Vegan pizza

After I got the kids off to school today, I spent pretty much all morning balancing my checkbook. I guess that's what happens when you go a month without writing anything down! While I did that, and paid a bunch of bills, I watched last night's episode of Parenthood. I absolutely love that show, and I'm so sad that it's on the final season!

I was SO cold this morning that it was hard to get motivated to go out for a run. When I woke up and checked the temp, I was shocked to see that it was 24 degrees outside. I was really tempted to just skip the run and take a hot shower instead, but I knew I'd feel better if I just did it.

I decided to go run at the track again. I feel like I've run more miles on the track in the past three weeks than I have in the past three years combined, but I kind of like running there. It's quiet, there's no traffic, and it feels nice and soft to run on. Normally, I do long runs on Fridays; but I decided to run the Monroe Half this Sunday, so I shifted the schedule a bit, and just had 3.5 miles to do today.

My planned easy pace was 9:53-10:47/mile. After a half mile, I was surprised to see my pace was in the low 9:00's, because it felt pretty easy. I don't know if that means the speed work + cross training is actually working, or maybe I was just having a good day, but I'm happy with that! I consciously tried to slow down a bit, because I want to save my energy for Sunday. I ended up doing 3.5 miles in 32:32, a 9:18/mile pace. (I forgot to press the stop button on my Garmin, until a few minutes after I finished).

My plan for Sunday is to just run at a pretty easy pace. I think I'll feel good for about 8-10 miles, and then it'll get tough, so I want to plan on saving some energy. My longest run since August was 10 miles, and that was a month ago. I run enough that I can pretty much just go run a half-marathon on a whim, but that's not to say it'll be easy. I expect to be sore afterward! But I really like this particular race, and if I take it nice and easy, I should be able to enjoy it. There is also a chance that my brother Nathan will run it with me--I hope so. I'm planning to run about a 10:15-10:30 pace, but if I happen to feel really good that day, I may aim for sub-10:00.

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For dinner tonight, I made what ended up being one of the best pizzas I've ever tasted--and it was cheese-less! We always used to do "Pizza Fridays" and make homemade pizza, but we haven't done that in a long time, so I wanted to do it today. I made my favorite whole wheat crust recipe, and divided the dough into fourths so that we could each make our own individual pizza.

After getting home from the grocery store, I realized we didn't have any pizza sauce; so I just took a can of tomato paste and added a touch of sugar, some Italian seasonings, and enough water to thin it out. I decided to make an all-veggie pizza with no cheese.

I chopped up garlic (lots of garlic!), peppers, onions, zucchini, and mushrooms, and sautéed them in olive oil. Then to assemble my pizza, I spread the tomato paste mixture on the pre-baked crust, sprinkled on some red pepper flakes, and topped it with the veggie mixture. I sprinkled some black olives on it, too, and then baked it at 450 for about 10 minutes.

I wasn't sure how it would taste, especially with that tomato paste-sauce, but it was AMAZING. I'm already looking forward to making the same thing next Friday! I didn't miss the cheese at all, and the entire pizza was only 9 PointsPlus (crust was 6, sauce was 1, olives were 1, and the oil from the veggies was 1). One of these days, I may try doing a vegan challenge just for a month, to make myself get more creative with food (vegetables in particular). I'm not planning to become vegan, but I do think that it would be a good challenge to try. Speaking of challenges, I forgot to pick a challenge for November. Maybe I'll consider the cross training (bike riding) once per week my challenge for the month.

Jerry's off work tomorrow and Sunday, so I'm not sure what our plans are yet, but I am hoping to have a pretty low-key day tomorrow. I love cold weather, but it makes me want to curl up under the electric blanket and watch a movie ;)

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Favorite teas

I had plans to run with my friend Amanda this morning. She had asked me if I could check out her running form and give her some tips, and since I had an easy three miles on the schedule today, I asked if she would just want to meet up for a run at the State Park. She sent me a text this morning saying that she had a migraine, so would have to reschedule. It was a nice morning for a run, so I just did three miles near my house.
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what I wanted for breakfast this morning. Breakfast is usually my favorite meal of the day, but absolutely nothing sounded good. Finally, I decided on a Chocolate Cherry Almond Smoothie, and that ended up being a great choice. I hadn't had one in so long, and it was really good! I added extra cocoa powder to make it a rich chocolate flavor.

I headed out for my three-miler, and my legs felt okay. They were definitely fatigued from the bike ride yesterday, but I just ran at what felt like an easy pace. I forgot to turn the auto lap feature back on my Garmin, which was actually kind of confusing while I was running. I always look at the "lap pace" rather than the average pace or current pace, but because I forgot to turn on the auto lap, the lap pace WAS the average pace. So I just ignored the watch, and ran at what felt comfortable.
When I was messing with the cycling mode yesterday, I realized that my weight was still set to 135 on my Garmin. It's been a while since I was at that weight! I reset it to 152, and I was surprised at what a difference that made in my calories burned on my run today. The Garmin uses height, weight, gender, and heart rate to determine calories burned, so with a higher weight, the number of calories burned increases. I guess that's the only real bonus to being over goal right now ;) 

On Facebook this morning, I saw that a local craft store was going to be closing at the end of the year, and everything in the store was 75% off. I have enough crafting supplies to keep busy for a long time, but I couldn't resist checking it out! I browsed around for a while, and the pickings were pretty slim, but I did buy $150 worth of stuff for less than $40. I got a few things for the kids for Christmas, some stuff for Eli to make a school project (he has to make a wigwam), and a few random crafting things for me. I saw a huge display of St. Patrick's Day stuff, and I was tempted to buy all sorts of things to bring to Portland for the Shamrock Run. 

I didn't get the glasses or headband (I'm sure Thomas will be so disappointed!), but I did get some green hair extensions and temporary tattoos. 

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I slowly-but-surely have been working on using up my David's Tea stash. I have a ridiculous amount of tea in the cupboard! It's hard not to order more when I hear of the new flavors they come out with, but I really need to use up what I have. Several months ago, I made it a mission to use it and clear some space in the cupboard. I've made a pretty big dent, but I'm bummed that I don't have any of my favorites left, so now I'm drinking ones that are good, but not great.  Then a few days ago, Caitlin told me that David's just released their Banana Nut Bread flavor for a limited time. I used to love that flavor! I would mix it with the Salted Caramel, and it was delicious. Because it's only available for a limited time, of course I ordered some. And naturally, I had to get some of the Salted Caramel to have with it because I am out of that! (I just looked at the site to add the link to the Banana Nut Bread, but it's already gone--I just ordered it on the 31st.)
Several people have asked me what my favorite teas from David's are. I've tried dozens of them, and I definitely prefer the flavored black teas. My very favorites that I'll keep ordering as long as they aren't discontinued are:
Salted Caramel Red Velvet Cake Glitter & Gold Read My Lips
Those are all black teas. Once in a while, I'm in the mood for rooibos tea, and my favorite flavor is Birthday Cake. There have been several others that I loved, but they were (sadly) discontinued. I will be one VERY happy camper if they ever bring back Toasted Marshmallow! It's funny, I even got Noah hooked on David's Tea--his favorite is Cranberry Pear black tea.
Now I'm in the mood for tea. Going to go make a cup and probably take a hot bath. I'm freezing!

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A 20-mile ride

When I got up this morning, I kind of wished I hadn't said I was going to bike ride for cross training once a week. But, because I said it, I was going to do it!

After getting the kids off to school, it took me a while to get ready to finally leave, but not nearly as long as last time. I already had my bike in our garage, I had the right air pump for the tires, and I knew how to put on my helmet ;)  I didn't know this until this morning, but the Garmin 620 has a cycling mode on it. Last week, I wore the 910XT in order to use the cycling mode.

I read a little bit more of that book, The Big Book of Cycling for Beginners, but it made me feel SO overwhelmed. I had no idea there was so much to know! I just prayed I wouldn't get a flat tire or something. Instead of riding on the roads again, I decided to drive to the Metropark and ride the long bike path, so I wouldn't have to worry about cars coming up behind me.

Getting the bike into the Jeep took some time. I knew you could take the front tire off the bike, but it took me a little while to figure that out. Once I did, though, I realized just how simple it was. Next time it'll be easy!

FINALLY, I made my way to the Metropark. I parked at the near end of the park, where the trail begins. I was hoping to bike 20 miles today, but I wanted to see how it felt before determining that. Last week, I did 16, so I just figured I could ride out 8 miles and see if I wanted to turn around or keep going.

It was pretty windy again (not as bad as last week, but still very noticeable). I stopped about a mile in to put on some gloves. As I was riding, I spent some time messing with the gears, just to see what happened. I wanted to understand a little better when to shift gears, so I figured playing around with them was the best way to learn.

The first time I downshifted while going up a hill (overpass, because we don't have hills), it was a big lightbulb moment for me. It was SO much easier to pedal! Also, when the wind was really strong, I found that downshifting helped.

The trail was really bumpy going through the woods, because of all the tree roots growing underneath the asphalt. There were a few times where I hit a bump and was pretty sure I shattered my pelvis when my butt came down on the seat. It's funny, I never noticed the bumps when I was running, but on a bike, they are definitely magnified. I wasn't really able to go fast where the bumps were bad, because I was constantly braking.

I felt good at mile eight, so I kept going. I was really surprised that my butt bones weren't nearly as sore as they were last week. Last week, I had to keep shifting positions on the seat, because it was painful, but it was definitely more tolerable today. I looped a park at mile 10 before heading back. It was pretty!

On the way back, I had a tailwind, and it was crazy how much easier it was to pedal with the wind rather than against it. You can see on my speed graph exactly where I changed direction:

On the way back, I went across the overpass, and a combination of the downhill plus tailwind, I hit over 20 mph. I'm sure that's not impressive to "real" cyclists, but that was pretty terrifying! It felt fun going that fast, but I knew I was toast if I hit a bump.

I went back through the Metropark, and was surprised at how good I felt for having just ridden my bike farther than I ever have before. My legs felt tired, but not sore at all. I'd also burned 743 calories, earning 10 Activity PointsPlus! (Good for two glasses of wine ;) )

I definitely enjoyed today's ride more than last week's, and I dare say that I'm sort of looking forward to doing it again next week. Maybe I'll choose a new place to go, to keep it interesting.

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I was so excited when I saw today that Andrew Peterson is a finalist for the Runner's World Cover Contest. I posted about him when the voting had just gotten started, and I was really hopeful that he would win. I voted for him daily, and I loved seeing his name rise up the leaderboard.

When I was at the Runner's World headquarters office last month, I was really hoping to get a sneak peak at who won, but they kept it very confidential. We still don't know who the actual winner is, but there are 10 finalists, and Andrew is one of them!

When I first read his story, I found him so inspirational. He's intellectually disabled due to fetal alcohol syndrome, but he said, "I don't want your pity; rather, I need your respect." His story of being teased when he was younger because of the way he talked made me think of Mark, which of course tugged at my heart strings. But Andrew has proved himself to be worthy of Runner's World not because he has a disability--but because he's FAST and a great runner. He used running to cope during school, but he kept taking it up a level, and now he runs in the Special Olympics. His times are amazing! So I would love to see him on the cover as a respected athlete.

You can read his finalist bio here, on the RW site. There are some really great finalists. Michele Elbertson, for example, has lost 268 pounds and is a six-time marathoner! 

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For dinner tonight, I had a bunch of peppers to use up, so I made an old favorite--Stuffed Pepper Soup. I had forgotten about that soup until I saw a picture of it a couple of days ago, and it sounded SO good. I always crave soup this time of year, and thankfully, my family loves eating soup for dinner.

Eating that tonight made me in the mood to try out some more soup recipes. Love this time of year!

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RECIPE: Unstuffed Peppers

This started out as a stuffed pepper soup recipe (adapted from Skinny Taste), but I made some changes to make it nice and thick--so it's basically a stuffed pepper, but without all the work!

I had a ton of peppers to use up, and that recipe only called for 1 cup, so I made some changes to accommodate all my peppers (and my family's tastes). The soup unstuffed peppers are SO yummy!

Unstuffed Peppers

2 tsp. olive oil
1 lb. lean ground turkey breast
4 bell peppers (I used one green, one yellow, and two red), chopped
1 onion, chopped
4 cups beef broth
2 cans petite diced tomatoes
1 can crushed tomatoes
3/4 tsp. marjoram
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1.5 cups uncooked rice (white or brown--I used white)

Cook the rice according to package directions, and set aside. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large soup pot (at least 5.5-quart size). Add the onion and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the turkey, breaking it up as it browns. Once the turkey is browned, add the bell peppers and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients (except the rice) and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and let it cook until the peppers and onions are as soft as you'd like (I cooked it for about 15 minutes).

Add the rice to the soup pot, and stir to combine.

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Hills! and Taste Test Tuesday

Since I'm going to be running the Shamrock Run 15K in Portland in March, and just looking at the elevation chart makes me feel out of breath... 

...I figured I'd better do some hill training over the winter. There are 482 feet of elevation gain in the race, and it would probably take me at least 200 separate runs near my house to get that kind of elevation gain ;) The only option for hill training, other than an expressway overpass, is the treadmill. 

So yesterday, I did a short hill workout on the 'mill (I was in a hurry because I had a meeting with Eli's teacher). It ended up looking like this:

0.25 mile warm-up at 6.0 mph and 0% incline

0.25 mile at 6.5 mph and 5% incline (rest 90 seconds)

0.25 mile at 7.0 mph and 5% incline (rest 90 seconds)

0.25 mile at 6.5 mph and 5% incline (rest 90 seconds)

0.25 mile at 6.0 mph and 7% incline (rest 90 seconds)

0.25 mile at 6.0 mph and 7% incline 

It looks so easy on paper, but it was tough! The 7.0 mph part was actually too hard, so I had to reduce the speed about halfway through that split. The ones at 6.0 felt so easy for the first 30 seconds or so, and then I was counting the seconds until it was over. Even though it was only a mile and a half of running, it wasn't easy running at all. Makes me nervous for Shamrock!

Today, I went to the track again, just to test out the new calibration on my foot pod for the Garmin. I was determined to find the right calibration number. I did the math based on the last run, and set it on 101.8% today. Turns out that was nearly perfect! I turned off the auto-lap feature on my watch (where it automatically marks one-mile splits) and every fourth lap of the track, I pushed the lap button. The splits were marked on the Garmin as 1.00 miles, but I'd actually run 1600 meters (slightly less than 1.00 miles). I'm just glad they were so consistent, which is what I was looking for.

For the first split (four laps), I just ran at an easy, steady pace. Then, for the second split, I ran a 100-meter stride in each of the four laps, just to test to see if the foot pod would still give me a consistent distance even when running faster. For the last split, I just ran at a slightly faster pace, without a big variance. I was very happy to see that the foot pod could decipher the different stride lengths, and there was no discrepancy on the distance run at all.

I'm curious to see what happens when I use this on the treadmill now. I've always had the calibration set at 89%, which meant my Garmin was showing me that I was going slower than I actually was. But that was to get the same readout that was on the treadmill. So likely, my treadmill calibration is off--when I have it set at 6.0 mph, it might actually be moving at a 6.1-6.2 mph speed. 

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I haven't done Taste Test Tuesday in a while, so I thought I'd bring it back today. When I was at the Heartbreak Hill Half & Festival, Health Warrior was at the expo with a booth set up, giving away samples of their Chia Bars. I also received a few samples in my welcome bag, and I actually didn't even try them until after I got home. I was amazed at how good they were! The first one I tried was coconut:

I liked it so much that I ended up ordering four boxes--Coconut, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Apple Cinnamon, and Banana Nut. They're all really good, but my favorites are the Coconut and the Chocolate Peanut Butter. The ingredients are pretty simple (this example is from the Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor):

The nutrition info isn't bad, either:

They are 3 PointsPlus each, which is good for the size. They're not huge bars (you can see it in my hand in the first pic), but they're a good size to keep you satisfied between meals.

They have a bunch of different flavors to choose from, and there haven't been any that I really disliked. The Coffee flavor is interesting, but I didn't love it enough to order a box. I didn't think these were available in stores (I ordered mine on Amazon), but I just checked the "Find a Location" section on their website, and they are available at a nutrition store near me.

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Jerry's off work tonight, so we're going to try and catch up on a few shows! Perfect for a rainy evening :)

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Motivational Monday #85

Happy Motivational Monday! What a tough few days this has been, with my kids eating Halloween candy right in front of me at all hours of the day ;) I've managed to avoid it, which is a big victory for me! Halloween marks the beginning of the whole holiday season, so I'm hoping that I can just keep my goals at the front of my mind and spend my Weight Watchers Points wisely.

Overall, though, I'm very happy with how well I've been doing this fall. My eating has been on track for the most part, and I've been following a new running schedule (excited about it, even!). I want to go into 2015 feeling happy with where I'm at.

Anyway... Let's see some motivating stories this Monday...

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Cat had surgery a couple of months ago, and was told that she couldn't run for 10 weeks. She didn't realize just how much she'd miss running until she couldn't do it--she was aching to get out there. Yesterday was her big day--10 weeks after surgery, she got to run! She ran four miles and felt fantastic. (Cat is a "Sole Mate" of mine, from my Ragnar SoCal team. She's lost over 90 pounds!)

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Maegan, and her husband, David, just completed their third 5K race together. Her goal was to run at least one mile of it, and to finish the race under 50 minutes. While running hasn't been easy for Maegan or David, they continued to train, and Maegan even completed her goal of running a mile during training. The race they did was the Undy 5000 5K (for colon cancer awareness) in Atlanta. The couple was surprised and excited to finish in 47 minutes, beating their goal! They've even lost a combined 80 pounds on Weight Watchers since mid-January. (Maegan's blog)

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After getting back into running regularly in August following a break, Kelly completed the Dallas Running Club half marathon Sunday! This was her fourth time running this particular race, and it was her fastest time--2:22:56. She says the best part was all the different kinds of people and bodies on the course.  Little old ladies, one-armed runners, big, skinny, short, tall, fast, slow--everyone was a runner!

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Alice is very proud of her mom, Edith, for completing the 4-mile Fall Frolic in Hammond, Indiana--at age 80! Edith started running in 2011 while taking a No Boundaries running program at her local Fleet Feet store. Even though a friend told her she probably shouldn't be doing "those things" at her age, she checked with her doctor, who gave her the okay. Running even helped take away some aches and pains that she had in her hips. She just had a full cardiac workup in August, and the cardiologist said he'd never seen such a healthy 80-year old, and he wishes that all his patients were that healthy! Edith took first place in her age group at the race, and continues to be a huge inspiration to the other runners in her No Boundaries program.

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I got this email from a woman named Lori while I was in Pennsylvania, and I was so excited about it that I immediately shared it with the other bloggers in the car with me. I love hearing about stories like this one! Rather than edit the story down, I'll just copy it here:

"For a while I wanted to write you an email and thank you because you made a difference in my life and you don't even know it! And believe me, it is a pretty big deal :) I will tell you why. In January 2012 I found your blog. You inspired me to change my life, to take care of me not just everyone around me. I needed badly to lose 50 pounds (even more, but those 50 pounds really mattered for my health). I was also trying to get pregnant for a couple of years and it was just not working. Reading your blog every day helped me keep myself motivated and I even joined a boot camp. And I did it, I lost those 50 pounds and felt better than ever. Following year I got pregnant. With QUADRUPLETS!!!! It was a VERY high risk pregnancy and the doctors gave the babies very little chances of survival and no chances of all being born healthy. Well, I took that pregnancy all the way to 29 weeks and 4 days, the babies were little but PERFECT. The doctors told me that my body was in a great shape before I got pregnant and that was one of the reasons the babies did so good. So thank you from the bottom of my heart! I didn't know what I was preparing myself for, but now I really wanted you to know too, because you are part of our journey. I will attach some recent pictures of our family. The Quads are doing great, they are 13 months old now. May God bless you and keep you and your family healthy and happy! Much love,
Lori."

(Lori's blog about the quadruplets)

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Don't forget to check out more stories on the Motivational Monday Facebook post!

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A super nerdy foot pod vs. GPS vs. accelerometer experiment

I was totally expecting to wake up at 4:00 this morning because of the time change, but I took half a Xanax last night before bed, and managed to sleep until the phone woke me up at nearly 8:00! That would have been 9:00 without the time change, and I can't even remember the last time I slept that late. It's always awesome when I can get a really good night's sleep.

I was very excited to track my friend, Renee, who was running the NYC Marathon this morning. Renee is the one who got me started running, and I've always looked up to her as a runner. She's always had a dream to run the NYC Marathon some day, and she finally got in a couple of years ago, in 2012. I even secretly bought a plane ticket to fly out there and surprise her for the race.

Then, the devastation of Hurricane Sandy happened. I made the decision not to go even before the canceled the race, but it worked out well for Renee to defer her entry until either 2013 or 2014, and she chose 2014. So, this morning, her long-time dream of running the marathon came true! I love that the live tracker had mile splits the entire course, so I could really follow along to see how she did. It was ridiculously windy today, and I haven't talked to Renee to see how she feels about her finishing time or how the race went for her, but she finished in 4:12:04. I know she was hoping for sub-4:00, and she's run a sub-4:00 previously, but with the wind today, I think everyones times were slower than anticipated.

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Anyway, I got an email from Garmin about the foot pod. It's funny, I've been trying to get an answer from them for nearly a YEAR, and never heard a word back. Then I posted about it a couple of days ago on my blog, and suddenly, I get an response ;)

It's very long, but this is the general summary of what Garmin had to say: There is an accelerometer in the Garmin 620 and 220, which will give you the same info that a foot pod would; therefore, you don't need to use a foot pod. The accelerometer has to be "calibrated", which happens automatically once you do a couple of runs outdoors with GPS--apparently, the Garmin will "learn" about your running, and will give you an accurate reading. So, according to the email from Garmin, you don't need to use a foot pod because the built-in accelerometer will give you the same info--pace and distance--that you would get with GPS or foot pod.

So, if this is true, then my Garmin should "know" me VERY well, because I've been running with it for nearly a year now. If it just takes a couple of runs to calibrate, mine should be spot-on. I decided to test that today, out of sheer curiosity. Warning: This is about to get extremely nerdy and technical, so just skip to the page break if you don't care. Most people don't ;)

The only true way to test it out was on a measured track, so I went to the local high school 1600-meter track. I planned to do three runs: the first using GPS, the second using the foot pod, and the third using just the built-in accelerometer.

First up: GPS. I chose the same mark on the inner lane of the track to start and stop all my 1600 splits. Each lap is 400 meters, so I started the Garmin on the mark, and then stopped it on the fourth lap. I never had to change lanes or dodge people or anything, so I am 100% certain that I ran 1600 meters for all of the splits I did today.

Split one was done in 9:33. The GPS was very accurate, showing 0.99 miles at the 1600-meter mark. (For reference, 1600 meters = 0.994194 miles.)

Second: For this split, I turned off the GPS and turned on the foot pod (which I had just calibrated a couple of days ago, although I didn't have a chance to test the calibration yet). The calibration factor was 105.8%. Again, I ran four laps, starting and stopping on the same mark.

Split two (again, 1600 meters) was done in 9:16. The Garmin read 1.04 miles, which is 1673.72 meters. So, the foot pod showed me as going almost 74 meters farther than I had actually run. In pacing terms, my actual pace was 9:22/mi, but the foot pod showed a pace of 8:56. That's pretty significant for just a mile!

Third: For this split, I turned off the GPS as well as the foot pod, which activated the built-in accelerometer. This is what I was most curious about, especially after reading the email from Garmin. I ran 1600 meters, starting and stopping on the same mark as before.

Split three was done in 9:31, and the readout on the Garmin was 0.89 miles, or 1432.32 meters. In pacing terms, my actual pace was 9:37/mi, and the accelerometer pace showed 10:43. That's a minute and six seconds difference, per mile!

After I did those three miles, I still believe that the foot pod can be accurate when calibrated to the correct number. It's just hard to find that number! For a long time, I had it calibrated to my treadmill, and it was extremely consistent. So I think I just need to find the right calibration factor on the foot pod.

I went to the car, and decided to do the math to recalibrate it, and then go run another 1600 meters. It would have bothered me all day if I didn't ;) I got a calibration factor of 105.5, which wasn't that big of a change. After running the 1600 meters again (in a time of 9:30), the Garmin read 1.03 miles (or 1657.62 meters). Better than the second split by 16 meters, but still 57 meters too much. In pacing terms, my actual pace was 9:36/mi, foot pod pace showed 9:14.

I'm going to keep playing around with the calibration factor on the food pod until I can get it to give an accurate read. Then I'd like to experiment with it both on the treadmill and on the indoor track, just out of curiosity. But if there is one thing I learned with certainty, it's that the built-in accelerometer is not at all accurate (at least not for me).

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So it has now been 48 hours since Halloween, and I've only had TWO pieces of my kids' candy! I had a fun size Butterfinger and a fun size Milky Way. Today was extremely difficult, because the kids keep offering me candy, and I truly want to just dive headfirst into the bag and eat it until I feel sick. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true! Instead, I've managed to continue counting my PointsPlus, keeping my goals in mind.

I'm really undecided about whether I'm going to run the Monroe Half on Sunday. On one hand, I really want to run it because it's my hometown race. I did it last year, and I LOVED it--I paced Stephanie to sub-2:10, and I felt fantastic. It's only about five miles away, so it's very convenient. Also, my friend Stacie is the race director, and I haven't seen her in forever.

Stephanie and me after last year's race

On the other hand, I'm totally unprepared to run a half marathon right now. I ran 10 miles on October 9th, but that's the farthest distance I've run since August 22nd! The weather doesn't look good as of right now (of course, that can change within the hour in Michigan). If I do the race, it would be solely for fun, and I would have to run very easy just to get through it. I'm sure I can finish, but it'll be harder than I'm used to. I'm leaning toward doing it--just nervous about it!

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New Halloween traditions

As of yesterday, I still didn't know what I was going to do today for Mark's birthday. It's been our tradition every year to go to my parents' house for dinner, cake, and ice cream, let Mark open his presents, and then hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. 

It rained pretty much all day today, starting just after I started my long run. My long run was only six miles this week, so I didn't mind running in the rain. I kept the pace slow, and just tried to enjoy the run.

I got an e-mail that I thought was so awesome I just have to share. It's from a woman named Kimberly Cherry, who followed along with Mark's story (I asked her permission to share the email):

"Hi Katie,

When Mark died and you asked for random acts of kindness.... ice cream came to my mind instantly : )  I grabbed vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream, along with every possible topping me or anyone I asked in the grocery store could think of, and headed to a nearby nursing home. 

The look on the residents' faces was priceless... and the staff was in tears.  
When I told my son (he's 11) about it that evening.... he said, "let's do it again !"  So... I arranged for with the nursing home for us to come out and have a "dessert party" once a month....every month.  We chose dessert...because that's our happiest meal and Mark taught me from so far away... the value of being happy.

It has been SO MUCH FUN, I can't even begin to tell you... It's always the second Saturday of the month so the residents look forward to it and know we'll be coming.  We've done: a cookie, cobbler, cake, brownie, ice cream (homemade) month.... and since we live in the south- you have to have a pie month!  And we've done a couple of "international dessert" months when we've made desserts from other countries and even made a PowerPoint presentation about the countries to share with the residents.

We've lost a few residents.... a couple have died, a few went home (but their families have brought them back for the parties!) and we've gotten new residents.
We can't imagine not doing this.... we've carried some of our family members with us, friends of my son... and some of my co workers.  Everyone has such a GOOD time !
And I think of Mark every time ...and thank him for reminding me to be happy...and how so often it comes from creating "happy" for someone else.

I'm thinking about you Katie and your family.... and I know Mark is too."

Isn't that just amazing? That is more than I ever dreamed would happen when I suggested that people do random acts of kindness in Mark's honor! After reading that email, I knew what I had to do today to celebrate Mark's birthday.

This afternoon, I went to the store and bought two gallons of ice cream, some whipped cream, and several topping choices for sundaes. Then Jerry, the kids, and my parents went to Mark's group home to bring them the sundae supplies to enjoy for dessert tonight.

The last time I was there was when Mark was dying, and hospice came to evaluate him. I wanted to go back several times, but I feel like I don't really have a purpose to go now that Mark is gone. Bringing the sundae supplies was a good reason to go, and I know Mark would certainly approve ;)

My mom had a bunch of ring lights that she passes out with candy on Halloween, so we handed those out to the residents, and they thought they were pretty cool. Most of the residents are very quiet, but there are a couple that are talkative, and I always like listening to what they have to say. One of the guys proudly showed us some Halloween buttons on his shirt, and another guy told us about the doctor coming to check out his ear, because he hurt it while he was sleeping.

We didn't stay long, because they were getting ready to have dinner, but I'm so glad that I went. I feel like I did something good in Mark's honor, and I know the residents will be happy to have sundaes tonight. Afterward, I went home to pass out candy to any trick-or-treaters that may come. I've never actually been home on Halloween, so I wasn't sure how many kids come down our street, but my neighbors said they usually only get 3-4 kids each year. (As I ended this post, trick-or-treating was over. We got a total of 8 kids! Haha. The leftover candy is going in the Kitchen Safe.)

My kids went trick-or-treating with Jerry's mom. I have no idea what Noah's costume is supposed to be... he just saw it at Goodwill and wanted it. Eli is a zombie, and I bought make-up to put on him, but he didn't want to use it ;)

My parents went to the movies tonight instead of passing out candy. They asked if I wanted to go, but I really wanted to stay home tonight and pass out candy. When we left the group home, my mom handed me my own treat for Halloween:

Coffee Crisp!! I adore these candy bars, but you can only get them in Canada, so I don't get them very often. It's kind of funny, because whenever someone in my family goes to Canada for whatever reason (we live about 30 minutes from the border in Detroit), they come home with a ton of Coffee Crisp candy bars ;) It was 7 PointsPlus, and the perfect treat for Halloween. I went all of October without having any Halloween candy, so this was worth the wait!

Anyway, I think I will make it a new tradition to bring dessert to the group home every Halloween in honor of Mark (and hopefully more often--maybe monthly or every other month). Kimberly's email was very inspiring, and I hope that it inspires people to do something kind for someone else. I wish Mark was around to see just how big of an impact he made!

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Calibrating a foot pod to a Garmin Forerunner 620

My sister wanted some help calibrating the foot pod for her Garmin 620, so I spent a while this morning searching for any info I could find. I've tried to get an answer from Garmin several times over the past year about it, but I've never gotten a response (I love my Garmin, but their customer service is terrible). I knew that there was a calibration factor (a number that is factory set at 100.0), but I had no idea what that number meant. So this morning, I was determined to find out.

I calibrated my foot pod a long time ago with the 910XT, but I've noticed that it's been "off" lately when I've used it, showing that I'm going a slower pace than I actually am running. After a ton of searching online, I found out how to manually calibrate the foot pod (the newer Garmin Forerunners don't have the calibration tool built in), and I actually understand what the number means now.

If anyone is interested, to calibrate the foot pod to the Garmin Forerunner 620:

1) On the watch, go to Settings - Sensors - Foot Pod - Calibration Factor
2) If it's not already, set it to 100.0% (this just makes the math easier later)
3) Choose a measured course to run (ideally, this would be a 400-meter track, but you could also use a treadmill if you want to calibrate the watch to read the same as what the treadmill shows).
4) Start the watch, and run 800 meters (you could run farther, but make sure to do at least 800). Note: Run the 800 meters as measured by the track or treadmill--just ignore the watch for now, because it probably won't be accurate. Stop the watch when you're done.
5) Take note of the distance that is shown on the watch.
6) Use this formula to figure out the calibration factor:
    Actual distance in meters/(recorded distance x current calibration)
   
For example: You run 800 meters on a track, but the Garmin showed that you ran 0.48 miles. Convert the miles to meters (I just use Google to do that for me), and you get 772 meters. So you plug in the numbers... 800/(772 x 1.000) = 1.036. So the new calibration factor needs to be changed to 103.6% (see step 1).

The number just shows that you ran 103.6% of what the Garmin was showing (slightly faster).

That was a whole lotta math, but you know I love numbers, so it was fun for me ;)

I had three miles at goal race pace on the schedule today. My goal is a sub-2:00 half-marathon, which is a 9:10/mi pace. So My goal for today's run was to stay between 9:00 and 9:10 per mile. (When you run a half-marathon, the total distance is usually longer than 13.1 miles, due to weaving and not hitting the course tangents. So I like to have a small buffer in my pace, aiming for about 5-10 seconds per mile faster than needed.)

I wanted to calibrate my foot pod, so I went to the high school track. I decided to run 800 meters as a warm-up, and calibrate the foot pod with that number, then run my 3-miler at goal race pace. I ran at an easy pace for the calibration, then cleared my Garmin and started the goal pace run (using GPS, not the foot pod).

My legs were tired today! I'm not sure doing cross-training the day before a goal pace run was a good idea. I wasn't sore (well, except the bones in my butt! They feel bruised from the seat of my bike), but my legs were definitely feeling tired. I did really well at holding pace, even though it felt very hard today.

I'd like to go back to the track and use the foot pod rather than GPS, just to see how accurate it is when I run at all different speeds. Maybe I'll do that next week. I'm hoping to not have to use the treadmill much this winter, like I did last winter; but if I do, I'd like my foot pod to be accurate.

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I've been really consumed with a missing persons case for the past few days. On Saturday night, there was a house a few miles from me (actually, it's on my favorite long run route) that had a Halloween party. It was a huge party, with upwards of 600 people there. The house is surrounded by cornfields and woods, and it's a pretty rural area. There was a 22-year old woman named Chelsea Bruck at the party who went missing sometime around 2:00 a.m. Sunday.

She didn't have her cell phone or purse with her (she left them in a friend's car). Supposedly, someone saw her talking to a guy near where the cars were parked, so he is now a person of interest. But there are truly no real leads on this case--it's like she just vanished.

I've been seeing several news vans there all week, and they've had search parties and candlelight vigils. Here is the poster they've been handing out (click to enlarge):

The police have also released a sketch of the person of interest:

I didn't know her, but because this was so close to my house, I've been following the case really closely. Her case was on Nancy Grace tonight, so hopefully they'll get some new leads. I just really hope that Chelsea is alive and comes home safely! It's so scary how someone can disappear just like that.

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Adventures in bike riding

Wednesdays are normally rest days for me, but after I got the kids off to school today, I started thinking about what I could do to be active today. I thought about going for a walk, but then my bike popped into my head. We are nearly finished with building the garage (it has taken since spring!) and I've been meaning to get my bike from my parents' garage and move it over here. So I decided to go for a bike ride this morning.

I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to riding a bike for fitness. I bought a pretty nice hybrid bike in 2011 when I had maintained my weight loss for a year, but I've only ridden it a handful of times. I honestly just don't enjoy bike riding very much, probably because I'm so nervous about getting hit by a car or getting a flat tire. But I want to like it, because I know that the cross training will be good for my running, so I'm hoping that if I do it more often, I'll get more comfortable with it.

Old photo: this is my bike when I first got it in 2011

Anyway, I figured I'd do 16 miles--the same 16-mile route that I ran when training for the Chicago Marathon--from my house all the way to the State Park, around the 5K loop at the park, and then back home. I packed a backpack with some stuff that I thought I may need: water, gloves and a hat (it was 39 degrees), some money, and my phone.

I went to my parents' house to start the ride, because that's where my bike was. The tires were totally flat, and I couldn't find an air pump anywhere. My parents have two large garages, so I spent a good 30 minutes searching for an air pump. Finally, I called them to ask my dad where it was (he was helping my brother move some people out of a house he just bought--a story for another day!). My dad usually uses an air compressor, which I didn't feel comfortable trying to use, so his options for manual pumps were really limited. One was a pump for a football or something, and the other was SO old that it was all rust. It basically disintegrated when I tried to use it!

I was getting really frustrated--here I was, actually wanting to go for a bike ride, and I couldn't. My final option was a manual hand pump that I have attached to my bike. I've tried using it before with no luck, so I wasn't sure I could get it to work out. Using the little hand pumps like that are a lot of work! To make a super long story a little shorter, I messed with it enough to where I finally got air in the tires. Not enough air, unfortunately, so I had to keep adding more until it felt okay.

Next came time to put on my helmet. You would think a helmet would be the simplest part of the whole adventure, right? I probably spent another 15 minutes rearranging straps, tightening and loosening, and trying to get it right. It felt weird, especially on my forehead, but I figured that was just because I had to get used to it.

Finally... FINALLY... I was ready to ride.

I wore my Garmin 910XT because I was curious to see what my speed was. It was actually pretty slow going at first. I had a headwind for the first half of the ride, and holy cow, is it ever hard to pedal into the wind! I really wanted to turn around and forget the whole thing, but after all the work I put into the tires and the helmet, I wanted to get in my 16 miles.

It was really scary riding on the roads. When I run, I run against traffic, so I don't feel nervous at all about being on the roads. But on a bike, you're supposed to ride with the flow of traffic, and every time a car came up behind me, I was pretty much bracing myself for impact. We don't have bike paths, so I was just on the narrow shoulder of the road.

Once I was at the State Park, I was on a paved path, which is closed to traffic. Once I curved back around at the halfway point, my speed picked up quite a bit because I had a tailwind. I was surprised just how much of a difference there was when the wind was at my back--it felt SO much easier! My Garmin did splits in 5-mile increments (when I run, the splits are 1-mile), and the first two splits took about 30 minutes each (10 mph).

The third split seemed to fly by, and I finished that one in 21:32--more than 8 minutes faster than each of the previous 5-mile splits. Over all, I ended up doing 16.19 miles in 1:26:31, with is an average speed of 11.2 mph. I have no idea whether that's good or not, because I don't know anything about cycling! I earned 9 Activity PointsPlus for it, though, so I am happy ;)

Speaking of which, the funniest thing happened when I got home. I had taken some selfies while I was at the State Park, so I'd have some sort of pictures to post. When I looked at them when I got home, I thought my helmet looked kind of strange. I looked up some photos online to make sure I'd adjusted it correctly, and I realized what the problem was... I was wearing it backwards the entire time!

I immediately thought of all the people that had seen me out riding today, and was so embarrassed. Might as well post the pic here, so we can all get a good laugh at my expense! ;)

I showed the photo to the kids, and asked them if there was anything wrong with the picture. Without missing a beat, they both said that I was wearing my helmet backwards. Bahaha! Even my kids know better. When I was in Pennsylvania for the RW Half, there was a book in my welcome bag about cycling for beginners. I guess I should probably read that :)

I especially should have looked at this page about the helmets. It would have saved me a lot of trouble this morning if I had!

Anyway, I'm really glad that I went for a ride! Despite all the trouble getting ready to go, now I know better for next time. I'd like to start using my bike more, so I'm going to aim for once a week until it's too cold outside. I'm still super nervous about traffic, but hopefully as I get used to it, I'll feel more comfortable. And maybe the cross-training will do me some good :)

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