Weekly Eats and how the Strava Lululemon challenge is going

Hey, four days down and halfway to 80 km!

This week was a blur of holiday parties+going back to the daily grind+extra workouts.  Since this post is already going to be a long one, I'm going to do a separate post mid week with my New Year's goals and resolutions.


Breakfasts
Monday, Thursday, Saturday: Macheesemo's sweet potato breakfast burritos

Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday: fruit, string cheese, and cereal bar

Lunches
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday: Gimme Some Oven's Everyday Curry.  Strong love here, but I realize why I don't make soup more often.  8+ serving sizes and it's a pain to take to work.

Wednesday & Friday: Sweet Potato, Corn, and Black Bean enchiladas. Be still my heart.

Saturday & Sunday: steak burrito.  You're looking at leftover flank steak from the night before, half an avocado's worth of guac, salsa, and cheese all wrapped up in a skillet toasted tortilla.  Some refried beans would have really kicked it up a notch.

Dinners
Monday (Family New Years Eve bash):  Everyone pitched in with treats.  Much spinach artichoke dip and pigs in a blanket were eaten. We brought our cookie tray and wine.
Tuesday (Family New Years bash):  The traditional meal of pork and sauerkraut.  We brought Texas Roadhouse Rolls and the last of our cookie tray.  When the night was over, we were left with a few crumbs and a piece of eggnog fudge.
Wednesday (date night): it was back to work and we were in a daze from the holidays, so we got Chipotle to help us transition.
Thursday (fend for yourself night): he had a can of soup, I had Trader Joe's squash parmigiana.
Friday (date night): the beginning of the month is always super busy for me at work, which either means the death of meal planning or random inspiration for a great meal.  On my drive to work, the image of a plate of streak and a sweet potato popped into my head.  I hit up the store on the way home and got his n' hers steak dinners:

• His: Delmonico steak and mashed (white) potatoes
• Hers: Flank steak and a roasted sweet potato sprinkled with garlic and light butter.
• For both: grilled zucchini and portobello caps.

Saturday (date night): out to our neighborhood Italian spot.  Penne with pesto sauce.

Sunday (family meal): Baked Chicken Chimichangas with cilantro lime rice.

Meal Prep
I made up a batch of salsa chicken in the crockpot for lunches.  I'm going to wait until next week to reveal the source after I try it.

Also worth mentioning, I cleaned out my freezer, pantry, and spice rack for the new year.  The spice rack was the most satisfying.  When my husband and I moved in together, we did everything super slow, which meant a period of having two houses and me buying duplicates when the spice that I needed was in the wrong house.  It wasn't my imagination, we really did have three open containers of cinnamon plus an unopened one.  I combined the open bottles so that we only have one of each spice in the kitchen + things that we'll eventually use in our downstairs pantry + gave myself the freedom to throw out things that we're never going to use, such as the cinnamon sticks that I purchased in 1997.

Workouts
I'm starting the new year with a record 31 miles this week!
Monday: 6 treadmill miles.  I knew it was my last chance to run on the treadmill for a while.
Tuesday: off.  Although I would have loved to start the new year with a run, the Strava Lululemon challenge starts on Jan 2 so I got my rest day in while I could.
Wednesday: day 1 of the Strava Lululemon challenge.  3 miles in the morning right after it got light out and 2 miles at lunch.
Thursday: rinse and repeat.  3 miles morning + 2 miles lunch
Friday: weights and then kicked it up a notch with 3.5 miles morning + 2.5 miles lunch
Saturday: decision time, stick with 5-6 miles or try to do a long run?  Normally I never run more than 3 days without rest but I felt good so I went the long run route.  I would have liked to do 10 miles but my legs lost interest in moving after 8 miles, so I did 9 and called it a day.
Sunday: off


Thoughts about doing a lot of short runs vs a few longer distance runs for the Strava Lululemon 40/80 challenge.

• Quick refresher: The Strava/Lululemon40/80 challenge has you running either 40 or 80 km (roughly 25 or 50 miles) OUTDOORS from Jan 2 to 15.  I'm doing it in shorter runs in the daylight because I don't feel safe running in the dark.
• The weather in January is better than I could have dreamed.  30's + dry streets.  
• Outdoor running=I'm sleeping like a boss.
• My body loves it.  I usually walk for a bit at lunch but getting in a short run is such an energy boost.  I love having the shakeup in my routine.
• On the flip side, getting changed into gym clothes twice a day and hauling workout clothes to work is very time consuming.  Breakfasts and lunches this week have been very rushed.  Life will be much easier when it's done and I get to go back to my everyday routine.
• My work neighborhood is sketch.  Given a choice of running routes, the nearby cemetery is the best option since it avoids foot traffic from the nearby jail and mental health hospital. 
• TMI #1: I only have one cold weather outdoor running outfit and limited laundry time, so by Friday things were pretty fragrant.  Putting on already damp and sweaty clothes is part of the challenge.
• TMI #2: running 2 miles at lunch falls somewhere between needing and not needing a shower afterwards.  I've been toweling down + strategically using Burt's Bees wipes + not bothering to reapply makeup due to time constraints.
• I'm so happy that I got through the first half of the challenge in 4 days.  I think it's safe to say that I'll get the 2nd half done in the remaining 9 days.

Watching
From the treadmill: finished season 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Monday.  No more treadmill TV until the Strava Lululemon challenge is complete.

From the couch: As a family, we saw my husband's all time favorite Christmas movie, Better Off Dead.  On our own, hubs and I watched some more Rifftrax on Amazon Prime.

Reading
Finished Transcription.  I'm rating this one IDK.  The writing was beautiful and obviously I finished it, but I had a tough time sticking with the story and overall was kind of left wanting.
(Standard disclaimer anytime I'm less than thrilled with a book: number of books I've written: 0.  Number of books the author of Transcription has written and the number of people who absolutely love them: lots.)