A Case of the Runs

This is my first update to the post in which I mentioned I was going to try to lose some weight to spare my joints and such as I ease back into running post-marathon .  After 1 week (I've been doing weigh-ins on Mondays): Change (me) Change (Ukr) Overall Weight  -2 lb -4 lb Waist  no change --  Bicep  -.25" n/a  Hip  -.5" n/a Thigh  -.5" n/a After 2 weeks*** (all changes are compared to baseline , NOT the previous week... figure there are gonna be ups and downs, so this is the best way to capture just the overall picture). Change (me) Change (Ukr) Overall Weight  -2 lb -2 lb Waist  no change -- Bicep  -.5" n/a  Hip  no change n/a Thigh  -1.25" n/a *** this week covered Thanskgiving and 4 days of not working out =/ I am not getting too excited yet, as I'm pretty sure water weight and muscle loss are occuring to affect the changes.  The lower-impact stuff I have been doing is probably not helping my muscles one bit, although I

A while back, I decided to make lemon curd. Now, I am one of those people who does NOT like lemon-y desserts (eeew!), so the thought of producing lemon curd kind of made me wince a little.  However, more than anything else, I was curious if I *could* do it. Cue THIS recipe.  This is basically a bunch of lemon with agave, cornstarch, and egg yolks. Everything started off so watery and then finally got to this: My little sister took this picture of me looking pretty darn pleased about my "accomplishment."  She thinks I'd be too embarrassed to post such a photo -- sweats and all. As for the curd itself -- it was actually not that "bad."  It had lemon flavor but was not sickening.  I gave this to "The Ukrainian" to eat with bread, though next time, I might actually put it into a tart or something. How do you feel about lemon-y desserts?

I am way behind on this post, but I wanted to get it up later than never. <--  That sounds wrong. I received some jars of Newman's Own pasta sauce to try out from Foodbuzz and was supposed to create a 30-minute recipe featuring it. You can tell I'm a novice cook, because anyone can figure out that barley takes longer than 30 minutes to cook.  Gah! Once this cup of pearled barley and 1 cup of Newman's Own pasta sauce (Roasted Garlic flavor) cooked -- about 40 min -- I stirred in about 2 tablespoons of capers (with a splash of the juice).  It made for a quick meal, and the capers made this side dish a little more sophisticated. The texture of this barley was chewy, much like the version they served at the Foodbuzz festival . I was also supposed to record a video on making this, but somehow I popped it out of the box thinking that I could just press Record and go.  Hah, no such luck.  I had no batteries, which weren't included. My regular camera was a s

Are you looking for a little appetizer for your Thanksgiving dinner, pre-dinner run, some after-dinner nibblings, or Black Friday fuel? I made this  (<-- recipe link) mix for Halloween.  I was very skeptical about dumping this gluten-free cereal (and pretzels, raisins, and candy corn) in white chocolate.  I feared a mixture that would be too sweet and boring for people to eat. But nope... people seemed to actually enjoy this thing.  As my mom (who usually says my creations are too sweet) said, they have an addictive factor. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

As I mentioned in a previous entry, my marathon-ing career is in jeopardy.  Unless I find a reason why I keep getting debilitating calf cramps in every marathon and buck the trend, then there is really no point for me to keep having the same (sad) story unfold each time I decided to tackle a marathon. All the Google -ing in the world hasn't really helped me over the years, so I finally decided to see someone about it. Luckily, I'm in a good running area that had lots of options for physical therapists, some more geared toward runners than others.  I finally decided to visit Catz. Not that cat.  He wants nothing to do with running, unless it's for kibble. Catz Physical Therapy Institute operates in a few cities across the country.  When I visited my local branch, I was paired up with Melissa for a consultation to see whether my issue was really one that physical therapy could handle. Melissa is a super-awesome licensed physical and lymphedema therapist.  She is a

I have given the whole vegan mac thing plenty of tries .  I'm not even sure why, as I can't say that it's one of my favorite foods.  I might have mentioned this before, but I had their weird obsession with Kraft's as a kid.  Since I didn't get to eat it and thought the school lunch version was good, I was elated when my older sister S made some for dinner one night.  Sadly, it became inpalatable after a short time, yet my fascination with it somehow continues. I picked this vegan boxed meal up at Whole Foods because they had a coupon in their flyer. The verdict?  The smell was fine, the choice of noodles was good, but then the texture of the cheese... I don't know.  Some of it was coagulated to the point of no return, so even distribution was impossible.  The taste was actually not bad.  It wasn't as tangy as I'd hope mac n cheese to be, but it was pretty similar to cheese as I know it and didn't seem overly processed. So if you can get

Since I haven't been able to figure out how to control the fate of my marathons (if you missed the recap of my recent marathon gone wrong, it's  HERE ), I turned to another new goal that I might be able to control. Yep, the rebound goal . I'm calling it " equilibrium " on the blog, which is really just a code-word for weight loss.  I have pretty much been the same weight for nearly three years now. Prior to that, I had an extra ~10 Starbucks -induced pounds somewhere, and each year that the scale number increased, I feared that it would only go up from there. Should the same trend start again (due to aging, babies, or whatnot), I want my starting point to be as low as I can (healthfully) get it. I haven't talked much about weight loss on this blog.  For one thing, I've approached the whole thing rather stupidly in the past .  Secondly, I know that such topics are controversial/sensitive, which opens me up to criticism.  That all comes with the territor

EVENT:  Santa Barbara International Marathon DATE: Saturday, November 12, 2011 LOCATION: Santa Barbara, CA RACE BEGAN: 7:15 AM FINISH TIME: 05:00:26.2 After reading all the nice comments on my pre-race post , I am almost embarrassed/sad to be writing a report on today's race.  Especially since I spent a large portion of that post talking about how I really wanted to make my 10th marathon something to be proud of (besides the quantity, of course). Before I elaborate on the (upsetting) details, I'll talk about the brighter times from the day before. One of the highlights of this race was the great organization.  Second to that was the super cute race tech tee. I told the high school-er below that I really liked the shirt because it looks like a soccer shirt. At that same expo, I won a race entry!!  I was shocked, because I feel like I never win anything.  After today's race, I'm not sure how to use it, though. After a nice lunch and a little strolling, we

FULL RACE RECAP LINKED HERE Pre-race commentary, Feb. 2011 This race has only been around for a couple of years, so I am curious as to how well it is organized.  I have known for quite a while that I wanted to register, but I was betting on them showing up at other race expos so I could sign up in person.  However, given the impending rate increase, this wait is probably not worth it.  I'll take my Active.com processing fees and suck it. In addition, if I don't insert anymore marathons this year, it will be my 10th marathon. :)

Well, I guess I'm running a marathon tomorrow. Time to release that inner beast, something I have not been good at in the past.  Put one way, "it's morphin time!" (not that cheeziness will help, but one can try) source For the record, my not-so-secret goal is for my finish time to be as close to 4 hours as possible.  That should be obvious, and not just because I AM using a marathon training plan called "4 Months to a 4-Hour Marathon."  This will be the 10th time that I will be standing at that start line, thinking stuff like, "Why am I here?" and "I can't believe I'm about to do this to myself again."  So after that many 26.2's, you would think that I would get better and better (famous last words). But noooo, my last marathon PR (4:19) was in 2009 when I ran the Pasadena Marathon with "The Ukrainian" and then pretty much replicated that effort on my own at the Las Vegas Marathon at the end of that yea

I'm a cold-weather runner for sure. I'm super excited about the cool down, cool evening runs, cute winter clothes (because we don't have a real "winter" in Southern California), and warm drinks.   And of course, I'm hoping for cool weather during my upcoming marathon this weekend (mentioned for, like, the 1000th time). Of course, things can turn ugly with the cooler weather.  For one thing, I might have to get back into my running sweats .  And then we have to worry about people sniffling their way into spreading their colds to us. And just as I figured out a way to maintain my skin in the summer, it starts flaking randomly... like snowflakes.  (Did I just put a gross image in your head or what?!) I was sent this line of sensitive skin products to try.  I don't think I have "sensitive skin" per se, except when the weather changes like it has been... I like Burt's Bees.  Their pomegranite lip balm is one of the few that doesn'

I have been having some problems with my knee on-and-off since I started training for the Santa Barbara Marathon this past July.  For a short time, it bothered me during each run, then only during long runs when I struck the wrong way, and now, it usually doesn't bother me at all when running.  (If the pain were bad enough, the wimp in me would probably have me reconsidering my racing plans.) I have been fortunate that it has been mostly fine lately, though I WILL have to rehab my {right} knee after this race.  How do I figure?  Well, when I'm laying on my back, I can lift my straight left leg to the ceiling, while doing this with my right leg would cause a scary pain in the knee. Comes to show I don't think I can ever be an *Ironman*, but at least I can feel cool by using this blue muscle rub gel.  Probably would do me better to get something more than a sample, then. =P I used some of this before a recent half-marathon that I ran, and by the race's end, the

I thought about doing multiple posts for this.  However, given that most people who read my blog probably won't care for three straight posts of foodie stuff, I decided to slam everything into one post. So give this page a little extra time to load, and I spare you two more entries... deal?  ;) ------ This weekend, I had the privilege of attending the third annual Foodbuzz Blogger Festival in San Francisco, CA.  I was unsure if I should attend for several reasons, the number-one being that I don't feel that I am a "true" food blogger.  I know there is a lot I need to do to fall into that category, but time/life restraints and my resistance to change the voice of this blog has kept me away from that. Still, I am glad I attended.  It was only my second time in San Francisco, and "The Ukrainian" was nice enough to drive me there, all 5.5 hours. Here he is showing me his love for Jarlsberg cheese, alongside the "swag bag" (I hate that term -- f