Eat Run Garden. What I eat, when I run, how I garden: Eat Run Garden

5k recap

I disappeared for a little while. I spent all of Monday cleaning and then yesterday was catch up day at work. So I didn’t really get a chance to post.

I did promise a recap of Sunday’s race, so here it is.

I woke up Sunday excited and ready for the race. My goal was to PR but I would be happy with anything under 30 mins. I even went as far as to write down what I need to get for splits in order to PR. (Yes I am a nerd).

This race is always fun because lots of people dress up. There were super heros and spiders and the bush from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Always fun to see other peoples Halloween costumes. I, however, didn’t dress up, I can never decide what to be or how to pull it off so I just don’t wear anything.

The last time I ran this race (I think it was 2010) I did the 10k, this year I really wanted to see how face I could run so I opted for the 5k.

My total time was 28:03 with a pace of 9:01
According to my watch…
Mile 1 – 8:45
Mile 2 – 9:01
mile 3 – 9:23
.1 – 0:54

No negative splits but I still was so happy with my time. I did that with a stuffy nose.

The good: The race is quick, there was lots of volunteers making sure you went the correct way and plenty of signs also making sure you ran the correct way. It starts and ends at Buttonwood Park, which meant it was close to my house and I got to see the elephants after I was done. Aside from the first 1/2 mile and last 1/2 of mile 3 the course it either flat or down hill. The finish line is at the end of a downhill so you can speed through the finish line.

The not so good: The first and last part of this race are up hill (the same up hill), the course made a giant loop which meant that we ran by the finish line twice before we actually got there. Not so bad the first time but it’s kind of a tease at the end of the race. It was not a completely closed course so you did have to worry about cars on a few of the roads.

My goal was to run a sub 29 min 5k, so I started out fast and tried to keep that up. For most of the race I was running behind a piece of bacon, mmmm bacon. Even though it wasn’t a real piece of bacon it was a good motivator but by mile 3 I couldn’t breath, my nose was running almost as much as I was, so I stopped to walk, catch my breath, and get rid of as many boogers as I could for about 30 secs. Then I just had to conquer the uphill and the final push down hill. That was a tough hill, I was still having trouble breathing and I was trying to go even faster to make up for stopping to walk but I could feel myself getting slower as I went up the hill. Then all of the sudden I looked to my right and my friend Jamie was right next to me. I was so excited I was able to push up the hill, around the corner and then down the hill to the finish line. As I crossed the finish line I saw 28:0x. I was happy but also exhausted, that was the fastest I have ever run. I sat down on the ground and caught my breath for at least a min.

When I could finally breath and walk again I found my husband (who was spectating) and our friends Jamie and Mike (they both ran the 5k). We hung out for a little while more, watched the first finishers of the 10k and the people running with costumes and then we headed home.

I was so happy with my time and I definitely believe that crossfit has helped me get faster.

On Monday I had the day off because of hurricane Sandy. I spent most of the day cleaning and then I decided to take Tega for a walk to see if we could see some of the storm surge. (I live in Mass, the hurricane wasn’t that bad where I was.)

I couldn’t get outside the hurricane barrier so I didn’t get to see anything crazy although the wind was blowing really strong.

I also went to crossfit early Monday morning where our WOD consisted of handstands and L-sits. That was my weekend and Monday.

October 31st 2012 Posted at Road race, running, The Dog
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Food and a PR

I realized the other day that lately my blog has been heavy on the run [and exercise in general] and light on the eat and garden. The garden I have kind of neglected this year and as a result you won’t really be hearing or seeing anything about the garden, but I have been eating and cooking.

I had this great plan to do a bunch of baking yesterday, but I kind of failed. My plans were to make a banana bread, and some cookies, and maybe some pumpkin muffins. I had big plans but then I kind of lost steam after my banana bread. My other plan was to post at least one of these recipes but my banana bread didn’t really come out so well. I followed this recipe but I think it needs some tweaking.

I took it out of the oven and it looked done, I used the toothpick test and it came out clean but then I tried to take it out of the pan and instead of banana bread I had half banana bread and half banana bread mush.

See it looks done, any more time in the oven and I think it would have burned.

Well it looked done and the bottom 1/2 was done but the top half still had the consistency of the raw batter. I tried scraping off and recooking just the top mushy part more but it didn’t really work to well. It’s sad this didn’t come out well because it tastes really good. Even though it’s gross looking (not in the picture above but what happened to it after this photo was taken) I keep eating it because it tastes so good. I am going to work on this recipe to make it work for me and I will let you know how it comes out.

I did also baked some plantains. mmmmm plantains

Okay well I fried them then I baked them (instead of frying and then frying again). Then I covered them with shredded chicken, salsa, and lettuce (I was out of avocado or it would have been added). Then I ate my big pile of “nachos.” I call it plantain “nachos” and it is way better than normal corn chip nachos.

This morning I ran a 5k

And I PRed!! by almost a full min!
28:03
9:01 pace!

I am going to have a longer recap tomorrow but I needed to share my exciting news.

Are you all prepared for Sandy. I live in southern MA so we shouldn’t get it too bad but there will still be high winds and lots of rain.

October 28th 2012 Posted at Baking, eating, Road race, running
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I Lift Heavy Things

This morning was crossfit.

We had a bench mark day, the goal was to find our 1 rep max for:
Back Squats
Press &
Deadlift

Jamie and I shared a bar and took turns until we couldn’t lift the weighted bars any more.

My 1RMs:
Back Squats 140#
Press 65#
Deadlift 165#

165 is slightly more than I weigh so once Jamie and I got to almost body weight deadlifts we started taking photos, we were excited.

The bar we are about to lift at 155 (this is when we started getting excited)

Me deadlifting 165!!

Jamie deadlifting 165!!

We were super stoked to be able to deadlift more than our body weight.

I tried 170 and couldn’t get it more than an inch off the ground. It is amazing how much heavier/harder 5 extra pounds makes it.

October 26th 2012 Posted at crossfit
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2 For 2

Fun Fact – I have never successfully made a baked potato.

[source]

I have mashed them, stir fried them, baked them and deep fried them as french fries, I have even grilled them. But I have never successfully made an editable baked potato (sweet or regular). I really like the idea of baked potatoes, they are warm and potato-y but I think I am to impatient for them. I also tend to start cooking when I get hungry, but who can wait over an hour for a side dish when you are hungry now, certainly not I.

Some day I will make a baked potato and I will make sure to blog about it but until then it looks like I have to settle for fries, or hash, or mashed. I guess I can live with that.

Last night I tried to make a baked sweet potato for me and a regular baked potato for Josh – I failed. The rest of dinner was ready but not the potatoes. So I thought I would try to save them by cutting them up and baking them as potato wedges for an extra 15 mins. They still were not done. So I gave up and I am saving them for tonight’s dinner.

Before my potato mishap I met Nick for a run. We decided to run the Spooky Spooner 5k route, we are going to be running it on Sunday and I thought it would be fun to test run the course because it is so close to where we normally run.

We did the course in 29:59

We were both pumped to come in under 30 mins. My goal for Sunday is sub 29, I am going to PR this race.

My friend Jamie is also running on Sunday and I had invited her to run the course with us on Wednesday night. She couldn’t do Wednesday night but asked if I wanted to run Thursday morning instead. I agreed, I never turn down the opportunity to run with a friend.

This morning at 5:15 am I met Jamie at the Park and did the same loop as I has run less than 12 hours before with Nick. Both Jamie and I agreed that 5:15 am is Stupid early and if we weren’t meeting each other there, we would have both stayed in bed for the extra sleep. But I am glad I got up and went.

I was slower this morning but it was cold and very dark in some places and we almost got hit by a car.

First, the car: We were jogging along Allen st, which has street lights. We had just gotten to the 1/2 way point and all of a sudden this car comes from behind us and takes a right hand turn down the street we were just about to cross. i.e. had to make a big giant turn to get around us. I try to always watch out for cars and although I can’t see behind me I do try to listen for approaching cars. This car came up behind us very quickly, most definitely could see us (we were under a street light and we were wearing light colors) and all she had to do to completely avoid hitting us would have been to wait the [maybe] 10 secs it would have taken for us to cross the street. Luckily, we did see her just in time and we didn’t get hit, although in an effort to avoid getting hit Jamie jumped to the side and into a pot hole which caused her to fall down. She wasn’t hurt and we continued on our way, both really annoyed at that stupid driver.

This time it took us 31:36 to finish the course, still not bad for almost getting hit by a car and at times not really being able to see where we were running because there wasn’t a street light.

Tomorrow is crossfit and Saturday is going to be a rest day.

October 25th 2012 Posted at Baking, running
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Eat Run Garden