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... :)

Flourless Cookies and Running Talk Down.

Not thrilled about being poured on while Garmin was gearing up...

After my run today I hurried down to the boathouse and had an ALUM ROW! Woohoo! Rowed for about an hour with alumni and current rowers. Wish I got some pics while we were out there - left my phone in the car :( Good thing is, this is likely to happen again! I sure hope it does, I miss rowing with those girls.

Headed straight from the boathouse to wish my cute friend a happy birthday! I won't get to be with her on her real birthday (Tuesday) so we celebrated with ice cream this afternoon (Mitchell's caramel fudge brownie is my new favorite ice cream).

Made some cookies for the week... they are FLOURLESS. Check out the recipe by Babe & Bird (she has some great GF recipes :). Can't believe I hadn't thought of doing this before!

These cookies are flourless hot chocolate cookies which means they are laden with marshmallows. The recipe calls for mini marshmallows but I simply chopped our big ones in half and it worked fine. If your marshmallows are fresh this will be easy to do.

It's very important to SPRAY the parchment paper so it's greased! The sugariness of these cookies will cause them to stick even to parchment, so make sure you do both. 

The batter will spread out a lot so you might want to opt for two cookie sheets, unlike me. Making smaller cookies will also make them easier to wrangle when you want them to come of the cookie sheet (they will come out very thing and fragile).

Despite being thin, they are some of the gooeyest cookies I've ever made!

I think these are best eaten almost immediately after they come out from the oven, when the marshmallows are gooey and delicious. YUM.

If you are a milk-drinker, a nice cold glass will go perfectly with these sweet cookies.
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Running Talk Down :

Decided I should label this section... if you don't like to read about running you can avert your eyes :) 

This week seemed to go well running-wise. (I tried not to talk about it too much in my other posts because I don't want it to completely overshadow my blog!) I did some new stuff like ... Epsom salt bathing! Sounds sort of like a myth that it will help your body but I am willing to try ANYTHING to make sure I stay healthy. 

It was kind of nice to "have to" soak in a tub for 20-30 min after work... I might have to schedule this more often... ;)

I also used my PVC pipe tiger tail roller before bed to roll out any knots.

Sorrynotsorry, I'm not about to spend $30+ on a real tiger tail (or at least that's how much the ones on Amazon were). 

Another important thing I've been working on is General Strength and Mobility (or GSM) to make sure that my core is strong for maximal injury prevention. I found a set of videos that's been working really well for me. (I'll post the link to them below.) Core is not just your abs, but also your back/trunk, glutes, and even quads and it's really important for athletes to have strength in these areas to prevent injuries! These videos focus on a particular weakness of my own... hips/glutes.

Also this week I found a cool app... Runner's World columnist Jenny Hadfield does a walk-through of the Chicago Marathon! The app is designed to take you through the course of the marathon and she will tell you if you need to pick up your pace to stick to your goal and she points out interesting/important parts of the course as you go. You can even use play your music for the marathon through the app. I don't plan to use it for the actual race because I don't like to race with my phone BUT I can definitely use it for entertainment in my training! I did try it today during my long run and it definitely was interesting to hear about some of the sites!

I'm a nerd about this stuff so I've been reading Chicago Marathon race recaps from other bloggers (such as Runs for Cookies) as well... I know, I really need to tone it down ;) It's time for me to get back to Oxford so I don't have time to dwell on this stuff!

Needed some retail therapy on Thursday but all I could afford was this GU for $1.00. I've heard good things about this flavor...may try it out on my upcoming 14 or 16-miler... My first GU!

Weekly Running Summary : Week 14

Monday : Off (rest) 8-minute abs and GSM

Tuesday : Easy paced 6 miles

Wednesday : 22 minutes on the erg @ steady state, GSMx2, 8-minute abs & 8-minute arms, +12-mile bike ride after work. (Phew!)

Thursday : 1 mile warm up, 6 miles at 7:48 avg mile pace, 1 mile cool down.

Friday : 3 easy miles

Saturday : 4 easy miles, 8-minute abs

Sunday : 11-mile long run (easy)

Total miles : 32

I think this week's running went really well! I knew I needed to scale back a smidge and listened to my body's tiredness, so my Friday/Saturday runs were REALLY easy and were shortened from what my training plan suggested (which was 34 miles for the week, so I'm clearly not far off!). I took the long run also very easy and am glad that I did! It's hard for me to be flexible but now I am seeing that adjustments really pay off.

In all, I am still feeling good. Not even one month in - got about 3 months of hard training to go!

Awesome app that will guide you through the Chicago Marathon found HERE.

General strength and mobility (GSM) for runners found HERE.

Party time.

You know it's time to party when you wake up before it's light out and see these laid out for you :

That's right, it was time to ERG. (I always lay my clothes out the night before if I'm doing a morning workout.) I am going to be using the rowing machine (the erg) as a form of cross-training a lot this summer. It's extra convenient because it's situated right in our basement. It'll do a lot to strengthen my legs for running (this is the best way for me to do it since I don't have access to a weight room in the summertime). Plus, it'll prep me for fall season sculling.

I did 25 minutes on the rowing machine (which is a pretty long time...in the last 6 years of my life, time has NEVER passed more slowly than when I'm on the rowing machine). You know it's a good workout when you finish dripping in sweat! You can consider me disgusting but I love that feeling. Nothing other than rowing does that to me. After my 25 minutes, I skittered upstairs and did 8-minute arms, which I'm still finding really challenging with my 5-lb weights!

I was recently reading THIS article on why rowing is so good for you. Check it out.

Can't beat a workout that uses "virtually every major muscle group"! No wonder I get so sweaty from it!

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For my parents' 25th wedding anniversary, I whipped up some baked chocolate donut holes. They are really easy to make and so cute! I used THIS recipe and modified it a bit (I used European style yogurt instead of Greek and used 1%milk instead of heavy cream for the glaze). 25 years is such a milestone and I definitely think it's something to be recognized and celebrated. 

5 Foods!

This might be my favorite day from the 10-Day You Challenge. I like to talk about food. 

1. Peanut butter. If you didn't expect this to be #1 on my list... you should get to know me better :) I'm obsessed with PB and I swear I can incorporate into any of my meals and make something delicious out of it. For me it's a good source of healthy (or not-so-healthy, depending on the kind) fats and protein.

2. Soups. As you've probably seen if you've looked under my recipes tab, I LOVE to cook soups. It's a great, warm way to get all of your veggies. You can stir in a grain (rice or faro) and have a wholesome meal out of a soup (or even better,  a thick stew). Keep the pot in your fridge during the week and it will last; all you have to do is stick it back on the stove! Whoever invented soup is a smartie. Plus, they go great with stuff like wraps, salads, etc. 

3. Cupcakes. They're smaller than a whole cake, which means you can personalize them as far as design and flavor...and sample lots of different kinds :) Also, you can pile them high with the most important part, frosting! Cupcakes are adorable and they're one of my favorite things to bake and decorate. 

4. Broccoli. One of my favorite ways to get all my nutrients is broccoli. It's rich in so many vitamins and so versatile. You can stir it into soup, roast it, cook it on the stove in olive oil, chop it up and eat it raw with some yummy ranch dressing, and so many other things. Since I have some dietary limitations, I've had to learn to be flexible with my favorite foods and that's why I'm a vegetable nerd and love broccoli. 

Alex wanted to kill me when I made him take this photo of me with my broccoli in Amsterdam:

5. Sweet potatoes. Sort of like with broccoli, I love the versatility of sweet potatoes. You can even cook them in the microwave and they're just as delicious! They're a good source of fiber and other vitamins, turn into great fries, and are better for you than normal potatoes. Let us not forget my "sweet potato selfie" :

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The last few days have been a whirlwind. On Friday, I woke up early, did my rowing workout, and rushed to shower, get to the grocery store, and then to lunch to catch up with my girlfriends from my high school rowing team before work. I worked into the evening and then joined my fam to go to the Jack Johnson concert (he was great :). We got back at 12AM - earlier than expected - and I was up again at 6AM to head back to work! My workday ended at 5PM and then I headed on to do some babysitting until about 12:30AM. This morning I woke up early again and was reunited with the Cuyahoga, this time expecting to be a coxswain... In the end due to someone not showing up and logistics, I ended up rowing! 

So good to be back here.

Rowing for the first time since October made my hands a teeny bit tender so I'm going to hold off on erging for a few days so I don't tear them up all at once. I still have calluses built up from the 6 years of rowing that I have under my belt, but I want to slowly add more rather than have bloody, stinging hands for a week!

Headed out for a sweaty, afternoon run and 8-minute abs later on. Temps hit 81 here...  Not a lot of runners out at that hour of a hot day but I like the warmth and the sweat :) I guess it's officially summer weather! Just in time for June!

After such a busy several days I'm not sure what I'll do with my day off tomorrow... but I'm sure I'll think of something!

Book Review: Flat Water Tuesday (& sub-zero temps).

Yesterday I had to babysit which meant once the kids were in bed...power-reading time! Remember the rowing book Flat Water Tuesday that I mentioned on Saturday? (I just about jumped up and down when I found this in the library wedged on the bottom shelf in the new books section.) Well, I plowed through all 353 pages of that in the four hours I had during babysitting while the kiddos were asleep. It.Was.Good. 

The book talks a lot about rowing in a way that I figure might be difficult to understand if you're not at least quasi-familiar with the sport. However, it flip-flops back and forth between the main character's experience while rowing in high school and his present-day non-rowing life. So, I think it can appeal to all readers - but especially rowers because when has there EVER been a rowing novel out there???

The book was a little dark - some not-so-good things happen and it is very sad. If you're like me and start to feel like all books, movies, and dreams are real, you might want to break it up a little bit so as not to feel heavy-hearted. (Fortunately I opened a new book right after finishing and that cheered me right up.)

After so long of not being on the water (and even longer since I've been able to rowing on a competitive team) reading this made me miss rowing so much! Even the bad parts, like erging all winter and like losing an important race by 1 second after months of hard work.

Definitely, definitely READ THIS if rowing is or was at one point important to you. SO GOOD and it will read quickly even if you aren't a books-fanatic like me :)

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Today was a day off. This was partially because it was between -10 and 3 degrees today and also because it's been about 2.5 weeks (or 3?) since I've done a day off. I also slept in v. late. 

Today's activities included errands, sister time, and practicing packing (i.e. packing everything and unpacking everything) for when I go to Luxembourg in 2 weeks. 

When we did errands it was 0.

I also picked out the cake I'm going to make for my birthday cake. 

For me the most fun in this is actually getting to bake this. I love spending the day cooking :)

Now I am having a movie night with my mom. We're watching "The Way Way Back." It's very good.

I think I'll have to skip the running again tomorrow (-4*) but hopefully some spinning or even better hot yoga if I can snag a ride!

Stay warm!

Turkey Row...

Today's Turkey Row has turned into a pizza party instead. The excess of snow and sub-30 temperatures has helped us all to decide to follow our better judgement…

Thought this comic was appropriate…

Started the day with a holiday cup of Starbucks, yum:

Today was our "mini Thanksgiving" - a redo of Thanksgiving with just immediate family. 

Mini Thanksgiving pie:

Ended the day with a family tradition…Family Stone!

Running, regatta, coffee, eyeballs.

On Sunday after the 5k, I ended up running 3 slow (and careful!) miles, bring my daily mileage up to 6.1! The weather was beautiful and I didn't have much going on and I just HAD to get out there! Well, I lived to tell the tale - no injuries resulted from that choice (that I know of!).

Yesterday I ran about 5.5 miles and passed by a REALLY cool house. I'm going to go back today to try to find it so you can see why!

Being that ALL races were cancelled at the regatta on Saturday, we only got good land pictures. 

Me with some of my best buds

Wanted to show you the beautiful hand warmers that saved my life on Saturday. Not being dramatic at all!

Since Saturday (when I woke up at 5AM and had to stay awake till 2 or 3 due to Formal) I have become a coffee drinker. I guess that night broke the camel's back and now I need to exist off of caffeine…

I got really excited when someone gave me these eyeballs. Love Halloween! 

Sorry for the randomness!