Tall, Dark, and Handsome

Thursday

Yoga for Runners this morning due to insane rain and thunderstorms that lasted all last night and into this morning. Another early start, late ending sort of a day today. Breakfast on this cruddy morning was old-fashioned oats made in Raspberry Zinger tea, mixed with cinnamon, chia seeds, and flaxseed meal, and topped with Grape Nuts, PB&Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams, cherry preserves, and almonds. The DCD is not my favorite, or at least I don’t like it as much as I did the Cinnamon Raisin Swirl variety, but I try to not let things go to waste and so will be including this in my oatmeal until the jar is gone. Which, since this is a fairly new jar, may be about a month from now. Chocolate and peanut butter is just not the combination it once was.

First up for the day was Human Nutrition.  Still working on pretty basic stuff right now and nothing too exciting or anything I did not already know. Between that and my Biology lecture, I ate a banana and some carrots dipped in artichoke hommus. The focus of today’s lecture was on, well, I never really know. The lectures and the book seem so disconnected and it leaves me wildly confused. In the middle of lecture, there came crashing and banging. The ran had picked up once more and it brought it’s friends thunder and lightning with it. I flipped up my hood and power-walked to my Biology lab.

We were scheduled to visit a river in lab today, and 60deg weather and sprinkling rain was apparently not going to defer us. I went and stood wearing waders in a flowing river for TWO HOURS. I could not feel anything below the waist or wrists after that. I was frozen and still had to go get groceries as soon as the class returned to campus. Now it’s 8:00pm, I’m home and done for the day, wrapped up in my microfleece blanket and sweats and chowing down on Amy’s No Chicken Noodle Soup that was on sale today and I was craving a nice, hot bowl of soup after my day of being a wet dog. Yes, canned soups do have a hefty amount of sodium, which is important if you need to be watching your sodium intake, but I, luckily, am not one of those people and have actually been told by my doctor that increasing my sodium intake would be beneficial to raise my low blood pressure.

The soup was very good. The smell was great and the texture reminded me of the beloved Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup of yore. Little chunks of tofu “chicken”. This soup is vegan and 95% organic and a definite candidate for consideration of I have future soup hankerings. I’ve been trying harder to get organic when it really matters and when it is available to me. I do not always have the organic option on all my fruits, veggies, and other products, but I do what I can when I can.

Now it’s time to bond with my Biology textbook once more. I sort have been reading rather slowly through this book since it seems to not be very focused or really teaching me much of anything. The only thing on my mind right now is how mentally ready I am to run tomorrow morning!

Friday

Such a lovely, beautiful word. Never will I take that word for granted ever again. I tried out this new Endangered Species dark chocolate, and was a little disappointed. It tasted dry, if that makes sense. I’m not becoming much of an Endangered Species chocolate fan. Run this morning was a hills workout. 3.59 miles in 36:00 (includes 0.15 mile warm-up and 5:00 cool-down). I kept a 6.6mph pace for the majority of it and then sprinted near the end to 7.5mph. It was quite the workout. Inclines over 4% are no joke. I’m pretty sure that the only thing that got me through it was watching my progress on the screen. Core work followed and was accompanied by a nice, hot shower. Ahhh…

Breakfast was old-fashioned oats made in Raspberry Zinger tea, mixed with chia seeds, cinnamon, and flaxseed meal, and topped with Grape Nuts, PB&Co. DCD, cherry preserves, and almonds. The PB&Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter seems to have a very different consistency than I expected. Can anyone tell if this is normal based on the picture?

Later in the morning, in the midst of reviewing my Food Safety notes since we have unannounced quizzes, I ate an Envirokidz Peanut Butter Crispy Rice bar and a little bit more dark chocolate. To gear up for class, I packed a banana and a Mango Coconut SOYJOY bar (too dry) and was off to catch the bus for my Food Safety lecture. We had a pop quiz, which I had a feeling was going to happen so I studied a bit this morning. I got a 21/24. Not bad! Right after class, I walked back to Lyle’s and we hit the town for a bit before I had to come back to the apartment to study and eat dinner.

Dinner was a spinach salad mixed with great northern beans, soy cheddar cheese (I got more because I liked it so much!), artichoke hommus, and Italian dressing. If you’ve never tried hommus in a salad before then you definitely should! It made the dressing super creamy and delicious. On the side was half of a pita with cherry preserves. So simple, and so good.

One of the roommates and I are gearing up to watch The Princess Diaries tonight. I love this movie. The makeover scene is one of my favorite scenes of the movie. Maybe that’s just the girl in me? I hope that everyone is as excited about it being the weekend as I am!

Anyone have any big weekend plans? Are you going to try mixing some hommus into your next salad?