Running for my life

Running has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  It started in elementary school with a boy who chased me around the playground trying to kiss me.  (EWWW!) He jump-started my love of long distance running.  Not really, it wasn’t fun at the time, but I was really good shape- I kicked the boys’ asses in the mile run test in PE.   My next significant running memory is from middle school field day.  I won one (or maybe more?) of the field day sprints.  Or maybe I didn’t even win, but I had a good time and everyone made such a big deal of it that it is stuck in my memory.  Next stop- high school cross country.  I joined during my sophomore year and continued through my senior year.  My first year was the best fitness-wise, but the whole experience was fun and built a strong foundation for running on which I am still building.

So that brings us to the present, more or less.  I have made several attempts to run a marathon in the last few (or more..) years.  My first attempt was with Derrick during undergrad.  This is when I learned that marathon training is tough shit.  You will be tired. You will lose sleep- especially when trying to keep good grades in engineering school.  Needless to say, I didn’t make it.  Derrick did it though!  I didn’t watch him run because we were in an … awkward phase of our relationship, but I was so proud of him that day.

I tried again during grad school at NCSU.  (Is it strange that all my time points are marked by school? How will I keep track of time when I am no longer in school?!) I trained with my friend Chris.  We did mostly trail runs and he was way faster than me.  I tried to keep up, pushed myself way to hard and ended up with IT band issues.  Issues that I am still dealing with today.  I went to physical therapy for a while and it seemed to be fixed.. until I started running again.  Now I am trying my hand (legs?) at a marathon again and I can feel the slight pangs of early IT pain.  Damn you IT band!!

So now to what was supposed to be the actual focus of this post:  trigger point therapy for IT band.  My mom bought me a trigger point book a couple years ago to use for my tension headaches.  When my IT band starting hurting again, I decided to flip through it to see if there were any trigger points associated with that area.  Turns out there are, and that most of them were so tender/tight.  Mostly the points are in my gluteal muscles (aka rear end) so the tennis ball has been getting a lot of ass-massage action.  It does seem to be helping so I can’t help but ask the question- is there actually such a thing as IT band inflammation? or is it just redirected pain from trigger points?  hmmm…

Soup and Tofu

I finished up the two recipes earlier this week and they both turned out delicious! Although, the tofu was definitely the star of the party- marinated tofu, where have you been all my life?!

Browning up nicely in peanut oil.. (although, I must admit the first ones were a little ‘blackened’)

Sautee’ing the veggies…

I didn’t take any pictures of the soup, but just imagine soup with tomatoes, white beans and kale!  It is very healthy- lots of iron a folic acid- and surprisingly tasty.

Derrick and I love getting foccacia bread from Village Bakery, but it is a little pricey.  So when I saw the recipe for rosemary foccacia bread I knew I had to try it.   It also has garlic and way too much salt- I will use less next time and then it will be perfect.  Here is the ‘before’ rising picture- I always forget what it looked like initially so I can’t compare to see if it doubled.  The iphone camera makes my life so much better.

So thats all the cooking I am doing for this week.  We have enough leftovers to last maybe through the weekend! woo hoo!

Rebar

Derrick and I recently returned from an awesome two-week vacation to the northwest.   We drove all the way to Canada with stops in Portland, Mt. Rainier NP, Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria, Olympic NP and Redwoods NP.  We ate a lot of good food- one place in particular was called Rebar in Victoria, BC.  It is a mostly vegetarian restaurant and one of the best places we ate.  It just so happens that they also publish a cookbook, which we promptly purchased when we got home.

I have looked through it and I want to make everything!  Most of the recipes are pretty time-consuming though so I am going to aim for 1 or 2 per week.  This week I am making “Tuscan white bean soup” and “Chiang Mai Tofu Grill.”  And maybe the rosemary foccacia bread if I have time.  The Tofu grill calls for kaffir lime leaves and sambal oelek, neither of which I have heard of before.  I couldn’t find them at the CO-OP so I made substitutions.  For the lime leaves, I added lime zest and a bay leaf; for the sambal oelek I added some red chile flakes.  I haven’t finished yet, so I will let you know how it tastes.  Next time I will have to try the Korean grocery to see if they carry those items.

As of now, the tofu is marinating:

The sauce is made:

And the beans are soaking for soup tomorrow:

Causeway

Waiting

On the road again

Camera

Just another garden post

love my garden.   Even when everything else is going horribly, I can find solace there.  Perhaps I am like the crazy cat lady, except with plants.  Its spring so everything is starting to pick up- its even rained a couple times so I just come by to visit and magically my plants are watered.  

So I know the internets are just dying to know what I have growing this year so I will tell them!

First exhibit: my one survivor strawberry.  All the rest died from neglect last year.  

Here is the view facing north- things look really great from this direction; a couple small broccoli plants on the left, chard and beets on the right and herbs and flowers in the back.

But then you inevitably have to turn around to find this:

Look at all those weeds!  Those are on my to-do list for the weekend.
While I was picking some flowers I heard a rustling and looky there!

 

Here leezerd leezerd…

  

There you are! Posing so nicely!  He didn’t seem to nervous about the crazy lady with the camera.  And then on the way out I spotted some poppies in a fellow garderner’s plot.  I love poppies!

This concludes our garden tour, please come again!

GSA carpet

Gourmet dinner