This and That

Yesterday I was kind of down on myself because I ran 5 miles at a 9:16 overall pace. I know this is dumb to most people, and most people just wouldn't understand. But I know I can comfortably run faster than that in my prime, and I've been doing hills and fartleks in an effort to get back to where I was last summer before the Apocalypse Winter.

This morning, despite almost convincing myself to go back to bed, I went out and did hill repeats anyway. I read this blog post by Beth over at Shut Up and Run, in which she talks about doing 8 hill repeats. On a dirt trail. So I put my big girl undies on and walked out the door. (I also had all my other clothes on too, just to clarify).

Imagine my surprise when I stopped my watch at 3 miles and had a sub-9 min/mile pace!

Hills are kind of like doing speed work in disguise since you get to run a little faster on the downhill. But mile 3 was nothing but flat stretches. Whoop for an 8:39 pace! 

The main reason why I was so tired this morning is because we went out last night. Not like we're big party animals though - we were home by 9:15! I scored some free tickets to the United Way of Northeastern Minnesota's "Flavor of the North" event. It's a food tasting/judging event with over 20 restaurants and vendors from around the area, plus free wine and beer tasting! Each restaurant prepares one dish in one of three categories: appetizer, entree, or dessert. Then we got to taste everything and vote for our favorites. All of the proceeds go to the Buddy Backpack Program, which supplies food to children over the weekends during the school year. To qualify, they just have to be on the free or reduced lunch program. UWNEMN supported over 600 kids through Buddy Backpacks this year!

I am a lame blogger because I had every intention to take pictures, but I totally forgot! In any case, this event was so much fun. I ate way more than I should have, but everything was so good! My favorites included walleye tacos with a pineapple salsa (they won 1st place!), a prosciutto wrapped jumbo prawn with jalapeno and a jicama slaw, bacon wrapped dates, and s'mores cupcakes. The cupcakes were truly drool worthy - I had two! They also won 1st place in the dessert category, and the prawns won 1st for apps. 

They also had tons of silent auction items to peruse, as well as a live auction and a ticket-type auction. I'm not sure what the name is, but basically you buy X amount of tickets and put them in buckets for certain prizes. Then they draw a ticket out for the winner. I love to bid on stuff and help drive up the prices, but I never really win anything. So I was really excited to have won this painting by a local artist:

It was donated by a local art/gift shop called Soho Arts. All of the artwork that they sell is created at the Range Center by people with disabilities. I totally love that there is an outlet for that, and a business willing to support it. We have another painting of a big pear that I bought there. I got to meet the artist of my pear painting at the Hibbing Gallery Hop a few years ago. You could tell that he was pleased as punch that I bought his painting and truly love it. It hangs in my kitchen and is one of my favorite pieces.

This new painting will probably go in my kitchen as well. I'm thinking of doing a wine-themed display above one of the cabinets with this as a backdrop. I only paid $20 and probably would have gone higher, but I was the only bidder! I mean, it's no Picasso, but it's cute and supports a great cause! I hope that whoever "Rebekah" is, she knows that her painting was sold and hopefully encouraged to keep at it!

PRO Compression Sock Review

The other day I posted this picture on Instagram:

Hot pink compression socks! I realize they are kind of blinding, but they are fun. I'm not sure why I always steer towards hot pink for my running stuff, but it definitely makes me more visible.

Anyway, compression anything is pretty hot in the running world. I have to admit that I just didn't get it. Compression pants, sleeves, calf sleeves, and socks. What's the hype all about? The best explanation I've been given so far is that it's like a hug on tired muscles. Hmm....ok....we all need a hug sometimes, right?

Making the transition from treadmill to roads again has been a little hard on my poor legs. They are bouncing back, but I still experience soreness from time to time. So, when one of my favorite running blogs (Run, Eat, Repeat) offered a coupon code to PRO Compression, I decided to give it a whirl. Here's what they have to say: "The benefit of wearing compression socks over 26.2 miles, 18 holes or 8 hours at work is the delay of muscular breakdown that comes from spending hours on your feet. PRO Compression works against gravity by helping your vascular system increase blood flow which relieves discomfort and assists in recovery."

This Sunday I logged 9 miles, and put on my hugging socks afterwards. Normally after a long run, my legs are pretty tired and all I want to do is sit down on the couch. These socks are supportive, without being to constricting or tight. The foot part is even a little loose for me. I wear a size 9 shoe and got the small, so if you're foot is smaller than you may want to consider the extra-small. The socks are definitely not miracle workers that gave me more energy, but did offer support through the day. I even went to Walmart to meander around for awhile. Once I took them off in the afternoon, my legs weren't sore or achy like they tend to be.

When it comes down to it, I'm not sure if my body is just reacting better to road runs or these socks are really helpful. But I'm going to continue to use them in the hopes that they are! This is obviously just my opinion as I'm not receiving anything from PRO Compression for my review. Just putting it out there for fellow runners and athletes.

Right now, PRO Compression is offering a coupon code for 40% off plus free shipping with code SOM4 if you purchase the "sock of the month" (purple or light blue) in support of Team in Training and Train 4 Autism.

I'm kind of eyeballing the purple...or the blue...or the purple...

When Pinterest Fails Me

Recently we've been making loads of different recipes that I find on Pinterest. Usually, I check out the supermarket circular to see what meat is on sale, then log on to Pinterest to see what kind of recipes I've pinned involving that meat. We also add in staples like spaghetti, tacos, breakfast for dinner, etc. Then off to the grocery store I go with a Pollyanna attitude. This has been a great way to change up the dinner menu and try new things. 9 times out of 10, the recipe is delicious. Sometimes a little more laborious than planned, but hey...we can't all be perfect now, can we?

Meet the 1/10th:
Slow-cooker White Wine and Garlic Chicken
(I'm not posting pictures or the recipe to protect the innocent original blogger. This recipe just wasn't our style)

It sounds really good, right? Yes, I thought so too. The picture makes it look pretty good. It was relatively easy to throw together, and the house smelled amazing with this cooking up in the crock-pot. So I'm not really sure where it went wrong?

The funny thing is that I actually had to buy wine to make this recipe. Normally, we always have wine in the house. But we only had red, which I'm sure I could have used, but I wanted to stay true to the recipe for the first go-round. So I bought some cheap $3 white wine. I mean, come on, I'm not spending good money on good wine just to dump it into a recipe! Wine is for drinking!

Anyway, the flavor was just kind of off. It was really bitter. The sauce also congealed a bit once it was on the plate.  All three of us ended up scraping the sauce off the chicken. Luckily we made it with some Rice-a-Roni (because we're fancy like that) and veggies, so there was enough food on the plate with other flavors. But I definitely don't think we'll be making this again. Travis specifically asked to take it out of the recipe book.

Have you ever made anything that appeared to be amazing and fell flat?

Ragnar Official!

Hello friends! How's it going?

I'm feeling pretty good today, for a few reasons. The main one is that we have a pretty complete team of 12 for the Great River Ragnar Relay! "Pretty complete" means we have 12 yes's, now we just need everyone's email address to invite, then runners to accept the invite, etc. But we've paid for it! Actually, since I'm the team captain, I've paid for it. Now I just need to get everyone to repay me. :o( That may be some work.

Despite that small issue, I'm pretty excited about it. At the moment, I'm dedicated to runner spot 10, which is 17.3 miles broken up into 3 legs: 8.20 miles, 3.80 miles, and 5.3 miles. It's not the easiest of the 12 spots, but I feel like it's definitely do-able.

So, I've gone spreadsheet crazy entering in paces, leg times, finish time projects, etc. I haven't shared this with my team yet. Don't want to scare them off too soon!

I also had a pretty awesome run this weekend. The weather was really nice. Right around 30 degrees, sunny, with a mild breeze. I even impressed myself with a 9:07 average pace. Not the fastest ever, but faster than any of my other long runs this year! Speed isn't everything, but my 10K pace last year was right around 8:42. I'd like to get near that again for shorter runs before race season officially starts.

Speaking of, this year is kind of "the year of the races". So far I have dedicated myself to 4, and I know there will be another I'll do for sure.

1. HOPE Springs 5K in April
2. Sour Grapes 1/2 trail marathon in June
3. Red Ore Run 10K in July
4. Ragnar in August
5. Rock'n'Roll 1/2 marathon in October

There's another 5K in August that I may do, but I'm not sure of the date. Last year it conflicted with my training season, too. But I love to support local races, so if I can make it then I'm there!

Now I just need to keep up with training, and take care of myself so I avoid injuries.

Do you have any races planned for the year? Spill it!

Turkey Burgers

Do you know how expensive ground beef is right now? I was flabbergasted last time I bought some at the grocery store. Literally shocked at the price. For a pound of 80/20 ground beef, I paid over $4.50.

My friends, that is nuts.

In an attempt to lower our grocery bill, and eat healthy too, I thought of buying ground turkey instead. Light bulb! To my dismay, ground turkey is not as cheap as I thought. At $4.99 a pound, it's more expensive than ground beef, but still....it's healthier. Out of the two options, I figured ground turkey was the better choice.

I had the perfect recipe in mind too. Turkey burgers! But not just your average, plain Jane turkey burgers. These delicious burgers from Food & Drink. I'm totally stealing their photo, too, because I didn't snap a pic of the burgers we made. I was too excited to eat them!

Ingredients:

7 oz. plain greek yogurt

1 medium fresh lemon

¼ tsp minced garlic

¼ tsp dried dill

1.25 lb. ground turkey

6 halves sun dried tomatoes

1 medium red onion

2 oz. frozen spinach 

¼ cup crumbled feta

1 tsp dried oregano 

½ tsp minced garlic 

⅓ cup bread crumbs

1 lg. egg

1 med. cucumber 

6 hamburger buns

to taste salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Prepare the yogurt sauce by combining the yogurt, ¼ tsp minced garlic, dry dill, juice of half the lemon and a dash of salt. Stir everything to combine and then refrigerate to allow the flavors to blend while you make the burgers.

2. Thaw the frozen spinach and squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Roughly chop the spinach to prevent long stringy pieces. Also chop the sun dried tomatoes and ¼ of the red onion.

3. In a bowl, combine the ground turkey with the spinach, sun dried tomatoes, red onion, feta, ½ tsp minced garlic, dried oregano, egg, bread crumbs, ½ tsp of salt and some freshly ground pepper. Stir everything until it is evenly combined. Shape the mixture into six patties.

4. Cook the burgers on a counter top grill, a non-stick skillet or over open flame. Spread the yogurt sauce on both sides of a bun, add a warm burger and top with thin slices of red onion and cucumber.

They use a George Foreman grill, but we just pan-grilled on the stove top. I also omitted the cucumber and red onions (on top, not in the burger) and added slices of tomato and a bit of mozzarella cheese. These are so yummy! The yogurt-dill sauce really adds to the flavor as well. This is a perfect Spring/Summer dish. I can just imagine enjoying one of these on our deck with a glass of white wine. Now if only the weather would cooperate and warm up a bit!

The Joy of Homeownership

Houses take work. Houses need work. Even the most perfect, custom-built, brand new house needs something. Blinds, window treatments, door handles, etc. If you are lucky, before you buy a house all of your friends and family will tell you to have a slush fund for fun little home-ownership projects. If you're not lucky, you find this out the hard way.

Travis and I were lucky. We knew that our house would need work. This is always at the back of our mind. See, the previous owners had the grand plan of "flipping" our home. I've seen the before pictures, and they ain't pretty. However, previous owners had no clue what they were doing when it came to 99% of our house. Plumbing...they sucked at. Painting...also sucky. Flooring...not so great either. So, little by little, we update, repaint, or just flat out replace things that need to be changed.

Most recently, this was our main floor toilet. That toilet was old, short, small, and had a worriesome crack on the inside. Our house is 100+ years old and while I don't think the toilet is that old, it was definitely time for it to be replaced. There was also a weird popping sound in the water line after every flush. Time to go, toilet!

Here it is, forever to be remembered as the "Squatty Potty". Goodbye, Squatty Potty, you have served us well.

Travis and I decided to go shopping for a new toilet a few weeks ago. On a Friday night. We really know how to live it up! Originally, I had in mind to just buy a simple model, for around $100. Good enough, right? But then I talked to my mother, and she's all "You have to buy a nice toilet, don't get cheap. We have a Kohler and it's great!" Yea yea, ok mom.

But then, the worst thing happened. I fell in love with the most expensive toilet that Lowe's had on display, and of course, it's a Kohler. Ok, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. What can I say? I like nice things. Par for the course, that toilet was out of stock so we had to order it and wait a week. It finally came in, and Travis installed it this weekend!

I present to you: Pretty Potty! (Full disclosure, this is what my 2 year old calls it)

See? It has pretty detail, and it's bigger. Like, actual grown-up size. Amazing!

You know, it's really about the little things in life...

Runners Tell All Linkup: My Favorite Running Gear

It's linkup time again! If you missed my post last month from the link up, check it out here. For those of you that are like, "link up? WhatchyoutalkinboutWillis?" Here's the basic gist:

"Runner's Tell All" is a monthly linkup for runners of all ages, skill levels, and experience hosted by Sunshine to the Square Inch and The Lady Okie. Each month they'll have a different topic, and you can find all the topics listed here. 

This month's topic is favorite running gear. I'm currently giving myself a good dose of runner's guilt because I skipped my run this morning (I slept like crap and it was SNOWING), so talking about running is just as fun. 

It's hard to pick one thing that I love out of my running gear. Right now, since it's still winter here in the Great White North, I'm loving on all my winter running stuff. My favorites are probably my Under Armour ColdGear pants and long sleeve tees. The ColdGear Crew top is my go to baselayer for anything under 30 degrees:

Right now they're only offering it in black and grey, but I have it in bright pink and turquoise. Way more fun that boring grey. 

The ColdGear fitted tight is a lifesaver with it's soft fleece lining on the inside. Warm enough to wear alone until about 15 degrees. Anything colder and I put on sweats over them. Plus, they're a bit longer than your typical tights. 

For summer running, I love Lululemon crops. They have a special fabric that wicks away sweat and keeps them from staying stinky. Plus, they're so comfy and really like a second skin. I ran my first half marathon in my Inspire II Crops, and I just bought another pair recently. They can be spendy though, so if you're interested in winning a $30 gift card to Lululemon, participate in this link-up!!

I love these pants because they're a little longer than a typical capri length crop, they're lightweight, and they have tons of pockets. I don't often use the pockets, but it's nice to know they're there if I need them.

I have to say though, by far, my favorite running item is my Fuel Belt. I have the R20 Revenge Hydration Belt with 2 water bottles.

Mine is just basic black, but I added 2 hot pink pockets for a little more flair. This is where I hold all my "junk". MP3 player, cell phone, keys, cash, extra batteries for the MP3 player, energy chews, runner's mace....you name it. I use it for 3 mile runs, half marathons, and everything in between. If I could only chose one thing to run with, this would be it! 

Make sure you visit The Lady Okie and see all the other runner's favorite products too!