half marathon training: week 2

Highlights from my trip to California:

Mini bundt cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes in Sunnyvale. So cute! (Thank you Christine!)

Backyard tomato harvesting (I am so good at it!)

Remember Philz? I blogged about it here back in February. There are two locations in Palo Alto. Still the best coffee I've ever had.

A long run through downtown Saratoga

Speaking of runs, I completed Week 1 of training! You can check my progress by clicking on the "half marathon training plan" tab at the top of the page or here. 

Week 1 went great. I completed all 5 scheduled runs and felt a lot stronger by the end of the week. Honestly, I think sucking so much at Falmouth was a real wake up call for me. I have to train for long races and stick with my training plan. I can't just show up the day of the race and expect things to go well.

This past Friday, I went on a 5.2 mile long run, which turned out to be really interesting. The first mile is normally fairly easy for me. Its between miles 1 and 3 where I really struggle - I get tired, I get out of breath, I get thirsty, and all I want to to do is walk. Friday was no different. However, after 3 miles, running suddenly became easy again. So strange. I was originally only going to do 4 miles, but I was having so much fun that I tacked on an extra one! Hurray! I hope it's like this every time.

Now moving on to Week 2...

Half Marathon Training Plan: Week 2 (Aug 27 - Sept 2)

Monday (8/27): rest day!

Tuesday: 30 min easy run

Wednesday: rest day!

Thursday: On a hilly course, run at low intensity for 30 mins

Friday: rest day!

Saturday: 1 hr 15 min run. End with 4x100m strides (long run)

Sunday: 20 min easy run or cross train

when your coffee tastes like poison, you should...

probably clean it.

So, I've had this little, cheap Mr. Coffee for at least 4 years now. I've never cleaned it (gross, i know). Well my coffee was taking progressively worse. Eventually it started to taste like poison OR death causing chemicals.

Well, apparently you are supposed to clean your coffee maker once a month (who knew) to get rid of the coffee bean oils. Here's all you gotta do:

How to clean your coffee maker
Make a mixture of 1 part water to 1 part vinegar. (I only had apple cider vinegar, so I used that...and it turned out fine!). Since I have a 4 cup coffee maker, I used 1 1/2 cups of water and 1 1/2 cups of cider vinegar.

Put a coffee filter in the machine, just like normal.

Pour the vinegar mixture where you normally pour the water. (I have a fun story about this. See below...)

Turn on the coffee maker, press brew, and let the mixture run completely through.

Throw out the filter and the brewed mixture.

Repeat 2 times with plain cold water.

Clean as a whistle.

A fun story about my coffee maker (as promised)
As most of you know, I worked at Starbucks for quite a long time. And as most of you know, Starbucks sells coffee. By now you should have deduced that while at Starbucks, I made coffee...a lot of it. You would think I would be quite good at it. I thought I was quite good at it.

Unfortunately, the first time I made coffee in my Mr. Coffee, I put my filter in, put my grinds in and pressed brew After a few seconds, the coffee maker started to make this weird, chemical, burning smell! I failed to add water!

At Starbucks, we don't have to add water when we brew coffee. The coffee brewers are hooked up to the water, so it automatically dispenses...which means, I didn't know I had to add water to my own machine! Oops...

living and eating in the library

I've been living in the Northeastern law library lately. With exams just around the corner, it's become my new home. While I am here, I also apparently only like to eat junk food. Which is why I've made a list of all the crap I've eaten in here today. I've been here for 12 hours and counting. So go ahead, be my guest and judge me.

Medium coconut iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts with cream and sugar. For those of you who know me, you know that: (1) I only drink iced coffee when it is hot out and it's too hot for me to stomach an iced coffee. Today's temp when I got it: probably around 50 degrees; and (2) I don't drink my coffees with sugar. These are clear signs that I am losing it!

Half a bag of peanut butter m&ms. On Friday when I was here, I ate the other half of the bag as my "dinner." Please note that this was my pre-10k race dinner

A couple of salt and vinegar flip chips. My friend Jo got these for free somewhere in Harvard Square. I think they are supposed to be "healthy" for you, but I'd rather eat lays.

A reeses peanut butter cup in the shape of a beautiful holiday bell. I think these were leftover Christmas candies from at least a few years ago.

A Trader Joes frozen meal. I think there was chicken and barley and risotto in it? I also added some frozen veggies to this.

Medium hot coffee from ABP. Please note, when I went to get my coffee, I also intended to get some chicken fingers from Wollastons as a snack, but they were sold out! Now I have a huge craving for chicken fingers...

White cheddar cheez-its.

Whole wheat pasta with canned tomato soup. I may have also dumped some more frozen veggies in this. Apparently I can't be bothered to eat real vegetables these days.

Half a piece of salmon. Possibly the only nutritious thing I ate all day.

this basically sums up my life these days

totally screwed + race goals? + sangria

I'm running the Attleboro 10k on Saturday (aka tomorrow) and I'm totally screwed. I'm not feeling confident about this at all, seeing as I can't run the whole 6.2 miles. This past week I tried to run/walk 7 miles on the treadmill and by the end of it, my body hated me and I passed out in bed at 7:00pm (when I should have been up late outlining).

I probably should have trained more, but life (aka school) got in the way.

There's a 5k on the same day. I went back and forth about whether to register for the 5k or 10k, but ultimately I decided that I need to start running further distances and there's no better time to start than tomorrow.

10k race goals: (I am not sure I even have any, other than trying not to die)

1. FINISH

2. Run at least the first 5k, and then alternate between running and walking

3. I am too scared to put a time down. 

My friend, Ashley, who lives in Attleboro, is having a BBQ at her house post-race and on the menu is sangria! I know everyone has their own recipe, but here's the recipe she's going to use:

Sangria
Ingredients:
1 bottle of red wine (cabernet sauvignon, merlot, rioja, zinfandel, shiraz)
1 lemon, cut in wedges
1 orange, cut in wedges
1 lime, cut in wedges
2 tablespoons sugar
splash of orange juice or lemonade
2 shots of gin or triple sec
1 cup of raspberries or strawberries
1 small can of diced pineapples, with juice
4 cups ginger ale

Directions:
Pour wine into a large pitcher and squeeze the juice wedges from the lemon, orange, and lime into the wine. Toss in the fruit wedges (leaving out seeds if possible) and pineapple. Then add sugar, orange juice, and gin.

Chill overnight. The next day, add ginger ale, berries, and ice just before serving.

In other news, May is a big race month for me. In addition to the 10k tomorrow, I'm also running:
Sunday, May 20th - Harpoon 5 miler
Sunday, May 27th - Run to Remember 5 miler

I also have finals the week of May 14th-18th. Needless to say, it's going to be a crazy, busy month!

philzZz coffee

As some (or maybe most) of you know, I worked for Starbucks for quite some time, which means my favorite kind of coffee is free coffee! During training, they used to make us sniff coffee and taste this and that and try to differentiate the dark roasts from the light roasts etc. I never really quite figured it out. They all seemed the same to me. I did, however, think that Gold Coast (aka GoCo) smelled like tequila, but I may have been hungover at the time and just smelling the tequila emanating from my pores. As you can see, I'm not picky when it comes to coffee. If it's coffee, I'll drink it! In fact, I swear the best tasting coffee I ever had was from a Burger King at a rest stop on the Maine Turnpike. Then again, I may have been delirious from lack of sleep and it may have been 3am.

All that being said, I just paid $3.50 for a 16oz coffee, and it is for sure the BEST COFFEE I have ever had. And its most definitely worth the money I paid for it. Sorry Burger King, you've been de-throned by Philz!

Philz Coffee is a small Bay Area chain that originated in the Mission District in San Francisco. And apparently there's a real guy named Phil! I've been frequenting the SoMa location, which is right around the corner from the Caltrain.

So far I've tried the following blends: Tesora, Ambrosia Coffee of God, and Philtered Soul. Philtered Soul is my favorite so far, but I plan on trying a few more blends before I leave San Francisco. Now why is the coffee so good? I can't describe it. It's complex. It's like each sip has several layers with different flavors -  something i've never experienced when it comes to coffee. Each cup is individually ground and brewed (or should I say hand poured because they don't use coffee machines!).

They have beans too! I may have to bring some back to Boston with me.

Philz Coffee: I love you. I'm going to miss you when I leave San Francisco.