training – Page 3 – Movin' it with Michelle

Five things, Friday

July 12, 2014 Movin' it with Michelle

This week has been a little crazy. I am working 6 days this week, which always puts me off course in trying to get everything done around the house.

So here are my “five things”…

1. Taking the time to unplug more, has given me a lot more time to read, write, cook, and get stuff done around the house. Today was my only day off, so I cleaned the garage, finished staining my deck, and repainted my fire pit. Note to self, use the right color paint. I accidentally bought WHITE heat resilient paint, so as soon as I started spraying I thought OH CRAP. A second trip to the home depot saved the day. It is now a pretty black.

2. The hubby and I have stayed on point with our half marathon training. We were both visibly tired tonight when get got home from work, and while we stood on our driveway I said, “I don’t want to run.” This rarely happens. But I just wasn’t feeling it. It was humid, and getting ready to rain and I simply was feeling like a lazy thug. We ran anyway, and finished at a decent pace of around 9:45. We normally do our long runs at a 9:30 pace, but I needed to slow down, and heck, that’s ok sometimes too.

3. I have truly been enjoying taking my youngest to dance class at the park district. She really enjoys it, and although I am still having a hard time getting her to focus during class-I see how happy she is and that makes it all worth while.

I can't help but to sing this song on the way to her class, LOL — I can’t help but to sing this song on the way to her class, LOL

4. Note to self: do NOT eat this for lunch on the day of a longer run. Yeah…my stomach nearly killed me the entire 10k.

photo credit to JM — photo credit to Jersey Mikes

5. I rarely wish days away, but I can tell you I am already dreading the next two days of work. I am not doing my regular job as a Histology Lab supervisor, as a few of the lab supervisors have to rotate through weekends being in charge of the ENTIRE lab. Yikes…I hate not knowing the answers to people’s questions…Is it Sunday afternoon yet?

Yup, this will be me. Pray for minimal crisis control this weekend, PLEASE! LOL

What are you training for? Do you ever have to step out of your comfort zone at work and do additional duties? If so, how to you cope?

Have a great weekend, gang!

goals

Real life adventure…

July 11, 2014 Movin' it with Michelle

I’ve taken a step back from the electronic world so to speak somewhat. I have decided that I need to regroup, and refocus on my passions.

Yesterday my hubby and I went out for our 4 mile training run. I briefed him that this run would be at a steady pace, and that he simply needed to stick with me. We are in week 8 of an 18 week training plan while juggle working weekends, life, kids, and disintegrating windows coming off of our sum pump failing. So last night after our appointment with Pella window dudes, we laced up and ran.

My dailymile recap went a little like this:

Great training/fartlek run with Brian. I can’t decide between my favorite moment for this run:
Jumping in the puddles, flying with my arms spread open yelling WHEEEEE, or Brian asking me to sneak off in to the woods, or kicking his butt while barreling up the hills at a 9:06 pace…
Splits were 9:30, 9:27, 9:12, and 8:51.
BOOYAH

We completed our 4 mile run at a 9:15 pace, and held strong with negative splits. But the best part of it all? Spending the evening celebrating with a glass of wine, and talking. I am blessed to be married to my best friend, the man I can share everything with…after talking about our friend’s pregnancy, we revisited the miscarriage we encountered just shortly before the conception of our baby Sophia in 2005. And I cried. I wiped the tears away remembering how hard it was to lose a child. But I was blessed by a gift from God to have been blessed with a second child after doctors telling me to NOT try again in 2006.

I continue to wipe away the tears after reading the book, “One Lavender Ribbon” written by Heather Burch. This book was about a women in her late 20’s that was recently divorced. She picked up her life, moved to Florida and decided to restore a Victorian home. While doing so, she found letters written in the WWII time frame, and sought out the Veteran that the letters were addressed to…in turn she found family, love, and hope.

My night was complete after taking my youngest to her dance class. Her passion is music and dance, and for years I couldn’t find a class that adhered to the working Mother schedule. Yet for the last 4 weeks I have been able to come home from work, get her ready, and take her to class.

And so, and the end of the crazy busy day, I realize how very blessed I am. I work. I train. I am a Mom. I am a wife. I am a friend. And it’s all just plain awesome.

dedication

Movin’ forward with flexibility

July 9, 2014 Movin' it with Michelle

I posted the question on my Facebook fan page today, as to whether or not people are flexible with their workouts. As I was driving home from work tonight, my husband texted saying he was running late with meetings therefore our scheduled run would have to be postponed. I could’ve freaked out and ran without him, but I am so excited that he is embracing running that I opted to move our scheduled run from today, to tomorrow.

So what do you do when you have a night free from running? ~~Take a nap~~ Cook dinner and housework, of course, finished with some much needed strength training.

I really wanted a nap...just sayin'... — I really wanted a nap…just sayin’…

Tonight I made homemade crab cakes with spinach and cornflake ‘crumbs’ to keep them gluten free. Although I don’t have Celiac disease, I have noticed limiting my gluten has helped my Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I served them with red beans that I soaked and sautéed for HOURS along with cauliflower and shitake mushroom yummy goodness. Yup, overall delish! (I only had one tiny piece of bread, lol, I am weak).

After dinner while my husband mowed our ginormous yard, I thought hmmm…maybe I should run. Maybe…but the yummy food stuffs had settled nicely in the bottom of my stomach, so I opted to clean windows, and do my strength work out which consisted of:

3 sets of bicep curls

3 sets of shoulder presses

3 sets of squats-25 each

50 sit ups

50 push ups

tacking on a 2 mile walk today for good measure

Tomorrow the ‘window guy’ will come and assess our windows…I am nervous after having just spending a pretty penny on 2 sum pumps, but the condensation is getting so terrible that it needs to be addressed. Oh, and after this lovely appointment my hubby and I have some miles to tackle.

The ultimate point of this post is, are you flexible with your work outs when life stuff gets in the way?

food

4th of July festivities and foods

July 6, 2014 Movin' it with Michelle

Well, despite our basement partially flooding on Thursday and having to fork out more money than I care to admit I have to say-this weekend has been awesome so far.
I started the weekend with a 4th of July eve 4 miler…it went fairly well, and despite still having some breathing problems I was able to hold pace.

Friday we got together with my amazing friend Carolyn and her family for the 4th of July festivities. They have included us in their family tradition for the last 3 years, and I feel so blessed to have them in my life. We met up at her folks house to gather for the parade. I missed it last year due to work, so found myself extra excited to spend the entire day with such amazing people.

After the parade, we dispersed and took a much needed nap.
We had primo seats for the fireworks, and I was able to catch a few really good shots. Here’s one:

Today should’ve been ‘chore’ day as my house looks like a tornado hit it…I finally finished washing all the towels used to soak up the water for Thursday’s flood, but the rest of the housework is lacking. I asked my husband what he wanted to do today this morning, and he said, “Let’s go on a picnic!” Deal. I was IN. My oldest daughter was at a friend’s BBQ party, so we gathered our youngest, a cooler, our picnic basket and a bunch of yummy food and headed north on the Fox River.

I finished up the day by making this amazing zucchini, squash, and potato soup.

Here’s what you’ll need:
2 yellow squash, peeled and cubed
2 zucchini, peeled and cubed
2 red potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 white onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 pats of unsalted butter
2 tablespoons of avocado oil
2-3 cups of unsalted vegetable stock
Seasonings to taste:
Kosher salt
Coarse ground black pepper
Turmeric
Cayenne pepper
Smoked paprika
Tarragon
Basil
Thyme
Dill
Parsley for garnish

Heat a large sauce/soup pot on medium heat and add in one pat of butter and the avocado oil. Next, add your garlic and onions and sauté for 3-4 minutes until lightly translucent. Add in the rest of your veggies and seasonings, and cook for about 10-15 minutes or until the veggies are soft. Next, add in your veggie stock, and simmer for another 5 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender (see pic) or in your food processor.

Taste your soup for desired seasoning, and add your second pat of butter. Stir well, and serve! My hubby asked for seconds! 🙂

What is your favorite way to spend the 4th of July?

Do you enjoy soup? What are your favorite kinds?

Have a great day, and thanks for reading!

❤ Michelle

dedication, food, goals

Sammiches and Speed, in no particular order

June 4, 2014 Movin' it with Michelle

The new season of Master Chef is upon us, and after watching the first episode last week I decided it is time to step up my game if I ever want to even DREAM of trying out. Regardless of whether or not I try out-I plan on upping my recipe collection and continuing to work on someday writing my own e-cook book. This cook book will encompass not only recipes for fancy dinners, but recipes for people on the MOVE.
So last night for dinner, I made Panini’s.
What you’ll need for a family of 4:
4 chicken breasts, pounded out thin with whatever have in the kitchen…I use a meat tenderizer hammer/gadget
–season with salt, pepper, oregano and basil and pan fry with avocado oil until lightly browned on each side-set aside
4 pieces of genoa salami
8 pieces of Ezekiel bread (or your favorite bread of choice)
thinly sliced parmesan cheese, 2-3 pieces per sammich
2 thinly sliced tomatoes per sammich
1 cup of baby arugula lettuce, 1/4 cup for each sammich give or take…
For the spread:
1/2 cup light mayo, mixed with one clove of garlic minced, 1/2 of a lemon juiced, pinch of oregano, basil, and cayenne pepper.

Preheat your griddle on high, and butter the bread lightly with unsalted low fat butter. Compile your sammiches with the above ingredients, lightly coating each piece of bread with your yummy spread. Once browned lightly, place on a cookie sheet, and see the attached pic for my make shift Panini press.

Cook at 325 degrees with the sammiches pressed for about 10 minutes at 325 degrees. I served with pita chips and stuffed tomatoes! The tomatoes were seasoned with evoo, salt, pepper, and stuffed with low fat mozzarella cheese/parmesan cheese and seasoned with salt, pepper, oregano, basil and parsley.

Quick, easy, and healthy all around for the most part…:-)

Today was run night, so after work I came home and made a quick dinner of tacos and beans before heading out to get our miles in. I can’t eat before I run, so we ate after our run.
I warned my husband who has started his half marathon training full force that I was feeling pretty tired and wasn’t sure about how fast I could go…he nodded, put in his ear buds and we took off. We had a 3 miler (ok, 5K because I can’t just run 3 miles lol) scheduled, and starting out I felt oddly strong. It normally takes me a few miles to warm up yet as we took off I felt strong. We finished our first mile in 8:51, and suddenly my goals switched from easy miles to running our 5K in sub 9 minute miles. Our second mile was a 1/4 mile of up hill so we clocked it at 9:02…I wasn’t going to let this sway my goal of a quick speed work run at this point, so we pushed each other the last 1.2 miles with a 8:50/7:58 min tick.

As a previously known ‘solo’ runner, I have found an inner peace and a new found respect for my husband as we train TOGETHER. We push each other, encourage each other, and at the end of each run we end it with a sweaty high five and “good job.” I still enjoy running alone, don’t get me wrong…but having my husband along side of me during these runs has given me an added boost that I really needed coming off a fall injury. I started to doubt myself this winter, wondering if I would ever run another distance race…wondering, questioning, asking myself CAN I DO THIS ANYMORE??

But I can now say…YES. I can do this…I CAN break my sub-2 half marathon goal THIS year…I don’t NEED anyone other than myself, to say, YES I CAN. But it sure is nice to get accolades from fellow runners, page owners, and blog posters. THIS, brought to you by Run Nerds Rock…he posted it on my page today and I had to choke back the tears…THIS dude, that just ran a 100 miler was telling ME I am bad ass…LOVE it.

And I tell you what…I feel pretty darn bad ass. I am no Kenyan, but my progress makes me proud regardless, in speed work, in the kitchen, and in my life.

Keep Movin’ forward gang…always…

❤ Michelle

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