Deep breathe, whew. It has been a whirlwind week.

A week ago this time I was sitting at my desk trying to figure out whether or not I was going to be moving or not. My landlords hadn’t found anyone yet and I was stuck in a nether realm, limbo, waiting at any moment to have to go into overdrive and move house. Or not. The possibility existed I would have to stay put if no one was found to take over my lease. I wanted to move though, I wanted to be closer to my new job, move out of an apartment that has started to haunt me. I didn’t start packing, but gathered up things that would make it possible to do so if the time came. I stock piled boxes, tape and recycled bubble wrap. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday passed and I ran errands, fretted and did many worried laps around my apartment. I got home on Wednesday night and finally got the good news, my landlords had found a suitable replacement for me. Suddenly, I was in go mode. I hadn’t found a new apartment, hadn’t packed, wasn’t ready, but I had to be out. They gave me until April 5, but I knew that this weekend was my only real window of opportunity. I spent the majority of Wednesday night packing up my clothing and bedroom. I had to sort my clothes carefully. One pile for storage, one pile for carrying with me. I had to pack like that in case I didn’t find an apartment and needed to stay at my mom’s for a bit. I didn’t get much sleep, but woke up on Thursday morning with strong purpose. I left my house and headed for West Seattle with a list of apartments listed on Craigslist. I stopped off at Flying Apron and got a muffin and an almond milk latte. I could tell this day would insist on caffeine.

My long list of apartments became shorter and shorter, crossing off the buildings that we rented, not answering or otherwise unsuitable. I kept skipping over one that wasn’t in the exact neighborhood the others were located but after seeing yet another 500 sq ft apartment for over $900, I decided to give a call. The building manager was there and said I could come immediately. I sped over to the apartment complex and checked out the building. Location, not bad. Building, secure. 4th floor apartment. As I sat in the building managers office, discussing the amenities offered in the place, I was liking what I was hearing but knew from experience that often times you open up that door and the reality doesn’t meet the expectation. We went upstairs and checked it out. I had a firm grip on my mind not to take an apartment that I didn’t love because I felt like I had to find something, anything. My mother had graciously said I could stay for a short while if need be and so my back wasn’t really against the wall. I didn’t want to make a rash decision. The door opened…

I liked it. I really did. It had everything that was on my list of “must haves” and some things on the “wouldn’t it be nice ifs”. I was sold. The price was right. The location perfect. I was moving. I signed the papers and settled up. As I walked out my new front door, I felt refreshed even though I knew I needed to coordinate a move within 24 hours. Yes, I was moving on Friday morning. I hurried back to my old apartment and called up the moving company that had moved me into my apartment back in September. 2 men and a truck would be at my front door at 8am. And pretty much nothing in my apartment was packed. Thankfully, I am very good at packing. I pack like I am running from the law. For 6 hours, I boxed, wrapped, taped and danced (to my music in my headphones) chipping away at things. By 5 I was ravenous and nearly done and was able to go meet my uncle for thai food at Bai Phai near my house. It was delicious. I finished packing everything, went for a super fast 8 mile run and then settled in on my couch to sleep. I wanted to get up at 5am to run, but my mind had other plans.

I had fallen down a rabbit hole at some point over the last few months, where my mind has started to play tricks on me and zig left, when it should be zagging right. It has been a deep melancholy which permeated everything. It manifested in strange ways: the desire to control things in my world, the constant nagging questioning, the bizarre equation that if something feels good, it must be bad. Its like I was talking about with PB. If I like it, if it made me happy, then it was to be feared, avoided and felt guilty about. I started to feel like I didn’t deserve to be happy. As I lay on the couch, exhausted from the day, the conviction I had about making a good decision started to shake, waver and tumble down. It came crashing down around me. Had I made a rash decision, was I not thinking this through, this feels right, therefore it must be wrong. I grabbed my computer and decided that I would yelp my new apartment building and get reassurance on what a great place it was. There were not many reviews, and most were incredibly old and therefore not likely to be the case any more. But there was one and it was nasty. Suddenly instead of reassurance, I was in full panic mode. My entire thinking reversed in a 5 sentence review written by someone who obviously was quite angry. It was midnight and bursting into tears, I attempted to self-soothe and regain my rationality. It was one review. It was nothing so horrible, it was all things that happen in most apartment buildings (like someones car getting broken into in the garage). But it was too late, the ball was rolling and I was having a full on nervous breakdown. I got up from the couch and grabbed my cell phone. I hated to do it, but I called my mom. Not even for a second did she sound annoyed or vexed that I woke her up at 12:30 at night and she patiently and kindly tried to talk me down. I knew that she had to get up at 4:45 the next (same) morning and so I did my best to take deep breathes and calm down. Once the conversation started to get cyclical, I was able to let her go back to sleep and just kept repeating to myself what we had discussed. I felt a little better, but also just held on to what she said, “don’t borrow trouble”.

As I lay there after hanging up the phone, I decided to see if another thing that mother had said was true. That you could find negative reviews about pretty much anything on the internet and for the most part that is because people who have bad experiences tend to take the time to voice it more than people who like it. I yelped a few things, then I decided to take a look at the reviews of Flying Apron. I love Flying Apron. There is no doubt in my mind. There were plenty of reviews, a few positive, but a lot negative. As I read, I witnessed an interesting phenomena in my mind. My own conviction about how much I love Flying Apron started to waver. Was it really overpriced crap that I had been deluding myself into liking? I slid into doubt and just before falling off the edge, I caught myself. This was an experiment and it demonstrated what I had hoped. That the words of others held sway over me while in the state I was in, but that doesn’t make them true. If anything, it showed that I had made the right decision for me and others opinions and experiences, while valid, were not my own. Though my worry was not completely gone, I could hold on the experiment to give me faith in my decision. I didn’t sleep much but I managed to get some.

Friday was a blur. I woke without any energy and opted out of my run. I ate and waited for the movers. 8am it was go time. For 4 hours in the rain and snow, we moved my stuff. Once we arrived at the new place, I helped and we did a fireman fashion line. They brought things in through the garage and sent it up the elevator where I unloaded it and moved it in. By noon we were done and I went into true Devon mode and started hammering away at unpacking. By 7pm, everything was unpacked, arranged and in its place. The only thing left was to hang pictures, which I would leave for Saturday. But I was in, settled and for the first time in months, I felt true levity in my spirit. That feeling had buoyed to the surface when I got the job, but had been quickly squashed by my mind. As I sat down on my couch, I started to believe that perhaps I left the ghosts behind in the move and that I had reclaimed my mind and my sanity.

I run this city

Saturday passed nearly as quickly as Friday had, cleaning my old place and running errands. I was so sore from moving, I felt worse than I do after running 50 miles. Thankfully, by Sunday I was feeling much much better. I decided it was time to do something I hadn’t done since I moved to Seattle in September. A long city run. All of my 20+ milers have been elsewhere since I moved here and that is quite bizarre to me. I have been getting in good consistent high mileage, so that fact is quite an oddity to me. I got up, ate my pre-run meal, strapped on my Nathan pack and headed out. Armed with my Garmin, a vague notion of direction and a mental map of the way “off the island”(i.e. West Seattle), I headed out. I immediately enjoyed the feel of my new pair of Adidas. Somehow I had let my old pair go an extra 300+ miles and I might have well have been wearing nothing. I ran over the Spokane St Bridge and down along the piers where the massive ships bring all sorts of imports. I was tooling along quickly, feeling great even at 7:15 min/miles. I passed along the more touristy piers, through downtown and decided to head up and over Queen Anne. I ran up the counter-balance, and yes, ran the whole thing. I crested the hill, stopped for a sip of water and continued north. I finally located How to Cook a Wolf and laughed as I headed down the other side of the hill into Fremont. I was on familiar ground now, having hooked on to my old normal route. I powered up Fremont Ave, running all the way to the top, jamming along to the tunes in my headphones. By now I had decided my turn around point, it would be my mom’s house at Northgate. I was curious to see how far it was, especially in order to disable anyone’s argument that West Seattle is too far away. I ran around Greenlake and headed up towards the mall. Door to Door it was about 13.5 miles. I popped up stairs to see if my mom was in, but she was at church. I checked my email to see if my former landlord had written (he hadn’t), filled my waterbottle and headed back out before I got too cold.

I chose a different way back. I headed towards my old apartment, down through Cowen Park, along Burke Gilman, through Montlake and up the hill to Interlaken. I ran every big hill in Seattle, at least it felt that way. When running down through Cowen Park, I started to feel a little bit like I was moving backwards into my own head and quickly compensated the obvious sugar low by eating a pack of Pomegranate Luna Moons. I popped a caffeine and asprin in for good measure and instantly felt refreshed. I ran the SRC route across Capitol Hill and connected to Madison and zoomed down the hill to the water. I retraced my steps along the piers and through the very industrial area. It was very desolate, but pleasant. I wouldn’t run this at night, but during the day, it worked. I got my 3rd or 4th wind as I headed over the bridge back into West Seattle, and pushed up the hill and around the corner to my house. I live on a very steep, but short hill and I sprinted all the way up to my front door. Watch stop, mileage counted. One very satisfied me. 3:28, 28 miles. Not bad. I ate some delicious leftovers from Saturday night, which I had been daydreaming about for at least an hour on my run (see recipe following) and then headed up north to work in the garden with my uncle. My lettuce and spinach are starting to come up and that makes me very excited. As soon as we started transplanting some things it started to hail and we headed inside for some tea. I finished off the day with a great meal at Hi Life with my mom. As I lay down to sleep, I could only sigh a satisfied sigh and hold on as tightly as I could to the deep abiding happiness that had settled in on my spirit.

Hungry girl casserole with Guacamole

There is this great movie called Waitress in which (among other more important plot lines) the main character makes these fantastic pies and gives them really great names, like, “I hate my husband pie, hold the banana”, etc. I decided that I need to start making more creative names for my dishes too. Bubba cakes was a good start, but I am going to try and go even further.

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 can organic chili beans (NOT can of chili! Chili beans i.e. a combination of pintos, kidneys, etc)
1 TBSP evoo
1 small onion
2 small carrots
1 zucchini
1 bell pepper
3 cloves garlic
1 cup mushrooms
1 bunch kale
cumin, chili powder, oregano, italian seasonings, salt, pepper
1 can diced tomatoes with green chilis
handful cilantro
1 package Almond Milk Pepper Jack “Cheese”

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. In an oven proof skillet (I used my cast iron), heat the oil over med-high heat. Sautee the onions for 2-3 minutes and then start adding your other veggies at about one minute intervals, in the following order. Carrots, zucchini, bell pepper, garlic, mushrooms, kale. Basically you want them to start cooking, but not be too done since they will continue to bake in the oven. Spice with cumin, chili powder, oregano, italian seasonings, salt, pepper. Toss in the rice, bean and tomatoes and stir. Heat for 2-3 minutes and then add a handful or so of cilantro (small bits). Tap down the top of the mixture until flat and sprinkle the cheese over the top, covering it. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is browning and bubbly. Top with homemade guacamole and enjoy (preferable while relaxing on the couch). Makes 4 servings.



Why have one when you can have two oatmeal carrot muffins

Now that I am further away from Fremont and thus from Flying Apron, I am going to have to be more self-sufficient in the baking department and brave the world of morning pastries head on if I want to continue to have a nice health grain (muffin, scone, etc) as part of my breakfast. I was in the mood for an Oatmeal Carrot muffin and so I threw these together and success! They are fabulous, not very sweet (which seems to be a trend with me) but perfect. I wanted to add raisins but didn’t have any on hand.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 cup gluten free oats
• 1/2 cup carrot, coarsely grated
• 1/4 cup sucanata
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance margarine
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup Buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup sweet sorgum flour
• 1/4 cup(s) sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup pecans, chopped

Directions:

Ode to my mother

My mom is great. Over the past few months, she has witnessed and supported me through a lot of craziness that really only existed on my own inner battlefield. She has been patient and kind, loving and supportive. She does not judge, or if she does, she does not let on. I know it has to be hard to watch your child struggle and I know that it hasn’t been easy that I have laid my burden down at her feet. She is there for me in the wee hours of the morning and over monday night suppers. She is always willing to help, if at her own expense. The things she does do not go unnoticed by me. In this move, I feel refreshed, renewed and like I might finally have a fresh clean slate to work from. It is my hope, at least. My mom has been my greatest cheerleader and I hope that in this new opportunity I have, I can embody the things that she already knows to be true, and let go of the things she already knows are not. I often wish there was more I could do for her than just be grateful. She has sacrificed a lot in supporting both my sister and I become the people that we have. I know that there is not really anything I can do but extend the same love, support, acceptance and patience to her. I also see now that the most important thing I can do is be true to the me that she raised me to be and to be the best, happiest, at peace person I can be. For my mother, I honor her efforts through the way I live my life and the person that I am.

Last night I lived up to my namesake. More just (someone with) my name. That is I made a delicious meal of a spin off of 3 recipes from Everyday Living (a Martha Stewart magazine). Get it? Martha… I whipped this up in just over an hour after getting home after a long day of hardworking out! It is nice to be able to enjoy a new recipe even when you are tired from a hard days work!

Stuffed Poblanos and Cilantro-lime rice

Stuffed Poblanos Ingredients
(The first thing I did was half the recipe and make it for two… one for me and one for me (the next day), so feel free to double it for more hungry mouths). Below is my interpretation of the recipe I found in this months Everyday Food.

1 can (14.5 oz) Fire Roasted Tomatoes with green chilis
2 chippolini onions (or 1 small white onion), chopped
3 cloves garlic (2 whole, 1 minced)
salt and pepper
1/2 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup organic cornmeal
1/2 cup Almond Milk pepper jack cheese
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 large poblano chilis, halved lengthwise with stems in tact, seeds removed

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425. In a blender combine tomatoes, half the onions, 2 whole garlic cloves puree. Season with salt. Pour sauce into a 9×13 baking dish, set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine beans, cornmeal, 1/4 cup almond milk cheese, remaining onions, minced garlic, cumin and salt and pepper.

Divide mixture evenly between poblano halves. Place on top of sauce in baking dish. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over top.

Bake uncovered for 30 minutes, until poblanos are tender, sauce is bubbling and cheese crispy. (Note: the instructions have you cover with aluminum foil, bake for 45 mins. Uncover and continue until sauce is thickened and cheese is browned, 10 to 15 minutes). Mine turned out tender enough, sauce was thick enough and cheese crispy enough. Plus, who wants to wait that long!

Cilantro Lime Rice ingredients:
1 cup brown rice
salt
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
1 tbsp garlic sauce (store bought–olive oil, garlic, s&p, lemon)

Directions:
Cook rice as you normally would.

In the blender combine cilantro, lime juice and garlic sauce with 2 tbsp water. Blend until smooth. Stir into cooked rice and fluff with a fork.

In addition to this I made some more delicious roast cauliflower with peri peri spice.

Interesting juxtaposition
After preparing the delicious meal above and consuming said dish, I collapsed on the couch, exhausted from a 5am 8 mile hilly run, 1 1/2 hours in the gym lifting weights, 1/2 core work and a decently speedy SRC 6 mile club run. I flipped on the tellie and found Biggest Loser and Throw down with Bobby Flay. I wanted to watch both, so I flipped back and forth. I started to think about it and started to laugh at how contrary my viewing choices were in relation to each other. On one hand, you have the Biggest Loser which was touting super low fat, pretty boring bear bones weight lose eating. Yes, the point is to lose weight, but it is also to maintain it and who is going to eat steamed chicken and veggies (cooked in plastic bags by Ziploc baaaaaaaadddd) and 100cal processed snacks for their entire lives? They were illustrating the evil “old way” the contestants use to eat and you could see a bit of longing in their eyes for a bite. Yes, they want to lose the weight and keep it off, but a life on a permanent diet.

On the other hand, you have the no holds barred, nutrition be damned, Throw down which was an episode about the best cheesecake. One slice of cheesecake by the cheesecake master whom Bobby Flay was as big as my head and included not only the cheesecake, but two layers of chocolate cake and frosting. Wow. I am sure a slice had enough calories for 2 people for 2 days.

It set me thinking though. Do we have to exist in a world where we either you are either in one camp or another? Should food be so black and white, good and bad? Should we be overly aware of the nutritional value of our foods or living ignorant bliss? When I was watching the shows, I felt strangely like I had to choose. But then I realized that I didn’t have to choose, not now. Without knowing it over time, through education, choices and practice, I moved out of a place where I get to occupy the vast gray area in between those ends of the spectrum. I get to have an abundance of flavors and culinary experience AND fantastic nutritional value. How cool is that! Watch the two programs just insighted one of those ah ha moments, in which I realized that I don’t have to compromise one for the other (nutrition for taste, taste for nutrition). And that is such an amazing realization. While I have known this for a while, I had been struggling with the trusting it. It was just one of those things where are hard to reach place in the brain keeps saying, “it tastes so good, so it must be bad!” Silly brain! Luckily for me, I transitioned to a place where EVERYthing I chose is good for me. And its not even a choice anymore, I just DO, when it comes to food. I don’t drool over someone else’s cheeseburger or pine away for a piece of pizza. I don’t have to battle myself over a slice of cheesecake. Even though my brain is behind the time, my body is a whole food machine. What it comes down to for me, is essentially I get to live in informed bliss. It took time to get here, but it is a great place to be!

Despite being an up and down week, it truly is a beautiful new life. My saturday has been productive, I ran errands, I ran miles and I threw down in the kitchen! What more can you ask for?

Bubba Cakes-a work in progress

This morning I decided to attempt to make a vegan gluten free oak cake, based on the “flying aprons” at Flying Apron. I had a rough idea of the ingredients and absolutely no idea of ratios, amounts, etc so I just played around with it.

In the end, they turned out with great texture and layers of flavor. However, they needed a bump up on the sweetness factor. I was pleased with their texture, crispness and the berries. I topped with almond butter to add a nice sweetness. The recipe was good enough for a name, a special name.

These are called “flying aprons”, but obviously since these are my own take on that and are uniquely my own, I can’t call them that. But what are they? They aren’t a muffin, they aren’t a scone. It isn’t granola, cereal, a cookie. It is mostly a cake. Not a birthday cake, cake. Instead an oat cake. How absolutely boring sounding!

I went for my run, leaving the creation sans name, off to enjoy a nice 15 miles in the early afternoon sun. As I ran, my mind wandered as it does and around mile 11 I started thinking about Julian. Julian and I dated for about 3 1/2 years and despite things not working out between us, I have absolutely no doubt that my love for him was never misplaced. He and I have been back in contact for only about a year and a half and his life has taken an interest turn over the last year, not only is he finishing up his PhD at UVA, he is about to be a father. As I ran, I began to wonder if his daughter had been born and resolved that I should email for details as soon as I made it home. A light bulb went on. The thought of Julian + baby= my oat cake’s name. Bubba cakes!

Julian was a master mind of nicknames. No one I have ever known has given me more nicknames than Julian. I think we once counted and there were more than 25. Some of them were simple progressions of a word through different pronunciation or verbal laziness, much in the way that uisce beatha because whishkeyba became whiskey. One of my favorite nicknames he gave me was “baby d”. This nickname would obviously spring to mind when thinking about his new baby girl, Evelyn Rose. Ironically, overtime and through pure affectionate sillyness, the letters got drawn out in baby and eventually became bubba d. I still can hear him drawing out the word bubba and almost howling it. Those are the little things about loving relationships that are most meaningful to me. And so, while this recipe is still in progress, it is in fact a labor of love and therefore worth a special name. In honor of that memory and in honor of a beautiful new life, I dub these cake Bubba Cakes.

Ingredients:

1 cup oats
1/2 cup sweet sorgum flour
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp sucanata
1/2 cup frozen or fresh berries
1/2 cup almond milk
4 tbsp applesauce
1 tsp baking powder
note: these were in need of more sweetness, so I am considering using Maple Syrup or Agave in lieu of the sucanata.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl combine oats, flour, sucanata, salt, and baking powder. Add in the applesauce until the mixture starts to stick together well. I used approximately 4 tbsp but I wasn’t being all that specific in my measurements. Add the almond milk and berries and fold until well combined. Using a 1/2 cup dry measure, scoop out the mixture and place on a baking sheet that is covered with parchment paper. Press down with the bottom of the measuring cup to flatten. Bake for um….I didn’t look at my watch…. 20 minutes? Until golden brown. If you make as is, consider topping with almond butter while still warm and enjoy! If you sweeten more, no need, but feel free by all means!!!

Saturday Salads and Spices

When I got home from my run, I immediately turned on the oven to 400 degrees to make a much anticipated roast cauliflower & broccoli with African Peri Peri Spice (made by Rub with Love). Peri Peri takes me back to South Africa and London and is a spice that is not readily available around here. It specifically reminds me of Nando’s which was a chicken place that I ate *regularly* (ok,not that often but enough to remember!) while living in both countries, including a very memorable trip in my last week in London with my CI co-workers. I can still taste the peri-peri spiced fries. When I lived in Atlanta, I could get Nando’s hot sauce, but nothing since I have been on the West Coast. My uncle Ray last wednesday showed me the spice rub he got at the fish store and was planning on putting on the fish he was making for dinner. It was peri peri!!! I was so excited. I resolved to pick some up asap. Yesterday I was at the grocery stumbling around looking for a smoothie after a really strong 10 miles on Cougar Mtn and I came upon the same blend my uncle had shown me! I snapped some up and looked forward to utilizing it in a spin off of a recipe I had seen for roast cauliflower with paprika. I tossed the cauliflower and broccoli with a tbsp of olive oil and a nice heap of the spice rub and tossed in the oven, until browned and perfect.

While the roasting was going on, I constructed a salad that I was inspired to make after watching 30 minute meals with Rachel Ray (what can I say, it was Thursday and I was brooding and sulking). She was using jarred/pickled vegetables (antipasto) ingredients in a chef’s salad. When I stumbled upon the Peri-Peri spice, I also came upon a veritable plethora of jarred/pickled vegetables. In a pinch, these add a great dimension to many dishes. If you are smart about selection, they actually have a lot of health benefits. Pickling is a fermentation process which adds probiotics and has a long standing history in world cuisine. There are also roast vegetables which are merely packed in water or olive oil, such as roast peppers. I picked organic varieties and ones that didn’t include any ingredients that I couldn’t pronounce (go for things that are pickled in vinegar, and don’t have much more than salt added.

Ingredients for the salad (amounts are up to you!):
mixed baby greens
watercress
fresh fennel, sliced
fresh ripe tomatoes
salad sprouts
salad beans, from canned, rinsed
mushrooms
fresh anaheim pepper
jarred roasted bell pepper
jarred pepperoncini
jarred artichoke hearts
jarred spicy pickled beans

dressing:
high quality olive oil
red wine vinegar
salt and pepper

chef’s note: when dressing a salad, drizzle vinegar over the salad first, then olive oil, as if you do it in the reverse the oil will coat the veg and the vinegar will just slip right off!

Sleeping like a bat

After last years Mad City race, I experienced (another) very unfortunate side effect of long distance running. By the time I got home from WI, two days after my race, my legs and ankles were so swollen and my jeans were incredibly tight. What gives, I thought a bit panicky. I immediately emailed my friend and should be world record holder, Connie to see if this was normal. I was worried something was wrong and plus, who wants to feel like a cow after running 62 miles! She emailed me back, “yes, it is normal. Its the most messed up thing that you can run 100k and for a week after not be able to zip up your jeans”. I was retaining about 6+ pounds of water. It makes sense though, it is the bodies was of healing from the “trauma” you inflict on it, much like the swelling you experience when you twist an ankle or the like. Thus, I had to “put my feet up” as much as possible. Inevitably that translated into me sleeping on the floor (with my back on a pillow) and feet/legs up on the bed. Over the rest of the year, I found myself more and more in this position after races. I dubbed it sleeping like a bat. This week I have been experience this once again and thus have been sleeping like a bat.

Other than having to sleep like a bat (and the reasons for that) & the endorphin crash, I have felt great this week. My recovery week was in fact a very strong training week, which is what I had hoped. I didn’t train through Chuckanut per se, that is I didn’t run a heavy mileage week and then race, but I didn’t want to have much if any down time after the race and bounce back quickly. After a lovely Sunday off, I have had a solid week of training.

Monday I was able to work out the kinks in my legs in a moderately slow 10 mile jaunt. Tuesday I sandwiched a trip to Olympia to visit Alison and get a fantastic massage by her, with an 8 mile run in the morning and the SRC club run in the afternoon. When Wednesday rolled around and my emotional crash set in, I was only able to muster 8 miles and worried that I would have to take off more time than I wanted to. Thursday wasn’t much better. I just couldn’t get it together. I spent the entire day pacing around, but unable to accomplish anything. After aforementioned brooding and sulking, I managed to pull it together to spin on the bike in my kitchen for an hour. While I was spinning Krissy called and said that she was hopping a plane to come up for the night to attend Jenny U’s going away party (which I was invited to but having a hard time motivating for). She said, that she would be there about 10:30 and I said to myself, come on now, if she can fly up from Bend, than I can drive a few miles. Plus, I have found one too many excuses to opt out of evening get togethers in recent months, I have been damn anti-social and that is not good. I think more than that, I just get settled on the couch and have a hard time rallying after getting comfy. To help me bridge the time and ensure getting to the bar at 10:30, I decided to head out for a run after spinning. It felt great to get out in the cool crisp evening air. I had thought I would just tool around G-lake for a 5 miler, but I was really feeling it once I got going and did a great, fast 8 miles down through Fremont.

Yesterday, I was starting to bounce back and headed out to Cougar to do the 10 mile loop. After starting off a bit slow on the incredibly long uphill, I started flying and feeling great. I got home, refueled and a few hours later was inspired to head out again for a high intensity 5 miler around G-lake. I felt great and again, it helped me bridge the time so that I wouldn’t get sucked into my couch for the evening. Last night was my friend Monica’s monthly wine tasting/dinner party. I have opted out of the other invitations she had extended to me, each time coming up with a thoroughly self-convincing excuse not to go. Afterall, who ISN’T tired on friday night? But I was resolute and I went and it was so much fun. The wine of the month was Syrah/Shiraz, each person bringing a bottle to share and enjoy. Monica made a delicious spread of food, including appetizers of artisan cheese and breads and a main course of bbq’d chicken and ribs for the meat eaters and vegan risotto and roast veggies. I am excited for next month and had a really great time mingled with the other guest! Next month I am going to help Monica in the kitchen and do a Vegan South American spread and have the theme be Chilean wines!

While I couldn’t wake up this morning and motivate to go run Tiger with Jove like I had planned, I did manage to get out and run a nice 15 miles on the roads! Tomorrow, most likely Jove and I will head out to Tiger and do another 15. That means for my post-race week I am throwing down a serious 85 miles. Excellent. It has been a rollercoaster week, but really would I have it any other way?