Work it out.

Well, I'm clearly not concussed since it's been over a week since my little spill and I'm functioning and posting. Again, ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to wear your helmets!

I'm also happy to report that my gross knee bruise is calming down and doesn't hurt that much. I can no longer use it as an excuse not to go to the gym haha. The gym and I are slowly getting acquainted, though I still think it's wrong to run on a treadmill when I live in perfect running weather.

I've started machine hopping partly in response to my gym ADD and partly so I don't overdo it on the running. Machine hopping at the gym means putting in some QT with machines I hate (read: elliptical, stair master, bike). A mere 10-15 minutes on each seems like such a chore to me :( It's slowly getting better the more I do it, but agh. So rough!

And so I present you with a few songs that have gotten me through recent gym trips:

History - Groove Armada (feat. Will Young)

Swoon (Boyz Noize Summer Remix) - Chemical Brothers

Scared of Me - Fedde Le Grand

More - Usher

House Stabs - Luke Vibert

15 Step - Radiohead

Tighten Up - The Black Keys

Give a Little More - Maroon 5

Pretty random selection, I know. One of these days I'll get around to refreshing my running playlist...

What do you do when you're trapped indoors for a workout? What songs get you through a terribly boring workout?

Post lame-o workout, I found myself seriously craving a dinner sammich. Weird, right? Originally I planned on using my Guacamole Tuna Salad as a topping for greens, but agh...this sammich craving was way too strong!

(source)

*btw, still weirded out that Arnold is Oroweat here.

Topped one of these with some greens, followed by a couple spoonfuls of tuna and ta da! Dinner in 5! I was pleasantly surprised with my guacatuna salad (do you like how I've given it 3 different names?)...just enough saltiness, spiciness and creaminess! I was worried the carrot bits (I don't usually put carrots in guac or tuna salad) being weird, but they added a nice crunch. I diced them super small so the carrot taste wasn't too overwhelming. I highly recommend this recipe :)

Not only did I have a successful dinner experiment, but I also got another fun package in the mail...

New sneaks...times two!

So I tried the Inspire 7s on a couple weeks ago and sort of flipped out. I didn't like that they came up too high on my ankle and something just felt off about them. Boo.

I did some research on the Google and turns out they actually tightened things up a bit for a more secure ankle and arch. All that sounds great to me, but apparently my feet disagree :(

After that not so fun experience, I went online and tried to find a cheap pair of the Inspire 6s. I found them and ended up buying two pairs to tide me over. Phew. I don't know what I'll do the day I have to get new shoes :\

Spinach Artichoke Di...Pasta?

Temperatures dropped a bit today so I found myself craving a hearty, warm dinner. Unfortunately, I didn't get out of work until late-ish so I also needed something quick. Tonight's dinnertime experiment:

Spinach Artichoke Penne

1/2 lb penne, cooked according to box

1 c artichoke hearts, chopped

2 1/2 c baby spinach

1 small shallot, chopped

2 links chicken sausage (I used Aidells Artichoke & Garlic), chopped

1 tomato, diced

2 tbsp dry white wine

1 tbsp olive oil

light sprinkling chili flakes

slight dusting parmesan cheese

salt & pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Brown chicken sausage (I like mine pretty brown so they aren't too mushy) and stir in shallot. Cook shallot until translucent and add white wine. Cook for 1 minute before stirring in tomato and artichokes. Cook for 2-3 minutes and slowly stir in spinach. Cook until spinach begins to wilt, stir in chili flakes, parmesan, salt and pepper. Pour over penne and mix well. Serve immediately.

If you salt your pasta water properly, you really won't need the extra salt at the end. The artichokes, parmesan and sausage add just the right amount of salt and flavor to the dish! Quick, easy and delicious! It also doesn't hurt that it looks a little like springtime in a bowl :)

I got a couple packages in the mail today and one of them was from Foodbuzz's Tastemaker Program. It's been awhile since I've opted in to receive samples and I completely forgot about this one. Hooray fun surprise!

This sample came from Pure Dark and timing couldn't be better! I've had this random sweet craving lately, plus Jamie's on his way here at the end of the week...here's hoping these samples last ;p

I got a sample of the Classic Bark - sheets of immensely deep dark chocolate studded with cherries, roasted almonds and caramelized nibs and the Chocolate Slab - a thick slab of dark chocolate. AMAZING. I broke into the Bark and holy delicious.

It's just the right level of darkness for me and the nuts and nibs were great crunchy additions! Didn't get a cherry (at least I don't think I did), but that's fine with me...ahhh love!

Great start to the week! Well...it could have been an even better start to the week had I been able to get to the gym, but alas, it was not in the cards. It's probably for the best. After yesterday's run, my calves were crazy tight/sore...even after a decent stretching session! Ah well, looks like the rest of my evening will involve hanging out with the Stick. My trusty buddy.

Good news is that I'm finally getting back into running pretty consistently. It's still really frustrating doing super short runs and spending more time stretching/stick-ing than actually running, but I know it's all for the best. GAH. Anyone have good workout suggestions for someone with severe gym ADD?

SNOOOOWWWW!!

Ok, so I seriously doubted this 'Snopocalypse' everyone in the DC area was talking about…especially since the flurries were barely sticking at 2pm. I woke up this morning (after a Ryan Reynolds evening watching this and this) to a very thick blanket of snow. Check out the view from the living room:

Yes, we face an alley. I looked out the window a little before I took this picture and saw some people walking…um, easily up to mid-shin of snow. CRAZY! I don't remember DC getting this much snow since 2003 when I also happened to live in this building! I was excused for like a week (really 2 or 3 days) from my internship because of the weather…and my roomie was trapped in PA (I think?). Insane storm! People were playing in the middle of Connecticut Avenue (pretty major street)!

I've been known to complain about my building on occasion, but it's times like this that I seriously start to appreciate all the amenities. For example, I needed to get my second run/walk session of the week in today. All I had to do was pop downstairs to crank out a quick 30 minute session while watching news coverage of the storm and I was even able to fit in a fair amount of strength and stretching in! Brought some bags and warm clothes with me and 2 minutes later I'm off to the Giant!

BIG BIG perk of my building - underground passageway to the grocery store. OMG, best idea ever. Basically, you cut through two parking garages with signs like this one so you don't get lost:

And then poof, you're in the parking garage for the Giant! This was the scene at 10:30am:

MUCH better than what I saw cutting through yesterday afternoon!

Inside was the most depressing scene EVER. The produce section was wiped out. Apparently everyone has loaded up on bags of salad, lemons and carrots. No joke. Those were the big stand out items as I walked through. Lemons???

I managed to snag a few essentials for my next two kitchen experiments, plus a container of oats for breakfast. I figured cereal wasn't going to happen since all they had left were gallon jugs of whole milk - GROSS. They didn't have any scallions for tonight's dinner, but there was one lonely leek that seemed to scream at me. I'm going to make it work…just because I like a challenge.

As I type this, I realize this is the 3rd time I've been to the store and totally forgotten to pick up a bottle of this:

You can say I'm obsessed with the Sticky Fingers Carolina Classic Barbecue Sauce. It's mustard-based, so it's a given that I love it ;p, and it has a great tang and kick to it. I've mentioned this to my sister TONS of times and she went searching for it over Christmas when she made some crock pot pulled pork. Apparently Sticky Fingers is hard to come by in the island of the long, so I said I'd either send or bring up a bottle. Clearly my brain hadn't been fed it's daily dose of caffeine yet.

I'm off to start/marinate tonight's experiment - hint: it's not tropical and it doesn't involve a creature of the sea. Branching out!! Happy snow day! :)

Ah yes, good day indeed :)

Sorry for that spastic first post. I was way too excited to download all my recent food adventures that just kept piling up in my camera! I guess I'll just add the recipes onto that post??

Just got back from a nice long gym session - I put in 50 minutes of QT with the elliptical machine! I think that's a big deal for me, no?? I also did a 10 minute shuffle on the treadmill, which bothered me a little more than my 20 minute adventure on Friday. I think it might be because I attempted to stop heel striking, but maybe it's too soon. I'll take it. 10 minutes of shuffling is better than nothing.

I had another fun playlist with some songs that actually had me grinning since they were pretty old and brought back memories. Ahh, college.

Beija Flor - Thievery Corporation

Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas

Put Your Hands On Me - Joss Stone

All That We Needed - Plain White T's

Underneath the Sky - Oasis

Ghostwriter - RJD2

Body Movin' - Beastie Boys

Higher State of Consciousness - Josh Wink

Runaway (Charlie Fanclub Remix) - Grum

Flight Tonight - The Avalanches

Straight Out the Jungle - Jungle Brothers

I was pretty surprised that I was able to stay down there so long...perhaps it was my brunch of champions:

After seeing a couple of Allison's posts (Green Dog Wine) on Spicy Oats, I was determined to try them.

I didn't have any sausage handy so my spicy oats contained oats, one egg (microwaved scrambled), shredded cheddar cheese and a whole lotta sriracha! Verdict? Savory, spicy oats = yummy in my tummy!

Why on earth did I have a container of oats in my home? Well, I was busy baking up a storm since I'm sending a package over to Jamie this week. It appears he's in need of some items that he can't find on base so I figured I'd toss in some goodies.

I took a basic chewy oatmeal cookie recipe from Smitten Kitchen (who btw, has a lot of fun recipes - two thumbs up for the Dal recipe which I'll write about later), subbed in some ingredients and voila! Oatmeal Raisin with Dark Chocolate Chips and

Oatmeal Crasin with White Chocolate Chips!

Personally, I prefer the craisin one. Basically, I doubled the recipe, using 1/2 c butter and 1/2 c shortening. Then I split the dough into two bowls and subbed in the chips for the nuts. Very easy and delicious!

I take it back...

About the elliptical machine, that is!

Last night, still bummed about my computer, I got my butt to the gym with Kelly's 45 minute elliptical workout in tow. The first 5 minutes were cake...then I got into the crazy levels of resistance! Omg, no joke I was struggling! Since I was having a tough time keeping my form on 11, I decided to just drop all the resistance levels by one. What can I say, I'm pretty much an elliptical newbie :p

This workout had me SWEATING! Well, not drenched with sweat, but the equivalent of a hard 3 mile run. Impressive for 45 minutes on the elliptical...and you know I love my sweat! I had a pretty sweet playlist to keep me going - it was like my iPhone KNEW what I needed hehe.

What got me motivated? Taa daaa!

Star Guitar - The Chemical Brothers
Just Dance - Lady Gaga
Red Alert - Basement Jaxx
Sing It Back - Moloko
Cobrastyle - Teddybears
Voyager - Daft Punk
No Substitute Love - Estelle
Please Don't Leave Me - Pink
Ready to Go - Republica
Music Sounds Better With You - Daft Punk and Stardust
In Dust We Trust - The Chemical Brothers
A Girl Like You - Edwyn Collins

Conveniently, America's Test Kitchen was on my TV (that wont let me change the channel) and they were talking about some pulled pork and how to make the most of a cheap cut of beef. Sweat, good tunes and food on tv? Haaaappy!

What keeps you motivated? Music? Visual distractions?

Love the one you're with

Well, when it comes to workout machines, I'm TRYING ;p I have to admit that when I went downstairs this afternoon, both elliptical machines were occupado so I decided to walk on the treadmill until one was open. That walk got me itching to jog and I totally started upping the speed when a machine opened up. Coincidence or sign?? HMM??

This morning I was catching up on blogs (still WAY behind) and noticed Kelly's Elliptical Challenge 2010. Perfect timing! I signed my broken self up and am psyched for this extra bit of motivation! Here's the quick rundown:

• Challenge runs December 27, 2009 to January 30, 2010.
• Each participant sets a personal goal - mine is to do at least 3 workouts (at least 40 minutes each) a week.
• Goals are logged in a shared spreadsheet and if you meet your weekly goals, you'll be entered to win a $10 iTunes gift card.

This afternoon's workout brings me to 80 minutes of elliptical fun. Yowza. I got a little sweatier this time around since I tweaked Tuesday's workout a bit. This time, instead of focusing on how much I dread the machine, I decided to focus on ways I could make it work for me/ways to keep me distracted haha.

I went with a higher crossramp level (10) and lower resistance level (1) for my warm up, recovery and cool down. For the tougher parts, I brought the crossramp level down to 6 and upped the resistance to 7. I'm sure those are really dinky numbers to the advanced elliptical lover, but hey, I'm trying!

Numbers ALWAYS distract me. Sometimes during a really tough long run, I'll find myself trying to do math in my head (usually calculating how far we have left or how much we've already run). It's not easy, but the minutes and miles FLY BY. Anyway, I nerded out and decided to pay attention to my strides per minute.
During the tough parts, I made sure I stayed between 185 and 195...sometimes jumping up to 200 if a good song was on. Recovery strides were between 165 and 175.

All I have to say is that nerding out made the time go by super fast. I think the hardest part was the 10 minute cool down! haha. Closed my workout out with some calf stretching and instead of toe taps, I did this other exercise recommended by my PT that has me doing laps in my living room. Basically I squat and walk on my toes. Quite a sight.

Sorry for the lack of pictures! I'm off to prep some appetizers for a NYE party I'm headed to this evening in Arlington. Definitely remembering my camera!! Hope everyone has a fantastic New Year's! Mine's going wonderfully so far...especially after getting a mid-morning call from the birthday boy Okinawa! Yaay :)