Lately I have become a cooking fool! I have accumulated more cookbooks and am trying out new recipes all the time. It is partially because I am the main cook in our household now and I am also the main grocery buyer. This makes me quite happy in a way. Here is what our meals look like this week:

Sunday:
- tofu scramble with tofu, veggies, and toast (brunch)
- samosas (snack)
- Green Goddess (from reFresh): broccoli, bok choy, kale, swiss chard, soba noodles, tamari sauce, tahini sauce, ginger

Weekdays:
Morning:
- smoothie with pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, 1 banana, frozen fruit, soy milk, hemp oil, and hemp seeds
- oatmeal with apples, sunflower seeds, soy milk, ground flax seeds, soy milk, organic maple syrup

Lunch:
- leftovers from the night before

Suppers:
- African sweet potato and peanut stew with kidney beans and rice
- Lentil curry with coconut milk and peas and rice
- Pasta with tofu and garlic toast
- Tortilla chips with hummus and salsa (as a snack)

The other day I was massaging my feet and realized that they haven’t hurt in a couple of weeks. I felt the familiar pang to go running, but I know better than that. So I thought about what I could possibly do to get back into exercising. Honestly, I have little desire to get on my road bike. I have not ridden it since Ironman and I’m sure that she’s kind of mad at me, but I just can’t do it yet. I thought about maybe going to a gym and trying out an elliptical machine, but I generally hate both the gym AND elliptical machines. Suddenly, it came to me… WALKING! Walking is a lower-impact form of running! I deemed myself brilliant at that moment and decided that I was going to get out into the cool, crisp, pre-winter air and go walking in the morning.

So this morning was my first walk and it felt really great. A friend was supposed to come with me, but after waiting for 10 minutes I decided to just go on my own. I have missed running along the river and just running in general. It felt so good to get outside. Here was my route:

For the past couple of weeks I have had a pretty nasty cold. My ear has gotten infected and it is taking quite a while to get better. It is because of this that I’m not in the pool. Pools + ear infections = bad news for me.

However, I hope to get back in the pool soon enough and with this walking stuff, I’m pretty excited to get back into training mode. That’s the beauty of taking time off – it really makes you want to get back into it. I am currently making goals for next season and planning out my off-season from January to April. I’m even starting to itch to get on the trainer, but I’m going to purchase some training DVDs so that I don’t get super bored right away. There’s plenty of time to get on the trainer… no need to rush it.