Saturday Snippets – Laps On Hold, Meeting at the Barre, and Fall Foods

September is my most favorite month of the year because it happens to be my BIRTHDAY MONTH!  Back in the day, I used to celebrate the week of my birthday until my dear friend, Mary Ann, told me that a week wasn’t enough time to celebrate.  Together, we have been celebrating this fine birthday month tradition for over ten years.  

Not only is September my birthday month, but it also marks the arrival of many things fall.  My favorite fall traditions are pretty much summed up by this 25 Things All Basic White Girls Do During the Fall.  I think this list is hysterical, especially since it encompasses many of my girlfriends as well.  Do you relate to this list?

 

The other thing that I love about Fall is that it opens up a whole new season for racing.  I had big plans to race the California International Marathon and had dates circled on my calendar to sign up for the Boston Marathon.  Now, I have dates penned on the calendar for things like, “Dr. Appt – get new cast” and “return scooter.”  If you recall from my SeaWheeze Half Marathon recap, I showed off my sprained ankle.  Turns out, that sprained ankle was really a broken fibula requiring 7 screws and one plate to correct.  I’ve been pretty quiet on social media about this incident.  My biggest reason was that I needed time to process this whole incident myself.

For as long as I can remember, running has defined a big part of my existence and the feelings I get from pulling my hair up (if you can run with your hair down… please explain) and hitting the pavement or trails is pure pleasure.  These runs are also a time to connect with girlfriends and to push myself just a little bit further than I thought possible.  It’s true… running is good for the soul.  I knew if I posted about the extent of my injury that I would get a lot of wonderful messages from family and friends.  These messages would surely bring comfort, but they would also bring a big reminder that I wouldn’t be running any time soon.  Now that I have made it through surgery, I have put things into perspective.  It will be at least two months before I can even contemplate putting on my running shoes… and I likely will only be pounding out some strides in physical therapy.  Here’s the rundown from the doctor:

• Surgery on 9/4 
• Check hardware and put on cast 9/17
• Plaster cast no weight bearing 4 weeks
• Get walking cast and start PT – 2 weeks plus
• 6-7 months after the above – hardware removal (another 2-4 weeks rehab)

What’s a girl to do?  The good news is that I’m not completely broken so I can start to work on some of those goals I’ve had tucked in the back of my brain.  For a while, I’ve thought about building more muscle like you would see in the bikini fitness models.  Does this mean I’m entering a contest… who knows, but what fun to see how I can get my body to change by trying out some new weight lifting workouts.  I also hope to get on my bicycle.  Really, I have the best cycling coach around sharing my bed each night so I should tune into what he has to say.  Look… I even have the bike ready to go!

This will also mark a time to study up on my barre training.  What better way to strengthen and fine tune those small, yet powerful, stabilizing muscles?  New to barre… check out The Barre Studio, which is opening late September.  I’m not only excited to teach at this beautiful studio, but I’m really looking forward to participating in the shake and burn with a whole new set of friends.

I’m not going to deny that I will struggle putting my laps on hold, but I look forward to doing more lunges (well… lifting anyway) and since I’m not going to be able to wear jeans for a bit… my leather shorts will find themselves in the fashion rotation a lot, lot more.  

Now that I’m not burning a ton of calories through fitness activities, I’m going to have to really look at the cleanliness of my diet.  Fortunately, with fall fruits and vegetables in abundance, I shouldn’t have much trouble at all.  To start, I’ve been loving this Asian Pear and Arugula Salad.  It’s easy and fast to prepare.  For a source of protein, I’ve added some smoked salmon to my salad.  

Photo courtesy of Food and Wine website

And while sweets are not going to happen much in my diet, I do love this cupcake and enjoy making it during the fall (which ties in nicely to the “all things pumpkin” as mentioned in the 25 things above).  Seriously…. what’s not to love when the words brown butter, pumpkin and salted caramel are in the title????  Also, don’t let the salted caramel sauce scare you away.  Making homemade caramel sauce is actually pretty darn easy.   Seriously… don’t wait, make these Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting soon.  Your friends will think you are a super talented baker extraordinaire! 

Is it wrong to want to eat the screen? Photo courtesy of google search.

As always, hoping your Saturday is full of joy and the chance to do something extraordinary! Enjoy!

Saturday Snippets

Each week, I read a bit, surf the web, chat with friends and make to-do lists that sometimes get accomplished, and sometimes don’t.  One of the many reasons that I started this blog was to give myself that little bit of motivation to actually do some of the things that I discover through the week.  So, I’m sharing some of my findings each week with you.  Here are my discoveries this week:

I’m a teacher and the Back-to-School advertisements, shelves, and chatter is coming full force this time of year.  After doing this gig for 17 years, I still love the first days of school.  When I was little, I loved going shopping for supplies and new clothes with my siblings and mother.  Still to this day, I can’t escape the aisles without throwing some supplies into my cart, but even more exciting, is that I still purchase myself a new outfit for the first day of school.  So… when these came in the mail the last week…. I couldn’t help but get excited for the new school year.

The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale always comes at the perfect time, and J.Crew has preppy teacher written all over it.

This week also happens to be a big week of racing in my neighborhood.  Some of my friends are heading to San Francisco for the San Francisco Marathon.  In particular, I’ve been watching in awe as my most steady running partner has started to own the road.  She has become a beast on the hills and is busting out quick miles while looking like running is her job.  I’m not going to divulge too much, because as a runner myself, I know how much having outside pressures or the feeling of letting someone down can jack with your mind, but I feel with all my heart that she is going to KILL IT!  The rest of my neighborhood, and lots of visitors, will be running the Wharf to Wharf here in Santa Cruz.  This is a HUGE race giving back a lot of dough to our local schools.  I’m excited to join my teammates and friends on the course this year.  Look for a follow-up post on the race shortly.  In the meantime, I stumbled upon this quote from i<3torun’s Facebook page and found it fitting for the weekend’s events.  

Finally, my hubby and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary this week.  We have plans to go to a Giants day game followed by a delicious dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.  You might say… Giants game… for an anniversary???  Don’t judge… we love our Giants (and I love Timmy a ton) and if you haven’t had the garlic fries then you simply can’t understand.  Yum!  Because I can’t eat garlic fries AND the whole anniversary cake (each year I have The Buttery recreate the top of our wedding cake), I have decided to have Juliette and Dietmar (special friends that also played a HUGE roll in our top secret wedding plans) come share the cake with us.  I’ve been dying to make this Honey Chipotle Chicken Bowl with Lime Quinoa recipe that I found on the blog How Sweet It Is.  I may need to make a few changes to accommodate some dietary needs, but I can already smell the deliciousness of this dish.  

Hoping your Saturday is full of joy and the chance to do something extraordinary!  Enjoy!