My Healthy Food Tip!

For an all-natural healthy snack, I love to eat a mix of salt-free nuts and raisins. Its very high in fat and calories, but as long as you can manage the calories its a great food to keep around and snack on.

Another one of my favorite quick healthy snacks is Hummus- I choose the all-natural humus from Whole Foods (or probably any grocery store will have something similar) along with blue corn chips, the Food Should Taste Good blue corn chips don’t have any trans fats or bad stuff in it- site note… if you can’t pronounce the ingredients in the foods you eat, its probably not worth having! If your’e trying to reduce fat in your diet, switch the blue corn chips with fresh carrots, celery or even bell peppers.

With Philadelphia Half-Marathon and Minnesota 10-Miler behind me, it’s time to refocus my efforts on setting a strategy for the Olympic Trials in Houston next January. I’ll be running a few track races and adjusting my running workouts this spring to get ready for the 10k qualifier, but my ultimate goal is to achieve a double-qualification, both on the track and on the road.

But for now, I’m just thankful to have some mental down time! I’m able to focus back on the other important areas of my life that I haven’t been put enough time towards. I’m so happy to be spending more time with my family again, and don’t take a single second for granted. Training intensely while juggling three kids and a family about put me over the edge, but somehow you just do it.

So its back to base training for a few weeks: running 12 miles a day Monday-Fridays, Saturdays are just a few easy miles to stay fit and have a little fun. I’m starting to take off Sundays so I can give myself more recovery time and more time with my family.

I love traveling home, especially for a race in my old stomping grounds- there’s nothing like that hometown feeling!  I ran in the Medtronic TC 10-miler on October 3rd in Minnesota, although the race didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  I finished 8th overall, 1st Master and still got the American Record, but my time wasn’t what I had hoped for. I managed to win 1st master, but still not pleased with my overall performance. Many great takeaways from the race, I know what I need to continue working on….but now, its time to go home and visit with my family!

And if you hate running in cold weather, try arm warmers- they are a life saver!!