10 Miles, Food and Fun

Blogging for two days in a row?  Must be a holiday weekend.  Not to mention I'm so happy with my run today that I'm excited to write about it.  So last night we packed up the kids and way too much stuff for one night away and headed northeast to my mom's house.  She only lives about 20 minutes away but the sleeping over made it feel like more of a trek.

[I'm interrupting my post for some important information.  Well, maybe not important but relevant anyway. I just noticed I was getting hungry.  As you'll see in a bit, I've eaten plenty today.  So I asked myself what I could eat that would be satisfying but healthy.  An apple would hit the spot but not be satisfying, I wanted something warm.  And then I remembered the Progresso soups I have in the cupboard.  I haven't had one of those in forever.  My fave is the Light Zesty Southwestern Style Vegetable.  It used to be 0 points per serving but after the last revamp of points the whole can is 3 points.  I can't believe I've never blogged about this soup, I used to eat it quite often.  I think I stopped when I got more focused on unprocessed foods.  There's a nice list of non-food sounding ingredients such as soluble corn fiber, hydrolyzed corn protein and potassium chloride.  But it's tasty, especially after I added a few dashes of Louisiana's Pure Crystal Hot Sauce.  Anyway, back to my post...]

We got to my mom's and I was starving!  She had a small plate of nachos as an appetizer.  Of course I munched on those. It's a good thing it was just a small plate or I might have eaten a lot more.  Dinner was grilled rib-eye (1/2 of a large steak for me), raviolis, and a Caprese salad.  Oh, and bread with butter (I might have had 3 rolls, they were so soft and warm and comforty).  With my 10-mile run slated for the next day I ate with no concern for calories and what-not.  Though I did remind myself that I don't really like the raviolis and they seem SO fatty so I only had a few bites.  And with each bite I was thinking, "yep, don't really like these."  That was definitely some politeness eating.  I don't have the heart to tell my mom I don't really like them.  But I did like dessert - chocolate layer cake with vanilla ice cream!  I was so full from dinner though, I actually stuck with one serving. 

Miguel and I went out after dinner just for some time away to engage in adult conversation.  Of course we were both exhausted but it was still fun to get out together.  I think I was in bed by midnight.  We slept with our daughter in the bed and that made for a rough night and an early waking.  So far, not making improvements in the sleep department.  I had breakfast and coffee and started prepping for my run.  I had thought of making a route that would go from the marina to the bridge so I could run across it but my mom nixed that saying part of my route was in a sketchy area.

Instead she suggested I run in Benicia State Park.  The park itself only has a few miles of paved path so I planned to run into downtown Benicia to get the full 10.  I got all my gear together and drove out to the park.  The weather was perfect for running, mid 60's with some clouds and a slight breeze.  I started running and almost immediately noticed that I felt great.  Taking Friday off from exercise was the smart thing to do.  I glanced at my Garmin now and then and saw sub 10-minute miles but I didn't make any commitments to maintain that.  I think I've been feeling a bit burned out on running because I've been pushing myself to meet certain pace goals.  So for now, I'm forgetting all that and just running for enjoyment.  And enjoyable it was.  Check out my route.

Most of the run was either in the park or close enough to the water to catch views of it.  And Benicia has some beautiful old houses, which made for some nice sightseeing.  I kept my headphones on for most of the run.  Right about my turnaround point I ran into rolling hills, "oh great" I thought, except there might have been an expletive in there too.  But I reminded myself that hills always look worse than they actually are, which is why you look so badass running up them!  And of course they were fine.  I'd noticed that for most of my run my heart rate was in the high 140's to low 150's - definitely not pushing myself, but I didn't care, just wanted to have fun.

My pace crept up to the 10:30 range during miles 4-8 but when I glanced down during mile 9 and saw 10:03 I figured why not push and do a sub 10-minute mile?  So I ran mile 9 in 9:58 and kept right on pushing, running mile 10 in 9:18!  I can't tell you how good I felt when I finished, definitely a runner's high, just on top of the world.  Finishing strong once again motivated me.

Full Garmin stats here if you're interested.

Back at the house and I cleaned up to head to the family bbq.  My mom had taken the kids (Miguel had a soccer game).  I was starving after my run and didn't want to show up famished so I made a bowl of Fage with raspberries and ate that during the drive.

Fage 2% plain Greek yogurt with raspberries.

It was a bit rough going from a 10-mile run to socializing but I managed.  And I don't think I went too crazy with the eating, despite my really good excuse.  I tried to make decent choices - chicken breast, a couple slices of tri-tip, a small serving of pasta salad, fruit, crackers.  And of course I had some of my mom's cousin's homemade ice cream - yum!  Back home and I was hungry again so I had a bagel with cream cheese, a string cheese and some fruit.  That turned out to basically be my dinner.  Oh, and 2-3 chocolate kisses.  Later I had the the soup I mentioned above.  I'm going to count all this as my indulgence for the week and try to keep things on the healthier side for the remainder.  We'll just have to see how that goes.

Tomorrow is a mystery family day because we're doing something fun, we just don't know what that is yet.  Ok, I'm signing off.  I hope you're having a great holiday weekend too!  And remember, if you enjoy your freedom, thank a Veteran.