Ode to Kale!

O Kale, how I do love thee? Let me count the ways
I love thee to the depth due to your nutritional might
My eyes will search for thee, when you are hiding out of sight
Somewhere in the crisper drawer or maybe behind the soy.
I always search for thee, if I cannot find thee I will start to pester the boy

I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by smoothie or by chip
I love thee purely, when eating you I do not require dip;
I love thee freely, as does the boy he says

I love it when my blender is put to use
With kale and banana and yummy fruits about to be pulverized in a drink
Yet I also love thee dried in the oven with garlic powder and nutritional yeast I think
With all of your antioxidants and vitamin profile,
I do not mind the little green bits stuck in my beguiling smile
I shall but love thee better there is no denial

Yum, three cheers for kale! I've been on a big time kale kick lately.

There have been green smoothies:


This was a blueberry + banana + kale green smoothie: 1 glass of water, 1 banana, a generous handful of kale, splash of pineapple juice and a handful of blueberries. I left it on the counter while I was doing a few other things in the kitchen and it completely seperated! I probably didn't blend it for long enough. I stirred it up before drinking and it was yums. Kale is probably my favourite green for green smoothies. I just really like the flavour and texture it brings to the drink.

There have also been lots of kale chips. John and I ate an entire bunch of kale in less than 24 hours. Crappy picture of one of the batches, but it was major yummy time:


This was super easy to make. The only trick is to watch out for burning at the end, crispy kale is delicious, burned kale is not so much. To make yummy kale chips: I just ripped the kale leaves into pieces (no stems), washed + dried them. Put them onto a parchment covered baking sheet and tossed them with olive oil, lemon juice, salt + pepper, garlic powder, nutritional yeast and a bit of chili powder. Then baked them in the oven at 350F for 10 minutes, flipped them around and then continued baking for another 7-10 minutes. THEY WERE SO GOOD. I wish I was eating them right now!!!!

My running is slowly getting back on track. I've been doing more running just for the sake of running and it's been feeling pretty good. I'm starting to get the itch to go after another half-marathon. It might be kinda fun to travel somewhere and run half-marathon, as I've only ever run in local events. But we'll see...I am a creature of habit, so travelling somewhere and NOT being able to engage in my usual pre-race activities is a bit intimidating!

21.06 km + not much else is going on

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since my last post. Its sad to say, but there's really nothing very exciting to report, as I've slipped into a routine with all of my training activities - and they are all just kind of ongoing. Not to worry my faithful readers, that will not stop me from rambling on in detail :)

The green smoothie challenge is still going. We've started making double batches at night and saving the extra batch for breakfast in the morning. Combinations that we've enjoyed for the past week have included: baby spinach or red leaf lettuce plus an assortment of bananas, ananas (pineapple), kiwis, apples and/or pears. I've also been adding some fresh ginger into the smoothies lately and I've been finding it tres delicieux. I tried making a smoothie with grapes, but sadly my little 700W blender had a hard time with the grape skins, thus the texture of the smoothie was very fibrous. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you're supposed to be able to chew your smoothies?

I ran out of chews for my runs, so I picked up a couple of packs of GU Chomps and Clif Shot Bloks from the Running Room. Since I had a gift certificate and a store discount, I also picked up a cute little pair of black capri tights and a black racerback tank top with fluorescent pink trim. I loooove the capris, but I'm not sure if I can wear them on long runs, the spandex might not be powerful enough to rein in all of the jiggle :(

My training is chugging along - I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with all of the different cross-training activities (i.e., weights, biking, step + yoga classes) and also going out and doing different types of runs (i.e., hill +/or speed intervals, steady +/or slow runs). I had rolled my ankle back in February just before the Chilly half and thought that I might have re-injured it during my long run this past weekend, since it was throbbing in PAIN on Sunday and Monday. But I've been taking it easy for the past 3-4 days and it's feeling a lot better. Possible injury aside, my long runs have also become rather uneventful, my mind has been a lot quieter on these runs and I've just been enjoying the nice weather/scenery and the way I've been feeling.

Random thoughts from my 21.06 km:
- Hot and sour soup, coffee and chocolate Easter eggs (that's right I said EASTER EGGS, not spring spheres) are bad pre-run foods. I was feeling dehydrated for most of the run
- Donald Trump should shut up and go away. He's such an idiot.
- Why do politicians think we want to see their pictures on their campaign signs? It's not like we're going to suddenly be like: "Wow, you look like an upstanding citizen, I think I will vote for you after all". The same goes for real estate agents. I'm bringing a sharpie marker on my next long run and drawing mustachios on everybody!! (LOL, OK probably not...I know I'll be too lazy to hold a pen on my run and it'll totally mess up my time.)

I'll be winding down the workouts soon, since my half-marathon is about two weeks away! So I'll probably stop blogging about training and start blogging about fascinating topics such as: "What to wear" and/or "Music for my ipod" :)

10.0 km plus a few other things

Not so random thoughts.

Sunday:
- I love running in the rain, but not in thunderstorms. I cut it short since the thunder and lightning scared me. On the plus side, that was probably the fastest 10k I've run in awhile (possibly ever)
- I wore my Lululemon capris for the first time (I bought them on-sale last year just before it got really cold). They are a much tighter fit than my other capris. I glanced at my reflection in a bus shelter when I was speeding by...my freakishly muscular calves are getting even more freakish :'(
- After the storm cleared out, it was the nicest day ever!
- Had a lovely workout in the park with Jamette & Katherine. 6k run + "breaks" for drills = good times :)
- Pushing a jogging stroller while running is harder than I thought. My arms + shoulders were killing me the next day.
- All workouts should end with a smoothie run!

Green smoothies:
- I finished reading Green for Life last night. The book was very interesting and made some good points regarding nutrition and healthy eating. Plus, there are tons of yummy green smoothie recipes at the end! However, I remain skeptical about the last 1/3 of the book which was filled with stories about people being miraculously cured of various ailments (including cancer) from drinking green smoothies. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the book and I'm now onto reading the Green Smoothie Revolution
- John and I are on Day 4 of the Green Smoothie Challenge (30 days of smoothies). The first few days were interesting... Without getting too graphic, I had to skip hills yesterday because my poor little stomach was feeling WRONG. But today I'm finally feeling back to normal and did my hill repeats (9!) and took a yoga class.
- So far we've enjoyed: strawberry/kale, salad mix/blueberries/mangoes, red leaf lettuce/celery/bananas/mangoes, baby greens/blueberries/strawberries/banana

Schedule for the upcoming week:
Weekend - 20+ km run
Monday - Steady run and/or Cardio-weight training class
Tuesday - Rest! (Rush concert!)
Wednesday - 10 hill repeats. Last week of hills
Thursday - Cardio-weight training and/or yoga
Friday - Rest
Weekend - 20+ km run

Green 4 Lyfe

A few notes from the week:

Wednesday: I was NOT in the mood for hills on Wednesday, so instead I went to the gym and jumped on a spinning bike for a ...umm... spin. I did 11.5 kms of intervals (1 min on max resistance, 1 min on min resistance). Afterwards I ran up 17 flights of stairs in the condo. I might have pushed into my maximum limit on Wednesday because I was right at my vomit point for about a half hour after my workout. My theory is: Working out is a lot like all-you-can-eat sushi, if you don't feel like you're going to puke at the end, you're just not doing it right.

Thursday: Cross-training + yoga. The weight training classes aren't as challenging as they were a month ago, I think it might be time to increase my weights by a bit. I'm starting to thoroughly enjoy my yoga class. I just feel super relaxed afterwards and my body is happy with the nice long stretch. On my runs, I'm starting to hear my yoga instructor's voice saying "inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale...feel the cool breath flowing in and the warm breath flowing out..." Ahhh, what's happening to me? I'm turning into a hippie!

Presents for me: Last week, I ordered the following books online:


They came in this week! I'm reading Green for Life right now. I can't wait to start making my own green smoothies, but I think I'll have to pick up a new blender. My immersion blender is starting to die, the blades are bent and it may be shedding metal shards into my fruit smoothies :( I've been doing some research over the past few days and have my eye on a couple of blenders, although what I really want is a Vita-mix blender!!!