The Runner's Kitchen

Brr, it’s been a chilly weekend here in the big apple. I just finished running the NYRR Gridiron 4-miler and am feelin’ good! This was the first time I raced hard since I was injured over a year ago and it was a big confidence booster. But more on that later…

Yesterday was a day full of good eats and rest. After 8.5 hours of sleep on Friday night, I woke up ready for a quickie breakfast and a yoga class. I didn’t have any coffee beans on hand, so I tried the new Starbucks VIA instant coffee. I was a little skeptical, but it was actually decent! I don’t think I’d have this every day, but it’s a good option if you’re traveling. Along with my coffee I had a banana and Brown Cow maple flavored yogurt. Mmm, whole milk yogurt is so delicious.

And then I met some of my lady friends for a 10am class at yoga to the people. Obviously, I did not take a photo in class, but the studio looks like this:

Even though my gym offers yoga classes, I still prefer the yttp studio. FYI – even if you don’t live in Northern California or NYC, you can try out a yttp podcast!

After getting our yoga on, we headed to Atlas Cafe in the East Village. This little restaurant had an amazing array of menu options – I was a little overwhelmed! I ended up getting the smoked salmon and avocado sandwich on multi-grain bread. I don’t usually eat fish, but I was feeling like I could use a little omega-3’s in my life. The sandwich was delicious and fairly inexpensive by Manhattan standards.

Afterwards, we headed over to Momofuku milk bar for some COOKIES! I was tempted by the crack pie (toasted oat crust with gooey butter filling), but decided to go with the compost cookie (pretzel, potato chips, coffee, oats, butterscotch, and chocolate chips).

Oh lord. This was one of the BEST cookies I’ve ever had. Next time I’m buying two. Thanks to my friend Ani for the great recommendation

I had dinner plans with my friend Joe at a little restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. My pre-race dinner was a little unconventional, but it hit the spot. I ordered the warm spinach salad: fresh spinach leaves, sauteed onions and mushrooms, LOTS of croutons and a balsamic vinegar reduction. I also had a whole grain roll and butter with my salad – gotta get in those carbohydrates

I had planned on being social after dinner, but the cold and wind convinced me to stay home and hibernate under the covers. Oh winter.

I finished up the night with half a pint some mint chocolate chip goat milk ice cream, netflix, and an early bedtime

Waking up early to go running is never easy, but when it’s 17 degrees it’s particularly difficult…

Ah well, I just have to remind myself that I run and race for FUN! When I look at racing as something I get to do, rather than something I have to do, my mindset is a lot more positive

I had the usual pre-race breakfast around 7:30am – coffee, banana with peanut butter, and 1/2 clif bar. Andddd I finally broke out my hand warmers. These things are lifesavers if you have poor circulation (like moi) and they’re only 99 cents!

Alma and I warmed up for about 30 minutes (ran from our apartment to the starting line) and after a quick bathroom break, it was race time! I’ve run some races as “workouts”, but today’s 4-miler was the first time I raced hard in awhile. I was shooting for 7:00 pace and finished a little under, so I’m pretty happy. Miles 1 and 3 were slower than I would have liked (maybe because of the hills), but other than that things went as expected. Also, I was really excited to meet a blog reader at the finish line. Hi Jacqui!

• Mile 1 – 7:11
• Mile 2 – 6:57
• Mile 3 – 7:10
• Mile 4 – 6:40
• Total: 4 miles in 27:57 (6:59 pace)

After the race I was feeling really good (probably a sign I should have gone faster!), so I added on some miles to make today a “long run day”. My cool down was about 50 minutes long bringing me to about 13 miles for the day. Only 6 weeks till the NYC 1/2 marathon!

After a long hot shower I refueled with some pumpkin-apple-chocolate chip oatmeal. I’m already hungry again – off to go eat some more!

Even though it’s February (and f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g in the Northeast!), it’s never too cold for a smoothie! Matt and I posted our favorite recipes on True/Slant – check it out

What’s your favorite smoothie combination?

In college, I used to dread Sundays. I would wake up around noon (still feeling the effects of Saturday night partying) and have a ton of things to do before the day ended: papers to write, chapters to read, lab reports to finish, a long run with the cross-country/track team, and maybe some laundry.  But over the past few years, Sunday has become my favorite day of the week. I’m a total Grandma and don’t really stay out late anymore, so waking up at a decent hour is no problem. I’ve also learned to love long runs because they’ve become something I want to do rather than something I have to do. Oh, and I don’t have homework anymore. That’s pretty sweet! So I’ve decided,  Sunday is my new favorite day!

Favorite day started off with a walk to Dunkin’ Donuts for a latte lite. Love.

And then it was time for oats in a jar. I had about 1-2 Tbs of almond butter left at the bottom of the jar, so I made stovetop oats and then added the oats to the almond butter container. The hot oats melted the almond butter and everything mixed up quite nicely!

• 1/2 cup oats made with 1 cup water, splash of milk
• sea salt and cinnamon
• sliced banana
• 1-2 Tbs almond butter
• a few chocolate chips

My oats were perfect fuel for a long run! The weather was so amazing in NYC yesterday – sunny and 68 degrees when I set off for my run. I stopped around mile 6 to stretch out my ache-y IT band, but other than that I felt strong throughout my 12.5 mile run. I finished in 1 hour, 49 minutes which is about 8:45 per mile pace. If it weren’t for time constraints, I would have run longer! Love this weather. Can we just skip January, February, and March?

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I foam rolled and stretched and then re-fueled!

• 1 cup plain Oikos greek yogurt
• chopped apple
• 1 Tbs peanut butter
• 1/2 Kashi crunchy granola bar

And a clif bar on the way out the door!

I met Katie for 5pm yoga and the same instructor from last week was teaching class. I love, love, love this teacher. Her core sequence is killer, but the deep stretches and the instructor’s mind-body philosophy more than make up for my sore abs. I don’t think it would be cool to take a camera into the studio, but I wanted you all to see what Yoga to the People looks like, so I pulled an image off of their site (thanks http://yogatothepeople.com). If you’re in the NYC, San Fran, or Berkeley areas, you have to check out this studio. I think the instructors are great and I love that the classes are donation based. Sometimes I have more money in the bank account, sometimes I have less, but I can always manage a donation for a yoga class. And that’s a very good thing.

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*Note for those unfamilar with yoga: this photo makes it look like the class is worshipping an altar or something, but they’re really just in child’s pose (a gentle, resting pose).

After a quick stop at Trader Joe’s (madness on a Sunday evening!), I dashed home to start laundry and dinner. Before I got down to business, I had a small snack: 1/2 whole wheat sandwich thin with Greek olive hummus.

And then for the next 2 hours I cooked risotto. Yikes. This recipe was A LOT more labor intensive than I expected. The results were pretty good and I have a ton of leftovers, but I’m not sure I would do this again! But just in case you have a lot of time on your hands, I’ll post the recipe. Note: I improvised and used ingredients that I had on hand, so feel free to use different kinds of cheese, wine instead of beer, or arborio rice instead of brown.

Megan’s Pumpkin and Cheese Risotto (adapted from a Millenium Knickerbocker Hotel recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1.5 Tbs olive oil
• puree of one small pumpkin
• 1/2 can of pure pumpkin puree
• 1 1/2 cups short grain brown rice (use arborio if you have it)
• 4 oz cottage cheese (or you could use goat cheese)
• 2 laughing cow lite cheese wedges (or you could use Parmesan cheese)
• 5 cups hot water (or chicken stock)
• 1/2 cup beer
• bay leaf
• 1/4 tsp pepper, 1 Tbs salt
• 1 Tbs butter

Directions:

• Steep bay leaf in 5 cups of very hot water.
• Heat olive oil in large pot and saute rice, onions, and pumpkin until onions are translucent and rice has nutty aroma.
• Add garlic and saute briefly.
• Add beer and deglaze the pan.
• Remove bay leaf from hot water and discard.
• While stirring rice mixture with a wooden spoon (vigorously!), add one cup of hot water at a time until rice absorbs all water.
• This is where I started to freak out – my risotto was taking a very long time to cook. I was stirring and stirring and going to the laundry mat to pick up my laundry stirring non-stop for nearly 50 minutes before everything started to come together. I realized this was because I used brown rice and the original recipe uses white arborio rice which has a much shorter cooking time. This is what I get for trying to be healthy…
• Anyway, after your rice has finally absorbed the water and is al dente (soft, but chewy), add the canned pumpkin, salt, pepper, and cheese.
• Before serving, add Tbs butter and stir until melted.
• Allow the risotto to sit for a minute or so before serving and then enjoy over spinach or mixed greens.

After dishes and laundry folding, I was ready to pack it in. Phew, what a night of domesticity!

I finished up my Sunday with an episode of Mad Men, a glass of milk, and 2 white chocolate pumpkin cookies. Perfect.

Don’t love running? Neither did Matt until he discovered the beauty of the trails. Check out the new Running Shorts article on True/Slant for the whole story!

Cursing the alarm clock every morning? Read these tips for getting the restorative sleep you need.

Question: What’s the most labor intensive thing you’ve ever cooked or baked?

I’ve been taking classes at the Yoga to the People studio near St. Mark’s Place for a few months and just recently tried their hot yoga studio in midtown. The style of yoga at the midtown location is Vinyasa (i.e. Flow) yoga which is faster paced and a bit more vigorous than some other types of yoga. However, it is not Bikram which is a specific style of yoga named after its founder – Bikram Choudhury.  Anyway, the class was similar to the other YTTP classes that I’ve taken except that the studio was heated to 105 degrees and it was SWEATY! I normally don’t sweat very much. In fact, I’ve been known to go for a lunchtime run and not need to shower before coming back to the office, so this hot and sweaty experience was definitely new for me. However,  I can honestly say that I really liked it! I felt like I was sweating out all of the day’s stressors and toxins. And the moves really helped loosen up my legs – my IT band has really been bothering me lately. Afterwards, I was a sweaty mess and the next day my arms and shoulders were sore from all of the chaturangas (push-ups). But it was fun! Since classes are only $5 – I think I’m going to make this class a regular part of my after work routine

When I got home from class last night, I was feeling dehydrated, so I whipped up my first Angela-inspired Green Monster. Nate was totally grossed out by this and I’m sure if Joe reads this he will be appalled, but I swear it was delicious! I blended up 1/2 cup light vanilla soymilk with 6 ice cubes and then I added 1/2 banana, 3 huge strawberries, 2 handfuls of spinach, and about a Tablespoon of almond butter. I blended the mixture until smooth and drank the whole overflowing glass. Yum! I couldn’t really detect the spinach – the smoothie just tasted like strawberries, bananas, and soymilk.

And then I toasted up two slices of sprouted wheat bread and slathered them with almond butter and homemade peach jam. The  jam was full of large peach pieces and the almond butter got all melty on the hot toast. Oh my goodness, this was perhaps the best meal I’ve had all week. I’m serious!