Dinner at La Pita was great last night! I was a little nervous about meeting Kelly, simply because I'm kind of awkward when meeting people and I'm pretty shy until I really get to know someone. I'm glad Stephanie came with me, because she is about as social as you can get ;)
I picked Stephanie up on the way, and we got there a little early, so we chatted until Kelly got there. Kelly was very easy to talk to, so my nerves went away as soon as she got there. She's just as funny in-person as she is on her blog, and it was a fun dinner.
I've shown my favorite meal from La Pita on my blog a million times, so I figured I'd order something different this time. My usual chicken kabob meal is about 30 PP for everything, so I wanted to find something that wasn't so high. I ended up ordering crushed lentil soup and baba ghannouge. I'd never had baba ghannouge before, but it's lower in calories than hummus, and the description sounded very similar...
Hummus is 1 PP per tablespoon, and the baba ghannouge is 1 PP per 2 tablespoons. So you get twice as much for the same amount of PointsPlus. I thought it was worth a taste!
When our food came, I was totally ready to dig in, but I managed to let Steph take a quick picture.
The soup was fantastic; it tasted nearly identical to my Lemon Lentil Soup recipe. And holy smokes, I was in love at first taste with the baba ghannouge. It was amazing! It reminded me a lot of the hummus, only a stronger garlic flavor, and a little bit of a smokiness. I will definitely get that instead of hummus from now on. I ate all of the soup, half of the baba ghannouge, and three (1-ounce) pitas, for a total of 14 PointsPlus.
After dinner, we managed to snag a hostess to take a quick picture of the three of us outside.
We said good-bye to Kelly, and I took Stephanie home, then went to pick up the kids from my parents' house. I thought Jerry was going to be home at 6:30 to be able to get the kids, but it was almost 9:00 when he got home! He'd left at 5:00 in the morning for work. I felt bad that he was there so long, but he said they had to get some sort of tests done (he's going through orientation/training all this week and next week). He didn't seem to mind the long day, because he said it's been really interesting.
I decided to go ahead and switch over to the Hansons' marathon method. I'm really curious to see how I feel while doing it. I'm going to do the lower mileage (beginner) plan, because it'll start at about the same mileage I'm doing now, 30-ish per week. Someone had asked about what the speed and strength workouts were, and here is a list of some for the plan.
My knee was feeling back to normal today, so I think the two days off was just what I needed. Today was a five-mile run at marathon pace on the schedule. Since I'm not going to be "racing" in Chicago, I just chose my pace based on the McMillan Pace Calculator prediction (the pace that the calculator says I can run a marathon at).
First, I calibrated my foot pod. For some reason, it pretty far off on the last treadmill run I did. It's been a long time since I calibrated it, so I'm glad I got that done. I finished watching Pretty Little Liars a couple of weeks ago, so I needed a new show to watch on Netflix while I run. After watching PLL, I was in the mood for another teen show, and I ended up watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager. It's pretty good! Just another teen drama ;)
So I finished my five miles. Tomorrow would normally be my long run day, but since I'm switching over to the Hansons' plan, I'm going to try and follow that right to the letter; which means I'll be running my long runs on Sundays. Tomorrow is just four miles, then I do eight on both Saturday and Sunday. That sounds so much nicer than 14 miles tomorrow in this horrible heat wave we have going on!
I picked Stephanie up on the way, and we got there a little early, so we chatted until Kelly got there. Kelly was very easy to talk to, so my nerves went away as soon as she got there. She's just as funny in-person as she is on her blog, and it was a fun dinner.
I've shown my favorite meal from La Pita on my blog a million times, so I figured I'd order something different this time. My usual chicken kabob meal is about 30 PP for everything, so I wanted to find something that wasn't so high. I ended up ordering crushed lentil soup and baba ghannouge. I'd never had baba ghannouge before, but it's lower in calories than hummus, and the description sounded very similar...
Hummus is 1 PP per tablespoon, and the baba ghannouge is 1 PP per 2 tablespoons. So you get twice as much for the same amount of PointsPlus. I thought it was worth a taste!
When our food came, I was totally ready to dig in, but I managed to let Steph take a quick picture.
The soup was fantastic; it tasted nearly identical to my Lemon Lentil Soup recipe. And holy smokes, I was in love at first taste with the baba ghannouge. It was amazing! It reminded me a lot of the hummus, only a stronger garlic flavor, and a little bit of a smokiness. I will definitely get that instead of hummus from now on. I ate all of the soup, half of the baba ghannouge, and three (1-ounce) pitas, for a total of 14 PointsPlus.
After dinner, we managed to snag a hostess to take a quick picture of the three of us outside.
 |
| Kelly, me, and Steph |
I decided to go ahead and switch over to the Hansons' marathon method. I'm really curious to see how I feel while doing it. I'm going to do the lower mileage (beginner) plan, because it'll start at about the same mileage I'm doing now, 30-ish per week. Someone had asked about what the speed and strength workouts were, and here is a list of some for the plan.
My knee was feeling back to normal today, so I think the two days off was just what I needed. Today was a five-mile run at marathon pace on the schedule. Since I'm not going to be "racing" in Chicago, I just chose my pace based on the McMillan Pace Calculator prediction (the pace that the calculator says I can run a marathon at).
First, I calibrated my foot pod. For some reason, it pretty far off on the last treadmill run I did. It's been a long time since I calibrated it, so I'm glad I got that done. I finished watching Pretty Little Liars a couple of weeks ago, so I needed a new show to watch on Netflix while I run. After watching PLL, I was in the mood for another teen show, and I ended up watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager. It's pretty good! Just another teen drama ;)
So I finished my five miles. Tomorrow would normally be my long run day, but since I'm switching over to the Hansons' plan, I'm going to try and follow that right to the letter; which means I'll be running my long runs on Sundays. Tomorrow is just four miles, then I do eight on both Saturday and Sunday. That sounds so much nicer than 14 miles tomorrow in this horrible heat wave we have going on!
