2010 Year in Review

This year was a great year in a lot of ways. I’ve been thinking back over all of the things that I’ve accomplished in 2010 and looking forward to 2011.

Running:

In 2010 I ran 3 half marathons, starting with my very first in January (Auburn Classic Half Marathon):

My 2nd (and most favorite) Half Marathon was exactly a month later in February, the Mercedes Half Marathon where I bettered my time by 7 minutes coming it at 1:45 and some change.

My last Half Marathon and probably least favorite of 2010 was the Montgomery Half Marathon in October.

Although I PR’d with a time of just over 1:42 in that last race, that is where my knee troubles also began. With a pace of 7:54 the entire race felt like a 13 mile long sprint, and just wasn’t a whole lot of fun. The training was much more fun than the actual race!

In addition to the 3 Half’s I also completed four 5Ks, a 7K and two 10Ks, setting PR’s in all of those distances.

I realized last night that I joined a challenge on Daily Mile in January to run 1000 miles in 2010. I checked my progress today to see if I accomplished the challenge and found this:

999.55 miles? Well that just won’t do. I guess I know what I’ll be doing this afternoon.

Health and Eating:

I hit my goal weight of 145 pounds in December of 2009 and was able to maintain that weight within 5 pounds throughout 2010. For those of you who may not know, less than 2 years ago I weighed 260 pounds. I have lost 115 pounds through diet and exercise alone.

Proof:

In January 2010 I decided to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, I continued it for 10 months until our Disney Trip in October. I’m still working on finding where I belong between the omnivore world and the herbivore world. Maybe I’ll figure it out in 2011.

In June I had my gallbladder removed due to gallstones that were thought to be causing me severe chest pain. I’ve still continued to have the chest pain on and off although the gallbladder is gone.

Life in General:

In March I created my 101 in 1001 list, which is basically a list of 101 things I wanted to accomplish in 1001 days. While some of these things have fallen to the wayside, I have actually accomplished some and am still working on others. Thankfully I have another 2 years to see where I stand.

Some of the things I have completed on my list include:

• Buying a road bike. (Mother’s Day 2010)

And crashing that road bike the same day, sending me to the Urgent Care Facility to rule out a broken wrist and treat some minor road rash.

 

 

• Go to Disney World

This was my first trip ever to Disney World and it was AWESOME! We are already thinking of planning a trip back in 2011. Can’t wait!

• Travel to see a friend

In May, Lincoln and I travelled with my friend Nicole to visit our friend Kelli in Kentucky.

(I’ve apparently also had some really bad haircuts in 2010)

This year also held some sadness for my family. My grandfather passed away on September 11th after his battle with cancer.

2010 has brought alot of ups and downs and some surprises along the way. Here’s hoping 2011 will be even better and atleast equally as exciting!

Happy New Year!

Food Gawker

This site should be called Food Porn, because I guarantee you just looking at the pictures will make your mouth water.

 Hoppin’ John

This is one of the recipes I plan on making for my New Year’s Eve dinner tomorrow night (I have to work New Year’s Day), along with pork tenderloin, collards, and homemade buttermilk cornbread.

All this plus the 2 bottles of Champagne I bought should make for a great evening!

It doesn’t sound like it from my menu, but I actually am back on Weight Watchers again. I don’t want this site to turn in to a weightloss blog, so I probably won’t talk about it much in the future but I would like to lose about 10 pounds in the next 6 weeks or so. I really think just a few pounds will help with my speed and endurance while running.

Speaking of running, its been going well. No hint of knee pain at all! However I have been experiencing some minor foot pain, it seems to be the same foot pain that I was having before the Montgomery Half Marathon in October. Its not severe, but its beginning to get irritating.

Hope everyone has a Happy New Years!

Are you a resolution maker? Do you tend to stick to them or forget about them after a couple of weeks?

I haven’t yet thought about making any resolutions. I’ll let you know if I do.

 

Toddler Art

I was going through my camera tonight and discovered that Lincoln must have gotten ahold of it one night while I was at work. My immediate reaction was to delete all of the crazy pictures he took. I deleted a few and then realized they are actually quite artistic, in a way.

This is what toddler self-photography looks like:

 

And my favorite …

Next Year

Next year I will not do this to myself …

  
I’ve been wrapping gifts on and off for the past 6 hours. The more and more I wrap, the more mad at myself I am getting. Why do I have to overdo everything?

Most of these gifts are for my 2 year old. No two year old needs this much stuff.

Next year will be different.

Googling Toys for Tots drop off centers now.

Edited to add: Toys for Tots stopped accepting gift donations on December 5th. Boo! 😦

Good Run, Good Eats

Aaaah, I finally finished my Christmas shopping today. It was CRAZY out there. Christmas really brings out the best worst in people. Every year I say I’m not going to overdo Christmas the next year, and every year I do anyway. Now I’ve got about 4 hours worth of wrapping to do.

Fact: I’m horrible at wrapping presents. Even the hubby is better than I am at it.

After fighting the traffic and crowds today, I just wanted to get outside and run. I rushed home to fit a run in before it got dark and I knocked out 4 miles in 32 minutes!

My splits were the best that I’ve had since the Montgomery Half in October: 8:19, 8:17, 7:59, 7:33. I felt like I was flying! This is the kind of run that I wish all my runs could be.

Tim forgot to thaw out the chicken breasts I was going to use to make dinner tonight. I was really excited about a new Pesto Chicken recipe I found too. 😦

Instead I made the Broiled Tilapia Parmesan again from last week. It was just as good as I remember!

With a Blue Moon of course …

 
Post run beers are the bestest!

MRI Results

Just a quick post as I’m headed out the door for work …

I had my follow up with Dr. Hester this morning about my knee. He didn’t find anything significant on the MRI. He said there was some arthritis and a little bone spurring behind my kneecap, but nothing he could do anything about. I guess this is a blessing, especially since my knee has been about 90% better lately. And atleast I can run! Somedays.

It still doesn’t explain the debilitating pain that I endured for almost 6 weeks where I could barely walk, much less run. There were days when I couldn’t even make it across the parking lot at work … or damn … from my bed to the bathroom. I’m definitely glad that I’m not looking at surgery and I can get back to living my life. But it makes me kinda feel like a crazy person!

Broiled Tilapia Parmesan

As part of my “make it with what you’ve got” week, I headed out to the deep freezer in our garage today to explore my options. I found a couple of bags of frozen tilapia that I bought FOREVER ago when they were BOGO at Winn Dixie.

Its been so long since I cooked fish (or any meat for that matter) that I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I found this recipe on my go-to recipe website.

So simple and delicious! I sprinkled Old Bay Seasoning on the filets before broiling them the first time. Broiled on one side for 3 minutes, flip, broil on second side for 3 minutes. Take them out and coat with butter mixture and broil a couple more minutes. Done!

The butter mixture includes:

1. Butter
2. Mayonnaise
3. Parmesan Cheese
4. Lemon Juice (I used lime)
5. Salt, Pepper and Onion powder (I used garlic powder)
6. Celery Salt (I used celery seeds, don’t skip this!)

I served the tilapia with roasted sage potatoes and balsamic spinach & mushrooms.

It was so yummy! Definitely give this recipe a try if you are a fish lover.

Even When It Sucks Its Good

Running is alot like sex. Even when it sucks its good.

Ran 4 miles on the treadmill this morning. Don’t judge. I can’t handle the cold.

It was one of those runs where every step you take you think, “I cannot take another step”. But you do anyway, and you end up finishing the distance you set out to do in the first place because you are too proud to give up. That’s me alot of the time. Good thing I’m so damn stubborn.

Today my quads were tight, I was hot (better than frigid), my lungs felt heavy and I felt fat. I kept thinking I was gonna slap the guy beside me with a fat roll if I ran any faster.

But I ran.

Do It With What You’ve Got

Have you ever watched the show Chopped?

I’ve become obsessed with the show lately for some reason. Its another reality cooking show where someone gets voted off .. yada yada.

But what I like about the show is that the contestants are giving a basket of secret ingredients at the beginning of each round to create a meal with. You might get a basket of jumbo shrimp, grape jelly, asparagus and mayonnaise. You never know! The contestants have to make something edible out of the ingredients they were given using every one. Sometimes they come up with some really creative and unique things.

This week is going to be kind of like Chopped in my house.

With Christmas coming I’m alot shorter on  money right now than I would like to be. (Why do we continue to do this to ourselves year after year!?!) Today I really thought I needed to go grocery shopping, but when I examined my pantry, freezer and fridge I realized I have TONS of things to eat. It just doesn’t seem like I have things that go together to make a complete meal.

My challenge tonight is to use the ingredients that I have on hand to create meals for the week and save the grocery shopping until the weekend. Hopefully this will save me the $75 or so that I would have spent at the store today.

This challenge is going to get harder and harder as the week goes by and my on-hand ingredients dwindles.

Tonight I started with some random ingredients I found: potato, asparagus, spinach, mushrooms and onion and I created this:

Nothing too out of the ordinary. Grilled asparagus, baked potato, garlic bread and spinach and mushrooms sautéed in balsamic vinegar. Delish! And vegetarian to boot! (I still don’t have any meat in my house so we’ll be seeing alot of vegetarian dishes this week).

On another note, I ran the longest distance at one time today that I have run in probably 2 months.

I ran 4.5 miles in just less than 40 minutes!

It was bittersweet though because although I was able to make the whole distance, my knee was hurting quite a bit. I almost stopped at 2 miles, but then the pain eased off a little. It came back towards the end. Downhills really kill me!

Tomorrow is my MRI. I just wish I didn’t have to wait another week for some possible answers. And then what if they don’t find anything? Ugh!

Ode

OMG Blue Moon is good. Especially at 7:45 am after my 3rd twelve hour shift.

That is all.