Good bye, my Beloved

Dear my beloved Sanuks,
I just want you to know you will be dearly missed. We've been to so many places together; Tokyo, Hawaii, Finland, Germany.... I've enjoyed your company very much. But you have to understand why we must say farewell for now. You are falling apart, you are starting to smell old, and you can no longer support me. When I walk with you for more than 20 minutes, my knees and ankles start to hurt. My quads get tight. My legs get too tired for me to run. And you know how much I like to run. And I'm sorry, but I found someone to replace you. His name is Saucony. I can walk with him for hours. I hate to do this to ya, but I have to do what's right for me. But please remember you were always my favorite pair of flip flops!

Love, Julia

Thank goodness I swam yesterday, because my legs were HURTIN' from two days of walking around in flip flops. Lesson learned. WEAR SHOES. It's sad though, cause flip flops are kinda required footwear for CA summers. Oh well. I will sacrifice style for my running! :)

I had my first real swim yesterday, and boy! what a great workout that was! I haven't swam since freshman year of high school, and before that, I hadn't swam since 5th grade. In fact, I YouTubed Swimming Lesson so brush up on my technique! (thanks YouTube! You've got everything AND the kitchen sink!)
I swam for a solid 45 minutes, and since my body wasn't used to this new type of exercise, my heart rate was WAY up, and I was breathing pretty heavily. James led me through a couple of swim drills where I would swim two laps hard, easy for two laps, and repeat 5 times. I did that twice, and good golly that hurt! I'm still not used to being in the water, but I feel like I am improving already!

And being in the water, away from gravity, helped TREMENDOUSLY at taking some of the tightness and pain away from my legs. I'm excited to swim more for my cross-training days. I think it will help a lot with my noodle arms too! :) (Keeping my fingers crossed....)

As far as my eating is going... still a work in progress! As planned, I baked some banana bread, but I found a sugar free recipe, and it turned out wonderful! I used a new ingredient too; Coconut Oil. I heard somewhere that Coconut Oil is good for ya, so I am happy to report that I was able to enjoy some guilt-free baked goods! (and no, I didn't eat the whole thing!)

I would also like to share my new favorite lunch. It's So good!
I know it's an ugly photo, (except for the RW mag in the back! Oh yeah, quality lunch time reading!) but it sure is tasty! I roast some green and yellow zucchini with cumin, paprika, and garlic powder, and put that over brown rice. I also add some spinach, and some chicken/beef/pork that I also bake with cumin, paprika, and garlic powder. I microwave it all up at work, and pour salsa all over it. YUMMINESS. *The trick here is using the Gigantor tub of Kirkland brand salsa from Costco. * I've had this lunch everyday now this week, because it's good, cheap, and easy to make in Large quantities.

Well I have another short run planned for this evening. Oh and exciting news: I just signed up to run the Semana Nautica 15K on 7/4/09!!! The race is 55 years old, which is ancient in Central Coast race standards! I am sooooo excited to run this! This is the second longest distance I've ever run, so any training tips would be incredible appreciated. Thanks Bloggers!

My Positivity for the day;
1) I am grateful that its FRIDAY!!!!
2) I like to savor the feelings of comfort when I'm snuggling in bed
3) I am hopeful that it will be sunny tomorrow for the Summer Solstice Parade!