Good afternoon. Let me introduce you to my favorite running shirt.
It’s made by Reebok and it first caught my eye when I ran the OBX half marathon for the second time. A girl in my corral was wearing it and I thought it was really cute. It’s hard to see in the photo, but there’s a subtle flower pattern on the front and the back. When I saw it on sale at Dick’s Sporting Goods a week later, I snatched it right up.
But do you know what the best part of this shirt is?
The sleeves! The fold is quite nifty.
It’s there so you can fold the cuff over your hands when it’s cold out.
You can tuck your fingers inside or leave them out a bit if they need to breathe.
Ironically, as cold natured as I am, my hands get super sweaty when I wear gloves. Unless it’s below freezing, I usually end up taking my gloves off (I use the super cheap ones from Target) then have to carry them the rest of the run. There’s no need with this shirt!
I’ve never seen another shirt like this one with the hand cuffs (?). Haha. What else would you call them? But if I ever seen another one, I’m going to snatch it right up too.
One of the best things about working from home, which I did yesterday because of my interview, is having the flexibility to go running before the sun sets. I typically get home after 6 pm from work and it’s almost completely dark. My marathon training plan called for five miles at a relatively easy pace, so I set out to run with no clear route in mind.
It was about 42 degrees F and after I warmed up, I felt great. I was going along pretty quickly (for me) at an 8:30 minute mile pace. But since I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night due to waking up before 5 am, I started to feel pretty tired after mile three. I kept going though and refused to stop to walk until I reached 5.0 miles at about 48 minutes and some odd seconds. I was about 1/2 a block from home by then, so I walked the rest of the block to cool down.
Even when I’m super tired, I always feel so much better after I run, even if it’s just for 30 minutes. Yesterday’s run was no exception. Exercising really does give me energy! 🙂
I returned home eager to make dinner. Last week while perusing through blogs, I saw Megan’s Vegan Sausage Balls. I’ve been running out of ideas as to what to do with tempeh so I was intrigued and knew I wanted to try her recipe.
They turned out great! I used basically the same ingredients except…
-instead of red onion, I used white
-instead of dried fennel, I used fresh
-I ran out of thyme so instead of 3 tsp. of thyme, I used 1 tsp of thyme, 1 tsp. of parsley, and 1 tsp. of sage
I made a pizza-inspired wrap with the “sausage” as the main ingredient. I topped a whole wheat tortilla with some pesto paste, TJ’s organic marinara, 2 1/2 sausage balls (the other half was taste-tested), a Laughing Cow and some yellow bell pepper. I nuked everything but the sausage balls in the microwave, then added the sausage.
Thank goodness I found a toothpick to hold everything together. Eating this required a knife and fork.
I attempted to make zucchini fries on the side. I sliced part of a zucchini into thin strips then baked them on 500 degrees until they started to brown. Word to the wise: zucchini does not crisp like all of the other veggies you can make fries with. They were still good with a sprinkle of salt, but nothing special.
Eat me!
I really enjoyed this meal. The flavors all went so well together. I might try making these again sometime using about 1/2 the flour. I don’t typically use a lot of flour when I’ve made meatballs in the past. I like my meatballs a little meatier, but realize you have to use some flour to get everything to stick together. These “sausage” balls were definitely a win! I wonder if Mr. Meat Lover will like them?
Rascal really enjoyed licking my plate, and thankfully he knew not to eat the toothpick.
I’m a bad mother.