Every winter, I slog through cold, dark, and dreary runs, wondering if maybe I don’t actually love running as much as I thought I did. And then every spring, I fall in love with running all over again.
I was planning on sleeping in this morning; I even signed up for a yoga class tonight after work at Epic Yoga in Dupont via ClassPass (it’s too late to cancel now, so I guess I’ll still be going!). But at 6 a.m. I was WIDE awake thanks to Zara being loud/rambunctious. I tried to fall back asleep but kept peeking outside – it was gorgeous. Cool and clear, with a beautiful sunrise. Man, I wanted to go for a run. Around 6:40, I randomly decided to text my friend Sokphal. “I can’t fall back asleep – any chance you are up too and heading out for a run?” A mere minute later and she responded “I’m up! I have to do 6 miles. I can be ready in 15 minutes!” I wrote back “Let’s do this!” Run date it was. 🙂
A little while later and we were hitting the pavement! I felt great – energized and excited to be out and about. We decided to run from her place in Rosslyn down to the cherry blossoms. I’m running down to see them tomorrow morning, too, but with them only in bloom for a mere week, I want to see them as much as I can. 🙂
We ran down along the Mt. Vernon trail…
Then over the bridge that I forget the name of that pops you out right by the Jefferson Memorial and the tidal basin where the cherry blossoms are.
Seeing the cherry blossoms in the early morning is the best thing ever – no crowds. We had them nearly to ourselves – the only other people out were runners and a few people taking engagement photos. It was a little soggy from yesterday’s rain, but still beautiful!
I was happy to see the rain hadn’t knocked all the blossoms off the trees, although some have definitely fallen already. It looked almost like pink snow – so pretty!
We ran back via the reflecting pool, and look who we ran into! My college buddy Sarah, out for a solo morning jaunt. 🙂 I’m running the cherry blossoms tomorrow morning with her and our friend Kathleen – can’t wait!
Thanks again for the random last minute run date, Sokphal! The miles FLEW by. 🙂 Good luck on Monday in BOSTON!!
6 miles in an 8:08 average pace – wow! I don’t know where all this speed came from all of a sudden, but I’ll take it. I think my body is just happy to not be wearing 40 layers of clothing every time I run!
When I got home, I refueled with some oatmeal. I made my standard perfect microwave banana oatmeal and stirred in some cottage cheese when it was done. Topped with sliced almonds and walnuts, and some fresh raspberries. Delish!
I’m working from home this morning, then heading into the city after lunch to finish out the workday. After a couple month hiatus from using the co-shared office space downtown I signed up for last fall, I decided to sign back up again last week. I put my membership on hold while I was traveling like crazy in February and March, and I figured once I was back maybe I’d just stick it out at home to save money. Well, a few days straight at home was enough to make me realize I needed to sign up again. I know working from home sounds awesome when you don’t do it all the time, and it is amazing/a big luxury once in awhile, but if you do it every single day it’s super lonely. I just find I’m MUCH happier when I get out of the house/have to put real clothes on/am surrounded by other people all day. Also, not being surrounded by household tasks/adding those on to your to do list during the day helps a lot with stress, too.
On Monday, I was downtown and it was GORGEOUS out, so I met up with my friend Sarah for lunch! Sarah and I used to work in public relations together way back in the day – it’s always fun to see her. We work right near each other so we met up and strolled down to the Teaism by the White House for lunch. I was really in the mood for a burger, so I went with it. It came with pickled jalapenos and grilled onions, plus a side salad of kale and romaine. Hit the spot!
And for dessert, one of their delicious salty oat cookies. They make THE best cookies. Love the salt!
As for yesterday’s lunch at the office, I packed my lunch! I threw together a quick tuna sandwich before racing out the door in the morning. (For more packed lunch ideas, check out the packed lunch section of my recipe page.)
The tuna salad was just canned chunk light tuna + about 1/3 of an avocado + a big squeeze of dijon mustard. When I make sandwiches, I like adding broccoli slaw onto it – adds a nice crunch, plus some extra veggie power! I threw some arugula on top, too.
I packed an orange (forgot to take a picture) to enjoy with my sandwich – pre-peeled, because I hate making a mess once I’m in the office. As for snacks, I packed a Kate Bakes Bar and a Nourish Snacks Mr. Popular (half popped popcorn – so good).
The “Eat Your Greens” bar is a new one from Kate Bakes (local DC company and love her bars) – I saw it over the weekend while at South Block Co. juice bar with Matt and picked up a few. It’s made with pulp leftover from the South Block Juice – hellooooo, fiber! It was tasty, too.
Speaking of local DC companies, I wanted to give a quick shout out to Slender Seven – their founder & CEO, Nikki, is a blog reader and hand delivered (so sweet) a sample of her new healthy & eggless cookie dough to our house last week. Matt and I tried it immediately and wow – it’s insanely good. The ingredient list is chickpeas, almond butter, chocolate chips, cane sugar, coconut oil, lemon juice, and baking soda (7 ingredients – hence the company name), and somehow that combination tastes EXACTLY like real cookie dough. You can eat it raw (my preference) or bake it! She just launched the product officially last week – so far, it’s available at Yes! Organic locations in the DC area. Good luck, Nikki! I’m sure you’ll be in Whole Foods in no time. 🙂
As for the dinner front this week, on Monday night I was craving something vegetarian after my lunchtime burger. Matt was heading out for a soccer game so we weren’t eating together, so I threw together a really easy meal with this Channa Masala from Trader Joe’s.
I’m not hugely into frozen meals, but the ingredient list for this is stellar, and it’s really delicious if you bulk it up a bit with other things! I served it atop a massive quantity of microwave-wilted spinach, plus part of a container of 90 second plain brown rice. Boom – a healthy, super fast dinner is served.
While I was throwing it together, I snacked on some raw carrots. I love snacking on raw veggies while I cook – nice way to get in a little more veggie power/stave off starvation at the same time. 😉
As for dinner last night, I went to a post-work yoga class at Edge Yoga with Chelsea via ClassPass (it was amazing as always), and then we hit up nearby SweetLeaf for enormous salads to refuel, as per usual. Fun to catch up with her!
This post got way longer than I planned – oops! If you made it this far, well done. 😉
Have a great day, everyone!
