Shopping Event #5

So after a whole week of blogging every day like a good blogger, i fall off the face of the earth.

Finals will do that to you.

But now that I have a moment to breathe (pre-run, in 40 degree, post rain weather), here some bad decisions on my part:

Smarty pants Lauren decided she would take a trip to target and whole food on Thursday afternoon (last thursday).

POOR CHOICES.

because after I said I wasn't going to grocery shop like a crazy person any more, I DID JUST THAT.

In my justification, a lot of what i bought from whole foods was on sale?

2 evol burritos - sale 2/$6 + b1g1 coupon = $3 (woooo!) (already eaten, haha)
organic baby spinach - $1.99 (almost already eaten)
pirates booty - sale $2.50
okois vanilla - $2.19-.50 coupon = $1.79
kettlecorn - sale $3.00
annies organic spelt pretzels - sale $3.00 + $1 + $.75 coupon = $1.25
adora dark chocolate calcium - 8.99
chia seeds(!!!) - 6.99
dr. praeger's veggie burger - 5.99 + $1 coupon = $4.99 (ate one)

= $34.36


In my defense, I was also iron-loading, which is like carb loading, but for donating blood.

old picture, but still badass :)

and guess what? i was 110% successful last monday morning. So i donated blood like a boss, and the jumped head first into finals week. It's starting to slow down again, so you can expect more consistent blogging next week.

Dexter-Ann Arbor Run + Cancer Kickers

After a heartbreaking afternoon at work yesterday, I signed up for the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run Half Marathon under the Cancer Kickers Team.

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Cancer Kickers is a foundation formed by Phil Brabbs, a former Michigan football player and a Multiple Mylenoma fighter.

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The Dexter-Ann Arbor run will be my very first half marathon, June 5, 2011. 48 days away.

By joining the Cancer Kickers Team, I'll be fundraising for the UM Comprehensive Cancer Center, clearly a cause I care about.

My donation page is here if you should ever feel like donating. Every little bit counts.

Working at the children's hospital has made me realize how important each and every day is. How I need to get out there and run every day because my body lets me do that.

And how important cancer research is. It is the cutting edge research that's going to save lives, day in and day out. Children should never have to die from cancer. And they do. Every day.

On this Marathon Monday, with all its excitement and passion, I think its important to recognize how those passions can help others.

Long Run + Friday morning Breakfast

Friday morning I woke up earlier than normal and headed with a few nutrition-concerned friends (aka members of the Student Advocates for Nutrition group), and headed to breakfast.

It was an unusual breakfast as it was at this house:

selma's

This is Selma Cafe. A local couple opens up their house on Friday mornings to serve a donation-based breakfast. All the money goes towards building hoop houses. And breakfast was incredible. They bring in local chefs every week.

We sat at the kitchen counter, so we got to see the awesomeness of the cooking process, and I had major kitchen envy from this absolutely beautiful kitchen.

There were two specials offered, and luckily both were ordered between the four of us so I could provide pictures of both!

deliciousness

This was my cheesy grits, fried egg, and wilted greens with bacon. It was incredible.

And this was the other special. Toasted bread, ham, poached egg, some sort of delicious (but bad for you) sauce.

We also drank the best coffee with incredible half and half made with raw whole milk and cream.



Oh and the other cool part - the entryway is covered with the nametags of everyone who comes and eats on Fridays.

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Yesterday morning was the long run. I was worried, because the weather forcast predicted rain all day. Luckily, after waking up at nine, eating toast and PB, and a banana, The rain was still holding off so I decided to get out and run.

It was possibly the best run I've ever had. I loved it. Usually the first few can be rough. This run was always good. I ran 6 miles without stopping, then grabbed a water, popped 3 shotbloks (which I LOVE. omg hello candy for runners), and did a quick pee break.

Then ran the two miles home fastest of all. Woo for negative splits (sort of).



This run had zero pain, zero struggles. and this morning I woke up without any pain either. AWESOME.



April Grocery Shopping Event - Post #3

Yesterday, is where my crazy grocery shopping kicked in. Yesterday is why I'm doing the April Grocery Shopping Event.

For some reason I felt the need to empty out trader joe's.

I think I did a pretty good job:

shelled english peas - 2.99
medjool dates - 4.49
coconut water zico x2 - 2.98
fat free balsamic vinagrette - 1.99
chocolate chips - 2.29
organic zucchini - 2.99
goat cheese medallions - 3.79
sunflower seed nut butter - 3.99
fusilli pesto pasta - 1.99
farfalle four cheeses - 1.99
tea tree oil - 6.49
organic applesauce x2 - 4.58
black beans - .89
organic frozen strawberries - 1.99
coconut chocolate ice cream - 2.99
coconut strawberry ice cream - 2.99
whole grain tortillas - 2.49
sweet potatoes - 1.79
happy days bouquet - 3.99

vola trebbiano pinot grigio x3 - 7.47
wine bag - .99

TOTAL = 67.29

I don't think I've ever spent $67 at trader joe's before.
WHOOPS.

Highlights:

so freaking adorable

English peas. My mom and I were just talking about how lame it is that I didn't have peas. Now I do!  I'm excited for these!

my life is complete

I was recently introduced to the beauty of coconut milk ice cream at Jolly Pumpkin, an awesome local restaurant. I am 110% hooked. I busted into the chocolate last night and it is SO GOOD. Also, at 2.99 each, totally reasonably priced. thank you trader joe's for fulfilling my wish for TJ's brand coconut milk ice cream.

Hello vino. Quite excited about this $2.49 italian pinot grig. One of the ladies I work with recommended it and I am so excited for it. I love fruity wines. So naturally i bought 3 bottles.

And to perk up my windowsill, an adorable little bouquet. Love fresh flowers.

So yes, my trip was a little excessive, but so many purchases were replacements for things I actually ate all of! examples: zico, balsamic vinaigrette, chocolate chips (well actually i just melted half of these on the stove -- whoops! fyi, you shouldn't leave a bag of chocolate chips on the stove when you're cooking muffins in a crappy apartment oven), applesauce, sweet potatoes.

If I can reduce my shopping next week, I think April will turn out okay in terms of food shopping, but we'll see.

I've also done some excessive online regular shopping -- whoops. See target go international dresses on clearance and j.crew 30% off sale. btw, i love being an enabler.

Tropical Smoothies + Michigan Awesome

I made some pretty impressive eats in the past 24 hours!

Trust me, when it comes to making meals, I am all about simplicity, and I don't have any problems straight up saying: "most of my meal involved me pouring things out of containers. no chopping, no peeling."

It did involve some boiling, and a tiny bit of sautéing.

This is the sauteing:

This is tj's frozen veggies mix + Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy

This combined with sweet and spicy tuna from a package:

and then wild rice cooked in chicken broth

Pretty delicious and pretty simple.

Breakfast this morning was equally simple. When Gabriela posted about a strawberry blonde smoothie yesterday, I knew I had to make it.

Super simple mix of: banana, strawberries, pineapple, coconut water, + vanilla

I was a little worried about my crappy blender handling all of this, but there was a generous amount of liquid thanks to the coconut water and all was well! (I added in the pineapples after, because there wasn't a ton of room at this point)

Blend blend blend

TADA! In my rockin' orla kiely for target tumbler.

I really really loved this smoothie. It was so tropical. I didn't put in as much pineapple because I wanted to actually eat some of the spears, so it was more strawberry-y than anything else. but still a very delicious start to my morning.

And for fun, the picture taking corner of my room. That window is seriously AWESOME. I take all my morning food pictures there. love morning light!

Yesterday's afternoon run was not my best, but I trudged through, and actually did it at a faster pace than my last five-miler. So wooo for that!

First mile? SO GOOD. and then downhill from there.

Not sure how many of my blog reader's are from Michigan (if you ARE let me know because I'd love to do a blogger meet up!! OR IF YOU KNOW ANY MICHIGAN BLOGGERS, link me to them so I can stalk them and encourage a meet-up!), but there's an awesome t-shirt company called (appropriately) Michigan Awesome that makes the best Michigan-spirited shirts ever.

They also have fantastic customer service. I ordered a "smitten with the mitten" shirt from them a few months ago, and they sent me the wrong size. So instead of having me send it back, they told me share the Michigan love and give it to someone else. AWESOME.

Today there is a LivingSocial deal for MichiganAwesome! Pay$15, get $30 worth of clothing/gear (including shipping costs!). I definitely bought one this morning. I can't wait to expand my Michigan-love collection.

All you fellow Michigangsters (this is a MichiganAwesome coined term as well which I LOVE): go buy the deal and show your michigan love :)

Passion Tea Lemonade

Yesterday after a long day of finishing up a paper, a class presentation, work, and yoga, I came home and was dying for something a little bit sweet and cool.


It just so happened that roomie was looking for a box of tea (that is strangely, still missing?), and the idea to make a huge container of iced passion tea arised arose. (blogger is telling me this is not a word. can anyone confirm/deny?) (Thank you kait for your english language expertise)

I took a page from miss ella and followed her very basic instructions here.

Just a bunch of passion tea bags, in a huge pitcher with half hot water, half ice.

This baby took 2.5 whole trays of ice cubes, but it was worth it to drink it cold almost immediately after making it.

Now this was just the tea, so its not quite shaken passion tea lemonade YET.

but all it takes is a splash of costco's organic volcano lemon juice:

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And it is essentially starbuck's shaken passion tea lemonade. WITH NO SUGAR.

sometimes I amaze myself.

With regard to the training plans, I have done little since Saturday's long run. Yesterday was my usual monday night power yoga. I'm bummed because next week is our last class and the instructor is graduating. I'm not sure how I'll get in my yoga next year, but hopefully I can find another fab instructor.

I had an easy end to my night plopped in front of the tv watching Bethenny Ever After. Oh my lord, when they were talking about what they were going to call Bryn's vagina?  And when Bethenny called Julie a sherpa?!  Oh lord, Bethenny KILLS me.

The weather is looking good today, so I'm planning on an evening outdoor run in the just under 60 degree weather. I'm excited :)

Half Registration and Relay for Life

Yesterday I signed up for my very first half marathon.

Now when I run it, it won't be my very first half marathon as I am planning on one in between now and then, that I just haven't registered for yet, BUT, regardless, I'm going to run a half marathon.

Come next October 16, 6 months, 5 days, and 12.5 hours from now, I will be running the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon, which includes running over the Ambassador Bridge, and back through the tunnel. Yes, I will be running underwater. 

I considered running this last year but the training never happened, and thus, I am still without a half medal :(

But not for long!

I'm considering doing some fundraising for this half as well.

Over the weekend, I spent some time at Relay for Life.

Relay has always been one of my favorite events. It's become even more important to me now that I've spent a lot of time working on the 7th floor of C.S. Mott Children's Hospital - Pediatric Oncology.

My Luminary this year was actually for one such 7-Mott patient.  Casey is the most adorable little boy I have ever met.  He loves lightning mcqueen, hockey in the hallways, and brightening my day every time I see him. Which thankfully, hasn't been in a while thanks to a cord blood transplant.

I recently came across giraffy's blogspot, and was reminded again of the prevalence of childhood cancer.

So yes, I'm thinking about fundraising for one of my half's. Someone should get something out of my struggles to run 13 miles right?

What are your charities of choice? What causes are you passionate about?

food shopping + weekly long run stats

Another week, more food shopping.

I went to Trader Joes' on Thursday to pick up more essentials.

This spread would include:

pineapple spears (they make me feel so tropical)
grape tomatoes
multigrain sandwich thins
chocolate chips
creamy unsalted peanut butter
creamy goat cheese
bunch of asparagus
3 bananas
 apple honey butter! (very exicted about this new product!)
 2% lowfat greek yogurt
organic garbanzo beans
chocolate chips
shredded pepperjack cheese
and a vegetarian pizza

Also, yesterday morning I baked for Relay for Life. Trader Joe's boxed cupcakes and Martha's Pumpkin Muffins.
 In other news, Half Marathon training has been going well.

Yesterday was the 7-miler, which was good. I ran to the Arboretum, which was great. It was so nice to run on ground that had some give to it - instead of just hard concrete.

See that nice 22 minute break between Lap 3 and 4?  That's getting to be a pretty consistent problem.
It's mostly because I forgot to turn off my garmin the other day which sucked all the battery life, but I have yet to actually run longer distances (5+)  without stopping for a little bit. I haven't stopped because it was absolutely necessary, but rather that it was a nice break, so my next longer run I think I'll make sure not to stop.  Although that means I need to get some sort of water holding device. Still determining which one to get -- any tips crazy long distance runners?

Camelbak? Amphipod? Nathan?


I need some advice!!

I run for cookies

So in all honesty, part of my running motivation comes from the fact that when I run 4 miles, I justify things like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies as an appropriate addition to my daily plates.

This is probably not a good plan overall, but hey, who said I was a good role model?

Last night I baked up a storm with the aforementioned oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. This recipe made a TON, which is possibly problematic since they'll sit on my counter tempting me for days (although I did manage to get rid of 2 of the 4 batches, so that's a good start).

I've made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies before and they were pretty disastrous. seriously. epic failure.

these on the other hand are phenomenal. Woo hoo for delicious cookies.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Mel's Kitchen: here


1 cup brown sugar (I mixed half light brown sugar and half dark brown sugar. not sure if this had any impact on the cookies, but like i mentioned before - phenomenal)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole wheat flour (note: you can sub all-purpose or white whole wheat, or do a mix. I've done it all ways -- these cookies are quite forgiving)
2 3/4 cup oats
~1.5 cups chocolate chips

cream the sugar and the butter (in your fancy kitchenaid, or by hand). add in eggs and vanilla. mix until soft and fluffy. add power, soda, and salt. add flour oats and chocochips. scoop in 2 tbsp. servings onto parchment paper lined baking sheets.

bake for 10-12 minutes (they'll be VERY soft at first, but once they cool they turn perfectly chewy. mine took 12 minutes)

TADA! (I also had to recreate this for you all because I was rushing to get the broomball and didnt have time to snap the final product)

The motivation for cookie making was my fabulous broomball team.

Broomball is a crazy sport played in tennis shoes on half of an ice rink with mini-soccer balls, and sticks with paddles on the end.  sounds ridiculous, i know, but so much fun.

Obligatory youtube video explaining it. (skip to around 3:00 to see the actual game)



also, i actually know people in this video. pretty cool.

Broomball can be pretty vicious though. check out this battle wound:

stick to the thumb right there people.

also check out the green nail polish - hell yeah martian 5k!

April Shopping Event

So Happy (beleated) April bloggies!

This April I'm deciding to take a page from Stacy and do a grocery event where I track everything I buy and whether it gets used or wasted (which happens more often than I'd like to admit).

So last Friday, after lululemon complementary yoga was cancelled, and i bought ANOTHER pair of groove pants (its an addiction.  but omg unicorn tears is incredible!), I took a trip to trader joe's, my grocer of choice.

It was more of a pick up a few random things trip rather than a "here's ingredients to make these meals" trip, but thats okay.

Anyway, here's what I picked up:

Zico Coconut water x2 (for the impending 7 mile run this weekend, and the 8 mile run the following weekend) - 1.49x2 = $2.98

Pineapple spears - $3.29

Kerrygold butter (THE BEST BUTTER EVER.) - $2.79

Pure florida orange juice - $5.49

Asparagus - $1.99

Organic Gala Apples - $2.49

Sourdough bread (which actually went home for my parents to eat most of, but that's okay) - $1.99

+ Daffodils (because they're 1.69 and make me smile when I see them) - $1.69

Grand Total? $25.80

I also went Costco shopping with my mom over the weekend, and while I didn't snap a picture of everything I bought, here's the highlights:

ORGANIC strawberries 

       costco always has tons of huge containers of strawberries, but they're rarely organic. and since strawberries are near the top of the dirty dozen, i always go organic for them. this time they had them and i stocked up

Annie's Bunnies

huge container of organic spinach

Those strawberries were the star of my pre- and post-run breakfast this morning.

TJ's plain greek yogurt, sliced strawberries + udi's vanilla granola

so delicious.

Race Recap - Meteor 5K

RACE RECAP!

So Saturday was my race in Dearborn as part of the Martian Invasion.

On Friday night my mom and I headed to the race expo. I'm sure it was not nearly as fun as some of the other expo's that occured over the weekend (I'm looking at you more|fitness women's half), but it was still fun to pick up my bib, chip, and race shirt!

I LOVE the alien theme.  I think its so freaking fun.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early, noshed a banana and some quaker oatmeal squares, and then was off to race.

My mom tagged along and was my handy photographer for the day. Thanks mom!

about to get started. nice that she told me about my tag sticking out

and i'm off

I went into the race with no expectations. I have never run a 5k before, and my longer runs usually hit around a 9 minute mile pace. Ideally, I was happy with under 30. I blew that out of the water.

Something about the competitive nature of races gave me super powers. My mantra was "you can do anything for three miles," and I did.

Despite not having run since Monday night (an easy 2 miles post-yoga), and despite still having the remnants of a cough/cold, I ROCKED the Meteor 5k.

My chip time was 24:26.1, and I ended up 2nd female in my age group, 6th overall in my age group (just shy of the cash prize!  bummer!), 19th female overall, and 79th place for the entire run. Pretty damn impressive :)

After the race I grabbed a banana and bagels, as well as PIZZA.  what a great idea for post-race food!

cutest picture ever. 

i apologize poor people for subjecting your post race faces to the blogging world

And my final reward to myself for the race was a very berry sundae from costco. 

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SO GOOD