Ah, Monday. I had such a lovely weekend, laid back and easy going. I did a lot of cooking. On Saturday night I prepared a home-cooked meal for M’s birthday. I poached salmon and made a lemon beurre blanc sauce for it, along with roasted red potatoes and a small arugula salad. The sauce was practically pure butter and cream, and very tasty and rich. Sadly I didn’t snap a picture of the meal. We had that along with wine, though I had maybe a glass. I’m wanting to cut back on the alcohol intake. As much as I talk about alcohol it’s not of big importance to me so it’s an easy place to modify.


Sunday morning I got up and made blueberry scones. I love the cream scone recipe in Joy of Cooking. More cream, though. I had two of those for breakfast. Again, no picture. Lunch was rolling around, as was my plan to do a training run. I decided to have a bowl of Kashi GoLean (with almond milk and sprinkled with cinnamon) for lunch. It seemed like a good choice to prep me for the run and balance out the scones.


And then it was time to hit the pavement. I had my new Garmin all ready to go, as well as an ipod nano that Miguel got me for Christmas. The weather was a bit chilly so I wore my Sugoi running jacket.

I had a plan to run 5 or 6 miles depending on how I felt. Given that I’ve only been running in a very sporadic way, and rarely more than 3 miles, I didn’t want to over-commit. I got going and shuffled along easily, running the first mile in 11:51. I haven’t been running with music much lately and it was so nice to have those encouraging beats along for the ride.


I got to the 2.5 mile when I had to decide if I would turn around for 5 or run another .5 for a total of 6. I went for the extra .5, knowing I had an AccelGel with me and feeling like I was running easily enough to make the full 6 miles. Just a smidge after mile 3 I ate the AccelGel and stopped briefly at a water fountain along the path. We were running on the Coyote Creek trail, a paved path that goes for miles. Sometimes the surrounds are office buildings and whatnot, but mostly the view is of trees and hills. Just lovely.

I felt the kick from the AccelGel and cruised through miles 4 and 5. For the last mile I decided to see if I could pick up the pace. 

I pushed myself pretty hard and ran it in 10:23, with my heart rate soaring as I finished up, but enjoying the feeling of hard work. I averaged an 11:39 pace overall, not that I’m paying much attention to that sort of thing right now. The new Garmin gave me all sorts of other stats, such as my 5.9 average vertical oscillation (apparently that’s good), my 180 steps per minute run cadence (also good), and my 264 millisecond average ground contact time (not so good). I imagine it will be fun to see these improve, assuming they do. Here’s a brief explanation of what all those numbers mean.

After the run we went for a hot tub/sauna visit, which felt downright luxurious, and then home to make dinner. I roasted asparagus and zucchini, and sauteed mushrooms, onions and a can of tomatoes – served it all over pasta. Yum! This time I did get a picture.

We had cantaloupe for dessert (and a touch of haagen dazs vanilla).

I wish I’d gotten a bit more sleep this weekend, I stayed up late watching the Amy documentary (Amy Winehouse – tragic) and other distractions. I’m also starting the work week feeling a little sore from yesterday’s run, a little tired from not quite enough sleep. Still, it was a great weekend filled with peace, food, exercise and relaxation. Gotta love that! Tonight it’s early to bed for this little runner!