Happy Sunday! I love weekend mornings to enjoy quiet times sipping coffee and catching up on email while not worrying about rushing for work. Currently I’m motivating myself for and thinking about today’s long run while the weather figures out what it’s doing. The hourly forecast showed no rain for the next few hours, but it’s currently raining and windy out. And I am frankly tired of running in strong winds after the last two long training runs, so I might be heading to the gym which I’ll figure out in the next hour … or so. I love not being rushed and having that flexibility today.
This is my last long training run before the Shamrock’n half marathon next weekend and training hasn’t been going so well for it between crappy weather, colds, and work stress. Oh well, at least I’ll be running it with family and friends and will have plenty of opportunities to train hard for races this year if my sister and I pull off 100 miles of races, this half will be one of many. Winter is always a tough running season for me, so I try to view races as motivation to maintain fitness and keep running more so than setting aggressive PR goals, staying motivated and active is an impressive achievement during this season and further motivates me for the more optimal running season ahead.
Thanks for the kind words on Leela, she has been following me around and underfoot more in the kitchen and on walks lately seeming a little disoriented and confused about the change in her vision.
Thankfully we have a good pet eye clinic near by that I will see what they have to say about her eyes.
With our odd weather, I’ve been getting a lot of training runs in at the gym lately which isn’t too bad with good music and podcasts.
I also picked up new shoes for the half marathon, I added another pair of Brooks Glycerin 14s to the rotation since and older pair hit the mileage limit and had to be rotated out.
It’s the same shoe I ran the California International Marathon in, but much better colors on these.
On my last Ikea trip, I bought a bag of Ikea veggie balls and frozen savory potato pancakes that were also vegan for hubby and he enjoyed them for dinner one evening.
The savory potato cakes are like a blend between hash browns and tater tots in a pancake format – fun!
I had the veggie balls with a healthy childish finger food lunch with veggies and hummus.
I also made a big batch of potato leek soup last weekend to have for easy leftovers.
And enjoyed leftover roasted Dijon veggies over a salad for an easy lunch.
And more leftover potato leek soup with salad for lunch.
Friday night hubby and I stepped out for spicy Thai vegan dishes and Blue Moon beer which was great with live music.
And last night I headed to Abyssinia Ethiopian Restaurant in Sacramento to for thank you dinner to volunteers of SacTown VegFest. I’ve had food from this restaurant many times at past VegFests and Earth Day events, but have never actually been to the restaurant – so that was an interesting experience.
Volunteers got to help ourselves to the vegan buffet while we chatted, re-capped January’s SacTown VegFest event, and tossed ideas about how to make it better next year. What was nice about the buffet was the large section of oil-free options as well, all the curry, lentil, and seasoned greens had oil-free versions and the buffet is very reasonably priced making it an easy go to for healthy workday lunches.
The list!
Dr. Neal Barnard has a new book out called The Cheese Trap which I’m interested in checking out. Back in my non-vegan days, I used to get migraines a few times a month and ones that wrecked me for the rest of the day. Now I might get a minor one once a year that I can jump on quickly and salvage the rest of my day which I wonder if dairy played a big role in that.
Here’s a great running inspirational story on countering depression.
This 75-year-old running nurse inspires me.
This is great inspiration for living a more eco-friendly life – just wow on plastic bags, glad California is getting rid of them!
Fair trade and veganism have a lot in common.
The benefits of nutritional yeast.
Yum, so many vegan mac n’ cheese options here.
10 things no one tells you about going vegan.
There’s a vegan dating app now?
I found a new vegan YouTube obsession.
Ellie says
THANK YOU FOR THE DATING APP!!! <3 <3 <3
christine says
Sure! :-)
Vicky Cristina says
wow the dating app sounds interesting. Maybe I’ll try it soon. Your pics of food are really yummy and attractive
christine says
Thanks and hope the app is fun!
Gingi Freeman says
Your food looks so gosh darn yummy! I have slipped back into bad eating habits. *sobs* You inspire me to get my act together!! – http://www.domesticgeekgirl.com
christine says
I hear ya, I find it tough this time of year to maintain healthy habits with the winter blahs.
Anne Kepner says
Running in a gym room with background of music is always great. It is my motivation to go for a gym. And your pics of food look so fantastic. It is a good choice for the weekend.
Hannah says
The timing of that dating app is just too coincidental! I actually just signed up for a vegan speed dating event… Who knows, maybe one or the other will turn up promising results. Either way, it never hurts to have more resources. Now that’s what I’d call progress. ;)
christine says
Very cool on the speed dating event, hope it’s a lot of fun! And yes, awesome progress that there’s an app now!
Jennifer says
I have been getting emails from PCRM on the Cheese Trap! WOW!!!! Makes sense, tho, eh? LOVING the posts of food – missed them – my own fault for getting behind tho! LOL
Ethiopian Restaurant sounds great, too! I need to try and do more inspired dishes! It’s been a while!
christine says
Yes, the more I learn about dairy products, the more disturbed I am by them.
It is great food, I need to recreate the spicy red lentils.