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Wine Bars and Veggie Delights

August 26, 2011 by 10 Comments
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San Francisco is a great city to live in. It’s an even better city to eat in. Yesterday, I pretty much broke all my rules (guidelines) as I had two big food-and-booze focused events to get through: Company Culture wine tasting and my third GrubWithUs dinner.

Our quarterly company culture event took us to The Wine Club on Harrison between 5th and 6th. This place has a ton of wines and does a lot of cheap tastings. We took the place over with two cases of wine and more food than even I could eat.

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As you can imagine, my “I’m not drinking I have to run” turned into a glass of champagne and o taste of red wine, and my “I’m not snacking I am going to a big dinner” turned into… well, let’s just say I can’t remember everything about the afternoon.

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I always appreciate company culture events because I get a chance to enjoy the company of my coworkers, who I genuinely like, without suffering from the unfortunate yet inevitably stress of the office.

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After I ate and drank more than enough for a dinner it was time to… go to dinner. I’ve written about my first (Italian) and second (hippie vegetarian) GrubWithUs dinners, and last night was dinner #3. (If you’re unfamiliar with the concept: essentially, the company coordinates group meals at restaurants and prepays for the family-style meals, which include appetizers, entrees, and dessert. Then, eight or so strangers sign up to go to dinner with new people! It’s a great way to make new friends and/or network in a no-pressure setting.)

We went to Golden Era Vegetarian Restaurant, which is nestled in the sketchy Tenderloin neighborhood (which much more often than not means the food is delicious) and had great reviews on Yelp so I was excited to check it out.

Our appetizers were spring rolls, potstickers, and papaya salad, all vegetarian of course.

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I LOVE a fried spring roll, but wherever I go, fresh spring rolls don’t taste like much to me, I just really like the peanut sauce.

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The pot stickers were good! No picture of the papaya salad as I only got exactly two bites of it so you couldn’t get a sense of it on my plate, but it was yummy and spicy.

Then for the entrees:

That would be “super kale” with ginger miso dressing and organic flax crumbles. I am getting a new digital camera in September. I promise. No more horrible iPhone pics!

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By far the best dish of the night in my opinion was this lemongrass “chicken.” I’m split on the whole fake-meat thing, but I will say that as a vegetarian who most likely will eat meat again at some point, this was REALLY good.

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We also got the House Rice Claypot with tofu, fake soy chicken, mushrooms, bean sprouts, and ginger.

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And a spicy (except not) sweet potato curry with tofu and garbanzos in a coconut curry sauce.

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And don’t forget the Spicy Jalapeno Tofu, of course.

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Dessert was shared—two pieces of cheesecake and two chocolate. The cheesecake kind of tasted like nothing, but the chocolate was good—very moussey.

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Overall, this place was okay. I think part of it was that the portions weren’t great for 8 people—the other two GWU dinners I’ve been to have had more than enough food but this one did not. And with the high reviews a lot of the dishes were a little eh—that being said though, they have a HUGE menu and I would totally come back and get the lemongrass faux chicken again and try something else from their menu. And of course, I go to these to meet new people and make new friends—finding new restaurants is just a bonus. Smile

WAY past my bedtime. Happy Friday everyone!

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    Rocky Mountain Fondue

    July 7, 2011 by 11 Comments
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    I have been a bad blogger. It has been so hard trying to find a balance between exercise, sleep, and blogging (work is non-negotiable. As is eating). Blog usually gets put to the back burner because it affects my health much less than adequate sleep and regular exercise do, so it can’t come first, but it also causes me sadness when I see all these other busy people who are able to blog daily! Please teach me your ways. Anyways, that’s for a different post.

    ***

    Last week, I went to a little place called Colorado on business. You probably don’t know this, but Colorado is my second favorite state. I spend a summer during college living and working in Estes Park, Colorado, right on the border of Rocky Mountain National Park. It was amazing and beautiful and I had a wonderful time.

    I made it a goal at that point to someday live in this state, hopefully in Boulder. It’s such a great town and I really fit in perfectly there. Climb, hike, and swim all summer, ski all winter… just my style.

    Anyway, I hadn’t been back to rocky mountain paradise for a few years… until this week. I went to Colorado Springs on business and was able to enjoy the fresh-smelling air and the beautiful landscape. Despite being less than 5 miles from Pikes Peak, our schedule didn’t exactly allow for me to hike it, but that’s okay—next time!

    One of the highlights of my very short trip was my first trip to The Melting Pot. I had heard of it—a place where you go and dip stuff into cheese and chocolate fondue (not at the same time)—and it sounded right up my alley, but I had never gone.

    Until now. (duh-duh duh….)

    Every table had a hot plate (or two) on which fondue or cooking liquid (more on that later) would be placed. It reminded me of Benihana or one of those cook-your-own-meat Japanese places. But more awesome because chocolate would be involved.

    Course one was cheese fondue made with lager beer, cheddar cheese, worschetershire sause, and garlic. We got veggies, apples, chips, and bread to dip in. Green apples for the win. Yum.

    Next up was a California salad and a whole bucket of dressing on the side. Nom.

    The “entrée” part was quite interesting. It is somewhat in the cook-it-yourself way of thinking, where you actually pick a cooking style and they bring out a pot for you and you cook your meat/veggies yourself. Some of the choices were traditional vegetable broth, a certain canola oil which was basically like frying, a Caribbean “mojo” sauce, and a coq au vin cooking sauce with red wine. We went with the Caribbean.

    I went with the vegetarian entrée which was essentially a big plate of veggies—portobellos, artichoke hearts, asparagus, tofu…

    And it also came with a bowl of veggies on the side. And we got approximately one dozen dipping sauces from which to choose. #toomanychoices

    About halfway through my veggies I began to feel like I may be sick if I had just one more bite. But that was before the best course of all: the chocolate!

    We decided to get the one with the best name, which was obviously the “cookies and cream marshmallow dream.” Which came with dark chocolate, marshmallow, and oreo pieces all mixed together.

    Dippers were bananas, strawberries, rice krispies, pound cake, brownie, cheesecake, and graham-cracker- and oreo-coated marshmallows.

    This was really too much. It was so delicious but at this point I started feeling like I had been very, very cruel to my body.

    I hit a food coma right there at the table and almost fell asleep. So much for my lose-five-pounds goal; gaining five sounds MUCH more fun!

    Anyways, it was really fun and definitely an entertaining dining experience. What I didn’t realize before is that it is EXPENSIVE! OMG! I could not believe the prices. This is the place I might come afterwards for dessert with a friend or two and just buy the chocolate ($15.50 for two people). Eating dinner there should only be for a VERY special occasion. Especially if you are going to pay $20 for a plate of vegetables that wouldn’t even make a salad by themselves. Regardless, I’m glad I went. It was fun and man did I sleep well that night.

    Happy Thursday, everybody!

    Have you ever been to The Melting Pot? What do you think of fondue?

     

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    Reflections: on half a year of “The Pescatarian Project”

    June 26, 2011 by 26 Comments
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    Continuing in my reflection theme started earlier this week in my reflections on six months out of Africa… installment parte dois! Running (or lack thereof) and injury update tomorrow. I’m feeling optimistic! Anyways… moving on.

    It’s been half a year since I had a burger. I love burgers.

    [source]

    It’s also been half a year since I had a chicken wing, a pig in a blanket, a shawarma, or any of very many delicious things.

    Six months ago today I ate a little slider at my parent’s house and decided that was it… for a while, at least. I dubbed my temporary no-meat existence “The Pescatarian Project.” In that blog post, I detailed why I wanted to cut meat out of my diet post-world-travel, for a variety of reasons, including basing my diet around vegetables and eating healthier overall. I decided to include fish in my diet not just because I couldn’t imagine giving up raw ahi tuna once in a while, but also because I thought it would be less intimidating (and a guaranteed easy source of protein). I committed myself to eating lots of veggies and just in general being health-conscious and awesome.

    It’s been six months. How do I feel?

    First of all, I call myself a vegetarian. Yes, I eat fish sometimes, but for normal life it’s too annoying to non-nutrition-nerds to talk about the particulars of my self-imposed dietary restrictions because let’s be honest, nobody cares. Also, in the last few months, I can count the number of times I’ve eaten fish on one hand and I never really order it or buy it, so it’s become much less relevant.

    So to be completely honest: going vegetarian has NOT changed my life.

    Backing up. There are many good things about being vegetarian. One, a lot of my unhealthy splurge foods are now off-limits. I don’t have the most discriminating tastes  with meat, so in college I would gave pretty easily to Panda Express orange chicken and In-N-Out burgers… and don’t get me started on Chili’s boneless buffalo wings.

    I gravitate towards healthier menu options. I usually don’t order salads when eating out, because they are either complete calorie bombs and generally unhealthy OR they are overpriced and don’t fill you up. I look for veggie entrees or combine side dishes.

    I have also reduced my menu-induced anxiety. (Read: it takes me two hours to pick something to order off a substantial menu. Being veg has not only cut my options and thus my decision time drastically, but has also made me more pleasant of a dining partner.)

    It has made me more aware of my diet and nutrition needs. When I was training for my marathon I frequently mentioned my weird obsession with protein. (Continues.) But in general I am more conscious of my daily balance of what I’m consuming.

    I spend less. Not buying meat or buying meat dishes at restaurants has definitely reduced my expenses, considering. I have learned to cook a lot of easy vegetarian dishes.

    It is freaking easy to be a veggie in SF. Not only are you mainstream and normal, but I can walk into a Sausage Grill and know that I’ll be able to get a tofu dog. Legit.

    I have reduced my environmental impact by a ton (cue Whole-Foods-induced “conscientious shopper” flood-of-pride-slash-moral-superiority HERE).

    But what about the other side?

    I am not convinced that the vegetarian diet is “right” for me. I don’t believe there is a right diet across the board—everyone’s body is different and while there are general nutritional guidelines that apply to everyone, one person might feel great as a vegetarian, another on an Atkins-type diet, another vegan… we’re all different.

    I don’t feel “better” as a vegetarian.

    There are things I really like about it, as mentioned before. When I say “better” I mean purely from a health standpoint. I did not feel more energetic, lighter on my feet, better digestion… any of those things. My hunger didn’t increase a lot either. My body seemed to take vegetarianism in stride, no problem, but wasn’t thrilled and ecstatic either. It was simply a new way of eating and everything else carried on as normal.

    I gained weight, probably. I don’t know—I also was marathon training at the same time that I went veg so I can’t speak to that. I CAN say that carbs are my favorite food group (seriously, I could eat just carbs all day every day and be very happy) and also that I DO lose weight when I cut the carbs. Being veg has definitely made me eat even MORE carbs as many great sources of protein (like beans) also contain a decent amount of carbs. And who wants to eat faux meat products without rice or a bun? Not me, really.

    So after six months, am I healthier? I feel like I’m wired healthier in that way that being a vegetarian creates (basically, you think about nutrition more). But I don’t feel better or look better.

    So now what?

    Here’s an interesting thing about all of this: I don’t miss meat. I haven’t eaten any minus an accidental bite of a chicken burrito (which was SUPPOSED to be curry paneer… thanks for nothing, Curry Up Now!) and I don’t miss it. I am still attracted to the smell of meat—not eating it anymore doesn’t mean that walking by the sizzling bacon-wrapped hot dogs doesn’t intoxicate me! But yet, I don’t really give it a passing thought. It’s more like “oh, that hot dog/chicken wing/pepperoni pizza smells good” and then the thought leaves my head. Whatever.

    In addition to not eating meat, I do believe I have fully shifted to vegetarian mentality. Though I like the smell of some meat, and don’t think it’s wrong to eat meat if it’s done sustainably, I’m just so in the “I don’t eat that!” mentality that I think it would be REALLY hard to take that first bite again. (Especially after I teared up reading Fast Food Nation last week during the part about how they kill the cows…)

    So part of me wants to be a vegetarian forever. The other part of me really wants to seriously pursue my passion of being a food blogger or a restaurant reviewer/food critic/food writer etc etc, and to be honest, vegetarian is a niche and I’d need to eat meat if I wanted to do anything mainstream out from under a vegetarian umbrella. And of course, I’m “missing out” on a lot of really awesome food.

    Conclusions? I really have no idea what the future holds for me and my previously-beloved fried chicken. I know that for now, I’m going to continue down my quasi-vegetarian path, and see how it goes from here. I’m happy where I am, and I know that at any point, the decision to go back is always mine. I’m just not convinced either way.

    Have you ever gone vegetarian/vegan or tried any other significant dietary change? How did you know if it was/wasn’t right for you?

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    Why it pays to be a foodie in San Francisco…

    April 12, 2011 by 15 Comments
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    I have hardcore been neglecting this blog baby of mine. But no more. I am reclaiming my life, my sanity, and my piece of the interwebs.

    When I HAVEN’T been blogging, I’ve been out exploring my new home. And man, can I just say that it pays to be a foodie in this city. Want to know why?

    Because I can walk to Whole Paycheck Foods every day for lunch and call it “investing in my health.”

    Because I can go to a famous sausage shop and know that there will be a vegetarian option. (Or a vegan option… thank you, Rosamunde’s, for opening my eyes to your Vegan Italian sausage…)

    Because I can go to a random vegetarian restaurant on a neighborhood corner…

    And get the most realistic faux meat you can imagine. (LOOK at these pics on the menu!)

    Because I can go on a Friday evening stroll past views like this…

    To get to this…

    Which is filled with a lot of these…

    Some of which charge you ten dollars for a tofu burrito…

    But it’s okay because this one…

    Sells these! (This would be a salted caramel cupcake by Cupkates, one of many food trucks featured at Off the Grid in SF, a collection of food trucks that gather in specific locations on specific days and generally cause a lot of really delicious havoc.)

    Because I can slurp down a $4 mug of the most delicious “Black and Tan” (chocolate and gingerbread) cocoa I’ve ever had in my entire life and call it a good investment.

    Because it’s so chilly that Ben and Jerry’s only made me wait approximately 2.5 minutes for a free scoop on Free Cone Day.

    Because we can get laughed at walking through North Beach (essentially Little Italy) when asking some locals for the best place for pizza by the slice, when there’s a neon hand pointing right to it.

    Golden Boy’s Pizza is amazing. Any time of day. Pesto vegetarian or clam garlic. Or cheese. Or pepperoni. Or sausage. I must come back here.

    Because some places a cocktail might run you $12, but no matter what, there’s a good lunch special somewhere.

    And finally, it pays to be a foodie in SF because, the first time I tried to cook a seriously decent meal in my apartment, it ended in this.

    Good times.

    I am definitely enjoying the food scene here… a little too much. As my waistline expands and my wallet slims down rapidly… worth it though :)

    Look for several more entries upcoming. Thanks for staying with me during my growing pains.

    Love,

    Courtney

    What’s something you’ve recently discovered where you live? New restaurant? New product?

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    March Madness

    March 2, 2011 by 13 Comments
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    So I’m writing a post about the beginning of March on the evening of March 2nd, which will undoubtedly appear in many of you East Coasters’ g-readers as March 3rd, which tells you a little about how my week/life/month is going so far!

    Madness.

    Okay, first of all, I AM pretty much jumping up and down with excitement every time I think about the upcoming NCAA tournament, which not only is my favorite sporting event of the year, but I’ve also missed the last two, so now I’m triply excited to make up for it.

    Go Bruins. (Circa 2005. Yikes. I’ve dated myself.)

    But that’s not all that’s going on in March.

    I’m really getting into my job, for real. This month I start making it happen.

    Next week I’m MOVING INTO AN ADORABLE APARTMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO (win!).

    Next weekend I’m also running a half-marathon. Shamrock’n in Sacramento! (And there’s a post-race “Beer Party.”)

    I’m also attending Peace Corps and Zumba events, catching up with friends, and going to LA for a weekend.

    Somewhere in there, I’m also doing 17-, 16-, and 18-mile runs.

    And trying to have a life.

    It’s going to be a good month.

    I like to have goals for the month and my first two of 2011 have been pretty huge, with varying levels of success.

    Around the new year my goal was The Pescatarian Project. I vowed to follow a pescatarian diet for at least a month but with the initial goal of a year. I guess I’ve succeeded at that goal, as I haven’t eaten meat since around Christmas and have only had fish a handful of times. But whether or not it’s been successful in terms of the goals I originally laid out for the project, I’m not sure. That merits one heck of a blog post which is sure to come later this month.

    In February, as a bit of a hop-on to the Pescatarian Project, my goal was the Vegetarian Kitchen Challenge: to cook new and inventive vegetarian dishes several times a week. My project started off awesome with the help of the Veganomicon and ended with me eating nothing but yogurt pretzels and five-day old pizza for dinner. Sure, at the beginning of February I definitely was not planning to be living in the Bay Area by the middle of February (I hadn’t even had my first interview with the company I’m now with yet!), so for the sake of crazy life changes I’ve cut myself a little slack on this one, but still, pretty big fail. I would like to think that the VKC will be reinstated when I have a place to live and some stability and am no longer living out of a suitcase. Win.

    …which brings me to March. As I wrote about in my last post, I have a LOT of things I need to work on. (Thanks for all your comments on that post, they were awesome!) When I thought about it, though, the first thing that came to mind was a book I recently read for my awesome new book club, called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

    [source]

    I am definitely going to be writing a review/synopsis of this book on the blog, because it really reminded me SO much of healthy living blogs in general! She makes little changes in her life each month, worked in around her day-to-day life, to try to make herself happier. It really is what so many bloggers do. Why do we eat healthy? Why do we run if we don’t always love it? Why do we take pictures of our food like idiots? Why do we spend hours catching up on our google readers that could be doing other more productive things? Because these actions make us happier, even if they don’t always make you happy in the exact moment. Much more on this at another time, but you get the gist.

    I wanted to make some SMALL goals for March like she does in her book, things that I know I can accomplish and will serve to motivate me instead of be like “OMGFAIL” every time I look at one of my ten million to-do lists. I’m also trying to focus on positivity in the messages I send myself. (“No sweets”, for example, is impossible for me, but putting the word NO in front of pretty much anything makes it doubly impossible to resist!) So this month, I am hoping to do the following:

    Week 1 (Feb 28—March 6)

    • Spend time with God every day.
    • Eat healthier.
    • Stand up straighter.

    Week 2 (March 7—13)

    • Blog every day!
    • Add marathon, SF, food, travel, and blogroll tabs to P&P.

    Week 3 (March 14—20)

    • Nest.
    • Get some type of exercise every day.

    Week 4 (March 21—27)

    • Reconnect.

    I guess I should explain some of those. This week’s mini-goals are pretty obvious, especially after my last post about how off-balance I felt during my first week working in SF in terms of all my routines being interrupted. Eating a little better and spending time with God will really help with that.

    Week 2: blog every day. Okay, I have NEVER DONE THIS. I don’t think I’ve even posted four times in the same week! But I really want to grow my blog, and make it better, and even though that takes TIME, it is time well spent because it makes me happy. I wanted to try posting every day for one week to see if I can do it, and also to alleviate some of the pressure. Example: a lot of times, something happens and I want to blog about it but I want to write such a great entry that I end up never posting it. Which is why I have one entry so far from my month in Asia. I get intimidated by HOW MUCH raw material I have to work with. If I post every day, time is short, so I just make do with what I got. And plus I’m moving and running a half marathon that week so it’s not like I won’t have things to post about. Hah.

    Week 3, I am hoping to nest into my new place and to exercise every day. The reason I picked this week is because once I am living in the city I will be able to run or walk before work and have the sun be out or almost out, which makes everything a lot easier. Otherwise stuff like this happens: today, I tried to wake up at 4:45 to work out but I didn’t get up because I woke up at that time yesterday to work out and was still tired, so I said I’d go after work, and dragged a whole bag of sweaty gym clothes into the city with me, only to end up going home and eating three bowls of cereal instead because I was at work until seven and I was tired.

    So how about that eat healthier goal? Hah! Well, in my defense, today was better. I actually had a salad, carrots and hummus, and an apple for lunch today. Win. Salads every day this week. Let’s not talk about how yesterday’s was a brussels sprout salad that I didn’t realize had bacon bits in it until I opened it. I totally fail as a veg.

    Week 4: reconnect, well, I am going to LA that weekend, but more importantly, once I have a few days in my apt to settle in I REALLY want to start making headway into catching up with the wonderful friends that I have, many of whom live nearby in the city or bay area. Life is too short to let life get in the way. (Bear with me here.) In addition to reconnecting I’m excited to invest in new friends and new friendships!

    So there’s March for you. The days are long, but the years are short… and lately, it sure does seem like the months are short. More reason to grab life by the horns.

    Last thing: GIVEAWAY WINNER! Thanks to everyone who entered the Green Giant giveaway. The winner is…

    Sarah of The Pajama Chef! Congrats! Send me an email with your address and your prizes will be on the way!

    Have a great evening (morning?) everybody!

    What does March have on the table for you?

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    The Five Emotional Phases of Marathon Training, Phase 1: Honeymoon

    February 6, 2011 by 20 Comments
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    It’s the weekend!!! And I haven’t posted since Tuesday. I vowed to never apologize for not posting because I think it’s weird and pretty self-absorbed to think that anyone’s life would actually be negatively affected by not having a daily post from one of the blogs they read! But it’s been a crazy week for me, with some school stuff and a bunch of JOB INTERVIEWS (real world! Duh duh duhhh!) going on. But here I am. :)

    Digging this Saturday. I was just driving around with my moonroof open and the temp gauge in my car read 71. WOOO! And I set a new PR for a 5K this morning. Life’s goooood.

    I loved reading comments on my last post about the Vegetarian Kitchen Challenge and so I’d like to give some VKC updates. It’s going pretty well! I’m on a Veganomicon and quinoa kick this week so the recipes I chose reflected that. First up was a chickpea-quinoa pilaf, recommended by Jess over at Healthy Exposures. This was my first time EVER cooking with quinoa (!!!) and it was AWESOME. I dig.

    BLOG CLICHÉ ALERT!!!! Check out my new bowl from Sur La Table. Isn’t it just like OMG the cutest bowl everrrrr?!?! :) :) :) at least I’m not so cliché that I posted a picture of it with my morning oatmeal.

    Whoops.

    I couldn’t cook much during the job-app days (more like eating my way through San Francisco yet again) but I tried to keep the veggies up. Remember that weirdly deformed sweet potato I got at the farmers’ market? It finally got cooked. This baby was so weird looking that I had to make a smiley face on it out of dried fruit. Don’t ask why. It just seemed right…

    I continued the challenge with my new favorite grain, using a recipe that really caught my eye: quinoa salad with black beans and mango. Basically this was a ton of mango, red bell pepper, green onions, cilantro, quinoa, and black beans all tossed with some oil and vinegar.

    It was good but it needed a lot more vinegar and some salt added to it afterwards to suit my tastebuds. (But the original recipe also called for red wine vinegar, which I didn’t have, so that’s probably why. Improvisation.) I also think my mangoes weren’t very flavorful, which was weird because they looked and felt PERFECT, and I had a lot of experience picking out mangoes after my days in the Moz. Oh well, still good!

    And dinner last night was something I had been excited about trying: lentil sloppy joes, or snobby joes! I would definitely recommend this recipe. I’m not so veg that I preferred it to the ground beef version (though Lord knows when I last ate that!) but it was great. Open face all the way.

    Just like the real sloppy joes: nasty looking in the pan, DELICIOUS on the bun.

    I’m continuing my VKC through the weekend by making black bean burgers either tonight or tomorrow, and creating a delicious (vegan) super bowl feast with green pea guacamole, white bean aioli, spinach and asparagus dip, and black bean/sweet potato tortillas. More on that later.

    ***

    So for any of you actually reading this post you might be wondering what the title has to do with anything. Here’s the explanation.

    For those of you who have been reading my blog, you know I can be a bit sarcastic, and it’s the way I deal with difficult things, such as marathon training (and you all know that my marathon training started without me. Devastating.) So here I present my analysis of what I am calling the Five Emotional Phases of Marathon Training. “Is this a real thing,” you ask? Of COURSE it’s a real thing! I have a BLOG, therefore everything I spew about in this little corner of the interwebs must be 110% accurate and true. I’m ashamed of you for even asking.

    Thus I present the first of the Five Emotional Phases: the HONEYMOON phase. (What are the other four? Couldn’t tell ya. I haven’t made them up yet.)

    For me, the honeymoon phase lasted through this Monday. Three and a half solid weeks. Marathon training, for many people, starts in a flurry of excitement. You’re motivated and positive because you’re working towards something AWESOME! “I’m training for a marathon,” you say, shrugging slightly in a false show of modesty, loving how cool it makes you feel to say that you are TRAINING for a MARATHON even though your longest run at the time had been six miles. (Almost a quarter of the way there, right?)

    Your ego is soaring. You are okay with the fact that you are sweaty and gross half the time. You are more often in workout clothes than normal clothes because you have no life. (That last part could just be me personally… whatever.) You convince yourself that that’s a better look for you so you don’t have to spend more time primping.

    You prioritize your runs as an important part of your day, not wanting to miss one, feeling convinced that with each and every run you’re getting faster, and stronger. And you are! In my third week of training last week, I set PRs at the 5K and the 10K just as a part of my normal training runs. You buy cute exercise clothes and new gear. You feel strong and empowered. You are TRAINING for a MARATHON and that is BAD-ASS and everyone knows it!

    You start completely normal and healthy traditions like celebrating the end of each long run in a hot tub with a beer. You may or may not spend the last few miles of said long run trying to pick which beer you want.

    You love the way it makes you feel. You love the excitement of trying something new. And you ARE feeling better. For me, the honeymoon phase culminated on Monday morning after I ran 9 miles and felt like I could have run 18. Not once was I sore, not once did I want to stop, not once was I not happy.

    And that’s not the reality of marathon training.

    That, my friends, is the honeymoon phase.

    Guess who’s NOT in the honeymoon phase anymore? Stay tuned to learn about phase two. Someday. Happy Super Bowl Weekend, everyone!!! GO STEELERS!!!

    Who are you rooting for in the game? And more importantly, what are you cooking??

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