Monday Musings | cairns&carrots

Does anyone else hate Mondays? I’m so glad Monday is over.

So yesterday I had a nice relaxing Sunday. I recovered from the Freihofer’s/DMB Concert by running a seven mile Long Run as part of my Boilermaker training!

I woke up later than usual…at 9 AM! That’s the latest I’ve slept in a while! And it felt nice! I ate three blueberry pancakes made with Fiber One Instant Pancake mix, not caring about whether or not that would affect my run. I topped them with home-made blueberry sauce. Yum! I can’t stand eating light maple syrup on my pancakes anymore…yuck. (Although I will admit that it was good choice while losing weight.)

The weather was being funny yesterday (sun, downpour, sun), so I headed to the gym around 11:00 for some lovely treadmill running. I can’t figure out if I like running long runs on the treadmill or not. For one, it seems way easier on my body and safer than running on the road, but it’s just so damn boring! Especially when I’m staying at the same 11:00/mile pace for an hour and 15 minutes. And I tend to just stare at the screen in front of me instead of watching TV because I always feel like I will lose my balance and fall off if I look around too much. I was running for a long time. But I felt really good for the most part! Pancakes must be a superfood. 🙂

Treadmill Stats:
Total Distance: 7 miles
Average Pace: 10:54 ish?
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Calories Burned: 800

I was pretty famished by the time I got home (around 2:00!) so I had a really late lunch of two scrambled eggs and goat cheese on whole wheat toast with a side of Chobani pineapple! (A great source of protein…13 grams in the yogurt!)

I also made a Cherry Bomb sans Chocolate. I just threw in about a 1/2 cup of light soymilk and a bunch of frozen cherries without any chocolate whey protein this time. I think the reason why I feel sick after long runs is because I would drink either a smoothie or a shake with whey protein powder! It was hurting my stomach! I’ve been feeling much better post-run when I don’t drink it! Who knew?? Now the question is should I bother finding a non-dairy protein powder or just stick with protein rich foods to eat after I work out? I don’t know…

For dinner last night I had a bowl of Kashi H2H cereal and just munched on random things around the house.

Later in the evening I felt like making some more Cranberry Walnut Quinoa Salad to use up the rest of the vegetable broth I had sitting in my fridge. It came out delightful. I’m obsessed with this quinoa salad for sure. I actually don’t have a decent photo of the salad, but here’s the complete recipe for it, adapted from this recipe:

Ingredients

2 cups of vegetable broth (I use Hannaford’s organic brand)
1 cup of quinoa (I use Bob’s Red Mill)
1 1/2 tbsp of olive oil
1 tsp of salad spice (or other spice you might want to add)
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup of dried cranberries
1/4 cup of walnuts

Instructions

Cook quinoa according to directions on package, but use the veggie broth instead of water (it makes the quinoa way more flavorful!)
Combine olive oil, salad spice, and garlic in a small bowl and mix with a spoon or whisk
Drizzle olive oil mixture onto cooked quinoa and mix well
Add cranberries and walnuts and mix well
Refrigerate salad and enjoy

So today I had planned on taking a rest day, but one of my friends asked if I wanted to go for a run this evening, so I accepted. We ran an easy five miles at about a 10:00/mile pace. It was actually kind of hard on my legs since they were still a little stiff from yesterday, and there are a couple challenging hills, but I made it! Everything else felt great though. The weather was perfect running weather. Sunny and cool with a light breeze. 🙂 We ran five miles and then walked leisurely back to her house. It was nice.

Garmin Stats:
Total Distance: 5.01 miles
Time: 49 minutes and 45 seconds
Average Pace: 9:56/mile
Average Speed: 6.0
Calories Burned: 593

Splits:
Mile 1: 9:53
Mile 2: 10:33
Mile 3: 9:41
Mile 4: 9:37
Mile 5: 9:53

I came home and made something to eat. I sauteed green beans with the last of my tempeh.

I sauteed them in some olive oil and sprinkled some garlic powder and salad spice on it. It tasted pretty good! I think the taste of the tempeh is growing on me. I might buy it again sometime! I also had a side of leftover pasta salad. (The last of it!)