Weeeeeeeeeeee!

Is EXACTLY how I felt yesterday afternoon. I'll get to that in a second.

Originally I had my heart set on waking up at 8-ish, going down to the fitness center and getting in a good 3-4 mile run on a treadmill and possibly snag a banana from the lobby. The promise of treadmills with TVs excited me greatly, because then I'd be able to watch the USA-Slovenia World Cup match that kicked off at 8:30 a.m. Instead, the moment my alarm sounded, I hit snooze and rolled around until 9:20 a.m.

Bothered by a severely scratchy throat and throbbing sinus ducts that left the edges of my world feeling fuzzy, I made myself stumble to the bathroom and took a good 35-minute relaxing bath. After drying off and changing I found J.D. glued to the TV around 10ish. He was watching the Weather Channel of all things.

This is where my life collides with George Orwell's novel, 1984. All of a sudden a metallic voice starts ringing in my head. At first I believed it to be conflicting feeds on the channel. But then he turned down the volume and I realized the crackly voice was coming out of a speaker near the bathroom. A la Big Brother.

"Ladies and gentleman, may I have your attention....." he drifted off. I looked at J.D. in horror, noticing the storm from the previous night had continued into the morning.

"The city of Des Moines is on a tornado warning," the voice continued. "If you are a guest in the room, please close all your drapes and move towards the bathroom area, away from the window."

Then I really started freaking out. A tornado?!?!??!?!?!?! I've never been in one before and I don't really plan to. Luckily, none of J.D.'s go-to weather stations showed any signs of tornado watches. In fact, they all just said we were in severe thunderstorms. Which, I guess is ok considering the alternative. Although the announcement chimed three times during the duration of the storm, we were stuck in our tiny room on the 21st floor for nearly an hour and a half. So, while I sat on the bed and read/got ready for the day, J.D. showered as normal and we finally were free at 11:45ish. Finally, we were able to go out for breakfast.

I'll limit my commentary here, because it seems like everyone has an opinion. But I was able to watch a bit of the World Cup during this lockdown period. I was about to give up as we trailed 2-0. And then you know the rest. We did lose power on the TV stations for a while, but I got to see our second and third goals...... And well, let's just say I could hear people in every room around us shrieking about the call. Over the howling 70 mph winds. Again, no exaggeration, weather reports said wind speeds were between 70-75 mph. Yikes!

Eventually we made our way back to Drake's campus area for the day, looking for indoor activities while the rain finally trailed off and the temperature climbed back to 80. I wasn't feeling much breakfast because I started to get pretty sick. I enjoyed an English muffin egg sandwich and a big ol' cup of mint tea.

The mint tea felt soothing on my sore throat. But I wanted to get some actual cold medicine, instead of the bags of Halls I had been consuming. So we stopped at Wal-Mart and picked up a bunch of supplies. And that's when I found this beauty:

After downing a shot, my throat felt great. But I felt like a chump, because even though this is non-drowsy day-time medicine, I was out like a light. Right before dozing off, I got a little loopy feeling. Not like the last time I tried Tylenol PM though, I was all "weeeeeeeee" for about 20 minutes before passing out cold. It's the closest I'm going to get to drug use. Anyways, my "adventure" took place during the middle of J.D.'s tour of Des Moines. So while he got to drive around and relive old sites from his college days, I was drooling on the passenger seat. Classy.

About 30 minutes later I woke up and asked for ice cream. He's been bragging about a malt shop for this entire trip and I was ready to try it! Cut me some slack, my throat hurt and ice cream sounded DELIGHTFUL.

We ended up splitting a peanut butter cup arctic blast -- one of the few things I could stomach all day! After devouring the ice cream, I desperately needed a nap. So we went back to the hotel where I dozed off for a good two hours while J.D. did some work. Upon my awakening he told me of another awesome place we were going. I felt refreshed and less ill and ready to roll.

Except that it started raining again. Which made our next stop the perfect place: a half-price used book store that was the size of a library!! If you know me and know that I was a lit major and opted to read books instead of going out often, you'd know this was right up my alley. I was good and only made off with two selections for about $5 each -- a history of famous Parisiennes: Marie Antoinette, Edith Wharton and Coco Chanel, and also a historical novel about French presence in the colonization of Latin America. I say historical novel because it's more like a story than cut-and-dry history. I'm a geek, it's ok. I've accepted it.

When the storm died down, we went back to the hotel to pack up and then walked over to the Iowa Cubs stadium for baseball game No. 2 of the trip. This one was of the minor league variety. And let me tell you, it looked like amateur baseball. Which is pretty bad. For dinner I kept it light with a small pulled pork sandwich.

Then walked around the stadium and watched a few innings of baseball.

After the game, I felt horrendous from all the crap we've been eating this week. Nothing a three-mile run couldn't fix. Even though I worked out in the air conditioned gym, the humidity still got to me like whoa. But it was necessary and I felt good despite the minor sickness.

We promptly went to sleep -- after watching Jimmy Fallon's late show -- and hit the road at 7:30 this morning en route to Omaha, Nebraska. Currently I'm sitting in the pressbox at Rosenblatt Stadium for the FINAL season it hosts the College World Series. Next year it's moving downtown. This is going to be an AWESOME experience. I've already rubbed elbows with Nomar Garciaparra. So stoked. I love baseball.

What's your favorite sporting event to watch?? Clearly, you know mine. During this week trip, we will have seen 10 baseball games. I'm at 2.5 right now.

Have a good one people!

That's weird, their flag's just like the French flag

Wow, blonde moment of the YEAR. Strolling downtown Des Moines, I grew very excited when I thought I had spotted the French flag adorning some random building.

"Oh look, it's the French flag!" I proclaimed, "Oh wait, not it's not. It's the French flag with something on it."

"That's the flag of Iowa," J.D. informed me. "This was a French colony."

"Oh yeah, Des Moines.... is French," I realized.

Wow, I suck at life. I also suck at being French. Either way, I wish there were more French attributes in this city, you know, like New Orleans, but not.

Anyways, it's late so I'll leave you with my meals today. I feel totally lethargic and out of it due to the insane heat/humidity. I don't understand how people workout here. But I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning. I plan on waking up early and going to the gym on the third floor of our hotel. Also, I came to the conclusion that I'd be both a drunk and broke if I lived in the Midwest. Hear me out a.) I keep wanting cold, alcoholic drinks at all hours of the day here and b.) or I just want to go into an air conditioned building, like a mall. Being a woman, we all know I can't go inside a store without spending money.

Right, so back to the food.... shut up, Monique, right?? :)

BREAKFAST

Whole Foods breakfast (for two, sorta)

LUNCH (at Drake Diner)

Tuna melt, only ate half

Vegetable cheese cup 'o' soup, my throat's getting worse so I wanted some soup

DINNER (Centro Italian bistro)

Pomegranate berry sangria

Gorgonzola pecan balsamic salad

Garlic Margherita pizza

And since I've been so hot and trying to hydrate, I keep having to go in public places hahaha. We ran to a close coffee shop -- ironic, right? -- and while J.D. became a paying customer, I used the facility. He got us a fresh-squeezed lemonade with hardly any sugar at all. It was amazing! The coffee house was actually a small, organic and vegetarian shop which definitely looks like a place I'd like to stop for lunch tomorrow. So not a bad find and use of $1.75, right?

Fresh-squeezed lemonade, yummy!

Curious about that background? Well, we had a fun time scoping out the art district downtown and also J.D.'s alma mater, Drake University. I'll leave you with some pretty bizarre photos, starting with me.

"Running" in front of Drake's football stadium

Creepy statue in the arts park

The Thinker or the.... creeper??

Alphabet Man

I'm going to wrap this up since we're on the 21st floor and there's a TON of lightning and hail. HAIL?!?!?! So while I scare you with creepy photos, I'll leave you with something pretty: the background of that lemonade picture. I, on the other hand, am about to dive under the covers and hide.

Question: Does extreme weather scare you?? What kind??? I'm totally ok with living through yearly earthquakes, but tornadoes, thunderstorms and hurricanes scare the living crap out of me.

That escalated rather quickly

....the weather, that is. (Kudos if you catch the movie reference)

First off, sorry I'm not really reading any of your blogs!! I've literally been at a computer 10 minutes today. And honestly, I'm not trying to check it any more than that. Oh yeah and today was probably one of the worst days of eating in my life. J.D. and I both took a look at ourselves and decided we'd gained weight, bleh. I'm thinking about running tomorrow night, it's been over four days since I last ran!!! And instead of going out, we're hoping to stop at Whole Foods for breakfast on the way to Des Moines.

This morning started on kind of a sour note since I woke up after a horrendous dream about planes crashing. Ew. For as much as I fly, you'd think I wouldn't be so freaked out about crashing. But I am, kind of. Then when I hopped in the shower, I realized I'm in the early stages of a sore throat. Even coughing up gross things with blood, grossss. So for breakfast I wanted something cold and with milk.

Enter Scooter's Coffee, where I picked up a nonfat iced chai tea. J.D. and I split a cranberry orange scone and he talked me into an unripe banana, which despite looking green, tasted pretty ripe!

Since the coffee shop is located in the nice outdoor mall I talked about yesterday, we walked around taking pictures and buying father's day gifts clothes for ourselves.

Honestly, this is NOT what I expected from Kansas City. I don't think I had many expectations for the Midwest -- no offense if you live out here!! -- and that was a good outlook to have entering this trip. Reflecting back on my last night here in KC, I can say I had a great time!

But there were parts of the city I'm content with having only seen once. Which is ok, because how else would we scarf down authentic KC BBQ if we weren't in a sketchy area?? Being in KC and all, we vowed to grab some barbecue for lunch today. At Gates BBQ we split the mixed plate that included roast beef, ham, ribs, fries, toast, pickles and baked beans for $15.

And definitely couldn't even finish half of the plate. J.D. made a valiant effort, but alas, he couldn't finish my half of the plate either. Paying $15 for the meal was definitely worth the experience! I'm sure we reeked of smoke after leaving that place, cooking burnt ends sandwiches left the dining room fairly smoky -- the perfect environment for chowing down.

After lunch our next destination was to the historic jazz district where we toured the Negro League Baseball Museum and the Jazz Museum. I realized I knew nothing about the Negro Leagues prior to this trip. It was really interesting and the jazz museum was a ton of fun! We got to play around listening to jazz legends and "making" our own songs. So awesome. I totally forgot how much I can enjoy this kind of music. Fun fact: I used to study to jazz in college. In front of the museum I totally grabbed the bull by the horns, figuratively speaking.

Ok, literally, you got me.

At this point, we were so hot from the gnarly humidity we decided a drink was in order to waste our last hour before the baseball game, big surprise! Unable to make it to the Power and Lights District the night before, we finally wandered over this afternoon. And what a good call that was!!! The area reminds me a LOT of Louisville's downtown area. This one is a ton of bars and restaurants with outdoor patios. And in 88 degree, 90% humidity, nothing sounded better than a margarita!!!

Don't let this fool you, it wasn't that great. The salsa tasted watery and nasty and the chips didn't actually taste like anything. So I only nibbled on two before giving up. My watermelon margarita was cool and tasty though. On the bright side, our two drinks cost only $7.50, what a steal! As we sat on the outdoor patio, the clouds started rolling in and the sky darkened.

Who could have known that 30 minutes later, when we pulled up to Kauffman Stadium 50mph -- not exaggerating, I swear -- winds and a crazy rain/thunder/lightning storm would pick up!?! I certainly wouldn't have guessed that earlier in the day, but then again, I've never been here before. On the way over, I enjoyed my very first coconut water ever. It was refreshing and necessary to curb my tequila buzz.

We proceeded to Will Call and picked up our tickets that the Royals' first base coach left for us. That's right, J.D. used his baseball connections to get these tickets, so awesome! In the torrential downpour we sought shelter and didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have wanted. Told you it escalated rather quickly.

Whenever I visit a baseball stadium I generally like to purchase something from the team store. I'm the proud owner of SF Giants, NY Mets and Chicago Cubs Spring Training tee-shirts. This time I had no choice but to get a hat in order to keep my hair from becoming a frizzy rat's nest in the humid rain. Making it over to our seats we were bummed to find out they were so good, we weren't sitting underneath the awning and protected from the rain. Instead, we swooped on someone else's seats to enjoy the free show. At one point a bolt of lightning ripped right over us and it sounded like the thunder was right overhead. Soooo eerie.

Now here's where my nutrition takes a turn for the worse. I'm not even going to indulge you with pictures of our eats, haha. Upon entering Kauffman Stadium we snagged SIX COUPONS FOR FREE HOTDOGS. I think I ended up eating two along with a large bottle of Aquafina water. Clearly two miniscule hotdogs aren't enough for dinner, so we split a bag of kettle corn. And since it is a regional Midwest treat, also split a small cup of frozen custard which is like a much heavier, creamier ice cream. I'm so afraid to even estimate how many calories, fats and sugars I've consumed today. It's ok..... vacation. I'll just run a half marathon when I get back ;)

While the groundscrew cleaned up the mucky field and removed the tarp, we toured the concourse and got to see some pretty interesting things. Like......

A double rainbow (WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!)

And.....

Center field

(Yes, I am wearing my Oakland A's tee-shirt)

And....

Life-sized frozen custard

And....

The sun setting during introductions

Eventually the rain let up and the first pitch moved back from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. CT. Since we were soaked I actually started to get pretty cold. So we only braved three innings of the game. I'm a terrible baseball fan, I know. But in all fairness, we were there nearly four hours!

When we reached the hotel, I microwaved myself a complimentary packet of Tazo orange tea to go along with some Halls throat lozenges. My throat's still feeling itchy and weird, so I think it's time to get some shut-eye. In the morning a trip to Whole Foods awaits before we pack back up and move on to our next destination: Des Moines, Iowa.

Question: Do you ever have creepy/bizarre dreams??? I ALWAYS do. I guess I need to lay off.... whatever it is that's causing them!

Night everyone!!

Mishaps on the way to the Midwest

Today kicked off extremely early. After waking up at 4:15 a.m., we shipped out to the San Francisco Airport. Upon our arrival, I HAD to eat something. I don't know about you guys, but the less I sleep, the worse my stomach feels. I barely got five hours. In order to keep on trucking all day I knew I needed some food.

By our gate we found an Irish pub that was serving breakfast and -- much to my delight -- Bailey's Irish Cream coffee. In order to be alive and functional at 6 a.m., booze was in order. Although I wouldn't have ordered it if I had known it would set me back $12.99!!!!

The day's blunders first started with our waitress at the pub. I'm not sure, but I'm just saying that maybe she hadn't finished her nighttime bar shift or something. But she asked me twice what my order was and confirmed the veggie egg white omelet. Not that I didn't want ham in my eggs, I just knew I didn't want yolk.

By the time my plate arrived, not only did I have full-yolk eggs, but there was also ham to be found. Somehow, my twice ordered veggie egg white omelet turned into a Denver omelet. Oh yeah, and while I requested wheat toast, I got a giant hunk of SF Sourdough. I didn't want to complain, but this wasn't what I ordered. Nor was it the same price as my order.

When it finally arrived, we had less than 10 minutes left until our plane began boarding. I didn't mind though, since it tasted delicious.

What did suffer was our waitresses' tip, since we asked her for the check with our plane minutes away from boarding. She took her sweet time and about 20 minutes later the check arrived. I was able to nearly finish my meal during the wait and then we hopped aboard for our 2.5 hour flight to Denver, Colo.

During the flight J.D. and I were split up and I wound up at a window seat, unable to sleep a wink. And my TMJ problems got to my neck, which also kept me from sleeping. As soon as we touched down in Denver, we wandered the airport trying to kill our two hour-layover. Eventually it was time for lunch and I still felt a little weird from waking up so early. Jamba Juice sounded like just the trick. I originally ordered the 16 oz. Yumberry smoothie which tasted AWESOME. However, I only was able to enjoy a few sips before another mishap occurred. In the middle of the airport my smoothie ended up on the floor and all over J.D. Upset and still hungry, I wasn't willing to shell out $5 for a tiny smoothie a second time. Figuring breakfast was enough, I opted out of lunch. However, right before our flight started to board I couldn't wait any longer. I guilty bought a small cheese pizza and ate about 1/4 before tossing it and hopping on the plane.

Again, the odd time zone changes and lack of sleep caught up to me an hour later when we finally landed in Omaha, Neb. We quickly collected our luggage and then made our way over to the rental car counter. While we originally ordered a mid-sized vehicle, one wasn't around. So they gave us a complimentary upgrade to a full-sized Chevy Malibu. I, however, couldn't get past the obvious cigarette stench seeping from the upholstery. Not like I'm whiny about everything, but I requested another car. So we got an even better deal with a larger, more gas efficient Camry.

And so began our 3.5 hour drive down the border of four states. I needed a snack once again at the border between Iowa and Missouri -- my first time in any of these three states by the way. We found a convenience shop and loaded up on some Munchies Mix before putting the pedal to the metal to finish out our drive.

The final destination, Kansas City, was a nice breath of urban fresh air after hours of crops and fields. Our downtown hotel is actually in the middle of a swanky outdoor mall that reminds me of Downtown Walnut Creek. Since we didn't check in and get settled until after 8 p.m., we missed out on the World Cup Wine Tasting I was raving about in my last post. That's ok though, because otherwise we would have missed out on a culinary masterpiece.

Wandering the outdoor shopping center -- without having to drive to the restaurant and bar district -- Blanc Burgers and Bottles caught my eye. After browsing the menu, we were sold and asked for a table for two.

I started off my meal with the Purple Haze raspberry wheat beer, while J.D. ordered an organic British ale.

Selecting a drink was an insanely intense ordeal, as the beer menu was quadruple the size of the page-long soda menu.

This is just 1/3 of the beer list!!

If you think that was hard, imagine our struggles selecting an entrée!! Eventually I selected the Lentil Burger, which was a lentil patty with cucumber-spiced yogurt sauce, avocado, onions and sprouts on an unfiltered wheat bun. J.D. was sold when our waitress told us their Inside-Out Burger was named Missouri's Best Burger by the Food Network!!! The Inside-Out Burger is a bleu cheese-stuffed burger with bacon and an onion ring on a brioche bun.

The Lentil Burger

J.D.'s Inside-Out Burger

On the side we split the cutest preparation of sweet potato fries EVER. They were served in a tiny little shopping cart, so adorb. Now I'm going to put this out there, this MAY have been the best burger meal I've ever had in my entire life. No joke. What I really liked about the restaurant though, is their commitment to locally-grown products. With the exception of the beer, everything comes from local farms. The lentil burger was sooooo amazingly delicious and flavorful. As were the sweet potato fries and house apricot ketchup.

Once we had been adequately stuffed, we decided to stroll the shopping center. It's so beautiful, I want to go back there for breakfast tomorrow! On every corner is a different coffee shop among which I only saw ONE Starbucks, gasp!!! I'm hoping to try a new coffee chain that's not native to California. But my real reason for wanting to go back in the morning is so I can take pictures of the downtown area in the daylight!

That's it for today. I'm about to hop in bed so I can wake up early and run. We have a full day ahead tomorrow that includes a tour of the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame as well as a Kansas City Royals baseball game -- FREE hotdog night!!! -- in the evening. Good night everyone xx ♥

Last day in California!

You knew I couldn't go a day without posting, didn't you??

I'm not sure what tomorrow has in store because we'll be leaving for the San Francisco airport around 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. We'll land in Omaha around 5 p.m. and then hop in a rental car to Kansas City, Mo., where I'm hoping we'll be in the hotel by 8 p.m. So really, it should only be 6 p.m. in California, right??

Anyways, some bar in the Power & Lights District is holding a World Cup Wine Tasting event that includes six different South African wines paired with six appetizers for about $35/person. I don't care HOW TIRED we are, we're making it to this event.

Since I've been cleaning out my fridge I don't have any exciting food photos to share today. But I do have some running news to share.

I certainly plan on registering for the 2010 MLB All-Star 5K race held in Anaheim on July 11. A few people from the Big West Conference office will also be partaking in the race I believe. Hopefully my sister, Aimée, will sign up with me! We were talking about driving down for a few days and taking in all the All-Star Game festivities without actually shelling out the $250+ it costs to get into Angel Stadium for that game. Oh well.

I'm just dreading the six-hour drive before and after the race. Hopefully there will be a lot of beach-going to be had to make up for the drive!

If you live in Southern California, come do this race with us!!!!

Runners: Do you have any fun races coming up???

First 100º day of the year!

Despite raining until pretty much May, it finally hit 100º this afternoon. Good thing I chose to run in the morning, huh? Although it probably got up to 80 during the hour I was out there.

As for the rest of the day, it included watching baseball (booo A's for getting swept by the Giants of all teams), Samantha Brown's Passport to Europe, moderate packing (still have a bit more to go), cooking, taking Woodstock to the dog park, laundry and then making a slurpee run for Mr. Fox :) I really wanted one too!! I've only had one this year and with it being so hot today, it sounded like a great little snack. But some of the syrups were out (guess I wasn't the only one who had this great idea) and not a single flavor left appealed to me. So I opted for a smoothie instead.

But before I get to that we've been trying to clean out our produce drawer over the past few days since we're leaving very soon! For lunch I suggested making shrimp quesadillas! We also finished off our Natural Tostitos corn tortilla chips and I used up the rest of the avocado for some home-made guacamole.

Home-made guac bar!

I stuffed my whole wheat tortilla with shrimp J.D. marinated in a tequila lime sauce he made. Then of course cheese, avocado, tomatoes, red onion, cilantro and some salsa. It was delicious and quite filling -- so much that I only ate about 3/4 of the quesadilla. He was a good boy and finished all of his quesadilla.

Oh yeah, check out the mini beverages I had with my lunch haha, so cute!!!! I feel like when I run for distance I am dehydrated all day long. So even though I had this tiny 8 oz. bottle of water, I continued drinking (water) throughout the rest of the day.

After lunch I headed off to the dog park, fingers crossed other people would be there. And when we arrived about three other dogs were at the small dog park and I think only two were in the large dog park. By the time we left, I'd say close to 12 dogs were there! Now that Woodstock has all of his shots we can finally take him there, yaaay. I love this park, it's so cute and clean and everyone there is super friendly. But with the temperature being in the triple digits today, Woody's attention span was pretty short. And I was thiiiirsty. So I snapped some iPhone photos and then went to 7-11 for J.D.'s slurpee and back home to make my smoothie!

When we returned home Woodstock probably drank more water than I did all morning. Then he passed out by the fridge. Big surprise, that is where the AC blasts the most amount of air in our condo.

I'm not really feeling much of a dinner since it's so hot and I've eaten a bunch of filling food already today. Making up for my lack of slurpee, I whipped up a smoothie to continue using everything in the fridge: milk and cherries! So I made up my own Dark Chocolate Cherry Vanilla Smoothie:

• 12 Rainier cherries
• 1 c nonfat soy milk
• 1 t dark chocolate almond spread
• small handful dried cranberry/cherry mix
• small handful of dark chocolate chips
• 1/2 scoop Aria vanilla protein powder
• leftover frozen grapes
• 1 t vanilla extract
• ice cubes

Oh my, it was heavenly! I of course topped it with a little bit of whipped cream and some more dried berries/chocolate chips. If you'll notice, I once again drank out of a beer glass today (I promise, 75 percent of these were paid for). This one I got for my birthday along with the special fruit-flavored beer that came with the glass.

For dinner, I'm thinking of using up the bread for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the last apple in the fridge! I may or may not post tomorrow, since I plan on going to bed suuuuper early. So maybe the next time you guys hear from me, I'll be in a new state!! Awesome, that means I'll get to check off another one of my 101 goals -- with 840 days left to finish the remaining 71 percent of my goals.

Now I think I'm off to FINALLY repaint my nails. It's about dang time.

When was the last time you visited someplace new? What states do you hope to see someday?

Sunday Brunch Run

I don't think I've admitted this yet here, but I plan on training for a half marathon at the end of the summer. I haven't yet committed to a race but I think I'll plan to do so closer to July, maybe for a race in August/September. But I HAVE decided on my training program. Starting next week I hope to start the Runner's World Ultimate Half Marathon Training Plan. Realistically, I probably won't start it for another week after since we're flying to Omaha, Neb., at the butt-crack of dawn on Tuesday.

Since reading most of your blogs and listening to marathon podcasts, I know adequate rest is part of the training plan. As are looong Sunday runs. That in mind, I set myself a goal of running between 6-7 miles this morning.

Before heading out, I grabbed a mini Clif oatmeal raisin bar. It was tasty, but in the end I think I needed more than that to hold me over for 70 minutes of running.

What's that in the back?? My hint at what I wanted for breakfast this morning :) During these 5+ mile runs, I am starting to play around with different types of fuels. Last time I almost threw up when I tried the Power Bar tangerine energy gel, so when I went to Fleet Feet last week to pick up my running packet for the Hook-Ladder race, I asked the employees to give me some ideas at other types of energy supplements. Eventually I left with about three different types. So this morning, I put one into practice for another trial run.

The hand-held water bottle I took along can be seen in the background!

Verdict: I LOVE the pomegranate passion Honey Stinger chews!! I have to hide them or else I'd be eating them as a candy haha. But, it's reserved only for my long runs. I ate about three (packet contains 10) 4.5 miles into my race. They really did help give me an extra boost to keep going. I should have walked a little bit longer immediately after consuming though, because I literally could feel them jiggling around in my stomach the first two minutes back into my run.

Either way, much more of a success than the Power Bar gel, bleh. My run ended up being a 7.56 mile journey -- second longest run of my life by 0.03 miles, haha -- that I completed in 1:13:54. Really, not too bad considering I averaged under a 10-minute/mile pace. Like I said before, I could have kept going, but since my longest ever run has only been 7.59 miles, I didn't want to hurt myself. Everything I've read says to only increase running distance by 10% each week. So maybe in two weeks I'll get to eight miles :)

When I came back, the house smelled like BREAKFAST!! J.D. was such a sweetie and had the AC blasting and he already mixed me up a liter glass of flavored electrolyte water. While I stretched my legs and sipped from my beer stein, he started plating our breakfast!!!

The Hofbräuhaus beer stein went nicely with the Germany/Australia World Cup match we watched, don't you think?

Sunday's early afternoon brunch consisted of blueberry multigrain and flax seed pancakes! I spruced mine up with a spoonful of nonfat plain Greek yogurt, a white peach and Rainier cherries, yummmmmy. Then pure maple syrup was drizzled over EVERYTHING.

The perfect breakfast after a 7.5 mile run!

For the rest of the afternoon we need to start packing for our trip to the Midwest. We leave for Omaha on Tuesday then hop in a rental car and immediately start driving to Kansas City, Mo., for a couple of days. After that, we're on the road again for Des Moines, Iowa, for two more days and then the College World Series begins next Saturday in Omaha!!! Soooo excited for this trip.

So we'll pack today, maybe take Woodstock to the dog park and then who knows what else Sunday has in store for us! Enjoy the final day of your weekends!!

How do you usually spend your Sundays?? And runners, I have a question for you: what training programs do you usually use?? I'm open to suggestions!