Where's the Beach?

I haven't done a Tasty Tuesday in a while, but I have made a few new recipes actually. I'll admit to not always taking pictures though. Well, I have taken some pictures with my phone to share on instagram, but it really looks like a sloppy mess, though it tasted fantastic. Maybe I should do a roundup of sloppy, ugly, messy but amazingly tasty recipes? This one isn't ugly, it might be a little messy, but it was really tasty. Even better, not only is it Tasty Tuesday , but it works for Taco Tuesday as well. I have finally figured out the art of cooking tempeh - poach it. I use a lot of garlic with no-salt vegetable stock to poach the tempeh. I can then add in seasonings of my choosing and later bake it or grill it. This time, I decided to try poaching crumbled tempeh for tacos. I love cumin and chili powder. They are both very earthy, smoky, rich flavors, but they aren't hot spicy, just flavor spicy. If that makes sense. Lime & Cumin Tempeh Tacos Ingredients...

Long Weekend  I hope everyone enjoyed a nice long holiday weekend. I decided to take a break from blogging over the 3-day weekend too. Kind of a nice break. Definitely means spending more time just enjoying right? We didn't have any major plans, no parties or cookouts. That was a-ok with me actually. I just wanted to relax, enjoy, and relax some more. I did get lots of laundry done and a few chores, but other than that...pretty darn lazy. I got in some pretty good runs despite the insane heat. We're getting August heat in September. So indexes are reaching the 100's again and the humidity? Let's just say gills would be nice. Saturday I stuck to a short run, 3.5 miles then got in a really good weight session for shoulders, back, chest. My chest is still sore. Jason and I ran a lot of errands Saturday then had a late lunch out. The skies weren't exactly clear, so no pool time. Sunday I got in 7 miles, part of it with my running buddy. We had such a fun run to...

Morning 5-Miler  This morning we got up a little after 5 am to get in our 5-mile run. Apparently cooling off from yesterday meant 80 degrees. At least the sun wasn't up and there was actually a strong wind that normally would have ticked me off. We started out on our normal route, and my legs felt really heavy initially. The first mile was a slow one. We sort of sped up for mile 2, but then mile 3 was slower again, However, it did include a lot of right and left sharp turns that really slow you down. And, we took a slightly different route thinking this new sidewalk was finished. Let's just say there was some off-roading.  The last mile was definitely a tough one physically vs mentally. I really felt like we were pushing so hard - it was up hill, down one hill, then up up up and more up before finally heading down. I half expected the speed to be something like an 8:30 pace because that's how it felt. But it was actually an 8:57. Not bad mind you, but holy cow...

Spinning Today I went ahead and opted for spin. I did try re-adjusting my bike to try for a better fit. My PT thinks (and I agree) that spin is aggravating my piriformis issues because I can't get the bike adjusted for my height (or lack thereof). I usually go with the seat all the way down because just one notch puts me too high, but I know all the way down is too low. I need someone to drill a middle notch just for me ;-) So, since I can't make the seat height perfect, I did adjust the seat's distance from the bars. I do think this made a little bit of a difference. I did feel my piriformis start to hurt towards the very end of class, but I think that might be because it's already unhappy with me to begin with. For those that spin, do you fight with trying to get the bike adjusted just right? Of course, this is just one more reason in Jason's current list of reasons that I need a road bike. So I can ride outside and we can then rationalize the purchase of a...

What I'm Reading Well, thankfully Miss Crazy Maddie decided to actually sleep all night. No nutso barking episodes. I read myself to sleep by 9:30 and slept fairly well. I'm out of fiction books, so I have resorted to reading much-needed running recovery books instead. Not exactly riveting, but valuable information. The one I've been reading is  The Athlete's Guide to Recovery by Sage Roundtree. Honestly, I wish I had this book from the very beginning of starting to run. It's mostly geared towards endurance athletes, but honestly has great information for any athlete. One chapter that struck me was discussing being able to recognized pain symptoms. In other words, you workout and expect sore muscles. But when does that soreness indicate something more,  like an injury? For starters, when the soreness is unilateral (hand raised), when the soreness doesn't go away (hand raised), when it is not from changing up exercises (hand raised). I had so many red fla...

Triceps & Spin I'm going to chalk it up to the full moon, sleep has been alluding me the past couple of nights. I feel like a zombie and the allergies aren't helping. Hello bags under the eyes. Again, I was dragging this morning, but hit up spin for the much-needed boost of energy. Before class, I got in a triceps workout. I did the same as last week because....well, I was sore after the workout and it was a quick one I could squeeze in. And yes, you could argue that I shouldn't be trying to squeeze it in. I will agree. I did the workout as a giant set of 3x8 with the exception of the dips where I did 10 reps for each set: Double-arm overhead triceps extension Double-arm kickbacks Dips with straight legs Next week I'm going to really sit down and work on my weight lifting splits and workouts. I feel like I'm in a major rut and not focusing on the weights quite like I should. Of course, the same thing happened the last time I was trying to train for a ha...