I couldn’t get all the tips/tools I needed in time for the class, so that was a bust. Oh well. It’s probably nothing I can’t learn from a few YouTube videos anyway :-)
Even sadder news: One of my shins is acting up. So not only am I not increasing mileage, I’ve had to altogether stop running, at least for now.
I see some biking in my near future …
Last night at the gym I did an easy 5 mph treadmill run. It was even fun despite the fact that I was inside and despite all of the other people in there. I felt pretty good at the slow, hold-yourself-back pace the training program recommends, even though I really felt like going faster. That was even after eating a ton of food all day — I was stuffing my face 10 minutes before I started running.
The pace was slow enough so I didn’t have to breathe through my mouth at all. The time really few by and by 28 minutes into it, I had to do a little 2-minute burst at 7 mph. Then a few minutes later, after going back to 5 mph, I went up to I think 8 mph for just a short sprint. The three miles took me 35:04. The only bad thing about it was this weird guy that got on the treadmill next to me. He was holding on to the rails and looking over in my direction for a while. I couldn’t tell if he was just trying to see one of the other TVs but it just seemed creepy. He was wearing roper-style cowboy boots too. Weird.
I have embarked on a new running plan, Cool Running’s 5K Training Plan for Beginners. It’s not that I’m necessarily a beginner at that distance (I first did the original Couch-to-5K Running Plan three years ago) but this is the training plan I found that best matched my starting off point. They recommend that you be able to run three miles several times per week for a while before you start, and I have been doing that forever. The site recommends this training schedule “for runners who run 15 to 25 miles per week and expect to run the 5K in 24:00 or up.” I’m definitely in the “or up” category.
The reason I am doing this training plan, which includes distances between two miles and six miles, is that having a goal keeps things interesting, and I’ll never improve if I keep going the same distance and the same speeds all the time. For months now, I have been doing intervals of jogging and sprinting on my runs and it’s time to do something else. I’m not so interested in racing; I mostly just want to progress.
The reason I’m posting about it is that someone out there might find it helpful. I remember when I was doing the Couch to 5K plan and I found someone’s online account of doing the same training program. It was really helpful to see that other people go through the same things. For instance, this guy, and I wish I could remember who it was, was wondering as he did his first few 30-minute runs whether running would ever be enjoyable to him because it was still so difficult to run for that long. I knew exactly how he felt and wondered the same thing. Of course, it did become enjoyable, at least to me, but it took some time.
The running goals I’m working on right now are:
* follow and eventually finish the 12-week 5k training plan
* to be able to run faster than a slug* and preferably be able to run a mile in less than nine minutes. Technically I can do this already – I can run a mile at between 6.2 and 7 miles per hour on the treadmill, but I want to be able to average less than nine minutes per mile over three miles or more.
Today is day one of week one of the plan. As best I can remember, it went something like this:
Two-minute walk to warm up (I usually walk for five minutes but today I was running very late, no pun intended.) Then:
01:00-03:00 – 4.5 mph
03:00-15:00 – 5.5 mph (I felt totally peppy and time was flying up until this point.)
15:00-20:00 – 6 or 6.5 mph, I can’t remember
20:00-25:00 – 7 mph (I was going to go this speed until I got to three miles or 30 minutes but I felt bad by 25:00 so I recovered at 5 mph for a minute.)
25:00-26:00 – 5 mph
26:00-28:30 – 7 mph
28:30-30:00 – 6 mph (cool down, sort of)
My time was 29:39 for three treadmill miles, and I did feel like I was working moderately hard on the last third of it. Sad.
Now for the cake part. Last week I showed up for a cake decorating class at our local vo-tech, but the class was canceled because they had no teacher for it. It didn’t make much sense, and when I found myself standing in a group of confused middle-aged and elderly ladies huddling in the hallway at the vo-tech I figured that was it for the cake class. But several days ago, an administrator at the school called me to let me know they had a teacher and told me what supplies I needed to bring. The class (which would have been number two of four weekly classes) is tomorrow and now I am trying to decide if I want to go or not. It’ll mean I’ll have to go out and buy supplies right away (the school did not publish a materials list for this class so I thought they were included in the $45 tuition) and make a batch of icing. It’s a lot of expense and effort for three classes. I also don’t want to pay the full price of tuition if they are not going to have a make-up class.
If I do go through with the cake decorating class, I plan on taking a few photos along the way and posting about it.
* I complain about how slow I am, but it’s all relative. I am still slow, compared to lots and lots of people, but the former me from three-plus years ago would have been impressed at being able to do 30 minutes at 4.5 mph. Or even running eight minutes without stopping. So if you’re the one wondering if you can even do the C25K’s two-minute jogging intervals, don’t worry. I’ve been there.
Turns out marinated and grilled portobello mushroom caps on buns are very tasty. We’d never tried anything like this before but they came out great. We’ll definitely be making them again.
I used this Rachel Ray recipe as a guide on how to cook them. Although her recipe looks good, I was out of balsamic vinegar, so I made a marinade of Worcestershire sauce and oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper before grilling them on a grill pan. I also skipped the roasted pepper paste but I’m sure it would’ve been good too. I did, however, hunt down some smoked mozzarella (pricey but so worth it) to melt on top.
Stats (includes 1 oz. smoked mozzarella):
calories 329
fat 17
carbohydrate 30
protein 14
This is a great base for an easy, light (and meatless) meal.
Here, I’m sharing a recipe that I used for cupcakes with added protein powder. It’s basically the common canned pumpkin and cake mix recipe but with added protein and water to help balance out the protein. You could probably experiment using some egg whites instead or a combination of water and egg whites.
This recipe is simple. There are five ingredients: cake mix, canned pumpkin, water, protein, and some chopped up chocolate.
Take a regular box of cake mix and combine with four scoops of unflavored whey protein powder. You could use whatever kind you want here but I really can’t stand flavored protein powder with fake sweeteners so I use unflavored. I really only use protein powder in smoothies and cakes/muffins anyway.
Once they are combined, add a 15-ounce can of plain pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling). Add 3/4 cup of water. Mix with mixer just like a regular cake mix. Stir in chopped up chocolate pieces. I would’ve preferred some nice dark chocolate but all I had were Hershey miniature milk chocolate bars, so I used three (I figured in three mini bars ~45 calories each in the nutrition stats). The texture of the batter is going to be much thicker than regular cake batter.
Next, put into muffin tins prepared with paper liners and fill to top of liners. This actually makes about 15 cupcakes. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.
This is an alright post-workout snack both because it’s fortified with a little protein and because it’s a cupcake.
Stats for one cupcake:
~180 calories
6 grams of fat
26 grams of carbohydrates
8 grams of protein
