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By kilax, June 27, 2009 9:13 am

Alright, it’s the big question! CourtneyInControl asked, “What made you decide you want to go vegan?”

Disclaimer: My intent is not to convert you to veganism, just to share my feelings on the subject!

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 8 years. The idea of becoming vegan (not eating milk or egg products) did not become intriguing to me until I lived in Rome, in 2006. I volunteered at an animal shelter with a lot of vegans who shared information with me about the lifestyle. I believed in the cause, as well as the health benefits of the diet, but honestly, I was NOT ready to make the change yet. I didn’t want to spend time worrying or caring about what was in  my food, especially when living in Rome! I wanted to be carefree and eat as much pasta and gelato as I could fit in in 7 months (rest assured, I accomplished that)! I didn’t want to go to the trouble of learning even more of the Italian language to read food labels, and ask waiters in Italian, “Does that have dairy or egg in it?” I was just lazy.

Since then though, I made a somewhat conscious decision to cut back on dairy and egg products. I didn’t eat them that often. When I lived by myself, I didn’t even keep those things in my apartment. BUT, I did enjoy the occasional slice of pizza, bowl of ice cream, or scrambled eggs.

Since then, I’ve constantly run across information on factory farming and animal exploitation. Honestly, I do NOT search this information out, because I cannot stomach it. If I read/see/hear something cruel, I CANNOT get it out of my mind. It makes me feel sick.

But since I kept finding myself running into this information, I did force myself to think about it, and came to the conclusion that I must use my actions to voice what I believe:

I believe that animals should not be exploited for our gain. I believe they are sentient beings, who should have the basic right of living a free life. I believe they should not be used for food, clothing, research, or entertainment, even if there is no unnecessary suffering.

I feel like cutting out dairy and eggs is one small step for me. Animals are used for more than just food. There are many ways they are exploited that I do not agree with. But I honestly cannot go on a rampage through my house throwing away all of my leather products, glue, the tires off my car, etc. I can only make small steps towards a more compassionate lifestyle.

I really want to share some of the awful things I’ve learned about animal exploitation, but I don’t want to ruin your day, if you are like me and cannot get the images out of your head, so I am going to share some links below.

Thanks for reading with an open mind.

Continue reading 'Vegan Saturday II | Why go vegan?'»

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By kilax, June 24, 2009 12:42 pm

I didn’t get home until 8:45 last night. I was a little bit frustrated that my train was late, but all of that frustration washed away when I opened the door and smelled… fresh chocolate chip cookies! Steven decided to try this vegan recipe. How awesome is it to come home to fresh cookies? Steven is such a sweetie. I am so lucky to have a husband who loves to cook and experiment in the kitchen.

They turned out very thick on their own. Steven pressed down the second batch, but I liked the big, thick, chewy ones.

Nom Nom Nom

Steven had to make some substitutions to the recipe. We didn’t have unbleached flour, so he used all-purpose. And we didn’t have raw sugar, so he used half white and half brown sugar. He found out that most white sugar is not vegan, as it is often filtered using bone char – an animal product. I am sure as I continue on this vegan journey, I will discover lots of interesting tidbits like that. I will have to accommodate them when I run across them.

Anyway, he thought the cookies were a little bland, that they needed more flavor. He thought they just tasted like sugar cookies with chocolate chips in them – that they were missing that “buttery” (?) taste. I liked that they didn’t have a overpowering taste, as I generally do not consider myself a chocolate chip cookie fan. As you can see, they weren’t laden with chocolate chips. He only used a half of a cup. I don’t like it when chocolate chip cookies are overloaded with chocolate chips. Blah.

With all of that being said, I scarfed down three cookies. Then went almost immediately to bed. These cookies sat like a brick in my stomach, and had me tossing and turning all night. I don’t think it is necessarily the cookie’s fault. I think it is MY fault for eating too much, too fast, too close to bedtime, on an already full stomach.

I got into a bad pattern for awhile in the end of May and beginning of June where I was eating too much in the evening and sleeping very poorly at night. I’d wake up because I feel so uncomfortable and gassy. I would still feel gross when I woke up in the morning. That’s not a good way to start a day.

And the dumb thing is, I couldn’t figure out why I was tossing and turning all night. I just kept repeating the same actions over and over. It wasn’t until I actually slept well, that I looked back and thought, “Hmm, what did I do differently yesterday?”

So, while I’ve always laughed at the theory that you cannot burn off calories you eat in the evening* (because you go to bed), I think I will be making an effort not to eat so close to bedtime.

*I think the advice to “not eat after 7:00 pm” is meant to help people cut back on mindless snacking done after dinner. But it seems to have turned into this belief that calories you eat after 7:00 pm will never be burned off.

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By kilax, June 22, 2009 9:50 pm

Steven has been encouraging me to try yoga for quite some time. He follows the P90X yoga workout, and really enjoys how relaxed and flexible it makes him feel. He thinks I could use a little calm in my life. I think I could use some flexibility. So I gave it a try yesterday.

Kim = yoga FAIL

I made it 20 minutes into the 90 minute workout and decided I had had one too many downward dogs. I gave it a rest for another 25 minutes until the “pose” section started, and tried some of those stretches. I couldn’t do all of them – it still kicked my butt.

Now, I realize a 90 minute yoga workout is not the best place to start. Maybe someday I can move up to that! For now, does anyone have advice on beginner’s yoga? Any good books, DVD’s, websites? Please keep in mind, my cash is muchos limited.

I really want to get into yoga so I CAN use it as another means to relax and focus, and also gain some flexibility.

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By kilax, June 21, 2009 11:34 am

Welcome to week 1 of marathon training! If you click on the activity links after the dates, it will take you to the Garmin connect website for full stats.

Day 1 | Monday, June 15: Cross-train for 30 minutes

I had my mind set on doing the 30 Day Shred and walking for 30 minutes, but I just wasn’t feeling it when I got home. I felt sad and worn out. So Steven and I walked two miles together, made dinner, watched Bride Wars, and went to bed “early” (10:00 PM).

Distance: 2.00 miles | Time: 29:48 | 1: 14:36 | 2: 15:09 | 3: 00:02

Day 2 | Tuesday, June 16: Run 3 Miles

Oops. This was supposed to be a “comfortable” pace, with specific instructions not to “push the pace.” Well. I think Erin and I were just having too much fun! We took off, and started chatting, and I knew I was going faster than I should, but I didn’t want to slow down (even though my body did). I will work on going slower. And wow. It was SO FUN to do this midday lunch run with Erin. It totally made my day! I noticed I was super hungry the entire day though, even after dinner. I will have to handle that better in the future.

Distance: 3.07 miles | Time: 26:42 | 1: 8:26 | 2: 9:11 | 3: 8:27 | 4: 00:36

Day 3 | Wednesday, June 17: Run 5 miles

Ugh. This was not my run. I felt exhausted from only getting 5 hours of sleep, and was also crazy hungry all day, even though I brought more than enough food to work. To try to pep myself up for my run, I read Runner’s World articles on their website on the train ride, and ate some pomegranate Luna Moons when I got home.

My goal was to start out slow then speed up in the end. As you can see in my splits below, that didn’t happen. I felt lethargic, somewhat dizzy and thirsty (even though I drank A TON of water during the day) the entire time I was running. I felt like my muscles never “warmed up,” despite the sun being out and a 70°F temperature. Boy, was I a sweaty mess. I. Just. Felt. Awful.

FAIL run.

So what did I learn? Start out super, super, SUPER slow if you plan on speeding up in the end, and especially if it is hot outside. And maybe I even need to bring water with me on a run of this distance when it is so hot. Oh yeah, and make sure I have food in my stomach, because running when you are hungry like that SUCKS.

Even though I felt like I was running slower than I wanted, when I looked at my heart rate on the Garmin website, I realized I probably shouldn’t have pushed it any further. I was at my maximum heart rate for most of the run.

Now, if I could only figure out why I felt like I was going to puke after I tried to eat my taco salad at dinner time. Hey, at least feeling sick got me in bed at 9:00!

Distance: 5.00 miles | Time: 47:57 | 1: 9:28 | 2: 9:18 | 3: 9:29 | 4: 10:09 | 5: 9:29 | 6: 00:01

Day 4 | Thursday, June 18: Run 3 miles

I was determined to make this a better, slower run – “comfortable” like the training said. The sun was shining and the temperature was in the mid 70’s (although, like Wednesday, it was supposed to be raining), so I took my Ice Mountain water bottle with me. And I got to run with Steven! He hasn’t been running much lately because he is still recovering a hip injury from the half marathon. He ran the first mile with me, and the first half of the third mile.

So, how did it go? I felt almost as crappy as on Wednesday’s run. The sloshing water bottle annoyed me. I felt like I was going too fast, even though nothing was in pain. I just felt uncomfortably hot.  I felt like the sun was melting me, I was so sweaty again. The humidity must have been 2000%. Okay, not really, but Steven brought up a good point – that the humidity probably WAS high since it was supposed to rain. I checked when we got home – humidity at 73%, dew point at 67°F.

I’ve gotta learn how to run in the heat, since I usually run in the evening on weekdays.

I was supposed to do strength training after this run. Um yeah. No.

Data likes to rub up against my sweaty legs when I get home and try to get me to take him outside. Nice try, cat. The first thing mommy has to do is take a shower…

Where ever did Data learn such language? Has he been hanging around that bird?!

… after she eats half of a vegan banana muffin, that is!

Steven made these! Recipe here.

Distance: 3.01 miles | Time: 28:10 | 1: 9:23 | 2: 9:27 | 3: 9:17 | 4: 00:02

Day 5 | Friday, June 19: Rest

Day 6 | Saturday, June 20: Run 5 miles at marathon pace

This was my first run at race pace – the pace I plan to run during the marathon. Since we ran 9-minute miles at our half marathon, I am really hoping to run the same at the full and keep the race under 4 hours. I realize this is incredibly ambitious though, so I may have to adjust my goal as I progress through training.

I was nervous about this run since my last two had been so hard. I made sure I was out of the house by 6:00 am. It was already bright and sunny (it was the longest day of the year!) and halfway through, I had to stop and drink some water, and pour some down my front and back.  I could tell the temperature was rising just in the hour I was outside! It was 69°F, with a 67°F dew point and 90% humidity. Can someone please explain what all of this means to me?

Overall, I stayed within my goal of finishing in 45 minutes, but as you can see, I need to work on my pacing.

During the last mile, I felt a blister starting to form on the outside of my left foot. I think I jinxed myself! I was just commenting on Beth’s post about shoes and blisters that I NEVER get blisters. Darn darn darn.

Distance: 5.00 miles | Time: 44:10 | 1: 8:39 | 2: 8:44 | 3: 8:45 | 4: 9:02 | 5: 8:58

Day 7 | Sunday, June 21: Run 8 miles

The training program advises the runner to do their long runs “anywhere from 45 to 90 seconds per mile slower than their marathon pace,” which would be 9:45-10:30 minute miles for me. Phew. I felt reassured knowing that I was supposed to take this run nice and slow. And I was successful in doing that.

I got up early (6:30 am) and went to the Nippersink Forest Preserve, which is less than a 5-minute drive from our house! I felt like I needed a change of scenery from running in our neighborhood.

The shrubs were not this high when I was here a month ago!

This forest preserve has an inner and outer loop, both about 1.25 miles in distance.

Quite a few people showed up to fish while I was there.

Again, the heat caught up with me by the end. I wore our hydration belt, and was still dehydrated when I stopped running. I think I need to stop at the car and rehydrate with even more water during these longer runs.

This is what I like to do after I get up so early to run:

I love to nap with Data!

Data is tired from, uh… sleeping all day on Saturday?

Distance: 8.00 miles | Time: 1:18:38 | 1: 9:59 | 2: 9:44 | 3: 9:58 | 4: 10:06 | 5: 9:49 | 6: 9:52 | 7: 9:44 | 8: 9:22

Week Summary: 24 Miles

The heat made this a tough week for me. I felt like it just came out of nowhere. Even though I diligently keep myself hydrated throughout the day, I still found myself fighting symptoms of dehydration during my runs. So, I am going to continue to wake up early to run on the weekends, and bring lots of water with me.

I realized I really need to focus on my pacing and follow the program. If I am supposed to run “comfortably,” I need to run comfortably! Otherwise, I could potentially mess up the rest of the weeks runs and risk overtraining.

Writing about running is addictive! I now understand why people have blogs solely devoted to it! Please let me know if you have any suggestions on what would make my weekly recaps better!

P.S. Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I know you’ll read to the very bottom of this. Thanks for sending me emails each week with the typos you found on this website! You’re always watching my back, ha ha. Seriously though, thanks for putting up with all of my craziness and supporting my “interesting” hobbies over the years. I love you!

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By kilax, June 20, 2009 7:47 pm

I started following a vegan lifestyle (diet-wise) this Monday, June 15th. I am going to do a series of “Vegan Saturdays” posts to answer all of your questions, rather than create one super long post. Thanks all for your thoughtful questions! If you think of any other questions, you can ask them here, or on the original Q&A post.

I know some people could probably care less about veganism (understandable), so I chose Saturdays for these posts since readership is usually lower anyway. Along with my marathon training posts on Sundays, you can just skip over the entire weekend if neither is of interest to you. Easy peasy!

I was going to begin by addressing CournteyInControl’s “What made you decide to go vegan?” but I thought I could better answer Erin’s question, after our dinner tonight. So I will probably save Courtney’s question for next week.

First though, I must say, it is my goal to permanently follow a vegan lifestyle, but if I find my health is negatively affected, I will have to re-evaluate my diet. On to the first question…

Erin asked, “Will Steven become vegan also? How will this affect meal planning/cooking?”

Steven will not be becoming vegan, at least today. But he is on board with helping me eat vegan.

Most of the meals we eat on a day-to-day basis at home already are vegan – boca sandwiches with fresh veggies, salads, pasta, beans and rice, etc. Where the problem comes in at home is with pre-packaged foods. A lot of items we didn’t think would have eggs or dairy in them do. Last night we wanted to make a homemade pizza, but all of our pizza crust mixes had milk in them, so we couldn’t. However, I picked up a dairy and egg free mix today, and it worked out wonderfully!

Homemade pizza made with Namaste pizza crust, red pizza sauce, zucchini, onion, tomato, spinach, olives, and…

…cheese on one half.

The finished pizza

My dinner and…

…Steven’s dinner!

Which plate would you take?

I think eating out will be an issue AT FIRST. We usually visit one of three places – El Famous Burrito (his favorite), Red Robin (my favorite) and Subway (our healthy favorite). Okay, and let’s throw Sweet Tomatoes in there too. At El Famous, I get the Chilles Rellenos (cheese). At Red Robin, it’s the Royal Red Robin Burger (cheese and egg). At Subway, my sandwich is pretty much vegan, but I need to check and see what’s in the bread.

I don’t want to ruin the eating out experience for him (or anyone), so I need to do some research and figure out what I CAN order before we go out. I can get a burrito instead of Chilles Rellenos, and ask for my burger without cheese and egg. Hopefully it won’t be too big of a deal. We don’t eat out often, but when we do, I don’t want it to be stressful for him or me!

I think making this change means that meal planning requires actual planning. It’s won’t be as easy to throw things together anymore, at least at first. But, we will figure it out, together.

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By kilax, June 16, 2009 4:58 pm

Yay yay yay – my marathon training started yesterday! I will be following Hal Higdon’s Intermediate I training schedule. It’s an 18-week long program that has you running 5 days a week, and cross training one day (Monday). It starts with a 24 mile week and builds up to a 43 mile week in the 13th and 15th weeks. Woo hoo!

Can you tell I am pumped?

I created a new category, “Marathon Training,” to keep track of all posts marathon training (duh) related. My plan is to write a weekly recap of my training on Sundays, but knowing me, a few details may slip in to other posts before I get to the end of the week… like today!

I got to do my first training run with Erin today during lunch. It was 1000x better than my lame-o lunch run last week. We met up in the loop, in front of her office, then started running when we got to Michigan and Jackson. We ran a fast pace to Navy Pier and looped back – 3.07 miles in 26:42 (I will provide a link to the Garmin stats on Sunday’s recap). According to my training plan, I was actually supposed to make this a “comfortable” run and not “push the pace.” Oops. I’ll work on that. I think we just got so caught up in talking that we didn’t realize how fast we were going until it was too late… then I didn’t really want to slow down, of course, even though I knew I should.

This was actually my first time meeting Erin. I was super excited to meet her and was not disappointed. She is fun to talk to, an interesting person and a good listener. I can’t wait to run with her more! Because I had someone to talk to, I didn’t stress out about work or getting back in time at all. It actually helped me relax during the middle of the day, and I felt great when I got back to my office. I was a bit hungrier than I expected to be though!

Since I got my run done during lunch, I have a free evening. I never have a free evening. I am so excited to go home and relax! Okay, I do have to review my second quarterly panel report, but I can easily do that on the couch. Maybe I can even go to bed early. Yay!

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By kilax, June 13, 2009 8:40 am

My neighbor (Fritz) and I saw this HUGE turtle during our 5-mile run this morning!

When we were doing our warm-up walk we saw him hear the wooded “swamp” area, but when we were nearing the end, he had moved across the street to a tree in front of a house.

I’ve never seen a turtle that big in our neighborhood, so I was pretty excited. Does that make me a huge dork?

Scary half-asleep photo!

I got up at 5:45 today so I could met Fritz at 6:00 for our run. Steven’s parents are in town, and I wanted to get it done before everyone woke up so I wouldn’t have to disappear in the middle of the day to go running. I don’t want to miss out on the fun!

I LOVE running first thing in the morning. But wow, the night before a morning run, I cannot sleep AT ALL. I am too excited to get up and run, and I’ll actually have dreams about my morning run. And of course, last night, I was awake all night worrying about the rain (it stopped raining for one hour during our run – yay!).

I haven’t been getting quality sleep lately, at all. I keep waking up around 3:00 each night. And since I get up at 4:30, that is really messing with my sleep cycle during the week. Maybe I can fit a nap in this weekend!

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By kilax, June 11, 2009 1:07 pm

I have an appointment tonight, as well as guests in town, so I decided to get my run in during lunch, in the office gym. I was really looking forward to it all morning, hoping that it would break up the monotony of the day and get me energized for the afternoon.

But instead of having a carefree, relaxing run like I usually do, I ended up stressing out about work issues and watching the clock the entire time. I had to rush to get 3 miles in, then shower and get ready to go back to my desk (in one hour).

It feels good to have the run out of the way, but it wasn’t the quality I wanted it to be. I didn’t get to de-stress at all.

My marathon training schedule starts next Monday, and I think I am going to have to fit lunch time runs in a couple of times a week. Maybe next time it will be sunny and NOT raining*, so I can get outside and enjoy the run more.

Warning: exercise seems to be one of the only things I feel like writing about right now, so you’ll probably get a lot of that.

*This is June, right?

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By kilax, June 4, 2009 12:59 pm

I have a reoccuring dream that I am on a plane to Rome, feeling extremely guilty because I have “left”* Steven to pursue my own interests.**

This morning the dream was a bit different. I was sitting next to a classmate on the plane, when I looked down into my luggae (why I had it with me, who knows) and realized I didn’t pack ANY of my running gear.

I started to panick and my classmate assured me it would be okay and I could buy running gear in Rome.

“But I didn’t even bring my Garmin! How will I know how far I’ve gone?!”

Oh jeez. This has gone too far.

But after I woke up, I thought, it would have been FUN to run in Rome! I never did. It would be dangerous with the way people drive there, but it would be so neat to run by all of the old, unique buildings. And I know some of my classmates were running when we were there. Maybe someday I’ll get an opportunity to run there again.

Is there any really cool place you like to run? Or do you have a dream run like this? Right now, I love running in the forest preserve, when I am not getting attacked by birds!

*Not “left” as in divorced, but “left” as in “left behind (for awhile).
**I think I have these dreams because I did chose to extend my winter 2006 stay in Rome into the summer ( I stayed to work for an Italian Architect) when Steven and I were engaged. I only saw him twice in seven months.

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By kilax, June 1, 2009 5:36 am

Do I look intimidating? AT ALL?!

Maybe not intimidating, but scary in a sweaty “ew you need to take a shower” sort of way.

Apparently, I do, at least to the Red-winged Blackbird. Yesterday, during my 10-mile run (splits below) at my (and Tori’s!) favorite forest preserve, I was attacked by a bird FOUR TIMES.

The first time, I felt something latch onto my hair and thought “WTF was that?!” then saw the bird fly away. I laughed. The second time, the bird dive-bombed me and clipped my shoulder (no scratches). The third time was a dive bomb, but no contact.

And the fourth time was when I got pissed off. I was especially cautious to run far away from the birds, and even saw the bird watch me as I ran by. Once he was out of MY sight, he went for my hat and latched on and beat his wings against it. Of course, there was a family behind me witnessing the whole thing. I yelled “GAHHHHHHHHH!!!!” and kept running, but turned around and said to them, “This is the FOURTH time this has happened to me today!”

I didn’t see anyone else getting attacked, and there were A LOT of people there. I wonder if the birds were scared of my hat? I know these birds are very protective of their nests, but I felt like I was keeping a respective distance.

I feel like there should be some sort of boy scout/girl scout patches I earn every time I pass a running milestone. You know, milestones like running with a bloody toe, taking a crap in the forest, running in the pouring run, getting attacked by birds, etc. What other milestones am I forgetting?

Distance: 10.00 miles | Time: 1:32:48 | 1: 9:09 | 2: 9:20 | 3: 9:09 | 4: 9:13 | 5: 9:19 | 6: 9:12 | 7: 9:32 | 8: 9:09 | 9: 9:23 | 10: 9:17