An artist's impression

The pain in my knee didn't let up Wednesday, so I made an appointment at the physio. Iliotibial band syndrome resulting in lateral knee pain. Gah! It didn't even cross my mind it could be ITB related, I've hardly been racking up the kilometres in the last month.

I am so lucky that I was able to run Gold Coast Marathon injury free, but the impending Melbourne Marathon isn't looking so good. More importantly I need to be able to run the beep test in the next month or so, as a result I'm doing everything I can to help my situation out.

Until next Wednesday when I see the physio again I can't run, cycle or walk too far. Which pretty much leaves swimming as my only cardio option. Hip strengthening exercises are a must and any upper body strength is allowed. Bless my physio, I love how he draws my exercises!

At rest my knee feels fine, if I take an anti-inflammatory with breakfast I usually won't have any pain until late afternoon. And it's not debilitating pain, just a little achy. So the rest is definitely helping, but I can't help but feel lazy.

Fri; swim: 43:30 | 2000m | 2:10/100m. A pull buoy swim. No kicking at this stage. 2x 500m and 1x 1000m. I had the lane to myself, it was bliss.

I yelled for Cadel

And he gave me a high five!!!!

Along with so many others. What a gracious Tour de France winner! He took his time riding down St Kilda Rd to Federation Square weaving back and forth with his arm outstretched. Once he'd passed, the crowd walked down the tram tracks to watch his interview on one of the big screens. Humble is an understatement.

Recent eats

I seem to have got my kitchen mojo back. It comes and goes, I know that and I've just had to ride through it. I only ever share recipes I'd make again. These all fit the bill. The first two also come with calorie/kilojoule counts which will be handy for when I'm using Fitday again. Any day now...

Gina's skinny recipes came through with the (baked) goods; this household was a fan of the Chewy Granola Bars. I subbed dried cranberries for raisins and made it with a flax egg (1 tbs ground flax + 3 tbs water) purely because I didn't have any eggs. Worked a treat, though I do advise waiting until cool to cut. I was totally impatient and a corner broke off. Still tasted good.

I have a summer haloumi recipe, but stumbled across this winter one (you'll need to scroll down). Warm mushrooms + haloumi = delicious and super quick which is perfect after a kickboxing session.

The snapper and kipfler potato recipe is slightly modified from Donna Hay's magazine. I've been wanting to try it for ages. Our new oven is super powerful, I'd look at roasting the potatoes for 20 mins next time!
Serves 2

400g kipfler potatoes thinly sliced
1 garlic clove thinly sliced
handful sage leaves
200g snapper fillet cut into 4
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 200C (400F) • Place potato, garlic, and sage on baking tray, spray or drizzle with oil • Roast for 30 mins • Increase temperature to 220C (425F) • Brush/spray fish with oil and season with salt and pepper • Add fish to tray with potatoes and cook for 10 mins.

I served it with some greens and a salsa verde mayo:
Small handful parsley
1/2 tbs chopped chives (I keep chopped frozen chives on hand)
1/2 clove garlic crushed
lemon zest
lemon juice
all mixed with (light) whole egg mayo.

Today I rest. 2hr run was on the cards, but we're heading away this weekend and there's food to cook and a car to source. Transmission in current car gone rendering it un-driveable. Pushing the long run out to Monday.

1320

If I'm to be honest, I want to run the Gold Coast marathon 2 kilos lighter than where I'm currently sitting at. It's a bit scary to put it out there. However it's entirely doable given there's just under three weeks to go.

This was yesterday's food, bought to you by the tomato. While it was a rest day and I totally slothed it, catching up on Downton Abbey, Masterchef and Offspring, 1320 cals is still feels too low. Not so much on the day, but definitely the next.

It still doesn't feel restrictive by any means and I am more mindful about my food choices and what goes into my mouth. It encourages me to eat a wider variety of foods, source wholefoods (excluding marshmallows) and really put some effort into meal planning. And at this stage it doesn't feel obsessive, which is a huge bonus. Because I've been known to get that way.

I can totally do this. I can race lighter!

Ice ice baby

My calves came good on Sunday, but due to time constraints I missed going for a run. Come Monday morning the Man is running super late so we have to run for the train. And *ping* something goes in my left calf. A pulled muscle, most likely. I pulled up very limp. I've laid off the running (cycling seems to be fine) and iced and iced and iced throughout yesterday and today. Fingers crossed I can have a fair crack at tomorrow's 10km Australia Day run.

Sat; swim: 12m | 500m | 2m24s/100m. Another slow open water swim
Commute: 1:15 | 20.6km | 16.48 km/hr

Race pics

Another wet day here in Melbourne (nothing compared to Queensland of course, my heart goes out to them). I've spent most of my working day away from a computer screen packing up boxes and walking lengths of the building for my impending office move. I'm not going to feel too guilty about not getting a session in.

Instead I'll share some pics of when I did run. That's the twilight classic on January 2. It seems I like a bit of thumbs up action.

To make up for my lack of activity I've entered a 10 km Australia Day run (26/1) and the Half Marathon at the Sri Chinmoy Running Festival in May. The scary thing is it's a month after I get back from two months overseas. I can train for 21km in a month right?? There's a challenge.

Laying low

Nothing to see here.
I visited the Doc yesterday because I had a pretty bad night with the asthma on Wednesday night. I was pretty close to making some sort of 000 call, probably a good thing I didn't because health services were over run with people just like me suffering from breathing difficulties due to the pollen & weather conditions. I can't recall having an attack quite like this and subsequently found this What do do in an Asthma Emergency page pretty helpful.

Anyway turns out I was also running a fever. So I've been prescribed some pretty hardcore medication to sort out my airways and was told to take it easy for a couple of days.

I'll be back on board Monday. Have a good weekend!

It's times like these

...that I am thankful that I have a fridge full of fresh veggies. I got about 2 hours sleep last night, for some unknown reason the land of zzzz's was just not forthcoming. I did get a lot of my book read, but I'm paying for it today. I'm exhausted and I'm only halfway through the day!

It was too easy this morning to toast some pepitas/pumpkin seeds, grate a carrot, grab a couple of handfuls of lettuce leaves, the purple is baked beetroot & ricotta mix left over from the weekend and dress with a seed mustard vinaigrette. And ta-da a healthy & nutritious lunch is born. Dinner will be a medley of baked vegetables. Followed by a very early night. I can hardly wait.