Running Recap and New Treats

On the lunch break right now so I figured I would take some of my extra time to update the blog. Workouts have been pretty good the last week and this past Saturday was the Polar Bear 5k in Marietta, Georgia. Here's the run-down on my race.

The Good: I had a new PR with this race! Time on Garmin was 26:02 but I forgot to stop my watch at the end so I think I actually was under 26. (Found out later timing chip showed me at 25:48 which is a minute faster than I was two weeks before.) The course was fairly flat with a couple steady, long inclines.

The Bad: It was rainy, which was a little annoying. There were 2,000 peeps running and they had us all squeezed into one lane. Sardines had nothing on us. The race had us wear a chip in our race number but there were no mats to cross over and activate them so everyone's time began together which really screwed anyone who wasn't up front. To stop the time chip, you had to go another 5 or 10 seconds after you crossed the finish line to the people with these wand-thingies that stopped the time. Not cool.

The Ugly: Work went late last night which meant I was running this race with only 3 1/2 hours of sleep... I was dead tired. Calves were wicked tight from being on them all night. I wore too heavy of a jacket and was hella hot. I ate two hours before the race but quickly learned that going this hard meant I should have eaten 3 hours beforehand. As a result, I had wretched side stitches kick in during the second mile and never let up. I had to stop 3 times to try and get them to ease up some. No such luck so I just made my mantra, "Suck it up, buttercup" for the rest of the race. It just continued to go downhill, as the lap times will attest to...

As soon as Adam and I finished the race and handed in our chips, we went straight to the car to get home and crash.




Just flat out hurting from the side cramps...


Adam cruising in...

Looking back on this race I am still really happy since my time is improving. I know it's still a slow time but I have to remind myself that I do not come from a running background (much less any endurance background!) so it's at least a starting point.

On the food front, last night was a repeat of my delicious turkey/feta/cranberry burgers with some grilled veggies and steamed broccoli.

As for new things, my order from Matisse & Jack's finally came in and I was so stoked! The food is an amazing and natural bake-at-home snack that you can mix whatever else in with their ingredients to make rocking pre/post workout treats or a healthy, anytime snack. I used the Chocolate Chip Power Snacks and mixed in the ingredients from http://vo2maxxed.blogspot.com/2008/11/matisse-jacks-cranberry-pumpkin-power.html to make a hella awesome treat!


Here's all the ingredients mixed together...


Done and so freakin' tasty!


Gotta go get back to teaching! Hope everyone has a wonderful hump day!

Good karma to all,

r

Eat, Sleep, Workout, Repeat (oh yeah, and work in between)

Finally feel like I have recovered from the long weekend of working uber late and getting very little sleep! Horrah! Today was a good day. Here's a typical day of eating for me.

Breakfast: Blueberry Smoothie (from Ani Phyo's recipe book)




Lunch and snacks throughout the day: Sun burger with homemade "raw" ketchup, salad with veggies and balsamic vinaigrette, greek yogurt, cheese, almonds, goji berries, and blue berries.



Dinner: Sirloin, salad w/carrots, blueberries, feta cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette, leftover grilled veggies, and quinoa pilaf (swiped from this fabulous blog)...




...and some, oh so addictive, Kombucha!! Num, num, num!


My trainer ride yesterday was pure doggie poo because I was completely zapped of energy from the get-go. Could definitely tell I had not recovered from the lack of weekend sleep even though it was Tuesday. Ended up calling it quits after 30 some-odd minutes and hit the hay early.

Had an interval workout today on the treadmill and it was awesome!!! Felt soooooo fresh and was lovin' it! Had a great time doing my intervals to Paramore's song Misery Business. Definitely felt I could have gone longer than the prescribed intervals with the music going. I heart music! Did some good core work and lots of stretching of the IT band afterwards. Wish I could feel this awesome with every workout. Gotta be better about catching up on the weekend work interfering with my sleep...


Good karma to all,

r

Monday! (...but it's my Sunday?)

When I can, I like to use my Sunday to cook up a good bit of food for the upcoming week since I know I'll be busy with teaching and working out. Since yesterday was filled with other plans away from the house, today became my Sunday Cook Day!

The grub for some of the week:

Organic Whole Turkey


Organic Sun Burgers and freshly made ketchup (dehydrated at 104 degrees). Ketchup not pictured...


Dinner on tap for the night was grassfed ribeye, grilled veggies, salad, and for desert... gluten-free, wheat-free, raw mango cobbler!

No pics of the ribeye or salad, but here are the veggies and cobbler.


Veggies pre-grilling


Cobbler




There was no cooking involved in making this cobbler nor was any butter, sugar, or crazy stuff used. The crust was made up of pecans, a vanilla bean, salt, and dates. I used organic frozen mangoes and let them thaw out before using them. I mixed the mangoes with a "syrup" I made that had dates, coconut oil, a vanilla bean, and some water. Topped the mango/syrup mix with leftover crust. I will not be able to post the actual recipe since it is not mine. The Mango Cobbler, along with the recipes for the ketchup and sun burgers, I got out of my wonderful recipe book Ani's Raw Food Kitchen: Easy, Delectable Living Foods Recipes by Ani Phyo. Ani is an amazing raw foods/living foods chef and her recipe book makes this kind of "cooking" easy and delicious! Definitely a book worth getting if you are interested in raw/living foods that are massively yummy!

Hope everyone has an amazing week at life!

Good karma to all,

r

You Better Ride! (then cook!)

Just got back from a cold, wet but good ride on the Silver Comet Trail with a group of NAMC peeps. The plan was to roll out at 10am but I managed to forget my helmet at home and had to quickly go back to get it. Thankfully, AB and I arrived only a couple of minutes behind and everyone was still getting gear on. We had hoped the 10am start would allow us to miss the rain but no such luck. It rained right from the get go! All I kept thinking about was how my coach tells me it is good to practice in bad weather. Definitely got in some good practice today! By the time was finished, the whole group had lots of wet and muddy feet, knees, and backsides... hehe.


Courtney(on right) and me after riding



Afterwards, the gang went to get some warm, yummy goodness in our bellies and chat at the Atlanta Bread Company. Since getting home and thawing out, I decided to go ahead and whip up the meal I wanted to make before AB headed to work. Part of the menu was swiped from the blog of VO2 Maxxed which is the food blog of two on-road and off-road triathletes, Beth Gerdes and James Walsh.

The meal: Grilled Cranberry-Feta Turkey Burgers and Grilled Organic Veggies.
The burgers consisted of:
- 2 lbs. extra-lean, organic ground turkey meat
- organic dried cranberries (couple handfuls)
- chopped, organic celery (couple handfuls)
- chopped, organic red onions (couple handfuls)
- organic crumbled feta (about a cup or so)
The veggies were marinated in organic balsamic vinaigrette prior to grilling.

Here are a few pictures of the the grub.









Happy Riding and Eating and Good Karma to All!

r

Wacky Wednesday!

Wacky weather going on today! It couldn't make up its mind weather (pun intended) or not it wanted to be rainy/windy or sunny/windy! It kept changing up every few minutes. Nutso! Maybe the weather will get back to being cold which I love!!!

Workouts so far have been going well. I really want to get faster at running and hopefully being consistent with training will produce some kick-arse results. I have a bike fit set up on Friday which I'm so excited about since I'm hella antsy to get out there on my new ride! The fit is at the store I bought it from since it's free. After a week or two week, and once I have some time to get a feel of the bike, I will be getting a full-on, real-deal fit at Sportfactory. Hopefully I'll be good to go with riding my new bike for the Tundra Time trail February 14!

I'm also stoked because a Christmas present arrived from the madre today... An E-Z blocking board for my knitting!


Can't wait to finish up my Baby Cables Sweater and use my new board!

Sunday Fun Day was spend with AB's parents which consisted of seeing Milk



then following up with dinner at Canton Cooks. If you haven't seen this movie yet then I highly recommend you get on it. Such a beautiful and inspiring movie with Sean Penn's performance alone makes this film worth seeing.


Happy Hump Day and, of course, Good Karma to all,

Oh, how I wish I were a little bit taller...

...but I'm not so finding a tri bike that fits my 5'2'' frame (knew gymnastics and cheerleading would come back to bite me in the butt!) that doesn't have 650s was a bit of a challenge. My budget kept the thoughts of all high-end bikes or custom-made frames far, far away... :-) After lots of research, deciding what I wanted, and deciding to bite the bullet, I returned back from Christmas in Tampa to find bf extaordinaire AB had bit the bullet for me and had this amazing Christmas present waiting for me!


Yes, yes! My very own tri bike! (Specialized Transition E5) Woo-hoo! Now I get to go out and play with all the grown-up boys and girls! 100 points for bf extraordinaire! Just have to get fitted on it now and figure out which saddle to switch out with the stock one. (Played around on the trainer for five minutes and was re-introduced to the pain of stock saddles.) I currently have a Specialized Jett on my Orbea Diva but a friend who says she has the same on her road and tried it on her tri, said it was aweful. Any suggestions on what saddle to throw on my tri bike would be greatly appreciated!

Another cool thing in the works is a trip out to Colorado this summer! AB and I are pretty much set on loading up the bikes and heading west (roadtrip!) for a few weeks. The focus will be Colorado since we are working hard to move there in 2010. We hope to do some races depending on when we make the trip. We definitely will be staying around Denver and Boulder and hope to meet some new peeps and say hi to some old ones!

Wonderful Days of Winter

Just got back home a little while ago from running the Wonderful Days of Winter 5k. I ran it with the mindset of it being a completely fun-only race since I have been getting over having bronchitis and haven't been training. You can imagine my surprise when not only did I manage to set a new PR time for a 5K but also walked away winning 3rd place in my Age Group (AG)! It was my first time ever placing in my age group and I was crazy stoked about my placement. AB took 2nd place in his AG and we both were given hand-painted flower pots filled with a bag containing soil and a bulb of some kind. (Maybe a tulip? That would be exciting but I don't know anything about planting or growing bulbs. If anyone does, I'll take any advice!)

(Here's AB and me with our prizes)


Yesterday was a big hangout day for AB and I but we did get to use our iChat for a little while to talk with my sister and her fiance. As you can see, we enjoyed our talk...


(The sis decided to impersonate Kenny from South Park)

Chatting with my sister is always wonderful fun. She has a sense of humor that never stops which I adore. I hope everyone has a friend or family member who makes you laugh and smile as much as S. does for me...

Good karma to all,

r

Dropkick 2008... Ring in the 2009!

A new year deserves a new post! I hope everyone is recovering from all the good time had last night! Mine was certainly entertaining with lots of interesting drama... Never fails to be the case when you bartend. ;) The night started off with one of our bartenders telling us her boyfriend broke up with her a couple of days ago and his band was going to be playing our bar that night. Lucky us! She held it together really well and I especially give her mad props for holding it together as he played song after song that were total heartbreaker songs... (i.e. With or Without You by U2, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, Purple Rain by Prince, Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler, etc.) Yeah, no joke. It was brutal and I seriously felt sorry for her.

Later on in the night a fight broke out that turned into four more fights with a bunch of guys and some of their lady friends which spilled into the street. On of the girls came back in and was screaming to us about the whole incident. As she stood there screaming with a her face turning purple all I could think about was how she reminded me of this video...

In these kinds of situations, I find myself using many of the same strategies and techniques I have to use in the classroom when working with my young students. Hmmm...... ;)

(I realize this sounds a bit gossip-y but craziness sometimes has to be put out there.)

Plans for today include meeting up with a cousin for a quick bite to eat then head back home to hang out with AB while watching some football and knitting, knitting, knitting!

Good karma to all,