4 Miles of Awesome

Today I hit a milestone in my training.

I have always wondered how long distance runners maintain such a punishing pace over long distances. I'm okay with trotting along at a leisurely pace for miles and miles, I can do that. But how do you push yourself for 10, 15, 26.2 miles? I can practically sprint two miles and I'm really comfortable pushing myself over three miles. But that is kind of my comfort zone.

I smashed that comfort zone today.

Its kind of like when I ran ten miles the first time. After that point it became clear to me that I have no excuse to walk during a single digit run ever again. 

Today I ran four miles at just over a 10 and a half minute per mile pace. That is pretty amazing for me. And if I can do that for four miles, I can do it for three. And if I can do this for four miles, there is no reason I should run two miles over a ten minute pace ever again. 

I'm starting to find myself in the realm of "no excuses" and it's pretty awesome. 

I really needed this kick in the butt today. I've been having some serious get-up-and-go issues lately. This is a perfect example why you just keep running, eventually you are going to have an awesome run that will change everything.

I have a seven mile run on Sunday. My distances are starting to creep up and I'm loving it.

2015 Racing Season

I am so thrilled to share this with you guys! Here it is, my official 

training and racing schedule for 2015 into 2016!!!

I have been playing around with the dates for two or more weeks and it's been driving me crazy. The half marathon training plan is 6 months long but the marathon season ends in late February here in Houston so it took some pretty serious effort to get all the scheduling figured out. I'll have to cut my 10k training short but since the half marathon training plan is so long I'll have plenty of time to adjust. 

Last year the biggest fault in my training was that I tried to do too much too quick.  I'm hoping the long training plan will help me gently increase my mileage and give me lots of prep for the marathon training. 

And then there's THAT! A marathon! I had originally planned to have completed a marathon by now but it just wasn't in the cards. Like I said, too much too quick. I wasn't really prepared for the physical requirements and the time required to truly train for a marathon. This time I'll have two years (!!!!!) of running experience behind me and I think I'll really be able to do it this year. 

I'm so excited to finally have hard dates, you all know how much I love a good plan. I'm also playing around with the idea of getting sponsorship from family members to help cover the cost of running gear, race entries, and babysitting costs. But more on that later. 

Time to get to work!!!

-Ri

How would you guys feel about me doing weekly updates on how my training is going? Maybe bi-weekly? 

Baked Tilapia Dinner Recipe

One thing we've really been working on over here is eating healthy, whole foods. We are trying to shy away from processed foods in general and steer more towards a "whole food, plant based diet". (Thanks Food Matters!) 

My favorite thing to do is to take regular recipes and make them healthy so that is what I'll be sharing here on the blog! If I take a recipe from pinterest I'll always share the original link.

At some point I'll start photographing the process and making it all pretty but for right now I'm going to just focus getting the recipes down so stay with me.
 

Tilapia is one of those fish that is just so easy to make. I'm not a big fan of salmon so if the recipe isn't perfect I'm probably not going to eat it. Tilapia on the other hand is so fresh and light it almost always comes out great. 

We love making it in the summer. It makes a perfect light dinner that won't bog you down.
I usually serve it with some rice and freshly steamed veggies.

4- 4 oz tilapia fillets

1 tablespoon (ish) of melted butter

Lemon Juice

Adam's Seasoning (or your favorite Cajun seasoning)

Nature's Seasoning

Paprika

Pepper

Garlic Powder

Onion Powder

Salt and Pepper 

Preheat the oven to 375

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, spray with nonstick cooking spray. 

Spread some melted butter on the fillets. 

Sprinkle seasoning on the fillets to taste. I used the Nature's Seasoning and Adam's Seasoning as the base so I probably used 1/4 of a teaspoon of each on each fillet and then just a small sprinkling of the other spices. 

Bake for 20-25 or until the tilapia is flaky and no longer translucent. 

Squirt some lemon juice on top before serving.

This is a really easy recipe and it can be adapted so many ways. 

-Ri