When you make plans...

Well hello there! It is a fabulous Tuesday morning here in Charleston. I've been super busy moving, organizing the new place, and working a lot of overtime to make up for the fact that I'm leaving for Colorado on Thursday! I'm pretty excited about the trip, not gonna lie.

So here I sit, sippin' my green juice (I really need to start posting about my raw + food combining adventures , because it's going well...maybe after WWR) and I realized I had this post just waiting in drafts for y'all. So while I get to working I figured I would post this up. Don't worry, I know I still owe you a Part II of my Charleston mini-tour, and it's coming...patience my dears, is a virtue ;)

In running news, I ran a fantastic 12 miles with the team on Sunday. I wasn't going to go, seeing as we had been out the night before for drinks + dinner with Shannon and her boy at Crave and had stayed up until after 1 AM. But when the alarm clock went off at 5:45 I somehow popped right up out of bed!

We ran 1 mile intervals with a 1 minute walk break in between, and let me tell you, it was one of the best long runs I have ever had! We were managing between 8:30 and 9:30 pace while running! So our average pace came out to 10:02 for the entire 12 miles! If I can keep that up for the marathon I will be sitting pretty.

I've been learning that this time around, I do better when I just go...no worries, no planning, no serious must-stick-to-this training plans, hell I haven't even been running with an iPod in over two months! (They're all broke, boo.) And you know what? I'm lovin' it :) Guess that's a little bit off of my plan I set for myself back in May, huh?

It just goes to show that when you make plans, God (or whomever you believe makes the rules of the universe) laughs at them!
***

I was tagged a while back from Cynthia (a fellow WWR'er) in this 7 Traits thing and am just now getting around to it. Gonna try to make this 7 things you don't already know about me...

1. I am OCD. It's mostly a paranoia that my apartment is going to burn down. I check my stove like 10 times before I go to bed to make sure it is turned off. I also once had Matt drive 45 minutes back home after we were out for my birthday to check and see if I had left the iron on. Luckily (or not), I had. He is extremely sweet for putting up with me :)

2. I drive a 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse. The hood is a slightly different shade of red than the rest of it, and there's a story behind that. It's old but it's paid for baby! And it's nice that my gas is only about $30 a month. My first car was a Mercedes though, I start out classy and then downgrade apparently.

3. I'm a less severe version of a hypochondriac yet I refuse to take any medicine (including Advil or whatever) or go to the doctor. (Unless its the dentist, eye doc or the gyno.) I always think I have a blood clot or a heart condition or something else completely unlikely.

4. My parents divorced when I was in 4th grade. It was pretty bad until I left for college. My mom has since re-married and divorced + is cougarrific, and my dad has never remarried. I think he likes the bachelor life.

5. I starred as Cinderella in a community theater musical in high school! It rocked. Especially when I *surprise* slipped the Prince tongue in one of our fake kisses. He about shat himself! (This was high school remember, and I was at least two years older than him. The entire cast knew it was coming which made it even more hilarious.) I still miss the theater and think abotu trying out for community shows every now and again.

6. I sang in our schools chorus (as well as community ensemble), and was usually quite pissy if I didn't get the alto solos. Diva alert! I also was in our high school pageant. Twice. I got 3rd place the second time (looossser). It was one of the most fun things I remember about high school though.

7. Matt was/is my first real boyfriend. I never had a *real* boyfriend in high school, and dated a guy in college but he sucked so he doesn't count. I went a little crazy with guys junior year of college and decided to swear them off altogether (um, not lesbo style, just swear off for a while) until Matt and I met. We met at a bar and the night is kind of hazy...I don't remember our first kiss...how crappy is that?! But I do remember our second kiss because it was outisde of my car, and he picked me up by my, umm, bootay, and set me on the hood where we made out. It was soooo Vin Diesel in the Fast and the Furious. I was hooked then and there!
***

Anything else you want to know about me? I'm a semi-open book! Hope you have a great Tuesday and hopefully I will be back with some more fun stuff before WWR!

Raw Creamy Zucchini Salad

This is by far my favorite raw meal that I've made. I keep coming back to it over and over again.


Creamy Zucchini Salad! This stuff is amazing and so simple! I don't know where I first saw it...I think here then here and it probably originated here...but basically (since I don't have a spiralizer) I shred up one zucchini (skin and all, length of zucchini) with my cheese grater, mix it up with 1/2 of a mashed avocado, juice from 1/2 a lemon, and some sea salt.

Kind of like a deconstructed guacamole salad + some zucchini?


I added some raw onion and tomato to the mix and plated it on top of some organic baby spinach. I mixed it all together when I got ready to eat it...Heather's right, who needs ranch or blue cheese when you have this creamy goodness?!


On the side I served it with some non-raw steamed acorn squash and (probably a bit much) Smart Balance Light (my "margarine" of choice) and some sea salt. (I wasn't too hungry tonight due to some happy hour cocktails and calamari...normally this wouldn't fill me up, but it hit the spot tonight.)

What I like most about the shredded zucchini, is that it's a fantastic stand in for pasta! It makes a very tasty (and nutritious) base for raw pasta meals. I've used it to make pesto "pasta":

I mixed up a "pesto" sauce with some fresh basil, olive oil, parm (so, not completely raw due to this addition) and sea salt. I topped this one with some avocado. Tasty!

I've also topped it with a raw tomato sauce that turned out nasty. Note: Don't blend raw mushrooms and raw tomatoes together in the attempt to make a raw pasta sauce sans sun dried tomatoes. It will come out brown and NASTY! :)

I haven't been too adventurous in my raw meals yet; been keeping it pretty simple since that's all I have time for.

But that is why I love this dish! A) Avocados are one of my fave foods, B) Zucchini is probably my favorite veggie, C) This takes all of 5 minutes to make. So...If you haven't tried this combo PLEASE go out and do it now! Matt even had a bite (unwillingly) and said it "wasn't bad at all." So, I guess that means it's pretty YUM.

***
Ran 14.49 miles this Sunday with TNT. Felt great! Back in the game baby ;)

TGIF!

Sorry that my past two posts seemed to be fishing for compliments...I didn't mean for them to sound that way! I was just excited about my new hair & then about my exam....I'm really not that narcissistic :)

Last night I had a meeting at 6 after work, and the last thing I wanted to do was go out and RUN. Especially when I was hungry and it looked like it was about to storm...Matt was even trying to convince me to stay home. But I headed out anyways and got in a nice 3.5 miler. Nothing spectacular, but a good way to get back on track. I also did some squats, lunges and whatever that thing is where you "sit" on the wall for as long as you can. I'm a bit sore today!

Tonight I'm heading out to run the bridge after work with Shannon...I love running with friends it makes it so much easier & I'm probably 99% less likely to back out of it...

Thanks for the thoughts on my venture into raw foodism. One thing I dislike about healthy living blogs is the fact that when one thing gets popular, everyone jumps onto the train just because its what everyone else is doing. I know raw foodism is "the cool thing to do" currently but I really believe in the foundation of thought behind this diet choice. Plus the food combining aspect is what really intrigues me. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm not just trying this out because I don't want to be left out. I'm trying it out because it makes sense to me on some levels.

You've seen meat on this blog and you probably will continue to see meat on occassion. I'm not a vegetarian but as Matt would say, "You pretty much are." I just don't like meat as much as veggies, and I've always been that way. Plus I am painfully aware of how inhumane the meat industry is in America, and that also plays into my veggie loving ideals.

But I also love cooked foods, so I'm not giving up on all of that just yet! I just want to incorporate 1-2 raw meals a day into my diet.

Did I bore anyone yet?!

While I'm not running out to buy a dehydrator anytime soon, and I'm probably not going to fork out the $$ for sprouted breads...I'm going to see where this thing takes me and go from there. I hope you will stick along for the ride :)

Of course, I'm also gonna throw in some running + racing here and there...that is what this blog is about, right?!

I also have realized that I want to start showcasing this fantastic Southern city of mine a bit more...so many people love Charleston and come from miles away for vacation, yet I hardly ever talk about it. I want to share with you all this city that I have come to love over the past year. The beautiful row houses, the beaches, the lush green marshes and the water front paths that I run on...so more to come soon I promise!

Hope everyone has a fab weekend, I think I've got 14 on the schedule for Sunday?

Back on track...

So I've started like three different posts this week and haven't published any of them...I have been so uninspired with blogging I just didn't want to post something for the sake of posting...But I felt the need to give you all an update!

This past weekend I was glued to my desk (er, kitchen table) studying for my General Securities Series 7 Exam (stocks, bonds, options, variable retirement plans, brokerage services, etc.) that I had to take again on Monday...remember when I failed the first time?

When I took it before I seriously underestimated the vast amount of material this test covered, and did not spend as much time studying as I should have. I mean, the exam is 6+ hours long! So this time around I knew I would have to devote a lot more to studying. Which I did. All throughout this past 30 days I have had to wait to re-take the test I was studying in between work, meetings, running and fundraising. Plus Friday through Monday morning I barely ate anything, was crazy cracked out on caffeine, and did not sleep much in order to cram into my brain everything I had been studying for the past three months!

(This was in no means healthy at all, actually Matt told me I looked "bulimic or something" on Monday afternoon. I was a wreck! But believe me, I have made up for it this week with everything I have eaten.)

Monday morning came around and I headed to the testing center feeling...optimistic yet scared. When I broke for "lunch" after the first half of the test (130 questions) I felt....good but not 100% confident in all of my answers. The second half was brutal, and by this point I think I had given up and realized that I wasn't going to score at least the required 70% to pass.

I was thinking up new careers, envisioning what I would tell my office...making plans to skip the country....then finally I was finished and had about 15 minutes of my allotted time left...I couldn't bear to press the 'I'm done' button so I went back through some of my answers...until finally the time ran out and the screen went blank waiting on my results...I couldn't bare to look!

But finally I did and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the word: PASS

I almost couldn't believe it. I was now certified to work as a stock broker! I never thought I would ever utter that sentence.

So needless to say, running (and blogging!) has fallen by the wayside and I am seriously in need of getting back on track. After a 6 PM meeting tonight I'm hitting the streets to get my body moving again. (Um, hello Wild West Relay in THREE WEEKS???!!!)

In other news, I have been tying to tweak my nutrition and eating habits over the past few months, and are becoming more curious with a partial raw food lifestyle. Food combining is really intriguing me and I've been juicing a ton.

I hope to soon start posting more pictures/recipes of some of the things I eat in order to include some in the new Healthy Yum website that I was so excited to be invited to be a part of! (Well, anyone can be a part of it actually, so I guess I was excited to be included in the invite :)

Just a bit of a sneak peak of some of the raw foods I have been enjoying lately...

Carrot + Apple Juice

Cabbage + Greens + Veggies + Peanut Sauce Salad
(Not exactly raw because of the peanuts, but DELISH! Lived on these last week!)

Raw Creamy Zucchini Soup with Sprouts

More to come later! Have a great Thursday y'all!

trying out raw foods + Galloway method?

Thanks for the comments/suggestions on my recent post about soy. I do agree that everything in moderation is key, and also that there are tons of conflicting information about nutrition out there. It seems like every day a new study comes out saying that something we thought was good for us actually isn't. It's getting pretty hard to discern what is and what isn't good for our bodies.

For me, I try to eat as many unprocessed foods as possible, and since I don't love tofu anyways, I'm just gonna avoid it. There's no doubt that a big block of tofu is almost as processed as they come.

Also, it's just as easy for me to pick up Almond or Hemp milk than it is Soy, so that question is answered...now I just have to do something about those dark chocolate covered edamame that I have sitting on my counter from Trader Joe's....maybe I can just eat those up really quickly before they start to worry me :)

Had a lot of fun with food this weekend, going to post later on about my first (semi) raw food endeavor...Zucchini "Pasta" with Fresh Basil Pesto...so simple + YUM-O.

I also am now the proud new owner of...

An Oster Classic Beehive Blender! I needed a new one badly, as my addiction to Green Monsters has gone out of control. I tried it out this morning and it worked great! Way better than my food processor smoothies that I had to almost chew! I cannot stress enough how great these things make me feel. I have been energized and feeling great all morning.

My pal Alesha and I have gotten intrigued with raw food and we chatted constantly this weekend about the topic. She went out yesterday and got a ton of raw food supplies! I must admit, I was so impressed with my first "raw" food meal I plan on adding a few more of these to my daily routine. Thanks Gena and Abbie for the inspiration!

{More on this later, I'm also seriously considering purchasing a juicer...}

***
Had my first official run with my TNT group Sunday morning. We meet every Sunday at 7 AM at Colonial Lake downtown, which is perfect for me because it is about a .4 mile run there from my apartment. So I set out around 6:45 AM and boy was it muggy. I was already sweating when I reached the group!

There was about 15 of us or so there, and we were running varying distances from 5-8 miles. Apparently they train on the Galloway Method, which is basically running for short intervals and then walking in between. I was on the fence about this, but decided to see how it worked for me this week.

So I headed off with the 8 mile group and discovered we would be running for 5 minutes, and walking 1 minute. I have to say, this was not a very challenging run for me. I was definitely a bit sore afterwards, but with all the walk breaks and the two bathroom + water stops we had, I didn't really feel (mentally probably more than anything) like I had put in a good run. I just have it in my head that for a run to be really a run, I have to do it straight through with no walk breaks!

But nevertheless, it was good for me to get out there and try it, and it was in total the longest run I've had since the marathon, at about 8.8 miles round trip.

Bad news was, my almost-brand-new 6-month old Garmin 405 was acting the same way it was last week when I ran the bridge with Shannon. It was chirping nonstop and kept switching back and forth from various screens without me touching it. It wouldn't let me start or stop it and eventually when I got back to the apartment it got stuck on the 'lost satelite reception' screen. I plugged it in to charge to see if that would reset it. I haven't checked on it yet but I'm not holding my breath for it to be fixed. I guess I'm going to have to see how I can send it back in....

Tonight is an off day for running, I am going to be out of commission for the next few days cramming for my big test on Thursday.

But I might be going to look at a used juicer tonight... :)