Tag Archives: Things that make life fun

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 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.

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.

Mar 26 2013

Tuesday March 26, 2013: Mishmash

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Holy crap it’s so cold. When you are behind glass it looks perfect because the sun shines, it’s dry but as soon as you stick your nose out of the door it’s frozen because of the hard Eastern wind. The forecast is that the wind lies down after Thursday but still it’s too cold for this time of year. At least the crocuses aren’t fooled by the weather and they come up everywhere.

 

Sunday evening we had our anniversary dinner. I bought a Groupon for a 4 course dinner, 2 for the price of 1. We didn’t know the restaurant before but we will definitely go back someday. It looked a bit like a library and the food was great. We had a selected wine with every course. It was delicious.

Workouts:

 

After a week of almost doing nothing (no running and only 2 other workouts) I got it together and did a X-TrainFit workout, completely focused on the arms and shoulders. I did two rounds of dumbbell / body weight exercises. Felt great afterwards. Total time: 48 minutes.

Monday morning I went for a short and easy run. The wind was still very hard but I choose a route where I wouldn’t have to run against it very much. The run itself went great and I didn’t take walk breaks.

Bonus: I came home in daylight. I have been waiting for this for a couple of weeks. Just a few more weeks and I don’t have to run in the dark anymore, can’t wait.

Stats:

Distance: 3.2 K / 2 miles
Time: 00:21:50

Speed per km: 8.79 km/hour (5.5 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:49
Weather: dry, very hard wind, -3C (26 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: ABC – All of my heart

 

This morning I did a Yogalates workout but I stopped before I was finished. I wasn’t into it. To be honest I don’t like yoga all that much. I do it because it’s good for my flexibility but it’s my least favourite workout to do. Total time: 15 minutes.

Weekly workout review:

Not my best workout week, mostly because it was so freaking cold and I didn’t run because of that and kept the walk with Bella short.

 Meals:

Sunday

We started with carpaccio.

After that I had Iberio (I think that’s a Spanish) pork.

 

Main was beef tenderloin with pepper sauce and vegetables.

 

Dessert was crème brulee with icecream.

 

Monday

“Broodje (sandwich) shoarma” . A popular fast food here but not the healthiest choice. I made a healthier version myself with chicken (normally it’s pork), I made the garlic sauce myself and ate it with Turkish bread. I also bought some tomato-egg salad to go with it.

 

Tuesday

Chicken in pesto-cream sauce with baked potatoes and stir-fried spinach with garlic.

Mar 23 2013

Saturday March 23, 2013: Mishmash

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It’s been a week since my last post. I haven’t been feeling much for blogging the past couple of days. Without sounding negative again, the reason is that the weather has such a big influence on my mood, my exercise and my food intake. Today it’s -2C (28 degrees) but because of a very hard Eastern wind it feels like -15C (5 degrees). For heaven’s sake: it’s Spring! Can we please have some weather that looks like Spring? We have someone else here at home who can’t wait till the weather gets better and she can be outside all day:

 

Speaking of our lovely Bella, Sunday it was 3 years ago since we lost our previous beloved dog: Roussy. There couldn’t be a bigger difference between Bella and Roussy, the only comparison is that we both love(d) them very, very much.

Monday it was exactly 20 years ago R. and I officially started dating. I can’t believe how fast those 20 years have gone by. I can’t imagine my life without him, he’s the most important person in my life. We are celebrating this tomorrow with a nice dinner.

 

Last Thursday I went to my first fashion show ever and it was great. I have seen so many beautiful clothes, I have to make choices because I can’t buy them all. This summer has clothes I like: feminine and colorful. At the beginning of the show I got some coffee with chocolate and during the break we got a glass of Prosecco. At the end of the show we got a goodie bag with discount coupons for shops in my village and a little box of chocolate. The store was open after the show but it was very crowded and I’ll go there next month to buy something.

Our uninvited guests have returned too. These ducks are almost everyday on the roof of our garage and they stare at me when I’m cooking in the kitchen. They were here last year too, they are the same ducks and did the same thing last year: sit and stare.

A short post today and I hope I’ll get back in a good mood soon and back to regular blogging.

Have a great weekend!

Mar 15 2013

Friday March 15, 2013: Mishmash

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I’m glad to say I am all better, except from the bruises on my left butt but that just needs time to heal, also my lower back needs a bit more time to heal.

Wednesday night I had a date with my friend K. We had sushi for dinner. I took photos of the food but totally forgot to let someone take a photo of us. The thing with K. is that the minute we see each other we start talking and don’t stop till we say goodbye, it’s always like we had seen each other yesterday even if it has been 3 months. Being around her is so comfortable.

 

My company sponsors the Dutch Moto GP team. The official team presentation for the press was held at our office yesterday. I am not particularly interested in Moto GP but R. is. I went down to see the presentation and it was fun to see.

 

I can’t believe the weather. For crying out loud, Spring starts in a week and it’s still Winter. It’s cold and we had some snow this week. We are breaking weather records but not the ones that make you happy. Last Saturday we broke the rain record: it rained nonstop for 24 hours, the old record was almost 100 years old when it rained 23.5 hours. Last Monday we had the coldest March 11 in a century. It’s way to cold here for this time of year and I’m so done with it. Last year around this time I was already running in my capri’s. Now I still have to wear thermo clothes under my winter running clothes. The cold effects my running and my walks with Bella because I’m so done with it, I can’t get motivated anymore to run or walk in the cold, I’ve had enough. Let’s hope warmer weather will be here soon. I know I can’t wait.

And finally: how stupid is it that Google Reader stops at July 1? I’ve already looked into other readers and am testing feedly at the moment. So far it’s working good but I have to test some more. Do you have any suggestions for good readers?

Workouts:

Plank challenge March

I have to restart this challenge but won’t start till my butt and lower back are completely painfree, probably next week.

Monday morning I did a short easy run, just to see how it would go. And it went very well, better than expected. I didn’t take walk breaks. It was freaking cold though, the temperature wasn’t that cold but there was a very cold hard wind.

Stats:

Distance: 3.2 K / 2 miles
Time: 00:22:52

Speed per km: 8.40 km/hour (5.2 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:09
Weather: dry, hard wind, -1C (30 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: P!nk – Who knew

 

I had one more workout program on my wish list: Jillian Michaels Body Revolution. It was hard to find a seller in Europe but after a couple of months I finally found a seller on Ebay Germany and I could buy the program. This makes my workout collection complete, I have a great variation of all kinds of programs: strength, cardio and yogalates. I did the first workout of the program last Tuesday and it was a great workout, I like it a lot. I had 4 circuits, every circuit was done twice and existed of 3 exercises. Between the circuits was a 1 minute cardio interval. All the workouts are about 30 minutes.

Mar 3 2013

Sunday March 3, 2013: First 5K of the year -> done!

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Thursday I had a follow up appointment at the dentist. The appointment was first scheduled for March 19 but a couple of days after the first treatment I started to have pain again. This time I couldn’t bare anything cold: no drinks, no food and no wind. Everything that was cold, gave me pain in the treated teeth. At first I thought I would sit it out till my next appointment but on Monday I said to myself that I was crazy going on like this and rescheduled. The emergency filling was removed and it all looked good so he gave me a permanent filling. I should be painfree after the weekend and so far so good, I haven’t had pain after the treatment.

Friday night my friend T. came over for her birthday dinner. Usually I cook for her but I haven’t had much cooking inspiration lately and I could buy a Groupon for a dinner in a restaurant. I decided to use the Groupon deal and go out for dinner. I didn’t know the restaurant but the food was very, very good. We had a nice evening with great food.

Saturday we were invited by friends of ours for a pleasant evening with them and our other friends and it was a pleasant evening. We did go home on time because I had a race on Sunday and I didn’t want to be tired for that.

Workouts:

March has started and I followed my friend Shelley’s example: she did a plank challenge in January that I’m going to do in March. Started this on Friday:

Friday: 20 seconds (I thought this would be a piece of cake but 20 seconds is longer than I thought LOL)

Saturday: 20 seconds

Sunday: 30 seconds

I took a short run on Friday morning because I was still recovering from the dental treatment and had a little after pain. I didn’t walk and I couldn’t be more surprised that this turned out to be my fastest run so far this year. Felt good!

Stats:

Distance: 2.2 K / 1.4 miles

Time: 00:14:35
Speed per km: 9.05 km/hour (5.9 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:38
Weather: dry, not much wind, 2C (35 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: The Corrs – OldTown

Trappenbergloop Huizen 5K / 3.1 miles

My first race in almost a year! Because my training plan hadn’t been going all that well lately due to crappy weather my goal was to go, run it and finish and that is exactly what I did.

It was a trail run and it was sometimes hard because there were lots of sticks, pineapples and other stuff on the paths. You had to look where you were running all the time. I prefer road races if I have to be honest.

The course was 2 rounds of 2.5K and the first round I ran without walking. I did start to fast and had to pay for that in the second round where I had to take 3 walk breaks. But overall I am satisfied with how it went. I finished and that was what I came for.

I was also happy that R. and Bella were there to join me so R. could take some pictures of me.

Before the start, I’m in the middle with the pink jacket and head band.

Coming through after 2.5 K:

 Run to the finish:

I did it!

Stats:
Distance: 5 K / 3.1 miles
Time: 00:34:20

Speed per km: 8.74 km/hour (5.5 miles/hour)

Time per km: 06:52
Weather: dry, not much wind, 4C (39 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Queen – We will rock you

Weekly workout review:

I’m okay with the results of this week.

Meals:

Friday

Starters: Carpaccio.

Main: beef tenderloin with a pepper sauce, mashed carrots and caramelized chicory.

 

Dessert: a vanilla pie with whipped cream.

Saturday

Lunch: a salad with apricots and warm goat cheese with honey with some honey-mustard dressing.