What's for Dinner? Week of 8/24

1,000 apologies for not posting a workout recap and weekly menu plan last weekend. We were extending my birthday celebrations a week, and hanging out at the pool - and I didn't get something scheduled ahead of time. Bad blogger.

View from our pool cabana

We bought a Groupon for the pool cabana, and had a great time hanging out all day in the shade of the cabana and the cool water of the pool.

Last Saturday, I finalized my marathon training plan, so last week was my first official week of training for RnRVegas.

I think I've got my #marathontraining plan all figured out. 14 weeks until #stripatnight. Who else is training for #RnRVegas?
— Clarinda (@EnjoytheCourse) August 16, 2014

What's for Dinner? Week of 8/10

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!! And I rang in my 37th birthday by toeing the line to the E.T. Full Moon Midnight Half Marathon. Full report on the race coming tomorrow, but let me just say it was TOUGH! Midnight races are hard; my body wasn't exactly cooperating, but man, did it ever feel good to cross that finish line - holding Jeff's hand high with pride. It looks us a long time, but the hours really did seem to go by quickly (as least to me).

#HalfTrainingWithJeff Update

And thus concludes the half marathon training with Jeff. It's still TBD whether or not this will be our last long distance together. Two weeks ago, he said he only wanted to run 5Ks and 10Ks with me in the future, but then last night before the half marathon, he threw me for another loop by saying he wanted to run a full marathon. Let's see what he says after he wakes up this afternoon. Lol.

What's for Dinner? Week of 8/3

Happy August!! I hope you're all enjoying the first weekend of the end of the summer. :) If you stopped by yesterday, then you already know all the reasons I love August - this year especially!

#HalfTrainingWithJeff Update

Next week at this time, Jeff and I will be in full on recovery mode. I'm hoping at a pool somewhere, though I haven't discussed that with him yet. We've kind of been enjoying tapering a bit too much, perhaps, so I hope that Jeff survives that E.T. Full Moon Midnight Half Marathon. He's pretty confident, but... is he over-confident? It will be an automatic PR for him, since it's his first half marathon, so we're definitely planning on taking it nice and easy.

What's for Dinner? Week of 7/27

Hi there! How's your weekend going? I've been very productive. I picked up bountiful baskets yesterday morning and did all the shopping. All before 9:30AM. AND I even did a lot of the prep yesterday. Plus did a little cleaning around the house and getting some clothes ready for donation. Felt pretty good!

#HalfTrainingWithJeff Update

In all my productivity yesterday, I left my Saturday run until our midnight run. We did the 6 miles on our modified training plan and then some, and it went pretty well. I know it's still painful for Jeff, but I'm pretty confident that he will finish the Half Marathon in two weeks without dying. :)

We skipped all our swimming workouts last week. :( And a couple of our runs. We don't have any long runs left before the race, but hopefully we'll be good about doing our shorter runs in the next two weeks.

What's for Dinner? Week of 7/20

Hope you all are enjoying your weekend! Mine has been great - filled with physical challenges of training for races and recovery from those challenges. LOL.

#HalfTrainingWithJeff Update

In the wee hours of the morning (started around midnight), we went for our long run. 10 miles. Automatic PR for Jeff. :)

He is still struggling with a lot of pain in his lower legs (mostly right), but the 3:3 intervals are working for him/us. He is still determined to run a half, so while we haven't discussed it since getting home around 3AM from our run, that is mostly likely what we're going to do.

Originally, I had scheduled to run 11 miles next weekend, 12 after that, and then it's race weekend. After last night's run though, we've decided that he feels confident enough in making it through 13.1, but we're going to need to incorporate more REST to prepare. This was now our last long run before the race. We'll do 6 miles next Sunday (at midnight), and then totally rest the Sunday before the race.

We'll still do some shorter runs (3 miles) during the week, but his leg is going to need more rest to feel better on race day.

What's for Dinner? Week of 7/13

Have you joined my birthday streak party, yet!? No? What are you waiting for? :-) There are some great prizes up for grabs, and I'd love to have you party with me. You can run or yoga or whatever gets you moving every day!

#HalfTrainingWithJeff Update Well, we are still pretty confident that we'll conquer the half marathon. We attempted a nighttime run last night to prepare for the midnight race. It was TOUGH! I'd been up since 6AM with just a short nap from 8:30-9:30PM. Probably wasn't the smartest idea. Also, not sure what we ate during the day, but we were both having some tummy issues. And it was HOT. All in all, not a very good recipe for success on this run. We ended up only running 4 miles - instead of the 9 on our training plan.

Good news! At least our lighting situation is all set. We tested out our configuration, and it worked great. Yay!!

We have one more long run on the schedule before the pricing increases for the ET Marathon races. So, one more long run before we have to make the decision of sticking to the half or dropping to a 10k. I'll be good either way. :)

What's for Dinner? Week of 7/6

I am loving this 3-day weekend! Of course, I awoke with a start this morning thinking it was Monday. What a relief to realize I still had one more day to the weekend! Whoo hoo!!

#HalfTrainingWithJeff continues to go well. We just finished week 3, and Jeff is still feeling good about continuing the training and running the full half on 8/10. I think it's so much better training with someone. Less temptation to skip a workout here and there. :) Of course, we are both kind of hurting after yesterday's 7-miler.

The pain in my butt has returned with a vengeance.

BUT I'm still going to try for a 1-mile run and some yoga today, but if it continues, I might have to consider not running my own #ETCRunStreak. I'd still love you to join my birthday party, though!

What's for Dinner? Week of 6/29

Hard to believe that it's already the end of June! And even harder to believe that it was just last weekend that I was visiting my family in MN. Guess it's a good thing when the week flies by. PLUS this is a short week with the 4th of July on Friday. Don't you just love it when the 4th lands on a  Friday! Yay!! 3-day weekend!!!

Last week's workouts? Great week of training with Jeff! So far, so good on the half marathon training plan.

What's for Dinner? Week of 6/22

It's been a fun weekend! I took the redeye Friday morning back home to Minnesota. I like to think I brought some sunshine with me because it's been gorgeous here this weekend! And it had been pretty rainy the previous few weeks, I guess.  The humidity did stick around through, which gives the heat that ew gross kinda feeling, which I do not miss at all. Currently it's 70% humidity here in MN and only 9% in Vegas. Oh, how I love the dry heat of Vegas!

Last week's workouts? Jeff and I did start training for our half marathon last week {more on that later}, so I did get in a few good runs. Plus, I'm doing good on my LBD challenge. The yoga challenge this month does have quite a few poses that are a bit too advanced for me, so I've skipped a few days. Overall, I'm very pleased with my workouts last week!

What's for Dinner? Week of 6/15

I did THE craziest thing last week - I started a 30-day challenge. In the middle of the month. In the middle of the week! I'm usually one who waits until the 1st of the month or a Monday to start a challenge, but I started the Little Black Dress Challenge last Wednesday on June 11. Weird! But it's off to a great start.

Actually, after 3 relatively easy days of the challenge (day 4 was a rest day), I was surprised how hard it was to walk up and down stairs yesterday. Even the curbs. lol.

Last week's workouts? Lots of yoga! I still haven't really started running again since Trails of Fury. There's still twinges of pain, but I do think it's getting better.

What's for Dinner? Week of 6/8

June is off to a great start! I got in several good yoga sessions last week, which felt amazing! I'm really coming to love morning yoga out on the patio with the birds chirping just as the sun is rising. It's becoming my happy place indeed.

What's for Dinner? Week of 6/1

Happy June! In case you missed it, I wrote a recap of May yesterday. It was a super fun month, and I'm looking forward to some continued fun in June! Yay for living an active lifestyle - makes life more fun and exciting, don't you think?!

Unfortunately, my workouts did kind of peter out toward the end of the week, but they're going to be so much better throughout June, ok?

What's for Dinner? Week of 5/25

Even though my right knee is killing me (more on that later) after yesterday's races, it really was a great week of workouts!

What's for Dinner? Week of 5/18

I actually did pretty well with my workouts this past week! Yay!! I've still got a little ways to go until I feel like I'm really back in the groove, but I'm pretty happy with how it went last week.

What's for Dinner? Week of 5/11

Yesterday was spent traveling home from Catalina Island, so I'm a day late in writing this post. I had such a marvelous weekend! So much fun that I can't really get into it all here. ;-)

I'm excited to share with you all about my first ocean dive and my adventures on Catalina Island, but in the meantime, here's a look at last week's workouts and next week's menu.

What's for Dinner? Week of 5/4

Last Sunday, I was driving through Zion National Park on my way home from Ragnar Trail Zion. The rest of the day got a bit crazy, and I never got around to writing my weekly recap / menu planning post. In fact, I never even made a meal plan. Booo.

Last week was a bit crazy at work - training in a new guy. It's not a very good excuse, but I think it was probably a factor in the disappointing results of last week.

What's for Dinner? Week of 4/20

OMG! I can't even tell you how great I feel after yesterday's half marathon. I'll do a full review of the race tomorrow, but let me just say, that I'm feeling so energized after the race. I can't wait for the next one! Lots of times after a race, I have to kind of force myself to get back out there.

Not this time!

Which is awesome news, since I have Ragnar Zion coming up this weekend. :)

I took it pretty easy last week. I think it was what my body needed.

What's for Dinner? Week of 4/13

Remember how I met my 100 miles goal is March? And then 2 days later I got a 5k PR? Well, somehow accomplishing those two things kind of drained my running mojo.

Does this ever happen to anyone else?

So, let's just say this past week wasn't exactly up to par.

What's for Dinner? Week of 4/6

Last week flew by so quickly! I think it's because I had plans Mon, Tue, and Wed evenings after work, so suddenly it was Thursday! And then Friday!! :)

A week that flies by is certainly better than a week that drags on. Am I right?

With all the craziness of the week, my running did take a small hit. Here's how it looked.

What's for Dinner? Week of 3/30

How is it possible that tomorrow is the last day of March?! This month really flew by! I hope to write a Monthly Recap post tomorrow to share some of the things that made March a pretty great month. :)

In the meantime, let's check in with last week's workout and what I'm cooking up this week.