House-Sitting...and a Hurricane

Long, long ago we agreed to dog-sit and house-sit for friends for a week.  So Monday evening we packed up ourselves and Molly Waffles and headed over to our friends' house (only a couple miles from our place).

Molly got to spend some quality time with her greyhound friends, Carl and Maggie.

 L: Molly, R: Maggie

 Molly enjoying more grass time

L: Carl, R: Molly

The dogs also played musical beds:

Hanging with 3 big dogs for a week plus?  

I know Alyssa would be super jealous.  Dogs are her favorite.

We had fun using their fire pit and making s'mores!

We also got to use their CSA pass this week for lots of fresh produce!

3lbs of tomatoes, 3lbs of heirloom tomatoes, 1 seedless watermelon, 1/2 lb Swiss chard, some okra, 1 bulb of garlic, 1/2 lb cherry tomatoes, 2 eggplants, 2 hot peppers, 3 green peppers.

I got to use their treadmill with:

1. a sweet speaker set up so I could plug in my laptop and listen to Bossypants audio book and 

2. remote control air conditioning that I lowered into the 60s 

so I could enjoy my 7 mile hill workout yesterday.

(No picture for this... I was a hot sweaty mess despite the a/c)

Fun Fact: Friday was my first run on a treadmill since April.

Now we will sit and wait for the hurricane!

 The swirly to the right of the * is where they expect Irene to be at 8am Sunday morning.

Luckily Dan was able to craft us a hurricane survival kit, so I think we'll be ok!

Hope everyone on the East Coast is staying dry...

and if you're not on the East Coast, enjoy your weekend!

The Hills and Victory

No, not the TV show... my Friday evening.

Hubs had a 4:15 colloquium yesterday (Really? Who schedules something for 4:15 on a Friday??) so yesterday evening was a perfect opportunity for me to squeeze in a run.

Due to the weather this week (here and here) I didn't run Wednesday night, and I didn't get to the gym for boot camp Thursday night.  So, I did a little schedule juggling and made Wednesday my rest day.

Thursday night instead of going to the gym for boot camp, I found Jillian Michaels' 6 Week 6 Pack, part 1 on Exercise TV On Demand.

Not saying it wasn't tough, but boot camp is longer, so after I finished the 40 min workout, I threw in some extras like 20 chest push ups (10 on knees, 10 on toes), and 20 tricep push ups (knees), plus a minute and 15 second plank.

Back to Friday-
Since I missed out on my Wednesday speed work, I did it Friday.  Except as per Mr. Higdon, I am subbing in hill workouts in place of some of my regularly scheduled speed work or tempo runs. (My April Half will have some hills).

It was 33 out and snowing, but it wasn't really sticking to the ground and it was kind of pretty.  However, they were HUGE snowflakes, and I took several flakes to the eyeball while running up hill. They were cold on my eye.

From the above-referenced link,

"Hills: Some hill training will help strengthen your quads and build speed. Look for a hill between 200 and 400 meters long. Jog or walk an equal distance between each repeat...You can substitute hill repeats for any of the interval workouts, or even in place of a Tempo Run or two if you want."

Here's what my workout looked like:

{click to enlarge}

As I've mentioned before, I live at the bottom of a hill.  The hill is about .20-.25 miles long (~320-400 meters) There are several parallel streets on the hill for me to choose from.  So I ran up and down the hill, six times.  I ran harder when going up, and took it easy while running back down, or running over to the next street.

I'm not sure if the elevation is that impressive or not, but it's what I've got, and it was way harder than running on a flat road!  I was pretty pleased with how quickly my heart rate recovered on the downhill too.


Saturday-
We were going to meet a friend at a favorite brewery halfway between us.  Turned out our friend wasn't going to be able to make it due to some car problems, but we were already in the car, so we went anyway.

I had the Turkey personal pizza; hubs had the Smoke House burger.  Both were delicious, as their food always is!  Here's the blurry other half of my pizza that I took home with me:

 They always have a fantastic selection of beer:

With our lunch we had the Schwarz Pils and the Dark Lager.

We filled our growlers with the Dark Lager and the Milltown Mild to bring home with us.

Lazy Saturday

Remember last night I said what my workout plan was for the weekend?

Well I didn't do that.

Shortly after posting, my husband got home from work and said he wanted to go for a jog, so I went with him.  It was a hair over 2 miles at an easy pace.

After our yog, I worked on the Wall Street Journal crossword puzzle.  That is one tough puzzle.  Every week.  And I was very pleased to make it this far, without any outside assistance (asked the mister about a couple of them-- but we did not cheat and google anything). I think this is a record.

We split this bottle of Troegs Mad Elf (delicious!) and I wrapped some of my Christmas gifts.

Today was a lazy morning. I stayed in my pajamas til lunch time. Or after, actually.  I had coffee, eggs, wheat toast, and a banana for breakfast. Me and the Mr. played a little Wii Mario Brothers.  Then we took the dog on a ~35 minute walk.  Which apparently wore her out, because this is what she did for the rest of the day. 

She is donning her super cool cabled neck warmer that I knitted for her.

Actually this is not that unusual for her on any typical day.  

This is why greyhounds are great apartment dogs.  Despite their racing background, they do not require a lot of running or exercise.  Molly likes to instead spend her retirement sleeping or snuggling with us, with about 2 minutes of eating squeezed in there somewhere.

Lunch was leftover salad with grilled eggplant, artichokes, and tomatoes and a chunk of bread from dinner last night.  Not to mention the handful(s) of peanut butter pretzel nuggets I grabbed while walking through the kitchen a couple times.  They are my weakness. And a cup of tea.

We had a productive evening of running errands: grocery shopping, housewarming gift for brother-in-law and fiancee, got a thing that's supposed to block the draft under our front door, a timer for our Christmas lights that actually works, checked out the Borders that is sadly closing (totally unorganized and chaotic), got a Christmas gift for other brother-in-law, got dog food (Molly Waffles is happy about that one).

After coming home, I played a little Wii bowling and broke a new record (pretty awesome, I know).  Check out that game:

Then I played Wii baseball and tennis with hubby. It was my first time playing baseball, I'm amused that there are only 3 innings.  I apparently can't throw a pitch above 65 mph, with the exception of one in the 70s.  I am improving at tennis, though I hope I do not develop Wii-Tennis-Elbow. I think I might swing a little harder than I need to...

How is everyone doing with their Christmas/holiday shopping?

Do you have a Wii? Are you as obsessed as I am becoming??

Fall Hike

Despite going to bed before midnight last night, I slept in insanely late (nearly 10 am) – I guess I racked up a bit of sleep debt from earlier this week!  It was a busy week at work and I had a couple of really long days.

For breakfast, my husband made buckwheat pancakes with walnuts + OJ and Coffee.  It probably would have involved some kind of fruit, except we really need to get to the grocery store, as we are out of fresh fruit.  (We have frozen stuff, but it’s not the same.  I prefer to use that for smoothies).

It was a nice day, sunny and mid 50s.  We decided to take our pup (Molly) to a park about half an hour away for a hike.


 
 
 
 

It was 2.75 miles but hilly (well, really just one big hill.  It’s referred to as a mountain, but I’d say it’s a small one) with a lot of switchbacks.  It took us an hour and a half with a couple stops for water and to say hi to other dogs.



By the time we were done with our hike, it had become more overcast.  Not the best lighting for photos:



We really wore Molly out!



She sleeps a lot usually, but this is about all she’s done since we got home at around 6pm (that’s over 5 hours at this point)-



Once we got home, we treated ourselves to the bottle of Southern Tier Pumking in our fridge, that was so highly recommended to me by Brittany from Eating Bird Food and Ojodeazul (and I’m sorry if I’m leaving out anyone else who had mentioned it!).



It was fantastic!  While I enjoy beer, I am no connoisseur, and no expert at describing it “properly.”  But I loved how it smelled like spices up front, and it was a little hoppy-but not too much, then a nice pumpkin taste!  I think splitting the bottle between us was probably just the right amount since it is sweeter.  I’d definitely have it again though!

And as it’s down into the 40s right now (ok, not really that cold, I know) we thought we’d use the fireplace for the first time this fall.  Ok, maybe it was still a little warm out for the fireplace.



What are you up to this weekend?

Brussels Sprouts!

After work, I ran to the grocery store, then raced the dark clouds home so I could run before it rained.  The forecast had said 90% chance of rain, but as of 10:39pm, it still hasn’t rained.  Oh well.

I went for an easy 2.43 mile run.  I thought I should go easy on my legs since it's only been 2 days since our 30-mile bike ride.  It was 73 degrees at 6pm.



73 degrees warrants a tank top.  I wore my Lululemon I Just Wanna Run Tech in pig pink and my Lululemon Fast Short in black.   2.43 miles at a 10:54 pace.  Thanks to some soccer teams practicing in a nearby park, I had the help of some spotlights as the sun had already started to set.  (When did the sun start setting by 6:06pm!?)

For dinner tonight, I made a recipe from Real Simple:  Ravioli with Brussel Sprouts and Bacon.

I have made Brussels Sprouts one other time in my life, and it involved tossing them in some olive oil and spices and roasting them. I feel like the outside leaves got burnt before they were cooked enough.  So I was determined to do a Brussels Sprouts-Do-Over with better results.

photo from realsimple.com

Probably not the healthiest thing, but actually not too awful.  I am sure that my version had less sodium and less fat than the original version due to substituting turkey bacon, finding a lower sodium ravioli, and using more Brussels sprouts than the recipe called for.  Also, my recipe yielded 5 servings, not 4.

Yes, it involved bacon. I used Applewood Smoked Uncured Turkey Bacon from Trader Joes.  I can't find a product page for this, so I will share the nutrition facts.

2 slices = 40 calories, 1.5g of fat, 20mg of cholesterol, 260mg of sodium (low for bacon, anyway), and 5g of protein.



Wegmans Frozen Small Round Cheese Ravioli -



Brussels Sprouts and Pecans:
Brussels sprouts are a good source of fiber, vitamin C, and folate.  Pecans are tasty.



A sprinkle of cheese on top (I had Pecorino Romano) – While the recipe called for cheese, it probably wasn’t necessary due to the cheese in the ravioli.

Plenty more left for a couple more meals.

Thumbs up on the recipe, and the hubby seemed to like it too.  Had enough to pack up 3 lunch-sized pyrex containers for later meals.

And a Flying Fish Oktoberfest.  There's only 6 more days of October, after all!

Long Fall Bike Ride

Went for a nice long bike ride with the Mr. today.  It was 66 and sunny when we set off on our adventure at about 2pm.

I wore my Lululemon Run: Zoom Crops, Target Champion SS Singlet, Lululemon Run: Energy Pullover:

picture from Lululemon.com

picture from Target.com (circa September 2009)

picture from Lululemon.com (circa December 2009)

I filled up my 1.5L Camelbak Hydrobak Hydration Pack to bring along with me:

Bought the 2008 model in Spring 2009 for $24

I also strapped on my ifitness pouch, in which I stored my license, credit card, some cash, and my compact digital camera, enabling me to take some of the pictures to follow.

And we were off!

The first half included some hills:

Not sure if that's a big deal or not, but the elevation increased by about 80 feet over 2 minutes or .3 miles.  It sure felt like a big deal.  The last 6.5 miles of the first half of our trip was mostly flat tow path, which was nice.

We rode 15.14 miles to a nearby favorite town of ours.  About an hour and a half later, we arrived.  We were torn between a really good Middle Eastern restaurant and a place with a good beer selection, burgers, and outdoor seating.

We went with the bar/burger place.  The patio is around back, I should have taken a picture.  It was decorated with tons of carved pumpkins for Halloween.

picture from nj.com

I got a Smithwick's (sadly they were out of the Saranac Octoberfest on their menu) hubby got the Troegs Hop Back Ale.   I got their current special burger which included tomatoes, guacamole, jalapenos, and 'queso fresco.'  Hubby got a rueben made with some kind of brat I have not heard of before.  Both came with their home made chips which you can see they sliced from real potatoes - they were fantastic.

Then we hopped back on our bikes at about 5pm and pedaled the just-over-15 miles back home, making it home with just enough sunlight.  I had just enough water in my Camel to last me the trip.

Round Trip: ~30.2 miles!
My quads were feeling a little fatigued on our way home, we'll see how my legs feel tomorrow!