But I digress.

Last night I realized that the deadline to apply for the New York City Marathon lottery was coming up soon…so I might as well get on that!  I have no ideas what my plans for next week are, yet alone November, but I may know soon!  I’m hoping I get into New York since I hear it’s AMAZING and I think it’s one of those marathons that you have to do at some point.  At least in my opinion.

Then tonight…oh dear.  I keep telling myself that you only get one chance to run 26 miles on your 26th birthday, and as a crazy runner girl, I think that sounds like a fantastic idea.  It’s now official that I will be spending my 26th birthday in Minnesota with the great Erika as I run Grandma’s Marathon!!  (She’s not running…she’d kick my butt!  Although it would be awesome to run with her.)  Sadly it’s not ON my 26th birthday, as I graced the world with my presence on the 20th and the race is on the 19th, but it’s close enough and I don’t have to fly to Canada for it!  Plus, I’ll have some great company.    So excited!!

Does anyone else think it’s weird that I’m excited to spend my birthday with someone I’ve never “met” before?  The blogworld is a strange place…

on the home front

Still feeling sicky…blah.  It was another BEAUTIFUL day here, and I finally decided to just try to run.  I made it about a third of a mile before I turned around and came back because I felt awful…maybe tomorrow??  I have a marathon to run in six weeks…and this is supposed to be a big week!  Gah.  Hopefully I’ll feel better soon…hopefully.

When I saw a recipe for Smores Brownies, I knew I HAD to make them.  I’m currently in the mindset that everything I bake is in trial for my future bakery, and I definitely think customers would be interested in the idea of these brownies!  Who can resist going back to the childhood?  Also, the presentation would be pretty good as well…gotta think about people peering into the counter!  Let’s get to it:

I used the Food Network’s Smores Brownie Recipe.  It received good reviews, so why not?  The only problem was that I don’t own an 8×8 baking pan, so I used a nine inch pie dish instead…worked just as well!  Here’s the result:

Lightly browned marshmallows make for a nice topping!

Graham cracker crust, brownie, marshmallow topping…all the fixings!

My tasting sample! 

So how were they??  I must say…I was a bit disappointed.  I love brownies and the brownie portion just didn’t live up to my expectations.  Also, these took over an hour to bake…the toothpick kept coming out wet!  Not sure what that was about.  I do like the idea of these brownies, but I think they need a bit of fixing up…and to sell in a bakery, I’d have to learn how to cut them so they look pretty. 

battle wounds

While attempting to chop the chocolate for the brownies, I kind of chopped my finger…chopped out an entire chunk of skin!!  It’s been a few hours and I’m still bleeding through the bandaid…probably since I’m typing and not putting pressure on it!  I’ll throw some ice on it and see how it does.  I don’t think it could be stitched since a literal chunk was taken out (sorry for the queasy ones out there!), so we’ll see.  I’m only losing drops of blood so it’s not that terrible.  Don’t worry, nothing got into the brownies!

Who knew baking could be so dangerous??

Stop by if you want some brownies!  I doubt these would ship well….what a gooey marshmallow mess that would be!!

Anyway, I’ve spent today on the couch watching bad TV and catching up on blogs.  It is GORGEOUS outside…60, sunny, AMAZING.  I would LOVE to do a long run right now, but my trip to the grocery store to get chicken noodle soup (and baking essentials, for if I feel up to it) was a bit exhausting.  My scheduled day off is tomorrow (since I worked the weekend), so hopefully I’ll feel better.   Please?

So what have I done on my sick day?  Well……not much.  Isn’t that what sick days are for?  I did apply for a job at Duke (!!), so we’ll see if I hear anything from there.  I’ve applied to a couple jobs in New York City, and I got immediate rejections…as in next day!  I guess they’re serious about the whole “one year experience” thing.  Oops?  I’m trying to be proactive about hating my job, and I thank all of you for your comments and support.  It’s just hard since I don’t know WHAT I want to do (nursing?  health promotion?  exercise stuff?  BAKERY?) or WHERE I want to do it (Chicago?  New York?  Dur ham?  Boston?  Minneapolis?  California?).  So much is up in the air right now…and I have a love/hate relationship with it.

Time to watch more bad TV…I’m not even sure what’s on in the evening!  Other than the Bachelor Wedding, of course…gotta love it!

My dinner usually consists of me shoving my food down my throat in ten minutes or less (but we get half an hour deducted from our pay every day…you can’t ask for that “missed meal time” because then you have to explain why you didn’t take it).  My “care” is absolutely terrible at times because it’s more about the clock and getting out on time than actually taking care of patients.  Every time we’re late, we get a notice in our mailbox with our time card circled in red with a big “WHY?” or “WHAT HAPPENED?” next to it.  Well, I had to call the pharmacy twelve times to get my medication out (no really, I call the pharmacy at least five times per day…rarely is anything put in correctly).  We didn’t have supplies so I had to track them down on another floor.  My patient was incontinent six times and every time I have to find someone who has the time to help me change them.

But none of that really matters because you should have been able to figure out how to get out on time or leave something for the next shift to do.  I feel like an idiot most of the time and don’t even feel competent, although some people say I’m a “good nurse.”  I don’t believe them at all. 

I understand that not everything is going to be set up perfectly, so I don’t expect it to be.  But day after day of the same frustrations is killing me and I really can’t take it much more.  Is it too much to expect to work on the floor where you were hired?  Or to eat dinner?  I hate where I work and I hate my job and I hate nursing and I have NO idea why anyone would ever want to be a nurse.  Not every nurse in the world is miserable so it must not be too terrible….but it’s really hard to see that now.  I know I should try a different nursing job before I completely abandon it (because there is so much to do in nursing!), but I don’t even want to try.  I hate it that much.

That being said, I have applied to other jobs, but many want at least one year experience, which I am about two months shy of.  I suppose I could hold on for two more months.  I’ve made it this far…although I really, really just want to quit.

That’s all.  I love how people say “but you’re such a happy, positive person!”  Really?  REALLY?  Where did you get that from?

*****************************************************************************************************

I wish I could be a professional runner…I’m thinking health promotion or something would be much more exciting.  (Although at the opposite spectrum of the bakery…)  I’m getting good at it these days although I’m taking today off since my throat is killing me and I’m kind of achy.  However, Thursday I had an AMAZING run.  It was about 40 degrees outside, which clearly means it was time to break out the shorts.  Twelve miles in shorts and a long sleeve shirt…some of my favorite running weather!  Dare I say I even got a little warm out there.    I was worried how my legs would feel after my awesome workout since they were kind of tired just walking around, but they snapped right back into run mode.  It was my day off and I loooooove longer-ish runs, so yay!  It was perfect.

Thursday, March 4
12.05 miles in 1:32:04, avg pace of 7:39

Marathon pace, please???  I felt great and my last miles were much faster than my first few miles.  I know there’s a long way to go after 12 miles, but I think that’s a pretty good start!  I can’t believe Boston is in six weeks…that’s crazy.  I’m hoping to kick this cold or whatever I have since I have a big training week coming up.

Wednesday, March 3

Warm up:  2.52 miles in 20:01, avg pace of 7:57

1st 1000:  0.62 miles in 4:07, avg pace of 6:36
Break:  0.25 miles in 2:05, avg pace of 8:22
2nd 1000:  0.63 miles in 4:03, avg pace of 6:28
Break:  0.24 miles in 2:04, avg pace of 8:33
3rd 1000:  0.62 miles in 3:57, avg pace of 6:20
Break:  0.24 miles in 2:02, avg pace of 8:28
4th 1000:  0.62 miles in 4:04, avg pace of 6:33
Break:  0.27 miles in 2:11, avg pace of 8:02
5th 1000:  0.63 miles in 3:57, avg pace of 6:14

Overall 5k total:  3.13 miles in 20:10, avg pace of 6:26

Cool down:  3.37 miles in 26:55, avg pace of 8:00

Overall:  10.03 miles in 1:15:31, avg pace of 7:32

Well, I think that was a successful workout!  I might even go as far to say that I rocked it.    I remember when I ran track in high school, we would do four quarter repeats with a minute rest between each one.  The idea was that you should be able to run a full mile at the pace that you run your quarter repeats, just without the rest.  From the looks of above, I could be awfully close to breaking twenty minutes in a 5k.  My senior year of high school, cross country switched us from a 2.5 mile course to a three mile course, but we rarely ran a 5k.  I broke 20:00 once for three miles yet have never run a 5k under 20:00.  I think I could do it. 

Too bad I like marathoning and long runs wayyyyy too much.

*****************************************************************

Thanks for your comments and support on my last post.  It’s a hard time now and I’m just sorting it all out.  And trying to be positive about everything.  Although with one of the most frustrating jobs on the planet, it’s certainly not easy.  Off for eight hours of fun…

That being said, I did move to Pennsylvania to be closer to him, and I am not sure what the future holds for me right now in regards to where I want to live and what career I want to do.  It’s easy to see that I’m not happy in my current situation, but I feel like I need to try another nursing position before I totally jump ship on it.  It could very well be the hospital that is terrible instead of nursing

I’m currently 25 and single, have a fair amount of savings (okay, and some school/car debt…any financial advice out there??), and the world is at my fingertips.  (Yikes!)  I can pretty much do whatever I want and go wherever I want to go, which is both exciting and terrifying.  The key is to figure out what exactly I want to do and where I want to go…

If anyone has any ideas (or a really good Magic 8 Ball), please feel free to share. 

runninggg

After my amazing 17 miler in Durham, my IT band started bothering me again.  Since I didn’t want to take a month off of running (and I had zero energy last week…), I took a week off instead.  I didn’t miss it.  I had a bad week at work and kind of in life, and I couldn’t even fathom running the Boston Marathon in April.  The rest was good for my IT band (and maybe for my brain…), as the sun was shining and it was in the high 40’s and I immediately felt like I had to run…I missed that feeling!!  I ran in shorts and a tshirt (the tshirt was probably a bit much…should have thrown on long sleeves instead!) and it was amazingggg.  Spring, please hurry.

Monday, March 1
4.01 miles in 29:53, avg pace of 7:27

Oops…I guess that’s not “easy” pace…

I’m just planning on jumping right back into Pfitz’s training plan that I’m using (12 weeks up to 55 miles per week)…this week is actually a cut back week so I won’t be jumping right into a 55 mile week after taking a week off.  Five miles for today, and it was glorious.  All I could think about while running was how much I love running and how I miss it and how lucky I am to be able to run.  I took care of a 30-something paraplegic yesterday…talk about perspective.

Tuesday, March 2
5.25 miles in 40:06, avg pace of 7:39

Still feels easy.    Love it.

Okay, I said all that and the truth is I don’t really even feel like running.  I’ve been having AMAZING runs and I love running and now I’m just like…eh, whatever.  This needs to stop.

sleep/work

As a result of this funk (or something…), I’ve been sleeping like crazy.  Both yesterday and today I woke up at 11…and by “woke up,” I actually mean, “dragged myself out of bed.”  And then I drink coffee and stare at my computer and don’t do anything productive until I have to go to work.  And then I’m kind of in a haze at work.  I usually can put on a good, happy front for my patients but this week I’m not even in a joking mood.

Granted, the Wednesday sleep in was a result of being asked to stay until 3am to help out at work…basically I turned people and ran labs down to the lab and cleaned people…easy extra money, but three in the morning is three in the morning!  I got home around four-ish sooo no wonder I slept so late!  Since I woke up around nine the previous morning, I was definitely a little out of it around 2:30 and was glad that I didn’t have a patient assignment of my own.  That being said, I could totally go for twelve hour shifts…four days off?  Yes, please!

In other news, I got pulled to the intensive care unit for four hours yesterday.  I actually started tearing up when they told me that’s where I was going.  It’s not even that bad since they usually give you the easy patients who probably don’t even need to be in the ICU, but I’ve only been there once and I don’t know anyone and I was terrified.  But it ended up being fine and I was actually kind of bored.  (I didn’t just say that!)

I haven’t complained about my job on here too much lately…Hopefully you haven’t gotten the impression that it’s gotten better because it certainly hasn’t, but I’m trying to contain myself a little.  Not sure it’s going so well…

SNOW

It’s snowing again here in Pennsylvania.  We’re supposed to get another 12-18 inches (??), but it doesn’t look like it is sticking to the roads, just adding to the snow that we already have.  I don’t think the temperature has dropped enough for the ground to be cold.  I’m quite bummed since I was supposed to go to New York today for an interview for a certain organization I mentioned earlier in the year.  I decided against it because I didn’t want to be stuck on the roads (or the side of the road)…I called and left a message early this morning and emailed them twice so hopefully they don’t think I’m ditching.  I’m stressed about it.  And about life.  And I’m absolutely sick of the snow.

on the positive side

I did massive amounts of laundry this weekend.  DONE.  Except I already have more to do…don’t you hate how that works??  It’s like cleaning the bathroom…it’s CLEAN for no longer than a day.

I suppose I should eat something and get ready for work…I’m not even that hungry.  Who am I??

In case you’re a little behind (it’s okay, we all are), I spent this past weekend in Durham, North Carolina to visit my college roommate, Sara, who is in a clinical psych graduate program at Duke.  It just so happens that Allie and Sarah are local to Durham as well, so of course we had to meet up since I haven’t seen them since the Healthy Living Summit in August!  What a wonderful weekend it was!  Here’s the recap:

friday

I woke up bright and early (6 am is bright and early for this evening shift girl!) to catch a 9:30 flight to Durham.  After battling rush hour traffic and being convinced that I was going to miss my flight (nightmare…), I made it and boarded my plane to sunny North Carolina.  I have a “Fear the Turtle” luggage tag on my bag and one of the men in first class commented on what a funny statement it was.  I always tell people that terrapins are ferocious, and he agreed!  “They eat birds, didn’t you know that??”  Well, no, I’m usually kidding when I say they’re ferocious, and I don’t think they actually eat birds, but it was funny for someone to note my luggage tag.

After an uneventful flight (apparently I can fall asleep after drinking coffee?), I arrived in sunny, sunny Durham and my roommate picked me up from the airport!  She had the death cold this past week and could barely talk, but she survived picking me up from the airport and we had a pretty low-key day.  We went out to lunch and then I got a driving tour of Duke before heading back to her apartment (it’s a cute one bedroom place!) and watching the Olympics (who knew curling was so exciting??) and bad TV (Say Yes to the Dress…AWESOME) for most of the night.  Some of her grad school friends came over (one armed with candy…love) and we talked and watched more Olympics.  It was fun seeing as I don’t really have many (any??) friends in Pennsylvania so it was fun to be around people.  Yay!

saturday

Ahhh what an amazing day!!  We started off by sleeping in (that’s the Sara I know and love!) and then heading out to brunch in Chapel Hill.  Chapel Hill is soooooo cute!  We ate at Ye Olde Waffle Shop (I got blueberry pancakes…yum) and then walked around Chapel Hill.  I was excited to be in flip flops and a tshirt…goodbye snowy Pennsylvania!  She showed me the UNC sorority houses which were GORGEOUS.  I was in a sorority for a little bit in college (that’s how Sara and I met), and our houses at the University of Maryland had nothing on the UNC houses…wrap around porches!  Yes, we were in the south!  I forgot to take pictures of them, but here is a cute place we walked by:

I just liked the name of the place…any Maryland Alum would agree!

Okay, I lied…I stole this picture from online.  How cute are those rocking chairs??

As you might know, Allie and I always talk about opening a bakery, and she’s going to shadow at one of the bakeries in Chapel Hill called Sugarland.  Well, of course I had to find it if we were going to be in Chapel Hill, so Sara and I hunted it down.  It’s an adorable bakery/cafe and definitely something I could see myself opening!  They have baked goods and gelato (anyone who has been to Italy better know how AMAZING gelato is), as well as coffee and drinks (beer/wine/martinis??).  A bunch of tables are in the cafe as well as a big flat screen TV that had the UNC game on.  Hello, awesomeness.  I ended up buying a French Vanilla cupcake (I’m boring, I know), but they had many goods that looked quite delicious!

I love the tagline. 

Okay, only if you insist!!

They had an ACC cake…GO TERPS!!  <3 Testudo

My vanilla cupcake. 

I can’t wait to hear Allie’s report about being “behind the scenes”…I’m a wee bit jealous.   

After our little stroll around Chapel Hill, we headed back to Durham so Sara could do some work/nap and I could get in a run.  The two runs I had left to do this week was a 17 miler and an 11 miler, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about running 17 miles in Durham…especially since I didn’t bring any Honey Stingers or anything with me!  I decided to head out and see how I felt and then decide if I wanted to run 11 or 17 miles.  I mapped out a path that would let me shorten if need be.  I ran 2.5 miles to the famous (?) Washington Duke Trail (aka the Al Buehler Trail, aka the WaDuke Trail).  It’s a just-under-3 mile loop around the Duke golf course, and I’d heard lots of things about it from the Durham runners.  I did NOT hear how hilly it was!!  I ended up doing four loops (two clockwise, two counterclockwise) before running 2.5 miles back to Sara’s apartment for a grand total of 17 miles.  That trail, my friends, is no joke!  Allie called it a roller coaster and she is not kidding!  Let’s just say I got a good workout in…even a good workout for running 17 miles!  My time was pretty good and I felt awesome running out there.  Sooooo many people were out on the trail and it was fun to pass lots of them.   I could definitely get used to running on that trail for a good workout, but I’m sure I’d get tired of the three mile loop if I ran it alllll the time, but for my purposes it was perfect since I didn’t get to get lost in the streets of Durham!

Saturday, February 20
17.21 miles in 2:15:05, avg pace of 7:51
Splits:  7:42, 7:28, 7:39, 7:44, 8:04, 8:07, 7:59, 7:58, 7:49, 7:39, 8:03, 7:42, 7:41, 8:11, 7:30, 8:23, 7:48, 1:30 (7:20 pace)

Not a bad run…I didn’t really feel tired at the end, although my legs definitely felt it.  I immediately chugged some water, scarfed down a banana, and did some stretching.  After showering, I got ready for dinner with Sara, Allie, Sarah, Sarah’s husband Josh, and Sarah’s nurse friend.  We all headed to Milltown for dinner and drinks!  It was so fun to meet up with Allie and Sarah and to meet Josh and Sarah’s friend who is a nurse and doesn’t hate her job…imagine that!  I’ve been reading Sarah’s blog for a long time and we finally met at the Healthy Living Summit.  I met Allie through Sarah at the Healthy Living Summit, and although we only talked for a super short time at the Summit, we’ve been blogger buds ever since…I feel like I know her (and can tell you what she ate for breakfast!  haha).  The Olympics were on a giant TV next to us and the beer/wine menu was quite impressive.  My first beer was an Allagash White (from Maine!), recommended to me by Sara.  Gatsby helped with the modeling:

Yum!  And that’s Josh’s hand in the background making his Nurse on the Run debut!

We chatted and watched some speed skating and ate some soft pretzels which were sooo good!  I love me some carbs, but I definitely needed some protein post-long run.  I rarely cook myself meat, so I jumped at the chance for a burger…it certainly hit the spot!

French fries!!

I tried another beer which was pretty good, and I don’t even remember what it was called!  The beer menu was overwhelming because I’m not really sure what the descriptions will equate to in taste.  You may tell me it has hints of clove, but I don’t know what that means!  Tell me it tastes like Blue Moon and we’ll be good to go.  As we filed out for the night, we needed some pictures to capture our meet-up:

Roomies!  S^2 REUNITED!

With Sarah and Allie!  Health Living Summit reunion!

Sara(h) sandwich!

This could be the picture for the “About Us” section of our bakery website…Stay tuned!

This was a fun night just hanging out and chatting with friends, which I rarely get to do anymore.  Visiting Durham was definitely refreshing and Sara (and then Sarah and Allie!) spent the weekend “selling” Durham to me.  I looked at jobs at the Duke Hospital…pondering a move to Durham??  Sarah’s nurse friend said I could come shadow on her unit and see that not everyone hates their job…yes!!  The weather was fantastic (60 degrees??  I could get used to this), and while I understand it’s not like that all the time, I would be okay with considering 35 degrees “cold.”  Things to think about for sure.

After we parted ways with the bloggers of Durham, Sara and I watched some more Olympics and chatted before heading to bed.  A Saturday well spent!

sunday

Sunday was a PERFECT day in Durham…sunny and 60 degrees!!  I love it.  We got up and then headed to the Mad Hatter, one of Sara’s favorite coffee houses.  I ordered a breakfast burrito with some fruit on the side, which was quite tasty!  It was so pretty…I should have taken a picture, but I’m not always in food blogger mode.    After brunch-ish, we headed to Duke’s campus for an official walking tour.  A women’s basketball game was going on and a men’s game was scheduled for the night, so finding a parking spot was a pain!  We soon found one and Sara gave me the walking tour of Duke, which is a much smaller campus than Maryland!  Duke is very pretty, so check it out:

It was warm enough for flip flops…also, check out my missing toenail…

Tenting for the UNC game…and me booing Krzyzewskiville like any proper Maryland fan.

These kids are crazy.

I was in the band so I never even had to get tickets to Maryland games…take that!

The quad.

Duke Chapel!

Sign in a bathroom stall (doesn’t that just scream college??)…but what does “PILF” stand for??

Sooo that was my mini-walking tour of Duke…perhaps I should have gotten more pictures?? Oh well.  Sara had a sorority meeting from 2-3pm so my plan was to do an easy run while she was at her meeting.  I got all changed (and ran into Allie in the library in my running clothes!) and attempted to head out, but, um, my IT band hurts!!  Noooooooo!!!  I am NOT a happy camper!  I took about ten steps and decided I was going to continue my own walking tour.  I really hope that it is nothing and that I just need some rest after my 17 miles yesterday…with eight weeks until Boston I don’t think I can handle taking another month off like I did last time.  Gahhhh.

Anyway, I continued my own walking tour in the Duke Gardens, which are pretty now, but I imagine they would be GORGEOUS when not brown.  Lots of people were out walking and little kids were playing on the lawn so it was cute to walk around.  I didn’t take any pictures because I was planning on running and left my camera with Sara.  Oh well…I’ll be back sometime.    Walking around campus on a Sunday afternoon reminded me of when I would call my parents on Sunday afternoons at Maryland and wander around campus while talking them.  Fun times!

After Sara’s meeting, we went back to her apartment quickly before meeting up with some of her grad school friends for some Local Yogurt (aka LoYo), as recommended by Sarah.  It’s basically a frozen yogurt bar where you pick your yogurt flavor and toppings…so good!! One of Sara’s grad school friends actually graduated from Maryland the same year as us and we have some friends in common…small world!  Here are our tasty yogurt creations:

My creation:  peanut butter frozen yogurt with bananas and M&M’s.

Sara’s creation:  Chocolate froyo with Oreos.

Side by side. 

I love the combo of peanut butter + banana, peanut butter + chocolate, and banana + chocolate, so it was perfect!  It was also fun to sit and chat with her friends…sitting outside in the warm weather.  Ummm I really need local friends!!

Too soon it was time to head back to Sara’s apartment to pick up my stuff to go to the airport.    So sad!!  Time flies when you’re having fun and totally drags with you hate your job (haha), and this weekend just flew by!  Sara dropped me off at the airport and left me with some famous last words of “You need to get out of [the town you live in].”  So true.  I’ll be looking for a new job soon, I just don’t know what my plan is yet!

***************************************************************************************

I’m currently typing this in the lovely Washington Dulles airport, as my connecting flight is seriously delayed…it’s 11pm currently and I’m supposed to be landing now…ugh!  I’m not even sure what the delay is since the weather appears to be perfect up and down the east coast.

Okay, just as I typed that last night, we boarded the plane!  I ended up getting home at 1:45 in the morning…I was supposed to get home around midnight…boo!  I literally cried all the way home from the airport because I didn’t want to be back here.  I’m icing my knee/IT band and taking the day off of running.  Hello, Monday…

]]> http://www.susanruns.com/2010/02/22/its-always-sunny-in-durham/feed/ 13 http://www.susanruns.com/2010/02/22/its-always-sunny-in-durham/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/susanruns/~3/xoIKLz8rDK8/ http://www.susanruns.com/2010/02/17/tempo-runs-have-nothing-on-me/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:44:22 +0000 Susan http://www.susanruns.com/2010/02/17/tempo-runs-have-nothing-on-me/ Can you believe that February is half over??  This month is flying by and I can’t say I mind since I’m ready for spring and especially summer!  We got more snow here in Pennsylvania yesterday, but luckily the ground was warm enough that it didn’t stick on the roads.  Giant trucks were here yesterday and today so they cleared out giant piles of snow so people can park on the side of the road agan…yay!  Rumor has it we’re supposed to get more snow next week…I don’t know how they predict this a week in advance, but I don’t like it!  I miss the days of laying on the deck and reading all morning…those were the days!

more snow runs

Since I’m going to Durham this weekend to visit Sara, Sarah, and Allie, I’ve been trying to squeeze in my runs so I’m not spending the entire weekend running!  The big problem is the long run, as I’m supposed to do 17 miles!  I’m hoping to get it in before work tomorrow, which will make for a long day at work but a more relaxing weekend.  I’ll just have to pump up the caffeine and hope for a non-crazy day!

I did NOT feel like doing any sort of quality run on Monday, so I claimed it as a recovery day and ran four miles.  Easy, nothing to write home about…except it was the same loop I had been doing my sixteen miles on, and I was tired of running it!  I hope the snow melts soon so I can get back to my running trail.

Monday, February 15
4.04 miles in 31:09, avg pace of 7:42

Okay, maybe that’s not so much recovery pace.  Oops?

Tuesday I woke up to snow, and I immediately started kicking myself for not doing my tempo run on Monday.  Five mile tempo run on an inch of snow?  That doesn’t sound like fun to me, not does it sound like it would be productive with all the slipping and sliding going on.  I decided I’d do a five mile easy run and continue to move around my training schedule…I wasn’t happy about it, but Mother Nature and I are not friends right now.  Well, once I got out, I realized that the roads must have been warm enough that they weren’t accumulating snow, so the roads were perfectly clear!  After doing math in my head to determine if I would be able to squeeze in ten miles before work, I decided it was tempo time.

New plan:  Ten miles with five at tempo pace.  Let’s see how that worked out:

Tuesday, February 16
10.07 miles in 1:12:51, avg pace of 7:14

Warm up: 
2.53 miles in 20:00, avg pace of 7:54

Tempo:
5.01 miles in 33:48, avg pace of 6:45

Mile 1:  6:41.  This mile started downhill, followed by a gradual uphill, and I think I overcompensated by going a bit too fast…felt okay though, just cruising along.  (Did I just say that about a 6:41 pace?  Crazy!)

Mile 2:  6:47.  Longggg gradual uphill.  Much better than a steep uphill.  Legs still chugging along.

Mile 3:  6:31.  Well, let’s just say that downhill with the wind at your back makes this pace seem easy.  I was flying along and didn’t feel a thing.  Maybe everything should be downhill…

Mile 4:  7:01.  Going from downhill with the wind at your back to a steep uphill into the wind is ROUGH.  This mile was infinitely more difficult than the 6:31 mile I just ran!  I’ve always found the second to last mile/lap/repeat to be the hardest, and this was a difficult one to push through.  I survived…barely.

Mile 5:  6:45.  One more mile!  That’s all I kept telling myself and it worked.  The last little bit was a steep hill that caused some burning in my legs, but with a tenth of a mile to go, it’s not too hard to get through.  Tempo run, done!

Cool Down:
2.52 miles in 19:03, avg pace of 7:33

Well, that’s not quite a cool down pace at all, but it felt much slower than 6:45 and I was pushing it on leaving for work on time.  No worries, after a power shower and shoveling down some pad thai, I made it with seconds to spare.  Awesome run…check!

I’m taking Friday off for a long weekend in North Carolina (yay!), so my week is half over…every week should be a four day work week!

]]> http://www.susanruns.com/2010/02/17/tempo-runs-have-nothing-on-me/feed/ 10 http://www.susanruns.com/2010/02/17/tempo-runs-have-nothing-on-me/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/susanruns/~3/2bjRlOD0ki0/ http://www.susanruns.com/2010/02/15/into-my-kitchen-pad-thai/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:53:33 +0000 Susan http://www.susanruns.com/2010/02/15/into-my-kitchen-pad-thai/ Nurse on the Run goes international!!  Not really, although I wish I did…I would love to go to Italy right about now…or Thailand in celebration of my recent cooking adventure.  I’m not quite sure where the inspiration to make pad thai came from, although it is quite tasty so why not?  Most of my pad thai adventures are a result of going to Noodles and Co, although there was an excellent place to get pad thai when I lived in Chicago.  I remember my mom tried to make it once, but it ended up with an overwhelming fishy taste from the fish oil.  It even got to the point where my mom was like, “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to…” 

So anyway, I started hunting the internet for some pad thai recipes, as I get many of my recipe ideas from the internet despite the numerous cookbooks that I own!  I ended up going with this Shrimp Pad Thai recipe from iYogaLife.  Of course, not without a few modifications!

I almost made it with the shrimp, but a two pound bag of shrimp was about $15 at the grocery store, and I’m way too cheap for that!  I switched out the shrimp for a can of black beans.  The shrimp probably would have been quite tasty, but you can’t go wrong with beans!  Adding random vegetables to anything makes it taste better, so I threw in some broccoli and mushrooms as well.  I don’t know if that makes it less “authentic,” but it sure tastes good!  And it bulks it up so it’s not just noodles…lasts longer and squeezes in those veggies!  I also switched out the orange slice for a lime…I’ve always had pad thai with a squirt of lime juice so I didn’t want to give up on that!

Let’s see how it turned out:

Love the cilantro and almond garnishes. 

All packed up for dinner tonight!  Love it.

My review?  This is pretty tasty!  Since I nearly doubled the vegetables in it, I probably should have made more sauce to coat it better and give it more flavor.  I also thought it would be spicier, so next time I’ll definitely add more of the hot sauce…I like my pad thai to have a bit of a bite to it!  This was pretty quick to make and now I have lunch/dinner for the week.  Give it a try!