Endurance Swimming Workout

I was pressed for time the other day, but B and I still wanted to knock out some yardage in the pool. I ended up doing one of those endless-laps routines that everyone hates so much, but I broke it up into more manageable pieces so I had a few thousand yards under my belt before my shoulders knew what hit 'em.

Warm up
3x300 easy

Workout
5x200 good effort
4x100 drill
4x50 odd fast, even easy
100 easy
5x200 good effort

Cool down
2x200 easy

Total: 4000 yards/meters 

Places to cut back on yardage if necessary:

• Do 2x300 warmup 
• Remove second set of 5x200
• Remove 100 easy 
• Do 1x200 cool down 

These modifications will lower the total to 2400 - still a very respectable amount of swimming.

My Other True Love

I have a MAJOR thing for soup. Everyone talks about the winter months being "soup season," but let's be honest...soup is fantastic 365 days of the year, if you ask me.

Which, obviously, you did. Or something.

Regardless of your opinion on the seasonal appeal of soup, the fact that it's December means that everyone should be cozying up to a bowl of warm, liquid perfection. I recently found two recipes that blew me away, and I had to share them with you. Bonus - they're both from the same website (Vegangela), which I will now be obsessively stalking. Girl's got talent!

First up was the Roasted Butternut Squash Soup. Until last week, I hadn't found a good recipe for butternut squash soup (most are too sweet for me). This one balances the sweetness of the squash with some tropical ingredients and there is so. much. flavor. in every bite. B even loved it, and he hates every ingredient on an individual basis. Note: I left out the coriander and cilantro because I was out of both. I also didn't use a jalapeno because I was lazy.

I tried the Roasted Fresh Tomato Soup the very next day. I had bought a ton of tomatoes at the grocery store for some reason and needed to use them up, stat! I eat approximately 1 tomato a month, so I don't know why I felt compelled to buy a pack of 9. Brilliant. But, obviously, it worked out.
I once again omitted the fresh herbs for this recipe. I also think I added a hair too much salt :( Don't get me wrong, it was still delicious, but the roasted veggies should really be the stars of the show here.

Let me know if you try out either of these awesome recipes! I still have a small container of the tomato soup sitting in my freezer, I'm trying to save it until I can get some more tomatoes and restock.

Have a happy Friday!

Back from the Dead

I'm still here! The last few weeks have been terrible in terms of work and school, but I'm back now! Let's see...what's happened since the last time I posted?

• Two 5K races
• One 5 mile race
• Three  PRs (because I haven't done a 5 miler before)
• Some swimming (but not enough)
• LOTS of wonderful foam rolling. My calves are happier than they've been in a loooong time. 

First was the Chesterfield Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, which I ran with B. I broke 23 after a slow start. There were more than 3000 people there and many, many people lined up way too close to the starting line. I had never run a big race without corrals! It was lots of fun though.

The 5-miler (the Believe in Girls 5M race) was on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I placed well but wasn't trying to race hard. My goal was to keep an even pace with good form. I held consistent 8min/mile and finished at 39:59.

Yesterday, B and I ran another holiday-themed race, the Santas on the Loose 5K in Webster Groves. Everyone who entered was given a beard and a santa hat. I elected to forgo the beard because I always get way too warm when I run. It was 60 degrees! St. Louis has been burning up lately.

There were cookies and hot chocolate at the finish line, yum! This course was also hillier than expected. I don't think I've been giving Missouri enough credit, I thought it was flat all over. WRONG!

Small hills,yes, but they just kept coming! 

But - amazingly - I PR'd with a 22:28. I didn't feel like I was running that hard, but the start was much smoother than the Turkey Trot so that certainly helped. I don't love the 5K distance, but I don't want to swear off it until I break 22. I think I'll be able to do it pretty soon with a flat course with a good race plan.

So - that's been my schedule for the past month. I can write up some individual recaps if anyone is local and is interested in doing these races next year.

As for my life outside of running....
I made Thanksgiving cookies, using this awesome blog as my inspiration.

Oh yeah - done with our Christmas shopping! And see those golden star gift tags?

I made them! They were super-easy. I made some salt dough (like you'd see on pinterest), cut out stars with a cookie cutter, made a holly pattern with a big rubber stamp, and painted them with gold paint after they were done drying. 

Carly getting into the Christmas spirit...

Of course, I've been working a LOT. Here are the fruit flies that I stare at all day, e'ery day:

Well, I think you guys are more or less caught up on my oh-so-exciting (not) life. I tried out a few recipes that I'll be sharing over the next few days, including the best butternut squash soup everrrr. And marathon training officially starts tomorrow!! Very excited over here in the AIDIH household.

Have you done any holiday races this year?