A Visit With Family & The Scotiabank Toronto Marathon 5km

Good afternoon Beautiful,

I hope you’ve been having a great weekend! The weather hasn’t been ideal, but I guess that’s just the time of the year right?

This weekend my family came to town and it was so much fun! I love when they come to visit! They got here yesterday around 11, and first thing was first. We had to go to the Eaton Center to the Apple Store so my sister could get her iPhone fixed (there’s nowhere in our home town to do that). Her and my mom stayed to get it fixed while C, myself and my Dad wandered through the mall a little bit. I treated myself to an unsweetened green tea latte, and it was magnificent. I was happy that the dairy in it didn’t really bother my stomach, woohoo! Maybe that’s bad… I’m not sure.

We had lunch at the fancy smancy new food court at the Eaton Center, and I found a fun place there that sells vegan and gluten free cupcakes!! They looked absolutely adorable, and I wanted to buy one so bad, but 1. I’m on a budget and 2. I didn’t think a cupcake sufficed as lunch. I had some soup, and my dad dove into the realm of Thai food. He’s very adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. He tried West Indian food for the first time too this weekend, only because C had leftovers in the fridge and I wanted my dad to try it! J He loved it! I thought he would.

So funny, my mom brought me some old dresses that I wore to different events in highschool. Check this out, the black on I wore in grade 9 to my high-school semi-formal, and when I put it on I remembered that it was kind of big on my because I still had safety pins on the inside of the dress that I used to pin to my bra to keep it up. My hips could easily keep that bad boy from falling down now. I must have been rail thin in grade 9, my god. The green one I still love, and I wore it to my grade 12 prom! I’m totally keeping at least the green one because I will wear it someday. It’s a bit big on me now, but I could even use it for a costume. How awesome is that!

After we finished up at the Eaton Center, we made our way out to Etobicoke to IKEA because none of them had ever been to an IKEA before. I don’t think they expected it to be as ginormous as it was and they were definitely ready to go by the time we reached the end of the giant maze. IKEA always has this way of draining every ounce of energy from my body. I’m not sure why, but it happens every time, and every time we get home from IKEA I need to nap. Yesterday I wasn’t allotted a lot of time to nap because we were going to my family’s hotel and then going for dinner. I got to lay in bed for about an hour and so I decided to watch some Oprah special instead of whisking myself into the grace of a deep sleep.

We picked my parents and sister up for dinner, hung out in their hotel room for a while and then C and I had decided to take them to The Ballroom for dinner, which was short walk from their hotel. The Ballroom is fun because it’s three levels, the top level is a rooftop patio only open in the summer, the second level is the restaurant and the first level is just bowling lanes! The bowling there is really expensive so we just had dinner. My eyes were SO MUCH hungrier than my stomach, because I ordered chicken wings and poutine (hey – don’t judge… it was one time) and I didn’t manage to eat a full pound of wings and I barely touched my poutine. As soon as I started eating I was instantly full, it was the weirdest thing ever, and super annoying that I wasted food.

We didn’t stay out late because I had to be up super early this morning to run the Scotiabank Toronto Marathon 5km race. I woke up at 6:15 to shower (there was no point in doing this, but more on that in a second) and eat and then my family was here at 7:15. I had to be at the start line for 8. Originally I had planned (in my head) that they were coming with me to the starting line and would meet me at the finish line. That so-called plan got crushed when we all realized that I would beat them to the finish line because I was running and they’d have to be walking. It was kind of annoying because it wasn’t warm out and I couldn’t wear a sweater to the start line because I didn’t have anyone to bring it to me at the end line… I need to buy some cheap throw away’s for some upcoming races.

So I leave the building and realize how bad it’s actually raining. I knew it was wet out, I have windows and I did manage to look out them before I left, but when I got outside it was friggen awful. I live basically in the middle of two major streets, so by the time I got to the one, my feet were already squishing and I was freezing and I was wiping rain off my face with my sleeves. The rain was dripping off my nose, I had to hold/hide my phone in my sleeve so I could contact my fam/C at the end of the race and I didn’t want it to get wet (obviously). I had on my GPS watch, but I didn’t even end up using it because I didn’t want to expose my hands to the rain and get everything wet. Since I walked to the start line, I didn’t have to wait long for my corral to start, maybe about 9 minutes. I was soaked, cold, shivering, trying to move so I stayed a bit warm, but there was no use, I was already soaking wet and the cold was seeping through into my bones.

Finally my corral started and my body got warmer but there were tons of puddles I had to dodge the whole time. About half way through I had to stop to tie my shoe, that was annoying.. it made my hands all muddy and wet from my laces. Luckily however, most of the run was underneath the Gardiner Express Way so it blocked the rain for a good chunk of time! My parents and C were watching me with about 200m to go, so I tried to look all excited and not like a wet rat when I saw them:

And then I finished and my official 5km time was 28:03. You know what that means right? I would have been sub 28 minutes had I not had to stop to tie my shoe. However, according to Sport Stats, I came 35^th in my category out of 281 females aged 20-24, and I was 270 out of 2730 in my gender, so not bad overall I suppose!! I wonder what It would have been if my shoe would have stayed done up! Grr. Next time the announcer in line tells you to make sure your shoes are tied, I’m taking it as a sign to double knot my shoes. DARN! That would have been SO AWESOME to get under 28 minutes. Oh well – next time! Here’s my medal:

And to prove how wet out it was, check out the wet feet vs the dry legs…

I love when my family comes to visit. Even though sometimes they annoy the crap out of me I still enjoy when they come to town immensely and I love going to visit them in Wingham too! I don’t get to see them as much as I used to so I like when they come for a whole weekend instead of just seeing them for a day. It’s also the first time they’ve ever seen me in a race!! So that was pretty cool too! Thanks for coming fam-jam! J <3 love you’s!

I haven’t posted a new recipe in so long so I MUST try something tonight for dinner. What you might ask? I’m going to go figure that out right now. Be right back!

Ok so “be right back” was 6 hours ago. Anyways – I DID find a recipe in my time away as well as go to a condo open house, IKEA and grocery shopping! Here is what’s for din!

Pan Roasted Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms & Leeks
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
12 shitake mushroom caps, thinly sliced
1 leek, white part only, cleaned and thinly sliced
1 tsp fresh thyme chopped
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp fresh ground black better
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

** I doubled this recipe because I wanted leftovers. I used basil/chives instead of thyme because the grocery store didn’t have any, and the original recipe called for the chicken breasts to be cut in half, but I left them whole.

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400F (or 200C)
2. Heat half of the olive oil in a skillet over medium/low heat
3. Add mushrooms and leeks, stir and cook for 4ish minutes or until tender
4. Remove from heat, sprinkle with half of the fresh herbs, half the salt and half the pepper
5. Add the rest of the oil to the skillet and brown the chicken on both sides
6. Cut a small pocket in the top of the chicken breast, but don’t cut all the way through the breast. I cut a concave slice down the center of the whole breast.
7. Fill the pocket with the mushroom/leek mixture, as much as you prefer
8. Season the chick with the remaining herbs and salt and pepper
9. Put into a glass roasting dish and put in the oven for about 15 minutes
10. Serve!

 

I’m eating this with fried plantains and baked kale (my main dish lately). Doesn’t the chicken look delicious?

How did everyone fare with their fitness goals this week? If you read this blog regularly you know I had the craziest week last week so I managed to get in three runs and that was it… so I didn’t hit my fitness goals, but I did well considering! This week I want to continue to run 3 times, but I also need to go out of my way to make sure I get in at least a couple of resistance training workouts. I think I can do it this week, as I don’t have anything TOO crazy to do!

Let me know if you hit your fitness goals this week and what yours are for next week! Were you among the thousands of people racing this weekend? How was the weather for you?

Stay sweet.
xoxo