's $1.59 per 6 ounce cup (when I first had it about 2.5 years ago, it was also the only brand available at my grocery store). Nice thick consistency, even the 0%.  I buy the 0% and the 2%.  Also comes with fruit like peaches, strawberry, cherry.  One time I accidentally bought the full fat version with cherry.  It was so creamy and delicious! They're rolling out some new flavors soon.

I have tried Stonyfield's Oikos Greek yogurt (organic) which is $1.79 for a 5.3 ounce cup.  I don't like the texture and flavors as much, and it's the most expensive.  (4 packs of 4 ounce cups w/caramel or chocolate run for $4).  While I love the newer chocolate and caramel...I find the consistency is still watery, just like their original variety.  And it's not due to being 0%; because Fage has a nice creamy 0%.

 A couple months ago a new brand joined the ranks of Fage and Stonyfield at Wegmans: The Brown Cow brand is .99 per 5.3 ounce cup.  Better than Stonyfield in my opinion, but not quite Fage.  I've tried it in strawberry, blueberry, plain, and vanilla.

When I accidentally ended up at Stop & Shop sometime last year, I stumbled upon Chobani and stocked up because I liked the variety of flavors it came in!   It was great, and not too pricey, but not available at my precious Wegmans.  So despite doing 90% of my shopping at Wegmans, I occasionally make a trip to the (inferior) Stop & Shop only for Chobani. I buy mostly the 0% but the 2% has some unique flavors I like - like pineapple!  Wasn't a huge fan of their vanilla for some reason.

So that's my Greek yogurt history.

But then.

On Sunday.
I was scoping out the top shelf of the dairy section at Wegmans, the usual location of the Greek yogurt.  When a familiar package caught my eye at waist-level.

It was Chobani!

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Chobani: $1.19 for a 6 ounce cup.  I did not see just the regular Chobani flavors either, but a new lemon flavor.  I love lemon yogurt!  I brought it to work for lunch today, and the verdict is it's another great flavor.  Yessss!

It's got a yellowish tint and the texture is not as smooth as plain Greek yogurt because it has a has little pieces of lemon zest in it (it's in the ingredient list):

Here are my Greek Yogurt rankings based on taste and price and flavor availability:

1. Chobani
2. Fage
3. Brown Cow
4. Oikos by Stonyfield

Regardless of which brand you choose, you'll get anywhere from 10-20 grams of protein a pop (depending on size)!  And I shoot for at least 60-70 grams of protein a day especially when I'm actively training for something (i.e. right now). I love it plain, with fruit (already in the cup), with fresh berries, or with honey and walnuts!

PS, You can currently find printable coupons at the following links for Brown Cow, Chobani, and Stonyfield.

Enough of my raving -- What about you: do you love Greek yogurt as much as I do, or would you not touch it with a 39 and a half foot pole?  Do you have a favorite brand or favorite way to eat it?

1. The forecast:

It was about 30, icy, with freezing rain coming at any moment.  Had to cancel dinner plans to meet up with two friends coming from different areas because of the weather (boo). 

2. So I ran!  I got in my ~3.5 mile easy run, and I was glad to be able to do it outside.

3. All of .25 miles into my run, while on a small not-busy side street, very close to my apartment, a car approached me.  No biggy.  I was facing traffic, as I always do.  I was wearing bright colored and reflective clothing, like I always do when I run at night.  I was wearing a freaking headlamp (don't always do this!)

Regardless, the car continued to drive toward me, and I was sure the car would move over slightly as I was bright coral pink, reflecting at my forearms and from the knees down, and I had a giant glowing light on my head.  But the car continued to hug the snow bank to my side with its right side tires.  The car never freaking moved over!! There was no opposing traffic, and no reason for this.  In total disbelief, I backed into the snow bank to avoid being hit, and banged on the car's passenger side window as it drove by me because I was sure that the driver still didn't see me, what the eff????

Here's my artistic representation.

This is the actual side street (picture taken during our snowy walk last Thursday, hence the pup in the lower left corner). 

Now envision it darker.  The lines represent the glowing that was coming from my forehead, and from the car's headlights, which were on.  Oh yeah, and see how there are street lights too?  Those were on tonight.  And the giant glowing light bulb on my FOREHEAD?? 

The car picture I found for this depiction has the gas pump still attached, because I feel that is representative of the quality of driver I encountered this evening.  Freaking moron.  Must have been an old person or someone who was under the influence, I honestly don't understand how they didn't see me.  At least they were driving sort of slow.


I was pissed but was determined to shake it off and have my nice run.  A little later, I looked at my right cuff, and got pissed again because my shiny pretty top got dirty from banging on the d-bag's window.  But I ran my ~3.5 miles (actually, my Garmin battery ran out somewhere around mile 2.25, and I estimated the rest of the run home to be a little over a mile).

No other encounters with terrible drivers, and I didn't fall on any ice, so that's something to be happy about.  And I came home to this delicious beef stew in the crock pot that my husband assembled last night/this morning:

Good night!