Summary of Life Lately.

I'm back. I've been failing at posting on the blog lately, and I think about it almost everyday but never have the time to sit down a write a good update. I've been a little bit in over my head during this last month at school; I'm registered for 21 hours including doing some research in two different psychology labs (this is WAY cool), I'm wrapping up marathon training (T-17 days), rowing (just had our first regatta on the weekend - I'll get to that!), Regatta Chairing, and actively participating in a few miscellaneous clubs/activities going on.

The 21 hours isn't so bad. I'm typically in an academic building doing things that are, well, academic from 8:30AM-5:30PM from Monday-Thursday. Mostly I'm doing psychology and psych labs, but I also have some business courses for a change of scenery. I'm doing a minor in Management & Leadership, which serves as my "practical" minor (since, sadly, I'm not sure how often my French will come into play in the future).

Running has been coming along alright, though it's admittedly tougher when your whole life can't revolve around marathon training (shock!). My body is definitely more prone to injuries for fatigue-related reasons. I try to get 7-9 hours of sleep per night, which would've been more than enough over the summer, but when I'm riding my bike all around town everyday to get to classes, attending classes for 8+ hours 4 days a week, traveling, rowing, and doing 5 billion other little things, it's definitely tougher on my body. Last week I had to stop a run short and take an extra day off due to weird hip problems - luckily they were short lived. This week I'm doing a final highish-milage week and will be cutting back the mileage significantly for the final 2 weeks until the big day.

This past weekend featured lots of rowing. I'm the Regatta Chair for our team, which means I'm in charge of registering our boats for races, booking hotels/figuring out accommodations, figuring out our transportation (drive our own cars or rent vans?), making sure each individual rower makes it from Point A to Point B and back, picking up race day packets, etc. It's a lot of responsibility at times.

Our weekend at Head of the Cuyahoga was particularly special to me because that is my "home regatta," and is hosted by the boathouse that I rowed out of hundreds of zillions of times in high school. My doubles partner and I even borrowed the same double that we used in high school. Biggest plus? Sleeping in my own bed :)

This is how you know it's a regatta weekend:

We stayed at home on Friday night and got up bright and early on Saturday to launch. We were event 7 - by far the earliest event on our team. Everyone was there to see us off though!

We ended up having an amazing race. 

Many modeling shots were necessary once we were back on land. 

With our awesome rental double :)

Home sweet Cuyahoga!

It was nice to be done earlier one because we got the chance to spend the day cheering for our team. Overall, we did great. 3 of our other boats placed. Our women's varsity 8 got a trophy along with their gold medals - they won the "Daisy Award," which they received for the fastest overall women's 8 time - even among masters and junior boats. That's pretty fast.

We didn't know it until an hour or so after getting back on land, but we ended up taking first place. We were thrilled! The other competitors in our event were masters women with (supposedly) a lot more experience, so I felt really proud.

Modeling the gold!

1.5 weeks until our next race... stay tuned!

Things from this week, 20-miler & Running Talk Down.

There's been a lot of rowing and other things going on this week! Yesterday I had my first morning workout. We were on the water by 7AM! We got three good practices in this week - I'm really excited for our regatta in a week! And to visit home :)

I always lay everything out the night before : 

My new favorite pre-rowing snack: 

We headed into the city last night and Alex's aunt and uncle had us over to make PIZZAS. I typically stay away from wheat/gluten (and that has really improved my health over the last 6-7 months!) but I am planning on eating pizza (convenience) the night before the marathon so this was good timing to practice since the long run was today! Plus, who doesn't like pizza-making???

Alex=pizza expert

This morning I got up at 5:15 to start the run. My roommate planned to do 10 miles with me, and we both had somewhere to be by 10:00 so we had to start early!

 I actually started at about 5:45 on the treadmill because I don't run in the dark on my own. I set the treadmill to 2% incline to simulate outside running. So, I did 5 miles on my own, met my roommate, did the middle 10 miles with her, and then did the last 5 miles on my own again. This was a pretty nice balance. I knew I couldn't (mentally) do the full 20 completely on my own and I LOVED the company. Running in sparse country roads for 20 miles on my own would've been too scary - either because of dogs, crazy drivers, or other unknowns. I think this is something I could've definitely done in my hometown where there are TONS of runners/cyclists/pedestrians, but here it's hard to do that.

DONE.

The 20 miles felt pretty good. Honestly, not that much different from 18! After the end of my run, I hopped in our pool for an "ice bath," since it was only about 50 degrees outside (the pool was probably closer to 60. That felt GOOD.

I don't think you're going to want to see my bare toes for quite awhile.

Then it was time to head to the boathouse to get launch certified! Figured it's as good a time as ever to make it official!

Running from 09/08-09/13:
Monday : Off
Tuesday : 6 VERY slow and easy miles + an evening rowing workout - 4 x 10 min pieces.
Wednesday : 4 fast-ish miles on the treadmill.
Thursday : 8 miles - 1-mile warmup, 6 miles at 7:41 avg pace, and 1 mile cool down. 2x15 minutes rowing.
Friday : Morning row (30 minutes) and 2 mile "shake out" run to make sure everything felt okay for the long run!
Saturday : 20.2 miles, mostly easy with last 5 miles @ marathon pace.

Weekly total : 40.2 miles

Now I'm just staying horizontal, studying, and preparing something special for dinner!

Slow-Cooked Bean Medley.

It's been a busy week so far! I've had a couple of REALLY long days (like...having class/meetings/runs/practice every moment from like 8:00AM to 11:30PM or so).

My sweet friend knew just what I needed :)

Got back into rowing yesterday, which was definitely worth the time it took :) I will be rowing in a double this season, which I'm really excited about. My doubles partner is very experienced, and very awesome :)

This is what I love:

Yesterday we spent practice just getting a feel for each other and we did a 5-minute warm-up, 2x10 minute pieces and 2x8 minute pieces. With lots of chatting breaks in between!

Today I made a bean medley with lots of kinds of beans, canned corn, ketchup, and a few other veggies.

Here's the recipe to the bean medley.

It turned out really yummy. I'm delighted with the fact that I can just throw a bunch of things in the slow-cooker, turn it on, and come home with a healthy, balanced meal. One of my roommates commented that it tastes like Sloppy Joe's? I've never had a Sloppy Joe but I'm guessing it was the ketchup. My favorite part is the kidney beans and the  corn!

This week I've started bringing lunches, too. Last week I was still able to hurry home for a quick lunch but this week is just too busy now that I've got my normal schedule going! One day I did meet my sister for one of the famous salads from around here :

Otherwise, I keep it simple. I'll usually bring a PB&J roll-up and an apple. Tomorrow I decided to mix it up a bit and do a kale mix roll-up, broccoli & dip, and an apple. 

It does take a lot of time, but I definitely have been enjoying grocery shopping for myself and preparing my own meals. This is something I really liked while living abroad, as well.

Let's end on an excited note : 

All seven seasons! I am not a big TV person at all, but I'm a diehard fan of this show. I started watching it when I was 12 and I've seen every episode at least 2-3 times now. So this is a very exciting piece of news ! I might be chained to my computer for awhile now... :)

Vegetarian Chili, the 18-miler, and other important things.

I feel like I have so much to catch you up on! Last week was extremely busy, and I am still adjusting to my new routine but hopefully will be able to get posts up a little more often now that I'm settling in. 

Let's start at the beginning. Last week I threw a bunch of veggies into the crockpot and made CHILI. 

I loosely followed THIS recipe.

It was comprised of several different kinds of beans, zucchini, asparagus, tomatoes, bell peppers, sweet potato, and lots of other goodness. 

Lasted for SEVERAL dinners and was a big hit among my roommates.

I also discovered this:

It's very delicious but a little pricey so I will only eat/buy it on special occasions. 

I had a busy weekend with 2 really early wake ups so I used that almond butter to bribe myself out of bed.

On Saturday, I did my 18-MILER! It was one of the most fun I've had on a long run, and the miles seemed to fly by (well, sort of). This was due largely in part to the fact that I had two AWESOME friends tag team it through my run. My roommate got up with my at 5:45AM to start me off, and she did about 6 miles with me. I did about 4 miles on my own, and then met my other friend who got me through the last 8 miles. Having someone to talk to for most of the run was amazing, and distracting from the potential misery that I could've been in.

By the end of the long run, I felt SO done. The distance was manageable though, and I felt confident. I hit marathon pace in the last 4 or so miles, but most of it was easy-paced. On Thursday, I had done 9 miles with 6 tempo miles on the treadmill. That went well. I'm still bouncing back from my "injury" but not having any problems. One week till it's time to taper.

When I got home from the 18-miler on Saturday, I rolled out my muscles and stretched, and then sat on some ice packs for awhile to help my muscles recover. Before long, my parents came into town to hang out with me and my sister for a few hours!

We had gelato, bought some a college sweatshirt for my mom, and hung out enjoying the cooler weather. 

As a side note, some challah was also made last week. This will be happening again soon.

On Sunday, we left at about 6:30AM to go spend the day in Dayton playing with service dogs. We get to help foster/socialize them! We don't have our own service dogs to individually foster yet but we're hoping that next semester there's an opportunity for that. For now, there's just lots of playing with the puppies :)

On Sunday evenings I always spend some time planning out my food for the week. I decide what I need for lunches and dinners and whether I'll need to pack lunches, meet my sister for lunch to use her discounted meal plan, or whether I have evening engagements after class that will include dinners. If I'm going to do a crockpot meal I decide what day of the week I should cook that up (Monday or Tuesday?) depending on my schedule. 

As I approach the marathon taper, I want to veer away once again from snack-y, unfulfilling foods, and focus on eating cleanly and wholesomely. In the past 2 weeks I've been so busy that I've opted for more quick, easy options more often than usual. In many ways, my health will be of the utmost importance in the next weeks leading up to the marathon, and diet plays such an incremental role in that.

I decided I wanted a salady type of meal for this week, so last night I whipped up a quinoa salad with what I had in my kitchen. I had lots of corn on the cob I needed to use, so I cooked that in the microwave, made some red quinoa, and mixed it all together with some baby kale that I needed to use up. I thought I could add more to it, so I also stirred in some frozen broccoli (my fave). To dress it, I just mixed in a bunch of olive oil and some salt and pepper.

I just had some for lunch and I really liked it! It's good cold; I prefer it room temperature. It's balanced and filling with lots of great energy in it! Also, I love being able to clean out my fridge before stuff gets too old. 

Coming up this week : 

-Rowing in the double starts TOMORROW.

-On Wednesday I might make a slow-cooker "bean medley..." I will have to let you know how that goes!

-More challah baking

Running recap from last week (9/1-9/6):

Sunday : 5 miles easy (treadmill). 

Monday: 6 miles on the treadmill with miles 2-3 and 4-5 at marathon pace.

Tuesday : 4 miles on the treadmill.

Wednesday : Off

Thursday : 9 miles with 6 middle miles @ 7:45-7:48 pace.

Friday : 2.5 miles ( I stopped because I thought I could feel my hip tightening up and I was worried!)

Saturday : 18 miles.

Total : 44.5 miles (and feeling good!)

Hopefully another post in a day or two - I'm trying to get back in that pattern!

Success!!!

I had a successful run yesterday! I did 5 miles on the treadmill with no incline (next time I'll bump it to about 1% which is a better simulation of real outside running but still saves me from the hills). I wanted to run more because it felt good but I knew I had to take it easy and stop before anything went wrong again. So after 5 miles I headed over to the pool and did an hour of pool running with my sister! 

It went much better having a friend there with me!

I'm going to try to be running more and more normally in the next few days, and no running more than 2 days in a row. Hopefully by the end of the week I'm back to normal! I will maintain that for a few weeks until it's time to taper. Only 6 more weeks until the marathon!

Last night I took Alex to see the Boathouse. He had never actually been!

I showed him the doors that I painted 2 years ago :)

This morning, I tried out another run. I did this one still at easy pace, but a little quicker than yesterday. I picked up the pace to marathon pace for miles 2.3-3 and then from miles 4-5. Got 6 good miles in there. Sticking to the nice flat treadmill for awhile!

Lots of stretching, a little ice, and listening to what my leg is telling me! 40 days.