Tag Archives: Running

Jun 5 2013

Wednesday June 5, 2013: Mishmash

Posted on by

Happy National Running Day to my US readers. Although it’s not a national running day here, I did join most of you this morning. The photo shows one of the reasons I love to run: a perfect sunny early morning, no one on the road only me, with the occasional cow, horse or sheep that looks at me as if I’m insane running there that early.

 

The tree is in our garden and it’s full in bloom. I don’t think it has ever been this beautiful and it lasts only about 3 to 4 weeks that it’s blooming.

Remember I told you I had gotten a new task at work? I’m chief editor of our intercompany magazine now. Yesterday the first issue that I worked on came out. My colleague who did it before me did most of the work for this one, she came up with all the articles. I did the finishing touch. Next issue is all on me, I have to come up with the articles, think of the colors that are used in the lay-out, contact the people that will be interviewed and so on. It’s pretty cool to see your name in the colophon.

 

Workouts:

Tempo Monday

A 35 minute run with 2 x 4 minutes tempo. I didn’t really want to go but I pushed myself to get out of the door. When I started the run I thought I might take a short and easy run but when I had to turn left for the planned run or right for the short run, I turned left and did the run as planned and it went great. The pace for the tempo parts is 6:27-6:42 and I did them in 6:25 and 6:30. I did take 2 walk breaks of a minute after the tempo parts. 

Stats:
Distance: 5.3 K / 3.3 miles
Time: 00:36:01
Speed per km: 8.83 km/hour (5.5 miles/hour)
Time per km: 06:38
Weather: dry, not much wind, 6C (42 degrees)
Last song on Ipod: The Killers – Human

Strength Tuesday

Well that was the plan but I forgot to set the alarm and I overslept. This hardly ever happens. At least it wasn’t a running day which is more important to me.

Easy Wednesday

Easy run today with beautiful perfect weather. This run was all fun. No walking breaks.

Stats:
Distance: 3.5 K / 2.1 miles
Time: 00:23:43
Speed per km: 8.85 km/hour (5.5 miles/hour)
Time per km: 06:47
Weather: dry, sunny, hardly any wind, 8C (46 degrees)
Last song on Ipod: Kate Perry – California Girls

Meals:

Monday June 3

 

A recipe I have made before: lean pork with tapenade and a Caesar salad. Easy, simple but delicious.

Wednesday June 5

Chicken tikka massala baked in the grill pan, Indian bread, a salad of cucumber, cherry tomatoes and red onion with a dressing of olive oil and lemon.

Jun 2 2013

Sunday June 2, 2013: Lovely weekend

Posted on by

I recently received my vacation money and I always buy something for myself when I get it. This year I bought two things. I bought a pair of Reebok shoes that are especially for walking. I have been wearing Adidas sneakers for the last 2 years but I noticed they need to be replaced because sometimes my feet hurt when I get home. Bella checked them out when I got them:

 

The other thing is something I have been wanting for a long time. It’s a cook book (surprised anyone?) called De Zilveren Lepel (The Silver Spoon). It’s the Italian cook bible with only Italian recipes in it. 1500 pages and I think over 2000 recipes of pure Italian food. Can’t wait to use this one but it will be hard to choose because at the first look I saw already so many delicious recipes.

 

My weekend was great. Saturday I went for a run first, my longest one in a long time. I planned walk events for the rest of this year, 1 every month. Took a walk with Bella. Watch the seasons final of Once upon a time and we had a movie night at home and watched Skyfall which we hadn’t seen yet.

Sunday I started my day with yoga. Went to the forest with Bella and R. Did some meal planning. Read my book in the sun and watched an episode of Mad Men.

Workouts:

Easy Thursday

Easy 20 minute run. Nothing to complain about this run, it was slow, it was easy, no walk breaks, perfect running weather. Great run.

Stats:
Distance: 3 K / 1.8 miles
Time: 00:21:25
Speed per km: 8.40 km/hour (5.2 miles/hour)
Time per km: 07:08
Weather: dry, not much wind, 10C (50 degrees)
Last song on Ipod before finish: Paul McCartney – With a little luck

Long Saturday

Long run of 9K planned and done. There was a lot of wind though. I always map my route the night before a run and in the morning I check where the wind is coming from and start with the wind against me. I did that on Saturday too which made the first 3K pretty hard, after that I had the wind in my back or sideways. I did longer running parts and walked every 1.5K (before this it was after every 1K). Did worked very well too. All things considered: a great run.

Stats:
Distance: 9 K / 5.6 miles
Time: 01:04:45
Speed per km: 8.34 km/hour (5.2 miles/hour)
Time per km: 07:12
Weather: dry and cloudy, pretty strong wind, 10C (50 degrees)
Last song on Ipod before finish: Europe – The Final Countdown (very appropriate for the last song during a run)

Yoga Sunday

X-TrainFit Yoga, 41 minutes.

Oh my, oh my, my flexibility is terrible. It took more than half of the workout to loosen up. I really need to stretch more or do more yoga but the truth is: it’s my least favorite workout to do. I do it because it’s good for my body but don’t really enjoy it.

This has been my best workout week of this year because I did every workout/run I planned and that hasn’t happened yet. Very happy and satisfied with this week. 

May 29 2013

Wednesday May 29, 2013: Is 45 a turning point?

Posted on by

That’s what I have been thinking about a lot around my 45th birthday last week and my conclusion: yes it is.

R. and I are both strong believers that if we want to get old healthy, we have to live as healthy as possible. At this moment we both are healthy and we need to keep it that way. And that’s why I have been thinking about what I want to change/continue from here on.

Live healthy

I still have about 10 kg (22 lbs) overweight. I’m going to give it one more serious try to lose it. If I fail, I think I just have to accept that this is it. I started using Fatsecret for counting calories last Monday. I also found this website where you can enter your weight, your length, your activity level, your goal weight and the amount of calories you want to eat less every day.

I entered all the information and choose to eat 550 less calories a day. Based on all the information you get a “plan” with how much you will lose every week (0.5 kg/1.1 lbs in my case), how much calories you can eat every day (this goes down a bit every week but never below 1700 in my case) and when you will hit goal weight if you follow this, in my case that will be around October 15th (around the date of my planned half marathon).

I am not following a diet, I keep eating the way we are doing lately because it’s already pretty healthy. The only thing I have to change sometimes is portion sizes. The first few weeks of using Fatsecret will give me more insight in that. I also try to stay away from processed foods as much as possible, there will be desserts, snacks and cake or pie in the future but I have to make it myself, that’s my rule. And last I have to cut down on the wine. I love my glass of wine too much to eliminate it completely but I can definitely drink just 1 or 2 glasses on the weekend.

I’m not going to bother you with numbers in the coming months but I will give an update every now and then how I’m doing and if everything goes according to the plan.

Running

I am still training for a half marathon in October in Amsterdam. But I still have a long way to go after almost 1.5 years of miserable running but I’m getting closer every run. I have made a few decisions for my training plan:

  • Run 4 times a week in July, August and September (I now run 3 times one week and 4 times the other).
  • Add speedwork sessions in the above mentioned months.
  • Follow the training plan.
  • Recovery weeks every 4 weeks (will run but no other workouts those weeks)
  • No races! I thought about that for a while, there aren’t that many races during Summer here anyway. I will do my own “race” every month when I will run a 5K like it’s a race to see if my times improve, based on those times I can adjust my paces for training if necessary. If there happens to be a 5K on the day I have planned my own, I might do that but basically no races till October.

Other exercise

My goal for a long time already is to move at least 30-60 minutes a day. I am counting my run, other workouts and the daily long walk with Bella for that. I walk Bella 3 to 4 times a day but the other walks are short ones that I don’t count.

There is some improvement possible here, namely that I walk Bella 30 to 60 minutes every day, no matter what the weather is. Well maybe not when it’s raining very hard because Bella doesn’t want to walk then. I now skip the long walk sometimes due to weather or not making time for it. This has also gave me the idea to make a photo of something we see on our walk everyday and post a collage of that every week. So here are our first results

The walking event we did last Saturday was fun to do too and I’m going to look up some other events so we can do one of these events every month or so. My long runs are always on Friday or Saturday and these events are often on Saturday or Sunday so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Long post, if you are still reading … thank you for that. I needed to write down my thoughts about this and wanted to share it with you. I’ll finish by saying: bring on the next 45 years (at least).

Workouts:

Strength Monday

Jillian Michaels Body Revolution, phase 1, workout 2. Total time: 36 minutes.

4 circuits that had to be done twice with 1 minute cardio between the sets. Main focus was on back, triceps and biceps and a little bit of abs. Great workout.

Tempo Tuesday

This week the tempo run goes from 30 to 35 minutes and the tempo parts from 3 to 4 minutes. I had to do just 1 4-minute tempo in this run. I did do it but don’t have the exact pace. The run itself was very great, the weather was gorgeous, even at 5.30 am. 

Stats:
Distance: 5.2 K / 3.2 miles
Time: 00:36:20

Speed per km: 8.59 km/hour (5.4 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:59
Weather: dry, not much wind, 10C (50 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Robbie Williams – Supreme

Strength Wednesday

Jillian Michaels, 30 Day Shred, Level 2. Total time: 27 minutes.

3 circuits of 3 minutes strength, 2 minutes cardio and 1 minute abs. I like the Shred workouts because they are tough but short.

Meals:

Sunday May 26

 

I made a recipe from Bill Granger’s Easy cook book: beef tenderloin with snow peas and mushrooms. I added some green asparagus that I had in the fridge. I ate this with noodles. Very tasty and definitely coming back one day on the menu.

 

Monday May 27

 Sticky chicken: chicken marinated in olive oil, red pepper, honey and lemon. We had a salad with some pumpkin seeds and baked potatoes with it. The chicken was good but not special enough to make it again.

 

Tuesday May 28

Easy dinner: steak tartare with mushrooms and green asparagus. No carbs for dinner, didn’t want to have potatoes or rice.

 

Wednesday May 29

 

Red curry with pork, green beans and cashew nuts. We had yellow rice as a side dish. Good!

May 24 2013

Friday May 24, 2013: Warning, heavy food photos post

Posted on by

Last Wednesday I turned 45. First of all thank you for all the lovely wishes on my last post and on Facebook. I appreciate it very much.

We don’t celebrate our birthday with huge parties. I did bring the famous cookie to work as a treat for my colleagues. They love this (personally I don’t very much).

 

I had taken the afternoon off and it was beautiful weather so Bella and I took a walk together.

A couple of months ago I bought a Groupon for a 7 course dinner in a fancy restaurant. Normally we wouldn’t go there because it’s pretty expensive but the Groupon was 2 for the price of 1 and I saved it for my birthday. And it was so, so good! Be prepared for all the pics of the photo’s that follow.

First we got some amuses and after that another round of amuses. We thought that were course 1 and 2 but it turned out we hadn’t even started yet.

 

First course: bavarois of parsnip

 

Second course: beef tenderloin with mashed aubergine

 

Third course: haddock with a sauce of green tea (I know but it was very good)

 

Fourth course: risotto with parmesan cheese and truffle

Fifth course: codfish with tom kah kai sauce

 

Sixth course: beef tenderloin with homemade bbq sauce and oxtail.

 

Seventh course: chocolate mousse, coffee icecream, filled white chocolate.

 

This is what 45 looks like.

 

Today I took my mom and mother in law to lunch in a restaurant in my village, it’s in the mill. I had bread with ham and honey-mustard sauce.

Tomorrow I’m going to do something completely new for me, that is if it the weather cooperates and it’s dry. I’m going to participate in a walking event. I stumbled across this on the internet and the start is 5 minutes from my home. I do the shortest distance: 7K (< 5 miles) and will go with my favorite walking buddy: Bella. Searching the internet showed that there are lots of these walking events and also pretty close to home. If I like it, I will try to find one event every month and do that with Bella.

Workouts:

Easy Wednesday

What better way to start a birthday than with a short run. The weather was okay, at least it was dry but there was a pretty hard wind that I had in my back the second part of the run. The run was good and it was the last time I wore my red Brooks. They have carried me almost 800 K (500 miles) since 2010 and now it’s time we say goodbye. I used them on short runs lately but started noticing that when I use these my right calve started to hurt at the end of the (short) run. A sign that these shoes have done their job but are ready for retirement. I already bought a new pair couple of months ago so I won’t be buying new ones now.

 

This week is recovery week. I don’t do workout DVD’s and not much running. The plan is to do the walk tomorrow and the long run on Sunday morning. Next week it’s back to usual training.

Stats:
Distance: 3.1 K / 1.9 miles
Time: 00:21:39

Speed per km: 8.59 km/hour (5.4 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:59
Weather: dry, windy, 5C (41 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Mumford & Sons – I will wait

 

May 20 2013

Monday May 20, 2013: Reunion

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.

Apr 22 2013

Monday April 22, 2013: Time to do something

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.