Finding Joy in Running
The inspiration for my blog this morning came from a text that I got from my girlfriend that says, “How does one find any joys in running?!” Thinking about why I find joy in running I realized that the reason I love to run is because I find joy in seeing how far I have come since I first started running. Even if I look back to the more return to running. I can see how much I have improved and it makes me happy. Generally I find joy in running because typically my very first challenge of the day is waking up and going for a run. If I am able to get my butt out of bed and run, then I know that I will be able to face whatever challenges come my way throughout the day because I have all ready conquered one. I do have one confession to make. I am excited that my girlfriend has decided to give running another chance. I have always hoped that we could be running partners someday. =) Well this is all I have for this week. Guess it will be a short and sweet post. Have a great week all.
Feeling Awesome
I have officially been off of soda, more specifically Coke and Dr. Pepper for two weeks. Now that the headaches and un-rational thoughts about how I can get my hands on one at 2am have subsided, I can say that I feel AWESOME! I went for a run thing morning and I felt strong and actually enjoyed the myself. I can’t say that I am going to swear off Coke or Dr. Pepper forever. I don’t know if that is an achievable goal. But I am going to stick to it and see how long I can last. Now that I have done two weeks I am shooting for a month.
I am leaving for Moab tomorrow afternoon for my relay race. This week I feel much stronger and am more excited than for the race. I am still not in the shape I would like to be for it, but I feel like I can compete. I am going to try to twitter the crap out of the race. So follow my tweets http://twitter.com/beaushakespear. Have a great week.
“If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” (this seems appropriate for me for the last couple of weeks)
My Own Worst Nemesis
I am not really sure what I want to write about today. I will be going running at the gym ( yes that means treadmill) when I get off of work tonight. But I have accepted the fact that winter has finally come to Southern Utah and I better get use to doing some treadmill running.
I have my first race of the year/first race since my half marathon coming up on Saturday. It is only a 5k, but I am still a little nervous for it. I guess nervous really isn’t the right emotion. Maybe a combination of nervous/embarrassment. I know that it is stupid for me to feel like that, but I hate knowing where I was at in my running two years ago and a 5k was a distance I warmed up with not a goal. That being said I am excited to be back into running and I hope to finish in 30 minutes or less.
One issue that I have been experiencing lately is with my running nemesis. Not the one I wrote about earlier this year. This nemesis is pure evil. He breads doubt and weakness into my every run. It is easy to compete against other people. I can handle that. It is hard competing against someone who knows my weaknesses and uses them against me. My true nemeses is myself. I compete against myself almost every single day. I know how fast I was able to run races in the past. I am always thinking about how easy running four mile use to be or how my 5k time was closer to the 20 minute mark instead of the 30 minute mark. Sometimes it is hard, but I just have to forget my past accomplishments and focus of where I am right now. I feel 100% better physically than I did a month ago and for that I am grateful. I look forward to getting stronger and faster until I can beat crush my old times and my nemesis in the process. I don’t know if I will ever stop competing with my past times, but I think that until I get some races under my belt and create some new times I will continue to compete with my own too personal nemesis. (Zombie Beau=the past Beau I compete with)
I want to do a quick shout out to The Marathon Training Academy http://marathontrainingacademy.com/. I am using their training plan to train for my marathon and it rocks. I also listen to their podcast every week, and download a past podcast to listen to during my long runs on Saturdays. If any of you are interested in training for marathons or half marathons I highly recommend giving these guys a listen they are great and I have learned some really good tips that have helped me with my training this time around.
HELP!
After changing my blogging method and schedule so much I have decided that I am going to go back to posting the way I did when I first started. I will once again be blogging three times a week. I will blog on the days that I run. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. I have been looking at my stats and noticed that they have severely gone down since I have moved away from consistent blogging. One of the main reasons I started this blog was so I could help others who are also training for a marathon and trying to live a healthier lifestyle. I am back on track and excited to share my experiences.
OK now that I am back I NEED YOUR HELP! I cannot wake up in the mornings.When my alarm goes off I wake up and am not really tired, but it is so cold outside that I do not want to get out of my warm bed. Running in the evenings is not really an option for me because by the time I get off of work it is dark outside. What are some things you guys do for motivation in the mornings? 
New Beginnings and Turkey Burritos
There are two things that sure can ruin a good routine. The first is a knee problems, and the second is vacation. I am happy to report that both my knee problem and vacation are over so I will be getting back into the swing of things tomorrow. I have taken about two weeks off from running. I have been going to the gym and riding the stationary bike or doing the elliptical so I have been getting some cardio in. I have been paying special attention to my knee over the last two weeks and I have come to the conclusion that I may have been over doing it with the training program that I was following. I feel like it was probably a little too intense for what I am currently able to handle. But after doing some research I found a program that seems really good. For the past month or so I have been listening to a podcast called marathon training academy. The podcast talks about all training aspects of training for a marathon. The plan that I am going to use is on the website of the Marathon Training Academy. If you listen to podcasts I would recommend looking into their podcast. Their website is also awesome so check it out.
Click to access Beginner%20Marathon%20Training%20Plan.pdf
Since I have not been running for the past couple weeks I don’t really have much running news to write about. So guess what you get another recipe today. I love to cook and especially cooking healthy. I found a recipe for turkey burritos that is the bomb.com.
Gary’s Turkey Burritos
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground turkey
- 2 (7 ounce) cans hot tomato sauce
- 1 (15.25 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
- 1/2 small onion, diced
- 1 (16 ounce) can fat-free refried beans
- 1 (16 ounce) container fat free sour cream
- 3/4 cup shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese
- 6 (10 inch) flour tortillas
Directions
- In a large skillet over medium high heat, brown ground turkey. Stir in tomato sauce, corn and onion. Reduce heat to medium and let simmer, stirring occasionally, until liquids reduce (about 20 minutes).
- In a separate medium skillet, heat beans over medium-low heat. Prepare sour cream and cheese for sprinkling into burritos. One by one, heat tortillas over stove burner for 1 to 2 minutes, flipping a few times. Top with beans, then meat mixture, then sour cream and cheese. Fold over and serve while still warm.
Thanks for reading everyone. I promise my posts will get more running oriented once i get back into it.
Long Time no Blog
Long time no blog. I am sorry that it has taken me so long to write another post. Trust me I have been wanting to all week I have just not had the time. But I finally have gotten done everything that I needed to since I we got back from Disneyland on Sunday. Disneyland was great. I really do love going to Disneyland. I really think that I could go there every single day and never get tired of it.
Moving on to other news… Today my blog will officially be one month old. Awesome right! Right now I have gotten around 380 views. I think it would be awesome if by midnight tonight it had 500 views. This is a little ambitious considering that my biggest day received 51 views. So this is where you all come in. I need you to post my blog (cbeaurun.wordpress.com) on your facebook pages, twitter, email, send a link to people who you know are interested in running, or whatever you can use to get people to visit my page.
Enough of that lets talk about running! Ever since daylight savings time I have had a hard time getting out and running. It has been dark by 5:30 at night and I don’t get off work until 5:00. I think am going to start running at the high school track near my house. I have not been very good at running the past few weeks. So I will start again on Monday. I was blog surfing the other day and came across a blog that had a link to a really cool website that creates running/exercise music that is all upbeat. Basically you can download individual songs or play lists that have been created. I haven’t had a chance to really look into it a lot but the samples I listened to were good. I’m not sure on the cost, but it seems like everything is free unless there is a fee to sign up. I plan on looking into more when I have time. Here is the linkhttp://www.rockmyrun.com/. Check it out.
Last week I made an awesome easy and healthy dinner that I want to share with everyone. I found it on the Biggest Loser website. It’s called Taste of the Islands Turkey Salad. It was a fresh, tasty, and filling salad. I added almond slivers and grilled pineapple and it was delish. I think that adding the grilled pineapple made a huge difference taste wise and went really well with the pomegranate vinaigrette. I will be making this again, but i will probably wait until summer when I can get everything fresh. Check out the Biggest Loser website for this and other healthy recipes. 
http://www.nbc.com/the-biggest-loser/exclusives/nutrition/healthy-eating/taste-of-the-islands-turkey-salad/
Sorry my blogging has been off this week. I will be back on schedule next week with some great posts. Thanks everyone for reading and please remember to get this out to your friends. It would be sweet to hit 500 views by midnight. Thanks.
French Fries are the Devil
I love french fries! Maybe too much. I love them so much that it determines what I order when I go out to eat at a restaurant. If it doesn’t come with fries I don’t get it. I must be a product of McDonald’s “do you want fries with that” campaign. I love french fries. That being said french fries are among the very foods that I have outlawed during my training. Along with Coke (tear,tear), candy, all deserts, pizza, and fried food. Looking at this list of outlawed food one may wonder what the big deal is. People don’t eat these foods everyday anyway. Correction I consume at least one of the “outlawed” foods daily. Let me explain. I was am a recovering Coke drinker, and I like to eat out which means…FRENCH FRIES!!
Anyways this post on my eating habits was inspired by the fantastic runs up the canyon I have done so far this week. I had so much energy and not running with that ” I just ate way to much fast food” feeling in my stomach has made a huge difference. I never realized how much good nutritious food can literally fuel your body.
Thus bringing me to the point of this post. Nutrition Wednesday’s! Every Wednesday I am going to be posting a nutritional tip I have learned during the past week. Today tip is a meal replacement I found for a burger and fries. I love this turkey burger. It’s no bacon cheese burger but it is full of flavor, easy to make and healthy. Hope you like it.
Mediterranean Style Turkey Burger
What you’ll need.
- 1lb lean ground turkey (I just go for the pre-made frozen turkey patties)
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 1/2 cup feta
- 2 cups arugula
- package english muffins(I like wheat)
- 1/2 roasted red peppers (I put the peppers in the pie pan with a little water and cook them at 400 until they get a little black on the edges).
- 1/4 cup olives, chopped
Season patties with salt, pepper, dried thyme, and cook. Place burger on toasted muffin and top with arugula, peppers, olives and feta. Then enjoy!
This for a serving of four burgers. But I made it go further because I roast the whole pepper (who want half a pepper just chillin in the fridge), and i got the whole can of olives. Since I use the pre-made patties I just keep making burger until I run out of toppings.
Sweet Potato Fries
There are two routes to sweet potato fries. You can buy them in the frozen food section of the grocery store or you can buy a fresh sweet potato and cut it into french fry size slices. Then bake in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes or until crispy.
There you have it. The burger and fries replacement. I didn’t come up with this ideas or recipes on my own. I have a great book called “COOK THIS NOT THAT”. It has tons of healthy alternatives to your favorite foods.
A Balanced Life 