Getting back in the groove!

Over the holidays I did a lot of stuff.

• Hung out with family
• Hung out with friends
• Went to the dog park with Wookie!
• Caught up on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, New York and Orange County (Thanks Dad!)
• Went to the Hill Country(Boerne and Fredericksurg)
• Saw a movie
• Went to the Riverwalk and saw the lights.
• Ate. A lot. 
• I ate a lot of good food at good restaurants and at home.

What I didn't do:

• Keep up with my running from my couch to 5K training. (Or much exercise period, unless you count Wii bowling, tennis and golf.)

So this week I  did the following:

• Got back into the gym with a friend on Wednesday
• This morning my office announced another Biggest Loser (Girls vs. Girls and Boys vs. Boys so I might stand a chance with no Europe trip (Sad Panda) in the middle of it.) 
• This afternoon I hit the pavement with Wookie! and did 2.73 miles in 50 minutes

This was not bad for the first time on the streets since early December 2011.  My jogrun was decent, but something was off in my shoes and I ended up walking probably half the time. (And I was getting some awful side stitches.) Apparently, when bonding with Wookie! at the dog park I used some old crummy sneakers and put my good insoles (that help me combat the awesomeness that is plantar fasciitis) in them. 

I never moved the inserts back into my workout/running shoes. (Face.palm.)

I realized this after my workout at the gym on Wednesday when my shoes felt loose.  I remembered laying the inserts next to my sneakers to put them in before the next gym trip and apparently I didn't realize I didn't have them in until I was a 1/3 mile from my house. Far enough to not turn around.

So at about 2 miles in my feet said no more and it took the other 0.73 to get home.  Wookie! was also throwing in the towel and has been recovering ever since we walked in the door.  

Yay for a tired puppy letting us sleep in tomorrow morning!

Fredericksburg's The Rathskeller

Justin and I spent a couple of awesome days in Fredericksburg, TX, before the new year. During this wonderful little trip we were lucky enough to stumble into the Rathskeller for breakfast.  It was across the street from the Fredericksburg Brewery Bed and Brew where we stayed.

If you do one thing while you are in Fredericksburg you should eat breakfast at the Rathskeller.

Image from Trip Advisor

Justin ordered and enjoyed an awesome spin on the typical corn beef hash concept.  His had duck, with perfectly juicy skin. I was jealous when I saw his plate, but that was before I really paid attention to mine. I ordered the smoked salmon on potato patties with over easy eggs, sour cream and caviar. After one bite I realized I needed to replicate this awesome meal at home. While the combination might sound crazy, it's really just crazy good.

I made it and you should too, especially if you can't get to Fredericksburg.

It was pretty simple:

What you need for one plate:

• Two potato patties
• Two to Three large thin slices of smoked salmon
• Two eggs that you'll cook to your liking. (I'm an over easy girl)
• Sour Cream (full fat, low fat, no fat- you pick your poison), top to your liking
• Two to three teaspoons Yellow caviar (or roe)

Now to put it all together:

1. Bake frozen potato patties according to package instructions. (I said simple right! I'm not making these from scratch, through the Rathskeller might've.) You should be able to find these in the frozen food section.  Heck, I bet pre-made hashbrown patties would be pretty tasty too. (I'm kinda hoping it goes without saying that you then put them on a plate next to each in the fashion seen below.)

2. Lay two-three large slices of smoked salmon across the top of the potato patties.

3. Carefully, oh so very carefully, place the almost perfectly cooked over easy eggs (or however you take them) on top of the salmon, one egg per patty. (I cooked them while the potato patties were baking.)

4. Top with sour cream and caviar.  (I might have gone over board on both here, but Justin didn't complain about it.)
                                                

Then just dig in and enjoy!  Sorry no pictures of the empty plates.  You'd probably think they looked weird anyway because we licked them clean. (Just kidding about licking them clean. Sorta.)

The awesome thing about this meal, is you don't have to wait until the morning to eat it, this would be great anytime of the day!

I guess this can be filed under healthy cooking, if you really do bake the potato patties, go with fat free sour cream, and aren't as heavy handed as I was with it. 

Garage Makeovers

Apparently 2012 is the year of the Barbour casa getting some much needed attention. A couple of hours ago Justin wrapped up putting together and installing a work bench in the corner of the garage that contained the chaos of our (er, his?) tools.

Can't wait to see what this baby is going to help churn out. Day one of 2012 and home improvement projects are already being completed.

Here's a before and after!

2011- A year in review

We are looking forward to ringing in 2012 with friends and starting a new year of adventures.
This year we've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to:

Explore Parisian culture:

Walk through ancient history in Rome

 Eat a little barbeque with friends

See the sights of San Francisco

Drink some fine Napa wines 

And enjoy them with friends

Listen to 20+ hours of music at ACL

See some college football (we'll be wearing orange and blue next year- Go Gators!!)

Enjoy the holidays with family

And the beauty of the San Antonio River walk

Enjoy the sites in Fredericksburg

And lots more great times with friends and family!

Cheers to you and yours and may 2012 bring everyone all they looking for in the new year. 

Final day of Couch to 5k

It's been nine weeks. Nine weeks of three times a week forcing myself out the door and into the gym or onto my neighborhood streets with the iPhone strapped on and the awkwardly fitting earphones in my tiny ears (seriously they are freakishly tiny).

I am grateful for the fact that Podrunner had the program. I'm glad I like techno music so I was able to enjoy the program with its  preset BPMs helping me to keep going, even if I didn't match them all of the time.

I'm glad I'm not alone in the journey and there are others pinning some wonderful stuff on Pinterest to help me put things in perspective (because sometimes we don't always clearly hear those closest to us).

I am glad the gym is only 5 minutes from our house, which made some of those early morning workouts possible and those after dark workouts safe (even if I think I hate running on the treadmill, cause maybe I don't because when you are done, you are done and don't have to keep walking home).

I'm glad for my awesome support team. A friend from JLSA who told me she was doing it and inspired me in the first place. My awesome friend, work cubie mate and Dance Central Partner who's been there since way before this started and will be here into the next phase of things to come.

My hubby. He went with me to the gym. He went with me on the jogruns in the neighborhood. He might have been moving backwards while I was moving forwards because I am so much slower and shorter than him and his stride is so ridiculously long because he is a 1/2 foot taller than me. He was there when I got home and he'll be ready to go on more jogruns in the future.

To total up week 9:

Jogrun #1: 3.11 miles in 47 minutes and 22 seconds

Jogrun #2: 3 miles on the treadmill in 42 minutes and 46 seconds

Jogrun #3: 3.11 miles in 48 minutes and some miscellaneous number of seconds.

Total for week 9: 9.22 miles
Total for all 9 weeks: 59.73 miles.  I'd almost be in Austin. Hot damn.

Found on Pinterest.

There's a graduation mix that is the finale of the program and has you jogrunning 35 minutes. I'll tackle that this weekend. It's gonna be all good.

Maybe the 10-week Gateway to 8k will be next. Who know's how far one will have to go to avoid the zombies.

Day 25 of Couch to 5K

Today I did day 1 of week 9.

Day 1 of week 9 of couch to 5k is day 25 of the program.

Of course many more days have passed since I started. But to know that I've laced on the sneaks with the intent of going on a jogrun for some predetermined interval of time for 25 days blows my mind a little.

I woke up this morning, volunteered for JLSA. Came home. Ate a-not-so-worth-of-my-time lunch. Procrastinated by waiting for Justin to come home from Lowe's with more supplies for the dining room remodel (I need to do a whole post on the gorgeousness taking place in there) offered my help, was told it was all in hand (and it really is) and then feigned shock when I saw that the clock said 1:25 p.m. as I was stuffing my iPhone into my armband to hit the road.

And then I did 3.11 miles in 47 minutes and 22 seconds. So a pace of 15:16 per mile according to mapmyrun.com , or just at about 3.9 mph.

Then I decided to do a little statistical digging and mapped just the part of the route that I jogran. (When you make up words, you also get to make up verb usage.)  The 30 minute bit between the 5 minute warm-up and what turned into a 12-minute cool down.

This is where I got excited. I did 2.15 miles in 30 minutes. That is more than 4mph. Outside. In my miniaturized swiss alp neighborhood. And that felt a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Pinned on Pinterest from here.

Maybe I could survive a zombie apocalypse.

Week 8 of Couch to 5K

First and foremost a spoiler alert for The Walking Dead. You should click off this entry right now if you didn't see the episode that aired on 11/13/11.

Can you believe Andrea shot Darryl?!  What the heck was that?!?!  Seriously, the expletives that were uttered as we saw the writing on the wall and the shot was fired. Man oh man.

In other news, I finished week 8.  Thank you Podrunner!

This week consisted of three sessions that all have 5 minute warm-ups, 28 minute jogruns and 5 minute cool downs.

Week 8 was happening when I wrote my posts for week 6 and 7.  The day I wrote those posts I had done day 2 of week 8 on the treadmill. If you've been reading about my progress, then you know I dread a long jogrun on the treadmill.  There's something about my wiring that makes the whole thing somewhat panic inducing and the time remaining feel infinite.  But, I got through it, because I've come so far that I wasn't going to let a measly 28-minute treadmill jogrun stand between me and the end of the first leg of this journey.

And now it's time for the breakdown (Am I the only one who thinks of En Vogue's  Never Gonna Get It when they say that.  Here's a reminder: Link to the video.) :

Day 1: Outdoor run, 2.66 miles in 40 minutes and 45 seconds. A pace of 15:20 per mile (or approximately 3.92 mph).

Day 2: Treadmill run, 2.7 miles in 39 minutes and 30 seconds at approximately 4.2 mph ( 14.28 per mile).  It's the one advantage of the machine, you can manage your speed.

Day 3: Outdoor run, 2.66 miles in 43 minutes. A pace of 16:10 per mile (or 3.72 mph).  I blame the cold early morning for this one. But you know what? I still did it.

That evening I pinned the below to one of my Pinterest boards, because I saw it the night that I finished week 8 and damn if it isn't true:

It was originally pinned from this blog that is going straight to my Google reader list.

The post that pin comes from has another saying on it: "I never regret it when I do it, but I always regret it when I don't."  

It's the simple truths that'll smack you across the face.

You like how I managed to work zombies into this post?