Today is Rob’s birthday. He hates birthdays.
Well, except for the part where there is cake. :)

This video is so sweet. I loooooove Charley, and he makes me wish I could adopt another cat. Anyway, just a little PSA about his condition, cerebellar hypoplasia. Hope it helps to bring some awareness to it.

There’s also this place called The Rolling Dog Ranch, where disabled animals are fostered.  They do good work.

So where the hell have I been? Well, not running, that is for sure. I was doing great and then hurt my foot. I think it’s a Morton’s Neuroma, which sucks, and I haven’t run for 2 weeks. But I do have some big news. In spite of not running, I did get a new running partner. He’s devilishly handsome, fit as all get out, and a lot of fun to be around. The best part is, that Rob isn’t even jealous.

Want to see a picture of him?

Now would be the time to go, "Awwwwww."

Bo is about 2 years old. He’s 90 lbs of sweet, gentle lab, with maybe a little something else thrown in. We’ve had him about a week, after adopting him from a lab rescue group, and he’s been getting more comfortable with us every day. He’s finally doing some basic things that we want him to do, like lie down while we are eating dinner. He snores like… well, Rob’s dad, and he loves the snow. He is really a very good boy.

I am really looking forward to starting him running, maybe on Cool Running’s Couch to 5K program. :)

I’m sitting on the couch in my PJs at 5:26pm. I’m not sick or anything. I’m just freshly showered after my run and feeling relaxed. I’ve got some green tea right here, and the cat by my side, and everything seems kind of right with the world.

In short, I am happy. Life is good.

Running has been great. I’m thinking about the year and the few, but important (to me), races I’d like to do. I have really been enjoying my running this year so far, and I hope that continues. I’m trying to feed myself good things and indulge only on occasion. This is hard, really, because I made Beth’s Mom’s Famous Chocolate Cake yesterday, and it is freaking CALLING me. Like, right now.

But not yet. Not just yet.

We’ve been cooking a lot out of Rick Bayless’ Mexican Everyday cookbook, and really loving how delicious and flavorful everything tastes, without being too complicated, and without all the greasiness one usually encounters when preparing "Mexican" food (which is really TexMex and totally different). Anyway, this book is really good. We’ve made several of the vinaigrettes, a couple of bean recipes, some steak & chicken. All delicious.

Tonight we’re having black beans made in the slow cooker, served with garlicky rice, and seared salmon with a creamy spinach & roasted poblano sauce. It sounds rich, but the  sauce is made with  low fat milk & masa harina, a little garlic, and the spinach and roasted peppers, which were easy to prepare.  The beans have been cooking for 5 hours already, and smell out of this world.  When I came back from my run, I was enveloped with this amazing aroma of peppers and beans and oregano. Damn.

Oh, also, I made this salad last week that I saw on Nigella Lawson’s show, and it is now my favorite salad ever. It’s a spinach salad with chunks of avocado and salted pepitas, with a lime dressing. So simple and beautiful! The dressing is really what makes it good, although I do like the crunchy vs creamy contrast between the pepitas & the avocado. So, the dressing, which is enough for 3 or 4 salads:

1 lime, zested & juiced
2T olive oil
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Anyway, so that’s it. Like I said, no news, really. Just cooking, running, working and sleeping, with a lot of enjoying, laughing, experiencing, and living thrown in to mix it up. :)

I recently purchased the Nike+ device based on Jank’s posts about it, and because it was only $30. I liked the idea of having a Garmin-like device that would work with my iPod, and I also liked the UI of the Nike+ running log. I’m not sure if it’s a Flex app, or just a complicated Flash one, but still, I love the visualization of the log, the graphing, the progress indicators, the goals. All good stuff.

But sadly, I hate that you can’t manually  enter runs, and I don’t do all my runs with my iPod, either for safety reasons, or for training reasons (i.e., I don’t want to get too reliant on that thing to carry me through the miles). I also don’t like that the receiver changes the dimensions of the overall device, making it too big to fit in my current armband, and also too big to fit in most of the pockets of my running shirts.

As an aside, running shirts with pockets are the best thing going. I have 2: one from REI, and one from The North Face, which also has thumb holes so you can pull the shirt down over your hands on chilly mornings. That shirt especially rocks.  I wish I could find another one like it.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I really don’t like the Nike+ as much as I thought I would. I used it a few times, but it just didn’t live up to my expectations. If anyone would like it, I’d be happy to mail it to you. Just shoot me an email at annalisa [at] gmail dot com.

Oh, but otherwise, my running is going great. I have a long run of 6 miles planned for this week, as it is a cutback week for me. My foot was kind of hurting for a while there, but I switched back to my newer shoes and all is fine now. I guess this means I will have to break out a new pair of my favorite, and now discontinued, shoes. It might be worth it to try a different shoe and keep my 2 reserve pairs as long as possible, rotating them in when the current "newer" pair finally bites it.

Decisions….

So this week kind of sucked. I was sick, tired, and lamenting that my "going to be the best running year ever" had been pretty much a bust on only the second week. Stupid flu.

Yesterday I felt a little better, and today I felt fine. I’ve been trying to eat a lot more clean since the new year and I think that helped get me back on my feet in a short amount of time, so that’s cool.

Anyway, I decided to test out the legs on a 4 mile route that I could cut to 3 if I wasn’t feeling up to it. Well what do you know? I felt awesome! I had what was one of the best runs in a long, long time. My right foot has been hurting some, but that wasn’t an issue tonight. I was really tight through the calves and shins for the first mile, but everything kind of loosened up after that. And the weather was perfect. Crisp, a little on the cold side, but not too cold. Damn, that rules!

Hot yoga tomorrow morning.  Birthday party for Rob’s niece later on. Long run Sunday. That’s the plan. :)

So, I’ve been sick. Not stuffy nose/cold sick, but full-on pukefest sick. At least I have lost a few pounds. But still, GAH!

I should be back to running in a day or so, I hope.

That is all.

Sometimes, the best runs I have are fueled by sadness or frustration. Last night was one of those. I ran the fastest 4 miles of my life, and I cried a little, rocked out a little, and sweated a lot. At the end, I felt so much better than when I began.

This is why I run.

The discussion happened the other night, and carried over into last night, when we got home from work. Not to get into it too much, but Rob and I have been having the do-we-want-to-have-a-baby-or-not talk, and it was rough for both of us. We were both no’s, then I sort of became and unsure-leaning-to-yes, and he’s still a no – a definite no. And there you have it.

I’m not sure how I feel about it, really. In some ways, it’s a relief to finally discuss it and make a decision, even if it’s not exactly what I wanted (and truthfully, I’m not even sure what I want). In other ways, it’s just really hard and sad.

And so I went running. I loaded up my iPod with songs from my NYE party mix and headed out into the dark. I hit mile 1 in 9 minutes flat. While I slowed down a bit from there, I was still having a great, fast (for me) run. I felt like all the bad energy, all of the sadness and uncertainty, all of the things that had been knocking around in my brain for days, bringing me down, down, down, were receding into the shadows. I was letting go and running, really running.

When I was on the last block, coming back up the hill to my house, the tears came. I was coming home, to our life together, just us, and it was okay. Everything was okay.

Like I said. This is why I run.

3.5 easy miles down the parkway, into the cemetary and back. What a way to start the new year.

Frankly, I’m suprised that the run was so good, given the night’s festivities. :)

And I have to admit that I was a little giddy, entering my run into my log book. It’s always fun to start fresh with a new log on Jan 1. Woot!

Hope that all of my running friends had a safe and happy New Year’s Eve, and that 2007 is an excellent one, with lots of injury-free miles!

Well, there you go – a 15-mile week. Freaking finally.
Here’s how it went down.

On Tuesday morning, I got up early, which is new for me, and ran 3 miles before work. Then, I ran another 3 on Wednesday. Thursday I didn’t do crap, and Friday I worked at home. I had a shitty 3 mile run on Saturday morning, followed by an amazing 6+ mile run on Sunday.

And now my knee hurts, but only because I sat with my legs tucked up in a weird way last night.

Anyway, I’m doing core & some yoga tonight, and will run again tomorrow. I’m just hoping to keep the momentum going is all. Luckily, the weather is still holding out and my motivation is pretty high right now. I’m thinking that I may opt for the May half instead of the March one, because a few friends are thinking about coming up for that, but I haven’t decided for sure.

In other news, I leave for Ohio on Thursday, and you can be sure my running gear is coming with me. Woot!