Author Archives: fran1968

May 20 2013

Monday May 20, 2013: Reunion

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Last week I received a letter in the mail with an invitation for a school reunion. This is the class of 1980, I was 12 back then. I knew from my Mom that they were trying to organize this because one of them asked my address a couple of months ago. It’s in September and I’m going because I’m curious what has become of everyone. I haven’t seen most of them since I left the village where I grew up 20 years ago. Now I’ve got a couple of months to lose weight and look fabulous :)

It’s my birthday week (Wednesday). I’m turning 45 and am going to celebrate it small. Wednesday I have the afternoon off and R. and I will have dinner (7 courses) in a fancy restaurant. Friday is my usual day off and my Mom will be coming over and I’m taking her out to lunch then. That’s all I’m doing about it.

Remember I told you about the 2 boys missing in my last post? They were found dead yesterday after almost 2 weeks. The past 2 weeks police and civilians have been searching every day for them but never on the place where they were found eventually. A passenger saw one body in the water and alarmed the police yesterday. The police found another body. They were hidden in a drainage tube that connects 2 ditches. I’m not sure if I explained this good enough, on the photo you can see the drainage (on the left of the white tent). They haven’t been identified officially yet because they, most likely, have been in the cold water for two weeks.

You know what I can’t get out of my head: they were together and their Dad most likely murdered them. I hope they were sleeping or drugged when it happened because what if they were awake and one of them saw what happened to the other, and that was the last thing he saw before he was killed himself? I could hardly sleep last night thinking about that.

Workouts:

Long Saturday

The plan was to run 8K (5 miles) and I did. Again I ran 1 K and then walk for 1 minute and again it worked perfect. It was a good run, the weather was okay for running, bit drizzling rain now and then but overall good running weather. I’m also learning more and more to run slow on the long runs. Every time I run to fast, I get back to the pace I use for long runs (7:00-7:15 /km). Running slow combined with the walk breaks helps me finish the run without problems.

Stats:

Distance: 8 K / 5miles
Time: 00:58:04

Speed per km: 8.27 km/hour (5.1 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:16
Weather: dry, not much wind, 8C (46 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Little Steven – Forever.

Meals:

Saturday May 18

I baked an apple cake on an oven plate. I used only half of the ingredients but even then it was still a huge cake. But very, very good.

Dinner was a steak sandwich, recipe by Tana Ramsey. It was good but not very special.

 

Sunday May 19

I made a “pie” of various ingredients: port tenderloin, potato, spinach, mushrooms, tomato and pepper sauce. It doesn’t look much like a pie but I don’t have those special rings that you can use to staple food.

Dessert was a golden oldie by Jamie Oliver: muffin sprinkled with limoncello, custard, whipped cream and cooked strawberries.

May 16 2013

Thursday May 16, 2013: Mark Knopfler in concert

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We went to a concert by Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) Tuesday night. I’m not a fan of his music but R. is and I went with him to this concert. And I have to admit, I was pretty bored after an hour or so and was glad when we could go home. There were to many slow songs and he’s not much of an entertainer (no interaction with the audience).  I like some Dire Strait songs but he played only 3 or 4 of them. This will be my one and only concert of him, not going to spend money on that again.

The entire country is talking about two brothers of 7 and 9 that are missing. They were last seen with their father on Monday May 6. Their parents are divorced and the dad picked them up Monday morning. Early Tuesday morning the dad was found in the woods, he committed suicide by hanging himself. But the boys are nowhere to be found. Police and volunteers are searching for them ever since but till today, they haven’t been found.  There are holes in where the father has been that day so it’s hard to find out what exactly happened or where to search. It seems he has left a goodbye note on his computer but no message about his boys in the letter. I don’t think they are still alive, it’s been over a week since they were seen alive. But I do hope for their mother that they will be found soon so she knows what happened to them. I don’t have children myself but I can imagine how hard this is for a parent: not knowing where your kids are and what happened to them.

Workouts:

Yogalates Monday

 

My legs were pretty sore on Saturday and Sunday after Friday’s run. My legs aren’t used to run longer distance anymore and I think this will happen a few more times. A yogalates workout was perfect to start the week with, I could use the stretching/yoga exercises. I did a upper body workout. Total time: 33 minutes.

Tempo Tuesday

Tempo run of 30 minutes with 3 x 3 minutes at a faster pace (6:27-6:42). Paces these 3 minutes: 6:27 – 6:27 – 6:17. I had to take a short walk break after 20 minutes but other than that it was a good run. Weather was perfect for running.

Stats:
Distance: 4.4 K / 2.7 miles
Time: 00:30:11

Speed per km: 8.75 km/hour (5.5 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:52
Weather: dry, not much wind, 11C (51 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: J. Geils Band – Sanctuary

Easy Thursday

An easy 20 minutes run. No walk breaks and not watching my pace. Just run for running itself. A good run. My last 3 runs were all good ones, I’m slowly starting to believe I might be back on track.

Stats:
Distance: 3 K / 1.8 miles
Time: 00:20:24

Speed per km: 8.82 km/hour (5.5 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:48
Weather: dry, not much wind, 11C (51 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Thin Lizzy – The boys are back in town.

Meals:

Sunday May 12 

Breakfast: brioche bread (sweet French bread) that I toasted with light cream cheese, lemon curd and strawberries.

 

 Dinner was tomato soup, nothing special but I made a delicious dessert. I have a new cook book by Bill Granger where the recipe was in: strawberry pannacotta.

 

Tuesday May 14

Indian bread with chicken, hummus and mango. A recipe I made before. It’s kind of fast food but I like it very much. The rest of my meals this week weren’t very special.

May 11 2013

Saturday May 11, 2013: Beautiful day for a walk

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We are having a 4-day weekend that started on Thursday. Thursday the weather was lovely and I decided, instead of a walk in my village, to take the car and drive to a park at Castle Groeneveld with Bella. I wasn’t the only one with that idea because it was very busy. Lots of people walking with their dogs or lying in the grass to soak up the sun. Bella was having a great time. Lots of dogs jumped in the water but not Bella, she’s not to fond of water, but she came close.

I bought a new outfit yesterday. I have my birthday coming up and we are going for dinner in a fancy restaurant and next month I have a reception of my formal manager who is retiring. I’m part of the organization together with a colleague of mine and I want to look nice then. I bought a powder pink dress and a blazer with lace. The shoes aren’t exactly the right color and I ordered powder pink pumps online that should arrive today.

Workouts:

Easy Wednesday

I grabbed myself together on Wednesday and went for a run before work. I still had trouble leaving and decided to do just a short run to get back at the running and 15 minutes is always better than doing nothing. I was a bit surprised by the humidity, that wasn’t too nice to run in. But other than that it was an okay run.

Stats:
Distance: 2.3 K / 1.4 miles
Time: 00:16:07

Speed per km: 8.56 km/hour (5.3 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:00
Weather: dry, not much wind, humid, 11C (52 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Philip Philips – Home

Long Friday

I had a 7K planned and it has been 2 weeks since I did the 6K. I was a bit concerned if I could do it and came up with a new strategy the day before. I decided to run 1K and then take a walk break of 1 minute. Mentally I only had to run 1K and then have a break which sounded better to me than 7K. When I got outside it was raining and pretty much wind and I almost decided to go inside again. But I said to myself that there would be more rainy runs in the future and if I could do this run it would be good for my confidence. So I went and luckily it stopped raining after 5 minutes but still there was a lot of wind. Again I had luck on my side because I had the wind in my back for about ¾ of the run. I took my walk breaks after a minute and tried not to run too fast and I did it. I came home feeling great.

Stats:
Distance: 7 K / 4.3 miles
Time: 00:50:44

Speed per km: 8.28 km/hour (5.1 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:15
Weather: dry, windy, 11C (51 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Blondie – The tide is high.

May 7 2013

Tuesday May 7, 2013: Still here

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Thursday was my Mom’s birthday, she turned 71. We celebrated it Thursday night. May is a busy birthday month in my family because not only my Mom has her birthday, my Dad had his birthday in May too and the last one to close the line is me. I have one sister and her birthday is in January.

R’s best friend celebrated his birthday last Saturday. It was a very pleasant evening and as usual it was late again. We were in bed at 3 am. I took it easy on the wine though and because of that I was okay the next day, even though I didn’t get enough sleep.

Tomorrow is my Friday because Thursday is a Christian holiday (Ascension day) and we get a vacation day for that. Friday is my usual day off but if it wasn’t I had a vacation day too because my company is closed. That’s two work weeks of 3 days, I can really get used to that as long as I get paid for 36 hours LOL.

Workouts:

Tempo Tuesday

Tempo run of 30 minutes with 1 tempo part of 3 minutes. I took 1 walk break around 20 minutes and it still was one of my fastest runs. This is good and bad. Good because I hadn’t run in over a week and had a hard time getting out of the door for this run. Bad because I want to stick to my paces, otherwise I won’t make it through a half marathon. I need to slow down. The pace for this run was too fast. But … I had a good feeling after finishing this run. Now all I have to do is put on those running shoes again for my next run and keep doing that. And .. it was perfect running weather:

Stats:
Distance: 4.5 K / 2.8 miles
Time: 00:29:53

Speed per km: 9.04 km/hour (5.8 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:38
Weather: dry, not much wind, 9C (48 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Philip Philips – Home

Core Wednesday

The Firm Core Solutions: 3 10-minute workouts that I all did. Standing abs, core and abs sculpting and traditional abs. First time I did this workout and I like it. Total time: 30 minutes.

Easy Thursday

Easy 20 minute run. A good run, no walk breaks, no watching paces, just run. Huge bonus at this run: I left at daylight! No more running in the dark for at least 4 months from now: woohoo!

Stats:
Distance: 3 K / 1.9 miles
Time: 00:20:24

Speed per km: 8.82 km/hour (5.5 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:48
Weather: dry, little bit of wind, 7C (44 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Glee Cast – Somebody that I used to know.

Long Easy Saturday 

The plan was to run 7K on Saturday but as soon as I started to run I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t feel a 100% and my right calve was a bit hurting. I didn’t want to turn around and go home and decided to do an easy short run. I had to take a few walk breaks too. It wasn’t one of my best runs but afterwards I was glad I went and did something, even if it was short.

Stats:
Distance: 3.2 K / 2 miles
Time: 00:22:54

Speed per km: 8.38 km/hour (5.2 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:09
Weather: dry, sunny, little bit of wind, 10C (50 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Gloria Gaynor – I will survive.

Struggle Monday and Tuesday

Two days in a row I got out of bed, got dressed in my running clothes and just couldn’t motivate myself to go run, not even the fact that it was already light helped. So I went back upstairs, get undressed and took a shower. It’s so hard to motivate myself at the moment but I keep on trying. Tomorrow morning I will get dressed for a run again and hopefully this time I do go.

Meals:

Monday April 29

I made meatloaf for the first time in my life. Saw the recipe in the free magazine of my supermarket and made it on Monday. And it was very, very good and definitely will return on the menu. We ate it with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Tuesday April 30

New recipe: pasta with tomatoes and mozzarella out of the oven. The original recipe is vegetarian but I’ve added some ham to it. Tasted good!

 

Wednesday May 1

I have made this Ainsley recipe before: chicken madras curry with banana with yellow rice. Not to spicy but very good.

 

Sunday May 5

A pasta dish with white asparagus, ham, cherry tomatoes and asparagus sauce.

May 1 2013

Review April 2013

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Notes April:

  • The month was over in no time, time flies by so fast.
  • My total workouts for the month were less than in March, something that wasn’t the plan at the beginning of the month. But sometimes these things happen especially since I had a nasty cold at the beginning of the month.
  • Total time I did something (including walking): 18 hours and 34 minutes.

Workouts April:

Running. Done: 7

Strength training. Done: 3

Cardio. Done: 2

Yogalates/Stretching. Done:

 

Number and time of workouts in March: 15 workouts, total time 5 hours and 57 minutes.

Number and time of workouts in April: 11 workouts, total time 5 hours and 49 minutes.

 

Yearly mileage

Total April: 28.3 K / 17.6 miles

Total till 04/30: 116.7 K / 72.9 miles

Total running time: 13 hours and 38 minutes

Walks with Bella:

Days with at least 1 “long” walk this year: 81 days

Total time we walked so far: 47 hours, 23 minutes.

Total mileage we walked so far: 238 km / 148.7 miles.

Book I’m reading

George R.R. Martin

A Song of Fire and Ice – Book 4 A Feast for Crows

 

Finally I finished this book! I have two more of the series left but I decided to read something else first.

Tess Gerritsen

The Keepsake

Low this month

Catched another cold, took me 2 weeks to recover.

Highlight(s) of the month

First day it was possible to sit outside on April 14.

Concert of Boudewijn de Groot.

We have a new Queen since yesterday!

I have been in front of the TV for all the official events yesterday. This was my second abdication and if I’m lucky I will see another one when I’m old. It’s very special and it makes me proud of my country. I love it that we have a monarchy and I think King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima will do a great job. For those of you who haven’t seen pics yet, I found some on the internet today.

Signing of the abdication:

On the balcony after signing, our new King and Queen with their 3 daughters:

Walking to the church for the inauguration. I love, love, love Maxima’s dress, it’s so beautiful.

Sweat the oath:

In the evening they went on a “koningsvaart” (king’s sail)

Love the evening dress and hair too:

They got off the boat to shake hands of Armin van Buuren, the number one dj of this moment (he’s Dutch). He performed with an orchestra on their request: classic meets trance.

Apr 29 2013

Monday April 29, 2013: A little bit of this, a little bit of that

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First let me start with the confession: I haven’t exercised or ran since last Monday. I had no motivation at all and decided to take my “loss” and just accept it and pick it up this week again.

Last Friday the gardener came to clean up our garden and make it ready for Spring/Summer. There were 2 of them and it took them 3 hours to clean everything up. Last year I did it myself and that took me 2 whole days. For us it’s money well spent if they do it and we just have to keep it clean from this point. Some before and after pictures.

Yesterday it was a beautiful day for a walk and we went somewhere we hadn’t walked before. We saw it when I was running there in February and said back then we would go back for a walk. We got a bit lost while we were walking but I always use an app on my phone when I take long walks with Bella and it has GPS so we could see on my phone how to get back to the car. Very useful I can say.

Dinner last night was white asparagus with ham and egg. White asparagus are only available from half April till half June and this is the way most people in Holland eat it. It was delicious.

 

I’m having a 5 day weekend that started last Friday. Today my company is closed and tomorrow is a national holiday. Tomorrow is abdication day instead of Queen’s Day. I usually don’t go anywhere on Queen’s Day and tomorrow will be no different. I am staying home and watch TV all day, don’t want to miss anything of the abdication because this seldom happens in a lifetime. For me it’s the second time, 34 years ago when Beatrix became our queen I was 10 years old.

Next year our national holiday will be switch to April 27th. That’s the birthday of Willem Alexander. This will be weird because all my life it has been on April 30th. It was the birthday of Queen Juliana and Beatrix kept it that way when she became queen to honor her mother.

Apr 22 2013

Monday April 22, 2013: Time to do something

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We went to the concert last Friday: Boudewijn de Groot. He’s doing his last tour because he’s 68 right now and he don’t want to tour anymore. We hadn’t seen him live before and I have to say: it was very good. We had a great evening, his band was very enthousiastic and so was he. We didn’t know what to expect but it turned out to be great.

It’s time to do something. When I stepped on the scale this morning after not weighing for 2 weeks it scared the you know what out of me. I had gained and am at a weight I haven’t been at since September 2009 (advantage of keeping lists of everything, you can look it up). I knew I gained, I feel it at my clothes, I see it when I look at the mirror. Maybe that’s why I stayed away from the scale longer than usual. The reason is simple: I eat too much, not at my meals but everything between meals.

I decided yesterday that I would take action as of today, no matter what the scale would say this morning. I’m not changing anything in my normal meals but I’m going to watch carefully what I eat between meals. I’m also tracking my calories and want to stick to that for at least 1 week to see how much I eat at the moment. If I don’t do something I’ll be back at my highest weight in no time and I haven’t worked that hard to get it all off for nothing.

Workouts:

Easy Thursday

Easy run of 20 minutes. When I do easy runs I never watch my Garmin, I know 2 songs on my Ipod is about 1 K and I count the numbers and know when I’m about at the end of my run, then I start watching my Garmin. I never look at the pace during these runs, they are about recovering and running at a pace that feels good that day. And this was a good run, no walking breaks.

Stats:

Distance: 3 K / 1.9 miles
Time: 00:20:33

Speed per km: 8.76 km/hour (5.5 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:51
Weather: dry, windy, 9C (48 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Europe – The final countdown

Long Sunday

Long run, this is the longest run I’ve done since August last year, pretty pathetic. The weather was perfect for running. I ran 3K without walking (trying to make this a bit longer every run) and took 2 walk breaks the last 3K. It was a bit tough but glad to know I can still do it.

Stats:

Distance: 6 K / 3.7 miles
Time: 00:42:23

Speed per km: 8.49 km/hour (5.3 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:04
Weather: dry, sunny, not much wind, 3C (37 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Ilse de Lange – Sister Golden Hair.

Cardio Monday

P90X Cardio X. I have done this DVD before and I really like it because of it’s variety. I started with some yoga, after that Kenpo followed by Plyometrics and finished it with core exercises. Total time: 43 minutes.

Weekly workout review:

Runs: 3. Mileage: 11.5 K (7.1 miles).

Cross training: 1 (Insanity).

Walks with Bella: 5 days (2 hours 20 minutes).

Meals:

Thursday

 

Mac ham and cheese by Annabel Langbein.

 

Sunday

 A Tana Ramsey recipe: steak with sugar snaps, spring onions and cashew nuts with basmati rice -> delicious!

 

 Dessert: a strawberry crumble -> delicious!

 

Monday

New recipe from a cooking magazine: codfish marinated in spices and yogurt, brown rice with cashew nuts, spinach. This was a disappointing meal, it was quite tasteless and I’m not going to make this again.

Apr 17 2013

Wednesday April 17, 2013: Mishmash

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Finally the perfect weather on Sunday: 21 C (69 degrees). That meant flip flops, t-shirt instead of longsleeve and this:

 

@Shelley: the butter cake we ate as pastry with coffee. No fruits, cream or ice cream is added. Come on over and I’ll make it for you and anyone else who wants to try it.

Next Friday evening we are going to the theatre to see and listen to Boudewijn de Groot. He’s a Dutch singer/songwriter and has made beautiful songs over the years. This will be his last tour and our last opportunity to see him live.

Going to watch the interview tonight with our King and Queen to be: Willem-Alexander and Maxima. Our block in the street is ready for the abdication/Queen’s Day. R. put up flags and lights with our neighbours last night. The lights are on at night which gives a nice view.

 

Workouts:

Strength Monday

Insanity Cardio Recovery. First time I did this workout and I thought it would be a cardio workout but it turned out to be a strength/stretch workout which was perfect although the squads and lunges were felt later in the day. Total time: 32 minutes.

Tempo Tuesday

The tempo run that wasn’t. Shaun T. kicked my legs on Monday’s workout and I was extremely sore, it’s been a long time since that happened. Instead of the planned 30 minutes, I only ran 17 because my legs couldn’t move forward. I took a rest day today because I have another run planned tomorrow and running is my priority the next 6 months.

Stats:

Distance: 2.5 K / 1.5 miles
Time: 00:17:13

Speed per km: 8.71 km/hour (5.4 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:53
Weather: dry, little bit of wind, 9C (48 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Glee Cast – Run Joey Run

Meals:

Monday

 New recipe: steak tartare spice with sea salt and chili pepper and rolled through pistache nuts. After the steak was finished I added some ginger and garlic and put in some mango to heat up. It was delicious. We had baked potatoes and a salad with it.

Tuesday

Chili con carne with a topping of tortilla chips and cheese.

 

Wednesday

 

 New recipe by Jamie: spicy Cajun chicken with mashed sweet potatoes with sweet chili sauce. Side dish was a salsa of corn, spring onions, tomatoes and coriander. Jum jum!

Movies I’ve seen lately

The Descendants

This movie has been on my recorder for a while now and I finally watched it. I liked it, no action just a good story. It does help that I love George Clooney and almost every movie he is in.

Apr 14 2013

Sunday April 14, 2013: I’m still here

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Lori asked if I got a nice raise with all the extra activities I’m doing at work right now. The answer is no. First my salary is at the top of the salary scale I’m in so I haven’t got a big raise in years. Besides that there is a salary stop in our company. Our country is in a recession and construction and DIY are the businesses that are hit the hardest. There are already some people that have lost their job at our company and I’m just happy to have a job. Besides that I have no complains about my salary, it’s good.

I started working for the manager Communication last Wednesday and Thursday he brought me flowers because he is so happy I am going to help him out. These little things make your day.

 

You know I have a cook book addiction. My favorites are Jamie Oliver, Tana Ramsey (yes the wife of), Ainsley Harriott, Annabel Langbein, Bill Granger and Nigella Lawson.

We have a TV show called College Tour. Every week they have a different guest and the audience exists of students that can ask questions. Last Friday Nigella was the guest.

I love Nigella because she’s a lot like me: she likes to cook but she gains weight easily too. She recently lost weight and they asked how she did it because she loves to cook and eat and her recipes aren’t diet proof. She lost a little weight by eating a little bit less but overall she hasn’t lost that much weight she said. She exercised a lot and her body got stronger and more toned so it looked she lost a lot. This sounded like music to my ears because it’s my way to lose weight right now too.

She also said that being a good cook doesn’t make you a better person. Her experience is that some people think they do and that being a good cook defines you. Cooking is for pleasure and it’s allright if something doesn’t taste as good as you expect, it happens to her too.

Overall I loved the show because I learned about her childhood, things I didn’t know and how she became a writer of cook books.

Workouts:

Cardio Monday

A Turbofire workout: Fire 45. Three rounds of cardio/boxing/plyometric exercises of which I skipped the last one and 3 HITT sessions inbetween. Total time: 33 minutes.

Long run Sunday

Long run is a big word for my run today. My cold did last longer than I expected. I tried running twice last week but had to stop after 5 minutes because I had no lung capacity. I decided to try again today and take it really slow. Goal was to run 5K and finish, time didn’t matter. I took a walk break after 2K and at 3 and 4K. It was hard but I also knew after I finished that I’m almost recovered from my cold.

Positive note: I wear my Summer running outfit for the first time this year!

Stats:
Distance: 5 K / 3.1 miles
Time: 00:36:13

Speed per km: 8.28 km/hour (5.1 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:15
Weather: drizzling rain, cloudy, little bit of wind, 13C (55 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Lady Gaga – Born this way

Meals:

Sunday

 

New recipe from a Jamie Oliver book: lamb chops with honey and balsamico and a lasagnette with green asparagus and cherry tomatoes. Very tasty, a keeper.

 

I have been cooking some new recipes the rest of the week but the photo’s didn’t turn out very well.

Yesterday I baked “boterkoek”, the main ingredient is butter. It’s not diet proof or very healthy and I don’t make it very often but it’s so delicious. Both R. and I love it.

Apr 7 2013

Sunday April 7, 2013: Spring has arrived!

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Finally Spring is here! Since Monday the weather is getting better and better and it can lift one’s spirit so much after this long Winter. It’s also longer light every night since Sunday when the clock went forward with an hour. And I’m not the only who’s happy that Spring is finally here:

I’m sorry that I haven’t been commenting much on your blogs last week. I did read everything but it’s been a busy stressful week at work. Besides that I catched another cold last Monday and have been pretty sick till Saturday. Being so busy at work and not feeling well made that I didn’t have energy at night to do much. Today I feel much better.

Few changes at work. Last week my direct manager asked me if I was willing to work for our communication manager. His current assistant gets a new job at his department and he needs someone to make his appointments and answers his phone. Of course I said I would do it.

His assistant also is editor in chief of our intercompany magazine and I’ve been asked if I would do this. I had to think a couple of days about that because it’s a lot of extra work but it’s fun work. I decided I am going to do it but that meant I had to leave the vitality team. I can’t do everything and had to make a choice. Hmmm probably should update my linked in profile with “editor in chief” LOL.

I’m home alone this weekend. R. is in Italy for a motor exhibition and will be home tomorrow.

Workouts:

Tempo Monday

Half marathon training has started and I started with a 30 minute tempo run. I mean by that that most of the run is at an easy pace and 3 minutes are tempo. The tempo minutes build up and so will the time of the total run. I’m using paces for the different runs based on a 5K of 30 to 31 minutes, this means I have to run a lot slower than I usually do. I need to work on that because it will make the longer runs later in the schedule easier. Pace for the run was 06:45-7:00 per km and for the tempo part 6:27-6:42.

Stats:

Distance: 4.4 K / 2.8 miles
Time: 00:30:24

Speed per km: 8.70 km/hour (5.4 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:54
Weather: dry, sunny, not much wind, -3C (26 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Mumford & Sons – The Cave

Strength Tuesday

I did a short workout by The Firm Express: Sculpt. These workouts are short but the tempo is high. You hardly have time to get up from the floor to do your standing exercises. They combine upper and lower body exercises in 1 too to get the max out of your workout. Total time: 20 minutes.

Rest Wednesday

An unplanned rest day, I hadn’t been sleeping well for the past 2 nights and was too tired to do something in the morning.

Easy Thursday

Easy run of 20 minutes, recommended pace 07:09-07:24/km. Still wasn’t completely rested and took it easy but without walking breaks.

Stats:

Distance: 2.9 K / 1.8 miles
Time: 00:20:20

Speed per km: 8.49 km/hour (5.3 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:04
Weather: dry, sunny, not much wind, 0C (32 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Communards – Don’t leave me this way.

 

Rest Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Decided to take a couple of rest days to heal completely from my cold.

Meals:

Monday

 New recipe: chicken in apple-balsamico sauce. It was delicious and definitely saved in my recipe database for another time. We had baked potatoes and a salad with it.

Tuesday

 

“Hachee” of minced meat with onion, mashed potatoes and carrots with peas. I was home late and this recipe was ready in 15 minutes: perfect. Also a new recipe and also being saved for busy days.

Thursday

Pasta with zucchini, mushrooms and ham in a tomato sauce.

Saturday

A recipe by Bill Granger: chicken with shi taki mushrooms and red pepper. I wasn’t very impressed by this meal and won’t make it again. I made it for one but it was a bit too much, didn’t eat it all.