Kaylya

This week hasn't been super great. I just got my 2nd run in and haven't done any STR. If I run home from work on Monday, I will beat my all time monthly distance though!

So week 3's summary: Again with 5/6 planned workouts. I actually think it might be better for me to have 6 planned, but with feeling totally ok with dropping one, than to plan 5. And I feel like I've had a good reason for most of the days I've missed. My only concern is I've mainly been missing strength or yoga - but I think that will change as the weather gets less pleasant for running. Thus far it's been pretty good for this time of year Meditation is not doing so great, I got in 2 10 minute sessions and 2 others where I squeezed in a few minutes but got interrupted. Best week so far on the food quality.

I've just made that cauliflower soup recipe the once so far (will definitely make again!), and I used fresh as it was in season. But I imagine frozen should work great too.

Ooh - I've been trying to think of ways to use up tahini, as I bought a thing of it (for a cauliflower soup recipe of all things). I can only eat so much hummus Since it's a recipe thread, here's the cauliflower soup (Can be optionally paleo and/or vegetarian). Serves 6, takes about an hour from start to finish. Ingredients: 1 head cauliflower broken into florets 2 medium onions peeled & quartered 6 cloves garlic peeled & left whole 2 tbsp Olive oil 3â„4 tsp black pepper 4 cups Chicken or vegetable stock 1â„2 cup heavy cream or full fat coconut milk 1â„4 cup tahini 2 tbsp chili garlic sauce e.g. sriracha Preheat oven to 425F. Place cauliflower florets, onions, and garlic on rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil. Add salt and pepper; toss to coat. Roast for 30 minutes, turning once, or until tender and beginning to brown. With a food processor, puree roasted vegetables and then add stock and process for another 30 seconds. OR With a blender, blend vegetables with stock, in batches as needed. Pour into a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through. Whisk together heavy cream, tahini, chili garlic sauce, and 2 tablespoons water. Add 1/2 of mixture to soup; stir and continue simmering for another minute or two. Serve soup drizzled with remaining tahini cream, optionally garnish with more chili garlic sauce and/or cilantro.

I was all set to make some delicious soup for lunch, but during step 1 (chop onions) I cut my finger Badly enough that continuing to make soup was out of the question while I held a gauze pad against it, not badly enough to seek medical attention.

Awesome on being called a Serious Swimmer! I feel special when I feel justified being in the fast lane at public swimming (which depends on who else is there and what I'm doing) Good luck with your Oly! Sucks about the car. Glad it wasn't serious, but I know even close calls can shake you up a bit, I've had a couple times out walking where I've almost / slightly been hit by a slow moving car at a crosswalk.

Made Wednesday my rest day, glad I did, I was feeling pooped. I ran home today; the forecast was calling for near certain rain, but, I figured I'd bring my stuff and give it a go as long as it wasn't torrential (worst case scenario I can still hop on a bus in my running gear). And while it was a little bit drizzly, it wasn't too bad at all. Did have to dodge some puddles, but the parts of my jacket that are most wet are not wet from rain Now off to meditate, which I haven't been super consistent with.

RAR, looking at my Runkeeper stats and the week of Nov 9 is now registering as my most distance run this year. Though notably slower than the week in April that's the same distance. And if I keep up this rate I'll blow past April's total running distance; I'm just a hair from beating Oct which is my 2nd most running in a month this year Leftovers of last night's stew were improved by the addition of more salt, pepper, some garlic powder, and parsley

Ok, freezer is officially full. Made a big batch of chicken stew today. Alas it's a new recipe and it's only ok.

This week I didn't get STR in on Thursday because I had another thing going on. I was going to do it on Friday, but my hip decided it didn't want to do things like go up or down stairs. This has happened before - it's like once every couple years one of my joints decides it wants to act up for a day for no particular reason. It was fine when I was sitting, not too bad while walking except for the first couple steps after going up - but I avoided stairs as much as possible. Today it's fine, I went out for my run. Made some meatloaf and a butternut squash & quinoa gratin for the freezer

I missed meditating Monday and Tuesday. I got it in this morning. I ran home but I was tired and walked a lot towards the end. And then I was really hungry and ate a little more than I should have, which combined with some choices earlier in the day I'm giving myself a 2 for food choices (thus far I've been mostly 3's with a few days at 4). Right now I have Friday as my rest day; and I like that because I feel it makes it easier to shuffle things later in the week if needed. But I'm sorta feeling I need it more around Wednesday. Or maybe I should try going to the gym for strength in the morning, so that I've got an extra ~12 hours to recover before my next run. My plan right now is: M - Run home from work (~7km, takes me about an hour, I walk some) Tu - Strength W - Run home from work Th - Strength F - Rest Sat - Run - currently shorter than my run home from work, but by the end of the challenge this will be my long run Sun - Yoga

5/6 workouts for the week 7/7 days meditated Made a big pot of squash & lentil curry, another pot of carrot ginger soup, and my Friday & Saturday dinners each had a portion leftover that's now in the freezer Strategy workout out for improving my meal plans

A winter Half in Rochester is pretty intense for a first race! Good luck

I pay for Runkeeper Elite in part because I want to support them, but mostly because it gives me more graphs to look at Alas I've got a lot of peaks and valleys in my graphs. I went out yesterday, with my plan having me at running for 30 minutes, but feeling pretty tired and sore and telling myself I could turn back after 10 minutes. Ended up doing a loop instead of an out and back and ran for 35 minutes (and then walked about 6 minutes at the end for cooldown). Didn't really do any walk breaks (there's a few parts where I took a few walking steps when passing people or through the more technical bits of trail); pretty sure it's the longest I've gone without walk breaks in quite a while. That puts this week at my 2nd furthest in a week all year, and I'm within 2km of my all time record. Next week will probably be about the same. Today I think I need a rest day rather than going to a 90 minute somewhat intense yoga class. Though I may do a more relaxing/stretching yoga video later. I've ramped up my activity a decent amount the past 2 weeks

I also love snap peas for veggie snacks. A little peanut butter (or other nut butter) goes great with celery.

So, I've learned that a meal planning site I've used off and on, plantoeat.com*, can do some basic nutritional tracking, which was one feature I thought it lacked (it's probably a combination of it hasn't always had it plus it's a bit hidden). I signed up for a trial of EatThisMuch.com last week, which tries to automatically create meal plans based on some nutritional goals, but coming up with automated plans that are reasonable and to a person's taste is definitely a hard problem to solve, and I definitely want too much control. Plan To Eat is drag & drop meal planning and then it can make you a shopping list etc. So, with that in mind, I'd like to spend 30 minutes, once per week, on a combination of meal planning, entering new recipes, adding nutrition information to existing recipes, and otherwise learning how to effectively use the site. And I expect that by the end of the challenge, that investment will be saving me time *It's a pay site with a free trial, unless, like me, you signed up years ago while they were still in beta.

Welcome back! It can definitely be hard to keep up that motivation to run over the winter when the nice days are few and far between, but I've been slowly getting better at it. 2 years ago I got in a run at least every 2 weeks through the winter (as opposed to stopping for ~3 months), and last year it was at least weekly, despite it being an exceptionally cold winter

Back on target, ran home again today. I don't think it's the first time I've done it twice in a week, but, not often. A little more tired than Monday and walked most of the last km. With that, I have now run more so far in November than I did in all of July (when I ran 12.7km)! My run on Saturday should take me over June's total (where I ran 16.7km, 5k of which was part of the tri...). Next week will probably have me beat August, January, and September. My activity levels definitely peaked in April/May and then took a big dip after my triathlon and subsequent nasty cold & sinus infection, there's no denying that, but looking at running specifically makes it look worse than it is as some of those months had reasonable levels of biking and I had Ultimate Frisbee once a week from late May - August.

For commercial granola bars, the Kashi ones are the best I've found for being fairly high in both protein & fiber and low in sugar. I believe they do make crunchy ones but I go for soft ones personally. You mention snacking a lot on almonds, make sure you're being mindful about how many as nuts add up quickly for calories.

Its ok if your mind wanders. It's about slowly training your brain to wander less I've done it before off and on, just never formed a consistent habit. So far I'm 2/2 on exercise & meditation, and I've given myself 3's for food. I've adjusted my plan slightly to give me a rest day today instead of Friday - it has actually been a week since my last rest day, and I've taken a day off Friday.

I recall reading somewhere that starting a slow cooker with frozen stuff is a bad idea for food safety reasons - it spends too long where it's half frozen and half kinda warm in the temperature zone that nasty bacteria love. For the same reason, it was a bad idea to prepare stuff the night before, put it in the insert, and put the insert in the fridge overnight, it takes too long to warm up if the insert starts cold (prepping ingredients and having them in the fridge is fine!) What I tend to do is make a big batch of chili, stew, etc. on the weekend, and freeze that for a couple dinners and some lunches (I cook for 2, and often get 8-10 servings out of my slow cooker). I want to keep my meditation time to dedicated meditation, but I have been thinking of getting myself a coloring book...

I got a little sidetracked last challenge by some other things going on. So I'm going to stick to similar goals this time. - Follow my fitness plan. I've got it laid out in a spreadsheet, and I'd like to stick to it as much as possible. But it is a little ambitious so as long as I make 5/6 workouts per week I'll be happy. - Continue to make at least one batch meal per week to keep my freezer stocked. Helps to have something easy after I've run home from work! - Meditate 10 minutes per day (yoga class counts) - Rate my food choices for the day from 1-5, where 5 is a "perfect" day with no treats, and 1 is pretty bad. I'd be super happy if I can get to where I'm adding up to 30 over a week. Side Goals: - Come up with a meal planning strategy - I'd like to be more organized, I've been looking at some apps. - Regroup on the career advancement front. Need to set some new goals here.

I decided it was past time to run home from work (just over 7km) again, and that today would be a relatively nice day. Did 6/1 and it took just under an hour. I feel pretty good;sometimes when I haven't done it in a while I feel pretty exhausted the first time back, and I end up walking quite a lot in the last couple km.

I thought I did an update last night, but I guess I didn't hit submit. I did a 5k race this morning. Just over 33 minutes, which was a little better than I was expecting given how inconsistent I've been with running. Better than many 5ks I've done in the past, though slightly slower pace than the 10k or 5k run as part of a Triathlon from the spring.

Went for a run yesterday; and I was like "I'm finally going to get to Yoga on Sunday", and then late yesterday I got asked to sub for Ultimate at the same time. So did that instead. Was chilly, right around freezing; It even snowed a little. Made pulled pork for cook ahead (we ate it Sat with BBQ sauce, but the stuff I froze is plain so can be used for tacos etc as well), also some quiche which will do for lunches for the next two days.