Category: Uncategorized

Time for another catch-up post since I’ve been too busy to blog!

THURSDAY

As you may recall, Aaron and I attended our very first catering tasting to sample food for our wedding. We’re working on choosing a caterer from our venue’s list of preferred caterers, and tasting yummy food is part of the fun!

I did some Paleo cheating here (cheeeeeese) in the name of, uhhh, getting a comprehensive idea of what this caterer has to offer. (It will quickly become clear that Paleo cheating was kind of the theme of these past few days.)

Here’s what I went back for more of AFTER I demolished my first two plates of food. The standout dishes pictured here are:

• Baby arugula & fennel salad: Full Circle Farms baby arugula and Bibb lettuce, shaved fennel, pink grapefruit, goat cheese, blood orange vinaigrette. (SPOILER ALERT: This salad WILL be at our wedding, whether we hire this caterer or not. It was AMAZING.)
• Grilled & roasted vegetables: Beets, carrots, parsnips, and onions. (I couldn’t get enough of the beets!)
• Yukon Gold mashed potato bar: With crispy bacon, sour cream, blue cheese, monterey jack, and scallions. (Um, I’m sorry, but we need to have a mashed potato bar at our wedding. I only tried bacon as a topping, but all that other stuff would be amazing, too.)

And Aaron couldn’t stop eating the braised Oregon country short ribs with red wine reduction. I thought they were great, too, but I was too busy eating multiple servings of salad to go back for more.

I LIKE THIS PART OF WEDDING PLANNING.

FRIDAY

I enjoyed my regular rest day, and put together a homemade dinner with my four BFFs/bridesmaids. I had not one, but two amaaaazing slices of Macrina Bakery bread because it smelled soooo good toasting in the oven and I figured a slice… or two… would just help fuel my Saturday long run. Also, if we choose the aforementioned caterer, this bread could be part of our menu, so I did it for science. Or something.

SATURDAY

I done ran 12 miles.

My planned route didn’t work out so well because the University Bridge was closed for the day. Totes dropped an F-bomb when I realized that because I was, uhhh, kinda far from home, and I wasn’t prepared to swim across Lake Union or anything.

The solution? A detour to the Montlake Bridge (totally winged it, magically found the correct way) that added two extra miles to the run.

I was just going to suck it up and do 14 miles because the sun was out and I was feeling great, but I stopped off at the Durn Good Grocery (not making that up) in Wallingford to call Aaron and let him know that I’d be home later than planned, and he offered to pick me up near Green Lake, thus sparing my legs the extra two miles. Keeper!

Oh, and we went shopping later that day and Aaron bought his wedding shoes (Hugo Boss) and wedding suit (J. Crew) in about two hours. No big deal. They are both fabulous.

My dress… will take a bit longer to find.

SUNDAY

Aaron had his second Cat 1 mountain bike race, and it was snow-on-the-ground cold over on Whidbey Island. This is my cold-spectator face:

Truly one of a kind, as the back of my wedding magazine says.

Aaron did three loops of the course at about 35 minutes per loop, so I had lots of time to sit and dog-ear pages in between cheering and taking photos. It was cold, man, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world!

And this just never gets old:

This was a huge race compared to the other ones he’s ridden this season, and he WON his age group at the EXPERT level!!!

So proud!!!

The sun came out after the race, and we enjoyed a Cheaty McCheaterson fish ‘n’ chips lunch on the water. The cafe served ice cream, and we longingly watched customer after customer get delicious-looking cones. That planted the seed for the ultimate cheat later in the afternoon… our very favorite guilty-pleasure treats… DQ Blizzards.

He got Oreo. I got double fudge cookie dough. We enjoyed every bite and regret nothing! The My Fitness Pal numbers are scary, but it helps a lot to be aware of that, as I compensated by making sure to do my hour of cross-training on the spin bike and having a very healthy, veggie-packed dinner.

Aaaand now it’s way past my bedtime. Good night!

I’ve been lazy with blogging this week, but not lazy with running! I ran Monday, Tuesday, AND tonight, and now I must tell you about it all in excruciating detail.

MONDAY

I had sort of a frustrating day at work, so I decided to run fast.

It felt good.

TUESDAY

Imagine super-shitty weather, and then pile some more shitty-ness on top of that. That is the kind of rain and wind that blessed Seattle on Tuesday.

And that is what rain jackets are for.

And, of course, this was my first set of hill intervals for this training cycle. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I did seven of ‘em, and you can see I took a little jogging break after the first two. I’m not used to hills… hence this training thing.

Earlier in the day, I had seen Chris’ post with this Scroobius Pip line: “You see a mousetrap. I see free cheese and a f**king challenge.”

That stuck with me through this run because I ran up and down a very busy street that leads to the freeway (there are no turns, giving me a nice stretch of uninterrupted sidewalk) and I imagined all the people coming home from work that night thought I was absolutely nuts to be chugging up that hill in such awful weather.

They see a mousetrap. I see a f**king challenge.

Anyway, this run wasn’t half bad, and as I ran home, the two little “hills” that usually take some effort felt like nothing at all. Free cheese!

WEDNESDAY

I rarely run three days in a row, so I figured my legs would be tired tonight. I had six miles planned, and my goal was to run them between 9:00 and 9:05 pace.

Then I just decided to crush them instead.

Don’t ask me. I don’t know. I just felt good and pushed myself a little, but never felt like I was pushing too hard.

Feels. So. Good.

Also, I caught a lovely sunset near the end. Whoever came up with Daylight Saving Time is a goddamn saint.

THURSDAY

Free cheese! No, really. Aaron and I are going to a catering tasting tomorrow night, and there will literally be a “chef’s selection of artisan cheeses,” among other delicious, free things — hence why I moved my Thursday run to Tuesday.

Aaron and I have a year and a half to go until our wedding, but you better believe we’re going to enjoy many, many of these tastings, since our venue gave us several preferred caterers to choose from.

This is why you have a long engagement, people — so you can drag out the very best parts! I don’t get why people rush to the altar when there is so much FREE FOOD to be had when you’re engaged!

Sadly, I won’t be eating the cheese, but I will bend the rules with some other foods so I can sample almost everything. Someone please restrain me from diving face-first into the mashed potato bar.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Two glorious rest days await me, and then 12 miles on Saturday!

I’m nothing if not consistent.

February 16: 11 miles, 1:41:40
March 2: 11 miles, 1:41:04
March 16: 11 miles, 1:41:13

Not bad after missing two runs this week to recover from my cold!

It sucks to miss runs, especially right as I’m diving into my marathon training plan, but sometimes it’s just smarter to get well and then jump back in.

Remember that time I took four days off of marathon training to be sick and then ran 18 miles? I’ve learned that as long as I do my long runs, it’ll make for a better situation in the, uhh, long run. SAY LONG RUN ONE MORE TIME.

I didn’t feel like going far from home today, so I just did three loops around Green Lake.

There was a rowing competition going on at the lake, which was interesting to watch, plus a guy on a skateboard being pulling by what looked like two real, live sled dogs in the bike lane of the trail.

Umm, AWESOME. Where can I get me some of those?