No Exercise Saturday...

I can't remember the last Saturday that involved zero exercise. Even the Saturday before Cowtown I got up and faced the sub freezing temps for a two mile shake out run. I much prefer to start my weekend out with a good sweat session. Technically, had I not sprained my ankle my weekend would have started yesterday, but it's my blog and I can be as technical or non-technical as I want.

I did have a reason to get up this morning, one of my favorite six-year-olds had a big gymnastics meet this morning. I was sad that I didn't get to see him do his recently mastered round-off back handspring, but I did get to see him get his first ever 10.

Austin, he is quite the little gymnast. And look, he started off his floor routine with a nice Warrior III pose. There was even a plank and an upward facing dog. Everything I know about gymnastics apparently I learned at my yoga class.

He did so good, and his team won the team competition! That was a very happy group of 6 to 9 year olds.

Austin with his very proud parents.

I came home to thre 12-year-old who spent the afternoon with Minecraft and My Little Pony. I spent the afternoon like this:

I really am trying to be good and stay off my ankle as much as possible, but it is not easy. It was so nice out this morning. When I was driving to the gymnastics meet I saw a runner out on the streets in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. Yes, I was jealous. We have such a limited number of really nice spring days here in Oklahoma. The weather tends to go from really cold to really hot in the blink of an eye and I hate to miss it.

I do know I am irrational, it's a sprained ankle and I should only be out for a week or so, but again it's my blog and I can be as irrational as I like here.

On the bright side, my swelling is not near as bad as it was on Thursday, I really think my night time use of my CEP compression socks has helped tremendously.

It has become a little less painful to actually put the compression sock on.

The chocolate cookies I made yesterday have gone over very well. I am going to have to bake some more cookies sooner than I thought.

Penny says good night.

 

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Do You Know What a Brony Is?

I have two 12-year-olds daughters, and most days I swear they are speaking a foreign language. Here are a couple of their latest obsessions...

• Minecraft:

I still don't think I have figured up what this game is exactly. I know that the game is about breaking and placing blocks, and that you build worlds, but I don't know what you do with those worlds after you build them. My daughters can spend hours playing this game, and right now Camy and her friend Cassidy are in her room playing this game on two separate computers. I imagine they will be spending most of the night and tomorrow doing this same thing.

Why don't people play Tetris anymore? That is a game that I am actually good at.

• My Little Pony

I remember My Little Pony from when I was a kid, but oh how they have changed. From what I have learned on Wikipedia, the My Little Pony my daughters love is actually the 4th generation. They watch the cartoons on Netflix, because according to Camy season three just ended, and there is endless conversations about the ponies. It is so hard to keep up.

Their favorite store is Hot Topic, and their supply of My Little Pony t-shirts, sunglasses and other assorted merchandise. We were there today buying a birthday present for the slumber party Carson is at tonight.

Apparently, boys that like My Little Pony are called Bronies. At one point they said that girls that like the show are called Pegasisters, but now the girls say they prefer to be called Bronies instead. It is all very confusing. I think if my daughters didn't talk so fast I might be able to keep up a little better.

At least there are a few things they love that I can relate to.

• Big Bang Theory
• Once Upon A Time
• Cherry Berry frozen yogurt
• homemade chocolate chip cookies

Though I feel like I understand them less and less as they get older, I am going to hold onto the hope I will begin to understand more as we go along.

 

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The Oven Still Works...

It is no big secret that I have lost my baking mojo this year. Today I actually made steps to get it back. Since I am not running or doing yoga for a few more days, I tried to sleep in this morning. It is harder for me to sleep in than it is for me to run ten miles.

I got up and decided to try out a new recipe that I saw on one of my favorite baking blogs a few weeks ago. Hostess Cupcake Cookies! How awesome does that sound?

You can get the recipe here. The only change I made to the recipe was I used almond milk instead of regular milk in the glaze, and I used royal icing for the squiggles. I also didn't refrigerate the dough before I rolled it out. Mostly because I was being lazy; I did put the cut dough in the freezer prior to putting them in the oven. In my opinion it's easier to roll out dough that isn't really cold.

You might be wondering how they taste. I think they are fabulous.

The best part of baking, for me, is giving them to people I care about. I know a little gymnast that I plan to box some of these chocolaty cookies up for tomorrow.

I can't wait to see what I mix up next.

 

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Morning Run, a Sprained Ankle and WIAW...

About a mile into our run this morning I rolled my ankle. I stepped on something that was on the path an rolled my left ankle. I walked it off for a minute and felt okay to keep going. Five miles later, we had just over six miles in 57 minutes. Not as speedy as yesterday but I felt pretty good out there.

I don't give up on a run very easily. I did quit after my fall last summer with Rochelle, but I felt horrible about ruining someone else's morning run. It has been just over a year since my horrible run that turned into a stress fracture, and quitting after 14 miles was insanely difficult.

I thought I was ok, I ended up putting on my running shoes and it felt better. After lunch my shoe started feeling a little tight, so I took it off to look at it.

It was a bit swollen. I decided to had to urgent care after work and they did an x-ray. They said it didn't appear to be broken, but they put me in an air cast for at least a week.

Guess if I can't run for a week or so, it's a good week if some of my friends will be out of town for Spring Break. I figure I will see how it does not running all weekend, and maybe see if I can get back to yoga on Tuesday.

To add insult to injury, I got a package in the mail today.

They are so cute! I can't wait to wear them, but I guess I will have to wait a little bit for that. Bummer!

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Now on to WIAW, how about what I actually ate today?

Pizza Shuttle pizza. I went with the Broccoli Shuttle, broccoli, oions, cheddar and mozarella. Pizza Shuttle really has the best pizza. That's a cheezy breadstick on the side. I might want to consider not eating my veggies like this over the next week if there isn't going to be any running going on.

For breakfast this morning I had a little bit of Chobani yogurt, raspberry with dark chocolate chips. I really love this one.

I also had peanut butter with honey and chia seeds on toast. I was too lazy to make my overnight oats last night. I thinkI will make some for tomorrow.

I swear there is going to be some more interesting eats next week. I am hoping to get my inspiration back and spend some time in the kitchen this weekend. I will be limping around the grocery store on Friday, so maybe I will find something new to work with.

 

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Longer Run Tuesday...

My friend Sarah is training for the Go St Louis Marathon next month. Because of that, and because of the undetermine length of my next race, we decided to do a longer run this morning. We have been doing six mile runs on the week days, but we decided to run eight this morning.

The thing about running more than six miles in the morning, is that it involves meeting at 5am instead of 5:15. That fifteen minutes doesn't seem like it would make that big of a difference, but it means that you get in your car when the clock still has a 4 at the front of the time.

NPR isn't even playing Morning Edition at that time, it's still on the BBC World News. 4:30 really seems so much earlier than 4:45.

We did a loop around the Y, something we haven't done in ages, and then meet back in the parking lot to pick up Anne for our usual out and bak six mile route. Our first three miles were pretty speedy. Those splits all started with and 8 and were followed by numbers less than 30 for the first two, and then one that was slightly over 30 for the third one. We settled into a ice 9 minute or so pace for the rest of them.

We did 8 miles in an hour and 12 minutes. It was one of those great Oklahoma mornings, it was cold, but there was no wind.

After work I headed to yoga, now it's about bed time.

My pedometer got quite a workout today. Add in the steps I earned for yoga and it was a 30,000 step day.

This is what I feel like.

Rocky is dog tired. Can you call it dog tired if you are actually talking about a dog? Maybe it would be better to just say tired. Whatever, I am dog tired.

 

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Breakfast that Tastes Like Cookies...

The secret to being able to find yourself in race pictures of a race that was so cold and wind you couldn't see your race number?

Wear purple when everyone else is wearing green.

Race pictures are usually terribly expensive and they usually look terrible. Imagine my surprise when I ran across this picture when I was glancing through the race pictures from yesterday. I was even smiling at the camera. I had just ran downhill with a tail wind, no wonder I was smiling.

I discovered overnight oats last year, but I just didn't like them that much. I love the idea of them. Last week I saw a post for peanut butter oatmeal cookie dough overnight oats. Man that is a mouthful! I took the recipe and made a few changes and this is what I came up with.

3/4 C old fashioned oats

1/2 C almond milk

Big spoonful peanut butter

1 Tbsp Chia seeds

spoonful brown sugar

I put the oats in the food processor to grind them up, and then mixed all the ingredients and put it in a mason jar overnight. In the morning I added more almond milk to make it stir-able, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds to warm it up a little, and then stirred in a chopped up banana. Yum.

The texture of the oats were much better this way for me. I was always a bigger fan of cream of wheat than I was of oatmeal, by grinding up the oats it made it much less chewy. I think that was part of why I liked them much more this time.

Plus I didn't feel hungry all morning. I have a second batch in the fridge for breakfast tomorrow. It's like I baked without turning on the oven.

 

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Run Lucky 5K...

My friend Kim convinced me last week that it would be a good idea to run the Run Lucky 5k today.

What seems like a good idea when I am sitting at my desk isn't always a good idea when you wake up and temps are in the low 40s, winds are 25 mph, and the windchill is in the low 30s. I was really considering not going, but as with all runs where I am joining friends I showed up. I would be lying if I said that we didn't consider just hanging out in the car during the race, and there was also talk about just turning around and going home.

There were pre-race pictures.

Kim, Dwight and I can you tell we were freezing?

The race started and we immediately headed north, straight into the crazy Oklahoma wind. The route was not entirely flat either, but at about the half way point we turned back to the south. Downhill with a tail wind, was pretty wonderful after running straight into the wind. The kilometers seemed to click by, funny how short a 5k is two weeks after a marathon.

I was happy with my time, I never felt like I was dying, and my splits weren't bad.

Mile 1-8:48

Mile 2-7:52

Mile 3-7:50

Total time was 25:34, 7th out of 131 women in my age group and 50th out of 957 total women. 8:08 average pace and I was very happy my pace got faster throughout the race. In all, not a PR but I am very happy with how I did.

Me, Janine, Kim & Dwight

Dwight & Kim

Me & Kim

I just love Kim, and there have been too few faces with her in the last year. So glad she talked me into this race, and even though I hate running 5ks, I sure love running races with my friends.

 

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