It’s Official…Summer has Returned to Houston…
The Face of Sadness...Return of Heat and Humidity...
This week I had plans to help host a Mexican Fiesta…well those plans fell through, so earlier this week I decided on a whim to sign up for yet another 5k. This time, it was supporting a local school that teaches children with Downs and other disabilities. The hardest part of the race were the conditions, this morning at race time, temperatures were ~72F which alone isn’t bad, but when you couple it with 80% humidity, it sucks! Plain and simple, sucks! The main drive for the drastic humidity increase today were a line of strong to severe thunderstorms that whipped through last night. Lots of rain fell…which means lots of moisture in the air this morning. Oh, how I long to be back in the North East where storms meant a cold front and not an influx of yucky Gulf air…I started off the morning right…Last night I made French Toast to reheat this morning on the skillet. Top it with a tablespoon of chocolate peanut butter and half a sliced banana and you have yourself a breakfast of champions! I was pumped for the race (remember, this was before I stepped outside this morning)!
After my yummy breakfast, we were off to the races….literally…
It started out a little warm for my liking, but I could survive. What bothered me about this run was that there were a number of people near the front of the pack pushing strollers and even one person with a little yippy dog (that I almost tripped over…). I really wish sometimes that organizers of these runs would remind people that some do runs for personal gain and that it’s fine if you want to walk, but please get to the back of the pack so you don’t get run over…
Okay…enough of that rant…
Here’s the course…
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Results…
Despite nearly overheating and having to walk it out a few times, I still did somewhat respectably…
My chip time was 27:05 (8:41 min/mile) which placed me…139/498 (overall); 37/235 (women); 9/55 (division)
Afterwards, I wasn’t feeling the greatest so I pumped myself with water and we headed home without our ritualistic stop at Ziggy’s. However, after being home for an hour or so, we decided to try out a new place for brunch, Isla Ixtapa…well we ended up getting lunch instead. It was good fresh food…
We started out with margaritas…his with salt, mine without…
His…
Hers…
It took a few minutes for our chips and salsa…we got there not long after they opened and they were still making it freshly…
The salsa was different than others we have had in the past. No two salsas are never the same though (unless not freshly made and gotten from a distributor). This one seemed to rely on chilis instead of tomatoes for the base. It was different…a good different. It was almost like an enchilada sauce transformed into a salsa with cilantro added.
For lunch, Mark ended up getting Poblano Enchiladas…of course, Mark always needs to try the mole…
The rice and beans were excellent, pretty much the highlight of the meal. The mole had a bit of a kick, but was much sweeter than other moles around town. It was ok, but not a specialty at Isla Ixtapa.
What Isla Ixtapa is known for is their seafood and vegetarian options! So, since seafood is a bit much for lunch, I went with a vegetarian option…vegetarian tacos with corn tortillas over flour (corn tortillas are much better for you than flour ones). I normally don’t get tacos at a Mexican restaurant, but these gave me an opportunity to get some fiber with the black beans, not too much cheese, and be able to sample the guacamole.
They were decent tacos, unfortunately, I think I could have made similar at home (except for their excellent rice). The menu was a bit misleading saying it came with rice and beans, but that meant in the taco. I also expected the sour cream and guacamole on the side. I don’t care for sour cream on my stuff, but I dealt with it…
Overall it was a good lunch, we’ll definitely be back for dinner sometime to check out the seafood!
Stay tuned…today I’ll hopefully also be posting about my second cookies I made for our trip back to Philly last weekend, Oatmeal Blueberry Cookies…yum! Also, if you are interested about my running history (short as it is…) please check out my running and race log, it includes my goals and aspirations for each run! Finally, be on the lookout for my climbing log to update in the coming weeks…I’ll be going out to Austin with my younger brother and a bunch of my friends next weekend for some bouldering fun!
