Weekend - Pre-Easter

Jordan had Thursday and Friday off this weekend, so we have been busy getting our house together, and exploring Evans!

On Friday, I ran five miles easy in the morning around home while he slept in.  I decided to be nice and let him have a rest day.  I felt a little stiff from the speed workout Thursday, and was glad when the run was over.

We worked around the house during that day, and after eating dinner we headed to the Evans theater to see.....

The Hunger Games!

I recently read all three books and was a huge fan of them.  The entire concept of the series gives you so much to think about (I may have had nightmares after staying up late reading), and then there is my girl Katniss.  After being disappointed with the Twilight series, it was awesome to see such a tough, kick butt heroine in the story.  The love triangle was really interesting and both guys were so adorable and in love with her, but she wasn't like wimpy Bella pining away for Edward and just taking up air.  Katniss got it done!  I also related with her strategy in the arena.  I would totally run away and live up in a tree until everyone else killed each other.  

The Hunger Games, in a strange way, kept bringing me back to thinking about the marathon.  We all reach a place in the race where you need to focus on maintaining your pace and just surviving.  I usually get into the 'survival mode' at about mile 18.  Up until then, I have maintained my goal pace and,have felt pretty comfortable.  At this point, I don't want to blow it due to some stupid mistake (compare it to dying of dehydration during the hunger games).  I become very aware of taking care of myself - drinking enough fluid, taking in enough calories, keeping my form, hitting my splits, drafting if it is windy, and playing mental tricks to stay in the game.  Hopefully, I can channel some of Katniss's survival skills on April 16th. :)

Saturday, Jordan and I ran at the Evans Town Center Park during their Easter Egg Hunt.  He ran/walked 4 miles and I did a pretty easy 5.  I felt much less stiff.  We had a post-workout breakfast at Panera after, and shopped at the best grocery store in the world, Publix.  Publix is the bomb.  We literally had THREE very pleasant teenagers waiting on us.  One polite young man actually insisted on unloading our cart for us.  A girl checked us out, and kept asking us how we were doing, did we find everything okay, etc.  Another guy bagged our groceries and offered to walk us out and unload our bags for us.  The Dirty Bird (Giant Eagle, my highschool employer) should take notes.

I spent the afternoon cooking up a storm for our Easter feast today.  Although it is just us, I really wanted to cook a nice dinner - and have lots of leftovers.  I made Banana Cream Pudding, Sesame Asparagus, a Breakfast casserole, and prepped our cheesy crockpot potatoes.  Tomorrow I will make the ham and homemade biscuits.  I will have to post some of these recipes, nothing is too tricky and the pudding is especially delicious!

I love my Easter Apron my mother got me!

After a day of slaving away in the kitchen, Jordan and I went to Salsa's Bar and Grill just down the road .  I was ecstatic to see that they had half pitchers of margaritas for only $8.49.  We split it, and didn't even finish the whole thing, haha.  I have a special place in my heart for margaritas after honeymooning in Mexico.

I wasn't super hungry, so I chose to get a combo for only $7.95.  I picked a Chile Pablano and a chicken burrito.  I loved the pepper because it was spicy and NOT FRIED like most are, so I could actually taste the pepper.  Fried food can be good, but it covers up the pepper taste too much.  The Burrito came with a spicy, red sauce so of course I liked it, and of course I added some Mexican hot sauce to it.  Jordan ordered chicken fajitas and decided they were the best he has ever had, besides the ones in Mexico.

 It was still light out after dinner, so we decided on an after dinner photo shoot at the Woodbridge.

He may or may not have chased down the geese after this photo...

Hope you are thinking of us if you are watching the Master's!  Happy Easter!

Yasso 800s Take 2

It was an exciting morning here. We had our new washer and dryer delivered! Can't wait to get started on the mountain of laundry piling up in the laundry room, thank goodness there is a door I can close to that disaster of a room.
After the delivery men left, Jordan and I left to check out the nearby highschool track. It was only a few miles away from our house, and it is apparently always open to the public. Sometimes tracks are hard to get access to, which annoys the heck out of me - aren't our tax dollars paying for these tracks? That means I should be able to run on it!
Anyways, I didn't start my warmup until around 9:30. It was 75 degrees and sunny. About two weeks ago, I completed the Yasso 800s wrkout, but only 8x800 at 3:09 pace. I wanted to run the same pace today, but to complete 10 repeats. Since Jordan was with me, he did the last 400 of each repeat to help me along. It is my goal to get him to participate in a series of races this summer that start at 1.8 miles and finish the season with a 10k. So this was a good workout for him as well.
After three repeats, I was already thinking of how to quit the workout early. I really had to focus on one repeat at a time and stop to take water (and dump it on my head) after each repeat. It is hard to go from running in chillier temps in Pittsburgh to over 80 degrees and direct sun on a black track that reflected every bit of sun durectly on you. The funny part was that while I was dying and sweating profusely, a local track team didn't even break a sweat wearing dark gray cotton tshirts and heavy basketball shorts. I was practically naked and felt like my body was on fire.
The first 5 repeats: 3:11, 3:12, 3:10, 3:11, 3:12. I felt very uncomfortable, but it was a relief mentally to get to the halfway point. After that, I started counting down backwards and it was a lot nicer that way.
I think we all have those workouts where you are just trying to hold on and play mental tricks on your body to get through it, and today was one of those days. I would have loved to run my intervals a couple seconds faster, but hanging on when you feel like quitting is a great mental exercise that you need to practice to race well. At least I told myself that when I wanted to stop.
The last five intervals:
3:11, 3:11, 3:13, 3:12, 3:10
Again, would have liked to run a few seconds faster, but was happy to run consistent times.
The workout totaled 10 miles for the day ( a shorter then average warmup and cool down because I'm tapering) and we rewarded ourselves with going to the Evans Diner, conveniently located right around the bend from one of my other favorite running parks. It was yummy as usual, but felt a little sick still from the workout.
On the way home, we took a drive around some of the neighborhoods. I am blogging from my phone on the E network so I'm not sure if it is going to show up or not, but we took two pictures from those pretty bridge my parents liked looking at while they were visiting. Looking out over the water, I felt really lucky to be living in such a pretty town. I also felt lucky to be do e with speed work for a few days!