Catching Up

Okay, this post is going to be all over the place so bear with me! I have a lot of catching up to do since I pretty much took Saturday + Sunday off from blogging for a relaxing weekend!

Let me rewind to Saturday…

Saturday morning I dug back into my Trader Joe’s pancake mix and made some pumpkin waffles, which were amazing by the way.

I topped them with my home made pumpkin butter mixed with a touch of maple syrup for some mapley pumpkiney deliciousness. I think I have a thing for waffles as pre-run fuel, because after breakfast I headed to the outdoor track to run some miles.

I ran 5.0 miles in 47 minutes. Around and around the track I ran. It was cold, and it was a bit boring, but it felt good to be running outside. I think my Garmin gets confused because I wore it on my run and it wasn’t calculating my milage right. I tried to keep track of my laps anyway, so that worked.

When I got back from my run, I tried making a green smoothie with kale for the first time. Yes, it is possible to put TOO much kale in. It tasted weird. I think I prefer spinach in my green smoothies.

See the kale pieces? They didn’t get blended too well. Bah! In the smoothie:

• 1 cup of almond milk
• 2-3 cups of steamed kale
• 1 tbsp of honey
• handful of ice cubs

I actually ended up cutting the smoothie in half, since it was just too much to drink at once, and I had the left over smoothie the next day! And it wasn’t half bad.

Saturday night my parents ordered pizza, and I had 1.5 slices. One was spinach and broccoli, and was pretty tasty.

Now onto Sunday.

Sunday afternoon I met Katie for lunch at Professor Java’s! It was about halfway between where each of us live, so it was pretty good meeting point to get lunch! She gave me some goodies she picked up at Trader Joe’s in Philly and I gave her some banana bread that I baked that morning. 🙂

I ordered the Artichoke Melt on rye, it was pretty good. It was extremely messy to eat!

Chatting with Katie is always a pleasure! I love spending time with my blends.

Speaking of blends, Emily asked me if I wanted to go with her to check out the new Food Co-Op in Troy with her later in the afternoon on Sunday. Of course I said yes and we met up there a little bit later on.

The co-op was a lot nice than I expected and I only left with a few things.

• Saratoga Peanut Butter Maple PB
• Turbinado Sugar (for baking!)
• Six canning jars
• Chickpea Masala for lunch today

I also loved getting to see Emily for a little bit!

After Troy, it was time to head back to ALB to meet Chris. He had just gotten back from PA and wanted to go for a run. I wasn’t planning on a run, but I’m glad I did it since I felt really good afterward. We completed 3.0 miles in 30 minutes!

After our run, Chris and I went to dinner with his roommate Jesse and a few of his friends for Jesse’s birthday dinner. He picked the Pump Station! I knew I had to get something healthy for dinner since this past weekend was full of food and desserts.

I started with the vegetarian soup of the day: curried butternut squash. It was fantastic, but it was almost TOO heavy. This little bit of soup was all I needed.

I ordered the Harvest Medley salad for my meal, and silly me forget to snap a picture of it before devouring it. (That never happens?!) Oh well, I think you know what a salad looks like. In the salad were chunks of apple, dried bing cherries, and walnuts. I ordered it without the blue cheese, and with the apple balsamic on the side. The salad was good, but the lettuce wasn’t my favorite, it probably would have tasted better with a spinach mix.

(insert salad photo here! oops!)

Anyway, today for lunch I tried my chickpea masala I got at the Troy Co-Op yesterday, and it was perfect to bring on the go.

I heated it up in the microwave and it was really tasty! The whole container is 270 calories, which isn’t too bad for lunch.

Anyway, now I’m headed to the gym, so hopefully you all got caught up! I will leave you with an inspirational running quote:

“I run because it’s so symbolic of life. You have to drive yourself to overcome the obstacles. You might feel that you can’t. But then you find your inner strength, and realize you’re capable of so much more than you thought.”
–Arthur Blank