Now it's time to relax a little...

Yes, still beautiful weather here! I biked to the gym this morning and did upper body weights and then the Body Balance class, then I biked home. The funny thing is, it was so chilly when I biked there at 9:30 I had to wear a fleece and a jacket, but when I came home at 11:30, I was only in a tank top! It cools way down at night.

Not much else to report except that I am going to take it easy the rest of today and tomorrow. And drink a lot of water. And catch up on some of the episodes of In Treatment I've been recording while my kids are at sports tomorrow afternoon...how lazy is that?!

Fran, I will see you at de infobalie in het Stadskantoor, naast de startlokatie, around 11!

Remember?

Remember this outfit, last worn in April this year? Well, I was able to wear it again today...

Remember those 4 easy kilometers I was supposed to do on Tuesday? Well, I decided to do them this afternoon, so that I could...

remember what it feels like to run when it's 79 F/26 C!

I went out after lunch and took it slow and easy. It felt good to be in the sun but it was definitely hot. I went over to the Finse Piste where there was a lot of shade. I even stopped to talk to a school teacher I knew who was there with her class, so I got a chance to rest a bit halfway.

I did two loops on the Finnish track and then headed home again, for 28 minutes total. I'm glad I went as it reminded me how it feels to run in the heat and made me think about how I am going to make sure I hydrate very well in the next three days. And rethink my choice of race outfit - I might just have to take my running shorts with me instead of capris on Sunday!

I will be going to Breda by train. I'll have to switch trains in Mechelen (B) and Roosendaal (NL). I'm looking forward to it (going to bring a good book to read) but I don't really want to sit in my running shorts for 2 hours in the train, and I don't want to wear my stinky running clothes home in the train, so that means I'll need to change - and think carefully about what to bring.

I Love Frank!

Frank is our weatherman and this week I have been loving him!

It's another gorgeous day today! I told my kids we have been having our summer in April and September this year, for a change.

And it's supposed to be beautiful through the weekend, but a bit cooler and cloudier on Sunday (when I have the 15K with Fran). So, perfect! I am really looking forward to this.

In spite of the good weather, I still went to the gym today. I had some weights to get in and 20 minutes on the elliptical. But I did bike there and back. I haven't driven my car since last Saturday when we had to go to visit the in-laws.

And you can bet I will be out running tomorrow - in shorts and a tank top!

Easy Run

My workout plan said "4 km easy". But how could I have known back when I wrote it that it was going to be such perfect gorgeous weather at the end of September?

So I just got back and my Garmin says: "7.40 km, 50:21, 583 calories and 6:48 pace". I just couldn't resist going all the way to the lake and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. It will be fall soon enough and then I will be dreading the wind and rain...and I can make up my "4 km easy" on one of those days.

Dress Rehearsal

Today is my last long slow run before the 15 K race with Fran next week in Breda. So I really wanted to try out all my gear and make sure there were no unexpected spots that chafed or hurt. I also remembered to take a gel with me for halfway through!

It has been gorgeous Indian summer weather for running and I was looking forward to this. I had to do it on my own, since my husband got back from Vienna last night and is leaving for Warsaw this evening, he preferred to get a session in at the gym. I didn't mind, though, I loaded my Ipod with some podcasts I wanted to listen to and I was off!

I was shooting for 13 km but it ended up being 12.7 in 90 minutes. Pace was right about 7 minutes per kilometer, which is just perfect for what we will be running next week.

Everything worked out well - from socks to hat! And I don't think I really needed the gel but I took it halfway through anyway... It was a vanilla one. I had forgotten how salty and weird those things taste!

Now I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the weather stays nice and sunny (for me) but not too hot (for Fran) next week!

Just for Fun!

I am stuck at home this morning because our plumbers are installing two new radiators...so I have been fooling around with things on-line that I normally never have time for...like this:

If you want to make your own, here is the link!

Have a great Friday!

Finnish Track

We are so lucky in my town, Leuven. We have so many sports facilities and most of them are really close to my house. One of the neat things we have, just 1 km away, is a Finnish track, in a wooded park. A Finnish track (finse piste) is a path made specially for runners. It has a spongy bottom layer covered in wood chips which makes it nice and springy to run on.

I probably use the Finnish track about three times a month. It's a 1 km loop so it's great for tempo runs. And it is surprisingly challenging to run on - while it gives your joints a nice break from asphalt, the bounciness means that you really have to work your core a lot more than you normally would.

So today I headed over to the Finnish track, did two loops in one direction, turned and did two in the other direction, and then headed home for a nice 6.3 km and 42 minutes of fresh air.

Too tired for the gym

My husband has been travelling a lot and my main problem with that is that I tend to not sleep very well when he is away. It's like I feel like I have to be a lot more alert or something, being the only adult in the house. It's silly, really, because it's not like he is Mr. Super Alert himself in the niddle of the night when he is home, but there you go - I guess I'm just weird like that!

So it was a long, wakeful night last night (the last number I remember seeing on my alarm clock was 3 am) and this morning I felt groggy. The idea of slogging off to the gym just didn't appeal to me. My body felt like it wanted yoga. And the free yoga class at Yoga Today this week was hip openers, which sounded like just the thing for me and my tight runner's hips. So I got my yoga mat out and set up in front of my laptop and got started. It was actually a pretty tough class but it felt really, really good.

Then, since I had saved time by not going to the gym, I made some healthy muffins with grated carrot, zucchini and apples based on the "Harvest Bread" recipe just posted at Happy Herbivore blog (which you can find down on the left on my sidebar). Don't you just love it when you see a recipe that looks good and you just so happen to have everything you need in the house? I had a half of a zucchini sitting in my fridge just waiting for this recipe! It will be a nice surprise for my kids when they get home from school. And one of them tasted delicious with my coffee just now...

Procrastination...

Oh, I was being so lazy and slow this morning! But I finally had to get off my chair and put my running shoes on and get out the door, or it wasn't going to happen. And that wouldn't be good, since I had 7 easy kilometers on my schedule today, and no free days later in the week to make it up.

So off I went. And it was actually perfect running weather, and there were actually other runners out at the lake (which I used to avoid during the week because it creeped me out to run there alone), and there were some good songs on my Ipod.

And then when I got back home my neighbor, Werner, was out in his front garden, and he asked me if I had "run a little" and I said, yes, 7 km! And I showed him my Garmin which he thought was very interesting and wanted to know all about it.

And now I'm showered and feeling happy and ready to tackle the rest of my day... and oh so glad I didn't skip my run!

Just another Sunday run

I was lucky this morning - after a big storm last night it was sunny out when I got up. Cool and windy, but sunny - yay! I was moving slow so I got going later than usual but I had a bunch of podcasts loaded on my Ipod and was ready to take it slow and easy for 11 kilometers.

And that is exactly what I did - slow and easy for 1 hour 20 minutes, 11.3 km and a pace right at about 7 minutes per km. Perfect! It felt good and I am quite confident that I am ready for the 15 K in two weeks with Fran. Hooray!

Something new!

From Peer Trainer: Today's tip of the day is to stop beating yourself up. Focus on the good stuff you have done. All of the small, good habits that you've started to incorporate into your life should be celebrated as accomplishments.

Well, I tried a new class today at the gym. It's called Body Balance and I was excited to try it because it was billed as a combination of yoga, tai chi and Pilates. I am very familiar with yoga and I did tai chi for over a year a long time ago and I loved it. I've only done about 5 Pilates classes, though, so I'm not too familiar with that. But I was looking forward to being able to do a class like this right in my gym. I had to stop taking yoga classes a few years ago because I simply had too much on my plate and something had to give. I do my best to do yoga at home, but it is difficult to get into a good routine with it, because I find when I am at home it is very hard to set aside the time for it. There is always something else that seems to take priority! So it's hit and miss most of the time except when I do something like the Yoga Journal 21-day challenge I did at the beginning of the year.

Anyhow, I got to the gym early enough to get my upper body strength training done first and I even had time to get a short interval run in on the treadmill (12 minutes but better than nothing, right?) before heading over to the big room where they hold the group classes.

I was surprised at how many people (all women) turned out to try this new class - the room was full!

I have to say I enjoyed the class a lot even though it doesn't compare at all to a traditional yoga class. First of all they played loud music throughout the hour. It was calm music but still, for me, a bit too loud.

Each song focused on a different type of move: there was a warm up song with arm movements (like in tai chi) and forward bends, a song with a sun salutation, a song with lunges and warriors, a song for planks and Pilates-like ab work (I found this to be the hardest part), a song for hip openers and twists, etc. At the end there was even a final relaxation song! It felt very weird to be lying down and resting at the gym, but it was nice.

Even though I would prefer a more traditional type yoga class, I am happy my gym is offering something different for once, and I am excited to be able to get some kind of yoga in every week in the convenient location of my regular gym. I also don't have to pay anything extra to do it! And it worked pretty well after my upper body weights, too. Next week I will have to miss it unfortunately because our plumbers are coming to install some new radiators, but I think after that I will want to attend this class every week.

Have a great weekend!

Just briefly...

Today was one of those days where I really didn't "feel like" getting out and getting my run in. Luckily it was just 6 km easy pace or I might have really psyched myself out! After procrastinating for ages (which means catching up on reading blogs), I finally laced up my shoes at 10 and headed out.

Listening to a podcast instead of music helped me keep my pace easy, and I rather mindlessly ran three loops around the Finnish track and then headed home for the full 6 kilometers and 42 minutes of good exercise. Was it my best run ever? Not really. Do I feel better for having done it? YES! And at least I won't feel guilty the rest of the day...

A Really Yummy Chickpea Burger Recipe

Back to the gym this morning for a good workout with weights and the elliptical. Yesterday I only had 8 km on the schedule so Stefaan ran it with me and we pushed the pace a little bit faster than Smart Coach called for. It felt good to go out faster than normal on a Sunday!

A few people were asking me about what was on the plate to the right... at the bottom left is a simple cucumber tzatziki, at the top is a fennel-orange-red quinoa and black olive salad, and at the bottom right are two of the most delicious chick pea burgers I have ever eaten. I found this wonderfully easy and healthy recipe on the blog Oh She Glows a while back and I have made it several times because it is so yummy, easy and healthy - the three most important criteria for me!

Here is my adaptation of Angela's fabulous recipe:

Ingredients:
• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup regular oats
• 2 carrots, grated
• 1 tsp coconut oil (optional)
• 2 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp tumeric
• 1/4-1/2 tsp sea salt, to taste
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp Parsley flakes (optional)
• 3 T sunflower seeds
• 3 T pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

Directions: Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper and set aside. In a food processor or with an immersion blender, process the all the ingredients except for the parsley, sunflower seeds and pepitas until somewhat smooth. Stir in the parsley, sunflower seeds and pepitas. Wet your hands and shape into patties. Makes about 6-8 patties depending on how big you want them. Bake about 20 minutes, turning halfway, until golden brown on both sides. Enjoy! These are delicious with some tzatziki on the side.

The fennel salad was pretty easy too - I adapted it from a tapas cookbook I got from the library to get inspired for my workshops. If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll post it!

What's Up?

You'd think having all three of my boys leave the house at 8 and not come home again til 4:30 would mean I'd have a sea of time to wallow in and surely, plenty of time to blog and keep up with my blog friends, right? Hmmm. Not so much, as it turns out. Where the heck does the time go?

• I've been running and working out pretty much every day except Saturdays. I'm busy training for the 15K with Fran in Breda on October 2, and combining four runs a week with three weight training days, and cross training on the elliptical twice a week. So far, things are going well and I think I may have figured out a better way to balance weight training so that it doesn't affect my running negatively: I cut way back on the lower body exercises I was doing and I do most of them with just body weight (lunges and squats mainly). This seems to be working in the sense that I don't have that terrible leaden feeling in my legs when I go out for my runs anymore. Hooray!
• For the past few weeks I've been really focused on healthy eating, mainly following a "nutritarian" or Eat to Live way of eating, which means vegetables, fruits, beans, and tofu, with grains, nuts and seeds in limited quantities. I am enjoying my green smoothies for breakfast, salads, soups, stews, hummus, homemade veggie burgers, and I have also been investing a lot of time in trying new recipes and cooking techniques, as well as reading blogs on this topic to learn as much as I can. The pictures above are a couple of really yummy meals I've had recently - I love eating this way, the food is delicious and it makes me feel so good - energetic and healthy! These are truly "happy meals" to me...
• I've been doing some preparation for the workshops I am going to do with my friend Linda in November. Our topic this year is "Vegetarian Tapas" and we got together last weekend with our husbands and kids to try out a bunch of recipes we both made. It was a lot of fun and delicious, too! Writing the handout and translating and typing out my recipes is not as fun, but has to be done as well...
• September is also the time I usually touch base with my girlfriends and make dates to have lunch or coffee... there are a couple of dates on my calendar already to look forward to!
• Finally, I've been busy taking care of the family and the house, getting things going for the new school year, trying to make a yummy dessert for the boys for when they get home from school every day because they are always so HUNGRY! And oh yeah, trying to find a balance between making them healthy meals and making room for the "junkier" things they love so much! It's definitely a work in progress...

So, these things eat up a lot of my time, I guess... But I will just keep plugging along! My main goal is to keep up with all of your blogs, even if I don't find the time to update mine as often as I would like...

First Day of School!

Thankfully, everybody's first day of school went well! Felix is just starting out his first year of secondary school (equivalent to 7th grade in the US) and Gillis and Florian are in the 3rd and 5th years of the same school. It will be nice to have them all in the same school for a couple of years.

My husband was still on vacation yesterday so he joined me for my tempo run after we got all the boys off to school. It was the same run as two weeks ago: 6 km total with 3 km at 6:15 pace in the middle.

I will say - it was a lot harder to do it without my music!!! I never bring my Ipod with me when we run together, and I did miss having an uptempe song to kind of push me along when it felt hard. But it was nice to have company!

This morning I biked to the gym for upper body weights (my arms feel like jello right now) and an interval run. It was just 15 minutes of one-minute intervals but I don't think I could have done much more as my legs still felt a bit tired from yesterday. Other than that, it went well.

Now I'm off to get things done and hopefully enjoy a bit of the lovely weather we are having for the next day or two.