New Shoes, Lots of Eats & Catching Up

Happy weekend to all! I’ve got a lot going on this weekend, still playing catchup from all my birthday related activities and playing with my gifts. One of my gifts is a sweet new laptop from my hubby, but I’m writing this on my old one because I’m taking my time to move over to it using the opportunity to clean out and archive old files, reorganize music, etc. And while I’m at it, reorganize and minimize my desk since I need to make room for new accessories. One anal project typically leads to many more for me. My current laptop is just under 3 years old and was cutting edge when I got it, so it’s going to my sister next and she can’t wait. It’s pink and her hubby and son probably won’t touch it, it’ll be just her personal laptop. My family loves it when I upgrade, my other sister is still using the laptop I had before this one and they always get great pricing. :-)

Since I’ve only been into running for about a year and have recently read a lot about foot strike and how shoes can affect it. I’ve been trying to change my foot strike more towards the center in my current heavily padded Asics running shoes, but have been finding it difficult because of the shoe weight and my toes are a bit sore after a longer run I guess because the heel padding is pushing my foot to the front too much. I was considering trying Vibram Five Fingers like my husbands’:

But decided that’s probably not best for me when he got a huge bruise on the bottom of his foot from a rock, I tend to zone out a bit running and run a lot at dusk or in the dark and wouldn’t notice small rocks or gravel in the road. So a minimally padded ultra-light running shoe with a sole seemed to be the better option for me and I went with Saucony Kinvara’s.

The weight of these is a fraction of my Asics and have very minimal padding on around the shoe, basically just a thin mesh over the toe area. I had to be careful not to tie them too tight when I first put then on because the thin edge of the shoe cuts into my ankle a bit. I’ve taken them on a couple of 4 mile runs and because the sole is flat without a padded up heel, it makes a center foot strike much easier. They are taking a bit of an adjustment, I notice the muscles around my foot and ankle are feeling the extra work, but that’s good for strengthening them I guess.

Anyway, some eats from the last two days – I was trying to get back into a high-raw pattern after all the excitement of my bday.

Leftover curried tofu quinoa with a salad loaded with spinach, tomatoes, corn, red peppers, cucumbers and beans – wanted to make sure I was getting enough veggies. :-)

My version of Ani’s corn chili topped with shredded Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Nacho Cheese Alternative (jeez, that’s a mouth full!). This was a splurge purchase at Whole Foods that I thought would be fun to try, it’s lower calorie per serving than Daiya Shreds and packs a nice, kicky flavor with a lot of spice and pepper chunks, but the texture is like an extra firm tofu loaf – not bad and it shredded easily in a traditional grater adding nice kick to the south-western themed dish and something I would try again.

Another huge salad that was mutated leftovers and topped with nooch and hemp seeds with corn-on-the-cob. Got plenty of raw corn over the last two days!

And dinner last night was more raw marinara sauce with zucchini noodles and topped with hemp-esan. Something I’ve been having a lot lately since I can finally get zucchinis large enough to be spiral sliced.