I love food. I mean, I *really* love food.

I think it’s a Hawai’i thing because growing up, we had foods from so many different cultures and I’ve learned to appreciate the flavors and textures of most all kinds of foods (still can’t do Indian and Thai cuisines – it’s the curry thing). And although I am not the best cook in the world, I recently tried 2 new recipes:

Tex-Mex Beef Tacos from Health.com
I really didn’t make any modification to the recipe, except I used minced garlic seasoning instead of actually mincing garlic (I’m lazy that way). I also omitted the corn because it upsets my stomach.

The adobe chilis add a strong kick, but I liked it!

Slow Cooker New England Post Roast
I didn’t make any modifications to this recipe at all (other than the minced garlic). This was the first time I ate parsnip (confession: I didn’t know even know what it looked like and had to ask for help at the grocery store) but I really liked it too!

I have made several recipes from Can You Stay For Dinner and have loved them all – it’s a great blog to follow!

While I have been adventurous and making more of an attempt to cook, last night I did venture out to dinner at La Bodeguita del Medio in Palo Alto for Cuban-inspired cuisine!

I’d only been here once before, but absolutely fell in love with it!

As much as I wanted to try a new dish, I could pass up the chance to get the Tierra Y Mar – skirt steak with coconut-crusted shrimp, sweet mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus, topped with a pesto sauce. I only ate half of it so I could have leftovers for dinner tonight…

…which I thoroughly enjoyed!

It’s January and my favorite time of year to make soup! So in spite of the almost-70 degree weather that we’ve been having, last night I made some Jambalaya! Contrary to popular belief, there are a few Paula Deen recipes that do not require a stick (or 2!) of butter, and this happens to be one of ‘em.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients
Jambalaya Mix (listed below)
2 1/2 cups water
1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
1/2 pound fully cooked smoked sausage, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 to 3/4 pound medium, fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined

Jambalaya Mix:
1 cup long-grain rice
3 tablespoons dried minced onion
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
1 tablespoon beef bouillon granules
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 bay leaf

My Modifications:
1. I don’t like sausage so I replaced it with bay scallops.
2. I had some potatoes that I had to use so I added 5 diced Yukon potatoes
3. I used wild rice instead of long-grain rice.

Directions
1. In a Dutch oven, combine mix, water, tomatoes, tomato sauce and smoked sausage.
2. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
3. Cover, reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.
4. Add shrimp and cook for an additional 5 to 7 minutes, or until shrimp are pink.

It makes a huge pot so I plated the leftovers into Glad containers and put them in the fridge and freezer for future meals.

Here’s the video of her making this.

It’s about that time of year when everyone is setting goals for the New Year. Most people set fitness goals, so if you are someone who is just getting into fitness, I’m going to share a bit of advice that I wish someone gave me 8 years.

1. Take a Before Photo

Not only will it serve as motivation to stick with it, but also once you reach your goals, you will want to compare it to an After Photo to see how far you’ve come. This is something that I wish I did.

2. Take Your Measurements

When I first started training with Dave in January 2004, he took my measurements at the gym. I hated it, but he insisted on it, and once I started seeing progress, I would always ask him to send me a copy so I could visually see my progress. The things that we measured were: weight, % of body fat, fat mass, lean mass, neck, chest, biceps, waist, hips, upper thighs, and calves.

In the beginning we revisited these measurements every 3 months or so, then eventually every 6 months. We don’t take these measurements anymore, being that my fitness goals have changed, but I do like to do this at the start of every year.

3. Keep a Training Journal

I have periodically kept journals over the years, using different notebooks, spreadsheets, online tools, etc. As I just mentioned, when my goals started to change, so did the tools I used. The most recent ones that I’ve used are:

Daily Mile

This is an online social community primarily for those who run, bike and swim. It has a very strong community feel with people offering support, encouragement and motivation. I like to use it to read about the workouts that others, especially real-life-friends are doing.

I also use it to track the mileage on my running shoes, as well as to see charts like this:

Running Log

I started using this with a group of colleagues because we had a contest to see who could run 500 miles in a year. Since it started, almost everyone in the group has either quit the company or stopped running. There are only 2 of us left to use it and all we do is post mileage. There are no details about the run, no social aspect — it’s about seeing how many miles we are logging.

Daily Mile rounds off numbers, so if you are looking for exact mileage, this is a good one to use. I also like how it projects what your totals will be.

Buckeye Outdoors

My running coach uses this platform to post our training plans, so I upload my Garmin and other workout data for him to see.

To be honest, I haven’t used nor explored any of the reporting features here.

As for calorie tracking, I’ve used Calorie King, Daily Burn, and My Fitness Pal and now I just use the FitBit.

Calorie King and Daily Burn offers free vs. paid services. As you would expect, all the useful stuff is in the pay option. I found Calorie King to have a very, very good food database. At the time that I used Daily Burn, it was still relatively new and it’s food database wasn’t as complete. I had to keep entering the nutritional values of the foods I ate, which was too much work for me.

My Fitness Pal is free, offering the same functionality as the other two’s paid options. The interface was the user-friendliest of all 3 and the food database was more than sufficient. It also offers a free mobile app. And now, as of this week, I started using the FitBit, which interestingly enough, is about to introduce a partnership with My Fitness Pal. I’m intrigued to see how that is going to work.

All of the above tools are useful, but none covered everything that I want to track in the manner that I want to track it. So taking elements from each platform, as well as from the book, “The Competitive Edge” and the Believe I Am journal (a holiday gift), I created my own spreadsheet:

It has a row for each day of the month, as well as one last column on the end for “Comments” where I write anything else I want to notate about that day.

I like using Excel because I can sort and filter the data to see correlations, which is the whole point of why you should keep a Training Journal to begin with. And tonight, I experienced exactly why this is important.

As I’ve mentioned, over the past week my R foot has started hurting again. I say again because it is the same foot that I injured back in June that sidelined me for a month. Though it doesn’t hurt as bad now as it did then, the type of pain is the same.

As I’ve also mentioned, I’ve been doing lots of strength training that includes running lots of stairs and doing hill repeats. I’ve noticed that my calves, especially the R one has gotten REALLY tight. I have tried to roll it out and use the stick, but I can barely make a dent in it and it’s almost sore to the touch.

{there is a point to this story, I promise…}

During this evening’s massage appointment, my therapist told me that my R calf had 2 knots the size of golf balls (one on each side). As he worked through the knots; i.e. tortured me, he asked if I was having any foot issues. I said, “YES” and asked him if the foot issue and tight calf could be related. He said they absolutely were and then pointed out where different tendons and muscles (stuff way more scientific than I know about) would affect each other.

As he went on about this, I had a flashback to this past May. I had gotten a post-marathon massage where the therapist told me I had “something going on” in my R calf that needed to pay attention to it. Well I didn’t and shortly thereafter I sustained the aforementioned foot injury.

Although I faithfully logged all my workouts, admittedly they were mostly for selfish reasons so that I could see numbers on pretty charts. I haphazardly notated the details that Garmin doesn’t track. Had I done so, I might have made the calf/foot correlation on my own.

This is one of my goals for the New Year, to be thorough with recording the details of my workouts. Not only is it useful to go back and review your progress, but it also becomes reference material on yourself.

A FitBit is a tiny, wearable device, sort of like a pedometer that tracks your everyday steps, activities, calories burned, sleep, etc to help you stay fit. You can log your food, workouts, track your weight, blood pressure, and heart rate, keep a health journal – it does almost everything.

A friend first introduced the FitBit over a year ago. It looked pretty cool so I ended up getting one, but my Mom wanted it so I ended up giving it to her. This holiday season I decided to gift one to myself, which turned out to be no easy task. FitBit’s are so popular, that they are hard to find! I finally got my hands on one earlier this week and have been wearing it for the past couple of days. I must say, for a Type A person who tracks *everything*, it’s love at first sight.

During the day, I clip the FitBit to my waist and it sync’s with my computer when I’m within 15 feet of it. There is also a base that you can hook it up to for faster syncing/charging. It gives you a dashboard view of:

Food Log

After using several different online food journaling programs over the past several years, I’ve found that the key for me to be consistent about doing this is if the program has a good food database. If it doesn’t, and I have to enter in all the foods that I eat, I’m unlikely to keep it up.

Thus far, I haven’t had any problems with entering what I ate into the FitBit food database. It’s pretty extensive and conveniently populates the fields with whatever it is I’m trying to enter.

During set-up, I entered in what my dietary goals are and it tracks my log against those goals.

Personally, I find the breakdown of nutrient percentages the most useful to helping me maintain a balanced diet. However, as you can see, I had a carb-heavy day; what can I say, I’ve been obsessed with orzo lately. The point is, it helps me put it into context.

Activities

Like the food log, you can also enter in your workouts. I’ve used the FitBit during my workouts over the past 2 days so I didn’t enter it since it already tracked my calories and steps while I was working out.

To give you some context, my activities today consisted of a 4-mile run, an easy 30-min workout on the bike trainer, and then carrying four 20-gallon containers between my house and my storage unit located across the street. I don’t know how accurately it tracked the bike trainer distance (I’m not tracking this mileage so it isn’t a concern to me), but it did pick up the calories burned.

Sleep

As I have mentioned in many previous posts, I am not a good sleeper, so the Sleep Tracking feature is easily the most intriguing to me.

At night, I wear the FitBit in a wristband that came with the product. I press a button on it right when I’m going to sleep and it starts it’s tracking.

So while I got a lot of hours of sleep, less than half of it was “quality sleep”. I “woke up” 17 times during the night! Fascinating!

Overall I’m finding that the device and web site is very easy to use, has resourceful online community, and also offers mobile apps! I think the FitBit is really going to help me stay on track with some of the things I want to accomplish next year. I like what I see so far!

As with my therapist, I also meet regularly with my nutritionist, Danielle. This nutritionist is a free benefit that I get through work. I’ve been meeting with her monthly for the past 18 months and she has been instrumental in helping me deal with such things as the GI issues I developed earlier this year. I have learned a great deal from her with regard to “what to eat”, “when to eat” and “how to eat.”

As chronicled in my posts about my LA and NY trips, I have eaten *a lot* this month, and while I had planned for this, I must admit to indulging more excessively than anticipated as a result of the race gone bad.

The fact that I had also become injured, thus losing my main stress reliever, and now having so much extra time on my hands resulted in a lot of emotional eating that was starting to show on the scale.

My last meeting with Danielle was a week ago, 2 days after meeting with my therapist. By then, I was slowly coming out of my funk but I did have to recap to her what had happened in the previous weeks. While she was empathetic, she was adamant about putting together a mental game plan so that I wouldn’t sabotage all the work that I had put towards improving my nutrition over the past few months.

The one thing she admonished me to do was to start tracking my diet again.

At first I told her that it was too difficult to track during the holiday season because a lot of what I’ve been eating wasn’t in the My Fitness Pal food database. But she said that accuracy doesn’t matter right now. The goal of resuming tracking would be to fix my “it doesn’t matter” attitude and get back in control. I needed to “care” again so that I didn’t regret this later.

She said that by tracking what I eat, I would automatically focus in on what I’m eating and hopefully, pay attention to portion control again (my weakness). I was to do this for 7 days, then hopefully continue with it until I get “back on track.” It wasn’t hard to start doing this again. I use MyFitnessPal which is a very user-friendly program (with a free iPhone app) making it easy to start tracking again.

And once I started doing so, I did start to pay attention again – not so much to total calories, but more to nutrient breakdown. Was I getting enough protein, carbs and fat? How much fiber and sugar was I getting? I’ve now been tracking for 5 straight days (I started after I came back from LA) and I have to say, it has already helped me to make wiser choices.

• After having a few more treats, I pawned off shared the rest of those cookies from the holiday cookie exchange party with my family.
• I’ve thrown out all the half-eaten bags of chips.
• I bought fruits and vegetables for the first time in 2 weeks and rediscovered my love for kiwi.
• I’ve said no to second servings.
• I’ve resumed doing non-running workouts.

After just 5 days I already feel better, but next week will be the true test. I’ll be on vacation with even more time on my hands. I’m glad to have started to get back on track now. Hopefully it will help me head into next week better equipped to make balanced choices yet still enjoy the last of the holiday season.

After 5 days at home, I found myself on the road again, this time for a weekend trip to LA.

I had a rare opportunity to spend a few days with some of my dearest friends. We’ve all been friends since our freshman year of college and have managed to keep in touch over the years. One of my friends lives in the area, and the one lives on the East Coast, but was in town visiting family for the holidays. Since I’m just an hour’s flight away, they invited me down so we could spend a couple of days together. It’d been a really, really long time since we had the chance to all hang out together.

{photo taken on my iPhone by a 4-year old}

We’re all from Hawai’i and *love* to eat, so it wasn’t surprising that the entire weekend was scheduled around food:

Back Home In Lahaina

In my opinion, this place has the best Hawaiian food in California. Heck, I’ll even go as far as to say the West Coast!

{lau lau, ahi poke, fried rice, somen salad, chicken katsu, kalbi, rice}

{saimin}

{bread pudding}

…mot to mention haupia (coconut) cheesecake — quite possibly my favorite dessert of all time.

{haupia cheesecake}

Their only locations are in Southern California — Torrance and Manhattan Beach — both of which I’ve dined at multiple times. Every time I’m there I ask them to open a Northern California location. Maybe some day it will happen.

Cafe Rio

My friends and I spent our college years in Utah, where this place called “Cafe Rio” originated. It’s like Chipotle; (Mexican food), but they have this amazing sweet pork barbacoa that is served in a huge tortilla salad.

Before arriving, I had no idea that Cafe Rio had opened in Manhattan Beach so this was definitely a nice surprise!

And like Back Home In Lahaina, I also wish that they had locations in Northern California. The closest thing we have is Costa Vida in Sacramento (which I fully admit to making road trips just to dine there).

Korean Tofu Soup

I was first introduced to Korean Tofu Soup a few years ago when I worked in Cupertino. There was a great place near my office where my colleagues and I lunched at quite often.

It’s different types of piping hot soups. You can choose from mushroom, beef, vegetable dumplings, etc. It’s served in a clay bowl with tofu and a raw egg that cooks as soon as you add it to the soup. (Confession: I choose not to add the egg.) You’re also provided with a bowl of hot rice. In addition, you are served a bunch of little dishes of a variety of kim chee. It’s an ideal meal during the winter.

I don’t know what the name of the restaurant that we went to, but it was in Torrance and it was delicious!

I can always count on my friends to take me to the best restaurants!

Other Highlights of the short trip include visits to The Strand and the Manhattan Beach Pier:

{kelly & donna’s 90210 beach house}

{scootin’ down the pier}

I am so blessed to have such special friends. It’s been 19 years since we all first met and I’m so glad that we are still good friends. They don’t use social media sites, so we really do have to make the effort to keep in touch and I’m so glad that we do.

PS I would be remiss if I didn’t give a special shout out to Mikilani – our 4th who couldn’t join us but was there in spirit!

PPS I attempted a short run while at The Strand. It didn’t go so well. If you’re keeping track, I am now going on 16 days and counting since being able to run. More on this tomorrow.

Here are some favorites from last week’s annual birthday/Christmas shopping trip to New York:

Bakeries

I have been eating a bland diet since September and fully planned to indulge after CIM. I may not have been able to finish the race, but I was determined to reward myself for months and months of training.

My number one goal was to visit as many bakeries as possible. I can’t remember all the names of the bakeries I dropped in to, but the ones that stand out are:

Minamoto Kitchoan
A Japanese bakery with the best wafer cookies and jelly candies. It was so good that I visited two days in a row. I am eating my last vanilla wafer as I write this. Thank goodness they have a San Francisco location!

Two Little Red Hens
My cousin had been raving about this place ever since she got her birthday cake from here in June. The Apple Pie is the freshest apple pie that I’ve ever had – and it had lots of crust (my favorite).

Since pies are my favorite kinds of dessert, I also had the Dark Chocolate Pecan Pie, which was pretty darn good too. I also tried their biscuits which weren’t as good as Clinton Street Baking Company’s, but still delish!

Laduree

I first tasted the infamous Laduree macaroons in Paris back in September 2007. Since then I have visited their web site many times and contemplated having some FedEx’d to me. They are *that good*.

When I heard they finally opened their first (and only) US location I was determined to visit.

The 4+ years was worth the wait and I was thrilled to be reunited with it. I got a box of 8 and would have to say that the Coconut and Coffee macaroons are my favorites.

Restaurants

I fully admit to eating my way through the town. I think I ate at just as many restaurants as I did bakeries. The ones worthy of mentioning are:

Dos Toros
When I was here this past Spring, we went all over the City searching for a decent place to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and found nothing. In fact, we ended up having sushi instead – on Cinco de Mayo!

A friend of mine told me about Dos Toros – a taqueria started by two Bay Area brothers. I had a chicken burrito, which was not greasy or messy at all. And the guac was among the freshest I’ve ever tasted. Definitely “California-worthy.”

Locana Verde
We ate here after visiting the 9/11 Memorial. It’s an Italian restaurant that is owned by Robert de Niro. The food was amazing, but we had heard that their hot chocolate was among the top rated in the City.

We perused the dessert menu and was disappointed not see it listed. Turns out that you just had to ask for it! It was served with 2 huge marshmallows and did not disappoint.

Ippudo
It’s no secret that I love ramen. My Bay Area runner friends and I have had many a post-run meal at Genki Ramen in San Francisco’s Richmond District. I had a hard time believing that any place would be better than Genki, but I was proven wrong.

Ippudo > Genki.

{those are ramen noodles under the bar glass}

Like at Genki, I had a veggie-based ramen. In addition to the usuals, it also had pieces of the type of nori that is wrapped around cone sushi (sorry, I think only my Hawai’i friends will understand this). It was a nice add of a different kind of flavor.

You could also order an extra plate of ramen noodles, which I did (of course). You know you’re at a good Asian restaurant when the place is filled with Asians and this Asian gives it 5-stars.

{i don’t eat pork buns but i heard they are good}

Good ambience too.

Woodbury Common Outlets

On my birthday, we went to the Woodbury Common Outlets located outside of the City. My favorite stores were:

Lululemon Outlet
You can’t be surprised about this. I first visited this Lulu Outlet last year. For an outlet, I was so impressed with the wide selection of items in all sizes. The prices were significantly cheaper than current retail value and I was able to stock up on pants, and jackets, which are typically the higher priced items.

This year, the selection wasn’t as good. There were only dance and yoga products, no running gear. Also, there was a limited selection of smaller sized items. I just picked up a few yoga items and that was it. Still exciting to visit though!

AG Jeans
I first visited the AG Jeans Outlet during my first Woodbury trip back in 2005. On that trip, I got some Sam & Bailey AG Jeans for $30. Yes, $30. Retail price on AG Jeans are about 5 times that amount.

It just so happened that I was wearing one of the Sam & Bailey jeans during this visit, which the salesperson noticed as soon as I walked in. I knew I was in good hands. Any girl will tell you that shopping for jeans can be a long, tiring and possibly stressful process.

I explained to the salesperson exactly what I looking for. She set me up in a dressing room and brought me pair after pair of jeans to try on. I didn’t have to search for anything myself! There were two pairs that I was happy with and was out of there within 30 minutes! It was the most painless jeans shopping experience ever.

Kate Spade
The Kate Spade Outlet had a 90% off sale. Repeat – 90% off. At first we went crazy and compelled to buy something just because it was discounted so much. But then we decided that we shouldn’t force ourselves to buy something just because it was “such a great deal.” We ended up not buying a single thing from this store, which was a big deal for me – I feel like I’ve evolved as a shopper.

Other Highlights:

The 9/11 Memorial

The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular
I fully admit to falling asleep during the show. The Rockettes were fun to see, but the Nutcracker storyline bores me every time and automatically makes me zzzzz.

{treated myself to a rockettes cupcake from magnolia bakery}

Shops at Bryant Park
They reminded me of the Christmas markets in Europe and it was fun to watch the ice skaters at the free ice rink.

The Tree
I guess I have to mention the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. It’s a must-see but to be honest, it’s kinda ugly up close during the daytime…

…and is way too crowded to be at in the evening.

A week ago I met with my nutritionist. She has been helping me figure out ways to deal with my GI issues. As per usual, we reviewed my stats, what I’ve been eating for the past month and how I’ve been feeling.

I told her that I’ve been sticking to the blandest diet ever. I’ve pretty much determined that fats are the primary cause of the GI issues so I’ve eliminated it from my diet. This includes, but is not limited to:

- Nuts
- Dairy (including yogurt and cheese)
- Salmon (an oily fish)
- Almond Butter (my true love)
- Oils (including olive oil – yes I am eating plain pasta. As in no oils, no sauce – nothing.)

I’ve also all but eliminated whole-wheat (I’m indulging in regular white pasta and breads) as well as fresh produce, instead eating canned fruits and cooked vegetables. Eating out has been dwindled down to Chipotle burrito bowls (just rice, chicken and mild salsa) and sushi.

While Danielle (my nutritionist) was happy to hear that I’ve identified the cause of the GI distress, she wasn’t all that happy to hear how drastically I’ve cut out fat. She urged me to slowly start introducing a little fat back into by diet and suggested I start with just a little nuts and peanut butter (or in my case, almond butter). She also thinks that I need more fiber and suggested that I try to eat at least 1 piece of fresh fruit a day (apples since they’re in season right now) and perhaps sweet potato, just without the skin.

While I understood what she was saying and why she was saying it, I was still a little resistant to listen to her because with 4 1/2 weeks left until race day, now is not the time that I want to be having GI issues flare up again. So between last Friday (when we met) and this past Tuesday, I didn’t make any attempt to try her suggestions. Then I saw Dr. Eva, my chiropractor on Tuesday. One of the reasons I love Dr. Eva is that she is a marathoner and always offers me great pieces of advice and suggestions on new places to run.

When I walked into her office the first thing she said to me was, “It’s only been 4 weeks since I last saw you and you have lost a lot of weight.” Uhh, I knew I lost some weight, but I didn’t think it was a lot and it was unintentional. She wanted to know what was going on so I recapped the same update I gave Danielle, blah, blah, blah. She gave me the exact same piece of advice as Danielle, including something Danielle mentioned about blood shunting which I didn’t understand at all. I really wanted to understand what they both talked about so I emailed Dr. Eva after my appointment and asked her to explain it to me. She writes:

When the body exercises, the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response) kicks in. The blood shunts away from our organs (stomach) and flows to our muscles. Then when we relax after a meal (food coma) the parasympathetic nervous system is activated and it closes the capillaries in our muscles and shunts the blood to our stomach to aid in digestion.

So essentially, when we’re running, the blood leaves our stomach and flows to our muscles and extremities (hands and feet) leaving less blood to support digestion causing GI issues. She advised:

Try relaxing and enjoy your food coma after a meal to aid with digestion.

Why we should eat at least 2 hours before running.

She also wondered if my body might be lacking the bile that breaks down fat (she compared it to dish-washing soap breaking down oil). She suggested I try taking bile salts:

The bile salts will help with the digestion, but as a healthy individual you should not have to rely on them. My concern is, when you decrease your fat intake you also cut out health fats- Omega 3′s. If you’re expending so much energy and cutting these essential fatty acids from your diet, that’s not a good thing.

Maybe this is why I’ve been so tired lately.

You can choose to take the bile salts and see how that works. If you don’t like it, make sure to take Omega supplements. Omega 3′s = good for you and good for reduced inflammation after exercise, minor injuries, faster healing.

Bottom Line:

After hearing from 2 health professionals I’ve put aside my stubborn ways. After seeing Dr Eva I’ve been eating kiwi and oranges (trying to fight off a cold) and have started putting (just a little) almond butter on my morning bagel. And so far, there hasn’t been any GI issues on the 2 runs I’ve done this week so far. I haven’t tried the Bile Salts yet (I will though) but I have started adding ground flaxseed (Omega 3 source) to my morning smoothie.

I’m running 19-miles tomorrow so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll report back next week.

It’s Labor Day weekend – the great American tradition that signals the end of summer. Except for us in San Francisco, summer is only just beginning. It’s the time of the year that the weather gets funky – cooler, darker mornings, blazing hot afternoons and then cooled down temps at night.

I didn’t really make any Labor Day plans; mostly because I’ve been so busy at work that I kept forgetting it was a long weekend.

Saturday
I met a friend in the City and we went for a walk at Crissy Field. We had lunch at the Warming Hut, which is right at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge – you can’t get much closer. There we saw this guy stand-up paddle boarding in the crazy current under the bridge.

{that’s Alcatraz in the background}

Having taken my first SUP lesson a few weeks ago, I was mesmerized. How cool is this, SUP under the GGB, with Alcatraz and the City as your backdrop?!? Instant add to my bucket list!

We also made a stop on Union Street so I could get a treat from Pacific Puff’s. Two brothers who sell a variety of cream puffs using their mom’s recipe own this place. It is one of my favorite treats so whenever I am in the area, I always try to stop and get one. The cocoa puffs are my favorite so I got 2 – one to eat on the spot and one to safe for my post-run treat!

Sunday
Sunday Runday returned to the foggy confines of Golden Gate Park. This week’s run was organized by Layla and themed “Cheesy Run.” Now that we’ve had a “Donut Run” and multiple “Ramen Runs” have you figured out that Sunday Runday is almost always about food? It’s our justification/reward for all the miles we run and a time when we can spend socializing and breaking down our workouts, planning our races, etc.

There were 9 of us this week: Layla, Audrey, Alyssa, Katie, Courtney, Marjorie and 2 new friends: Sarah and Renee!

We all set out on our own distances and paces. I had 10 on my schedule and decided to run most of it solo. I needed a long run to zone out and get deep in though so I headed down JFK Drive and ran all the way to Ocean Beach. I ran along Ocean Beach for a block, then turned and headed up MLK Drive (runs parallel to JFK Drive). MLK Drive is one long climb and about a half mile up I took a walk break. Marjorie, Sarah and Rene caught up with me and I ran with them for about a mile. I was so glad to run with them because it was a tough climb.

Once my Garmin beeped 5 miles, I turned around to retrace my route back and they continued on. Running downhill on MLK Drive felt so good, but I kept an even pace because I didn’t want sore quads again. I felt pretty good until about Mile 7.5, half way up JFK Drive. I took another walk break and then continued on. I ran into Layla, Katie and high-fived Alyssa on the last mile, which gave me a nice push through the last mile.

I finished right at the Conservatory of Flowers, our meeting spot, where Marjorie, Sarah and Rene had just finished their run as well. Shortly there after, Audrey came rolling in, wrapping up her 20-miler. Yep, TWENTY Miles! Running a 20 is no joke so huge props to her! Katie, Layla and Alyssa finished up their 50-miler (I exaggerate, but they run the most miles of all of us) and then we headed to Q Restaurant for some grub.

Q Restaurant
I’d been to Q once before shortly after it was featured on Diners and Drive-ins. If you’ve never seen it, here’s the clip from the show:

I had only been for dinner so I was excited to try the brunch menu. Being that it was “The Cheesy Run”, most of us ordered the Mac and Cheese with Tots. I added bacon to mine for style points.

The cheese they used was asiago, fontina and some other fancy-schmancy one. I rarely eat these kinds of comfort foods, only allowing myself to do so after double-digit runs, so I savored every bite. It was so scrumptious!

{happily fed runners}

But of course, I couldn’t be in the neighborhood and not get Genki Ramen. It’s only a block away from Q so I stopped by (I conveniently parked across the street from Genki) and ordered a few dishes to go.

Post-Run
I got home 4 hours after I finished running and wondered if an ice bath would even be worth it. I decided it wouldn’t hurt so I filled my tub up with cold water and dumped a bucket of ice in it. The thing is though, remember how I mentioned that our afternoons are blazing hot? Well it was and my cold water was lukewarm at best. So it was a cool bath versus an ice bath. But I devoured my last Pacific coco puff while sitting in it.

Later that evening I went to my second Bikram class! Yep, 2 in as many days. I situated myself in the farthest back corner. I found this to be the least warm area of the room. This class was geared mostly for beginners so it was a much slower pace than Saturday’s class, and the instructor took the time to pay more personal attention to the students, correcting form, explaining the poses/benefits, etc.

I found it much easier (and the heat more tolerable) the second time around and before I knew it, the class was over. Even though it’s only been 2 classes, I think the yoga is helping. I don’t feel as sore as I would have expected from a double-digit run. This week I really look forward to trying some of the other non-Bikram classes.

As for the rest of this holiday weekend, I’ll be spending it doing a few more workouts, eating Genki Ramen and doing chores around the house – after all, it is Labor Day Enjoy the last holiday before Thanksgiving! (wait…that thought just made me sad…)

Last week, an uncle, my Dad’s brother, unexpectedly passed away. On Monday I found out the services were going to be on Wednesday morning so I had to book a last minute trip to Southern California. I left on Tuesday evening and just got back this afternoon. I felt so many emotions over the past 2 days – sadness, grief, joy, happiness, confusion, shock, wonder, etc. It was an odd yet fascinating trip, but I’ll leave those thoughts for another post while I still process all of my feelings about it.

Instead, this post will be about my random thoughts while traveling:

Airline Seating
I always, ALWAYS sit an aisle seat. But since I booked my flight one day in advanced, the seats were slim pickings. I refuse to sit in the middle seat (I’m claustrophobic that way) so I coughed up $15 for an “Even More” seat. Best $15 I’ve spent in a while. Although the flight was just an hour, and I have pretty short legs, it was so nice to have space! I could fully stretch my legs and lean over to get something out of my bag without hitting my forehead on the seat in front of me. I also sat in the window seat. Not only did I have control over when to pull the shade up/down, I also got to look out and see the terrain for a change. And when I had to use the restroom, I didn’t have to climb over the other 2 passengers in my aisle. There was ROOM to walk by them without bothering them.

Long Beach Airport
I thought the Long Beach Airport was interesting. It’s really small and you walk on the tarmac to deplane/board the aircraft. The terminal has 4 gates and is situated in a building that looks like a portable classroom. You walk outside to get to security, baggage claim, etc. Roadbunner pointed out that it is ironic that I found it so interesting because on Molokai, the island I grew up on, the airport is essentially an airplane hangar. I suppose it’s because I never expected the “mainland” to have such a small airport. It was super convenient though and I loved how the outside of it looked. It reminded me of how Southern California must’ve been like in the 50′s and 60′s.

Food
While I was very well-fed on this trip, it’s always hard to be thrown off my routine. Not eating when I usually eat, or what I usually eat definitely affected me. Eating out for almost every meal did too. I tried to make healthy choices. My parents and I went to “Back Home in Lahaina”, one of my favorite Hawaiian restaurants. Where I could have ordered island favorites like kalua pork, loco moco’s (white rice + hamburger patty w/gravy covered in fried eggs and spam musubi, instead I stuck with…

…Ahi poke (not the chips):

…Seared ahi tuna:

(this was actually my Mom’s dish, but it was good too!)

…Wonton saimin:

However, I could not pass up my favorite ever dessert. This restaurant is the only place I know that makes haupia (coconut) cheesecake, so I had to have a slice:

I was enjoying every delectable bite of it until PunkRockRunner texted me and told me I’d have to run 9-miles to burn off the one slice. After that text I put the fork down and didn’t even have a bite of my Mom’s Hawaiian Bread Pudding. Ha!

Workouts
I knew I would be pressed for time, so I didn’t even bother to pack workout clothes. This was a first for me. But I felt that if I packed it and never worked out then I would feel guilty. Since I never took a rest day last week, I decided that I would take 2 rest days in a row this week.

While I know that it was good for me, I honestly don’t know how people don’t workout. After just 2 days off I feel like such a slug. I can’t wait to get back to the sweat tomorrow.

Jet Lag
My cousin Troy has a theory that jet lag isn’t only caused by crossing time zones. He believes that the altitude changes cause just as much jet lag. I always scoffed at that theory before, but now I’m starting to become a believer. After just an hour’s flight, I feel so drained and exhausted. Is it age, or does his theory have truth to it?

Zico Chocolate Coconut Water
About a month ago, I started drinking Zico’s chocolate coconut water. It was so good that I put it on Amazon Auto Subscribe, so I have a case of it sent to me every month. I recently introduced it to my cousin Jeff. He describes it as, “like drinking Cocoa Pebbles, but it’s good for you.” He searched everywhere for it and could only find it at Mollie Stones for $3.19 – so I ordered him a case too.

So how ironic is it, that of all places, I find a Zico chocolate coconut water at Long Beach airport. They may not have had any healthy food in the gated area, (all I found were chips, candy, cookies and trail mix), but they did manage to have this:

As much as I love to travel, I’m such a homebody and nothing makes me happier than to be home.