Gourmet Runner

Somehow Saturday managed to be the world's busiest day. Two state parks, a little hike, an antique mall, a picnic, a visit to a deer park, and I still finagled in a P90X Plyometrics workout in just before 9pm. You would not believe how proud I was of that. 99% of my body wanted to lay on the couch and maybe help myself to some of my delicious coconut ice cream , but that 1% was nagging me and so I just got it done. Since the state parks were repeats for me, I didn't take many pictures. But the Deer Park was awesome! Of course, I just fell in love with the guard dog. I basically paid the $8 admission fee to cuddle up with the world's biggest dog: That poor little deer just wanted some attention and I was enamored with the puppy. I know that after about 100 pounds dogs can't be called "puppies", but whatever. I did feed the deer as well so they wouldn't feel left out: As did the hubs.... To top it all off, I saw a deer hopping across the path on this ...

Since yesterday was our first anniversary , hubby and I planned a day of exploring around where we live. We decided to see Lake Conasauga, which was pretty near (we thought) to us, and would be a great place for me to relax, read a book, and get a tan while the hubster was fishing. Didn't go quite as planned, but we did have fun! I may have had a little too much fun.  We started driving, on what was supposed to be a 25-30 minute journey. Half an hour in, I was excited. Music was pumping, the scenery was beautiful. Here's what we were looking at: Another 20 minutes of driving, 2,000 feet of elevation, and subtract 15 degrees, it began to look more like this: Yeah....I was getting a little nervous. Pretending to still be excited..... I decided to give up on the prospect of tanning and swimming and focus on the scenery and cheering my hubs on while he caught vast amounts of HUGE fish. (He said I would get brownie points if I said he caught lots). Plus, we got a chance to ...

Life got in the way of my long run this morning, and then it was really too hot to start a run outside. So instead I headed to the gym to hop on the treadmill instead. I have 2 weeks left of my gym membership and I will admit I'm a little worried about what I'll do when it runs out! Most of my runs I'll happily do outside, but with heats and storms it can be a difficult to plan them. Luckily I managed to crank out 10 miles today, and I feel good! After all the refueling with "actual" food, I knew I needed a little sugar in my life. I picked up a bag of jawbreakers from Walgreens and can I say it was love at first bite. Well, suck. Everyone knows you can't chew a jawbreaker until you get to the middle. It's the rule!! I don't think anyone looks to me for fashion advice (and if you do, STOP ) and today was no exception. I bought a t-shirt while I was in Walgreens from the children's section. It was only a dollar, and the extra large kiddies size...

When I finished my sugar-free week  , I posted about trying some different styles of eating a week at a time. When I eliminate something from my diet, it really opens my eyes to the ingredients in food and causes me to think about what I'm putting into my body. For me, this is so important since I'm often guilty of tossing in whatever sounds good at the time! This week, I have decided to try eating Gluten-Free. I've read so much about people who live a GF lifestyle and I'm really curious to see how it works out for me. I love my carbs, so I was worried at first about eliminating things like bread, wheat tortillas, and pretzels. Once I started exploring though, I discovered just how many gluten-free choices there are for almost EVERYTHING! My recent purchases: Rice bread instead of my normal wheat/rye To replace Clif bars: Lara, Bumble, and Kind bars! Gluten-Free pretzels! With the basics covered, I'm really looking forward to the coming week of exploring...

Today was long run day and since my half-marathon is in two weeks, I decided on an 11 mile run this morning. In the past 2 months I have had a grand total of ZERO long runs outside--they've all been on the treadmill to better entertain me! Obviously today I needed to get my butt into gear and run outside. I did what any candy loving girl would do and filled up the pouch of my hand-held water bottle with jellybeans to fuel me for the run: I loved this! Because they're so small I ate one or two every half mile, and it was honestly like I was running for jellybeans. Whenever I got tired I would tell myself, "half a mile longer and you get a jellybean." Genius.  I managed to head out early enough (8am) that it was a nice temperature and not sunny, but after an hour  or so the sun was out and I could really feel myself working harder to maintain the pace. Here's the breakdown of the 11 miles:  If you ignore the last half mile (I finished the run and started walki...