Tasty Tuesday

A big thanks to all the comments regarding my race!

As I mentioned in my last post, my pictures are now showing up on wordpress.  In celebration of that, I’m going to be posting food, food, and more food!

Let’s get started.

Heart to heart cereal with almond milk.

Quesadilla with cheese & artichoke hearts

Carrot cake with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream ❤

Fruit & yogurt

Fried eggs, sausage patty & toast.


Peanut butter banana crunch of amazingness.

Nachos and salsa.  Yum.

I don’t remember exactly what this was.  Chicken, onions, squash…?  Tasted good 🙂

My first trip to Chipotle.

Giiiiant.  I managed to eat about half.

Major noms.  It’s not a secret that I love tomato soup and grilled cheese.

Not food, but that bird stood there looking into my room for like 5 minutes.




French toast deserves multiple pictures.  Topping it with homegrown peaches and pure maple cranberry syrup = wonderful.

True love.  Oatmeal + peanut butter + nutella + cereal + cinnamon raisin peanut butter

A P.F. Chang post will [probably] be next!  For now, it’s time to go eat breakfast.

P.S.- Run this morning: 2.63(ish) miles in 26:21.  Gaah.  I’m tired of these 10 minute paces.  I need to work on that!

HOEM 2010 race recap

Yesterday, I ran the House of Esther Ministries 5k.  Oh my, was it amazing.  I ended up placing.  Not only in my age group, but I actually placed in the top three females overall! We’ll get to that in a second though.

Time: About 28 minutes & 7 seconds.
Not a PR, but close.

Justin came with me as my own personal hydration assistant.  There weren’t very many people running in the race, probably just around 40 or so.
Location: Mount Trashmore.

Fueling: None until the finish line.  This is definitely something that needs to be kept in mind if I ever run the race again.  With the heat and the difficulty of some portions of the course, it’s really important to bring your own hydration.  At the finish line, they had a booth set up with water, some sort of sports drink, granola bars, and apples.
Timing: Because the event was so small, they used poster boards to write down the participants information and hand wrote the times and numbers on a piece of paper when people came across the finish line.
The course: They had volunteers set up along the route to let people know which way to go.  As for difficulty, we ran up mount trashmore twice.  The first time, the slope wasn’t very steep so it wasn’t too bad; however, the second time up was pretty intense.  My time slowed down a lot on the second time and I struggled to not give up.  When I reached the top, there was a girl coming up behind me and I tried to push myself as hard as I could to not let her pass me.  Unfortunately, I just couldn’t push myself hard enough and she ended up passing me shortly after we came back down.
I knew that there was one other female that had ran off ahead from the beginning, but I hadn’t seen any other females in front of me until that girl.  My thoughts were correct, and at the finish line I discovered that I had finished 3rd 🙂

I must share this.

Disclaimer: if this boy finds my blog or my facebook, he’ll probably think I’m a wacko.  With that said…

Doesn’t this guy look JUST LIKE Taylor Lautner?

Medal!!!

I’ll be keeping this baby forever!

So, I still have no idea why my computer is so bipolar when it comes to letting me access my pictures through wordpress.  I can’t believe it actually showed the pictures from this race.  Hopefully, it’ll keep letting me post pictures!

After the race, we came back to my house and went for a run.  Who does that? haha.  We only made it about 1.7 miles or so before I had to walk and then we didn’t run again until the sprint to my driveway.

Work tonight. It’s burning up out, so I’m really not looking forward to this!

Why do you blog?

Do you blog because it gives you access to a group of people who share your interests that you normally wouldn’t be able to find in real life?

Or is it because you’re lonely?

Maybe you just have too much time on your hands?

Or you want an excuse to take pictures of everything you eat?

Do you have so much on your mind, that it’s easier to just write it all down?

Or do other blogs give you inspiration on what to write, and you have to get that out?

What’s your reason?

As you’ve probably noticed, my blogging goes through phases.  Sometimes I’ll blog a lot, while others, not much at all.  I started this blog for an assortment of reasons, both conscious and subconscious.

The conscious reasons:
Reading other blogs made me happy, and I wanted to make others happy in that way.
I was hoping it would give me healthier eating habits.
It gave me a place to talk about my running when I felt like I was annoying people in the “real world.”

The subconscious reasons that not even I was aware of:
I was lonely.
I had too much time on my hands.
It gave me a place to talk to people that I actually had things in common with.

The truth is, it’s often a bad sign when I’m blogging.  Sometimes it’s just because something fun happened that I want to share, but others, it’s because something is lacking in my life.  I blog when I don’t have anyone else to talk to.  I blog when I have nothing to do.  I blog when I’m lonely.  Right now, it’s a combination of reasons.  Loneliness & inspiration. The bad thing is, the latter is because of the former.

So tell me, do you blog for the same reasons I do?
What’s your reason?

Running:

This morning’s run was… a start.
~ 2.63 miles
~ 26:25 time

I thought about going for a second time around the loop; however, I decided to end things on a slightly good note.

Breakfast:

French toast made using greek bread that my dad brought home, topped with homegrown peaches, and pure maple-cranberry syrup.
I used a pretty plate so I would have pretty pictures; however, wordpress hates me and isn’t registering the pictures.

Well, I’m going to go finish enjoying my breakfast.

Have a great day!

2nd place in age group? Say what?

Remember that race I ran on May 31st?
Well, I didn’t think that I did very well, so we didn’t stay for the award ceremony.  There were a lot of people that appeared to be around my age group.  Plus, my time wasn’t that great compared to the times that I’ve seen before for my age group.  The thing is, I was racing for the first time in a HIGHER age group because I just turned 20.

For women 20-24, I came in second place.  Seriously? Looking back on it, I REALLY wish I would have stayed for the awards, considering I would have gotten something for placing top 3.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.

Official time: 28:28

This morning, I had a pretty horrible run.  About 2.63 miles at a time of 27:34.  I didn’t take my garmin for three reasons.
1. It’s probably just about dead, so I need to charge it before I use it again. 
2. I knew my speed was going to be pretty bad, so it would have just discouraged me, if anything.
3. The route was a normal one, so I didn’t need it for the distance.

I have a TON of pictures to post, both from Germany and since then.

A preview: P.F. Changs is absolutely amazing.  It’ll probably be a post all of its own.

For today, I’m going to VA Beach with my dad to get a new phone and run some errands.
When I was at the airport on my way home from Germany, I decided dropping my phone in the toilet would be a good idea.  Ummm… it really wasn’t.  It finally started working again, but then the end button stopped working.  I was on the way to the Sprint store when it started working again; however, I then realized that now the “talk” and “speaker” button are acting funny.  Every time I press one of them, my phone dials a bunch of random numbers.

& I’m off!

Samstag (Saturday)

Lets start from where I left off…

Kletterwald Neroberg

These pictures were taken on the blue (easy) course.

It ended up being a pretty big workout, which left me in pain for a couple days!  I don’t think my arms have ever been that sore before!

After that last post, we went out and got ice cream.

Watermelon (Wassermelone) and tangerine (Manderine). Very refreshing!

Eaten with a view.
Later on… more food.

&&& coffee.

Dinner time.

Something I’ve never seen back home.

Seriously, what’s dinner without beer?  (I only had one, don’t judge!)

Unser Wiener Schnitzel

Who can eat all of that? Not I.  I had part of one piece, some fries, & about half of the cucumber salad in the background.

Wiener Schnitzel + Cranberry sauce = amazing.

I don’t remember this picture being taken…

My dad joked around about getting dessert, so I decided to order the Germknodel.

Interesting.  It was pretty good 🙂 Huge though.  We didn’t finish it all.

Some sort of prune(?) filling on the inside.

Well, I’m out of time for now!! I’ll post more later!

Germans know how to party

Forget blonds, Germans have the most fun.

[I just checked & my pictures are showing up again on wordpress!  Looks like I’m going to have a picture only post coming up soon with all the ones I haven’t been able to post!]

Before heading over to the festival yesterday, we went to this cute little train station that uses a water system to move two trains up and down a hill.  At the top of the hill, there is a gorgeous view of the city along with a little restaurant where we sat down for some beer.  That is also where we got the idea for this morning’s activity, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Last night… What can I say about last night? 

I drank way too much.

Strawberries & wine

I’m honestly not sure how many of those I had.  3 or 4?

My dad made a friend.  Crazy drunk German.

We decided that Germans throw the best parties.

A man bartender wearing an old school beer maiden outfit (wig & dress) is very good for business.

We saw a ton of expensive crafts.

& Germans singing American music. (Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Tina Turner, etc.)

Their bread is so rough!  It tore the roof of my mouth up.

I woke up this morning around 5 local time thinking it was much later than it was.  It gets bright over here really early this time of year.  I was awake off and on until around 7, when we had to get up and get ready for the day.

Kletterwald Neroberg is the place we decided to spend our morning.

The courses have different difficulties, which are marked by the colors.  Light blue being the easiest & black being the hardest.  My dad and I started off on a blue course and then followed that with the red and dark red area.  I don’t have any pictures of us on the course, but I’ll post them when I get them off my dad’s camera.  Also, we took videos! So I’ll get those together and post them when I get a chance.  It probably won’t happen until I get back home though.

For each time, we started by climbing the net in this picture.  Then, we went right for the blue course & then left when we did the red course.

Well, I’m out of time for now!

Auf wiedersehen!

Guten Tag!!

Remember how I was supposed to go to Germany for Spring Break, but had to cancel the trip because my passport was expired?  Well, guess where I am blogging from right now 🙂

Wiesbaden, Germany.
My dad and I arrived in Frankfurt around 5:30 am local time and immediately went to a little grocery store for the necessities.  Aka- Beers & sandwiches.
Then, we hopped on a train to Wiesbaden.  I wasn’t able to finish my beer before we reached our stop, so of course, I ended up walking to our final destination with my suitcase handle in one hand, and my beer bottle in the other.
Who needs running when you have a heavy suitcase and a long, partially uphill, walk?
Apparently, I do.  We took a little nap when we got here and then went for a 4 mile run around the park in the picture above (kurpark) around noon.  While we were getting ready to leave, I realized just how bad our run was going to be.  I was exhausted and sore from the walk through town.  Plus, dehydrated.

1. 10:40
2. 10:38
3. 10:15
4. 12:something

Let me explain the 4th split.  There was a long, steep hill that I tried to make it up, but failed. My dad said that he has yet to actually run all the way up that hill. We made it most of the way to the top before I had to stop to walk (umm… more like stop to kneel down for a while before finally walking the rest of the way).  After that, we walked a little while before we started running again.
All in all, very successful run!
The park was gorgeous and took up most of the distance we covered.

(I obviously didn’t take these pictures considering I haven’t been able to get pictures up here for the past couple of weeks.  Thank you, google images!)

We got back and enjoyed some coffee [with bailey’s, duh] while overlooking part of the city.

Wilhelmstrasse fest (basically a street festival) started yesterday a few blocks away from where we are staying, so we’ll definitely be spending quite a bit of time there this weekend.  I’m not sure what the plan is exactly; however, we’ll probably be heading over to Hamburg on Sunday.  My sophomore year of high school, my family hosted a German exchange student named Robert that goes to Uni Hamburg, so we’re going to go visit him there.  The reason we would probably go on Sunday is that trucks are forbidden on the autobahn on Sundays, so traveling will be a lot smoother if we go that day.

Well, it’s time to hit the town!
Auf wiedersehen!

Freedom Run 5k

Ready for another non picture post?
I tried uploading the pictures to my mobile me account; however, I still can’t put them to wordpress using mobile me.  Looks like I might have to just use photobucket or something

Yesterday, I ran my “May” race.  As you may remember, I decided at the beginning of 2010 to run at least one race per month this year.  I was able to talk Justin into running it with me 🙂

The race: Yorktown Freedom Run

The distance: 5k

Total time: The official time is not yet posted and I forgot to stop my garmin when I hit the finish line; however, it was between 28-29 minutes.  Not a PR.  Also, not a disappointment.  I’m actually really happy with my time considering it was hot & I haven’t been running very much lately.

The course: When I was looking up information on the race, I realized a key element.  This race was not a road race. “The race starts and ends next to Grafton High School and consists of unpaved roads and paths, some paved roads, trails around lakes and through scenic fields and woods.” Umm, what’s up with me deciding to do trail races without realizing that they’re trail races?  When I read the description, I didn’t fully grasp what they meant.  There was quite a while (for a 5k) that we were running through the grass, which is not something that I have ever really done before.  My conclusion: I really like venturing out of my comfort zone and running on grass, dirt, sand, etc. (There was a little section where the ground was pretty sandy.)

More details: Thankfully, this was a chip timed event.  Unfortunately, not everyone was able to get the timing device because everyone needed to go over to the starting line.  They still took up the little strip at the bottom of everyone’s bibs though, so they were still able to get the times of people that didn’t have the timing device.  Justin and I were actually the last two that they gave the timers to.

The spread: The organizers of this race did an absolutely terrific job obtaining post-race food.

• Bananas
• water
• oranges
• donuts
• cookies
• brownies
• corn bread
• 2 types of bagels (with cream cheese)

Food eaten by me: Orange slice, a donut hole, part of a brownie & a forth of a blueberry bagel with cream cheese.

T-shirt: Everyone received race t-shirts, cotton not technical t’s, & I read that those who pre-registered were guaranteed the requested size.  Being a procrastinator, I registered at the race and by the time I got there, they were out of smalls, so I got a medium.

My right foot: Yep, it’s been hurting.  Last time, it was my left foot.  It’s the same area, just the opposite foot.  Maybe I need new shoes?  Maybe it’s from wearing my running shoes when I’m not running?  Not really sure.  I am going to stop wearing my running shoes to work though and I’m going to look into getting new shoes.

I didn’t take any pictures at the race, which obviously doesn’t really matter since I can’t get the pictures on wordpress right now anyway!