Friday (night) Things

This is a wee bit late in the day for Friday Things, but at least it's not late enough to call it Saturday things!  I was with a latte and my book during the time I usually write.  Every couple of weeks my husband works from home and on a few of those days he sends me off to Starbucks with my book during the kiddos quiet time, ahhhh. 

Thankfully his business trip didn't end up happening this week; although, I'm bummed about not getting down to Eugene!  At least I have an inside peek into what's going on down there with my VERY busy Twitter feed, in addition to the regular coverage on NBC Sports network.



One of my fav pics that I lifted from the Oiselle Twitter feed of the gals with Lauren Fleshman (on the right)

Lauren's 5000m race to qualify for the finals was one of my favorite trials moments. That and following the Oiselle teammates that are racing.

Moving on to fun random things... I haven't seen any great videos this week, but my brother shared this on Facebook the other day and just about died laughing.









Speaking of funny pictures, my Uglyracepics made it onto The Boring Runner's blog and I couldn't be more proud!  FYI, if you haven't already heard of Ugly Race Pics, it's totally voluntary and when Erica Sara put a request out to share our ugly, well I felt I had to oblige with my hideous picture.  You know, the one the photog takes in the last tenth of a mile when you're digging deep and gunning for the finish.  OK, I'll stop stalling.  I shared it on my first post, and here it is again:

What sucks even more about bad race pics is that it HARDLY looks like I'm gunning it and that my feet are barely leaving the ground. 

Happy weekend, go listen to some Daft Punk - here's an old fav that I love on long runs: Steam Machine.



Healthified Sweet Potato Bars

Summer camp is kind of a crazy thing.  I mean, this is the first time that I'm dropping my kid off for any length of time with a bunch of college aged kids.  At least I HOPE they're college aged at this point.  To me, anyone younger than 21 looks like they should be in high school...  I suppose when I was five, I was riding my big wheel down the street and my mom probably wasn't too worried about it.  Now I'm slightly freaked out about dropping my son off with people who have all of our emergency contact info, name, rank, and serial number.  Guess we're going to be signing up for more, as the week of camp is coming to an end and big brother wants to stay there all day.  Would that I could, big man.

To distract him from the overwhelming sadness of leaving sports camp today, I bribed him with making his favorite dessert after lunch. 

These sweet potato bars are adapted from Pink Parsley, another awesome foodie blog.  I did the Chobani substitution (that I use with my oatmeal cookies) of cutting the butter in half using their conversion chart, reduced the sugar, added a little flax and subbed in some whole wheat flour.  The kids love them, as do I - especially as a snack with my afternoon coffee.

Sweet Potato Bars

• 1 medium sweet potato
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 T Chobani plain or vanilla greek yogurt
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp ground ginger
• 1 cup whole wheat flour + 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup ground flax
• half of a 10.5 oz bag of mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Scrub the sweet potato and poke a few holes in the top with a fork. Bake 45 min to an hour, until it is cooked through and soft. Remove from oven, allow to cool until it is cool enough to handle, then peel and mash with a fork until smooth. Measure out 3/4 cup of the puree and set aside.

Decrease the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Line an 8x8 inch baking dish with foil, and spray with cooking spray.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, yogurt and sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed. Mix in the vanilla and the salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. With the mixer on low, slowly add the ground flax and flours, and mix until just incorporated. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the sweet potato puree.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 26-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Scatter the marshmallows over the top, being sure to cover the entire pan. Preheat the broiler, and broil the bars until the marshmallows are dark golden-brown. You may have to rotate the pan a few times depending on how evenly your broiler cooks. And watch it like a hawk; because as soon as the marshmallows start to brown, they can quickly burn and explode into the size of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.  I speak from experience...

One Word Wednesday

BuzzBuzzBuzzBuzzBuzz

Random Rambling from my Sick Bed

So, I'm sitting here with my feet up on the couch, and have been here since I stumbled downstairs after sleeping until 9am.  I'm hopped up on Excedrin, still have a horrible headache, am weak/achy and haven't been able to keep down anything but a banana smoothie, but, man...  Sometimes being sick isn't half bad!  I've got more reading and DVR'ing done today than I have in the last week! 

It got me to thinking about the other things that might not have been so appealing B.C. (before children) but I jump at the chance to do now.  In no particular order, here's some activities that I actually enjoy now (that I do on my own, of course):

• trips to the dentist or doctor
• going for an oil change
• grocery shopping
• getting a haircut (I've always enjoyed the results, not always making the time for it)
• RUNNING, of course, and going to the gym!

We'll see if I feel the same way about illness if I'm still stuck with it for another day...



I'll just have to schedule a 'sick day' due to wellness soon. 

This Week's Eats

Ugghhhh.  Some sort of bug has settled over our household: we've got headaches, are kinda nauseous and lethargic.  Mostly it's me and my husband, which is good because big brother starts summer sports camp tomorrow.  Yet it's bad because, damn, it's hard to parent from the couch...  We'll see how many of these meals get pushed back to next week.  You know it's bad when we're not even sure we feel like eating pizza for dinner.

Hopefully reading all the great Rock n' Roll Seattle recaps and reports from the Olympic trials in Eugene will perk me up...

• Monday - Pizza
• Tuesday - Chicken Ceasar Salads
• Wednesday - fish tacos (we get halibut from the freezer section of Trader Joes, along with all the fixins and I make this cilantro-lime cream sauce)
• Thursday - sweet and spicy bacon wrapped chicken and mashed potatoes (going to try this recipe a fellow Oiselle Teammate shared with me this week and I realized I'd seen it everywhere on Pinterest)
• Friday - Turkey Meatball Salad (mmmm, tested and highly approved Pinterest recipe!)
• Saturday - rigatoni with arrabiata sauce (one we make often, but here's a refresher: in a dutch oven, brown 1/2 pound hot italian turkey sausage with onion/garlic in olive oil, deglaze with some white wine once it's cooked and add 28oz can crushed tomatoes, 8 oz sauce and a 1/2 can of tomato paste - let it cook as long as you can stand waiting to eat)
• Sunday - chicken and corn chowder (another tested and approved Pinterst recipe)

Friday Things and Mother Runner Party!

SO cool to be invited to take part in the Mother Runner house party while Sarah Bowen Shea and Dimity McDowell were in Seattle for the Rock n' Roll Expo.  Not so cool?  Traffic from HELL.  Thankfully another mother runner that I know IRL (<-apparently that's the acronym all the cool kids use to denote 'in real life') reached out to me through my blog, professing her love for SBS and Dimity and thus I invited her to be my trusty navigator.  I HATE driving downtown Seattle.  Us Midwesterners are used to one big grid where all the streets go in a straight line and you can see your exit on the highway MILES ahead of time.  Not the case in the Pacific Northwest.  And, of course, it was the perfect storm of traffic hell: the 520 bridge was closed and there was a major accident on I5.  We were about a half an hour late, but still had about 20 minutes to say hello to a few people and drink some sangria.  I didn't get to inspect nearly as many name tags as I would have liked, so if I didn't get a chance to say hello to you, "HI!"

That'd be me on the right and my mother runner companion Lindsay

After the mingling, DImity and SBS interspersed hilarious readings from their new book (Train Like a Mother) with TONS of giveaways: Yurbuds, Champion bras, Altra shoes, Lucy gift certificates, Oakleys, body glide, Nuun!, and one lucky mommy won a Mountain Buggy stroller. 

I scored a Clean Bottle and the goodie bags were chock full of cool stuff: lots of coupons for the giveaways mentioned above, Nuun, Gu, Justin's Nut Butter, Hylands cough and cold remedies for the kiddos, Body Glide, Flex Power cream and I'm especially excited about the three pack of socks from Sofsole.  I tried them out today and LOVE them!  I hate how so many sock sizes are 5-9; seeing as how I wear a 9, socks are usually just a little too small or too big.  Sofsoles are size 5-10 and fit perfectly. WIN.

Good luck to all the lovely ladies who will be running tomorrow!  Don't stress about the rain, I'm sure it'll feel much better than being drenched in sweat while running during 80 degree heat.

Moving on, I have to share a video, because it's random Friday and I came across this TOTAL GEM on the Boring Runner's blog yesterday.  How cool is this???  I want to go to NYC and run with Ryan Hall...

Lastly, my song sharing selection for today is another older one, but has been getting a lot of air time on my XM stations lately.  If you haven't already checked out Deadmau5, you should.  Just like a lot of techno, trance, and hey, even classical music, the song doesn't really get goin' until about the 1:30 mark.  I happen to think that crescendos make for inspirational tunes.  Enjoy.

Fitfluential Ambassador!

To say that I'm interested in fitness is probably a bit of an understatement.  I've been active in some way as far back as I can remember.  At least as far back as age seven when I was competing at state meets in the 25 meter freestyle.  I continued swimming throughout my childhood and into high school (and I've certainly had great role models growing up). 

OMG.  just... OMG.  I think I was a Freshman in HS in this one..

Even though I didn't continue swimming in college, I always did some form of exercise.  I started running and doing step aerobics to keep the Freshman 15 at bay. (I even have a Reebok step in my house right now that sometimes sees the light of day, if I have a sick kid and can't make it out to the Y.)  I didn't exactly 'enjoy' running but it got results. After my second child turned one last year, I decided I needed to have a goal and get out of my comfort zone/rut of solely relying on bootcamp and a few 3 mile runs a week to stay motivated. So I trained for and ran the Seattle Half Marathon, and loved the whole experience.  I realized that the reason I didn't love running initially was because I was always running short distances and that I really enjoy myself after getting through the first two to three miles of any run (even in a 5K race).  Its become addictive to get into that zone. 

Running, and sports, has not only kept me healthy and sane (especially with two small kids), but it's opened so many doors for me and helped me to really put myself out there, meet new people and take a few chances.  I've really come to see that the more that I put into anything, the more I get out of it.  If I didn't take that chance on sending a heartfelt hello to the ladies at Oiselle, I certainly wouldn't be writing this blog or this post about being accepted as a Fitfluential Ambassador!  I'm so grateful and excited about the opportunities that have come my way along this running/fitness journey. 

FitFluential is a network of fitness minded folks who share their experiences and journeys through social media (blogs, Facebook and Twitter). As an Ambassador, I'll have the chance to partner with brands that fit well with me and my blog, while giving me the opportunity to develop my writing (especially on the topics of fitness, food and health). 

So thank you Oiselle, thank you new running friends, and thank you Fitfluential.  I look forward to sharing the love!