Moving Friday

Happy Saturday guys, are you all as excited as I am that its FINALLY the weekend? Also, thanks for everyone for leaving thoughtful comments on my last post, I know health insurance and the health industry in general can be pretty polarizing but given all of the reform being discussed and underway, I think its important to talk about.

Yesterday was a work out day of epic proportions. Not because I ran 20 miles or biked for 3 hours but because I used so many different muscles! I started the morning with a four mile run. My legs felt heavy (as they should after an increase in activity) so I decided to bring my phone, run slow, and take some pictures.

Chicago is really beautiful at 5:30 in the morning.

City shot.

I ended up running a little over an 8 min/mile but given my sore legs, the fact that I was stopping for pictures, and that many roads/pathways were closed for the NATO summit, the pace was reasonable.

When I got home, I threw on my swimsuit, grabbed my gym bag, and headed over to the gym. I know this is going to sound ridiculous but I realized yesterday that I have no idea what the length of my pool is. I’ve been thinking it was meters but typing yards on here and now I’m all confused. I’ll have to check next time I stop in! Either way, I swam 1,650 whatever and felt speedier than usual. I love feeling stronger 😀

After swimming, I walked home, dropped my gym bag off, grabbed my lunch, and biked to work. I fit in a lot of activity before 8:15 a.m!

At work, I enjoyed a breakfast of cottage cheese oats with cookie butter on top

The mix has 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, > 1/2 cup almond milk, banana slices, strawberries, and a drizzle of maple syrup. Cottage cheese overnight oats have so much more texture than the yogurt kind, I think I’m starting to like them more too!

Lunchtime came quickly and entailed a salad of mixed greens, roasted tempeh, blackberries, walnuts, and sun-dried tomatoes with strawberry balsamic vinaigrette.

I also munched on some unpictured dried figs and peanut butter pretzels and some Annie’s gf bunnies (don’t buy these unless you want to be HOOKED!)

Dinner was leftover squid ink pasta with extra sun-dried tomatoes and some mustard kale that I heated up on the stove.

I still have another serving of squid ink pasta left, if I turn into a noodle you know why!

For dessert I tried this chocolate chip cookie greek yogurt that popped up on twitter the other day. I used 2% greek because that’s all we had and I substituted chopped speculoos chocolate for chocolate chips (we didn’t have any).

It was really good. It didn’t taste exactly like a chocolate chip cookie, but maybe a healthier version? I also had half of a mini cannoli I’ve been stealing bites from all week.

Ian and I watched a Mad Men and I got the itch to bake and made him some rice pudding (I make amazing rice pudding by the way) and then we headed out to Happy Village, a neighborhood bar about 5 miles from us to meet some friends from Michigan who have just moved to the city.

I enjoyed a Blue Moon and an Oberon (ick, I don’t like it this year!) and then like the geriatrics we are, Ian and I called it a night. Being in bed by 11:15 on a Friday night is what all the cool kids are doing now ;).

The furbaby woke me up at 7 this morning with some scratchy kisses so I got out of bed and played with him for a while. I have a bike + run on the schedule this morning before Ian and I grab brunch so I snacked on some banana bread with sunflower butter, bananas, and walnuts and a little sidecar of cereal because I knew I would never make it until noon without needing a little something.

The banana bread was on the dry side so the sunflower butter really helped moisten it up. Yum!

I’m off to get my ride on- have a wonderful Saturday!

Hawks Game

Sorry for only posting once yesterday but last night Ian and I had tickets to the Blackhawks-Red Wings hockey game!

The game started at 7 p.m. which meant I literally came home from class, dropped my backpack off, threw together a quick dinner, and headed right back out the door.

I toasted 1/2 a pita and spread tahini sauce inside. Then I added broccoli slaw, spicy sundried tomatoes (really good!), and a falafel.

I also had mushrooms and carrots with kalamata olive hummus. I may have had to eat really fast but it was worth it to have a healthy and tasty dinner rather than spend too much money on overpriced arena food. Plus, I’d rather spend my money on beer at the game anyway 🙂

We arrived at the game just in time, ordered beers, and found our seats.

I enjoyed a Half Acre Daisy Cutter. I love that the United Center carries good, local beers but I don’t love the price tag. I finished about 2/3 and pawned the rest off on Ian, it was just too much beer for me!

Ian also ordered an ice cream cone at one point during the game and I wasn’t too upset when he asked me to help him out 😛

The game was exciting and close the entire time but I felt really confused about who to cheer for. I grew up in Michigan (Hockey City!) but never really watched hockey while I was living there. Plus, I’ve been to three hockey games in my life and they were all Hawk’s games… hmmm.

Obviously, Ian is much more of the hockey fan than I am, just look at him in that Hawk’s shirt 🙂

Anyway, the Hawks ended up winning and I had a great time. I may not be the biggest hockey enthusiast but I love watching sports and attending games is the best!

By the time we got home I was so tired all I could do was put on my pjs and watch The Office with my boys. Blogging was just out of the question 🙂

Workout
This morning I got up and headed out for a 10 mile run. I felt good for the first half but bonked around mile 7, I guess my early dinner failed me on the carb front. I should have thought to have a snack when we got home last night but it totally slipped my mind. Oh well, I still was able to finish at a decent pace.

I’ll be back later with a WIAW post!

Are you a hockey fan? If not, what sports do you watch?

Boston Marathon: 17 miler

My schedule called for a 17 miler this weekend but I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. The weather did not look like it was going to cooperate (think snow, wind, ice) and in my opinion it is really unpleasant to run 17 miles on the treadmill. So, I kept a back up plan in mind in case the weather decided to prevent me from running outside.

When I woke up though, the skies were clear and there was basically no snow on the ground, it looked like my run was actually going to happen.

I fueled in the usual way, a piece of bread with some sunflower seed butter and chia seeds,

Said goodbye to the kitty,

and headed out the door!

My luck ended there though. My garmin crapped out (apparently I can run a 40 second mile?) and I got hit with a flash snowstorm around mile 5 that left a nice powdery covering over the icy sidewalks. As a result, I had to shuffle over random ice patches and drastically reduce my speed to avoid falls.

Not having a reliable Garmin also really bothered me. It kept telling me my pace was way out of normal range and I didn’t know how  accurate the distance would be. I had mapped a route on gmap-pedometer.com and followed it exactly, but still it undershot by a mile (according to the Garmin). I ran the extra mile for my own sanity, but I don’t know if I actually ran 17 or 18 miles today.

It was so frustrating! Even though my marathon is not until April, I’m getting nervous that I will be slow on race day because I haven’t been able to train at marathon pace yet. Ugh.

Anyway, I don’t have any splits today because of the Garmin fail. Sorry guys!

Breakfast
All I wanted to eat post-run was something warm and comforting. Yoatgurt to the rescue!

I cooked 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder, and 1 egg white over medium heat. Once the mixture thickened, I added 1/3 of a banana and some cinnamon, I then topped it with 1/3 cup plain greek yogurt, blueberries!, cookie butter, and some crumbled mixed berry scone.

I also had some coffee with my new favorite peppermint mocha creamer.

Last Night
The last thing I wanted to do last night was cook food. I was super antsy from being cooped up in the apartment all day and felt really uncreative food-wise. So when Ian suggested we grab a quick bite to eat somewhere, I didn’t protest :P.

We went to Villain’s which is much of a bar than a restaurant, but they also just happen to have amazing food.

Take a look at the beer menu, it’s front and back!

I tried the Slumbrew Happy Sol and Ian got the Golden Monkey. I was jealous that his was served in a challace and kept stealing sips.

For dinner, I ordered the Garden Delight wrap: roasted portabella mushroom, guacamole, roasted red pepper, grilled red onion, lettuce, swiss, and thousand island dressing.

I haven’t had Arby’s fries in maybe 10 years? But these fries definitely had similar seasonings. Villain’s knows what they’re doing 😉

After dinner we made a Walmart run. I know that everyone has mixed feelings about Walmart and I am in no way supportive of their policies or their effects on local neighborhoods, but everything these is just so cheap! And for a couple trying to save some $$, you can’t beat the prices in terms of cleaning supplies etc.

Some of the loot

We also picked up this for the little guy.

He obviously didn’t like the cat on the box though, look at his puffed up fur!

Once it got out of the box though, he was a big fan.

My little furbaby is a climber!

Sorry for the long post, but lots to catch you up on!

Have a great Sunday 🙂

Satur-date-night {Piece}

Tonight Ian and I had the privilege of going to Piece Brewery & Pizzeria for a date night. I’ve blogged about Piece before so I’m not going to give a whole lot of background, but their pizza is definitely one of our favorite thin crusts in the city and we always look forward to dinner there 🙂

When we arrived at Piece, there was an hour wait so we happily sat at the bar and enjoyed a beer. I tried their Belgian-style ale and really enjoyed it. I’ve definitely been feeling the Belgian brews as of late.

For dinner, Ian and I split a small red pizza with mushrooms. His half also had bacon and mine black olives.

 Mmm, despite not feeling very hungry when walking into the restaurant, I definitely did some damage to my half of the pizza.

One of the amazing things about Piece is the red pepper flakes, oregano, and parmesan cheese at each table. I always cover my pizza in oregano and red pepper flakes and then eat the crust with extra parmesan. Delicious!

And then after dinner, we did something bad. Remember how Ian and I had decided we weren’t going to have dessert this month?

….Well, we just couldn’t break the habit of iCream after Piece..so this happened.

A small cake flavored nonfat frozen yogurt with sprinkles, strawberries, and graham cracker pie crust. It was delicious and I absolutely don’t regret it. While I feel better consuming less sugar, I don’t like the deprivation feeling of giving up all desserts. Hopefully, after the month of January, I will be able to find a balance that best works for me.

Now Ian and I are at home, watching Friday Night Lights, and researching our newest dog obsession, French bulldogs (no worries, we’re nowhere near ready to take care of a dog and add another furbaby to the family)

(image source)

This week is a training cut-back week so I will see you in the morning with a recap of my 13 miler!

Also, I redid my header and created a Facebook page for the blog, feel free to check it out and “Like” me 🙂

Date Night Recap {Hopleaf}

Last night, Ian and I went to one of our favorite restaurants and bars, Hopleaf. Hopleaf is really hard to get to from our apartment, otherwise we’d definitely go more often. Case-in-point, in 20 degree weather we had to walk 10 minutes to an ‘l’, ride for 45 minutes, and then walk over 10 minutes to the restaurant. On our way home we opted for the bus route, and rode a bus for almost an hour.

I’m not saying it isn’t worth it, just that when we get to go, it’s a real treat 🙂

Hopleaf also usually has a long wait. They don’t take reservations and when we arrived a little before 7 last night, the wait for a party of 2 was an hour. We usually don’t mind waiting though and how could you when they offer 50+ beers (reasonably priced!) and have two bars with additional seating? Count me in!

Ian and I grabbed a beer in the upstairs bar and waited until our table was ready. I had the Duvel and Ian the Grimbergen. Now, Duvel is one of my favorite beers but I really liked Ian’s as well. It was crisp and had a cider-y aftertaste.

I managed to make my beer last until we were seated (where I ordered another :P) but Ian ordered his second, a Fin du Monde, while we were still waiting. He proclaimed it to be his favorite beer of the evening.

When we were seated at a table around 8, both of us were pretty hungry so right away we ordered the Red Cabbage to split.

Maybe this salad really was the best ever or maybe it was just the beer in us, either way we dominated it! 😉 The red cabbage was crisp and the cheese and apple paired really well with the vinaigrette. I need to make red cabbage soon, I forgot how much I like it!

For my main, I ordered Hopleaf’s specialty dish, their mussels. I opted for the Belgian-style- steamed in Witterkerke white ale with shallots, celery, thyme, and bay leaf.

These were so good! Maybe even the best mussels I’ve ever had. My only complaint is that I had a disproportionate amount of empty shells, meaning that there was no mussel inside. As this was my dinner and I didn’t just want to eat bread (although it was also perfectly crispy and delicious), I was a little disappointed. I mean this barely filled me up!

Ian ordered the pork rib. It’s not on their online menu, so I can’t tell you exactly what was in it but I do know that the pork was set atop sauteed collard greens and white beans.

He loved this dish. He kept saying that the pork was falling right off the bone and was super tender. Again, the only complaint was that the dish was a little too small for the $20 price tag (but still totally worth it).

However, it was really okay that both of our meals were on the lighter side because in addition to the bread, my mussels were served with a side of frites and aioli.

One of my weaknesses is frenchfries and I love them in all types and sizes and these surely did NOT disappoint. Ian and I just kept going back for more and more, and the aioli? Heavenly.

After dinner, Ian and I ran over to Starbucks to grab something warm to last us on our cold trip home. I had a decaf skinny peppermint mocha (didn’t know they could do that!!) and Ian had his usual no water chai.

And when we finally got home, an hour later, we cuddled on the couch and watched some Friday Night Lights before going to bed. We’re pretty wild, I know 😛

(source)

Last night was such a great date night and I always appreciate getting to spend some quality time with Ian once the semester starts and I get really busy. What can I say? I’m just a lucky girl 🙂