A Pleasantly Surprising Run

photo via Jordan

This morning, I went to Nike Run Club’s morning miles with Jordan, my coworker/fave person. I love group runs/fitness/morning workouts, but morning group runs are few and far between in the Flatiron area. (Really, anywhere downtown from Central Park. If I started one, would you come?)

I’m really starting to get back into my running, but the Brooklyn Half will likely still kinda suck since I apparently have zero desire to do long runs as of late.

But my morning runs have been ON POINT. As I said the other day, I’ve mostly been wearing my Apple Watch to run, so I don’t really pay attention to my splits.

I like NRC a lot, but their morning runs are always FAST. Jordan asked this morning if I wanted to run “fast, faster or fastest.” Touche, Jordan, touche. Mmmmm…fast?

They took us on a “mystery run” which took us basically down through Union Square, through Meatpacking, to the new end of the Highline and then across 34th, down Broadway back to the store at 20th/5th.

Jordan and I are really average-paced runners. Not slow, not fast. So we sort of fell between two groups but just tried to hold our own as close to the group in front of us as possible.

Despite working together, sitting next to each other, all week, we never run out of things to talk about, and that and not looking at my watch served as good distractions. I really wanted to see how fast I’d run if I just didn’t look at my watch, and we ended up doing 5 miles at an 8:41 pace. I’d say it felt like somewhere between easy and tempo pace, but I’m used to my “easy” runs being at 9+ minute miles, and I’m just getting back into running shape, so I was HAPPY.

It was nice to let my body do its thing…and pleasantly surprise me.

BOOM.

I’m so excited now to get in bed early. #thisis33

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on the Marathon Goal Pace Run
2. Lessons in Marathon Training: Run Slower
3. rave run!

Operation Salmonella Watch

Hi! I’m not dead (yet). Operation Salmonella Watch is in full effect though (I ate raw chicken yesterday). I will try to Instagram a selfie before I go towards the light.

Let’s back up to another major crisis in my life – my bangs. The last time I got my hair trimmed the stylist was very not cool about me cutting my own bangs (because I massacre them). So, I told her next time I would come in to get my bangs cut.

But I never realize my bangs are ridiculous until it’s way too late and I can’t stand them anymore! I am trying to talk myself down from trimming them myself, but that probably won’t last. Next picture of me you’ll see I’ll probably have a mullet.

This morning I hit the road for an easy 6 miles. And guess who I saw??

Not SR. She moved away. Boo.

I saw the killer kitty from the other week! And this time he wasn’t trying to eat a bunny for breakfast, this time he wanted to be my friend! His name is Toby and we are totally cool now.

When I got back from my run I let Vegas out for a minute while I got ready.

When I went to get him he was MIA (this is normal because he thinks he’s a grown ass man that can do what he wants). So I proceeded to call out “Vegas!” repeatedly until I realized he wasn’t going to come quick. Then, I switch to “Turkey!!” because that’s his favorite food.

I am the weirdo shouting  “VEGAS TURKEY VEGAS!!! Want TURKEY!!!” around my complex and my neighbors all think I am such a creeper. Oh well.

I found him in the pool area, but didn’t have a key. So I had to keep begging him to come. Except I’m a bad beggar so I just get mad and scold him.

Finally he came out and I grabbed him. His little patas were filthy!!

Dirty cat!

I was in a rush to get him inside because I had a shift at the food pantry. They had flowers today! Each person could take a bunch on the way out. Love that.

Question: Do you have a weird neighbor? Is it you?

It’s me.

The post Operation Salmonella Watch appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

Skechers GoGa Mat Sneakers: Yum or Yucky?

Skechers recently upped their game by putting GoGa Mat insole technology into their sneakers. I’m really happy about this because I was not a fan of their memory foam insole shoes. Memory foam was very comfortable to me, and my socks felt slippery inside the shoes. Based on my fantastic experience wearing the original Go Walk sneakers (I just bough another pair!), as well as the original Go Fit shoes, I did not buy into the upgrade to memory foam. No sir. No thanks.

But alas! Skechers GoGa Mat shoes have saved the day!

Skechers shoes containing GoGa Mat insole technology make you feel as if you are walking on a high-end yoga mat: very comfortable and relaxing for the foot. My feet were instantly happy inside the sneakers and, having walk some miles in GoGa Mat shoe’s already, they are definitely good for a long day of being on your feet.

I give GoGa Mat shoes a YUM rating.

However, you will still need to find the style of GoGa Mat shoes that you like. The particular shoes you see pictured I ended up returning because I didn’t like the actual style. Next time you pass the Skechers store, go inside and try on some GoGat shoes in a style that tickles your footsies, or explore GoGa Mat shoes online.

Be kind to your feet, and may a foot rub be in your near future.

The post Skechers GoGa Mat Sneakers: Yum or Yucky? appeared first on Yum Yucky.

Why I Ate Raw Chicken

I am really the worst today. I think it’s because today is a rest day from running so I didn’t get to run the weirdo out of me this morning. I did a quick 30 minute lower body workout and then made breakfast. And that’s when my first fail of the day happened …

I tossed out my toaster a while back because I figured I could use the broiler in the oven to toast stuff. This has worked okay in the past. It’s not always great because it goes from cold to burnt to a crisp if you’re not standing right there checking it the whole time.

I don’t mind burnt toast, but this was completely charred. Boo.

Where do you go when you burn the last roll? In the closet to hide (or still eat it in the privacy of your room).

Not really, I made something else and tried to give this to the cat. Oddly, he didn’t want my super burnt bread. Shocker.

The rest of the day was productive. I got a ton of work done, ran a few errands and even got Vegas this box (from Costco).

By this time it was about 4pm, too early for dinner but I was HUNGRY. I snacked on some sugar snap peas with hummus but knew I wanted something more substantial. I put a frozen chicken nugget in the microwave for a minute, squirted ketchup on it and devoured. The inside was a little cold in the middle, but yeah that happens. Don’t you hate when the outside of your food is super HOT but the inside is still frozen?!

I ate a few more bites of it cold but  decided to put the rest back in the microwave. That’s when I realized the middle was not only cold but also completely pink. It was RAW. The chicken was raw!

I thought it was weird, but maybe just processed chicken and maybe just dark meat?

 

Meh. I didn’t think it was that big a deal until I took a second look and confirmed it was completely raw chicken. The frozen chicken nuggets are not cooked and need to be baked.

I took the package out of the freezer and realized – yep, I made a huge stupid mistake. It’s totally my fault, but I just assumed they were microwaveable pre-cooked nuggets. Way to go Monican.

So now I am freaking out because I ate raw chicken and I might get salmonella and super sick and die. I might be up all night with the runs (not the marathon kind). I might turn into a salmon and wake up tomorrow with fins (I think that’s what happens when you get salmonella).

I am so mad at myself for being so dumb. I could really get sick. Now I wait for the rumble and see what happens….

Question: Do you know what I’m supposed to do?

Have you ever done anything similar?

The post Why I Ate Raw Chicken appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

Home repair

Jerry and I have lived in this house ever since we got married nearly 13 years ago. Neither of us had any clue about home maintenance, so we've just been dealing with issues as they come up. After about 10 years, we started having little things here and there that needed to be replaced, but luckily, we haven't had anything major happen.

Yesterday evening, I went into the utility room to feed the cats, and I noticed water on the floor. The only place it could have come from was the water heater. We've known for a while that the water heater would need replacement soon, but we kept putting it off (word of advice--don't put it off! ha). I called Jerry at work to tell him about the water heater, and he ended up coming home. My brother Brian came over as well (he does all sorts of DIY stuff, and Jerry didn't have any idea what to do about the leak). I noticed that the floor felt kind of soft in front of the water heater, so Brian and Jerry pulled back some of the linoleum to check it out.


The floor surrounding the water tank was totally rotted from water damage!
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I How Cleared My Cat’s Eye Infection With Colloidal Silver (No Vet Visit)

This is the damn cat. She’s very mean and will scratch anybody to shreds in a hot second. I’m sorry to say it, but she’s a bitch. Nevertheless, she is my Kitty and I love her. It’s like I have a case of Stockholm Syndrome or something. Ugggh!

Recently we noticed Kitty had some icky, thick gook oozing from her eyes. I felt bad because we had been away on a trip, and the day we got home is when we noticed her eye infection. I’m certain she was miserable and wanted to claw at me over the matter.

I didn’t panic, though. I knew I wouldn’t have to call a vet, and was confident I could fix up Kitty in a jiffy. The same as I did when Grace had pink eye several times, I went straight for my colloidal silver.

I have experience with various brands of colloidal silver, including even more than what’s pictured here. I’ve found the results to be effective no matter which reputable brand is chosen. I’ve used 10-20ppm varieties and don’t find it necessary to use anything overpowering, like 500ppm. That’s just crazy. For ear and eye infections there is never a question in my mind of if the silver will work. I know darn well it well.

CAT EYE INFECTION TREATMENT

1. First tried my colloidal gel on Kitty. I figured would be easier to administer to the cat if I just slathered it on the eye, but that method was a bit clumsy. The gel only clumped onto her hair with barely any of it getting into her eye.

2. Next I filled the cap of the liquid silver bottle with approximately 4 drops of silver. Matthew held Kitty down while I poured in into her eye. Be ready for your cat to go completely batshit crazy when you do this. The poor feline has no idea what’s going on to begin with, and the silver does sting for a quick second.

3. Typically with a human, I administer colloidal silver 2-3 times a day until the infection clears, then continue to administer 1x per day for an extra 2 days (this is important to keep the infection from coming back). But with Kitty I only did it 1x a day for 3 days because I felt she would get weary from all the trauma of us giving her the medicine. The results were fantastic. No vet required.

Colloidal silver will not harm your cat, and I’ve come across zero reports of it harming other animals. It’s a good idea to keep colloidal silver in your home for situations like this, as well as for treating cuts and burns. Read my full write up on Colloidal Silver Facts, Benefits and Risks to learn why silver is a powerful natural antibiotic you need to keep around. I even pack a small bottle whenever I’m traveling.

What do you think of Kitty’s happy healing? Leave me a comment and let me know!

The post I How Cleared My Cat’s Eye Infection With Colloidal Silver (No Vet Visit) appeared first on Yum Yucky.

How Do I Get Back Into Running Vlog

Hello! Today I have a vlog answering two more questions from Instagram. Check it out and chime in if you have running tips or advice for our friends! These questions are about getting back into running after a break and starting to run (isn’t it so hard at first?!).

Your Running Questions:

How do I get back into running after time off?

How do I get started running?

(I’d apologize for the mess in the background but if I really was sorry I would have cleaned it up I guess.)

 

Shift Con Blog Conference Discount Code:

Last year I attended ShiftCon in Los Angeles. It’s a eco-wellness blog conference for anyone interested in health, wellness, green-living and similar topics. There were tons of amazing companies and great speakers. This year it’s in New Orleans Dec 1-3.

The conference team is sharing a discount code for $50.00 OFF  for RER readers!

ShiftCon Discount Code:  “RUNEATREPEAT”

Click here to register. And let me know if you’re going!! I think I’ll be there and I love NOLA so I’m super excited!!

 

Question: Have you ever taken a big break from running? How did you get back at it?

The post How Do I Get Back Into Running Vlog appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

Could THIS be the key to curbing your hunger? Health experts reveal best food to burn fat

DESPITE what the frosty temperatures may have you believe, summer is just around the corner.

Week 37 Weigh-in

Let me just start off by saying that this past week was the worst week I've had since I started counting calories 37 weeks ago--yikes! (I don't mean the "worst" as in weight gain, but more of how difficult it was.)

I didn't binge; but like I wrote yesterday, I was just lacking all sorts of motivation this week. Eating, running, blogging, all of it. I only got in my step goal five times (and there wasn't a good reason to not get in the steps on the other two days); I only wrote a couple of blog posts, mainly because nothing was happening and I just didn't feel like writing; I didn't try any new recipes; and my eating was totally out of the norm (again, for no real reason). Sometimes, I'll have a bad run for no particular reason; so I think maybe this is similar, in that I just had a bad week in general.

I could even see that my weight was up a bit, but I just didn't care. I don't feel like the lack of motivation was a permanent thing (hopefully this week will be better), but it was definitely a rough week. And it showed up on the scale today (although not as bad as I imagined it would be):

I was 128.2, so I was up 1 pound from last week. Not a huge gain, but those pounds do add up over time! (Also, I'm not being hard on myself--I'm just stating the facts.) Today has been a great day, so hopefully my funk from last week is over. I've been thinking about what happened, and here are my thoughts:
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Confession Day Camel Milk

Confession Thursday Wednesday! It’s that time again, time for me come clean about some stuff that is keeping me up at night. Well, maybe not keeping me up at night but at least making me a little nervous that I’m a horrible person. Or if I’m not a horrible person, just a normal person that wants to get this weird stuff out in the open….

Confession, I saw camel milk at the health foods store a few days ago and was tempted to get it because I’m sure it cures cancer. And because I saw Andrew Zimmerman drink it on Bizarre Foods recently and want to be like him.

Confession #2 – it is $22.00!! I didn’t buy it, but I think the camel farmers should fess up on why it’s so expensive!

Confession, I was out running errands for a few hours yesterday and got in my car at the end of the day and saw my hair clip was just hanging on randomly. Ha! I probably was walking around like that forever.

Confession, when I got to my mom’s this weekend I saw a watermelon on the counter and immediately cut it and ate most of it. I hope she wasn’t saving it for anything.

Confession, the toe I broke in DECEMBER is still discolored. What.the.heck. I must have done some real tissue damage on it.

Confession, when I do strength workouts at home sometimes I take a break in between sets and have a snack.

 

Question: Have anything to confess?

The post Confession Day Camel Milk appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

The Life-Changing Art of Actually Cooking

Sponsored by Blue Apron.

One of my goals in 2016 was to cook at home more. I started off on a great note with this with Whole 30…and haven’t been quite as consistent since.

I know that meal prepping in advance makes all the difference, but there’s also a service that bridges the gap between being on top of your game and meal prepping in advance, and takeout. Enter Blue Apron.

For $60/week for the two-person plan (or, um, the leftovers plan if you’re single), you can have fancy chef-designed meals at home that you make yourself. When I ­do cook, let’s just say they’re not quite chef-designed.

OK, so I live in NYC, which means I live really close to like four great different grocery stores. But, I live in NYC…which also means the lines are really long. And I am not a patient person. So after a long day of work, the last thing I feel like doing is standing on line when I’m already hungry to grocery shop (when I grocery shop, I go at super weird hours to avoid lines.) All of these meals are done in less than 40 minutes.

And for someone who doesn’t cook a ton, I somehow have a super full cabinet of weird spices and random ingredients. I’ve picked then up for recipes along the way and then never had use for them again. (They’re like the first dates of spices, if you will.) Blue Apron pre-portions the ingredients out for you so that you don’t have weird amounts of unusual ingredients left over. (And they listened to past complaints about their service not being green enough and now offer a recycling program.)

The first dish I tackled was the Korean Bao Sliders. They looked tasty, filling and relatively easy.

And guess what? THEY WERE!

I’m just looking at that recipe page now, as I write this, and LOVE the how-to videos. Especially how to effectively mince ginger. I could always use some knife skills.

And every recipe comes with a cute little bag of “knick knacks,” or, the spices/sauce ingredients necessary for your recipe.

Here’s what was in my bag of tricks!

What I really love about Blue Apron (this is the second time I’ve tried it), is that it introduces me to ingredients and cooking techniques I might not otherwise know about, so I feel like it’s a cooking lesson included in the box.

And anything with ginger and sweet potato can’t be all bad.

The recipe called for making tempura sweet potatoes. YES PLEASE! Turns out, all I needed to do was create a paste of flour + water and fry the lil suckers. Crap, let’s forget it’s that easy because it was DE-LISH.

The sticky buns, thankfully, were pre-made, so all I had to do was steam them into oblivion.

Gochujang? I’d never heard of that Korean hot sauce, but I loved that it was both sweet and spicy.

The final product? The combination of hot and cold, sweet and spicy was mouth-wateringly good and something I never would have made on my own.

I haven’t used it more often because it’s a lot of food for one person, but it would be really fun with friends visiting or even just to have a friend over to cook. (Anyone wanna come over?) They also do wine pairings now, which is sort of totally up my alley.

Wanna try it?? The first 25 readers to sign up will get two free meals on their first Blue Apron order by clicking here.

Have you/would you try a service like this? What are your cooking/meal prep hacks?

Related posts:

1. Blue Apron Taught Me a Little Bit About Cooking
3. Best Dinner EVER: Coconut Curry Chicken!

Peanut Butter Protein Bars

Hello! Yesterday I made some peanut butter protein bars that came out great so I’m sharing the recipe. I love when I create a healthy snack that I can make again since I have all the ingredients at home already. They can be made gluten free and vegan if you use gf/plant protein powder.

This morning I had a really good run. I’m also going to start the 21 day fix workouts to compliment my running for the next 3 weeks. I tried out a few of the Beach Body workouts (there are so many options) and decided to start the 21 day series from Day 1 and do it all the way through since it’s designed in a series (I was going to jump around). One of the upper strength workouts made me perfectly sore last week, love that.

Now let’s talk food, specifically those bars I made…

Peanut Butter Protein Bars Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup PB
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cups protein powder
• 2/3 – 3/4 cup almond milk ( to get to thick batter consistency)
• 1/4 cup honey or sweetener of your choice
• 1/2 tsp each: salt, baking soda, vanilla

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients. Pour into 8×8 baking pan sprayed with non-stick. Bake for 20 minutes or until set. Let cool and cut into squares or bars.  Refrigerate leftovers.

Tip: If they are not sweet enough put a little jam on them for a great PB&J style bar. I went light on the sweetener on the first batch and it needed a tiny bit of something. If your protein powder is on the sweeter side you will probably be good.

Question: What was your workout today?

The post Peanut Butter Protein Bars appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.