Mexican Night!

Since today was a rest day I got to sleep in (until 6:15am that is), tomorrow is a nice easy 3 miler before my last long run of my training schedule. I am running 26 miles (may add that .2 just to make sure I can do the whole thing ;o)...) on Saturday and then it is officially 3 weeks until the marathon!

Tonight my friend came over for dinner and we made Mexican Lasagna (Enchilada Casserole). It was delicious and at 300 calories per serving it was quite healthy. By the way the blog that the recipe was found on is one of my favorites - the recipes are so yummy and quite easy. We did try this Pineapple Sorbet but I did not freeze the  pineapple long enough, it was still good just not quite sorbet texture.

Mexican Lasagna = mmmm

 Oh and on Easter my apartment building people decided to clean our windows - these guys are outside my bedroom window. Earlier in the day they were cleaning my bathroom window, thankfully I had finished showering by then!

Oh and so exciting I rearranged my apartment today (all 66 square meters of it) and it just looks so much better. I am going to IKEA this weekend to get a rug and some wall decorations to brighten it up. I will post pictures then.

Looking forward to the long weekend!!! It's labor day this weekend so we have 4 days off and I am going camping on The Great Wall! yay =]

Have a good day!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to everyone. Today my good friend Katherine and I had a progressive dinner with some other friends. We went to church and then started the dinner at my place by having soup and bread. I had found some great recipes online that I wanted to try and they turned out great! I made a butternut squash bisque and sun dried tomato, olive and cheese bread - they were truly delicious (and very easy to make). Here are pictures of what they turned out looking like.

Sun Dried Tomato, Olive and Cheese Bread

Butternut Squash and Carrot Bisque

After eating we colored some Easter eggs and went on to the next apartment for the main entrée. It was a great day with great friends!

Katherine, Melanie and me

Our final product =]

A side note - on Friday I went cycling for the first time on my new bike and it was great! That was the first time I had really ridden a road bike and I was able to go pretty fast I thought for the majority of my ride - my garmin told me I went between 14 and 15 mph and I rode about 7 miles.

I am looking forward to this week since I have a lot of new recipes to try and am going running with a co-worker!

Enjoy your Easter!

first blog!

so today I bought my very first road bike! so far I love it! (granted I only rode it home from the bike store, but regardless it is so easy to ride and very lightweight) I am looking forward to my first long ride this weekend =]

I also went running this morning which turned out way better than I thought it would since I had pulled a leg muscle early last week, but with some easy stretching it all worked out and turned out to be a great 4 mile run, so I think I am back in the game. Only 1 month until my first marathon on The Great Wall of China! I am so excited but a little nervous since it is more of an endurance run than anything - even though I run at a 9.00-9.30 minute mile (about a 4 hour regular marathon time) I expect this marathon to take me between 5 and 6 hours due to the course. Running 5k uphill, part on the wall (stairs galore by the way) and then downhill only to then do it again in reverse on the way back. My only goals are to finish and to have fun on the way!

Also - I love living in China - the price of produce is awesome, making my life as a vegetarian very cheap =] I bought all of these fruits and vegetables for about $16.

Have a great day!