Winter Running

Running in Vancouver is always exciting.  Depending where you run, you have beautiful views of ocean, mountains and wildlife.  You also can run 365 days year as we are pretty temperate in climate.  Today was one of those typical winter runs that happens to be in the spring :) and separates the normal runners from the crazies!  


I wish I had a camera with me this morning but I am afraid it's not water proof!  So I found a picture online that pretty much sums up what the run felt like this morning! 

Running Vancouver Style! - thanks Nike!

So what are you crazy about?

Tasty Tuesday

Yay, the kids are in school and I am back to the gym on a daily basis!  To celebrate, I made Apple Sauce Oatmeal Muffins!  Okay, believe me, the celebratory drinking of beer took place Saturday!


Another site I love to visit regularly is www.cleaneatingonline.com. They have great and yummy recipes all with clean ingredients.

1 c. dry old fashioned oatmeal flakes

1 c. unsweetened applesauce

1/2 c. skim milk

2 egg whites, beaten

2 Tbsp. ground flaxseed

2 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. coconut oil

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

3/4 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. dried cranberries

1/4 c. raisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare muffin tin by lining with paper baking cups or cooking spray.

Combine oatmeal, applesauce, milk, eggs, flaxseed and oil in medium bowl. In another bowl combine all dry ingredients including fruit. Make a well in center of the dry ingredients and pour wet ingredients into it. Stir until all ingredients are just combined.

Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 15 - 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

I canned my own apple sauce in the fall and used that today.  It had no sugar added and was on the chunky side for apple sauce (just the way we like it).  The small soft chucks of apple really added to the texture of the muffin.  

I followed the recipe to the letter and really like the outcome.  My son had one of his buddies over for a play date after school and I served the muffins for snack.  I got "these are good", "awesome!" and "tastes good Mom".  They really did taste good and would be great with some apple sauce spooned on too!

I think the only thing I may tweak is the amount of cinnamon.  Next time, I will add a 1/2 tsp more.

Now, I would love to have a picture to post with this but apparently it's TAX TIME in our home and my little laptop although very good for 98% of the things I need to do on it, it doesn't have a SD card reader.  So the pictures of the muffins are on the camera and my husband is on his laptop doing THE TAXES.  

Yeah, not going to interrupt him for fear of an ongoing rant on taxes, the wisdom of following a budget and the learning curve I have in following a budget...#sigh!  Not gonna poke that lion!

And The Sun Is Shining!

My city is BEAUTIFUL when it's not raining and since we live on the West Coast and in a rainforest, it rains a lot during the fall, winter and spring.  Some people call it "liquid sunshine", I call it something else especially when it is days upon days upon days of dark skies filled with pouring rain!  So when the sun comes out, our little neck of the earth is stunning beyond words!


After 2 weeks of Spring Break where the weather was somewhat awe inspiring  - in one day, we would see sun, rain, snow, hail, wind, more rain, and some more sun!  It was crazy!  Needless to say, we got very creative in our house with Lego, Play Doh, board games, movies and ran outside in between weather systems!


THEN, Saturday roles around and the skies are blue with puffy white clouds and IT'S WARM!!!!  Oh My God!  It's glorious!  People opened windows, washed cars, and rubbed their eyes in disbelief!  Sunday was just as beautiful!  So I ditched the laundry and cleaning and took the family out to partake in our beautiful mountain lined city!  


Here's our outing in pictures!

One of my favourite sights is to see snow capped mountains while walking in a sweater!

One of the best places to see, eagles, herons, bears etc. is on the Traboulay Trail!

The boys and our dog Jasper enjoying the trail

The Pitt River!

Our little piece of Heaven!

Thank you sunshine!

Fitting for Friday

Thank God for Starbucks!  

Need I say more?  It's the end of Spring Break and come Monday, the learning continues!

Finding Time to Exercise

It’s week 2 of Spring Break and hump day!  I have found it incredibly difficult to get to the gym and get my regular work out done.  So my stress level has been a little high while dealing with 2 very energetic boys.  The gym I go to has child minding but their usual customers are babies, toddlers and preschoolers.  My boys are 5 and 7 and definitely not challenged by the toys offered so the next best thing to do would be to fight with each other.  Right?  Yeah…a little hesitant to take them to the gym!

So after threatening their lives, toys and then bribing them with a trip to the movies this afternoon, I was able to leave them in the room looking angelic and sweet while saying “bye Momma, have a good workout”.  It was quickly followed by a short rendition by my 5 year old belting out “I’m sexy and I know it…I workout!” while shaking his butt!  #embarrassed!

With my mind full of scenes containing rambunctious boys in a small room, I decided that I would forgo my usual Wednesday workout (back & chest with a short run) and opt for an all over body workout in high intensity sets.  It would guarantee to get me out of the gym within 45 minutes.

When I started strength training, I wanted an easy, all over body workout that would start to condition my muscles and get them ready for my final plan which was to condition and tone my body using free weights while focusing on certain muscle groups each day of the week.  My gym has a great layout for circuit training and I started there until I stumbled upon a great free weight workout in Oxygen Magazine (oxygenmag.com) in February.  The workout includes some cardio movements between each set of weight exercises but I decided not to do those and always followed up with a 5km run or 25 minutes of speed intervals.

Here’s what I did:

Weight Exercise	Reps/set
Goblet Squat	15/3
Alternating Chest Press	15/3
Single Arm Shoulder Press	15/3
Alternating Bent-Over Row	15/3
Alternating Lying Dumbbell Extention	15/3
Dumbbell Stiff Legged Deadlift	15/3
Standing Zlottman Curl	15/3
Weighted Russian Twist	15/3

I only allow 10 seconds rest in between each rep with 11/2 minutes rest in between sets.  Done with the right weight, you will break a great sweat with this exercise and feel really good coming out of the gym.  You will know you have the right weight when you are struggling to move it in the last few reps of the last set.  Also, be prepared to use more than one weight set.  I use 10’s, 15’s and 20’s and line them up at the bottom of the bench.

Good news is that even though I didn’t get my full workout done, I did get something in today and walked into my boys sitting and playing with cars on the floor being absolute angels.  Win, win!  Oh and we saw the Lorax today too!

Tasty Tuesday

I like to try a new clean recipe every week.  Yup, that’s living it up at the TTHR House!

Since it’s week 2 of Spring Break, I thought I would make something sweet yet “clean”.  So it is chocolate chip cookies!  What I really want it to be is a tall frosted glass of beer, glass of wine, hell scotch will do right about now!  Did I mention it is WEEK 2?

I found this recipe at www.thegraciouspantry.com.  I have been following this site for some time now but this is the first time I have chosen one of her recipes.

So here goes:

Clean Eating Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Tools
Food processor
Large mixing bowl
Spatula

Ingredients
2/3 cup almonds
1/3 cup cooked oatmeal
3 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup grain sweetened chocolate chips (or dairy free chips)

Note: If you don’t want to use the chocolate chips, they could be very easily substituted with raisins, nuts or dried fruits of any kind.

Directions

Step 1 – Mix everything except the chocolate chips in the food processor. You should have a nice wet, sticky dough when you’re done.

Step 2 – Using your spatula, scrape dough into your mixing bowl and mix in chocolate chips.

Step 3 – Spoon onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Step 4 – Bake for 20 minutes.

First off, I have to say that the ingredient list was so easy and I had all of it in the pantry.  Secondly, the only prepping I had to do was make some oatmeal and let it cool which is easy peasy.  From there, it was a breeze to put this together. 

Here’s where things got a little sticky for me.  The first batch was put on the baking sheet as directed – in spoonfuls.  I am not sure if my dough was too thick but the cookies never truly “flattened out” and after 20 minutes in the oven, they were brown on top and not cooked all the way through. 

A little disappointing on the presentation portion but hey, I ate it any way and passed one off to the kids too.  We all gave the flavour two thumbs up!  So off I went again to make another batch and see if I can get a picture perfect cookie.  

Not so great, doughy in the middle

This time when I went to put them on the baking sheet, I gave them a little flattening out with the back of the spoon and my finger (hey, can’t beat cookie dough that tastes that good and doesn’t have any eggs in it!)  I put them in the oven and 20 minutes later, fantastic looking cookies that I knew would taste as good as it looked!

What I do have to mention is that if you are expecting the Toll House variety of cookie with the melt in your mouth feeling, these aren’t those kinds of cookies (with the exception of the chocolate chips).  I love hearty, chewy and wholesome cookies and this is that kind of cookie.  

Mixing It Up A Bit

For the last few years I have enjoyed and basically had a healthy obsession (pun so intended!) with running.  In a span of one year, I learned to run 5km and loved it; learned to run 10km and ran my first Vancouver Sun Run; learned to run a faster 10km and then followed that up by learning to run a half marathon. 

I ran 3 half marathon’s and was training for my 4^th one when the pain in my hips became so intense that it hurt to run as bad as it hurt after my runs.  So off to the Chiropractor I went.  One year and 2 Chiropractor’s later I run up to 5 days a week!

A major hurdle I had to deal with was the fact that I may never be able to run again.  What a blow that was!  In the early part of my year of rehab, with Chiropractor #1, he was able to adjust my hips so that there was no pain if I sat cross legged on the floor with my boys playing.  I never put two and two together when it came to the pain in my hips.  A lot of my day was spent playing on the floor with my babies and it never failed, I would get up and have to walk at a forward angle for a few feet before I could straighten up.  The pain in my hips never really went away and it was just exasperated by frequent and long runs.

Even though I could sit with my boys, it didn’t mean I could run and in most cases, I would come out of the Chiropractor’s office and go for a run only to be in pain the next day.  He told me that I really should start something else.  He suggested a spinning class once and I scoffed telling him I had a hard time grasping the enjoyment of sitting on a hard seat so my ass goes numb and pedal my legs off while going absolutely no where.  At least with running, I moved! I saw my environment and the beauty that was the outdoors in BC. 

Over the last year I have been thinking that I needed to do some kind of exercise if I wasn’t going to be able to run again but what?  I was so wrapped up with the “loss” of not running that I couldn’t find happiness in any sport.  Spinning, well we covered that!  Yoga?  Meh!  Swimming?  Cycling (outside)?  Nordic walking?  I just couldn’t get past the feeling and over all well being I had when I ran.  I could burn so many calories, de-stress and live on a runner’s high for the rest of the day on a 30 minute run!  In my mind, there was nothing that could compare.

In one of my races, I passed a man who had a hip replacement the year before and my thought was if he can run, why can’t I?  Chiropractor #1 and I parted ways and I am now happily with Chiropractor #2.  I love this man.  Why?  Well let me tell you!  After my assessment with him, I forcefully told him that he was not going to stop me from running and he looked square in the eyes and told me that I should never have to quit doing what I want. It was his job to make sure I can keep doing it.  Like I said, LOVE!!!!

Even though I can run without pain, I will most likely not run another half marathon.  I finally came to the peaceful conclusion that I was just going to have to deal with it and understand that there is nothing that was going to compare to or replace running in my life. I needed to find something ELSE I could love too!

I think I have finally found something that gives me some of the euphoria I get from running and I can pair the two up!  Since January of this year, I have started strength training and I am loving it.  I love the exhaustion I feel in my muscles afterward and the new strength the following day.  I also feel the difference when I run!

Strength training!  Who knew?