Five Fortuitous Facts this Friday

A random selection of things of interest this past week:

1. Tomorrow, I’m losing my Crossfit virginity! Rachel and I are going to Crossfit Aberdeen for their free taster class, and then out to lunch in Aberdeen. My Facebook home page is full of Crossfit WOD (workout of the day) photos and Crossfit competition photos from friends. I might as well jump on this bandwagon and see what it’s all about! I’m also excited to try Crossfit because it’s comprised of some Olympic Weightlifting, which I used to do, and was looking for a way to kind get back into it without intense, competition focused training. Sorry, I don’t have any photo evidence to share from my weightlifting days!

2. I made some pretty delicious food this past week, and the best part about it was that it was quick and easy to make. This past week in H.E. at school, we made mini Strawberry glazed donuts, inspired by this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction, my go-to guilty pleasure baking website. Click on the links and you’ll see what I mean!

Hello??!?! Amazing!

These donuts are fairly guilt-free too, and use vanilla yogurt as a fat instead of butter. They’re also made of ingredients that are most likely already in your fridge and larder, meaning you don’t need to make a special trip to the grocery store or health food store for a special ingredient.

I also made scone-based pizza for dinner Wednesday night, with asparagus and chorizo. Try the recipe yourself, you’ll love how easy it is to make, and how you can still have homemade pizza in no time.

3. My Healthy Bites from Lindsay arrived in the mail Tuesday, aaaaallllll the way from Texas!

These tasty little treats contain mostly all-natural, gluten-free and organic ingredients, and can be eithe fuel at the start of your workout, or for recovery at the end. I ordered a sample of all four bites, Apple/Peach/Apricot Cinnamon Vanilla, Muddy Buddy Mocha, Whey Good and Cookie Dough, and had a few Cookie Dough bites after my 5 mile run Tuesday night. Hard to believe they’re still good for me when they taste exactly like cookie dough!

4. Last night, a group of us ran 4.05 miles in 37:31. Our average pace per mile was 9:16, which was my average ‘race pace’ for the Perth Kil t Run, and the fastest pace per mile I’ve ever done. What was special about last night’s run is that I didn’t feel as though I was pushing myself to the max the way I was in the Kilt Run, which means that my fitness is getting better. I guess that resting for my injuries for a while helped me feel better, but also become a stronger runner. The photo below shows the highlights of last night’s run, Lap 1 (mile 1) was downhill, and Lap 2 (mile 2), was a flat and gradual uphill. The last mile, run uphill, was 9:21!

I love my Garmin so much!

My goal for a 10km PR is about 56:30, which is a 9:05 mile race pace, going by the McMillan Running Calculator. Hopefully I will be successful with this goal this coming spring!

5. It’s holiday/vacation time again! Another five week term has culminated at school, and so it’s time we take a week off. My husband and I got great prices on flights to Germany, so we’re off to Bremen (north west Germany, close to the Netherlands), to visit my husband’s sister Kate, her husband Gonzalo and their wee clan of four kids. We haven’t seen them since our wedding in 2011, and we’re long overdue for a return to Germany. The first time we went, I was indifferent to going to the country itself, and was more excited for seeing family. I ended up loving Germany because much of it reminded of Canada: the landscape, the architecture, the system and organisation of the place. I’m not sure what exactly we’ll do when we’re there or where we’ll go, but I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun and lots of laughs with our nephews and niece! And yes, I will run while I’m there, and yes, I will blog about it all.