Ah, blessed silence...

...the kind that comes with a husband at work and two dogs napping upstairs in the living room. And control of the remote of course :) Hooray HGTV!

Anything new this week? Let's see. I finally got around to picking up a new pair of running shoes. One of the running stores in town (which also happens to be the one I get my training group discount at) is about 10 mins from where I work Monday/Friday so thanks to the obscene amount of cancellations I had last Friday, I made it over there for shoes before Saturday's long run. They didn't have Adrenaline 10s in my size, but had the 11's so yay! And not shockingly, I've barely heard a peep out of my knee since. Thank goodness, for me and my husband-I'm a whiny injured runner and I don't know how he put up with me last winter when I was actually injured :P

In other running related news, I made it to my first training group Weds speed workout last night. See, these things start at 6pm and I don't get done at work (20 mins from where the workout is) until 5:45pm at the earliest...unless either 1. my last kid cancels or 2. my second to last kid cancels and I call my last kid's mom to see if they want to come early (which they always do). Luckily, the latter was the case last night. Or not luckily, considering the speed workout (for me, with a time goal of 1:45-1:49:59 for my next half) consisted of:

1 mile warmup
4x1200m at 6:45 pace (did I mention that the 600m out and back route was downhill going out and therefore uphill coming back? No? Yeah. That sucked.)
3 min rest in between sets (meaning standing with my hands on my knees desperately trying to catch my breath)
1 mile cooldown

Total workout mileage: approx 4.8 miles, according to my Garmin.

All I have to say is...omfg. Thankfully, a former and soon to be current coworker (she's coming to work where I work) was there to keep me company, and we made friends with a few girls who were in our group. There is NO way I would have made it through a workout like that by myself. No way in hell. I do far better in groups. Misery loves company, perhaps?

My legs were exhausted last night, and have been pretty much all day today. I did get out for a 4 mile run at what felt like long run pace (so 9:30ish) to get my blood moving and clear the junk out of my muscles. So I rewarded myself by convincing J to take me to get sushi for lunch :) My legs weren't particularly happy with me throughout the three grocery stops I had to make after that (regular grocery, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods) but whatev.

Yes, you saw that right. I'm one of those multiple grocery store people. As we've (okay, mostly me dragging J kicking and screaming) been making the move towards more organic, less processed foods, I've found that there are more options for better prices at other stores. Like Trader Joe's. And there are stores with a better selection of organic produce and locally grown/made items. Like Whole Foods. So to give you a visual, here's roughly how today's shopping trip went:

Giant Eagle (aka regular grocery)-fat free half and half (aka J's crack. Dude gets angry when there's no half and half, b/c he won't drink his coffee without it. And you don't want to deal with him when he hasn't had coffee). Diet pop (aka one of my not so guilty pleasures. Recognize.) Organic skim milk (a local farm makes this stuff, and J's super hippie crunchy sister swears by it so it must be good. Plus, it was cheaper than the GE brand organic milk). Canned pumpkin (for the dog's Kong). Frozen waffles and OJ for J. And deoderant.

Trader Joe's-J's Kashi strawberry cereal, avocado salsa verde, guacamoles (yes I meant "guacamoles", you can thank Supertroopers for that one), frozen fries, chicken and cilantro wontons, center cut nitrate free bacon, coffee, pretzel chips, and popcorn

Whole Paycheck...I mean, Whole Foods-organic red peppers, fair trade bananas, local honey, buffalo burger patties, and stew beef from an Ohio farm.

As I've become more aware of where my food comes from, I've found my grocery bills increasing. Because stuff like organic produce, fair trade bananas, and locally farmed and/or grass fed beef costs more. Sucks, but its true. And while Columbus is chock full of farmers markets in the summer, there ain't diddly squat in the winter. So for now, off to Whole Foods I go.


I recently picked up two books from the library-The Abs Diet and the Omnivore's Dilemma. Hopefully by the next time I update this thing, I'll be able to report back on at least one of them...but we'll see. Right now, though, it's time to make sure the Terrible Twosome aren't getting into shenanigans upstairs!