It’s National Waffle Week! It started on the 5th and goes through the 11th. We celebrated National Waffle Week by making delicious homemade waffles topped with Caramelized Cinnamon Apples. They weren’t exactly the healthiest waffles, okay they weren’t healthy at all, but hey sometimes you deserve a special breakfast like this!

Here is the recipe.

Waffles (from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 2 Apples
• 2 – 3 Tbsp. Butter or Margarine
• 2 Tbsp. Brown Sugar
• 1 – 2 tsp. Cinnamon

Add butter and sliced apples to a pan. Saute apples until they are noticeably softer, about 10 minutes. Add in the brown sugar and cinnamon and saute for about 5 minutes longer. Cook the apples to your desired consistency.

2 Apples makes enough for 2 people or 2 waffles. Enjoy!

Are you celebrating National Waffle Week? Or have you ever celebrated any kind of food holiday?

It was so nice to relax with family and I hope I surprised my mom! She did see my car in the parking lot on the way inside, which was kind of a bummer, but I’m pretty sure she was happy to see me! We enjoyed a delicious Zucchini and Quinoa lasagna with a side of Chicken Sausage and Pumpkin Garlic Knots! The Garlic knots were amazing and I could’ve eaten ten thousand of them. For dessert, my sister also made a Kabocha Squash Cake, which was freakin fabulous! I need that recipe and I must make it ASAP. A perfect Fall dessert.

I spent the night full of food, which was good because I was planning on running 16 miles Sunday morning. This was the best couch sleeping I’ve ever experienced! Also sorry for all the not so good photos, they were all taken with my phone.

Kerri and I went to Mine Falls Park for our run, she ran 3 and came back for me when I was done with my 16, such a nice sister! The weather was also absolutely gorgeous! I was super nervous about my run for some reason, every week that I tackle a new number, I tend to get butterflies in my tummy!

My run was amazing! Mostly due to the fact that it was a trail run. It was soooo nice to run through all that nature and not have to see any cars at all or have to stop at any traffic lights. Mine Falls has several different trails and I definitely covered every inch of the park to rack up the mileage. Before I even hit the 2 mile mark I was stopping to take pictures.

1. 10:33
2. 10:27
3. 9:45
4. 10:04
5. 10:33
6. 10:29
7. 10:22
8. 10:31
9. 9:51
10. 10:06
11. 9:52
12. 10:23
13. 10:35
14. 9:47
15. 9:43
16. 9:36 <– Love that my last mile was the fastest!!!

So I came home to my feet looking like this! Disgusting, I know, but also pretty hardcore, ha! How did all that dirt even get in there? I also had a really disgusting blood blister that I took a picture of, but you probably don’t want to see that.

I can’t wait to run my marathon!!!!

Where was the best run you ever had?

I have to somehow squeeze in a 6 mile run sometime today, but I am having a hard time finding the motivation.

This is what I am going to be doing in only 2 weeks!

Yep, the Warrior Dash is finally almost here! I cannot wait to participate in this, it’s going to be a blast! Too bad some of my friends dropped out, they will be missing a great experience. Okay, they are going to a bachelor party instead, but you know they won’t be covered in mud!

I feel kind of crazy because I signed up for another race. Not only will I be doing 2 races in one weekend, but the second race is an 18 miler!!!! So in two weeks I will be doing the Warrior Dash on Saturday and then an 18 mile race on Sunday, kind of crazy right?

The race is perfect timing too, it’s about when I have my 18 mile run planned, so I figured I might as well take the opportunity to run this with all of the amenities like water on the side of the road and thousands of people to run with.

I better get to that run!

The first two pizzas, I did not like the crust very much. I thought it was a good recipe because I had used it before, but it turns out that it was just not good at all. Okay, that’s a lie, the texture and the ‘thinness’ of the crust was excellent, I just did not enjoy the flavor. It was too…flour tasting? I don’t know, whatever the flavor was, it just stood out too much and did not go with the flavor of the rest of the pizza.

In this case, indeed the third times the charm! I really enjoyed this crust! I think maybe next time though, it should be cooked for only slightly longer and it will be even better. The crust was pretty thin, but it had a good chewy consistency and the flavor was spot on. This was the best homemade pizza I have ever made! Looks pretty good right?

The key to making good homemade pizza is using fresh mozzarella cheese, not the bagged pre-shredded stuff! I sliced up the mozzarella and placed it all over the pizza and then I topped it with grated Romano cheese and it comes out looking like this. Mmmmmm, so good!

Here is the dough recipe I used:

• 1 3/4 – 2 1/4 cups Flour
• 1 envelope of Fleischmann’s Pizza Yeast
• 1 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 2/3 cup very warm tap water
• 3 tbsp. oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine 1 cup flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add water and oil. Mix together until well blended; about 1 minute.

Add gradually, 1/2 cup flour until soft dough ball is formed; will be slightly sticky. Add additional flour if need to form dough ball.

Knead on a floured surface adding additional flour if needed, until smooth and elastic; about 4 minutes. With floured hands, press dough out to fill greased pizza pan, OR roll dough to a 12 inch circle and transfer to greased pizza pan.

Top as desired with pizza sauce, toppings and cheese.

Bake on bottom oven rack for 15-20 minutes until cheese is bubbly and crust is brown.

I made oatmeal this morning for breakfast and I thought it was going to be delicious because it looked pretty good, right?

I was excited to write about this Coconut Blueberry Almond Oatmeal , but then it turned out to be a huge failure. The main reason is that the oats I am using are the 1-minute Quaker oats and those never taste that good. They are the only thing I have in my cabinet right now and I’ve made good oatmeal with them before so I was expecting a lot more. I generally like my oatmeal thick and this was was pretty dang thick!

The consistency was off and the flavor was very bland. It wasn’t sweet enough, even though I added a good drizzle of honey. The only good part about it was the almonds. After they sat in the oatmeal for a few minutes, they softened up and they were perfectly delicious in my mouth. Oh well, better luck next time.

I want to make more pizza now!

I think the first thing that through my summer for a loop was the injury I encountered on June 13th. I hurt my foot running a long 12 miles in preparation for my half marathon that I would eventually have to drop out of because of this said injury.

Next, my car broke down a week later. This was a huge ordeal, but thankfully we made it back to NH and was able to attend the American Craft Beer Festival, which I didn’t seem to write about. Did I only write about all the negative things that happened this summer? That’s sad and I promise this will be the last of my complainy posts and I vow to write about more of the happy and fun situations that I experience.

Well I didn’t get my car back till like 5 weeks later, then it went back into the shop again almost immediately for another two weeks. Pretty much my car was gone all summer and it was a ridiculous situation that just kept getting worse.

During this time, my foot was still injured. I decided to go see this woman, Shelly, she was recommended by some co-workers and…oh wait, is this a good post? Yes, it is, she fixed me up and I was immediately healed! Shelly fixed my foot for good and I was able to start my marathon training. That was probably one of the best parts of the summer.

I also ate some pretty fantastic food this summer, including Shake Shack and I tried my first Korean/Japanese restaurant. We also made it to the Portsmouth Brewery and ate the best mussels ever!

I was also able to escape for a very short 3 days to Squam Lake where I joined my family for a much needed vacation.

I ran two awesome races in August, a 5K over the Brooklyn Bridge and I also completed by second half marathon, which turned out to be an excellent race.

I also officially became a NY state resident and got my NY license. I got my car registered and inspected in New York and I’m also for the first time paying for my own insurance and my car is actually in my own name now. Yay, I’m officially and adult. Although I wasn’t that happy about the whole process. I obviously waited till the last minute because my NH stuff expires in August, so it was kind of rushed. I was able to survive it all with the generous help of my dad! This whole process was the reason I didn’t blog for 2 weeks!

Derek and I went home last weekend to do some wedding stuff! We found a very possible venue that we love and we want to book it, but you know money is always the issue, so we got a little more trial and error to go through before we can officially book a place. But! I bought a wedding dress and I love it so much! It’s perfect and I am so excited about it. So, yes the very first wedding planning that was done was me buying a dress, ha!

Now, another negative thing…Leela, my cat, is really sick. Not, deathly sick, thankfully, but chronically sick. We brought her to the vet on Saturday morning because she was throwing up a lot for the past two days and she just didn’t seem right. The doctor did some tests and it turns out she has Kidney disease It was recommended that we leave her there for the weekend (by the doctor, not my wallet) so they could re-hydrate her and help her get back to normal.

I was able to pick her up today and bring her home and she seems back to normal and we were so glad to have her back! But! There’s always a but, there is no cure for her, only treatments. She should still live another several years, but we will have to treat her with fluids every single day for the rest of her life. Tomorrow is the first day I have to do this and I am a little nervous.

I basically have to insert a needle into her skin and a bag of fluids, like an iv bag hangs and drips the fluid through the needle and the fluid gets pushed under her skin, which is then absorbed throughout the day. This is to help push all of the bad waste out of her kidneys so that her kidney’s don’t have to work extra hard to remove all of the excess waste. Check out the procedure here.

It seems like a complicated process, but I felt better about the whole thing after leaving the vet’s office today. It’s definitely going to take some getting used to, but we are going to be doing it so often, I’m sure it will seem like nothing after only a few weeks. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to go on any long trips or even short trips really. It’s very important to do this daily so we are going to have to stick around at home a lot more often than we were. It’s a tough situation, but I’m really glad Leela is okay now because she is totally worth it.

Money is tight, life has been rough, but even with all of these things, I am still happy and I am looking forward. It’s definitely been a rough summer and I’m clearly not a millionaire yet, so we’ll see what the next few months bring.

Happy end of summer! I have never been more excited for Fall to come than I am this year!

I was getting a little worried because I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to fit my long run in this weekend. Working the night shift really throws off my running schedule. It was nice and cool here in NYC for a few days and it was definitely welcomed, but we are up for another scorcher this week, starting today.

Before I continue on, I missed writing about my long run last weekend. I had 14 miles originally planned, but my body could only manage 12, so stopped there. The run itself went really well physically, but it felt like it was going on and on forever. This was my first successful 12 mile run yet. I have run this distance, I believe 3 other times and I’ve injured myself on every one. I was so happy to come out of that run injury free. Looks like I broke the curse of the Unlucky 12.

Note: To break up this long post, I am going to intersperse my after run breakfast photos.

I love pancake & cheese sandwiches! My dad used to make these when I was little. So good.

I was nervous about this run, I had a real hard time getting to bed early last night. I had so much on my mind. The alarm went off at 6:30 and I was so tempted to just roll over and say screw it. But, then I thought about how awesome I was going to feel after running the longest I’ve ever run.

My clothes were already laid out since Friday night so I was just about all ready to go come this morning. I decided last night to skip on Central Park and stick to Astoria. I have a good 6-7 mile loop that I normally run, so I figured I might as well just run that twice. I hid an almost frozen bottle of gatorade in my front yard so that I could refill my water bottle halfway through my run.

No camelbak today. Unfortunately I left gatorade and water in it for several days so it started to growing funky stuff inside of it. Gross, I know. I need to get some sanitizer and a brush to give the hose a good cleaning.

I started out pretty slow on my run, well not super slow, but I knew I needed to pace myself physically and mentally. I broke my run into 3 – 5 mile segments and thought of it as the beginning, middle, and end. I ran into a small race going on around mile 11 and I cheered for a few of the people and a kid running by. It made me feel good and it also gave me some unexpected energy.

The last two miles were TOUGH! I had to keep repeating to myself, less than two miles or less than 1 mile. I made it though and I evened out with a 10 min/mi. average pace!

It’s supposed to be at least 90 degrees here today, so that is why I headed out so early. I definitely never wake up that early, not even to run. It’s a good thing I got out there when I did though because it was really starting to heat up by the time I finished. For some weird reason I had the Spanish alphabet stuck in my head for the last two miles and I couldn’t stop singing it. Random.

I realized recently that I haven’t been eating enough, not only after my long runs, but in general. This has never happened to me. I’ve been getting really light headed at work around the same time every night and I think it’s because I don’t eat enough in the evening. I really hate this schedule, but thankfully I only have one more week of nights and then I am FINALLY moving to the day shift, thank god!

But, yes like I said, I have not been eating enough, so today I came home with a goal. EAT! I have trouble eating after a long run, my stomach never feels up to it right away. I spread these 3 small meals out over 2 hours.

I also experienced some minor chafing on my run, between my knees and under my left armpit. I think I’ll need to purchase some body glide.  

Here’s the proof:

• I bought a wedding dress!
• Found a Possible Venue

• I got my NY license and I am now an official resident.
• My car is also an official resident and is all registered and inspected in New York.

• I got a new writing job at Examiner.com
• I am the Queens Ethnic Restaurant Examiner

• Leela, our cat has been sick, brought her to the vet yesterday.
• Turns out, she has Kidney Disease

• I am currently out running 15 miles.
• Wish me luck!

This race, even though it was a big half marathon, didn’t have as much hype or significance as my first half marathon did. Even though this wasn’t a huge race for me, I was still super excited for it. This was my rebuttal race for having to drop out of the 13.1 Marathon Series race in Boston. Also, like I mentioned above, it helped me to complete one of my fitness resolutions for the year.

Unfortunately, Derek was unable to come with me to the race because he had to work. I figured since I would be heading up there on my own, I asked my friends if I could stay at one of their apartments for the night because they live a lot closer to the Bronx than I do. I ended up staying at my friend, Megan’s place, she lives on 116th street so I would already be half way there by the time I left in the morning.

Let me tell you, it’s kind of stressful having to pack up everything you could possibly need for a race and then leave for the night. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to travel far for a race, I would be so worried that I would forget something.

I even got to sleep in Megan’s super comfortable bed, it was like a cloud, I loved it! I, of course did not sleep very well though. Mainly because I am not used to going to bed so early. I probably got a good 4 hours of sleep. I woke up at 4:30, hopped in the shower, put all of my gear on and was out the door by 5:05, not bad!

I got to the race 20 minutes before my planned time. I was meeting up with Adriana from work and we had planned to meet for 6:15. I went to the bathroom, stretched and waited for her while she parked her car.

We took some before pictures, of course.

My Garmin time and my ‘official’ race time are way off, I’m partial to the Garmin time

My site has been incomplete for a while now. I worked on it a while ago and got it going in the right direction, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to teach myself everything, so I couldn’t do it all at once. I’m ready to finalize it, so please excuse the appearance as it goes under construction toward it’s final stage of awesomeness!

I signed up for a last minute race last week and never really got around to telling anybody about it. I made a goal to run 12 races this year and I’m a little behind, so I’m trying to catch up! This was race # 5 and next week’s Bronx Half Marathon will be # 6. I will be halfway there. I’m also signed up for the Warrior Dash on September 18th and of course, my marathon on November 7th. So that leaves me with 4 more races to sign up for and complete.

I especially liked my number for this race. So simple and such a low number! I woke up around 6:40 on Sunday morning and was out of the door by 7:10. I almost forgot my sunglasses and my Garmin, I had to run back upstairs for them! I wasn’t taking this race super seriously, it was more of a fun run, especially because I ran 11 miles the day before. I was sore on Saturday, but felt pretty good Sunday morning. I more tired than anything else.

Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long for the subway and I got there with enough time to spare. It wasn’t a huge race, but it still had about 750 runners. The race starts on the manhattan side of the bridge and we ran on the path that goes right through the middle of it.

Image Source

This is basically the amount of room we had, but only half of it because there was a turnaround point at the end. The second half wasn’t so bad and I had a little more room, but I felt like I was basically fighting for my space the whole time. There were 2 good hills, but if I had the space, I could’ve done better, but it really didn’t matter. I was running this race for fun and not for time

I would just like to point out my matching race gear! hahaha, I feel like I never match my clothes at all when I run and I purposely saved this clothing to wear at my race.

The one thing I was really impressed with at the race was that the distance was spot on! My Garmin never matches up to the actual race distance, most of the time it’s usually longer than the actual race. But, this time I finished right at 3.1, it was pretty awesome. I guess there wasn’t much room for error though. We basically ran over the bridge and back over and then through a small park until the finish line.

The course wasn’t chip timed or anything, well we got chips, but basically whatever time was on the clock when you finished is your official time. They didn’t start it at any specific start line, when they said go, the time started, no matter how far back you were in the crowd.

I was very happy with my negative splits! Here are my stats:

• Distance: 3.1
• Duration: 28:43 – Garmin / 29:11 – Clock Time
• Pace: 9:16

Mile 1: 9:45

Mile 2: 9:23

Mile 3: 8:45

.1: 50 sec. (8:34 pace)

It was a fun race overall. I ate a bagel and an orange slice after with some water. Then I hopped on the train, got home in about 40 minutes, then went back to bed for 2 1/2 hours! I was exhausted from the long weekend of running! I haven’t run that much in a long time, it felt great, but it was definitely tiring.

I ran 17.1 miles in 3 days, that’s a lot for me! But, it’s nice that my body held up with out any kind of injury or real soreness. I feel so good about my marathon training and I am really looking forward to the Half Marathon next weekend. Stay Tuned!