Posted on November 22, 2009 - by Ashley Jackson

Deer Chili

I’ve really got to be better about updating daily…if I don’t I end up with these gigantic posts!

Thursday was the day I stayed home sick from work. I didn’t eat a thing until 5PM, and when I did it was this grilled chicken and onion pizza from Papa Johns, with garlic sauce.

Mmmm. I got a free cinnapie with my order!

The next morning (Friday) I was feeling much better and headed off to work dark and early. I had a strawberry Chobani Greek yogurt while checking out my new computer monitor, which is the biggest computer monitor I’ve seen.

Earlier in the week I attempted to guilt a co-worker into making cookies and bringing them in. She brought in these CVS brand oreo cookies with peppermint chips in the cream.

So so so so so good. I tried to give them back to her because they were so good that I couldn’t stop eating them, but she was having the same problem and was glad to be rid of them. I left them on my desk when I left work so that I didn’t eat them all over the weekend.

A little later in the morning I had half of a Pure Cherry Cashew bar.

Lunch was a piece of leftover  pizza and some cinnapie.

I wasn’t very hungry when I got home, which was good because I had a plan to make chili using the ground venison that Jamie gave me to try and it was going to take a while. Her husband shot the deer and she ground up some of it. I was happy to try some out, having not had venison in my memory. I made the chili using the ground venison, onions, fresh tomatoes, canned kidney beans, and Penzey’s Chili 3000 seasoning.

I knew it wasn’t going to be good that evening, but I tried a little just to have something to eat and I could tell it was going to be great the next day. I ate it with part of the sunflower bread that Jamie had given me earlier in the day. It came from the farmers market from a woman who’d baked it that morning. These tomatoes came from the farmers market, too…

And I about plotzed when I saw them–this is not the time for good tomatoes in NC and all the others that I saw looked pretty bad. But these? Hydroponically grown! And the stall (L&G Farms, I believe) had a sign up saying they’d be growing the tomatoes all winter! Yes! One of my major blocks to shopping at the farmers market all winter is the lack of tomatoes, so I was very excited by this development!

Saturday I slept in a bit, then had a piece of pizza for brunch.

In the early afternoon, I was excited about going for a Couch to 5K run. Unfortunately, I’d been rocking out to my MP3 player at work on Friday and had run the battery into the red, and didn’t realize until I’d already gotten dressed to go. I plugged my MP3 player for a quick charge and while I was waiting, I signed up for my first 5K! It’s going to be the Resolution Run on January 1, 2010, at Centennial Campus. I’m excited–this is great motivation to get out there and finally finish my Couch to 5K training!

I took Heath out with me on my run and we didn’t quite breeze through our Week 4 jog, but I was able to complete the entire thing without stopping where I wasn’t supposed to. I did start having some pain in my side and chest during the third jogging segment, which I attribute to eating so close to going out. I slowed down a little (not that I could go much slower and still call it jogging!) and that helped.

For dinner, I had a repeat of my dinner from the previous night, only now the chili had been sitting in the fridge for about 20 hours and was nice and robust! I also had  the other piece of the sunflower bread.

And half of this orange. I zested it first and put the zest in the freezer for future use.

After dinner, Heath had a psychotic break and went running through my apartment for about five minutes, then flopped on the ground.

Later in the evening I got hungry and made a salad with lettuce (greenleaf?), onions, bacon, feta, croutons, cherry tomatoes, chicken, and Caesar dressing.

And later I was still hungry, so I had a hunk of sourdough bread from the petite loaf I’d gotten earlier at Harris Teeter, along with another bowl of chili.

This morning I slept in again and had brunch in the car on the way to my brother’s house.

I loaded up on Sprite Zero at Harris Teeter yesterday while they were buy two, get three free. I’ve decided that if I can’t stop drinking soda, I will at least get clear, non-caffeinated soda.

At my brother’s house, I got to meet my new dog-niece, Zoie!

She’s a 9-month-old mutt who is very sweet and likes to lick even more than Heath does.

I had this buddy bar for a mid-afternoon snack.

My dad showed up later in the afternoon and we cooked some bratwurst that I’d brought from the farmer’s market and hamburgers.

I had most of a bratwurst (I ended up bringing a piece of it home with me that’s big enough to use for another, not-meat-heavy meal) and some sauerkraut mixed with sauteed onions and peppers.

And some chips and dip, which I’d been snacking on while dinner was cooking. I love chips and dip!

And for dessert, my brother made banana pudding.

Mmmm.

—

I spent some time yesterday mixing tracks for Week 5 of the Couch to 5K–a tricky proposition, since all three runs this week are different! I did come out with three tracks that I think are going to work.

Couch to 5K Week 5 Run 1

5-minute warm-up: Matchbox Twenty’s Mad Season
5-minute run: Incubus’s Anna Molly; Jimmy Eat World’s The Middle
3-minute walk: Toad the Wet Sprocket’s Way Away
5-minute run: Matchbox Twenty’s Untitled (So Sad, So Lonely); Good Charlotte’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
3-minute walk: The Goo Goo Doll’s Two Days in February
5-minute run: Fall Out Boy’s Hum Hallelujah; Fall Out Boy’s The Take Over, the Break’s Over
Cooldown: Jimmy Eat World’s Work

Couch to 5K Week 5 Run 2

5-minute warm-up: REM’s Everybody Hurts
8-minute run: Tenacious D’s Wonderboy; Good Charlotte’s Hold On
5-minute walk: Better than Ezra’s Cry in the Sun
8-minute run: The Goo Goo Doll’s Truth is a Whisper; Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway
Cooldown: Creed’s Don’t Stop Dancing

Couch to 5K Week 5 Run 3

5-minute warm-up: The New Radicals’ You Only Get What You Give
20-minute (!!!) run: Fall Out Boy’s XO; Fall Out Boy’s Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am?; Fall Out Boy’s Fame < Infamy; Panic at the Disco’s There’s a Good Reason These Tables are Numbered, Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought of it Yet; Panic at the Disco’s Time to Dance; The Goo Goo Doll’s Extra Pale; Paramore’s Misery Business
Cool Down: Iron & Wine’s Passing Afternoon

The first two runs are songs that I like and find inspiring that are moderately or fast-paced for the runs, mixed in with songs that are noticeably slower for the walks. But for that 20-minute run? It’s just a whole string of fast songs that I love that I hope will keep me moving, however slowly that may be.

Will I finish Week 5 this week? Will I psych myself out before that 20-minute run? Stay tuned…