Running some errands

I woke up this morning with conflicting desires: to run outside in the falling snow and to accomplish a long to-do list of quick little errands.

To satisfy both needs, I employed one of my favorite strategies: I literally ran errands.

I grabbed my backpack and set out to mail a package, return a movie to Blockbuster, pick up pizza dough for tomorrow's dinner from Whole Foods and grab some other groceries from Giant. Seeing everyone bundled up and smiling at the first real accumulation of the year put me in a great mood, and I burned through my first two stops.

It was nearly lunchtime when I hit Whole Foods. Even when I'm not hungry, this store is a black hole of temptation for me. I could spend hours -- and entire paychecks -- shopping for yummy little dips and fresh, tastefully arranged produce. Today's stop was especially dangerous, as I was tempted to use my run to justify impulse purchases ("But I deserve the roasted chipotle salsa! I ran here!"). I'm proud to report that I left with nothing more than pizza dough and some frozen vegetables to try a recipe posted by my friend Chris on his foodie blog, where you can find all sorts of yummy, healthy post-run treats.

I clocked a total of 25 minutes running -- OK, plodding -- through the snow while erranding, which was a little less than I'd hoped for. I decided to squeeze in my speed workout for the week on the treadmill when I got back.

I'm delighted to report that I actually walked away from the prospect of spiced Indian-style vegetables and went downstairs to the little gym instead, knocking out three 1-mile repeats at somewhere between 7 and 7:30-minute mile pace. It just about killed me (both the pace and the restraint in holding off on lunch), but man! Did those veggies ever taste good after a hard workout! Check out the recipe here.