Marathon Monday (on a Tuesday) - 4th Edition

I think this dog enjoys mocking me sometimes. I mean...I am supposed to be shaming him and he acts all bored and yawns. 

He's all like 'whatevs Mom. I'll vomit all over your favorite yoga pants and then proceed to rub it into the mattress because I do what I want.'

Well besides cleaning up puppy vomit, I spent the day doing chores because we have been little piggies lately and this place needs a deep cleaning. I was *almost* half way done and then that little guy set me back a few hours with his added mess (by the way...that mound of laundry in the background was what was on the bed that I washed today and was trying to put away).

Have I talked about vomit enough for you yet? Yeah? Good. Let's move on. 

I haven't done any sort of marathon training update in a bit, so I thought that I would fill you in on where I am at with my training, how it is going and whether or not I have pooped myself yet on a long run (hint: I haven't). 

Last week was an 'easy' week meaning that I had four runs total and they were 4, 7, 3.5 and 11 miles in length. Every few weeks is considered an 'easy' week on our plan. Basically the long run for that week is a few miles less than the previous weeks so your body can do a little bit of recovery. In other words, three weeks ago my long run was 13 miles, two weeks ago it was 15 miles, last week it was 11 miles and this upcoming week's long run is 16 miles.

This week is week 8 of the 17 week training plan. I have only missed one run (I think) that I didn't make up the next day so on that front, I am doing WAY better than the last marathon training plan. I think only running four days a week is perfect for me. Giving myself three non-running days a week really makes me happy and seems to push me to actually get out and run. Knowing that once I run I get the next off is a lovely and motivating thought. 

My running time is getting a bit better thanks to the cooler temperatures. I had a few long runs a month ago where I ended up at a 13:00 minute mile pace due to lots of walking and water drinking, but with my 8 mile and 11 mile long run last week where it was 70 degrees out when I ran, I averaged a 10:30 mile. I am curious to see how the 16 mile long run goes this week. I don't expect a 10:30 pace, but am shooting for an 11:30. 

On the weight loss front, I have been hovering between 149 and 150 lbs still. I've been around this for about three weeks now and haven't really noticed any changes in my body. I did get into a bad habit of eating way too much for about two weeks when I was PMSing, so this week I am working on fueling my body, but trying to not overeat. I have set a goal of trying to get to 145 pounds by September 26th (our 4 year wedding anniversary). Hopefully with eating better and this increased mileage, I can get through this weight loss plateau with a healthy 1 pound a week loss.

Also, something that I need to work on is drinking a lot more water. I did great for a few weeks and was consuming over 100 ounces a day, but with the poor eating habits came poor water consumption. I didn't drink enough water yesterday on my 11 mile run and got so insanely dehydrated afterwards. I had to work at one of the boutiques I sell at and actually ended up vomiting (a green smoothie no less!) while working because I had such a bad dehydration headache/nausea. Drink your water kids!!

And that's the last time I talk about vomit in this blog post. Promise!!

I am getting back on track though and am right around 70 ounces for the day. I have to chug some water soon to help me reach my daily quota!

Can I just interject and say that I am so happy that I work from home because when you drink so much water, I love just being able to walk 10 feet to pee. How do you office workers do it? Does everyone just think you have a bladder infection or something? I would be so self-conscious about it and imagine that I would always talk about how much water I drink to my co-workers so they didn't think I was ill or something. 

Back to running...

This week I am running 4 miles on Wednesday, 7 miles on Thursday, 4 miles on Friday, resting on Saturday with my long run of 16 miles being on Sunday. My long runs are usually on Saturday but I didn't do last week's long run until yesterday due to traveling so I am slowly moving my schedule around to get back to Saturday runs.

Along with that running schedule, I plan on adding strength training to my schedule twice this week on my 4 mile run days. I love the Jillian Michaels DVD, 'No More Trouble Zones' and will be doing that 45 minute DVD both days. I am hoping to get a little bit of muscle definition going and if I can handle the two times a week strength training sessions, I am going to add a third one in on one of my rest days. 

So .... that's about it! I was thinking about doing a blog post in a week or two about what I am eating during this training period as a vegan. Just in case you were interested in how the heck I get my calories.

By the way, sorry for the lack of photos in this post. I look pretty bad whenever I am done running, so those sorts of photographs don't happen often, but here is a random photo of me in running clothes with my husband and mother-in-law at the end of June. 

 Kind of related to the post right? 

Have a great night everyone!

~ With Love, Ashlee ~

Blog Vomit - Round II

I haven't been hanging around here much lately so I would like to extend my apologies to all my readers (hi mom!) about that. I get a little bit introverted at times and just want to hang out with me, my husband and my puppy and not share a thing about my life. Other times I want to go, 'Look at me, look at me! I did something cool and/or I made some yummy vegan mocha fudge sauce!'

I am trying to not be quite so introverted and I think that my husband wants me to stop talking just to him about the delicious vegan mocha fudge sauce that I made.

There really isn't any cohesiveness in today's post, just a little hodge podge of what has been happening lately around here...

a) Two weeks ago we took our 'little brother' to Stone Mountain, Georgia to climb the giant stone mountain there. As someone who grew up in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the idea of a 'stone mountain' in the middle of nowhere didn't make any sense. When it was described to me the first few times, I was like, 'So it's a mountain made out of entirely stone? No dirt? No grass? It's just hanging out without a single other hill around it?' 

And yeah, it is just hanging out and people climb it.

 

Just hanging out with our thumbs out on top of a stone mountain. If you look real close right over John's right shoulder, you will see downtown Atlanta.

b) I woke up at 6:30 am today (yeah me!). I have been crazy productive thanks to all the caffiene I started to ingest at such any early hour. The big downside of getting up so early though is that by 4pm, I have already eaten all of my alloted calories for the day. 

Damn you vegan mocha fudge sauce!!!

c) Have I mentioned yet that I made a vegan mocha fudge sauce today? It is crazy delicious. 

 Photo and recipe courtesy of the 'Love Food Eat' blog

I tried it in both a cup of hot coffee with a little almond milk and then in a big glass of almond milk with just a little bit of coffee. I think that the best way to enjoy it though is going to be by having some on top of pureed frozen bananas like a vegan ice cream sundae. Oh and with strawberries!! 

It is taking a lot of willpower to wait until tomorrow to enjoy that.

d) I was originally going to do an outfit post today but after further review of the photos, I decided that I hated my outfit. But I did love my hair, so here are a few photos of what my hair looked like yesterday. 

I have been wearing my hair curly now almost exclusively because of my new favorite product in the world. 

Miss Jessie's Pillow Soft Curl Cream

Miss Jessie's, I will happily be a spokeswoman for you because this curl cream is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. 

But please, stop making this smell like dryer sheets.

e) Yesterday my 'little brother' and I went and saw 'The Croods' together. It was really stinking adorable. I cried so hard during that movie that I had to hide the tears streaming down my face. As visually beautiful as it was, definitely not worth the extra $75 to see it in 3-D.

f) We are having people over this weekend for a BBQ/law school final studying session. Wives and girlfriends are coming over and this is the first time that I have ever had another female in my home since college that isn't a family member (that sounds so weird to write but it is true). I have suddenly grown very self conscious of where I live and am trying to look around trying to figure out what needs to be cleaned/fixed. There are so many things that we need to do, but since it is a rental, our hands are tied/super lazy on some things. All I know for certain though is that our copy of 'Everyone Poops' will be proudly displayed on top of the toilet. 

That's about all I got for now. See ya tomorrow!

~With Love, Ashlee~

I'm Hungry

So one of the things that happens when you run a race is that they have professional photographers all over the course taking your photo.

They have nice cameras which really show a lot of details. 

Too much details. 

We got an email from the race photographer on Monday evening with all the photos that we were in. There were a few dozen and we each went to our separate computer and looked at our individual photos.

Our photos were bad. Real bad. Mine were really really bad. So bad that I cried. 

We both came to the hard conclusion that we could stand to lose a few pounds. It really took the wind out of my sails. I mean 36 hours prior I had finished a marathon, but after seeing those photos, I got really bummed out. 

It also just so happened that Monday night when we received the race photos, we were in the middle of watching the documentary 'Forks Over Knives' on Netflix. 

In case you don't know, this movie highlights the importance of having a plant based diet (veganism) using scientific arguments on the health benefits that occur once you remove dairy and meat from your diet. I won't get into the details at all because I am not an expert but I definitely recommend that you watch the movie to learn more about it. 

It is powerful but not 'in your face.'

When I was in fourth grade I became a vegetarian and did so for about five years (minus the occasional bacon indulgence here and there. I had a weakness!). In tenth grade I started eating meat again. Once I hit college, I went vegetarian for about a year and then turned to veganism. I was a vegan for about a year, ate meat for a year, became vegan again for about two years, went vegetarian for two years, then ate meat for the last 1.5 years. 

To say that my relationship with animal products is off/on again is an understatement. 

After watching the movie 'Forks over Knives' with my husband though on Monday, we both came to the conclusion together that we needed to adopt more of a plant based diet. We need to get healthy, lose weight and get control of our future.

We are doing it together and I am excited about that.

We are slowly easing into this. We have some dairy in the house we need to eat still and some meat in the freezer we need to cook. We are planning on doing one meal a week with the meat until we use it all up and basically limit our dairy intake by a lot as we slowly get rid of our cheese/eggs/butter. I am most likely going to go full-on vegan once we use up all the dairy and meat, while my husband will be fairly plant based, but still enjoy the occasional burger :)

We will see how this goes and we are really excited about doing this together (probably me more than him though. He just got a new grill for his birthday two weeks ago and grilling vegetables on it isn't quite the same as grilling meat).

So expect some vegan recipes to come your way during the next few months. I actually did a guest post on Kate's blog last week, Scathingly Brillant, about one of my favorite vegan dishes to make (total coinecende). 

Check out Scathingly Brillant (here) to see how I make a yummy Pakistani Dahl.

All in all, I definitely want to eat some bacon right now.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread?

On a whim a few months ago I bought baking raisins (the kind already plump and moist) and have had baking with them on my to-do list since then. I finally got around to it today as my apartment smelled weird and old and I needed something to spice up the air around here.

I found this recipe on www.100daysofrealfood.com. Now it is not 100% vegan as it does use honey as the sweetener. I am a vegan that uses honey, so if you don't, use agave or vegan cane sugar, or brown rice syrup. I wanted to try this recipe out because it uses coconut oil in it. A lot of it in fact. I bought some a few months ago after reading about some delicious things my sister-in-law was using it for and have been really bummed out by it in my own adventures. I have used it only twice...1) Made a grilled cheese for husband with it. Didn't get good reviews as he doesn't like his coconuts and cheese mixing. 2) For frosting. What a disaster. Due to its consistency, it just kept melting and sliding off the cupcakes. I had to add so much powdered sugar to the frosting to get it firm up that my teeth ached after one bite.

Now...this baby just came out of the oven. And wow....adding a 1/2 cup of oil to it just makes it fabulous! I had to improvise from the original recipe as my bread machine turned off by itself half-way through the process and I had no idea when to add the raisins (btw...I did it after the bread rose for about 45 minutes). This bread is so moist. The bread machine massacured my raisins, so there is really not a single whole raisin in it, but raisin bits throughout it. Honestly, this bread takes like the dark rye bread they serve at Outback Steakhouse (I haven't had it in a few years, but I remember it fondly).

So to sum up...coconut oil in baking bread is awesome. No coconut taste and incredibly moist bread. Baking raisins are a joke, but when your bread machine purees them, it gives your bread a rye taste. And somehow after following a recipe for cinnamon raisin bread I made Outback Steakhouse bread. Sounds like a success to me!

Here's a link to the recipe... http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/05/25/recipe-whole-wheat-cinnamon-raisin-bread-for-bread-machine/