I Run Like A Girl

This weekend was sure a special one. There was nothing out of the ordinary, but I was lucky to spend time with all my closest friends in NYC on different occasions.

Saturday:

The day started off with 10 miles for my long run. Best way to started a weekend. After thawing in the shower, making myself lunch, and taking a nap, one of my best friends from home, Lindsay, came down to visit!

Lindsay is actually my oldest friend – we’ve known each other since 5th grade. She now lives in Westchester, a short 1 hour train ride away. Lindsay met me at my apartment, I gave her the grand tour, and then we were off to east village.

First stop was grabbing soup dumplings at Drunken Dumplings. It’s a newish spot in the village that I’ve been wanting to check out. Overall, yummy dumplings, but overpriced.

Then, we were off to the kava tea bar I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog. I had a feeling Lindsay would love it – it takes a certain hipster-esque personality to get into kava tea – and of course, she did! We just sat at the bar for 3+ hours, chatting, relaxing and sipping our tea. 🙂

Around 8pm, it was time to say goodbye. I was so happy to have Lindsay around even just for a few hours. She’s one of the few people I feel completely myself with – old friends have that magic :).

Then, I went straight back to my apartment to receive Chuck and hang for the rest of the night! I also gave her the grand tour (moving around so much means always introducing friends to my new apartments), and then we went to a bar nearby to meet up with our old college friends, including Richard.

A comfy night of catching up with these ones <3. Couldn’t have asked for a better Saturday.

Sunday

The morning was filled with errands and some down time, which I spent watching the new Netflix series, A Series of Unfortunate Events. I absolutely love it! It brought me back to childhood. I never loved to read as a kid, but I read every single book in this series. Also, Neil Patrick Harris makes the show pretty light-hearted while still being true to the books.

Then, Michelle came by for a hangout/travel planning sesh. We are going to Costa Rica together in March, and it was finally time to buckle down and book everything.

And we did!!! I could not be more pumped. Michelle is hands down my travel soul mate. We are always in sync with our preference for balancing adventure activities with chill beach time, always being on the go, waking up early, similar budgets, love for Airbnbs, shamelessness for taking photos :), the list goes on. Ever since our 7-week backpacking/WWOOFing trip in Europe after college (filled with LOTS of bumps that we had to tackle), we’ve nailed travelling together :).

We sat side my side on my bed with out laptops for hours researching Costa Rica, booking things, brainstorming, making our itinerary…sometimes planning for trips is the best part 😉

After Michelle left, I headed down to east village to see Christine. Surprise surprise – we ordered Thai food and watched The Bachelor…ha! Never gets old. My heart is always happier after seeing Christine, exchanging life advice, and laughing at ridiculous moments.

I’m very happy with my meal prep this week! I made asian-style quinoa salad: red quinoa cooked in chicken broth, cucumbers, and red bell pepper, seasoned with sesame oil and soy sauce. I also roasted brussel sprouts and acorn squash. The brussel sprouts I coated with coconut oil (my new go-to for roasting!), balsamic vinegar, garlic salt, and pepper.

I’ve actually been liking my cooking for once, and all it took was buying different sauces/spices. I use to hate what I made because I just seasoned everything with salt and pepper only, never branching out and investing in different spices. But recently, I’ve been hitting up the Trader Joe’s condiments aisle, and it has made all the difference 🙂

I’d love some suggestions for lunch/dinner vegetarian recipes from you all! I’m not a vegetarian, but just hate meat and eat very little of it, and absolutely never cook it myself. As my training mileage is increasing, I am becoming more conscious of getting in enough protein, especially after those 10+ mile runs. I currently eat some greek yogurt and eggs almost daily, but not sure if that’s enough. Would love some extra suggestions on how to get protein, especially from any vegetarian runners out there! 🙂