9 Glorious Miles & Peeing in Public

Ah, Saturday morning. I used to look forward to sleeping in and then drinking endless cups of coffee while reading on the patio. Now, I'm up at 5:30 for a 9-mile run! What the heck happened to my life?

Here's what I will say: those were the greatest 9 miles of my life. I have been worried about this run all week. I got out of bed last night to map out routes on MapMyRun. I couldn't decide if I should do 8 miles or 9. I was a mess.

My original plan was to do the same 3-mile loop three times. Brian and I are so lucky to live right on the Los Gatos Creek Trail, which is about 11 miles of paved trail and generally a really great place to run. I wanted to start at Campbell Park (where there is a bathroom and water fountains) and run 1.5 miles south to Los Gatos Creek County Park (where there are more bathrooms and water fountains, see what I did there?) and then run back to Campbell park, three times total. Well, after the first loop, I thought, This is going to get boring, so from Campbell park I ran 1.5 miles north on the trail into San Jose and then turned around at 4.5 miles and ran back to Campbell park. Here's a little map:

Click to enlarge

Well, at that point (6 miles), my right knee was feeling a little "twinge-y" and I had to make the decision to finish the run on the trail, or run back to my gym and finish on the treadmill to avoid hurting my knee. I decided to hit the gym and ran from mile 6.5 to mile 9 on the treadmill set at a slight incline, watching the Open Championships, totally bored.

At mile 8, I got super hungry and considered chewing my arm off. Then I started thinking,

I could stop now. 8 miles is fine! Then the other half of my brain got super pissed and thought, Are you kidding? You've been running for over an hour! I think you can handle 9 more minutes!

So I did! I even sprinted the last 1/2mile.

• Total Mileage: 9.03mi
• Total Time: 1:21:58
• Average Pace: 9:05min/mi

When I hit "end workout" on my iPod, I heard the following, "Hi, this is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations on finishing your longest workout!" Pretty cool.

You know what else is cool? Peeing in public. OK, maybe not so much. Here's the story:

Around mile 1, I realized I had to pee. No biggie! I thought. There's a bathroom at the county park! So I trucked it to the park, bladder bouncing, only to find the freaking bathrooms locked! I took stock of my situation. There was no way I was going to make it back to the Campbell Park bathroom to pee, and even if I did, what if that bathroom was locked too?! I had to think fast.

So I glanced around, took (minimal) cover, popped a squat, and peed in the bushes. Just as I was finishing, a county worker rolled up in his pickup to unlock the bathrooms. He may or may not have seen my butt. I'm just saying. You gotta do what you gotta do.

When I got home, I did some Yoga for Runners, and had a post-run shower and snack.

Oh, Larabar, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Yes, I need a manicure

1. Dates
2. Peanuts
3. Salt

How incredible is that? My Green Monster had more ingredients! (spinach, banana, apple, honeydew melon, OJ, chia seeds)

Brian just asked if I want to go hiking today. I told him to go for a run and then we'll talk. HA!

Have you ever had to "use the facilities" when there are no facilities available?
This was actually one of the first times I've had to do this (the exception being when B and I hiked down into the Haleakela crater on our honeymoon last summer and I drank about a gallon of water and, guess what, there are no bushes to hide behind inside a volcano!), but my mom has a bladder the size of a walnut. I think she has peed behind almost every single tree in her neighborhood! I make fun of her relentlessly, but I think I might have to give it a rest now!

Pizza Grilling, Take 2!

Oh yes, my friends. B and I fired up the BBQ for some more pizza grilling goodness tonight!

That head of garlic in the last post? Roasted, pureed with sun dried tomatoes, and smeared on a pizza crust. This, dear readers, is living!

Let's back up. I started by getting super organized (the key to a successful pizza grilling endeavor).

Then, while B got the grill ready, I sliced up the last tomato from our CSA box and made a yummy little salad with feta, basil from our herb garden, and fancy balsamic. This is maybe my favorite salad in the world.

Then the pizzas hit the grill! As usual, we made two varieties.

For a run-down of how we grill pizzas on the BBQ, check out this post.

California Veggie Pizza

• red pizza sauce (from TJ's, but sometimes I make my own)
• mozzarella
• artichoke hearts
• gypsy pepper strips
• LOVE

OMG I Can't Believe What I Just Put in My Mouth Pizza (no, there's no better name for it)

• roasted pepper & sundried tomato "pesto" (recipe below)
• mozzarella
• red onions
• roasted red peppers
• fresh basil
• feta

The second pizza.... I don't even have words for how delicious that pie was. Roasted garlic, fresh basil, freaking FETA. Just... WOW. Wowowow. Make this pizza.

NOW!

Oh yeah, I promised you a recipe!

Roasted Garlic and Sundried Tomato "Pesto"
Ingredients

• 1 head of garlic
• 1T olive oil
• 1/3 cup oil-packed sundried tomatoes, drained - reserve oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Slice off the top of the head of garlic, place in a small baking dish
3. Drizzle with 1T olive oil
4. Bake until garlic cloves are light brown, about 35min
5. Remove from oven; let cool
6. Using fingers, squeeze out roasted garlic cloves into food processor; add sundried tomatoes
7. Pulse until almost smooth, adding enough reserved oil to form a paste

Nut Butter Magic

Today was a rest day before my 9-mile run tomorrow, so I steam cleaned our carpets.

It wasn't much of a rest day! We rented one of these babies from Safeway and I went to town!

Rug Doctor! 

For $33 my carpets are definitely cleaner and I can stop cringing every time I walk in the front door. I also got a serious lower back workout. All in all, a successful morning.

What I didn't take into account when planning to steam clean the carpets, was that the carpets would then be wet for 3-4 hours afterwards.... 

We sat out on the porch reading for a while, but it was a little cramped since a lot of the furniture was out there with us.

Then we decided to run a few totally unnecessary errands, like getting a snack at Yogurtland.

We are spoiled lucky enough to have not one, but two Yogurtlands within a five mile radius of our apartment. I tried the new Lemonade Passion Fruit Tart yogurt with fresh strawberries and kiwis (and a little coconut yogurt on the side). Awesome. Totally my new favorite yogurt. Brian tried the new Chocolate Coconut Truffle, which was also pretty delish.

When we got back (after several more unnecessary stops at Trader Joe's, Pier 1, and Cost Plus), the carpet was dry enough for me to get back into the kitchen and whip up some almond butter!

I doubled Ashley's Roasted Maple Cinnamon Almond Butter recipe. Mmmm, nut butter deliciousness. How cool is it that almonds can go from this:

To this:

Right before our very eyes?! It's like magic! Food is so cool!

Right now I'm sipping an iced latte that Brian brought me to distract me from the fact that he left the house to get a haircut and came back with Coheed & Cambria comic books (and no haircut!).

Here's a teaser for what's coming next! I'll just let you imagine how yummy our house smells right now...