Food for Thought
Or, more specifically some thoughts and some food! There’s a couple things that are getting a little old around here… This: And this: Don’t get me wrong… the PT is helping me tremendously. And pool running is… great… in its own way. Let’s just say that I would prefer it if my life doesn’t go on this way indefinitely. Know what I mean? In other news, the Dinner Dilemma continues. Tonight was Taco Tuesday once again, and I tried something new. The “meaty” looking stuff is tofu, which I tossed with a seasoned sauce and then baked- it came out chewy, crispy and delicious! The recipe was from this website. Molly Patrick of “Clean Food, Dirty Girl” gives weekly menus, a shopping list, and step-by-step meal prep for the week, and the meals sound DELICIOUS. I feel a little bad admitting that I made this tofu because this is a pay service, and I didn’t pay for it. One of my co-workers has been doing this for months now, and comes in raving every day about the delicious dinners she’s been eating. She gave me the recipe for the tofu in the hopes that it would convince me to subscribe to the service myself. I’m seriously considering it! If I were making her whole meal it would have included jerk black beans and a fancier mango salsa (not the simple one I threw together.). You prep everything on Sunday, and then have all the components you need to make a delicious dinner every night. To be honest, I probably won’t start this over the summer. There’s too much else going on. But in the fall, when my son is off to college (which means one less person to feed and one less set of opinions to take into consideration, food-wise) I’m thinking it could be just what I need. Anyone tried doing a weekly meal prep? How did that work out? What’s your favorite easy dinner? – Mine is chickpea pasta, broccoli and marinara sauce from a jar!
Weekly Rundown- Everything You Can Imagine…
Hi there! As I said in my last post, I’ve been off of running five weeks now because of my hip issue. I’m happy that it’s getting better, and I’m happy to have a pool to run in. But I’ll be honest… pool running is HELLA BORING. There’s just not that much to say about it. Luckily I’ve been able to keep myself not only occupied, but fascinated, by the podcasts I’ve been listening to. I’m linking up with Kim and Deborah for this weekly rundown. Here’s how this week flew by! Monday For once, not a day off! I went to PT in the afternoon and worked hard for almost an hour. I do all sorts of exercises to strengthen my hips and core. Like… side planks, clamshells, banded lateral walks, step ups, sit ups… it’s really exhausting. But all good! The pain in my hip (really the front of my leg, in the hip flexor area) has pretty much disappeared. I feel it every once in a while, as opposed to limping with every step like I was five weeks ago. MAJOR PROGRESS! Tuesday 45 minute pool run to start my day… And I did my PT exercises in the evening. Wednesday My morning was a bit rushed so I did my “pool 5k” run, where I run in the pool for about the same amount of time it would take me to run a 5k. Then it was off to PT! This time, as I was sweating my way through my exercises, I noticed the guy next to me was GETTING A MASSAGE! Why am I not getting any massages? Grr. Thursday This is typically my strength day, so I did my PT exercises in the morning. It felt great to get them out of the way so I could relax at night! Friday 45 minute pool run in the morning, then planned to do PT later in the day but time just got away from me. I did some of the exercises before bed, but not as much as I should have. During the pool run I started this Rich Roll podcast where they talk about James Lawrence, aka the ‘Iron Cowboy.” James recently completed 100 Ironman distance triathlons in 100 days. And then, on day 101 he got up and did one more, to show everyone that you can always do more than you think you can. You can follow James here if you want to know more about it! Saturday I learned my lesson! Knowing it would be another busy day, I did my PT exercises in the morning instead of a pool run. Looking at the big picture, those exercises are the most important thing so I sacrificed my cardio for the day. Sunday Long “run” in the pool! 90 minutes, and I listened to this podcast with Pete Kostelnick. It was recorded at the end of 2018, and in that year Pete (among other accomplishments) ran across the US. But not from California to New York- no, no, no… that would be too easy (besides, he had already done that and set the record for shortest crossing.) THIS time he ran from Kenai, Alaska, to Key West, Florida- which is about 5300 miles. He did it self supported and- all you moms out there get ready for this- pushed everything he needed in a stroller. In case you’re not interested in podcasts, here’s a short Youtube video about his adventure. So my podcasts and of course the Olympic trials kept me happily occupied this week! I’ll admit I’m itching to get back to running, and am enjoying reading about everyone’s runs and races. Soon, soon… I’ll be there soon. Anyone listen to a great podcast this week? Who’s running a 4th of July race? – not me! I signed up for one but will pass on it this year. Sigh.
A Full Life
When my hip first started to hurt, if you had told me that I would be off running for at least five weeks, I would have screamed, loudly and repeatedly. But that’s what happened- I had to look back through my log to make sure, but it’s been five weeks since my last run. The weeks have passed by surprisingly quickly, In this post I talked about Keira D’Amato, who had to withdraw from the Olympic Trials due to injury. Her advice for getting through an injury is “fill your life.” So what have I been filling my life with? Well… Physical Therapy I started gong to PT, and it takes up a lot of time. I go twice a week for an hour session, and then I spend at least 45 minutes a day doing my homework. It’s time-consuming, and also fascinating to see how my body is working.. or not working, in this case. Here I am doing step-ups. The goal, as in all the exercises I do, is to aim my knee out towards my little toe, because it wants to track inward. Working on strengthening those glute medius muscles! By the way, while I was doing this exercise I suddenly realized how much better my hip is. Up until a few days ago it was still hurting and I questioned my progress, but I couldn’t step up like this at all five weeks ago, and now I’m doing sets of 20! Just goes to show, progress is never linear. The Olympics! I’ve been fanatically watching the Olympic Trials. I watched diving, swimming, track and field (of course) and men’s gymnastics. We decided to stream Peacock in order to get more coverage. I’m loving every single second of it! And look at this tank top from Old Navy… I ordered this one, but they have other colors and styles as well. Books Right now I’m reading this: I try to read a book a week. I know there are people who read way more than that, but this is a reasonable schedule for me. I don’t get a lot of reading time during the day, but look forward to it every night. Besides the fact that I just love to read, I also follow some really fun reading blogs- Modern Mrs. Darcy is my favorite right now. Between those three things, work, pool running, planning our trip to Austin… I barely have time to think, much less dwell on the fact that I’m not running right now. Every once in a while I’ll think, “Oh yeah! Soon I’ll be able to run again!” It will be the icing on the cake. What’s the best book you’ve read lately? What are some things you’re filling your life with these days?
Life Updates
Hello! First of all I hope everyone enjoyed Father’s Day weekend! We just hung out at home. My husband requested lasagna for dinner so I made this lasagna with a tofu ricotta and spinach filling: Now that I’m doing all my running in the pool, it’s come to my attention that our pool area needs some serious attention. To start with, we never took down part of our baby gate (and my youngest is now twelve years old.) This was out of sheer laziness. We didn’t want to deal with the palm trees dropping fronds into the pool, and convinced ourselves that it looked just fine like that. But running in little circles around and around the deep end of my pool, I’ve had a lot of time to think, and decided it was time to take care of it. I spent two hours today working on those palm trees. Taking down the gate was the easy part. Then I collected, oh I don’t know… about 50,000 dead palm fronds that were stuck in all those trees? I pulled them all out, then had to carry armload after armload to the curb. I really called upon my experience with long runs for this project. It was long and tedious. And hot. I just kept telling myself to keep moving forward, and that little by little I would get there. And I did! Unfortunately this is one of those projects where once you start, it becomes clear how much more there is to be done. I’ll post some “after” pictures after I do more cleaning and landscaping. But it was a great start. And look at this pile of palm fronds I cleaned out… Oh, what’s that orange cone, you ask? WELL! Way back in September we had The Great Plumbing Tragedy of 2020, where our main line became completely blocked and raw sewage backed up into both our bathrooms. It was one of the worst days of that year, which is saying a lot. Rapid Rooter came out and, for the small fee of $500, unclogged the line. Then they told us that our whole pipe had to be replaced, at the cost of $10,000. WHAT. We ran this scenario past a plumber friend of ours and his advice was: Do nothing. The line was clear (for the time being) and he suggested that we wait and see what happens, and that maybe eventually we could just replace the part of the pipe that’s damaged instead of the whole thing. Things went along fine until last week when we noticed part of our lawn was completely sodden, next to the sidewalk. We called the water company and they declared it an emergency- our pipe had burst and it’s dangerous to have raw sewage leaking out- and they sent someone from the city over to take a look. The guy from the city came, looked at it, and told us that the damage was on our side, not theirs, so it was technically our responsibility. But since he was there anyway, he said, he would just go ahead and fix it. FOR FREE. “Do nothing” turned out to be a $10,000 piece of advice. As my husband so eloquently put it, “Rapid Rooter can suck it.” And one last thing… Anyone else notice that the women sprinters in the Olympic trials all looked like supermodels??? It was bizarre! When they switched to the middle distances I was like “Oh, here’s all the normal-looking people.” I hope everyone is having a great week! What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Ever had a plumbing disaster? – It’s not fun!!!