Hola everyone!! I have some great news! I just registered a **new domain** for my website and I’m now self-hosted! You can now find me at www.jenisgreen.com! Isn’t that exciting? Yesterday’s CDNY Eat Drink Blog meet up totally inspired me! And thank you sooo much to Heather and Lauren for all the help they have given me today. 
I still have a few kinks to work out but I think I’ll be on my way soon. Make sure to change all of your links to my new URL!
Filed under Uncategorized
Good afternoon blog readers! I just recently got back from the my first Capital District healthy living blogger meet up! It was an amazing time! There were 9 of us in total! Heather, Julie (and Julie’s husband!), Rebecca, Courtney, Lauren, Amy, Marcie and myself. 😀
It was a pot luck brunch, and we each brought something to share! Here are all of the glamorous food shots! I have never been in a room with so many other food bloggers before, and I felt so at home! I wasn’t the only one photographing my food!
Julie's delicious scones!! I ate about 3 of them!
Heather made cute tags for each dish! Love it.
Lauren's mini frittatas
Becca's strawberry spinach and feta salad
My plate: a little bit of everything. And of course I went back for seconds. 🙂
The group of us chatted in Heather’s living room for close for four hours about blogging, social media, and healthy living in general. It was awesome, and I learned so much from these lovely ladies! I’m so glad to have found such an amazing healthy living blogger community in the Capital District, even though we are small! I hope to definitely spend more time with these girls. 🙂 Thank you so much to Heather for hosting us and coming up with the idea of CDNY Eat Drink Blog! Everyone’s food was great! We’re thinking of making CDNY Eat Drink Blog a monthly gathering!
Filed under Blogger Meet-Up, Events, Food
Oh finally it is the weekend. Thank goodness. I was starting to feel like the workday would never end. 😦 I’m so glad to be home! I have an exciting weekend coming up!
But lets rewind a bit to Thursday. Last night I came home from work to make a quick and easy dinner. I had previously picked up some Tofu Shiratake Noodles to try! Hungry Girl raves about these because they are so low calorie and apparently a great substitute for pasta, so I wanted to see what the big fuss was about.
I was shocked to find the whole bag of noodles was only 40 calories. That made me a happy girl! I decided to just warm them up in the microwave after draining and rinsing them and using the noodles like I would spaghetti. I just threw the last of the roasted red pepper bruschetta and some Parmesan cheese onto them.
The noodles themselves didn’t have much flavor, and were kind of chewy since they’re tofu, but they didn’t taste too bad! I ate the whole bowl because I was starving and I love the bruschetta. 😉 I would buy these noodles again since they are so guilt-free!
After dinner, I had to get ready because Chris and I had some extremely late night plans that evening…we were going to the midnight showing of Inception at the Spectrum Theater!
from google image search
I have been waiting months for this movie to come out! It was pretty interesting because I wasn’t really sure what is about, all I knew is that the preview looked awesome and I love all of the actors in it. It was SO worth seeing at midnight because it was incredible! I’m not going to talk much about it because I don’t want to give away the plot, but it will definitely make you think and stare in awe at the special effects! I love movies like that. 🙂
Needless to say, I didn’t get to sleep last night until 3:00AM and had to get up at 7:00AM for work…which had me running on four hours of sleep all day. That that equals an unhappy person at work. 😦
Lunch today was sort of unplanned, so I got something quick at my Department’s cafeteria. The one healthy choice in the whole entire lunchroom. Sabra Hummus and pretzels! Have you ever seen a package like this?
The only downside: I ran out of pretzels! I had to go get some more from my co-worker so I could eat the rest of the yummy hummus. 🙂
But I’m so glad to be home now…I just ran three miles on the treadmill in 31 minutes and 40 seconds and it felt really good, despite not getting much sleep last night. I’m about to go finish up my laundry, which I’ve been neglecting for days, and then start baking some superfood cookies for tomorrow’s Blogger Brunch Meet-Up! 😀
Good morning blog world! It is almost Friday, and I am happy about that. This week has been so busy for me I’ve hardly had any time to think let alone blog, but I’ve finally got all of my photos organized so I’m going to give it a try!
Breakfast this week has been simple but yummy. I had some tasty strawberry banana oats one morning.
In the bowl:
I could throw DCDPB on anything and it would taste amazing.
This was a huge bowl of oats, and it kept me full until about…9:30AM that day. Oh well. I think I just ate it too early.
I’m pretty sure my dinner on Tuesday was a bowl of Kashi H2H cereal with almond milk and maple pb because I needed something quick and light before taking Body Pump! So good!
The rest of the week is kind of a blur! However, this morning I had one of these:
A Chocolate Cherry Bomb! In the smoothie:
It tasted pretty good since I’m accustomed to the rice protein. It was actually filling.
Now to the good stuff! Last night I went on an impromptu boat ride on the Hudson with my good friend Brendan, his parents, and my sister! His parents have a boat that the keep at a local yacht club and they invited us out for a ride and dinner! So exciting! 🙂
After work I headed to Brendan’s where we met up with his parents and drove to the yacht club. It’s so cute inside! It looks like a great place for parties.
Brendan thought ahead and knew my sister and I would be hungry after work, so he made some Sangria and brought some cheese and crackers. What is better than wine and cheese on a boat? Nothing, I don’t think. He said he used peach Chardonnay and threw in some fruit to make the Sangria. Yum.
Thankfully the cheese and crackers held me over until dinner. 🙂 We took the boat down the Hudson River south to Coxsackie and enjoyed the ride.
For dinner we pulled the boat up and docked at Yanni’s Too located at Coeyman’s Landing.
Yanni’s is a great local riverside restaurant that is only about 25 minutes south of Albany (and only about 15 minutes from me.) I love it there. They are famous for their fried Calamari. So obviously, we had to order some for an appetizer. We got the Calamari Four Way Sampler, which included the Original: lightly fried and tossed in a lemon garlic wine sauce; Rhode Island style with banana peppers; Calamari Red with a light marinara sauce; or Chipotle style with a smokey jalapeno sauce. I’d have to say my favorite was either the Rhode Island or the Chipotle style calamari. The banana peppers on the Rhode Island calamari were slightly tangy with a bite, almost kind of lemony, and the Chipotle style wasn’t too spicy, just had a bit of a smoky flavor. So good. My mouth is watering just thinking about them.
So, after filling up on fried squid, I ordered my main meal: the Portabella Sandwich: Marinated and grilled portabella mushroom cap with balsamic glazed red onions, goat cheese and roasted red pepper aioli.
One word: incredible. I’ve had this sandwich before so I knew I would love it. But, since I wasn’t too hungry any more after eating the Calamari for an appetizer, when my sandwich came I only ate the mushroom, onions and goat cheese. I took the bun off to try to save myself some calories. (Probably around 300? The bun was huge and probably grilled in butter.) And it would have been difficult to eat anyway since the mushroom usually make the bun sopping wet with juices and then it just becomes a huge mess. 🙂 I loved the creamy goat cheese though, so tasty. I ate probably half of the chips too.
After dinner we headed back to the boat for the ride back to the yacht club. It was getting pretty late and I was exhausted! But riding on a boat in the dark was kind of creepy but fun. We were kind of reminded of the Jaws ride at Universal Studios! Ahhh! 🙂
Anyway, I had a great time with Brendan and his lovely parents. (His parents are like our second family since we have been friends with Brendan for over ten years!) They were so awesome to take my sister and I out on their boat for dinner! 🙂 Can’t wait to do it again!
Filed under Events, Food, Restaurant Reviews, Travel
After reading numerous blogs raving about Body Pump, I’ve been kind of sad that my gym doesn’t have it. It doesn’t have classes at all, actually, since it’s pretty must just a bare bones gym. But after talking to Becca on twitter for the past couple of days, she invited me to be a guest at her gym and attend a Body Pump class with her last night!!! I was also super excited to meet her for the first time. She’s so cute and nice and I had such a good time chatting with her!
So we got to the gym and walked into the room where the classes are held, and I was pretty much clueless about what equipment I needed, so thank goodness Becca was with me! We needed a step, a mat, a body bar with weights, and hand weights. I wasn’t sure how much weight to put on for my first time, so I just went with the smallest amount to put on the bar and four pound hand weights.
The first song was mostly squats, which killed my legs!!! I probably could have increased the weight on the bar, but I didn’t want to hurt myself during the first class. I really liked the upper body workout, but I should have used more weight. I think I really need to improve my upper body strength! The hour went by really fast and was a lot of fun. The instructor was really cool too. I would totally do it again! And Becca’s gym is much nicer than mine! 🙂 I wish mine had TVs on the treadmills!
We got back to Becca’s apartment after class and took some funny post-workout pictures. This one was the best, I stole it from her blog post this morning!
Becca & I post-body pump!
Hurray for my first blogger meet-up/workout! 🙂
So, I think I may continue with weight training, since I think it will help me become a stronger runner. I bought a Jillian Micheals DVD (No More Trouble Zones) that I’ve been waiting to try until after the Boilermaker, so I think I’m going to start incorporating that into my workout regime ASAP!
Filed under Blogger Meet-Up, Fitness
I hope everyone is having a great Monday!! I woke up this morning super early. I think it was because I went to bed at 8:30PM last night (I was exhausted, since I ran a little race yesterday morning called the Boilermaker). I was also feeling a bit sore in my right leg/outside hip area. Nothing a day of rest won’t cure. 😉 Anyway, for breakfast I had a chocolate cherry bomb in my sweet new pint glass! 🙂
We got these awesome glasses in our goody bags yesterday after the race. And I swear, the shake tasted way better in this glass than usual! In my cherry bomb: 1/2 cup of Almond Breeze, 1 handful of frozen organic cherries, 1/2 scoop of chocolate rice protein powder and 1/2 tsp of maca powder.
Along with my shake I had a slice of toast with raspberry creamed honey and almond butter.
It was pretty tasty. My eating schedule got a little screwed up today because I had to leave work before my lunch break for an appointment that lasted quite a while, so before I left I had a peach Chobani and some juicy watermelon!
After my appointment I snacked on a Clif Z Bar (sooo good! I like them better than Luna Bars now!) and an apple, and then headed to the grocery store to pick up some things for the week.
When I got home I tried something new for late lunch/early dinner. Microwavable Indian food! Someone from work gave me this to try out, since he and I had a conversation about packaged Indian food and he said it was really good. So I decided to try it tonight.
I put the Rajma Masala in a bowl and heated it up in the microwave for two minutes. I liked that it’s 100% natural with no preservatives, it was vegetarian, and only 130 calories per serving. But there are two servings in a package. I ended up eating it all because it wasn’t that much. The sodium content was a bit higher than I’d like though. Sorry, but there wasn’t any real way to make red beans curry look pretty. 😦 It tasted really good though! It was really spicy and had me wanting Naan so bad!
For dessert, I finally opened up the Chocolove Chocolate I got at the co-op a few weeks ago! I pretty much love all flavors and types of chocolate, but I think Chocolove might be my favorite, since the packages are so adorable.
I am surely in love with chocolate. Xoxoxo. 😀 Now, do I exercise tonight? Walk on the treadmill or do some yoga? Hmm.
Filed under Boilermaker, Food
Wow, I’m finally home, showered, and extremely exhausted! But I feel amazing. 🙂
Today I accomplished one of the greatest things in my life…running in and completing my first 15K road race! The Utica Boilermaker! As of today, 9.3 (9.5?) miles is officially the furthest distance I’ve run at one time. And I’m so proud of myself and how far I’ve come. Less than two years ago I was overweight and out of shape and never would have in a million years thought I would be running in a 9.3 mile race. This just goes to show that you can do anything, if you put your mind to it. I’m living proof.
The morning started out early, and I mean early. I got up at three am to drive to Utica with Chris, since packet pickup started at 6am and it takes almost 2 hours to get to Utica from Albany. So, we were up at the crack of dawn (way before dawn, actually) and took the roadtrip to Utica.
I ate breakfast in the car on the way at about 4AM…a bagel thin with Justin’s Maple Almond Butter and Chia seeds sprinkled on top…but this didn’t really hold me over for very long. After stopping at a Dunkin Donuts for some coffee and iced tea, we went to the packet pick up to get our bibs. We ended up parking at the start line since roads were closing at 6AM, so we wouldn’t be able to drive to the finish, which turned out okay.
I got my gear ready at the car and then headed to hang out at the starting area and ate a Clif Z Bar since I was starving!
Chris is making his cute debu on my blog!
After waiting around with the other 13,000 runners, eventually we made it to the start line at 8AM.
We actually didn’t even get to line up on the road; we were stuck on the grass and didn’t even start running until 10 minutes after gun went off! Thank god for my Garmin. 😉
Until we started running I was kind of in denial that I would be running over 9 miles on this lovely morning. I ran pretty slow to start, because I didn’t want to burn up all my energy, and I knew I would be needing it in those last few miles. My goal for the race was to finish, even if I had to walk, because I feared I might be a little bit weak due to the cold I had this week. I also didn’t know how not running this past week would affect the race.
I felt pretty good the first four miles, and the crowd was awesome! I’ve never ran such a fun race! There was so much support and music! After mile four, the hills came, and that’s what killed me! But I made it. I was just running in the zone for most of the time, glancing at my watch now and then and talking to Chris so I could make it through!
I also stopped at most of the water stops and walked through them after mile five, just to sort of re-charge so I could keep running. At times I felt like stopping to walk, but I pushed through! It was so hard!
9.3 miles and 1 hour and 39 minutes later, Chris and I crossed the finish line, holding hands! He had pulled me along at the end of the race and if it wasn’t for him I probably would have started walking. 🙂
Official Race Stats
Place – 8,714 out of 11,524
Chip Time – 1:39:00
Pace – 10:38
Place in age group – 645 out of 932
Garmin Stats
Total Distance – 9.5 miles
Total Elapsed Time – 1:39:18
Average Pace – 10:27
Average Speed – 5.7 mph
Calories Burned – 1,126
Splits
Mile 1 – 10:44
Mile 2 – 10:30
Mile 3 – 10:25
Mile 4 – 11:27 <–Hill of death
Mile 5 – 9:10 <–Downhill with a gorgeous view!
Mile 6 – 9:55 <– More downhill
Mile 7 – 10:56 <–Starting to feel the pain
Mile 8 – 10:20 <–Pushing thru the pain
Mile 9 – 10:58 <–dying
Mile 9.5 – 4:42
After finishing, we found water, and some orange slices and Chris and I shared a coconut water that I had been carrying in my Camelback.
After resting in the grass for a few minutes and stretching my legs, which were in a lot of pain by the way, we made our way to the post-race party at the Saranac Brewery. There were so many people, it was pretty hard to navigate our way around. We did find our way to the beer table though! The Boilermaker is not complete with out Saranac! 🙂
Chris drank the beer, but I didn’t have any, since I don’t think I could stomach it after running for so long! What a trooper. 🙂
We ditched the post-race party after getting the beer and headed to the shuttles to get the bus back to the parking lot. The buses came really quick, which I was pretty happy about.
On the way back I munched on the fruit salad we got for free, and also drank some Poweraid.
We also made a pit stop to Starbucks on the way back, where I got a refreshing iced green tea! Mmm!
We got back to Albany in time to get lunch and watch the World Cup! I was having a serious craving for pizza, so I got a couple of slices at SoHo. 🙂 Tomato, spinach and ricotta and Veggie!
I ate all but the crust on the first piece, and about 3/4 of the second piece. Such a satisfying lunch after a long but satisfying morning. 🙂
Well, I have a huge blister on my left foot, aching legs, and I’m about to fall asleep at my laptop, but I can safely say I accomplished something big today. My first 15K! 🙂
Filed under Boilermaker, Race Re-Cap, Races, Running
Okay, I guess if I’m not ready by now, I won’t ever be ready! I have all of my stuff packed for Utica and made a checklist of things to bring:
I think that may be it..besides general toiletries and such.
Breakfast this morning was a protein breakfast cookie!!!
In it was: 1/2 cup of raw oats, 1/2 mashed banana, 1/2 scoop of brown rice chocolate protein powder, 1/2 tsp of maca powder, 1 tbsp of almond butter, 2 tbsps of almond milk, and a sprinkle of chocolate chips. The flavor of the protein powder kind of took over the cookie, but other than that it was still pretty good. I need to find a better non-whey, non-soy protein powder that won’t cost me an arm and a leg.
I haven’t been too hungry lately, probably because I haven’t been exercising this week because of my cold, but for snack I had a raspberry Chobani with some chia seeds sprinkled in.
Lunch consisted of more carbs! Pancakes! Whole wheat banana, chocolate chip pecan pancakes to be exact! So good! But a little bit on the sweet side, even for me!
Dinner will probably be some cold cereal, or something light like that.
I will leave you with some funny pictures of my weirdo cat. How weird is he?
Okay, I’m off, wish me luck! 🙂
Filed under Boilermaker, Food, Races, Running
In 24 hours I will be in a car headed to Utica, New York to run in my first ever long distance race, the Boilermaker 15K!! I’m super excited, since the race is the biggest 15K, with 13,000 people running! 9.3 miles will also be the most I’ve ever ran at one time.
I wanted to get my carbs in tonight, so I made some Ronzoni SmartTaste pasta for dinner!
I topped my spaghetti with some roasted red pepper bruschetta, olive oil, oregano, and Parmesan cheese. I also had a slice of my new favorite bread…Country Kitchen Double Fiber Whole Wheat!
Tomorrow I’m going to make sure I eat very clean, maybe make some whole wheat pancakes for breakfast, maybe a sandwich for lunch and a light dinner, and drink lots of water…just to make sure my tummy is happy on Sunday. 🙂
After dinner tonight I decided to take a short bike ride, just to get in some more exercise, since I haven’t been working out much this week. I went for a six mile ride in 38 minutes and 30 seconds. It was such a warm and gorgeous night!!!
Okay, I’m off to relax. Hope everyone is having a nice Friday evening! 🙂
Filed under Biking, Boilermaker, Fitness, Food
Well, I am now day three into my cold. I think I may be getting a bit better, or it might just be the cold medicine I’ve been taking. I made a dumb decision last night and ran two miles in 23 minutes on the treadmill, even though I felt a little bit better… I probably should have just lied in bed instead. What I want to know is how I got so sick! I haven’t gotten a cold this bad in almost two years…why all of a sudden am I getting sick the week of my longest race? It’s not fair.
While I was resting up last night I watched a documentary called The Spirit of the Marathon.
Being a runner, I thought it was a very moving film. And honestly, I cried at the end! Anyone interested in running should watch this documentary! Anyone who can complete a marathon is seriously inspiring. It was also rather fitting that I watched that last night because yesterday I signed up for my first Half Marathon! On October 10, 2010 I will be running (or attempting to run) 13.1 miles in the Mohawk Hudson River Half Marathon. Woohoo! 🙂
But anyway, since I’ve been sick, I haven’t been up to taking pictures of my food…but this morning I had a delicious (well I think it was delicious, I can’t really taste anything) bowl of oats. In my my bowl this morning: 1/2 cup of oats, 1 tbsp of MaraNatha Almond Butter, 1 mashed banana, and a sprinkle of chocolate chips. I think this may be my new favorite Almond Butter! Here’s a stock photo.
I figured soup for lunch might make me feel better, so I had Amy’s Organic Tomato Bisque, despite the 90 degree heat wave we’ve been having this week.
image from google image search
I also made some more honey lemon tea. My snack this afternoon will be a Clif Z Bar that I have yet to try! I will let you know what I think about it in my next post!
My plans for tonight: skipping my five mile run for some rest and possibly doing a light yoga workout.
Filed under Boilermaker, Food, MHR Half Marathon, Movies, Races, Running, Training
Jen is Green 
