http://www.just-jac.com/2011/06/giveaway-time-to-get-popped/

Ingredients:

Sliced mushrooms

Spinach

Cooked and shredded chicken

Kimchi

Toasted sesame oil (optional)

Directions: Grease skilled as desired (cooking oil, cooking spray, or just use water, etc). Over medium-high heat, cook sliced mushrooms and spinach in a skillet until soft. Add shredded chicken (I used boneless skinless breast meat) plus desired amount of kimchi. Secret trick: pour in some of the kimchi liquid — the best flavoring! Cook a few more minutes until all ingredients are hot, the liquid has evaporated off, and the flavors have mingled. If desired (it’s a delicious addition), add a turn of toasted sesame oil after you remove from heat. Enjoy!

Two years later and I never forgot about my blog. After a super speedy 6 mile run outside on Sunday (51:57!!) and signing up for two runs in June, I’ve decided to train for running again. Here’s my plan, only slightly amended to add strength and yoga to Hal Hidgan’s Intermediate 5K. I’ll be running a 10K the weekend after the 5K, but I want to focus on speed training for the 5K and then just enjoy the 10K. Everything is defined on Hidgan’s website, except for “Light Yoga” (literally 20 minutes or less of restorative yoga when I wake up) and “Strength” (15 minutes or so of basic strength moves and/or light weights to keep muscle tone). YAY! I’ll be sure to keep the blog updated with my progress. Oh yeah, I’ll start Monday, April 4th. Technically, there are 9 weeks from that date until my 5K, but I’ll be taking one week off for a yoga retreat.

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” — Mark Twain
And also thinking about forgiveness, lovely and fabulous Louise Hay says that forgiveness has nothing to do about the other person. The act of forgiving is actually releasing yourself from the pain and negativity of the past.

What an amazing way put it in perspective!

and this

_

lately on my laptop.

One of my favorite money-saving secrets is the library! They have a great selection of DVDs, and free is always the best price! Plus, whenever I go there, I get new ideas for projects I want to do and subjects I want to learn.

So what else do I currently have checked out?

This, this, this, this, this, and this… just to name a few.

I know smoothies are nothing new in blogland, as I see them popping up on many blogs we love. But this is my first post about them, so it’s definitely special to me. It was funny, I actually sat down, took one bite (yes, I like thick smoothies that need bowls and spoons), and immediately thought that I wanted to post about it!

For a long time, I would make a simple smoothie with just some sort of milk (unsweetened almond milk), plus frozen berries. Nothing fancy, but so very good.

Next, enter protein powder. Now, I know some people don’t like protein powders, and I can’t blame them. I would have never touched them at first, but I bought a BIG jar of the stuff when I lived in South Korea (teaching English… I’ll get more into that in a later post…), and found it can be a very tasty, easy way to add some nutritional punch and staying powder to some of my favorite dishes. (I promise to post about my favorite protein powder, too!).

Anyway, back to the smoothie… we still have four more notches to go…

Adding protein gave the smoothie a more complex taste. Not better or worse than my simple fruit and “milk” smoothies, but definitely a good alternative.

Next, an obvious addition, was nut butter (notch number three). At first I hesitated… I wasn’t sure if I would really be able to taste it without putting in a ridiculous amount. I was wrong!! Even just a tablespoon of the stuff is definitely present in your mouth, making it oh-so happy.

A few smoothies later, I decided to try adding spinach. I had seen this in blogs, and the nutritional benefits were tantalizing! A whopping handful of veggies snuck in my smoothie, adding vitamins, fiber, minerals, and a bunch of other good stuff? I had to try it… and I loved it! You definitely do not taste the spinach, and I put a LOT in.

Lastly, and what really made this a PB&J was… oat bran! Who would have thought?? I used just about three spoonfuls and it gave the drink a nice… well… how shall I put it? It brought the bread to the PB&J smoothie! Literally, this put the smoothie over the t-o-p, bringing me back to childhood PB&J sandwiches, updated and healthified for a 20-something lifestyle, all while adding an awesome nutritional punch. I think you’re just going to have to believe me and try it for yourself because I don’t think words really do it justice.

Here is a formal recipe, but keep in mind that smoothie recipes are incredibly flexible and can be tailored to your desires and tastes. Here’s what went into my version, that day:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup “milk” (unsweetened almond milk)
• 1 scoop protein powder (vanilla Spiru-tein)
• cinnamon
• splash of vanilla
• 1 Tbs peanut butter
• 1 HUGE handful spinach
• 3 Tbs oat bran
• ~1 cup frozen fruit, or more (strawberries and peaches)

Basically, blend in the order listed above, saving the frozen fruit for last, to thicken the mixture. It makes one large smoothie (>2 cups), or two regular drinks.  Enjoy!

My goals for this run are, first and foremost, to have fun! Second, it would be great to P.R., maybe even go below 50 minutes? But the race is going to be a lot of downhill in the first half, and then a lot of uphill coming back, so it isn’t my ideal race. Buuuuuut, I’m still really looking forward to it, and I’m going to throw in some fun longer hill runs in the meantime to prepare! My first 8K was run with little formal “training”. Rather, I basically training by running whenever I felt like it, which was fairly inconsistently. So my hope for this race is to make a training program (check!) and stick to it!

So, without further ado, here is my program:

A note on the terms:

Home yoga: A yoga DVD and sequence of my choosing, based on how I feel that day (probably no longer than 60 minutes).

Run to yoga: a 25 minute run (all downhill!) to the yoga studio by my house for a 1hr 40 min yoga class.

Tempo run: read about them here. Basically, you work up to a fast pace in the middle of your run.

2-min bursts: My take on 400meter speed work, minus the track! I’ll basically run at my usual pace, then run at a fast 5K pace for 2 minutes, then drop back down to my average speed until I recover. Then repeat!

Strength: About 50 minutes of various weight lifting and strength training exercises at the gym with my friend. I just finished a weight lifting class last term and it was awesome! I feel much more comfortable in a gym and have a better idea about how to give myself a good strength workout.

Yay! I’m so excited!