Funny thing happened on the way to nirvana.
Today I was scheduled for a “long run”, which at this point is still only 10-11K. It was raining when I woke up and I faced either a depressing hour on the dreadmill at the gym, or a possibly exhilarating, definitely soaking, hour of running outside.
The last time I ran for an hour on the gym treadmill, it began to smoke. People gathered around trying to ascertain the source of the smoke that was filling the gym. It was slightly mortifying.
I decided to brave the rain.
Not wanting to ruin any of the electronic implements I usually have attached to my person, I unplugged. No heart rate monitor. No pace monitor. No pedometer. No ipod. I was going Off The Grid.
“Hmmm, this nature theme makes me want to run through the orange groves”, thought I. I remembered my long training runs last year where I ran from my town, Kfar Saba, to, and then through, the beautiful agricultural (and mansion dotted) village of Sde Warburg. Somewhere in my not so clever morning mind I reasoned that this distance was not quite 10K, therefore I did not bring my phone. Nor did I bring any snacks or even a water bottle.
One hour into the run I suddenly woke up to the fact that I should be home by now, warming my toes and drinking a smoothie. Holy Shit. Last year I trained in MILES. This is a TEN MILE RUN, NOT 10K.
No phone, no water, no food and 6K more to run.
Did I mention the orange groves? Thank you very much to the farmer whose oranges I may have nicked. It was an emergency. I love living in a country where food grows on the trees!
So fed and watered, there was only one way home: my feet! I did my best – had to walk a bit at the end. I imagine ice packs will play a major role in my weekend activities.
Training Log for T-minus 19 weeks:
Sunday: Ran 10K
Monday: Abs and Arms
Tuesday: Legs & Back
Wednesday: Ran 6K
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 10 miles, 16K, I ran about 14-15K of it.
Training Chow:
I got a new cookbook this week and had lots of fun playing with it: The Happy Herbivore by Lindsay Nixon. I am a happy, happy, VERY happy Herbivore, as a matter of fact! How could I not buy this book?
Lindsay’s recipes, not only vegan, are also low-fat, simple, easy to prepare, and use mostly whole, natural healthy ingredients. We have spoken before here about how just because something is vegan, doesn’t mean it’s healthy. (um, like that Vegan Cranberry Almond Cake I made)
So I got down and busy with Happy Herbivore recipes this week and got used to cooking without any fat. Know what? Things really do taste good even if you don’t use oil. Not AS good, mind you, but definitely still plenty good.
This week I made:
Mini Vegan Pizzas, which had a cheese-y topping made of nutritional yeast, wheat flour, dash of cornstarch, miso, garlic and onion powder. Delish! And that’s a side of Split Pea Soup (not from the cookbook, that we splurped and supped all week):
Veggie-Filled Fritata (from tofu):
Red Lentil Dahl:
And Creamy Carrot Soup, in which oats are the secret ingredient to all that creamy. Sorry, no photo.
No training song this week either. I ran all week to PodRunner. 170 beats per minute to the place where 10K and 10 miles feel like the same thing!
you take such nice pictures!