Miss Rachel

The race I did on Sunday was OK: I finished, and I didn’t come in last. I came in 457th out of 480. I walked the first two miles and ran the last (the miles were marked along the course). It was a flat course, and the scenery was beautiful, featuring one of my favorite things: old houses because it was in Old Wethersfield, a historic district in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

It was kind of a solitary race for me. I ran by myself, but I did manage to exchange hellos with a few spectators and a cop near the end who told me I was almost there. At the finish line, they announced my name – wow, way to make me feel special – so I put my arms up in the air. Then I collected a bottle of water, found some shade and managed to lower myself onto the grass and wait for Sweetie to finish the 10K. Even walking as much as I did I was pretty beat: I acted kind of like my dog Blue when I was trying to sit down on the grass afterward. He has 3 “regular” legs and 1 deformed leg so he always kind of flops when he lies down: thunk. I kind of “thunked” down too, and I don’t have a deformed leg. I was pretty hurtin’ there for a while, but I walked today, and I’m feeling much better.

I did manage to make dinner for us Sunday night: curried cauliflower and peas served over “jubilee blend” brown rice. Remember rice? I love quinoa and pasta so much I sometimes forget about rice, but it’s nice now and then.

We had a nice dose of cooler weather last week, but the summer heat has returned full force this week with potentially record-breaking high 90s. Fortunately, I don’t start school until the weekend after Labor Day weekend. Much as I look forward to returning to the beautiful campus, the current weather is not putting me in very back-to-school frame of mind.

In other news, I re-reading The Secret Garden, a book from my childhood and it’s even better than I remembered.

And I’ve bought a “season pass” on iTunes to Mad Men (now in it’s fourth season), and I’m loving it as much as ever.

Tags: Blue, books, cauliflower, grains, peas, race reports, running, summer, TV

So last weekend I said I could not run because of excrutiating pain (from falling on the stairs), but on Monday I tried it on the treadmill, and found the I could run without pain (other than the normal discomfort running causes me). I took a step all prepared to stop immediately, but I didn’t feel any leg pain so I kept going. My thoughts were “Yea I can run” and “Damn now I have to run.” But it was good. And on Wednesday my friend and I met and did our 2.25 mile run on the path, and that felt good too. As good as running can feel for me. I’ve said here before there’s no such thing as an easy run for me and that’s still true.

So tomorrow is the 5K that I had planned to walk because of continuing pain and the way the pain curtailed my training. Now I know I can run without pain, but of course I still did not get the training in so I think I’m going to do some combination of walking and running tomorrow. Tonight before dinner, Sweetie (who is doing the 10K) asked “Are we carbo loading?” and I said as a matter of fact we are. I boiled up some whole wheat linguine, coated it in pesto, and topped it with steamed green beans. There are no leftovers.

And my sweet tooth is still “on” so I made some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I have revised my recipe slightly, using one and one eighth cups of flour instead of one and one fourth. I think the texture is better with slightly less flour.

I hope everyone’s having a good weekend.

Tags: chocolate chips, cookies, green beans, pasta, peanut butter, pesto, running

One of my goals this summer was to run a 5K: train for it and have a good race, beating my time of ~42 minutes (I’m slow, but that’s OK). I registered for one that’s being held next Sunday: August 29th. Training was going OK, but I had not been really trying that hard. I planned to step it up, but then I got an injury. I was all dressed up for a work meeting and rushing down the stairs (at home) in my pumps and then I tripped on the last stair and fell in a heap. Ow. I got a bruise on my knee, but the main problem in that I “did something” to my leg. I’m not sure what I did, but I’m still limping a little and when I tried to run just a few paces on the treadmill last week, the pain was too much and I had to stop almost immediately and just walk.

It’s still not better yet, more than 10 days later, and I’ve come to the decision that I better go see my doctor, and I will give her a call on Monday. I’m guessing it will require an X-ray because my leg looks OK, but doesn’t feel right. The pain is not exactly in my calf and not exactly in the back of my knee, but somewhere around there. In addition to going to the doctor, I’ve also had to accept that I’m going to have to walk the 5K. I feel disappointed about not running the race, but it’s better than not doing the race at all (which I had considered). Besides, if I can get my leg fixed, I can train to run another 5K in the fall. There are tons of 5Ks in the fall, and even though a lot of them are on Saturday when I’m in school (remember school?), I’m pretty sure there are some on Sundays, and I can do one of them.

***************************
On to pizza….

I assure you pizza is something you do not have to give up if you’re vegan. Just leave out the dairy cheese. There are vegan cheese options, including the latest creation, a brand called Daiya that is very good. However, I’ve found it can be really good without cheese altogether. Cases in point…

Pizza with artichoke hearts, red onions and sun-dried tomatoes:

Pizza with pesto, fresh tomatoes and Vidalia onion:

Unlike my feelings about pie crust when I don’t feel you’re really making pie unless you make the crust, pizza crust is something I feel it’s OK to buy pre-made. I buy the dough frozen and then when I decide to make pizza, I put in the fridge to thaw early in the day. I’m doing that right now because we’re having pizza tonight. I’m not sure what the toppings will be, but I’ve been keeping a jar of marinated sun-dried tomatoes on hand at all times for pizza purposes so I think they’ll be part of it. What do you like on your pizza?

Tags: artichokes, onions, pesto, pizza, running, tomatoes, vegan dairy

So I’ve been struggling with depression lately and felt really shitty earlier this week. Like, I was getting a little scared about how bad I felt, but I persevered and seem to be holding it together pretty well. I did feel like crying once at work today, but then I realized the work stuff I was getting agitated about was really no big deal. As I said, I’m holding it together.

Somehow in spite of the depression I have managed to keep working out. This morning workout regimen I decided to try out a few weeks ago has really caught on. All the good things I’ve heard about working out in the morning – it gives you energy, you get it over with, it kick starts your metabolism – were things I always believed, but the idea of waking up and working out right away just sounded awful to me. In fact, that still sounds awful to me, but waking up and doing my normal morning routine (coffee, blog reading, packing my lunch), and then going to work out is great.

Wednesday is the day I go running with a coworker friend. I was feeling rotten au gratin on Tuesday afternoon, but I IM-d her, and asked are we running tomorrow, and she said yes. Wednesday morning we met and I said I don’t want to do this, and she said, but we’re going to do this. And we did. And by the end of the run I was smiling. Wednesday is running day. Even Anthony Martignetti runs on Wednesday.

Tags: depression, friends, running, TV, working out

Saturday I got up and had my usual coffee with So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer.

Then I had a toasted hemp bagel with Earth Balance, and I took my supplements.

I debated about whether to photograph the AZO, but then I decided that yeast infections are something many women suffer from, and they’re nothing to be ashamed of. If you’re someone who suffers from chronic recurring yeast infections and haven’t found anything that works to prevent them, I suggest you try the AZO Yeast, Natural Symptom Prevention and Relief. I take one tablet a day, and it really seems to be preventing the infections. (And I’m not being paid to say this.) I take two calcium-magnesium with vitamin D supplements in the morning and two in the evening for a total of 1,000 milligrams a day. My doctor was really pushing me to take calcium for the last couple of years, and I couldn’t really argue with her, especially since my mother has osteoporosis. It took me a while to get going on taking them regularly, but earlier this year I made a concerted effort to get in the habit. A few weeks ago I decided to try taking spirulina to increase my energy. (I take three spirulina tablets in the morning and three at night.) I don’t know if spirulina is a waste of money, but I do seem to be feeling pretty good so for now I’ll continue.

As I had my coffee and my bagel and my supplements, I thought about running, feeling as if I needed to do it, since I hadn’t run since Wednesday. One reason I’m afraid of running is because I’m afraid I’ll be uncomfortable. I usually am uncomfortable when I run. There’s no such thing as an easy run for me at this time. Of course the only way to get comfortable is to do it more. So I went and ran at the park yesterday on my own, without the aid of a running partner or the treadmill, and I was uncomfortable, and I was slow, but I managed two and a half miles. Not bad, huh?

***************************
And now it’s time for my new blog feature: The Random Meal of the Day

Let’s go back in time and look at a dinner I made in January (!): pan-fried seitan, baked sweet potato and curried cauliflower with peas. I bake the sweet potatoes at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes, and cook the seitan thusly: heat safflower oil in non-stick pan, slice the seitan and place it in the pan, and cook until browned, about 5 or so minutes on each side. For the cauliflower, heat oil in a large skillet with a cover, add curry powder, and then the cauliflower pieces. Once the cauliflower is somewhat coated, I add water to the skillet, dump in some frozen peas and cover and steam the mixture until it’s done. You’ll have to excuse the lack of instructions as far as exact measurements and times. For a number of years, I cooked using recipes in cookbooks, and I believe this practice got me comfortable in the kitchen so that now I just cook intuitively, usually knowing what “enough” of an ingredient is and how long to cook something till it’s “done.”

Happy eating and running!

Tags: bagels, cauliflower, coffee, meal of the day, peas, recipes, running, seitan, supplements, sweet potatoes, vegan butter, vegan dairy

I am working 4 10-hour days this week, and then I’ll have Friday off. My department likes to have a couple people to answer phone calls after 5 so that’s what I’m doing. I still want to work out though so I got the crazy idea to work out before work on Monday and see how it went. I’m generally not a morning exerciser, but it just seemed to make more sense to work out then instead of going to work then working out in the afternoon: changing clothes and showering in the middle of the day and then going back to work. In case you’re wondering why I wouldn’t just work out after work, it’s because working this schedule I’m done at 7 so even if I felt inclined to work out at the hour (which I highly doubt), the gym closes at 7.  The way I did it I came to work in my work-out clothes, stopped at my desk, put my things away, put my food in the fridge and then went down to the gym with with my work clothes in my gym bag. Then I ran intervals on the treadmill – 3 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking for 25 minutes. Then I cooled down and stretched, took a quick shower, got dressed and was up at my desk by 9. It went so well I did it again today. And I think I will do it again tomorrow.

You know there are so many opportunities to make yourself feel bad, sometimes without even looking for them. For instance, I read a number of fitness and running blogs and people will say things about having trouble keeping up their 8-minute mile pace or one that said her friends said Runner’s World magazine is not for “real” runners – huh?   So there I was on the treadmill struggling through 3 minutes at a time at a 12-minute mile pace with Runner’s World magazine propped up in front of me.  Since I was running and walking I couldn’t really read it, but it gave me something to look at other than the machine.  And I felt good.  I have to remember that this is about me and what I’m doing and that I may be slow and that I may like to look at Runner’s World, and if some people who I don’t even know are critical of those things, then that’s about them, not me.

***************************

In other news, I’ve been taking pictures of my food throughout the past 5 or so months, but not nearly enough of them have made it to this blog, and I think I need to change that. Therefore,  I’m thinking of doing a “meal of the day” or “what vegans eat” feature here  so I can start posting the pics of the ummy food I eat.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of the latest banana bread that I made.  This time I had 4 bananas  so I was closer to the right (2 cup) amount of banana pulp the recipe calls for, and the bread came out great, if I do say so myself. The thing is you have to bake it for a long time when you use that high an amount of banana pulp. The original recipe says 50 minutes, but I find you need to bake it for at least an hour so it’s fully baked in the middle.

It was delicious with some Earth Balance on it, but Blue proved it can even be enjoyed plain. While it was cooling on the table and I was out of the room, Blue managed to hop up and bite the corner off of it – !   I told him he was a bad dog, but he just wagged his tail at me.  Guess I have to keep a closer eye on delicious smelling foods cooling in the kitchen.

Tags: banana bread, blogging, Blue, meal of the day, running

As I mentioned in previous posts, I’m planning on doing a 5K this summer after I’ve gotten some training done for it. But last week I ended up doing a 5K without training for it.  The gym at work was sponsoring a *fun* 1 mile walk and 5K run in honor of National Employee Health and Fitness Day.  A coworker asked me if I was going to do the 5K,  and I hadn’t thought about it too much, but decided why not.  The other three members of my (underwriting) team also decided to do it, and I got pretty pumped up about it even thought I really wasn’t trained for it.

The day of the race was beautiful – bright and sunny and 80-ish degrees. The temperature and sun didn’t bother me, but the running did.  After we started, everyone else in the race passed me, and I do mean everyone.  It didn’t take me long to realize that I was last.  As I continued trudging along, I realized that I was probably going to stay last.  I started feeling a bit nauseated, and then I developed a stitch in my side, but I kept going, albeit slowly. After a while some of the fast starters began to pass me as they headed back down the trail. There are some really competitive men at work and you could see they were all serious about the “fun run.”  However, I did appreciate how one of my coworkers, who is training for an Ironman (!) said, “good job Rachel!” when he passed me.  I thought that was nice of him.  It’s like, he could see I was working, and that this wasn’t easy for me.

Fortunately, I was able to turn off the trail to do the loop so I didn’t have to see everyone going by me as I was still heading out. Through the whole race, I tried to keep my friend V, who was wearing a yellow tank top, in my sites. A couple times I lost her, but for the most part, I was able to see her, even though she was far ahead of me.

The feeling of nausea and the stitch in my side went away, but the race seemed really long.  A couple times I thought of walking, but I was afraid if I walked I wouldn’t be able to start running again.  So I kept running, even though my pace had slowed so much I was almost walking.  There were a few a people around the course to direct and cheer the runners, but by the last mile me and V (who was far ahead of me) were the only two people still running. My friend S actually came out and ran with me when I got near the end to keep me going (what a sweetheart, huh?) and when I got to the finish line, I found that some of  my other friends and coworkers were waiting there for me. They didn’t have to do that but they did, and I told them how much I appreciated their support.

I finished in 43:01 (approximately; there were no chips) which is actually slower than the 5K I did in December, but I was also less ready for this one.  I honestly didn’t really feel bad about being last.  I was just so glad I was able to pull it off.  I emailed my brother about it, and he wrote back, “Glad to hear you did the 5K!  I really try to think of races as a personal accomplishment.  It’s all about ME.  Think of how many people didn’t even try.” Exactly.

Tags: family, friends, race reports, running

The main news here is that spring semester is over. Woo hoo!  The last week of it had some pretty intense writing (and freaking out), but I got the paper done , did a presentation and got an A in the class.  It’s been a week now, and I’m still reveling in being done!  At least for now.  I need four more classes to get my degree.  But still – four more classes – that’s not many at all.

Right now I’m in Rockport with Blue, visiting my mom and Andrea (my sister) and the cats of course.  I brought Woody’s ashes with me to give to Andrea.  Sweetie and I still miss Woody, but she was my sister’s cat for years before that, and besides, with the ashes of Max (my dog) and Trinka (my cat) on the fireplace mantle, I feel like that’s enough.  I don’t think I will be saving the ashes of all my pets for years to come.  I mean, it could get out of control.  I did put Woody’s personalized ceramic bowl on the mantle though.

During the last few weeks of the semester, I gave myself something of a pass on working out, planning to train for a 5K and hit it hard once I was “free” again.  I pictured myself running fast and feeling great.  It didn’t really end up going that way.  Monday I didn’t have any running buddies so I ended up walking (I ran for like two minutes somewhere in there) the 2.2 mile path at work, then Tuesday I went to Power Sculpt class (more on that in another post), Wednesday I bagged out, but on Thursday I did run-walk intervals for 20 minutes on the ‘mill and 10 minutes on the recumbent bike, and that felt more like it as far a training for a 5K. That is, training to *run* a 5K. I have to do some more cardio this weekend too…

I also kind of took a break from cooking the last couple weeks of the semester, but last week, I got back into it.  I guess it’s fortunate that I love vegetables so much since they’re naturally vegan and healthy.  Monday night I made of my favorite combinations: braised leek, Swiss chard and corn served over soba noodles, seasoned with roasted sesame oil and nutritional yeast.

I also adore the seitan made by The Bridge, (admittedly, I haven’t tried any other brands yet), but I hadn’t had any for a while when I finally made some on Thursday.  I came home from my workout and slapped together an easy but yummy dinner: pan-fried seitan, Road’s End Shells & Chreese, and steamed asparagus.  It was all delicious, and especially great to have seitan again.  I’m going to make sure buy some more for the coming week. A friend mine who tried seitan after she learned how much I love it commented on Facebook that she’d like to love it but she really doesn’t.  Oh well, more for me then!

Tags: animals, asparagus, corn, leeks, nutritional yeast, pasta, recipes, Rockport, running, school, seitan, sesame, Swiss chard, working out

We have no internet or telephone at my house, and it’s really thrown a wrench into my weekend plans. The phone I can take or leave, but not the internet. I came back from class yesterday hoping to wipe out some of my brain cells watching The Real Housewives of New York City online, but alas it was not to be. Also, the paper and presentation I’m doing for my class (due next week!) is on Web 2.0. I called the phone company on my cell phone and the problem supposed to resolved by tonight. Tonight?! I’m dying I tell you. Right now I’m at a local coffee shop that has free wifi, saving webpages I may need to use as web archives so I can read them offline. Oy.

In other news, what I’ve been up to lately has been mostly working, sleeping, and worrying about my paper. I did run on the treadmill twice too.  I have given myself a pass on working out until my paper is done, but I decided it would be more helpful than not to do a couple light workouts last week so I did run / walk intervals on the treadmill.  There is a new treadmill at the gym and I love it.  Running on it felt so fast and easy.  It also helps that I did it with NO incline.  I usually put the incline at 1% which I’ve read simulates running outside.  I was surprised how much easier it seemed running without the incline, but I went with it since I was trying not to tire myself out too much.  Need to keep my energy for my paper. Which I’ve only written about a paragraph of so far. And that’s all I going to say about that.

Another thing that has happened in the last couple of days is that summer weather has arrived!  Remember in my last entry I said we were having a cold snap? (I think they even got a couple of feet of snow in Vermont last week.) Well, that’s over now. Yesterday it was sunny and up in the 80s!  It was a beautiful day, even a bit too hot last night. Yup a few nights ago, I was wearing two sweaters and lying with a blanket over me, and last night I opened the windows and was commenting on how “hot” it was. But that’s New England.  The weather’s always doing crazy things.

That’s it for now. Back to sipping my cafe au (soy) lait and reading blogs before heading home to the internet-less zone.

Tags: coffee, internet, running, school, spring, vegan dairy

Last Sunday was the O’Hartford Race.  I did not run it, but I did go to support Sweetie (who finished in under 30 minutes – w00t!).  I usually think St. Patrick’s Day is kind of silly, but I have to admit that despite the chilly, gray weather, the atmosphere was fun and the good time was contagious. Lots of funny costumes and a mini race featuring people running with glasses of beer on trays, trying not to spill. I decided that I want run this race next year (the 5K part, not beer on trays part).

I sent Sweetie off to the start and then I watched an Irish string trio and got a Hooker Ale before heading off to the arch to cheer people on. I managed to see Sweetie and get his attention too.  Then I walked to the finish line to meet him and passed by this cool sign with arrows pointing to various attractions in Hartford.

We saw people heading to an Irish pub, but we headed home after the race and I made up some yummy guacamole which we enjoyed while watching a Dr. Katz Professional Therapist video.

After the guacamole and video, we took a nap together.  It was a good day.

Tags: guacamole, Hartford, race reports, recipes, running, Sweetie, TV