GPS vs HRM??

My husband is trying to convince me that I do NOT need a GPS heart rate monitor, but I think I do. What are your thoughts on the Heart Rate Monitors and the ones with a GPS??

Worth it??

Wicked Run...

I took 3 days off from running in hopes that I could do a long workout today. The rest helped!! Here was my workout:

Minutes: MPH

0:00-2:00: 3.5 Walk

2:00-6:00: 5.5 Run

6:00-8:00: 3.5 Walk

8:00-11:00: 6.0 Run

11:00-13:00: 3.5 Walk

13:00-17:00: 5.5 Run

17:00-19:00: 3.5 Walk

19:00-22:00: 6.0 Run

22:00-24:00: 3.5 Walk

24:00-28:00: 5.5 Run

28:00-30:00: 3.5 Walk

Total miles: 2.41 miles

Total calories burned: 257 calories

Total time: 30 minutes

I was a big sweaty mess after this. I then did 20 minutes of stretching and abs/core work. It is amazing to me that a month ago, I could do a plank for 5 seconds without dying. I can now do two sets of 20 seconds with a 5 second rest. My hard work is paying off!!

I got 2 free tickets to the Healthy Living Expo at the Convention Center when Chad and I ate at Birchwood Cafe last week. Have I told you about this place? We had our book club there awhile ago and it was really good. They serve all local, fresh food. I was dying for their turkey burger...but we got there, and they were out. I almost wanted to go home. I ended up getting a white pizza with sausage...boring! Chad had the walleye cakes and they were excellent! We will have to go back again so I can have the turkey burger.

Anyway...tickets to the Expo. I ended up asking my cousin, Annie to go with me. She eats natural foods and focuses a lot on putting healthy, natural things into her body. We made a small detour at the convention center to look into the Gun Show...

We weren't that impressed...there were a lot of homeopathic people there....palm reading, massages, healing, tarot cards, etc. We tried more than 5 different vitamin drinks and felt a little loopy/floaty afterwards. Too many vitamins at once, I guess. We didn't buy anything but Annie found some great, glitzy jewelry for 10$. And the lady who makes it is located right by her house, so she was super pumped.

Unfortunately, I got sucked into the convention center food. They didn't have anything healthy and I needed a little food kick so this is what we ended up with. I DID NOT feel great after this...and was feeling badly about eating that after my great workout this morning...oh well. A small diversion. I did not eat the whole thing either...just so you know.

Back to work tomorrow. I am trying a meal planning system this week to only buy the groceries we know we will use. Here is a sampling of my weekly plan:

Monday:

Snack: 15 almonds

Lunch: Leftover Spaghetti/Salad/Grapes

Snack: Carrots

Dinner: Soup, Naan bread, Grapefruit

Tuesday:

Snack: Triscuits with Laughing Cow Cheese

Lunch: Sandwich/Grapefruit/ Carrots

Snack: Peppers and Hummus

Dinner: Chicken with Feta and Green beans

etc, etc.

We will see how this goes. Hopefully I can stick to it!!

Hellooooooooooo!

Whenever I hear someone say, "Helllooooo!!" I think of Mrs. Doubtfire...anyone else?? Sorry for the random thought.

Ok...so I ran away to Dunn Bros. so I could do some Internet hopping, facebooking, shopping and blogging. I have quite a few pics from the last week of food that I want to share with y

Last Sunday was a big day for us Vikings fans. If we won this game, we would go to the Super Bowl. It can be easily said that we were EXCITED!!! We met my cousin, Annie and her boyfriend Eric at Majors in Apple Valley.

It was PACKED!!! I had never seen so much purple in one restaurant. It was a nail-biting game..

I am still sad to say that we lost in overtime. It was a really good game, but extremely disappointing...

We picked up our sad faces and headed home.

This week, I made one of my favorite meals!! Chicken or Salmon with green beans and some sort of rice/potato. I found a box of Risotto that I was dying to try, and I was so impressed. All my sauce pans were either being used or in the dishwasher, so I had to make the risotto in the microwave. It turned out so wonderfully!!

I also made Salmon on our indoor grill with a Spicy Tokyo Rub...a little bit of kick!

I sipped on a glass of Pinot Grigio while I cooked...don't you LOVE these glasses? (One of my favorite wedding presents :)

Our indoor grill was also a great wedding present...but it is really hard to clean :(

I also made my FAVORITE vegetable side dish: green beans with olive oil and feta cheese. This time, I added a 1/2 cup of diced carrots and onions as well. Just for a change in pace.

I topped with feta cheese and olive oil and tossed the beans. Then I added a pinch of Romano cheese....TO DIE FOR!!!!!!! I could have just eaten this for my meal :)

The whole meal...

I probably had 2 servings of the risotto, but it was just so good.

Cousin's Night Cabooze-style!

I am the event planner for my cousins. We try to get together once a month and do something fun. My brother's band, Roster McCabe was playing at the Cabooze, so I organized an appetizer/drinks event at the Town Hall before the show.

Shana and Chris were honorary cousins for the night...nice face Chad.

Can you tell we are related???

We all headed over to the Cabooze together for a fun night of dancing, screaming and singing!! I have to be the loudest "cheerer" during Drew's shows and I love embarassing him!! I was so happy that my cousins Tara and Ashley were able to see Roster McCabe in the flesh, live and awesome!!

Look at all the people!! Everyone was singing and dancing like crazy!!

Front row baby!!

All in all Cousins Night was another great success! Can't wait until next month's!!

Hello? Anyone there?

I have been MIA this week because our Internet has been down at home...BOO! We get ours from someone who lives by us and they must have cancelled it or something. We really need to look at getting our own now because Chad is taking some online classes...hopefully I can blog more this weekend!!

Off to assess the little children :)

Do you know the way to Santa Fe?

It was a busy, long weekend. I did a lot of cooking and baking and had fun trying new recipes!

Saturday morning, I woke up and had to go to school for Saturday school. Because of the rainy weather, no kids showed up...so it was a waste of my early morning! I came home, had a small snack and headed to the gym. I tried running again but my right shin started hurting after 1 minute. Boo...I was so disappointed. I did my final day of the Winter Shape Up 2010. I feel kind of dorky doing jumping jacks and high knees at the gym, but I sucked it up! I then did 2.5 miles on the Cross Ramp machine. I went home to have a filling breakfast...omelette and raspberries!

I added tomatoes, green peppers, onions and celery.

I like cutting up all the veggies and putting them in a bowl and dumping them all in at the same time...yummy!

The kicker to this omelette?? FETA CHEESE!!!

The expert move: flipping the omelette without it falling apart....Presto!

I also had raspberries with Oikos Greek Organic Vanilla Yogurt with a pinch of Cinnamon Sugar. This was my first time trying this yogurt and it was SOOOO good!

The final product!!!

I invited my two close girlfriends over for dinner on Saturday night. I decided to make a new recipe from IowaGirlEats.com...Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken...it was sooo good. I also made homemade Spanish Rice.

I put in all the ingredients before I went to the gym.

After it cooked for 5-6 hours, I took the chicken out and shredded it using 2 forks...I then put the chicken back in the Crock Pot for a few more hours.

I didn't take a picture of the final product (BOO) but it was very good!

I found a recipe for homemade Spanish rice on the internet...wasn't too difficult!

Sorry I don't have pics of the final product. I will take a picture tonight of the leftovers. I think my friends really enjoyed it...or at least they said they did.

Off to the gym...I will post my fabulous breakfast from yesterday later tonight...

P.S. Tesa had to have some treats too since I was making such good food...looks great doesn't it??Yuch!

Pizza for 30...anyone??

Not much to blog about today...body and mind are tired and ready for bed. Took two days off from gym because of sore shins. Going to Marathon Sports next week and trying on different shoes. That was my solution when I ran track in high school...and do some more stretches. We will see how that affects my poor, hurting shins. I am taking advice from my marathon-runner friend, Sarah and my trainer friend, Kali. Hopefully, with all their advice, I can keep running!

I took chicken out this morning to make something tonight, but by the time I got home I didn't feel like making anything. Luckily, Chad called and said he felt like pizza. I wholeheartedly agreed!! He stopped at CostCo and got a Take-and-Bake pizza. Have you had these? They are enough to feed 30 people...HUGE!!!

I had a salad already prepared when Chad walked in the door. I chopped up all the vegetables I had in the fridge and added them to the salad. I like putting all the veggies in a prep bowl and then adding them to the salad all at the same time. That way, they all stay on the top!

I put some broccoli in a bowl with some water and microwaved them for 1 minute. I then chopped those up and added those to the bowl of veggies ready to enter the salad.

This salad had carrots, onions, green peppers, cucumber, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, pea pods, baby romaine, feta cheese and a homemade balsamic/olive oil dressing.

Doesn't it look good? After eating this whole salad, I only had room for one small piece of pizza...Now we have leftovers for the next 3 months :)

I have Saturday School tomorrow with 6 struggling students...and then I am going to go Cross Country skiing with my dad...pretty scared about that. I haven't skied since high school and my dad has been skiing for awhile. Hopefully he won't leave me in the dust...

IS THERE SOMETHING YOU'VE DONE THAT YOU HADN'T DONE IN AWHILE?? HOW DID IT FEEL? HOW DID IT GO?

Already??

So I have been running every other day or on consecutive days for the last 2 weeks. I have had a little pain during my runs but not enough to make me stop. Today I stepped it up a bit and increased my speed by .5. Before I even got to mile 1, I had to stop. The pain in my right shin was horrible!!

I did some stretches my friend Sarah recommended...she is a crazy runner!! She recommended I walk up and down a hall, rotating with walking on my heels and walking on my toes. I did that a few times down a very short hall and jumped on the treadmill. Still had the pain...I am now icing that shin and I will write the alphabet with my toes later tonight. (Thanks Sarah!!)

On a different note, I tried a new soup tonight that I loved!! I knew Chad would like it so I kept trying to get him to try it but he was full from his own dinner. Oh well...I will have to buy it again!

This was packed full of vegetables and taste..pretty spicy!!

I also had a grilled cheese with this soup!!

My dessert was Trader Joe's Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies (3) with a glass of milk...Yummy!

HOSPITAL VISIT!!!

Here is the foot story so many of you have heard...Chad went to the Vikings game on Sunday with his brothers and step-dad. Needless to say, I knew it would be a crazy time for them. I got many phone calls from Chad but after the game, he was playing football the boys and my cousins, Kelly and her husband Eric. Chad jumped to catch the football and slipped on a patch of ice. He was saying he thought it was broken but I didn't really believe him. His step-dad told his mom he was fine...the more time passed, the more he called and complained. He thought he needed to go to the hospital. I brushed this off and told him we would see how he felt the next day...

I picked him and his brother up and saw that Chad had to be helped to the car because he couldn't put weight on his foot. We woke up on Monday (OUr day off!!) and went to Urgent Care.

He was seen by a doctor, got X-Rays taken and was given an air cast. It was not broken (Surprisingly), but we were told that a sprain can be as painful, or more, than a break.

At least he's still smiling :)

After the trip to Urgent Care, Chad was craving Punch Pizza, and I am never one to say no to eating out!!

I ordered the Toto pizza with Arugula, Prosciutto, goat cheese, cracked pepper and garlic. I also added Sausage.

Chad ordered the Vesuvio...spiced salami, olive, cracked red pepper, pepperoncini and basil. His looked pretty good but I didn't taste it.

I was craving a pizza so I also ordered a small Chopped salad...mixed greens, assorted meats and cheese, pepperoncini, white beans, carrots, prosciutto crisps and cherry tomatoes in a red wine vinaigrette...I could have eaten this as my meal. It was so good and tasty!!

I am going to finish the night off icing my shins and knee (that is hurting now).

Hopefully I can finish my book club book from Monday night so I can start the next book soon...