Food, shopping, and Race 4

I was still going to be in Massachusetts for another week, spending time with family, taking my sister to get her chemo port for breast cancer, so I had to go grocery shopping. . .and riding my nephews bike, which turned out to be my bro in law's bike when he was a kid. 

Nephew wanted to ride the bike to the bus stop, so I rode it home

Fall leaves

At the grocery store, they were out of UDI's gf whole grain bread, so I bought this brand I'd never heard of before. I liked the idea of a rye substitute sounded great. 

I thought the bread was great the first few days. Good for making a sandwich, but not for spreading butter upon. It tended to crumble a bit under a gentle knife. 

A few days later we went shopping and stopped at Smashburger. 

They have GF buns, the fries are said to be GF, but others have told me they fry their 'fried pickles in the same mix. Plus, they use canola oil instead of soy oil (YEAH!).

The bun is HUGE. It was about 2" tall by itself.   

I'm not use to eating a bun any longer, since I just think of it as empty calories, and I just flipped the burger onto the top of the bun and left off the bottom, eating it as a decorated piece of bread instead.  The fries: AWESOME! The last time I'd had restaurant fries was two years before in San Francisco at the WipeOut establishment (canola oil there too, dedicated GF fryer). 

We had to be at the hospital at 6:30am for the chemo port day. I packed my kindle, knitting, and some food, but lunch still needed to be had. I went to the cafeteria about 1:30, after my sister was taken back in surgery and I got a salad of sorts from the salad bar, chips and milk.

I know getting food from the salad bar is iffy at times, but the only thing that was gluten appearing were the croutons, and I avoided the items near the croutons in case there was any dropping of them into another container.  The salad bar was pretty basic, nothing fancy, not what I was use to seeing at Univ Med Center Omaha.  Then again, it was late afternoon too.  

I also had this bar, that my sister had given me.
\TASTY!

I'm still not sure why the GI floor had to be listed twice! 

We left the hospital at 6pm, almost a full twelve hours later. Then a trip to the pharmacy along the bumpy road.  I had just seen an ad on tv for the new Chex oatmeal and was ecstatic when I saw it at the CVS. We had something easy for dinner--I wanted to be sure sister would eat something tonight!

After taking it easy on Saturday, my sis thought I'd enjoy another race--um, sure! Knocking off another state would be fabulous.

We checked out the running in the usa website and found a fun run, run with a purpose, in New Hampshire.  Folks can bring toys for kids to this race, and the proceeds from the race also buy toys for kids in the area. Pretty cool to be a part of such a race. . .. oh, and cool in general. It was about below 40 this morning! Brrrrr. 

Cold and I didn't bring any running pants, just skort! 

I did succeed in tossing this "throwaway" shirt.  It was a cotton technical shirt and worked well at the Hartford race in the rain. It held some moisture, but didn't get heavy like a cotton shirt would.  This race day, I dropped it at the aid station. It was funny as the guy working said, "you're not going to get it back" and I said, "I was hoping not to".  I think I surprised him, but I didn't want to toss it into the woods along the trail where no one would pick it up, and I was not going to go back for it. 

Part of the beautiful race course. 

I ran the 10k and my sister walked the 5k with her daughter. I was worried it'd be too much for her, but the doctor had said she could do it, just not overdo things. She went slow as well, which eased my mind.  She also found out the 10K wasn't a 10K this year. Apparently the leaders missed the first "loop around the parking lot and school" before dumping us on to the trail system. I think we missed out on about a quarter mile, if that much. I was still happy with my time, my foot still hurt a little bit from the weekend before.  

Lunch at Lui Lui's.  It's an Italian place in Nashua, New Hampshire.  Gluten free menu with delicious options.  Little kids are given [gluten] pieces of dough to play with and entertain themselves.   

Spinach dip

GF pizza with pepperoni, spinach

Art in the hallway outside the New   Balance outlet store

a find at a second hand store. Irish vest  that I decided to deconstruct for the wool yarn. 

To be made into a shawl/scarf 

Time to retire the shoes. They're staying at my sister's for when I visit her, but after the pain in my right foot I'm not going to be sad to not have the tennis ball shoes in my closet. 

Autumn in Iowa, flyover state, flyover photo, ha ha ha 

The only thing more beautiful than a harvested and yet to be harvested field in the fall, are the sprouting fields of spring.

The only other race I did in 2014 was a November, Veterans Day one. 

It was about 35 degrees windy and my time was pretty good, all things considered. . .in fact, my race time was the exact same as it was for a 10K in July where it was muggy and had just finished raining (and lightning) when the race started.  

2014 I ran all over, Iowa, Neb, Kansas, D.C., California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and enjoyed seeing the sites various towns had to offer. 

May 2014 have been a good year for you and may 2015 be an amazing year for us all.