Food, Travel, Fitness, & Meditation Blog
A broad category that should encompass all of the content on the site.
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Restaurant Style Salsa
Summer’s coming fast, and if that doesn’t conjure visions of fresh salsa and Negro Modelo, then you need to do some soul-searching. Where’s your head at? Get in the game. I want to find myself this weekend (and every weekend for the next six months) sitting on a patio somewhere imbibing something cold and refreshing and possibly dipping some corn chips into a delicious pool of fire-roasted tomatoes combined with fresh onions, and cilantro, grown in someone’s garden or at least picked up from the Farmer’s Market. Mexican food of all kinds is at the very top on my list of favorites, and I especially love going to Mexican restaurants where…
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5 Ways to Beat the Excuse, “I Don’t Have Time to Exercise!”
This isn’t a lecture. I’m one of those people. I’ve used that excuse on myself and to complain to friends, family and coworkers. I’ve used it to justify my slow race times and the muscle tone (or lack thereof) in my arms. And I never feel good about it afterwards. Instead I feel resentful about all the other responsibilities taking up my time! “I don’t have time” really means that I don’t have the a) energy or b) equipment or c) preferred time of day available to exercise. I know energy is a MAJOR factor for me. I have claimed hundreds of times that my job doesn’t leave me time…
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Tropical Fruit Salad with Toasted Hazelnuts and Coconut
I literally woke up this morning in the middle of a dream about tropical fruit salad. It started with plantains (which did not make the cut in my real-life salad because they have no business there), but then it snowballed into mangoes and pineapples and toasted hazelnuts, and all sorts of things that I ended up REALLY wanting to eat. And thus, a goal for my day off was born! (Or at least a second goal that would compete for attention with my previously established goals of washing my sheets and taking the dog for a run. I think I can find time for all three… ) Why was I…
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To Run with Friends, Or Not to Run with Friends? That is the Question.
Running has given me the opportunity to meet and connect with people in meaningful and unexpected ways over the years. To share a love of running and an ability to cover miles during your conversation, those are things that bring people together. And I’m grateful for all the friendships I’ve had the chance to build and grow because of running. In college, I ran with friends who I lived with and those who I seldom saw otherwise. During a time in our lives when all we wanted to do was socialize, running allowed us to multi-task. Exercise while making our plans for the evening at the same time? Brilliant! In…
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Kale and Brussels Sprouts Salad with Hot Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
Occasionally it dawns on me that I haven’t eaten anything green in way too long, and I feel an urge to overcompensate. I think this is a familiar feeling for most people. My husband’s reaction is to open up the container of raw spinach and just start shoving handfuls into his mouth. “Taking his medicine,” I believe is how he describes it. Well, that makes it seem like a penance, and I love food too much to waste any of my lifetime meals on something I don’t want to eat. So I’m going to go the extra mile (when I can) and make a salad like this one. This is…
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Race Review: Lexington’s Run the Bluegrass Half Marathon 2017
Once again after a destination race weekend, I’m feeling inspired and excited to be a runner, and I’m itching to share my experience from Lexington, Kentucky’s Run the Bluegrass Half Marathon! After finishing our last half marathon (the Charleston Half Marathon) in January, we were all pumped up and ready to sign up for another. I browsed race calendars looking for the perfect race at the right time and in the right location. Lexington is just around the corner for us Ohioans, and it gave us a little over two months to continue our preparation, treating the Charleston race as just another training run. After checking out the race website…
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Butternut Squash and Feta Frittata
My husband is of the opinion that the egg is one of the noblest and most perfect foods known to man. “It has all the ingredients to make a complete chicken!” he says with astonishment and admiration every time someone questions him. As such, we eat an awful lot of eggs, and luckily, I happen to agree that eggs make pretty awesome food for runners and manage to be tasty at the same time. On top of all that, they’re fast and easy to cook in a hundred different ways. For someone with a full-time job who is too tired/lazy to cook dinner or pack creative lunches every day, I…
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My 2017 Training Goals
My competitive running history goes as follows: Full-on emotional immersion in 7th and 8th grade track and field. (Emotional involvement largely predicated on fear of failure and discomfort during a time in my life when a) it was extremely important to be well-liked and b) I was kind of wimpy.) 10th grade track season that I participated in for lack of anything better to do Participation in massive road races open to the general population with very little formal training program So here’s the thing. In 8th grade, I wasn’t terrible. I wasn’t amazing, but I was decent for an 8th grader. I showed promise. I probably didn’t work overly hard…
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Whole Wheat Date-Sweetened Belgian Waffles
Well, I don’t yet have a gourmet kitchen, but I fantasize about having one. And even though I can’t quite afford the Wolf range and the marble counte-tops that I drool over on Pinterest, I am doing what I can right now – stockpiling all the fun gadgets I’ll need to outfit this fantasy kitchen that I plan to have some day. So every birthday and every Christmas, I make a wishlist that includes cookbooks, appliances, and serveware that I plan to put to good use … someday. I have the tools to make whatever I want. Now I just need the time. This year, Santa brought one of my…
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Race Review: Asheville Half Marathon at The Biltmore
It seems an appropriate time to rehash a race we ran a year ago, The Asheville Half Marathon held entirely within the grounds of The Biltmore Estate. The race is held in mid-March each year, so this year’s race was held last weekend, and I was bummed not to be joining in! For that reason, I’m going to re-live my memories of the fun we had during our brief visit in 2016. Asheville is just close enough to Ohio to make this a driveable weekend getaway. Dan and I reached The Doubletree, the race headquarters hotel, in the late evening hours on Thursday night and stepped out of the car…
