Feeling a little lost.

Usually my weekends end up flying by and before I know it I'm packing my lunch for school on Monday.

This weekend was different. On Thursday I stayed at school till after 6:00. I got my whole week of lessons planned and prepped. Then I came home and prepared soup for next weeks lunches and the two pot-luck dishes I would need for the weekend. I also got two loads of laundry done. I think I finally sat down just before midnight.

The Husband and I went to church and lunch with my family on Friday then another gathering on Saturday for lunch. Other than that...I slept in, watched a lot of tv and went for a couple shorter runs. For the most part I just felt really lost. I VERY rarely give myself time to relax. This weekend I think I found out why. As soon as I have more than a couple minutes to sit I start to go crazy!

I know that this next week will be very busy and the week following that I'll be back in university and begging for some time to relax. I will try to savor this week and the moments of down time I have.

Maybe I should find a book to read this week?

p.s. Today I ran 6 miles with NO PAIN!
I followed that with a protein shake (thanks G!), ice bath, foam roller.

Stats:
1:05 min.
6.53 miles
9.57 min/mile
168 bpm

Food!

I think one of my favourite things about running is that it allows me to eat the foods I like and not feel guilty about it. That being said, the Husband and I have been trying to cook healthy meals at home more consistently. Today was a great day for food!!

I had a big run to do today so I started my day with a bowl of oatmeal (as I do every single day). I packed my gatorade, water and sport beans for the run and was off. Just like last week I planned to do part of the run with my group and then head home by myself. Today I ran with the group for 5 miles then turned around to come home. Everyone was in good spirits today. I think they were just happy to be doing 15 miles instead of the 20 from the last two weeks. After some quick goodbye's I turned around for home. I decided to take a different route home and thought I might be a little short of the 10 miles I was hoping for. Turns out I was wrong and ended up with just under 11 miles. My knee held out pretty well. I won't say it was pain free but it was definitely manageable.

When I got home I fought the urge to hop right back into bed and spent some time stretching, doing strengthening exercises and massaging my IT bands with the foam roller. Then it was time for my favourite Sunday meal, SECOND BREAKFAST!

Today it was a smoothy that included:
-1 banana
-blueberries
-coconut water
-orange juice
-strawberry yogurt
-protein powder

I spent my afternoon grocery shopping, making soup and watching a movie in bed. The soup turned out so great! Here's a link to the recipe. I did make a couple changes. I substituted the hamburger for ground turkey and I used sodium reduced taco seasoning. To get some more flavour I added a little bit of course salt and some chili powder. This soup is now in 3 containers in my freezer plus my lunch bag for tomorrow. I took less than 10 minutes to make!!!

Tonight the super awesome Husband made pizza for us to eat while we watch hockey. Go Canucks!

Stats:
10.85 miles
1:53 min.
10:26 min/mile
165 bpm
1285 calories burned (so much more room for yummy food!)

Free Running Stuff!

I recently started following a running blog written by a lovely lady in Utah. She is very sweet and runs barefoot (so she's also super tough).

She is giving away some cool stuff on her blog. Be sure to check it out.

mmm waffles!

Today was kind of a turning point. I need to decide if I will be running the Police Half Marathon at the end of the month and I haven't run more than 4.5 miles consecutively in weeks. Every time I get past 4 miles I have terrible pain in my knee, thanks to my IT band.

My plan for today was to go out with my group for 4 miles and then turn around and head back home. I figured that if I could run 8 miles today, 10 next week, 12 the following, then the police would work nicely as a training run for the Fargo half.

Well, it went great!!! It was so nice to run with the group again. The first 4 miles flew by, before I knew if I was waving goodbye and heading back home. I managed to complete the run with very little pain. I did stop on a couple of my walk breaks to stretch. This seemed to help.

The river is already looking scary high. I'm hoping to get some better photos this week.

I probably would have felt a little sad about leaving the group if I didn't know about the delicious food waiting for me at home! It was my mother in law's birthday so we had a brunch at our place, pot-luck style. It was my first time making waffles from scratch and I even made a traditional Mennonite "white sauce." This sauce has been part of our family Christmas tradition for as long as I can remember. It's similar to a vanilla custard. SO GOOD!

Thanks mom for lending me the waffle irons and recipe's.

My sweet family eating yummy brunch.

Stats:
1:35 min
8.63 miles
11:03 min/mile (maybe going slower IS the key?)
+3 degrees

A date with Dr. Spencer Reid

I have not had much time to blog these days. I decided that this was the year to finally go back to school. I've been taking an Intro to Inclusive Education course since September. It has been a ton of work. I have one final project left and I have been working on it for months. The general idea was "Make a change in one of your student's lives." Well, I tried and now I have to write all about it and create a power point presentation to tell all my peers about it. I am seriously hoping to be finished with this assignment and course by Friday night. Watch out MTS centre, I may feel the need for some crazy fun this weekend!

Tonight however, I was able to justify a 4.5 mile run. I figured it would help clear my head and give me some energy to work. This is the farthest I've been able to run in weeks and it went quite well.

The last quarter mile of the run my IT was starting to tighten up so I took it easy and and headed towards home. Time for a good stretch session followed by some ice :)

I will be spending the remainder of my evening with these two friends. Thank you Dr. Spencer Reid for being so darn cute. You make working long hours on my project just a little bit easier.