13 | June | 2010 | Jen is Green

Last night I met up with my cousin Liz! She recently just returned from a vacation in France so I wanted to hang out with her so we could catch up! I brought a bottle of Cascade Mountain Harvest Rose, a local wine, over to her apartment and we each had a couple glasses before going to dinner. The wine was very fruity and delicious. 🙂

We eventually made it to the Wine Bar on Lark. We decided on another bottle of wine…a sparking white called Moscato D’Asti. When we ordered it, the waitress described it as tasting like “liquid sunshine“. How could we not try that? 😉

It smelled like rotten fruit, but tasted lovely. It was like sweet, bubbly, fruity deliciousness or liquid sunshine. Yum.

For my meal I ordered a small plate, since I had eaten a late lunch after I got home from the 5K yesterday. I ordered the asparagus, mushroom and leek swiss cheese tart with an arugula, endive and radicchio salad with champagne vinaigrette.

The salad was tasty, since as you may I know, I have a thing for arugula. It had a very good flavor and something in the dressing was a bit salty. It was good! The tart tasted like a quiche, which happens to be one of my favorite foods. I don’t eat quiche very often, so this tart was a treat. It was nice and creamy but not overly heavy! The mushrooms and leeks were great. I didn’t taste much asparagus though.

I was pretty content with my meal (and the wine!). The Wine Bar is definitely one of my favorite restaurants in Albany.

Too bad it was raining last night, otherwise we would have eaten out on their patio, which I love! When we left it was raining pretty heavy, so we walked back to Liz’s apartment, got soaked, and then hung out for a while. It was nice to catch up with her. We ended up just watching TV and talking!

So, this morning I had another long run scheduled. It seemed very daunting because my legs were still really sore from doing some stairwork on Thursday. Walking the stairs was a stupid idea. While at the time it didn’t hurt, the next couple days my calves were SO sore from walking up so many stairs. Needless to say, I was still sore this morning. And running a 5K yesterday probably didn’t help either. So I had a plan to tackle the 8 miles I had to do.

I decided to run the first 5 miles on my treadmill while listening to music and watching TV. I ended up watching a documentary on Orca whales for an hour while I ran a slow 5 miles in 58 minutes. Watching wildlife documentaries is now going to be standard when I have to run on my treadmill. 🙂 After the five I got some of my gear together and tried my first Clif Shot Bloks. I ate two gummies.

They tasted like berry flavored gummies. Not that bad…but I kept burping up berry flavor while I ran the last three miles. Lovely.

They didn’t really bother my stomach, so they might be something I’ll consider to eat when running my really long runs.

The three miles outside wasn’t too bad either. There was a slight misty rain that felt pretty nice. I ran a bit faster than on the treadmill…about a 10 minute mile. By the last mile and half I could feel my legs start to get really tired…something I don’t feel as much when I’m running on the treadmill. But it felt good to be over when I was done! I did the last three miles in 29 minutes!

I came inside, showered, stretched my aching legs and made lunch. An omelet! Or…what was supposed to be an omelet.

spinach and peppers

two farm fresh eggs

what should be an omelet...

but failed

It didn’t turn out looking like an omelet, but it tasted great! I also threw in some crumbled goat cheese. 🙂 I think eggs may be my favorite post-run meal.

I also had some melon and a pomegranate Chobani.